The Founding of Louisiana State University: Military Discipline and Academic Study

LSU’s predecessor began teaching on 2 January 1860 near Pineville, on the north bank of the Red River. It was then known as the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy; the university name followed in 1870. This site differed from the later Baton Rouge campus, with early teaching and daily life centered on a large building among pine woods.

Funding originated in federal lands granted earlier to Louisiana for education. The state held the principal from land sales and used the interest for teaching, supplemented by state appropriations. Location and institutional arrangements were debated for years before gradually taking shape in the 1850s. Supervisor George Mason Graham had long supported the project and actively sought a leader experienced in military education.

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In summer 1859, the supervisors selected William Tecumseh Sherman as superintendent and professor of engineering, architecture and drawing. Anthony Vallas taught mathematics and natural philosophy, Francis Smith chemistry and mineralogy, David Boyd classical languages, and St. Ange modern languages. These five formed the academic governing body, while overall supervision belonged to the board chaired by the governor.

The building was complete when Sherman arrived, but desks, chairs and blackboards still had to be supplied. He hired carpenters to make furniture locally and bought mattresses, books and other supplies in New Orleans. Starting classes required more than a finished structure: professors needed rooms, students needed meals, and textbooks and daily necessities had to reach a relatively isolated campus by river and road.

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The school admitted both publicly supported and fee-paying cadets. The initial number of funded places was small and expanded after legislation in 1860, with local authorities nominating candidates. A notice dated 15 June required applicants for the next term to be fifteen to twenty-one years old, read and write English proficiently, and know arithmetic, fractions and proportions. They would also be examined on arrival.

An October advertisement listed tuition, board, lodging, laundry, lighting and fuel at $220 for the following academic year, with another $120 for uniforms, books and related expenses, and $200 payable upon entry. The charges show the practical cost of boarding education. Public funding widened opportunities for some young men, but preparation varied. Sherman’s report on New Year’s Day 1861 stated that twelve applicants had been rejected for inadequate preparation at the beginning of the term.

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Military rules organized daily routines, roll calls and discipline, while teaching combined classical and practical subjects. Mathematics extended from arithmetic to calculus; natural philosophy included mechanics, optics and electricity. Chemistry emphasized agriculture and industrial applications. Engineering included surveying, topographical drawing and architecture, alongside Latin, Greek, modern languages and English composition.

The combination prompted internal debate. Graham and others favored the Virginia Military Institute model, while some supervisors and professors wanted a stronger classical-college character. Vallas objected to treating every professor as a military subordinate of the superintendent. By 1861, Sherman also criticized combining complete scientific and classical curricula as overburdening students and encouraging superficial learning.

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Teaching relied on outside procurement. During the summer of 1860, Sherman and Smith bought textbooks and uniforms in New York, selecting history and fiction for the new library. After returning to New Orleans, Sherman wrote to Boyd on 15 October to arrange shipment of twenty-nine boxes of textbooks and library books. When the intended Latin grammar was unavailable, another had to be substituted.

Procurement and teaching plans required coordination. The 1861 annual report separately listed accounts, stock for student purchases, institutional equipment and personnel, distinguishing the beneficiary-cadet fund from other income and expenditure. The remote site required reserves of supplies and working capital. Expanding the library and scientific courses thus involved transport, credit and finance as well as choices about knowledge.

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The military organization closely connected the school to state power. Sherman also managed the state’s central arsenal, established in 1860, with weapons intended for school and state use. After state authorities seized federal arsenals and other installations in January 1861, he offered his resignation in opposition to secession. He sought orderly transfer of military duties, teaching and accounts, completing the handover in February. Teachers and cadets subsequently entered the war.

The school was rebuilt after the war and merged with Louisiana Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1877, continuing with land-grant support. Later research examines funding for Louisiana’s Black land-grant university alongside other land-grant institutions, considering how state appropriations, litigation and desegregation policies shaped their development.

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