John Nicholas Galleher
Doctor of Divinity 1880
Prior to the Civil War, Galleher was educated at the University of Virginia. During the War, Galleher attained the rank of colonel in the Confederate Army. In his immediate postwar career, Galleher was educated at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He received his honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of the South in 1880, the same year he was elected Bishop of Louisiana. Galleher performed the last rites for Jefferson Davis and eulogized Davis at his funeral in 1889.
Galleher's eulogy of Jefferson Davis reflected the larger-than-life persona that worshippers of the Old South had created for Davis:
"...[T]he master of Beauvoir lies dead under the drooping flag of the saddened city; the light of his dwelling has gone out and left it lonely for all the days to come...The end of a long and lofty life has come; and a moving volume of human history has been closed and clasped…...A man who has in his person and history symbolized the solemn convictions and tragic fortunes of millions of men cannot pass into the glooms that gather around a grave without sign or token from the surcharged bosoms of those he leaves behind; and when Jefferson Davis, reaching 'the very sea-mark of his utmost sail,' goes to his God, not even the most ignoble can chide the majestic mourning, the sorrowing honors of a last salute.”
-Eulogy for Jefferson Davis by John Nicholas Galleher, December 12, 1889.