William Porcher DuBose

William Porcher DuBose (April 11, 1836 – August 18, 1918) was an American priest, author and theologian in the Episcopal Church in the United States. After service in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and becoming a chaplain in his cousin's regiment, DuBose became a professor and chaplain at the newly established University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.^[1] One author considers him possibly the "greatest theologian that the Episcopal Church in the Usa has produced."^[2]

Early life

In 1836, William Porcher DuBose was born near Winnsboro, Fairfield County, South Carolina (near Colombia, South Carolina) to the former Jane Sinkler Porcher (Porcher is French and pronounced as if spelled por-shay) and her husband, Capt. Theodore Samuel Dubose. Both sides of his family descended from French Huguenots^[3] who immigrated as refugees in 1686 and settled in the Midlands of South Carolina. DuBose grew up on the 2,500-acre (10 km²) family plantation near Winnsboro; his parents were planters and major slaveholders, owning 204 slaves in 1860.^[4] His great-uncle William DuBose (1787 or 1788 - 1855) was also a major slaveholder who became South Carolina's lieutenant-governor.^[5] This W. P. DuBose was privately educated, including at Mount Zion College, a private male academy in Winnsboro where he would later teach.

At age 15, DuBose entered the South Carolina Military Academy (now known as The Citadel) in 1851. By his final year (1855), he was the ranking officer as well as Assistant Professor of English. He graduated from The Citadel in 1855 "with first honors".^[3] While at The Citadel, DuBose had his "conversion experience":

I lept to my feet trembling, and then that happened that I can only describe by saying that a light shone about me and a Presence filled the room. At the same time, ineffable joy and peace took possession of me which it is impossible to either express or explain.^[6]

In 1856, DuBose entered the University of Virginia, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in 1859.^[3] Later that year, he entered the just-opened South Carolina diocesan seminary in Camden, South Carolina.^[3][7]

Confederate States Army

When the American Civil War began with shots fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, DuBose left the seminary. He signed up with South Carolina's Holcombe Legion, and accepted an appointment as its adjutant.^[3][8] The legion fought at the Second Battle of Manassas, where DuBose was injured twice. For part of 1862, DuBose was a prisoner of war before being exchanged.^[3] He was wounded again in December of the same year.

In 1863, family friends and church contacts helped DuBose gain a commission as a chaplain. He was ordained a deacon at Grace Church in Camden, South Carolina in December 1863, and joined Kershaw's Brigade, led by his Tennesee-raised lawyer cousin Dudley M. DuBose as its chaplain in Greeneville, Tennessee.

Ministry

After the war, on September 9, 1866, DuBose was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church by Bishop Thomas F. Davis (brother of the former Confederate States Attorney General and who had aligned with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America during the conflict). Rev. DuBose served St. John's Parish, Fairfield, which included St. Stephen's Episcopal Church and St. John's Episcopal Church in Winnsboro.^[1][9] While there, he also taught Greek at his alma mater, Mt. Zion College.^[10] In January 1868, he became rector of Trinity Church, Abbeville, South Carolina.^[11][12] At the diocescan convention in 1870, he was considered to be a serious contender to succeed Rt.Rev. Davis, which DuBose later considered a "fortunate escape".^[13]

In July 1871, Vice-Chancellor Charles Todd Quintard nominated Rev. DuBose to serve as Chaplain of the newly established University of the South and Professor of the School of Moral Science and the Evidences of the Christian Religion. DuBose served as Chaplain of the school from 1871-1883 (he was succeeded by Thomas Frank Gailor). He helped to establish the Theological Department at the university, which would later be known as the School of Theology at the University of the South. A professor in the Theological Department from 1877-1893, DuBose was elected Dean of the Theological Department, and held that position from 1894 until retiring in 1908.^[3]

Marriages and family

While on leave from the military, on April 30, 1863, William Porcher DuBose married Anne Barnwell Peronneau of Charleston, South Carolina, with whom he would have four children before her death in December 1878. (The South Carolina Biographical Dictionary states she died in 1873 and that he married Louisa Yerger in 1878.^[3]) He later married Maria Louise Rucks Yerger, who established a school in Monteagle, Tennessee called Fairmount College.^[14]

William Porcher DuBose's sister Elizabeth DuBose (1838-1875) married South Carolina College graduate and Winnsville doctor and planter John Bratton, who rose through the Confederate Army ranks during the Civil War to become a general who led troops in both the Eastern and Western theaters during the conflict. Afterward, he became a politician and won election to the South Carolina Senate and later became his state's Comptroller and ultimately U.S. Congressman.^[15]

Death

William Porcher DuBose died in Sewanee in 1918 and is buried in the cemetery of The University of the South there.^[16] The DuBose Conference Center in Monteagle, Tennessee, formerly Fairmont College and long associated with the Episcopal Church as a training center, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 2009, it became an independent nonprofit corporation and offers hospitality and sacred space to groups of all faiths. Rev. DuBose is remembered on August 18 on the Episcopal Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.^[17]

Writings

• The Christian Ministry. no publisher, 1870.
• The Soteriology of the New Testament. New York: MacMillan, 1892.
• The Ecumenical Councils. New York: Christian Literature Co., 1896.^[18]
• The Gospel in the Gospels. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1906.
• High Priesthood and Sacrifice. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1908.
• The Reason of Life. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1911.
• Turning Points in My Life. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1912
• More than 40 published articles.
• A Dubose Reader, ed. Donald S. Armentrout. Sewanee, TN: University of the South, 1984.

See also

• Bibliographic directory from Project Canterbury
• Ralph Luker, author of A Southern Tradition in Theology and Social Criticism, 1830-1930: The Religious Liberalism and Social Conservatism of James Warley Miles, William Porcher DuBose, and Edgar Gardner Murphy. Mellen Press (1984) Hardcover: ISBN 0-88946-655-6, ISBN 978-0-88946-655-5.
• Edgar Gardner Murphy

References