Virginia Military Institute - Bomb Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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THE LIMIT GATES

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V. M. I. in Time of War VJ HE MEXICAN WAR, which broke out four years after the graduation of the first M C N class from the Virginia Military Institute, witnessed the baptism by fire under actual L J warfare of the V. M. I. cadet. Only fifty-nine graduates had left her walls, yet twenty-five of her sons rushed to arms — nine of whom served in the regular army and sixteen in the volunteers. In this war, as in that of 1898 with Spain, there were more V. M. I. men than the combined representatives of all other military institutions — U. S. M. A. excepted. THE CIVIL WAR began with r,902 living ex-cadets. Of this number 1,789, or ninety-four per cent, served in the Confederate Army, and fifteen in the Federal forces. One hundred and six did not bear arms because of physical disability or vocational exemption. Seven days after the outbreak of the war the Corps of Cadets, under command of Major (later Stonewall ) Jackson, marched for Richmond to instruct and drill recruits. About 20,000 volunteers were trained during the war by V. M. I. cadets. The Cadet Corps was repeatedly called into active service, and in one action, at New Market, Va., won lasting fame by capturing a battery by frontal attack and by assisting in the defeat of superior Federal forces. In that battle the corps of 279 young men lost fifty-seven — twenty per cent — in killed and wounded. When peace again reigned in the land, all that was mortal of 249 former V. M. I. cadets rested on the altar of the cause they believed just. The Institute was in ruins; all that remained of the magnificent school was one small building — and its matchless spirit. As a Phoenix from its ashes it rose and developed to render its priceless service to the country three decades, and again a half a century, later. THE WORLD WAR saw an institution, which, since its foundation in 1839, had graduated but 2,466 men (1,036 in the preceding thirty years), many of them long since dead, to give over two thousand fully trained men to the armed forces alone. Included in the number were five general officers and 233 field officers of the army, sixty-four naval officers, and many who held commissions in the marine corps. At the declaration of war the corps mustered 406 cadets. Many of those men of the upper classes exchanged the grey for olive drab at once, and the others rendered services of the most practical kind by training hundreds of civilians and students. On every front V. M. I. men gave to the nation the result of that unique training instilled into them under the eye of Stonewall Jackson, who stands in bronze amid the guns of the old Cadet Battery as he stood on the day he received his immortal sobriquet, and whose memory shall always perpetuate the Spirit of V . M. I. Many larger institutions gave more men — none gave more trained men. wm

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THE P I R.l D E GROUND AND GUARD TREE