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REVIEW
ART. IX. History of West
Point; its Military Importance during the American Revolution, and
the Origin and Progress of the United States Military
Academy.
By
Captain EDWARD C. BOYNTON, A. M.,
Adjutant
of the Military Academy.
New
York: D. Van Nostrand. 1863.
in The
North American Review.
Volume
98, Issue 203, April 1864
THE simple name of West Point is of as wide and varied
significance as that of any spot in American geography. It has
more than one special history, and yet all its histories are
blended together in harmonious connection, linking the past with
the present, the physical with the moral, the glories of our
heroic age with the stern necessities, and, let us hope, the
greater glories of present power and justice and hope. The spirit
of Washington still walking upon its plain, and speaking from its
inland summits, inspires and encourages the youthful soldiers who
are, perhaps, yet to strike manful blows against a mighty treason,
and lend their aid in saving the country which he and his worthy
compeers fought to establish through long years of weakness and
hardship and despondency.
West Point may be considered, then, in reference to its
importance as a military position in the Revolutionary period; or
it may be treated in its character as the seat of the only
military school of the nation.
In the former view, it is full of undying interest, and might
readily demand all our space. The military student sees in it a
decisive strategic point, qf great importance to both the American
and British armies.
To the British its possession was an object of great value,
because, could they occupy it, they would remove the chief
obstacle to a junction between the forces of General Sir Henry
Clinton in New York and those of General Burgoyne in Canada. To
keep the navigation of the Hudson River clear and unimpeded was to
have the means of sending supplies and troops in either direction,
and thus to have two noble bases of operation, New York city, with
its splendid harbor, and Canada, with its importations of men and
supplies from England by the St. Lawrence.
To the Americans it was of double and most vital importance.
Not only did its bold, fortified headland, its terraced forts and
batteries, and its flanking redoubts on Constitution Island and
the opposite shore, impede the junction of the British forces and
their use of the river, but it protected the single, well-guarded
ferry which kept open the communication between the Patriot forces
in New England and those in the Middle and Southern States. It is
not too much to say, that the permanent loss of this post would
have done more to retard our final success thani any other
military event that could have occurred at that time, and possibly
have so discouraged our armies as to lead to some unsatisfactory
compromise.
Early engaging the attention of the Congress, boards of
officers were appointed by whom plans were devised for a thorough
system of fortification, which should include Martelaers Rock on
Constitution Island, both banks of the Hudson, and means for the
obstruction of the river, to prevent British vessels from passing
in either direction. The command was in- trusted first to General
George Clinton, and soon after to General Putnam; but before the
plans could be carried out, a large and well-appointed force,
under Sir Henry Clinton, swept up from New York, in October, 1777,
stormed Forts Montgomery and Fort Clinton, and threatened to
secure the desired junction with Burgoyne.
But that general was having his own troubles in the net of
Saratoga. To the inexpressible mortification of Sir Henry Clinton,
the news came that Burgoyne had surrendered to Gates; and so,
after occupying West Point for not more than twenty days, Clinton
dismantled the works, and took himself back to his head-quarters
in New York.
From this lesson, sad as it was, the Americans learned wisdom.
The fortifications, modified by their late painful experience,
were pushed forward with great vigor. A great boom and chain some
links of the latter are still preserved at West Point were
stretched across the river, and the Hudson, as a strategic line,
was entirely lost to the English. How valuable they considered it
we may learn from their secret efforts after- wards to obtain
possession of it, through the intrigues of André and the
treachery of Arnold.
But to the student of military history it presents other
claims. Here Washington had his head-quarters for a time; here he
issued the order of congratulation to General Wayne for his
brilliant storming of Stony Point; here, in an order still
preserved at the Military Academy, he denounced the irreligious
and unmanly vice of profane swearing.
