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CHAPTER 1
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Emory Upton was born on August 27, 1839, in Batavia, New York, the tenth of thirteen children of Daniel and Electa Upton. Though the family had resided in Batavia only twenty-two years, it was prominent in the village. Daniel's parents had settled there in 1817, and two years later, while working as a cooper in nearby Stafford, Daniel met Electa Randall. The couple was married on September 30, 1821, after which they established their home in a log cabin on the outskirts of Batavia. "At the time," according to the family history, "Batavia was nothing but a virgin forest. However, during Daniel Upton's own lifetime, and in no small share due to his own efforts, Batavia became a flourishing community." Family pride, no doubt, influenced this judgment, but it contains much truth. Between them, Electa and Daniel had little money, but they had a piece of property that, with hard work, promised one day to be a productive farm. Within twenty years the couple's diligence had transformed a "virgin forest" into 225 acres of valuable farmland and the log cabin into a large white, frame farmhouse, surrounded by several outbuildings.
The Uptons almost certainly participated in the Christian revivals that swept the area in the 1830s. Upstate New York had been in a state of religious ferment since the late eighteenth century, and the Uptons, because they were strict Methodists, likely adopted the teachings of Charles G. Finney. The revivals he led, according to Paul Johnson, "marked the acceptance of an activist and millennialist evangelism as the faith of the northern middle class." Finney preached to his followers that "if they were united all over the world the Millennium might be brought about in three months." This was not, however, the apocalyptic millennium many thought the Book of Revelations predicted. Rather, it was one in which "Utopia would be realized on earth, and it would be made by God with the active and united collaboration of His people."
Such a philosophy placed people in charge of their spiritual universe. No longer were men and women condemned to eternal damnation through election and predestination. They were instead moral free agents who would be judged by their actions in this life. Finney's theology, according to Johnson, taught "that virtue and order were products not of external authority but of choices made by morally responsible individuals." This meant that man was responsible for leading a pure, exemplary life, one that would help prepare the way for the millennium. It was not a great leap for Finney's followers to move from his theology's emphasis on the saving of the individual to a more activist role in society at large. Slavery, alcohol, and other excesses were all evil, for "they wasted men's time and clouded their minds and thus blocked the millennium"; utopia could come only with their eradication.
Much about the Uptons suggests that they were intent on preparing for the millennium. Daniel was devoted to promoting harmony between different Christian denominations, seeking to bring them together in the Methodist Church, and he served as a lay delegate at national conventions in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1846 and in 1866 dedicated to that cause. In particular, he "was known for his tolerance of the religious views of others." Daniel was "zealously opposed to slavery" and was an active participant in the "Underground Railroad," routinely sheltering runaway slaves at his farm while he sought passage for them to Canada. Local legend also held that he was "a radical teetotaler" who had been "the first man in Batavia to raise a building without using alcoholic beverages."
It was into this "family of devout, freedom-loving, militant people of Puritan inheritance" that Emory was born. The Uptons were stern parents who did not tolerate mischief or thoughtlessness from any of their children. As a young adult Emory came to appreciate the value of this discipline. "None of us can reproach our father and mother for neglect of duty," he wrote to a younger sister, probably Sara, during his last year as a cadet at West Point. "I can now appreciate the effect of the discipline under which we were trained. Rigid though it was at times, yet the chastisement was always given in love rather than in anger. Our characters were formed early; and, hence, none of us when thrown upon our own resources have thus far disgraced our name." Many years later Upton wrote to his mother that his father had been correct "to chastise me for acts which to a juvenile mind appeared perfectly proper."
The Uptons stressed the importance of education, all of their children attending school and several going to college. In 1851 Daniel acquired scholarships at Oberlin College for two of his sons, John and James, both of whom enrolled there between 1851 and 1853, though only John graduated. That he was able to secure "scholarships" for his sons suggests his success as a farmer and as a businessman. For a donation of $150, a donor "was entitled perpetually to the privileges of the school for a single pupil." This money did not go toward tuition, room, or board but merely secured a spot in the school for any person the donor wished to send there; the student was expected to meet all of their expenses.
Before leaving for Ohio, James had suggested to Emory that he might consider attending the U.S. Military Academy. It was an idea that almost immediately sparked the younger brother's interest, and reading about the life and campaigns of Napoleon encouraged him further. Not yet sixteen, Emory applied to Rep. Benjamin Pringle for an appointment to West Point in 1855. Pringle doubted that the young man was properly prepared for the academy's course of instruction and suggested that he continue his education elsewhere. Because both John and James had departed Oberlin the previous year, Daniel agreed to send Emory and his older brother Henry there.
