![]() The new Fraternity needed an identifying symbol, and Founder Hopkins designed a Badge for the members to wear on their uniforms. The organization kept its original name secret but was recognized publicly as Sigma Nu Fraternity. The Legion of Honor society in its first year assumed the outward aspects of a college Greek-letter organization. It was only an issue of winning the peace. It was never an issue of who won or lost the War. They wanted to end all abuses, and they knew it would not come easily. They had experienced enough hate and destruction all during and after the War. Still, the Founders did not create Sigma Nu with any feeling of animosity toward others rather they were prompted by the impulses of sympathy and affection for all people which underlie abiding peace and contentment. The Fraternity's spiritual birth, however, actually occurred in 1866, the year the Founders entered VMI, when Frank Hopkins first rebelled against hazing at the Institute. ![]() It suspended classes only for the day on such occasions as Christmas and New Year's. What a New Year's celebration it must have been for cadets who could not go home for the holidays! In those days the Institute did not close for 'breaks' as we know them. The Honor system at VMI required each cadet to conform to the duty imposed by his conscience that each act be governed by a high sense of Honor.Īlthough Sigma Nu Fraternity began in October 1868 as the Legion of Honor, its existence was kept secret until the founders publicly announced their new society on the first day of January 1869, the accepted birthdate of Sigma Nu. That the founders should adopt Honor as a guiding principle was a natural move since a rigid code of Honor was already an established tradition of the VMI Corps of Cadets. The vows taken by these three Founders bound them together to oppose hazing at VMI and encouraged the application of the Principle of Honor in all their relationships. Hopkins, Quarles and Riley clasped hands on the Bible and gave their solemn pledge to form a brotherhood of a new society they called the Legion of Honor. Their efforts climaxed on a moonlit October night in 1868, presumably following Bible study at the superintendent's home, when the three met at a limestone outcropping on the edge of the VMI parade ground. These three men began a movement to completely abolish the hazing system at VMI. ![]() They were Greenfield Quarles, from Arkansas, a Kentuckian by birth, and James McIlvaine Riley from St. Hopkins soon was joined by two classmates and close friends who were also equally unhappy with the hazing situation. Not one ounce of hazing was he willing to suffer and he was doggedly adamant about eliminating it. However, Hopkins was unwilling to accept any amount of hazing then being allowed at VMI. Hopkins had experienced military subservience during the war, and was willing to tolerate a reasonable amount of constraint intended to induce discipline. At the Institute cadets suffered, not only of the ravages of war and a disrupted home life, but because of the system of physical harassment imposed on lower class men by their fellow students in the upper classes. The Virginia Military Institute was highly recognized for its civil engineering program and the South badly needed to repair its bridges and railroads. When Hopkins enrolled at VMI, the south was in a state of turmoil and just beginning to recover from the devastating military defeat it had suffered. That cadet was James Frank Hopkins, and it is to him and two of his classmates that Sigma Nu owes its existence. The story of Sigma Nu began during the period following the Civil War, when a Confederate veteran from Arkansas enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington Virginia. ![]() So, amidst a backdrop of turmoil, North America's first "Honor" fraternity was established. The system of physical abuse and hazing of underclassmen at VMI led to James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles, and James McIlvaine Riley to form the "Legion of Honor" which soon became Sigma Nu Fraternity. Founded by three cadets at the Virginia Military Institute during a period of civil strife known as the Reconstruction, Sigma Nu represented a radical departure from the times. Sigma Nu's past is a proud and colorful one. ![]() Sigma Nu membership includes past presidential scholars as well as brothers who have graduated in the top of the class. Academics are important to the fraternity and many of our brothers excel in the classroom. Sigma Nu has brothers on athletic teams-soccer, tennis, football, golf, cross-country and baseball. Currently the brotherhood has men participating in all aspects of life at Wofford College. The Brotherhood of the Eta Omicron chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity strives for diversity and unity. ![]()
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