 The Masons relinquished control of the school to a shared board of trustees with the East Alabama Male College in the late 1850s , and in the early 1860s , the school began admitting boys to the secondary division . When the American Civil War began in 1861 , virtually the entire male junior and senior classes of the school , as well as much of the faculty , joined Confederate States of America military units , particularly the 37th Alabama Regiment . As the " principal teacher " , W.F. Slaton , was a major in the regiment , classes in Auburn stopped for the remainder of the war . The regiment was captured at Corinth , Mississippi , and exiled to the Johnson 's Island prisoner of war camp on Lake Erie . While imprisoned there , Slaton held the school 's classes in the camp . Notably , the African American Union guards , who were prohibited by law from attending school in their native Wisconsin , were invited to join the classes , making Auburn High one of the first Southern schools to integrate , some 90 years before Brown v. Board . 
