United States Military Academy West Point - Howitzer Yearbook (West Point, NY)

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7x N . ! Street across two sentry posts, 6 and 1, across the dusty Cavalry Plain until lost in the depth of the ghostly old hollow. The belated arrivals-the so-called Seps -arrived as usual in August, and the whole corps was on the qui vive to watch the Commandant rise at early morn and discover that during the night two of these new comers had been put to bed in his sacred ioihce. An oddly assorted pair they were, a short Kentuckiian and a long New Yorker, land a squad of mischief-loving yearlings had skipped across sentry post in the dead hours of the night: had tiptoed into Cadet barracks, where the newly arrived were segregated, had bidden these two take up their beds and walkg marched them over to camp, and noiselessly rolled them in their blankets in the Colonells marquee, bidding 'them stir not till they should come againg then roused everybody in camp to tell of the splendid joke they had on the Com- what fun it would be to watch him bristle up at reveillef' and could hardly sleep a wink the rest of the night for thinking of his amaze and indignation. ' Get those Septembers back where they belong, was all the Commandant ever said on the subject. He had just got word that his exchange was effected, and nothing else could matter. VVe began our studies September lst, with the news that many we loved were dead and gone and the Army falling back again on XVashington. Vlfe lost one noble Cadet Captain-Townsend-by typhoid before we were through September, 'VVe it 'li ' r- f RYE : .al E2 5 all Ill , 27:33 le ft -, ,A a - w ' i : 'X we W. N: f ii - 2: 1 rr -qw 5 5 - - f . ,-i t vt - -iff u h? 15 22 11 : s-.' -- at-:-:,,. .. .- . t -w -M ' -- Q 4. .- F' gg- 1 'f t, ex.,-.,.,.-..ugl.i f L' 1i .a,9 1 , 'Q W-at iff -L rin nr, tg, 7 ,I K i. M---ff A --Q ME, ,. qqir.-i--t X 1 +1 :: vH, iff:-.-,,1.9Sf , .. see T ' ., , . 5 . I , . ,. sv ' --- f--- -------4---,1------ ,E fwg' H , ., ,... ...., - .4-.-.. ' tar.-L' ' ' 4' at K- '- its ,WL .l 53 '2 L FQ.. 1 - lost our great Adjutant-Twining- by order, soon thereafterhand Thanksgiving was a sorry festival. lhfe lost three classmates long weeks before mid-winter exami- nation, by special order, as hopelessly delicient mentally-and anotlier went, by invitation, some months later as equally lacking morally. Wfe had no sports, no games, no exercise but drills and fencing. Baseball and footballuhad never then been seen at the Point. Wfe had no gymnasium proper, though a dark space under the f'Academic had been floored with tan bark and supplied with rings, swings and parallel bars, but no one ever seemed to dust them off. The snows fell and blanketed the plain: the Aice formed and fettered the noble river: Christmas came, and the Corps had turkey, and, served in square tin pans, a curious compound they called mince pie. There should have been added a Uday off in which to digest it-with the list of casualties at Fredericksburg. A dozen of us took heart and tried to make calls on New Year's Day, and were met with the tidings that Bragg had beaten Rosecrans in Tennessee-that Sill and Garesche were killed. It was bitter cold that winter, yet in the low shoes of the regulations, and thin white cotton gloves, and slow time every inch of the way, we made frequent marches to the cemetery and hred straggling volleys with frozen fingers over our soldier dead. How long it took to thaw out afterwards! January examinations sliced off a few of our number, and they hardly seemed sorry to go. Then '63 was fairly ushered in, and the tide of battle soon began to turn. There had come a revival of hope since the Mississippi fran unvexedf' and the great invasion of Pennsylvania had closed forever, The Corps itself was growing in membership, Congress had authorized the President to fill, from the young volun- teers at the front, the vacancies left by the temporary absence of many fighting cadets. Then there were queer happenings. There came as plebes, to begin their apprentice- I7 -

