Hardee Field; an athletic field dedicated to William Joseph Hardee
Item
- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
- Title
- Background and Context
- Physical Description
- Date created, installed or dedicated
- Date Modified
- Historical Period
- Location: Institution, City, State
-
Memorial Place
-
Named Building
-
Hardee, William Joseph
-
Hardee Field; an athletic field dedicated to William Joseph Hardee
-
“Hardee Field” — named after Confederate Lt. Gen. William Joseph Hardee (1815-1873) — referred to the playing fields for the University of the South's athletic teams since at least the early 1890s; the facility was modestly upgraded in 1896-97. It is officially celebrated as the “oldest field in the South” continuously in use and one of oldest such in the nation. There is no record of an “official” dedication until 1977 when “Hardee Field” became Hardee-McGee Field (for Ben Humphreys McGee, C’49). The stadium structure is Harris Stadium. A small landscaped area directly across from the field on Florida Avenue is designated still as “Hardee Park” and recently underwent renovation and restoration by the Sewanee Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Confederate Lt. Gen. William Joseph Hardee had no direct connection with the University of the South except that he retreated with his forces in the Army of Tennessee over the mountain and through the site of the planned university in early 1863. In the 1870s and 1880s, Sewanee had intramural sports teams, the Sewanees (originally the Robert E. Lees) and the Hardees. According to the university’s historian Arthur Ben Chitty, the second Vice-Chancellor and former Confederate general Josiah Gorgas (1872-78) suggested “Hardees” as the team name to honor his wartime fellow general and friend.
Hardee was born in Camden County, Georgia, his father a large landowner and slaveholder. His first wife, Elizabeth Dummett of St. Augustine, was the daughter of Thomas Hennery Dummett, who had immigrated to Florida from Barbados. The colonial census records indicate that he enslaved 10-14 persons on the island; in the 1830 census for Florida, he enslaved three persons. Hardee graduated from West Point in 1838 and was commandant of cadets there when he resigned his commission to join the Confederate military. He served the Confederacy as lieutenant general. In addition to his personal and military connections to Josiah Gorgas, many of his Confederate peers and subordinates comprise the University's founders and early leaders. Bishop Leonidas Polk served in the Confederate military with Hardee, and Hardee was present at Pine Mountain, Georgia, when Polk was killed in battle. The Confederate brigadier general Francis Asbury Shoup, a post-Civil War member of the university faculty who is memorialized by a United Daughters of the Confederacy monument on Tennessee Avenue, served as Hardee’s Chief of Artillery. The first Vice-Chancellor, the Rev. Charles Todd Quintard, as the chaplain of the Confederate 1st Tennessee, also served with Hardee. In 1864 Hardee married Mary Foreman Lewis, whose family were major landowners and enslavers in the region of Selma, Alabama.
-
An athletic playing field (football, lacrosse, track and field) on the University of the South campus.
-
1890
-
1977
Position: 1007 (75 views)