In 1840 the students were at last granted full freedom, and two years later the honor system was adopted.
During the university's first years young men from the far South, where dueling was especially prevalent, did not come in large numbers to the University of Virginia, but went, as a rule, to the northern colleges, but about the middle of the century, as feeling between North and South over taxation, States' Rights and slavery became more acute, these men began to flock to the college at Charlottesville.

Between 1850 and 1860 the university almost doubled in size, and at about the same time there developed a good deal of dueling between students.
When the War ended many men who had gone into the Confederate army at sixteen or seventeen years of age came to Charlottesville to complete their education.

The hard life of the army had made some of these into a wild lot, and there was a great deal of gambling and drinking during their time, and also after it, for several succeeding generations of students looked up to the ex-soldiers as heroes, and carried on the unfortunate traditions left by them at the university.

In the nineties, however, a change came, and though there is still some drinking and gambling, it is doubtful whether such vices are now more prevalent at the University of Virginia than at many other colleges.

The honor system has never been extended to cover these points.
It is related that, in Poe's time, gambling became such a serious obstacle to discipline and work that the university authorities set the town marshal after a score or so of gambling students, Poe among them, whereupon these students fled to the Ragged Mountains, near by, and remained for two weeks, during which time Poe is said to have mightily entertained them with stories and prophecies, including a forecast of the Civil War, in which, he declared, two of the youths present would fight on opposite sides.
The Poe tradition is kept vigorously alive at the university.