But, besides such interests, here was the scene of the rarest,
because the most real, romance of the Revolution, truth stranger
and more heart stirring than any fiction. Here Arnold sold his
country, in devilish purpose at least, and his soul, for ten
thousand pounds and a British epaulette; and here, to gain the
great strategic point of the North for his king and his general,
Andr6 madly threw away a bright young life, which might have
become, in more honorable actions, as famous as that of the captor
of Quebec. His sad fate, while illustrating a noble resignation in
his ignominy, also displays the good common-sense and
incorruptible firmness of Washington, which called forth the
anathemas of British poetry, the denunciations of Lord Mahon, and
the admiration of his own countrymen. The story, in all its
details, is never old. We recur to it with new interest whenever
we think of West Point in the Revolution.
Thus much of the Revolutionary history. Besides these historic
charms, Nature has endowed the spot with fairest beauties. It is a
place for a poet to dream in. The broad expanse of the Upper
Hudson, shut in by distant Newburg, is like a noble lake in some
alpine region. Cro'nest and its companion summits, a thousand feet
high, rise beetling over the little skiff which drifts at their
feet, grander than Ehrenbreitstein and "the castled crag of
Drachenfels." Wandering backward from its present beauties to
the hallowed memories of the older day, the poet tunes his harp to
tell how
"Sights and sounds at which the world have wondered
Within these wild ravines have had their birth; Young Freedoms
cannon from these glens have thundered, And sent their
startling echoes oer the earth; And not a verdant glade nor
mountain hoary But treasures up within the glorious
story."
Truly, in other pages, and under other inspirations, West
Point, had it no other history, would tempt the man of fancy and
feeling to emulate the poet in other fables suggested by the
genius loci, a spirit at once Protean, fantastic, and fascinating.
But the older history and the perennial poetry of the place are
not within our present scope. The former is to be found most
carefully and lucidly set forth in Captain Boyntons excellent and
elaborate book; and the latter remains, as far as we are now
concerned, whether it burst into song or not, the possession of
every sensitive soul that visits the beautiful spot,
"When the
moon looks down on old Cro'nest,
And softens the
shades on his shaggy breast.
The design of this paper is chiefly to consider the Military
Academy at West Point, in its organization and progress, its
practical workings, and its results. The prominent part it is
playing in the present war has made it a topic of wide discussion.
It has its sworn friends, ready to do battle for it a
l'outrance; it has its bitter, uncompromising, hereditary
enemies, who, from generation to generation, have tried to destroy
it, men who now represent the minority of sixteen, who, against
the vote of ninety-five, refused to join in establishing it on a
permanent basis in 1808; and besides these two hostile parties,
there are many who cannot make up their minds as to its utility,
but who want instruction concerning it. To this third class we
address ourselves, feeling very sure that we cannot weaken the
love or add to the hatred of the other two.
A dispassionate mind, then, would seek, we think, to discover
its excellences, its faults, and its needs. To this investigation
let us address ourselves. We must, of course, take for granted
many of the historical statistics, on the part of our readers, of
which if they are ignorant, we refer them to Captain Boyntons
volume, and to General Cullums register of the officers and
graduates, a beadroll of honor to which all soldiers must point
with admiration and pride.
The first requisite of an army is good officers: they make the
men. The ignorance and worthlessness of many of our officers
during the Revolutionary War soon manifested the necessity of a
military school; the Steuben tactics of Valley Forge even
demonstrated the power of military education to make an army out
of a motley crowd of half-starved, half-naked men. But during the
fierce, protracted, and sometimes seemingly hopeless struggle of
the Revolution, although committees were appointed, and
discussions had in and out of Congress, it became evident that
nothing could be done for military education until after the
peace. It was the day of action, with whatever weapon could be
grasped; it was no time to be learning elementary modes.
The peace came, and with it the necessity seemed to many to
disappear. There were quidnuncs then the species is not yet
extinct who applied the philosophy of the man whose roof leaked
during the rain. You could not, they said, have a military academy
during the war, because you were too much engaged in other
matters. Now peace has come, and we do not want one.
