The Episcopal Rev. Shields, who had grown up on his family’s Mississippi plantation, served in the Confederate Army and was an early graduate of the University, received his honorary Doctorate of Divinity in 1893. At one time Sewanee awarded a Van Winder Shields medal for English poetry to students. For many years he was rector at St. John’s Church in Jacksonville, Florida. At his death in 1927, Jacksonville newspapers eulogized him as the embodiment of the Old South.

“Commencement Exercises,” Sewanee Daily Purple, June 27, 1902.