West Point Military Academy
I reported at West Point on June 1, 1855. I knew nothing of military discipline or ways and was received, as were others at that time, in a most cruel manner by the older cadets.
I was told to report to two older cadets for examination and assignment to quarters. I expected at least serious treatment, but they asked me the most ingeniously foolish questions. I smiled, but with great sternness they demanded I observe proper respect for the officers of the United States Army.
They questioned me on my political and moral principles, adding that they must observe great caution in assigning room-mates, lest injury might happen. Finally, they assigned me to a room with Cadet Martin (J. P.) from Kentucky, hoping that I would find no difficulty in getting along in peace with him.
After being bedeviled for a week or two, I became despondent and homesick, especially as no cadets would recognize me in any friendly manner or speak to me on any but official subjects, except to jeer and deride me.
One day, I was accosted by an old cadet (whom I afterwards learned to be George H. Crosman), the first friendly salutation I had since my entrance. Learning I was from Indiana, he said he was glad to hear it, as it was his State (which was not true) and began asking me if I knew certain persons from that State, some of whom I did. Crosman seemed glad to make my acquaintance and asked me to call on him.
In camp I was assigned to A Company and Crosman belonged to D. Hoping for some relief from extreme despondency and homesickness by making one friend among the higher class, I proceeded to his tent. I found him lying down in his underclothes smoking a meerschaum pipe.
He greeted me cheerfully, invited me to a seat and asked me if I smoked. He expressed astonishment at my reply andstated I would never graduate, that no man ever had graduated who did not smoke, and that I had better begin at once.
I did not wish to smoke and said so.
"Well, that's all right," he replied, "but examine that pipe. That is a fine pipe—a first class meerschaum pipe."
I took the pipe and began to examine it, when, placing his own pipe on the side of his body opposite the sentry walking his beat outside, he called "Number seven, do you see this plebe smoking?"
Immediately the sentry cried, "Corporal of the guard, number seven."
I said, "Mr. Crosman, you are not going to report me for smoking, are you?"
"Well," said he, "if I should, are you going to deny it? What's the use? Didn't that sentry see you with a pipe in your hand and this tent full of smoke? How could you deny it?"
I moved, my impulse being to return to my tent. "But," said he, "don't be a coward, plebe, face the music. Don't run away."
So I sat still waiting results. Shortly I saw a corporal with two men armed with muskets approaching. They marched up facing me, one on each side. Then the corporal sternly ordered me to take my place between them.
When I refused to move each member of the patrol placed an arm under mine, lifting me from my seat. They dragged me along, the corporal placing his bayonet against my back. I was placed in the prisoners' tent. This was in June and the weather was very warm. The walls of the tent were lowered and a sentinel placed over me and I was ordered to take what was then known as the Shanghai step. The tactics had just been changed from Scott's to Hardie's, Hardie's step being quicker and longer than the step formerly used. The exercise I was ordered to take was marking time by raising the feet as high as possible, bringing the knee up against the stomach.
I did this until wet with perspiration and so exhaustedthat I almost fell. Presently the sentinel called, "Turn out the guard, Officer of the Day," when they hustled me with other prisoners to form on the left of the guard.
The officer of the day was Cadet Lieutenant Porter, whom I had met. My hopes brightened, thinking I would be released as soon as the circumstances became known. When he came to me, he remarked, "Why, plebe, what are you confined for?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Well," said he, "if you don't know, I think I will keep you in confinement until you find out."
I remained a prisoner until late in the evening, exercised frequently, when the guard was again turned out. This time, as the officer of the day said, "Well, plebe, have you found out yet what you are confined for?" I replied, "Yes, sir."
"Well, what is it?"
"For smoking," said I.
"That's not a very serious offense. Will you promise not to let it occur again if I release you?"
"Certainly," I replied, and was released.
I resolved to punish Crosman physically, but at the January examination he was deficient and discharged. Before he left he came to see me. "Plebe," he said cheerfully, "I am going away. Here's a set of text books for your next course. If you will accept them, I will give them to you." My impulse was to refuse and force him from my room, but, on better thought, I accepted the books and thanked him.
He afterwards became a captain in the Tenth Infantry.
This was an extreme case of hazing of the kind that eventually brought it into disrepute. I believe hazing held within bounds is of benefit to the academy, in teaching the bumptious and presumptuous how little they are prepared to enter a life of absolute discipline, and how little imaginary personal, social, or political superiority has to do with their future training.
Long experience as a commanding officer has borne out mybelief that the graduate (by reason of the cadet being placed upon honor in all communications with his superiors) is generally superior to other commissioned officers. But I am willing to admit that Crosman's apparent cruelties and other similar vicissitudes better qualified me to fight successfully my long battle of life.
One of the things that impressed me most during my stay at the academy was the painting above the chancel, "Peace and War" by Professor Robert Wier. Underneath it was written, "Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people." The painting was so beautiful and the sentiments so inspiring that it impressed me all my life.
