The College That Went to War

When visitors see Yale today — the Gothic architecture, the elm-lined courtyards — they do not immediately think of the Revolution. But the college was deeply entangled with the war, and the archives tell a story of institutional survival, intellectual contribution, and direct physical danger.

The most vivid episode is the British raid of 1779. Professor Naphtali Daggett, a sixty-two-year-old theologian, rode out with a musket to join the militia defense. He was captured, beaten, bayoneted, and left for dead. He survived, but barely, and died the following year. The image of a divinity professor fighting redcoats in the streets tells you something about what the Revolution meant to this community.

The college produced an outsized number of officers and political leaders relative to its small enrollment. Nathan Hale, class of 1773, was hanged as a spy in New York. Aaron Burr, class of 1772, served as an officer before his more complicated political career. The connections between Yale's classrooms and the Revolution's leadership are everywhere in the records.

What I find most interesting in the archives is the evidence of how the college adapted to wartime disruption. Classes were relocated when the British threatened New Haven. Students left to serve and came back — or did not come back. Faculty debated the political questions of the day while also debating how to keep the institution functioning with depleted enrollment and uncertain finances.

Ezra Stiles, who served as president during the war years, kept a diary that is one of the richest primary sources for wartime Connecticut. He recorded troop movements, political developments, weather patterns, and theological reflections in the same entries. The diary is a window into a mind trying to make sense of revolution while running a college. It is messy and brilliant and very human.