The University campus was burned very late in the war as part of an invasion of Alabama by Union forces who sought to hasten the war’s end by destroying previously unaffected regions of the state like Tuscaloosa. However, a visit to the University at that time by another Deke bears mentioning. He began teaching at Alabama a couple of years after graduating, was a Professor at the start of the Interregnum in 1856, and served throughout the Civil War until the University closed after being burned by Federal troops on April 4, 1865, after which Wyman’s role at the University really got interesting. Perhaps foremost among these in some ways was Brother William Stokes Wyman, Psi 1851. Several DKE alumni taught at the University during the Interregnum, and one served as University President. Thereafter, the active Psi Chapter ceased to exist until being re-activated in 1885, a period that we refer to herein as the Psi “Interregnum.” However, a number of Psi Brothers remained at the University in various other capacities after 1859, and there are also legends, mysteries, half-truths and outright falsehoods that have circulated about DKE’s presence on campus during the Interregnum. Their numbers gradually dwindled, however, and the last member of the old Psi Chapter to leave the student body was Brother James Edward Webb, who graduated as Valedictorian of the Class of 1859. At least eight Psi Brothers remained enrolled as students at the University from 1856-1859, and may have been allowed to informally continue to operate as DKE. First of all, although not completely clear, the ban on fraternities may not have applied to the existing members of the fraternities, but rather only precluded the initiation of new members. So, with the ban on fraternities at Alabama taking effect in 1856, and lasting until 1885, the presence of DKE at the University was eliminated during that 29-year period, right? Well, yes and no. This issue of course became even more prominent four years later with the election of President Abraham Lincoln, with the Civil War breaking out shortly thereafter. In 1856, slavery was becoming a contentious national issue, and the movement for its abolition was gaining strength in the North. What sort of “poisonous” ideas might they have had in mind in 1856? The faculty did not specifically say, but the abolition of slavery certainly comes to mind. The Alabama faculty became increasingly concerned that the impressionable minds of young Southern men were liable to be “poisoned” by radical alien ideas filtering down from these fraternities’ Northern chapters. Recall that DKE was itself founded at Yale, in Connecticut, in 1844. Rather, the University became alarmed by the fact that most national fraternities were generally of Northern origin. Why was this ban enacted? At that time, the University had become increasingly wary of fraternities, but not for the same reasons generally espoused today by the PC crowd which sees fraternities as the embodiment of evil. Many of us also know that Psi was involuntarily inactive from 1856-1885, due to a ban on all fraternities imposed by the University administration in 1856. Most of us in the Psi Chapter are aware that our Chapter, the first fraternity at the University of Alabama, was founded in 1847. The Psi Interregnum: DKE at the University of Alabama, 1856-1885Īrsonists, A Set of Keys, A Tree Stump and a Duel
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