Thomas Nelson Conrad

Thomas Nelson Conrad (August 1, 1837 – January 5, 1905) was the third president of Virginia Tech (then Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College) and served in the Confederate Secret Service during the Civil War.

Early life and education Conrad was born on August 1, 1837, to Nelson Conrad and Lavenia M. Thomas, at Fairfax Court House, Virginia.

Civil War At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Conrad taught at the Georgetown Institute in Washington, D.C., which also bestowed a master's degree on him in 1860.

Conrad was given a letter of recommendation from General Stuart to President Jefferson Davis to spy for the Confederate Secret Service. He met Davis, who endorsed the letter and referred him to other members of the Confederate government. Conrad received gold from Judah Benjamin and his “name placed on the rolls of the secret service bureau”. He then saw Secretary of War Seddon for “papers and outfit”. Davis invited Conrad to his executive mansion to hear his plans.

Captain Conrad went to Washington, D.C. with his Dickinson roommate and Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity brother Daniel Mountjoy Cloud and M. B. “Tippie” Ruggles, son of General Daniel Ruggles as couriers. His slave William also accompanied them. Greene had helped Conrad earlier, was a known CSA sympathiser, and a close relative of the wife of CSA Intelligence Major Cornelius Boyle.

His wartime exploits included among other things, hatching a plot to assassinate the Commanding General of the United States Army, Winfield Scott, that was vetoed by the Confederate government who feared that the elderly and infirm Scott would be replaced by someone more fit for command; sneaking into the War Office during lunch hour to lift copies of documents describing General McClellan's battle plans for the Peninsula Campaign, a large-scale offensive by the Union Army to capture the Confederate capitol at Richmond from the desk of a friend who was a double agent; and conspiring to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Conrad was also a frequent visitor to Mary Surratt's tavern that was used as a safe house for Confederate spies.

Two days after Lincoln was assassinated, Conrad was arrested by a landing party of the Union vessel Jacob Bell on the night of April 16, 1865. He was put aboard a train bound for a Union prisoner of war camp but managed to escape by jumping from the moving train after the soldiers guarding him fell asleep.

Post-War Career In 1871, Conrad was appointed principal of the Preston and Olin Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia, until it reorganized the next year as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Virginia Tech). He then purchased the Montgomery Messenger newspaper. and was appointed president of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College the same year. In 1886, the Board of Visitors removed all officers and faculty of the college, including Conrad. He later retired to a farm in Prince William County.