Among the two hundred and fifty cadets was more diversity in dialect, pronunciation, and ways of thought than there had been at Charlotteville. One could soon tell, after a brief conversation, what part of the country one's companion was from. There was so little traveling from State to State that almost every State had its own dialect, as well as peculiar theories of morals, politics and government. The Kansas troubles were then at their height and there were many encounters between the extremists of the North and the extremists of the South, but, after a year or two at the academy, each became reconciled to the other's ways so that the corps, as a body, was more homogeneous than the people at large.
Cadet life then was much simpler than now. Our dining table was without covering, our tableware heavy Delft, and the diet very simple. Years afterward my classmate Samuel Cushing and I were guests in the barracks at the centennial commencement. To our astonishment the adjutant read an order: "Cadets of the first class (graduating) will turn in their napkin rings immediately after guard mount." Cushing jokingly drew his sleeve across his mouth indicative of the absence of napkins in our day.
My experience with the Kentucky rifle had made me one of the best shots in the corps. After marching off guard, it was the custom for each member to go to the target range andfire at a target, the man making the best shot being excused from his next tour of guard duty. I frequently got excused for this excellence.
In camp, I drew a beautiful musket, new, clean, undented, with a curled walnut stock, and my mechanical experience enabled me to make it the handsomest gun in the corps. At guard mount it was the adjutant's duty to select three cadets having the cleanest uniforms and rifles for the "color guard." When the corps stacked muskets at dress parade in the morning, these three color guards walked post in front of these rifles for two hours only, after which they were given freedom for the day. I frequently was detailed on this guard.
We were not allowed to go off the reservation without permission, but on one occasion I was seized with a desire to "run it." Getting a ferryman to take me across the Hudson to Cold Springs, I procured a bottle of brandy. As it was contraband, I placed it under my tent floor.
We were required to keep our brasses and other trimmings bright, but were prohibited from using oxalic acid. Nevertheless, many of the cadets used acid for cleaning brasses, keeping the bottle well hidden.
Unfortunately, I placed my brandy near my oxalic acid bottle. At my suggestion my tentmate, Andrews, drew out what he supposed was the brandy, pouring out a drink. It burned his mouth, so he spit it out, saying, "That's not brandy."
"Of course it is. Give it to me," I said, impetuously taking a big swallow. Immediately it began to burn. Lighting a candle, Andrews cried, "Mills, you have taken acid." Someone called out I was poisoned, and older cadets begged me to run to the hospital. I ran through the sentinel's post without permission or my cap to the surgeon's office. The German steward produced a ball of chalk about the size of a small orange and told me to eat! It was an unsavory meal, but I swallowed it; and the steward told me I would be all right, which I was.
The story spread through the whole corps, even to the instructing officers, and I never heard the last of it.
It was then the custom for cadets to settle private quarrels by personal combat. Cadet Wesley Merritt, of my company and class, and I, each weighed about one hundred and sixty pounds, were five feet ten and a half inches in height, as near physically equal as any two men could be. A question of veracity arising between us, our friends decided we should go down by Dade's monument and settle the matter. Merritt selected his tentmate, Alfred T. Smith, and I mine, John N. Andrews, to act as seconds.
Although our hearts were not in it, and we were always the best of friends afterward, we had one of the hardest fights that took place while I was at the academy. We were finally separated by our seconds, covered with blood, and started back to camp, when, like Roderick's Clan Alpines in the Lady of the Lake, nearly a hundred cadets, secretly assembled as spectators, arose from the surrounding foliage.
General Scott was a great friend of the academy and of the cadets, and often visited us. Once when a plebe in camp, I was on post No. 1 at the guard house. As was his habit when walking out, General Scott wore all the gaudy uniform to which he was entitled. The corporal of the guard called out to me: "Be careful; General Scott is approaching."
As he arrived at the proper distance, I called out, "Turn out the guard; Commander-in-Chief of the United States forces."
General Scott halted, faced me, threw his right hand to his military chapeau with its flaming plume, raised it high in his hand, and called out in a very stern military manner: "Never mind the guard, sir."
He was the most formidable, handsome, and finest-looking man I have ever seen, and carried himself with all the pomp of his high position. Every military man admired him.
Congress had passed a law making the course at West Point five, instead of four years, which necessitated dividing the class ahead of mine in two parts, so that our class was more than twice as large as either of the two classes preceding it.It may be that there was more or less disposition to equalize the classes. However that may be, in the February examination, I was found deficient in mathematics and resigned. Although realizing that I had no just complaint, I was so greatly humiliated, I was ashamed to go home.
I therefore wrote my father that, as he had favored me above the rest of his children, I wished him to leave me out of any consideration in the distribution of his property, but to give it exclusively to my brothers and sisters, and that I would show the world I could make a living for myself.
Although not a graduate, I have always had the greatest respect for the teachings and discipline of the academy. I believe the U. S. Military Academy has turned out the best officers known to the world's history. Schaff says, in "The Spirit of old West Point," that my class was not only the largest, but the most distinguished during that period. Of this class nine became general officers, and nine were killed in battle.