New York Military Academy - Shrapnel Yearbook (Cornwall on Hudson, NY)

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I gif - -C wat- - if THE FOOTBALL TEAM OF 1906 This is one of the best teams that ever represented N.Y.M.A. It went through a hard season with an uncrossed goal-line. and scored 256 points against its opponents. fLeft to Rightj Gerst, Rinehart, Smith, Rhodes, Gradi, Manning, Walker, Bortz CCapt.j, Staples, Day, Sholes. Crooks, Leslie, Beehe, Levy, Bragg CCoachj. There is every reason to believe that two of the three men of the Seventy-First New York were Clifton Beck- with Brown, '96, and Talmadge Brereton, '96, and that it was Brown whom Roosevelt saw shot. The coincidence of this meeting between Davis and these alumni of N.Y.M.A. on the battlefield was not known until many years later. During the Wtxrld War, Davis served as Colonel and lixecutive Officer of the Signal Corps, Chief of Training in the Air Service, and Chief of Staff in the Air Service. And in 1925 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services . And in the hearts of N.Y.M.A. boys General Davis is recalled with honors beyond those that any government can bestow! On the national horizon, as the second decade of the twentieth century opened, there were no signs of the Armageddon that was to come. New York Military Acad- emy was still unaware of the boys who were to be sacri- ficed all too soon. The quiet before the storm reigned in Cornwall as elsewhere. lt was bitterly cold when taps was blown on the night of january 9, 1910, and a dull, overcast sky gave promise of snow before morning. The cadets, burrowing beneath extra blankets, luxuriated in a feeling of security against the elements and dropped off to sleep with dreams of sledding and snow-ball fights for the next day. Later, much later-it was after two o'clock in the mor- ning of january ICJ-William Olin Sibert, a member of the senior class, stirred restlessly in his bed on the second floor of the main building. He turned over and then back again, his hand brushed irritably at his face, and then he began to cough. The coughing brought him wide awake and up- right in bed. Then bewilderment turned to horror as he saw, pouring through a hole which admitted the steam pipes to his room, a steady stream of smoke, and smelled the acrid gases which had caused his coughing. He leaped from his bed and ran, panting, across the hall to the room of Headmas- ter Artemas D. Dimmick. The fire had started in the servants' hall and stairway of the main building, directly beneath Sibert's room, and Dimmick, accompanied by Superintendent Jones and As- sistant-Commandant Frank Fraser, rushed to the scene with fire extinguishers. They made a short attempt to curtail the blaze, but it was evident almost at once that this was a serious fire and orders were given to have fire call blown. Military discipline came immediately to the fore in this emergency and the building was quickly cleared of its more than two hundred occupants. All were out before the flames reached the main stairway, and there was not the slightest sign of panic, nor any injury. Officers and cadets joined in fighting the fire, and were assisted in a short time by the Cornwall fire department. The conflagration had gained too much headway, however, and the fight was hopeless from the beginning. By day- light, there remained only a great hole in the ground, with the main chimney protruding like the grim finger of Fate. Page Twenty-three

