As an American educator, Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839-1893) did much to advance the education of the African American. He was the founder of Hampton Institute in Virginia.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong was born on Jan. 30, 1839, on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, the child of American missionaries. He spent his early years there, attending the Royal School at Punahou and, when that became Oahu College, continuing for 2 years. In 1860, carrying out the wishes of his father, who had recently died, he sailed for the United States and entered Williams College, in Massachusetts.

Although at first he was not particularly exercised over the issues of the Civil War, Armstrong found the excitement of his classmates infectious, and he volunteered for the Union Army in 1862. Given a captain's commission, he recruited a company near Troy, N.Y., which he led with distinction at the Battle of Gettysburg, earning a promotion to major...