But not thus reasoned our great men. General Knox made a
report, a short time after peace was concluded, strongly urging
the establishment of a school for the instruction of engineer and
artillery officers; and West Point was proposed as the locality,
because of its strategic importance, exposed to a coup de main,
and yet the very key of the Hudson River. Thus it was designed to
accomplish the double purpose of a military school and a strong
military post. Washington and Jefferson, also, rendered wise by
the experience of our armies, wrote earnest letters advocating the
establishment of a military academy.
By reason of these and similar endeavors, the Congress was led
to institute, in 1794, more than ten years after the peace, a
corps of artillery and engineers, to which a small number of
cadets was attached, who were undergoing preparatory instruction
for appointments in those arms. The corps and the number of cadets
were increased in 1798, and provision, although very inadequate,
was made for their education in elementary branches. This,
although not even the beginning of the present Military Academy,
was of great value, because it was a recognition, however feeble,
of the need of military education; and the need once generally
acknowledged, sooner or later it will be supplied.
Such a twilight led at last to the dawning. By the act of March
16, 1802, the Corps of Engineers was made distinct from the
Artillery, and was stationed at West Point to constitute a
Military Academy. The cadets became warrant-officers of the
Engineer Corps. It is not our purpose to consider the steps of
legislation, always more or less impeded by the opposition of
ignorant men, by which the Military Academy passed from its feeble
and uncertain beginnings, with ten cadets and a few officers of
the army as instructors, to its present eminent usefulness, with a
faculty of authoritative professors and instructors, superior in
numbers and composition, we believe, to that of any institution of
learning in the country, with its corps of two hundred and fifty
cadets, soon doubtless to be increased, and its long and brilliant
list of alumni, whose names not only adorn our annals of war on
every battle-field of this century, but are also intimately
associated with the prosperity and honor of the country in all its
pacific progress and relations.
If we search for the principal periods in its history, we shall
find them sufficiently marked to indicate its progress at a
passing glance. In 1801, before the legislation which incorporated
the present institution, we are told that it was under the
direction of a private citizen (George Barrow), and was nothing
more than a mathematical school for the few cadets that were theii
in service. Then came the new order of things, under the act of
Congress in 1802. From this time there is little of importance to
record until 1808, when we find it under the energetic direction
of Colonel Jonathan Williams, of the Engineers, the first
superintendent, whose report of that year gives us clear
information of its character and condition. Even then it was
struggling for life. In the words of Colonel Williams, -
"The Military Academy, as it now stands, is like a
foundling, barely existing among the mountains, and nurtured
at a distance out of sight, and almost unknown to its
legitimate parents. The questions that have been frequently
put to the subscriber by members of Congress, evidently show
that the little interest the institution has excited arises
solely from its being unknown to those who ought to be, and
doubtless would willingly become, its generous guardians and
powerful protectors. Had it been so attached to the government
(its real and only parent) as to be always with it, always in
sight, and always in the way of its fostering care, it would
probably have flourished, and have become an honorable and
interesting appendage to the national family."
This attachment to the government was exactly what it needed,
but it was to strengthen only as the Academy gave proofs of its
utility, as it was to do in the troublous times immediately
following this report. Although war with England did not actually
break out until 1812, the prospect of it was close and imminent
for four years preceding the declaration. In 1812, the military
necessities of the country placed the Military Academy upon
something more like its present basis. The number of the
Professors was increased by the establishment of chairs of Natural
and Experimental Philosophy, of Mathematics, and of English
studies. A chaplain was appointed, and the maximum number of
cadets placed at two hundred and sixty. And yet there was much to
be done. System and order were needed. Captain Boynton, speaking
of the condition of things at that time, says: The cadets were not
regarded as amenable to martial law, no class-rank was
established, no register of the classes was published, and, in the
assignment to positions in the army, they demanded the right to
elect such corps as seemed to them most satisfactory. A master
hand was needed to arrange a system and to put it into successful
operation. And that master hand was found in the person of
Brevet-Major Sylvanus Thayer, of the Corps of Engineers, who
became the Superintendent in 1817. Major Thayer remodelled
the entire system of interior arrangements, supplying much that
was original and excellent. Himself an early graduate of the
Academy, who had vindicated the teach ings of his Alma Mater by
his personal conduct in the war of 1812, lie had also studied
abroad in the military schools of France, and had given special
attention to the subject of military education. He thus brought to
his task intelligence, well-digested practical knowledge combined
with great energy, and, more than all, a peculiar gift of natural
fitiiess, which soon displayed astoiiishing results. The historian
of West Point, although required to give the earlier statistics of
its progress, must date the efficient organization of the Academy,
the harmonious union of its almost chaotic elements into a working
system, to the Superintendency of Major (now Colonel)
Thayer.
