Virginia Military Institute - Bomb Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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Vo Colonel Francis Mallory %l y. ' i ' v Whose life for more than thirty years has been dedicated to the high task of training young men for their duties upon the busy stage of the ivorld, irhose unflagging interest in the Corps of Cadets as a body and as individuals has always commmided our affection and regard, and the example of ivhose character has been to us often a beacon light through the four most important years of our lives, ive, the Class ofig2J, dedicate this, the the thirty-ninth volume of ( THE BOMB

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History of tke Virginia Military Institute |T is useless to remark on the impossibility of summarizing, in less than a volume, even the high points of the history of V. M. I. It is our intent, how- ever, to give here the historical framework of the story of V. M. I. past, leaving to the other volumes the task of expansion and further inclusion of detail. In 1839, the date duly inscribed upon our Limit Gates, the first corps met. It numbered thirty-two men, and tuition, so long ago, was but $20 per year. At the end of twenty years, $151,000 had been expended on new buildings, and the corps had swelled to two hundred men. The baptism of fire came in the war with Mexico, which came four years after the graduation of the first class. During the Civil War V. M. I. both gained great glory and suffered adversity. The impetuous charge of the corps down Shirley ' s Hill to the mouths of the Federal cannon at the Battle of New Market was the decisive factor in the Confederate vic- tory. This charge, made by boys from fourteen to eighteen years old, stands alone in military history. Throughout the war the cadets acted as drill instructors for the Southern armies, in whose ranks 94 per cent of her living graduates served. The great blow to the institute fell when, in 1864, General Hunter of the Federal Army burnt and destroyed the buildings. Nevertheless, in the very year of the Civil War ' s close, V. M. I. again resumed operations. Indomitable courage overcame a debt larger than all appropriations made in the first twenty years of her life. Today the plant and equipment represent an in- vestment of over $1,000,000, and there is no debt. Of the record of V. M. I. in the World War we have only space to summon sta- tistics. At its beginning she included among her graduates five general officers, two hundred and thirty-three field officers, and sixty-four naval officers. At its close there were more than twelve hundred V. M. I. men who were officers, ranking from second lieutenants to brigadier-generals, in the service of the United States. In the less striking, but more stable pursuits of peace, V. M. I. has left her impress, through her men, in all the branches of the work of the world. The end is far from being yet. Plans are laid for a Greater V. M. I., to include another barracks and additional buildings too numerous to mention. Already the Alumni Field has come to pass, and at present the Francis H. Smith Building is being dismantled to make way for an extension of barracks that will complete the quadrangle. Our past has been filled with pride and victory ; we must measure up in future great- ness to the heritage of more than eighty years. M c • is