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i Eau in I ,Q-.r. .'f2x'?Sit? ..:. we Q xr ' f's...f4f:r .:, , V.,, ,V ,L st:-gifg'.:Qa-is Piss -, mfs,-,ew , .J 5,1 .ga Q n ' f 'f,.:'.-:Uv 4 , 'Q A t-3545? at 1. Wigs' i iii: . .1 ' i , F ,, :rf - ,,s::,,.. .,..... ...f:..f31?'r W7 X, Maha mamma , . ,,f , eu-,........,,,. ..,....,. 5 1 I-1f5m1yA...r::-:F-V ---- --6, - l H j ..,...,,,,,. 1-H 'fit.aEMng4, .-M..- A -J ii ii-he '.,.t.'. , 'fsii .. iii I ?,f5i-mlgfs a . -6 21.2 ff' 52.4 ,,.,,,3.3.3.V if -' ' . , ,531 Y ,. , b,-.ge , 5. -.,.1, 7. in ' 4: jig: ' :jd-1 v..-,1.N5.r, A2.3:'4 ,el-t5,,.g5.? sg., ,A L, 1,-.3,: zphygsw- ltl west 1Buint in the Sixties By CHARLES KING CMajor-General, U. S. A., Retired, Class of '66D HAD often visited the Academy as a boyg was steeped in its legends and tradi- tions, had no higher ambition than to follow in the footsteps of my father and be like him, a VVest Pointer. I studied with adoring eyes the many officers and cadets. Northern and Southern both, who were made welcome at my grandfather's home. He was then President of Columbia College in New York City, and was educating me for Columbia, and anything but a military career. Then came the thunder clap-the guns of Sumter-and We who had refused to listen to the rumblings of the coming storm, were caught in its vortex. Even as a sixteen-year-old boy I had a share at the frontg and then, armed with an appointment at large from the Unknown Westerner, I stood attention to a cadet officer-of-the- day with whom I had shaken hands a few months previous, and was turned over to a brace of cadet corporals for the expected initiation to West Point. Morris Schaff and his few comrades had just received their diplomas, had come in from their last parade, and were 'fchanging the gray for the blue. It was the 11th of June, and I sometimes think the romance and poetry of the ante-bellum period lasted in some measure until Schaff and l1is classmates left us. I know it vanished with them, and we who entered in their stead began a Ugrad-grind -as sombre, as unsentimental a four years' sojourn as was ever there endured. In previous years at West Point the Plebe Class outnumbered the yearlings. In '62 the yearlings outnumbered the plebes, and-never mind the details, I, at least knew just what to expect and got no less than was expected+perhaps no less than I deserved, but from June the 15th to the fag end of August, our immortal seventy had the time of our lives. One way to escape the incessant Work and nagging by day, and Uyankingf' ditching and deviling by night, was to get on guard. My regular tour came about once in seven days, but some upper classman was ever ready to let a plebe take his place on what he considered a bore, and I a blessing. So it often happened that I could 'fmarch on every other day, thanks to the pre-occupation in the Commandant's tent, and walking a cool sentry post the long hours of the night was far better than being snaked out by the heels every live minutes, and slid by scampering, sniggering, light-heeled, light-hearted yearlings all over the camp and sometimes far beyond. I mind me of one occasion, in the starlight and dew of mid- August, when a future major-general and two of his cronies whisked me clear out to Execution I-Iollow and then scurried home. It was a riotous night in camp. Every time a plebe was launched from the tent floor to the hard beaten company street the dust would Hy in clouds. I hated dust and didn't mind dew, so rolled in my grimy blanket and slept sweetly for nearly two hours, till my abductors grew anxious lest the exile shouldn't return in time for reveille, and so came in search. It was fun to see our Commandant next morning curiously studying that long trail from A Company I6 . ,nun I x

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in Et lla at nun fl 11-. -. ,. fm I I 5 ,af- e ' ' hi' yi ..,. - if P 31-' --' ' 'W ' 4 n is A ' ' I '- 1-r s' iw fs-t , - -' , li 'QL 5 1 ' ' 5 i ' Ni , 2 , hifi ' 3? 'WC ' Ka. 11' ' : V 6 -qi '.- . .': - -- -. Q ra- . xi Wea- r- lag 1.11. 61 ,s z 3 N ,fi - QTL-. , ,7if ., j, Q- rg, Vg, 3. ,X ' ' 'N P 'lf A. .. f' , . . I ' ' -4 .. .. ua., N.. ...,. ,.,. -,,, XL I ,.,.. ... .... .. ,. ..- --'- 1... M.. vlS ' is l I H55 . , H ERP v-7 I S'- Y at '1 ia 3 l THE OLD CHAPEL ship at the Point, young men who had fought through every battle of the Armies of the Potomac, or of the West, some of them as commissioned officers. There had come, in the uniform of a sergeant-major, one of the friends of my boyhood whom I had left two years earlier across the Potomac' at Chain Bridge. There had come one who, it was known, had held the rank of captain and assistant adjutant-general of volunteers. There were others of whom it was said that they, too, had held com- missions, though they themselves were reticent. One fine fellow had been the color sergeant of his regiment in the famous assaults on Vicksburg. Another, from Iowa, had won distinction during the siege by covering and capturing single-handed a little party of the enemy in an outwork. I could never find it possible to devil men like these whose careers and campaigns I envied. One chilly evening, late in the fall, the cadet officer-of-the-day, Pirate Vose, and the corporal of the guard, my humble self, were chatting in front of the coal fire in the guardroom when there came a knock at the door, and, as it swung open, there stood revealed a young officer in the dress of the cavalry. Instantly Vose and I sprang to attention and faced him at the salute. Even in that instant I noted the elegance of his uniform, and the grace and dignity of his bearing. He was one of the handsomest fellows I had ever seen, and I wondered who he could be. The next moment he had lifted his forage-cap, bowed gracefully, and in the soft accent of the I8