General Notes

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY, VOLS I-V     (1) PROMINENT PERSONS

DAVID FRENCH BOYD - born at Wytheville, Virginia, October 5, 1834. He
was educated at private schools and at the University of Virginia, from
which he received the degree of Master of Arts in 1856. For three years
he taught school in Virginia and in North Louisiana. In 1859, when the
Louisiana State Seminary was opened at Alexandria, under the presidency
of William Tecumseh Sherman (afterwards General), Boyd was elected
professor of ancient languages. When the war between the states began,
he enlisted as a private, and rose to the rank of major in three arms of
the service--infantry, engineers and cavalry--his first service being
with the Ninth Louisiana Regiment, under General "Stonewall" Jackson. In
1863 he resigned, to return to Louisiana and reopen the State Seminary;
but finding forbidding war conditions, he entered the engineer service
under Gen. Richard Taylor, and built Fort De Russey, on the Red river.
Early in 1864 he was captured by marauders, and sold to the Federals for
a hundred dollars, but through the friendship of Sherman he was
exchanged, and then became major and assistant adjutant-general of
Brent's cavalry brigade. In 1865 he became superintendent of the
Louisiana State Seminary (later the Louisiana State University), and for
nearly thirty years was closely connected with it as president, 1865-80
and 1884-87, and as professor at intervals. In reorganizing it after the
war, he kept it from falling under radical control during the carpet-bag
negro domination; in 1877 secured the union of the Agricultural and
Mechanical College with the university, and procured from the United
States government the donation of the grounds and buildings of the
historic military post at Baton Rouge. He was a pioneer of public
education in the South, especially of industrial and technical
education. At intervals, he was president of the Alabama Agricultural
and Mechanical College (1883-84); Kentucky Military Institute (1888-93);
professor in the Ohio Military Academy (1893-94), and in the Michigan
Military Academy (1894-96). In 1885-86 he was Louisiana commissioner of
the New Orleans Exposition. The alumni of the Louisiana State University
erected a memorial hall to his memory. He died May 27, 1899, at Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.