Biographical Note

Charles Landon Carter Minor, son of Lucius Horatio and Cartherine Berkley Minor, was born on December 3, 1835 at Edgewood (Hanover County), Virginia. Minor received his master of arts from the University of Virginia in 1858 and taught school at the Virginia Female Institute (Staunton) and in Albemarle County. He married Fanny Annsley Cazenove in 1860. The couple settled in the small town of Negro Foot, just north of Richmond, Virginia, and had two daughters.

In 1861, Minor joined the Confederate Army, enlisting as a private in the 1st Rockbridge Artillery but soon transferred to Company K, 2nd Virginia Cavalry, with which he participated in the Battle of First Manassas and Jackson's Valley Campaign. By February 1863, Minor was an ordnance officer at Dublin Depot, Virginia, and he served at General Albert G. Jenkins' aide-de-camp at the nearby Battle of Cloyd's Mountain (May 9, 1864). Promoted to captain on August 1, 1864, Minor was appointed chief ordnance officer of the Confederate Army's Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, reporting to Major General Samuel Jones. At war's end, Minor was serving as executive officer at the Richmond Arsenal.

In 1867, Minor became president of the Maryland Agricultural College (now University of Maryland). He resigned the following year, however, and operated a private school in Lynchburg, Virginia, before becoming professor of Latin and director of the preparatory school at the University of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee). He served in that position until named the first president of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) in 1872. In 1874, he received a law degree from William & Mary College.

Removed from office during an 1879 reorganization of the college, Minor served as principal of Shenandoah Valley Academy (Winchester, Virginia) and St. Paul's School (Baltimore, Maryland) before becoming vice principal of Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. When his health began to fail, Minor privately tutored students in his Baltimore home. A Confederate apologist, Minor during this time also contributed a number of articles to Baltimore and Richmond newspapers on historical and political subjects. In 1901, he published a 66-page booklet titled The Real Lincoln. During the last year of his life, he completed a second, expanded edition of the work, which was published posthumously. Charles L. C. Minor died in Albemarle County, Virginia on July 13, 1903.

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