EUGENE W. HILGARD, A CONFEDERATE SCIENTIST

Eugene Woldemar Hilgard, (1833-1916) is today renowned as the “American Father of Soil Science” and the discoverer of the origins of alkali as well as the chemical processes of weathering. He was one of the first scientifically trained geologists in America with a PhD from Heidelberg where he studied under Robert Bunsen. Already a well known scientist when the Civil War began, Hilgard was at the University of Mississippi. He and his new Spanish bride, the daughter of an important Spanish General who was a member of the ruling junta, suffered through the Civil War in one of the most devastated region in the South. During the war Hilgard worked as a scientist for the Confederacy, seeking salt and nitrate sources, and deriving substitutes for scarce commodities such as illuminating oil. He was one of the first trained scientists to examine the Gulf Coast salt domes being exploited by the Confederates although he failed to understand their origin. His greatest adventure came when he was drafted to develop floodlights at Vicksburg to help block the passage of the Union Fleet. The effort ultimately failed and after the passage of Grant’s fleet, Hilgard escaped from the city on the last train to leave. Escaping capture in Jackson only because he appeared to the Yankees to be near death, he somehow made his way to Oxford across the devastated landscape although desperately ill with typhoid fever. On another occasion Gen Nathan B. Forrest nearly had him shot. As the last professor at Ole Miss, Hilgard is credited with saving the University from burning because the Union commander was a childhood friend. The German born, Illinois reared, Hilgard became and remained throughout life, an ardent Southern patriot as a result of his war experiences.

Fleeing the Reconstruction South, Hilgard achieved world-wide scholarly fame at the University of California. In 1903, he was awarded the rarely bestowed “Golden Diploma” by Heidelberg University. He died in 1916 as a result of a fall from a platform during graduation .