The student body at Oberlin during Upton's time there was among the most diverse of any college or university in the nation. The 490 students who attended between 1852 and 1854 ranged in age from eleven to thirty-six, the average age being under nineteen. The largest number of students came from New York, most from the western part of the state known as "Burned Over District"; the majority of the remainder were from Ohio and New England. Most were children of farmers and, according to a student who transferred there from Yale in 1836, were "coarse & green ... but noble, good hearted and pious." Prof. John Morgan of Oberlin observed that they were "genuine Yankees of the best class of plain farmers. ... The students, though many of them crude, are a fine set of young men."
The unique aspect of Oberlin's student body was its multiracial and coeducational composition. Of the more than 11,000 students who attended Oberlin from 1833 to 1866, 42 percent were women. The college was equally famous for its admission of African Americans, though they were a much smaller percentage of the student population, consisting of less than 3 percent of the 8,800 students who attended prior to 1861. Oberlin's official policy was, as Reverend Henry Cowles elaborated: "The white and colored students associate together in this college very much as they choose. Our doctrine is that mind and heart, not color, make the man and woman too. We hold that neither men [n]or women are much better or much the worse for their skin. ... We believe in treating men according to their intrinsic merits — not according to distinctions over which they have no control." White students were not required to socialize with blacks, though Oberlin fully integrated the latter into its academic, religious, and social activities. And due to the small, if prominent, number of blacks at the school as well as its relative proximity to Canada, the campus community was a vital link in the Underground Railroad.
Women and blacks often went to Oberlin because other institutions would not admit them. The school's manual-labor system, on the other hand, attracted many of its male students. Oberlin needed a mechanism to enable its students to pay for their education since so many came from modest means. The manual-labor system met this need. It required each student to work an average of three hours per day, the men working on the college farm and most women serving in some capacity in the boarding house. Depending on the task, students received from 2.75 to 10 cents per hour, though those who worked in the fields were paid 25 cents per bushel of potatoes or oats they harvested.
The manual-labor system also existed because Oberlin's leadership believed strenuous physical activity would help students to maintain their health. A typical day for an Oberlin student began with wake-up at 5:00 A.M. and ended with "bedtime" at 9:30 P.M. In between every minute of the day was filled either with academic activities or with duties (for example, "milking"). By the time Upton attended Oberlin, however, few students were performing tasks that required vigorous physical exertion because the school's population had expanded so quickly through the sale of scholarships, such as those Daniel Upton had bought for his sons, that there was not enough work to provide meaningful employment for all students.
Most students led a Spartan life. The college required those who lived in rooms it provided to furnish them at their own expense, though the school did provide a stove; this meant the average dorm room was nearly barren of furniture. The diet was bland, according to Oberlin historian Robert Fletcher. "Bread with water," he writes, "bread with salt, bread with gruel, bread with gravy made from flour and water mixed with pot liquor, and occasionally bread with butter too ancient to tempt the most ravenous appetite were the commonest fare." And despite the college's efforts to promote a vigorous lifestyle, many students fell victim to the ravages of typhoid and dysentery, caused no doubt by the open sewer that flowed through the campus square.
Oberlin hoped that its entrants might have academic qualifications that were on a par with those of Harvard or Yale, but its students' backgrounds meant this was nearly unattainable, and the faculty seldom expected entering students to have "more ... than a knowledge of the 'three R's.'" As a result, piety and morality were the most important qualifications for any candidate's admission. Oberlin required all potential students to present "testimonials of good character" and refused to admit anyone discovered to have traveled on the Sabbath.
Religion was a very important aspect of student life. Explaining to his parents his reasons for founding a religious colony at Oberlin, John Shipherd wrote in 1832:
I have been deeply impressed of late with the certainty that the world will never be converted till it received from the Church a better example, more gospel laborers, and more money. ... Something must be done, or a millennium will never cheer our benighted world. The Church must be restored to gospel simplicity and devotion. As a means which I hope God would bless to the accomplishment of some part of this work, I propose through His assistance to plant a colony somewhere in this region, whose chief aim shall be to glorify God, and do good to men, to the utmost of their ability.