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fa W JOHN G. SHATTUCK, '05 Shown with the inscribed silver plate presented to him at a dinner held in 1959 at the Waldorf-Astoria by a group of alumni and faculty in appreciation of his thirty years of endeavor on behalf of N.Y.M.A. The photo in the background shows the three Shattuck boys who have fol- lowed their father at the Academy. They are Cleft to rightj Thomas, Morgan, and john, Jr. An important improvement in Academy equipment is noted in the October 16, 1907, issue of The Ramble. It appears that an urgent need was felt for a new projecting lantern to be used in connection with lecture courses, and the purchase of such an instrument was greeted with cheers by The Ramble editors. The old machine was not satisfac- tory, they felt, as it was equipped with an electrical lamp only and such a lamp is extremely uncertain . . . fP.S. The new lantern was operated by the tried and true me- dium of gas.j The need for music, especially of a martial character, is felt nowhere so keenly as at a military school, but it was not until 1906 that anything but the most informal type of musical organization was established at N.Y.M.A. In that year a drum and bugle corps was formed, and this unit furnished all of the cadet music for the next three years. In 1909, however, Harley A. Ide came to the Academy as director of music. One of his first actions was to organ- ize a school band which superseded the drum and bugle corps as the oliicial musical organization. It was due to Ide's influence that the band became at once a vital ad- junct to cadet life. He remained at the Academy for more than a decade and witnessed the establishment of other mu- sical organizations, as well as the growth of the band into a high-class unit, with cadets striving earnestly for a place in its rank. But the year 1909 is chiefly distinguished in New York Military Academy history for the fact that it marked the coming of Major, later General, Milton F. Davis to the school. Born on November 15, 1864, at Mantorville, Min- nesota, young Davis moved to Oregon with his parents a few years later and was educated in the public schools of that state. At the age of twenty, Milton F. Davis matricu- lated at the University of Oregon, and then was graduated with honors from West Point in 1890. He was commis- sioned a Second Lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Cavalry, and served successively at Fort Walla Walla, Washington, and in the Presidio of San Francisco. For the next five years he explored, surveyed and mapped Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park and Roosevelt National Park. In 1895, while exploring the Grand Canyon, he lost his way and wandered for days without food in a superb effort to find an outlet from the canyon. Finally he picked up a trail and by following it emerged one of the first explorers of the Grand Canyon. Davis was a notable mountain climber and in 1892 made the first ascent of a 12,000-foot peak in the High Sierras, which, in 1896, was named Mt. Davis in his honor. He also made a record ascent of Mt. Popocateptl in Mex- ico. Commissioned First Lieutenant of Troop C, lst Cav- alry, in 1897, he served at Fort Sheridan, Fort Robinson, in the Spanish-American War, and in the Philippine Insur- rection. He was awarded the Silver Star Citation for gal- lantry in action against the Spanish forces at Santiago, Cuba, July lst, 1898 . And in that same year he was ap- pointed Military Governor of El Caney during a devastat- ing yellow fever epidemic. As a Lieutenant in 1898, Davis married Elizabeth Aitken Hall, who bore him four children: Dorothy fdeceasedj, Margaret fMrs. Frank A. Pattilloj, Helen fMrs. Morton Starr Cressy of Plainfield, New jerseyj and Milton Fenni- more, jr. Davis became, in turn, Captain, Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff to General S. S. Sumner, as well as Aide on the General Staff to the Secretary of War. In connection with the Silver Star Citation the follow- ing excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt's book The Rough Riders is pertinent: Among the men who were foremost fin storming San Juan Hill, was Lieutenant Milton F. Davis of the First Cavalry. He had been joined by three men of the Seventy-First New York who ran up and, saluting, said: 'Lieutenant, we want to go with you. Our officers won't lead us.' One of the brave fellows was soon after- ward shot in the face. Page Twenty--two

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I L SVT Yi 'Ll-E MAIN BUILDING OF ACADEMY AT TIME OF THE FIRE- 1910 Hard work and excitement while the fire was at its height had kept the cadets and their ofiicers impervious to the biting cold and wet snow which had begun to fall dur- ing the night, but the reaction attendant upon the final collapse of the building brought realization of chilled bodies, weary muscles and depressed minds. Few of the cadets had saved more than the clothes they wore, and it was necessary to find shelter for them at once. Bard Hall was crowded to the roof and the overflow was taken care of by townspeople of Cornwall, who gen- erously opened their doors to the temporarily homeless youngsters. The corps ate breakfast in shifts in Bard Hall and settled down to await developments. Meanwhile the responsible heads of the Academy sat in grim conclave to decide the fate of the school. Faced by catastrophe beyond their wildest imagining, they knew that it lay in their hands to say whether or not the school should try to survive. It was a hard decision to make but, shortly before noon of that day, they made it. The decision was Yes. Then came work and more work. The Elmer House and Palmer House, both vacant, were leased in their entirety, and a portion of the Grand View House was also taken over. A large force of men was recruited to make the buildings habitable and the corps moved in, three days later, comfortably if not sumptuously domiciled for the remainder of the school year. Having cared for the cadets, school authorities next turned their attention to the problem of permanent re- organization. It was finally decided to incorporate the New York Military Academy Realty Company. This company purchased Colonel Wright's interests in the prop- erty, approved plans for four new buildings, and, in April, 1910, broke ground for the first of these structures. General Davis was in complete charge of the elaborate program of reconstruction. Indeed, the Academy's physi- cal plant, as it stands today, is a memorial to the creative and building ability of this great administrator. The ofiicial cornerstone-laying ceremony took place on june 9 in combination with the commencement exercises, which were held outdoors for the first time in the history of the Academy. Brigadier General William Verbeck, presi- dent of the Manlius School, Major General Franklin Bell and Senator john B. Rose, of the Class of 1892, were among the speakers. It is interesting to note that the name of Sibert was once again in the spotlight at commencement. William Olin Sibert, discoverer of the fire, was valedictorian of his class, while his brother, Harold W., was named Head Boy for the year. Between them they garnered most of the honors in the gift of the Academy. The Academy re-opened in October, 1910, but the buildings were still incomplete, and the cadets were forced to endure considerable discomfort for the greater part of the year. Construction was continued in the spring of 1911, however, and when, at Commencement Exercises in the new gymnasium in june, it was announced that the total registration was 104 cadets, the outlook for the future was bright indeed. Page Twenty-four