Background
Kemp Plummer Battle was born on December 19, 1831, in Franklin County, North Carolina, the third son of William Horn Battle and Lucy (Plummer) Battle.
Kemp Plummer Battle was born on December 19, 1831, in Franklin County, North Carolina, the third son of William Horn Battle and Lucy (Plummer) Battle.
Upon his father's coming to live at Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1839, Kemp Battle was sent to the Raleigh Male Academy. After the removal of his parents to Chapel Hill, he was prepared at the village school for the University of North Carolina, which he entered at the early age of thirteen. At seventeen he graduated, sharing first honor with two others and giving the valedictory. Later he also took his master's degree and a law course.
After graduation Kemp Battle became tutor, first of Latin, then of mathematics, remaining at the University for four years. He was then admitted to the bar and practised law in Raleigh with his brother, Richard H. Battle. He also became a direct or of the State Bank of North Carolina and engaged in various financial and agricultural enterprises. In politics he was, like his father, a Whig. When the Civil War came on he was outspoken as a Union man; but after Lincoln's call for troops he cast his fortune with his state and approved the secession ordinance of 1861.
Battle was active in electing Z. B. Vance governor of North Carolina, and advised and assisted him in withstanding the too great encroachments of the Confederate Government. He was elected state treasurer in 1866, but the Act of Congress of March 1867 deprived him of office. In 1875 he was a leader, as chairman of the reorganized board of trustees, in working for reopening the University of North Carolina, closed since 1868, and in 1876 he was elected president of the revived institution. Battle set to work to raise funds from outside sources because all the endowment of the University had been sunk in Confederate securities. He was successful in collecting enough money for a beginning, and in inducing the legislature to appropriate the first state money ever set apart for the University. His unerring tact, human sympathy, kindly ways, and firm integrity made him capable of steering the reopened institution to safety through the rocks and shallows of that difficult time. For fifteen years he remained president, was made president emeritus in 1891, accepted the chair of history, and was made professor emeritus in 1907.
During his whole life Battle wrote historical articles for publication, made addresses, and recorded facts such as provide the raw material for history. His short papers have never been collected, but many of them are listed in the Pamphlet Collections of the State Library of North Carolina, and in various periodicals. He wrote a "History of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, " published in volume CIII of North Carolina Reports. His great work, undertaken in the years of his retirement, was the History of the University of North Carolina, in two large volumes (I, 1907; II, 1912), the repository of a mass of facts extending over more than a century of educational development. Kemp Battle died at the age of 87 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Kemp Battle served as treasurer of North Carolina (1866–1868); president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1876-1891); president of the Chatham Railroad during the Civil War; a director of the rechartered Bank of North Carolina (1857). Kemp Battle wrote the History of the University of North Carolina (I, 1907; II, 1912).
Like his father Kemp Battle was a lifelong Episcopalian and like him a member of the councils of his church.
Battle was a genial man, humorous and humane. He maintained good discipline but by persuasion rather than command.
On November 28, 1855, Kemp Battle married Martha Ann Battle, of Edgecombe County, a distant kinswoman. Their family life was most happy. He survived his wife many years, and lived to a great age, respected and beloved.