Many thus saw Oberlin as a means to an end, as its students would do the work of God and prepare the way for the millennium. By the mid-1850s the school was a hotbed of religious revivalism, evangelism, and abolitionism. The entire community, not just the college, took part in these activities, and the resultant fervor swept up many. Charles Finney was Oberlin's president during Upton's brief time there, and the school's religious philosophy therefore reflected Finney's own, especially the rejection of Calvinist doctrine and preparation for the coming millennium. Achieving this state would be hard and continuous work, for there was "no clear dividing line between sanctified and unsanctified Christians." The speakers who came to Oberlin and preached this doctrine were some of the most influential of the time, including Henry Ward Beecher, Calvin Stowe, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, John Shipherd, Asa Mahan, and most frequently during the time of Upton's attendance, Finney himself.
The rigid interpretation of Finney's doctrine led to strict rules of behavior for Oberlin's students as well as for members of the greater community. The church often served as a court and tried citizens for "Unchristian conduct," "Tattling," "Slander," and "Falsehood." Other offenses included heresy, atheism, "the neglect of reading the Holy Scriptures and prayers in his family," and "the neglect of meeting with God's people on the Sabbath and on other days of worship." The rules imposed on Oberlin's students reflected this Puritanical morality. Students were subject to disciplinary action for, among other things, failing to pay bills in a timely manner, missing class or prayers, entering another student's room without permission, failure to pay library fines, and sweeping the dust out of one's room after 4:00 P.M. on Saturday or at any time on Sunday. Some of the more serious offenses included participating in "games of chance," use of tobacco or alcoholic beverages, possession of firearms, and visiting the room of a student of the opposite sex. Those who violated these rules had to confess their sin in public in the college's chapel. The scene at such a confession, according to one of the school's historians, "must have been impressive and singularly reminiscent of old Puritan New England." Confession, however, did not guarantee that the penitent would be allowed to remain at Oberlin. Indeed, if the crime were severe enough, the student might be excommunicated from the church.
Austere and demanding, Oberlin well suited Emory Upton's needs and predispositions. Unlike many students attending in the 1850s, both Emory and Henry participated in the manual-labor system, working at a lumber mill in town for eight cents per hour. This meant hard physical labor, but both were accustomed to this from working on their father's farm. A good friend later reminisced that Emory never seemed to participate in any form of recreation, nor did he ever take part "in the foolish freaks of the boys," instead spending all of his free time studying. Even when he took a rare break to wander through a nearby forest, Upton did so with a friend with whom he would study and read while there. At one time he considered joining a literary society, but upon discovery it was "an infidel affair," he declined membership. Upton's sense of morality was apparent in his daily actions. "I never knew Emory Upton to use profane language," a friend remembered, "or speak with the least disrespect of religion, its ministers, or members as such. The only useless phrase he used was 'confound it.' This served all occasions. I never knew him to speak with the least levity of a woman, nor take any pleasure in jests or stories that inclined to anything disrespectful of the sex."
Through it all, Upton remained focused on his goal of entering West Point, so much so that he refused to sleep with a pillow out of fear of becoming "round-shouldered" and thereby unfit for the service. He had little use for things he thought inconsequential in the pursuit of his goal, and he therefore preferred "practical education" rather than the study of music and literature. The course of instruction in the Preparatory Department, where Upton was enrolled, did much to ready him for West Point's academic rigors. The average student took Latin, Greek, English grammar, geography, orthography, ancient geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, natural philosophy, physiology, reading and oratory, Bible recitations, composition, and declamations and discussions. Upton was uninterested in liberal-arts courses, believing science-based courses more pertinent for a future army officer. When informed that he was not a good public speaker, Upton replied that "a soldier did not need to be an orator, for that, if he ever had to speak, it would be to his men in the face of the enemy, and on such occasions an oration must necessarily be short, and he thought he would be able for that."
Upton seldom participated in the great demonstrations against slavery that often occurred on the Oberlin campus and was unimpressed with those few in which he did partake. Even the rhetoric of John Brown failed to move him. This does not mean Upton was uninterested in the cause of abolition. Rather, he felt that the students were wasting their time by participating in those rallies. "I am sick of such stuff," he is reported to have said. "Let those fellows learn their lessons now while at school, and by-and-by, if they have any brains, they may be able to do some good." How might they be able to do good? Upton was certain that the issue of slavery was driving the nation to a civil war, and the young men of Oberlin, himself included, had to be prepared to fight. He also doubted the efficacy of "protracted" prayer meetings that resulted in the conversion of its participants. "[Y]oung and inconsiderate persons often catch the enthusiasm of an excited minister," he wrote to his sister Maria, "and believe they have found religion; but as soon as the meetings cease, their enthusiasm subsides, from the want of a thorough conviction, and they revert to their primitive state."
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Excerpted from "Emory Upton"
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