After the battle of Fishing Creek, January, 1862, the buildings of East Tennessee University were taken by the military for the lodging of wounded men, and afterwards the Male Academy was turned by them into a guard house. These diversions of school property to uses of the army, seriously interfered of course with the work of educating boys and young men. And yet the loss incurred in that way was not very serious, because the number of students in the disordered state of things had severely diminished. The army had absorbed some of the older youth into its ranks, some borne on the fierce currents of excitement, drifted off one way or another, and many were demoralized from study by the abnormal social conditions. One of the University professors had been for years a most successful teacher of boys. He hailed from north of Mason and Dixon’s line, and before the secession of Tennessee in June, 1861, had expressed his Union sentiments in letters to friends who dwelt in the _taboo-ed_ region beyond the Ohio River. As the State was then still in the Union, all letters from it by mail should have been transmitted to their destination without previous disclosure of their contents, but this was forbidden by patriotic zeal for the Confederacy, to which the State was bound by a military league. Of the intercepted communications to a distance written by Union citizens, were some by the professor. Then there went to him in writing anonymous threats of personal indignity and injury, and the circumstances of the case appeared to justify the fears they excited in him. After seeking judicious advice and not being willing to contend with the wrath of his enemies, he shortly departed for Ohio and left goods and chattels behind him, which were afterwards seized and confiscated. Another of the professors--a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church--became an officer in the Confederate army. Another, who was a native of the county, moved with fear of being forced to serve in that army, and loving the Union, fled the country to Washington and only returned upon the advent of Gen. Burnside into Knoxville. The President of the University--a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church--thought that some such unwelcome advent would occur in 1862. In the earlier part of that year, therefore, he made a prudent arrangement with his associates to teach the few students who remained until the session’s end, and departed for a quiet home in North Carolina. Not long afterwards the doors of the institution were closed to the work of education for four years. Schools for the instruction of children continued in the town to a limited extent, but their usefulness and success were lessened by the prevailing anxieties and excitements.