Virginia Military Institute - Bomb Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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COTSTTENTS INSTITUTE THE CLASSES MILITARY ATHLETICS ACTIVITIES SOCIAL

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FOREWORD npo reflect as completely as possible the aims and ideals, the activities and achievements of V. M. I., to present a picture of cadet life, and to preserve a record of days spent at the Institute, that the memories of the past may not be lost in dreams of the future, has been the aim of the 1931 Bomb.

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nits I. |T WAS at a meeting of the Fortnightly Club in Lexington that the first proposal for a Virginia school of arms was made, the name to be the ' irginia Military Institute; this action vas prompted in part at least by the disorderly conduct of the soldiers stationed at the arsenal, which occupied the site of the present barracks. The first classrooms used at V. M. I. were negro shacks in a corn- field, which in later years became the parade ground; the Guard tree was the only shady spot between barracks and the town proper. The original Corps of Cadets numbered only thirty-two. Cadet J. B. Strange of Fluvanna was the first man to be placed on Guard; in later life he attained the rank of Colonel in the U. S. Army. The first Post Band consisted of Reuben and Mike, drummer and fifer. The first President of the Board of ' isitors. Colonel Crozet, served in Napoleon ' s Armv in the retreat from Moscow, received a commission, and was decorated for bravery by the famous general. Underthe law of 1842, State Cadets were required to teach two years in the public schools of the Commonwealth after graduation ; this inaugurated the Normal School system in Virginia. The Corps of Cadets attended the hanging of John Brown at Charles Town on December 2. 1859, and General Francis H. Smith, Superintendent of the Institute, superintended the e.xecution. The first horses for the Artillery Battery at V. M. I. were Cadets; the tradition has it that the Cadets tested the nerve of Gen. T. J. Stonewall Jackson, at that time an instructor at the Institute, by pulling one of the pieces across his toes; Gen. Jackson did not appear to notice the incident. General Francis H. Smith, the first Superintendent of ' . M. I., built the Institute in the ' 40 ' s, and rebuilt it in the ' 6o ' s; he was its founder and father, builder and rebullder. Mrs. Francis H. Smith, wife of the Superintendent, at one time donated $15,000 to keep V. M. I. from going into the hands of receivers. The whole Corps engaged in the Battle of New Market, May 15, 1864; seven of the Cadets killed in the battle vs ' ere Rats, one a Second Class sergeant, one a Third Class corporal. Later the Corps served as drill masters for Gen. Lee ' s re- cruits. When Gen. Hunter destroyed barracks during the Civil War, at Gen. Smith ' s request he refrained from shelling the Superintendent ' s home because of the illness of Gen. Smith ' s daughter. The first Honor Court at the Institute was established 1870; previous to that time the whole Corps had acted as a court and administered justice as it saw fit. In 1880, with the exception of three Cadets, the whole Corps was dismissed for mutiny. The Bomb, appearing for the first time on June i, 1885, was the first college annual published in the South. Once a huge brick wall surrounded barracks, where the windows were covered with iron bars. Not so long ago Cadets slept on mattresses on the floor of their rooms; a pump in the center of the courtyard was the only source of water; the space behind the Superintendent ' s quarters was the old Cadet duelling ground. There were over two thousand V. M. I. men in the World War, representing more than eighty-two per cent of the V. M. I. men between the ages of seventeen and forty; over seventy-eight per cent held commissions, five of which were Brigadier- Generals. On Oct. r, 1918, the Cadet Battalion was organized as a student Army Training Corps, V. M. I. being the only college in the country which the War De- partment deemed capable of keeping its military standards up to the highest point of efliciency without the aid of additional tactical officers. The athletic field is a memorial to the V. M. I. men who fell in the World War. During its entire history the Institution has had only five Superintendents: Gen. Francis H. Smith, Gen. Scott Shipp, Gen. F,dward West Nichols, Gen. WiUiain H Cocke, Gen. John A. Lejeune.