Days before Robert E. Lee would surrender Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia, Union troops marched from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa to destroy anything that might benefit the "rebel cause."

Only a few buildings on the University of Alabama campus were spared.

In an article for the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, former UA professor Robert Mellown outlined the days leading up to the event.

Tuscaloosa was largely spared throughout the Civil War, though UA was considered the "West Point of the South," until General John Croxton and 1,500 troop marched from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa on March 29, 1865, with orders to destroy factories, the bridge and the university.

After destroying stores and iron works near Bessemer and Vance, Union troops surprised the town in a night approach on April 3.

A "home guard" group attempted to stop the march by ripping up the planks on the bridge connecting Tuscaloosa and Northport. The guard, made up mostly of older men and young boys, suffered one casualty while the Union troops quickly took over. Citizens began to set fire to any valuable stores to keep them out of Union hands while others went to campus to warn of the invasion.

According to historical references, 15- and 16-year-olds were the only students still attending UA. They were ill-equipped, but their commandant Colonel James Murfee marched them down University Boulevard for a confrontation at the intersection of Greensboro Avenue.

Mellown's sources reported one cadet, the younger brother of Commandant Murfee, was shot in the foot before UA President Landon Garland realized the situation couldn't end well for his young charges.

In a 1990 article titled "The Burning of the University of Alabama," former curator of UA's special collections library writes this of Garland's predicament:

"As the Corps waited in position, President Garland held a conference with Commandant Murfee and Captain James S. Carpenter, a confederate officer.

Carpenter informed Garland and Murfee of the overwhelming odds facing the small force of three hundred boys. Not only were the cadets outnumbered, but the Federal troops were armed with repeating rifles. And to rub salt into the wound, the Corps' own field pieces, captured before they could be brought into play, were now trained on the bridge and its approaches from the Northport side.

Garland made his decision. Unwilling to commit the Corps to useless sacrifice, he marched the boys back to the campus. Once there, they quickly gathered their overcoats, blankets, and haversacks, which they filled with hard-tack from the commissary stores, and fell back into ranks.

By two o'clock in the morning the Corps and many of the faculty were marching east along the Huntsville Road, away from Tuscaloosa and the University.

The next morning, April 4, Union troops completed their march on the university and set fire to the majority of the campus."

Gorgas House and an observatory, now known as Maxwell Hall, escaped the flames. According to the university, the "Old Observatory" was badly damaged but still structurally sound, and it was used to store anything salvageable from the fire's remains.

Inexplicably, the campus's guard house, an actual military structure, was spared as well. It's known today as the Round House.

The President's Mansion was also set on fire, but it was reportedly saved by the university's First Lady Louisa Frances Garland.

"Upon learning that the campus was burning, she left Bryce Hospital where everyone had taken shelter and raced back to the mansion to defend her property," a virtual campus tour on UA's website reads. "Her strength of will and presence of mind stopped the Federal Army from destroying the mansion and the young Union soldiers even worked to put out the fire they had already started at the place."