Cumberland University is a private university in Lebanon, Tennessee, United States. The university was founded by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and received its Tennessee State charter in 1843. In 1852 the Cumberland Presbyterian church leaders added a law school, the first in Tennessee and the first west of the Appalachian Mountains, and in 1854 a school of theology was begun. The original building, designed by Philadelphia architect William Strickland, housed schools of art, law and theology. It was burned by the Union Army during the American Civil War. Following the war, the university's faculty included former Confederate general A. P. Stewart. He taught there during his post-Civil War Union parole.