He organized the cadets into a battalion of two companies,
further divided for purposes of drill into eight, and appointed
meritorious and soldierly cadets as officers. This latter was, and
has since proved itself, an admirable system, inciting the cadets
to an honorable rivalry, and giving them practical instruction in
command. He also established the office of Commandant of cadets,
who should be the instructor in tactics; and to this office were
appointed by selection the most accomplished officers of the army.
We need only mention the names of General Worth and General C. F.
Smith, who were Commandants at different times, to show what
models were placed before the cadets as infantry soldiers.
In the department of catechetical instruction Major Thayer was
equally active and creative. He divided the classes into sections
of from eight to twelve cadets each, so that each cadet, as a
general rule, recited every day in each branch, - would that our
colleges could compass this! - and required the publication to the
cadets of weekly marks, so that every cadet might know exactly
where he stood at the end of every week, - another plan which we
commend to our colleges.
Major Thayer established class-rank, published an annual
register, in which the classes were arranged according to merit,
gave great preponderance to the blackboard in recitations,
compiled the excellent Regulations of the Military Academy, and
introduced several new branches of study.
In 1818, Mr. Calhoun was the Secretary of War, and, how-
ever the country, to the latest generations, must abhor those
principles which were at least one powerful source of the later
mammoth treason, West Point owes much to his fostering care and
attention. In a letter to the Superintendent, written in February,
1818, he declares the determination of the Department "to aid
in elevating the system of discipline, and to create a spirit of
emulation among the cadets," and he adds "that in future
wars the nation must look to the Academy for the skill to conduct
valor to victory." It was by direction of Mr. Calhoun,
in furtherance of this determination, that the names of the five
most distinguished cadets in each class were annually published,
as a mark of honor, in the Army Register. In the same year two
general examinations of the cadets were established, in January
and June, and Boards of Visitors were appointed to the June
examination, selected from the most distinguished citizens in
different parts of the country. Cadets were also now finally
declared to be amenable to martial law, and brought before
courts-martial for trial.
We are sorry, for want of space, to pass over in few words the
useful administrations of Major De Russy, Colonel Delafield, and
Colonel Brewerton. Under the two last the post of West Point was
greatly improved, many new houses built, and the efficiency of the
Academy in every way increased. The present Rebel generalissimo,
Lee, was also for a short time the Superintendent, and a very
efficient one, of the Academy.
In 1839, Mr. Poinsett, then Secretary of War, gave a new and
most interesting feature to the Academy by the introduction of
horses for cavalry and artillery exercise, thus giving
completeness to the institution as an instructor in all parts of a
military education. From that time there has been continual
progress and development, and West Point at this time may claim
not only to give the most thorough instruction in the branches it
professes to teach, but to furnish as complete and harmonious a
connection of those branches as it is possible to adjust in one
Academy and in the period of four years. We may state, in passing,
that the average annual cost of the Academy to the country in late
years is about $160,000; while the entire expense to the
government, from 1802 to 1863, is $7,133,235.70. Let the
intelligent reader decide whether this is much or little. Let him
weigh the manifold duty done, in one scale, against the ponderable
gold, in the other.
Before leaving this part of the subject, we wish to say a word
respecting the Boards of Visitors, who annually assemble to
witness the June examination, and to report to the War Department
upon the condition of the Institution. In one view, they are
beneficial. Appointed, by a regular system, from the different
portions of the country, and from among men of influence, they
keep the institution before the people, and carry with them to
their distant homes some idea of its plan and its workings. But
the members are generally selected, not for their military
knowledge, but simply because they are men of station. They rarely
bring intelligent scrutiny to their task, and as a general rule
the reports of the Board of Visitors have no weight with the
Department. It would be far better for the President to appoint
distinguished military men on such boards, or to have distinct
boards of inspection, one to please and give general information
concerning the institution to the people, and the other to report
intelligently upon the wants and faults of the Academy, with a
view to their speedy supply and amendment.
With these very brief statements of the origin and progress of
the Military Academy, we pass to the consideration of a few of the
leading questions concerning the value of West Point to the
nation. Is it a success? Has it been useful? Is it worth the
outlay? Should it be sustained, and even enlarged? At first
glance, we might wonder that these questions are ever asked; but,
strange as it may seem, there are not wanting those who seriously
propound them. While a large number - including, without an
exception, we believe, all those who have had the honor to
graduate there - are enthusiastic concerning its great excellence,
its thorough teaching, the noble and brilliant actions of its
graduates from the beginning, there have been, as we have already
stated, in all periods of its legislative history, bitter and
uncompromising enemies, in and out of Congress, who have done
everything in their power to break it up entirely, and leave us
without any military school.
Let us look at some of the natural causes of this hostility.
With some patriotic men it has been due to the fear of a military
establishment, or even the nucleus of one, a miniature praetorian
guard, which might endanger the liberties of the country. To such
minds the pruning-hook is in great danger from the sword; a
uniform is the Devils livery, and an army only at home in
Pandemonium. These abstract views, not espoused by the many, find
a fallacious support in the assertion that a well-disciplined
militia is the bulwark of the commonwealth. We want no army; the
people are army enough. But those who torture this noble truth
into a weapon against West Point, neglect to consider that good
discipline must come by education, and West Point is after all
only a training school to fit men to discipline the militia.
Without this training, militia, as meaning soldiery, is a
misnomer.
Again, the necessarily small number of cadets at one school, in
so large and growing a country as ours, has led to the
disappointment of many applicants who could not get appointments
as cadets. Disappointed men become bitter. Grapes that cannot be
reached after the most vigorous leaps, are sour; and so West Point
is denounced.
And yet again, when, through the rigorous but just discipline
of the Academy, it happens that the sons or relatives of
narrow-minded and selfish men are dismissed for incompetence or
misbehavior, the fathers or uncles feel themselves in honor and
duty bound to oppose and attack an institution that dared to send
away one who was destined, under proper training and just
treatment, to become a distinguished soldier. Unjust as this is,
it has its source in human nature, and there is no more to be said
concerning it. But we are told that West Point men are scornful
and unkind in their treatment of volunteer officers, and that the
latter become jealous and retaliatory. The vast difference, as a
general rule, in military intelligence and utility between regular
and volunteer officers may explain this, and we are compelled to
allow that often-time accusation is just, based as it is, however,
upon a fallacy. To this we shall presently recur.
These and other "idols of the tribe" or of "the
den", may be mentioned as prime causes of the hostility which
has been manifested towards the Military Academy; but surely our
readers will see at a glance that such motives, and the actions to
which they lead, are not worthy of serious consideration. If they
exist as we have stated them, they fall to the ground by their own
weight, and we need waste no logic upon them. Were it proper to
cite individual cases, we could give numerous illustrations under
each head.
But the question is not with such men, or their opinions. Let
us rather study the character of West Point in its intrinsic and
extrinsic relations, and inquire into the valid objections which
may be made to it. We shall thus see whether it has succeeded in
giving a good military education; in what respects it has failed;
what it needs to make it better; or, if radically wrong, how it
may be reconstructed and improved. Of course, we take for granted
that there are few if any in this day who desire its entire
destruction. Let us put our investigation in the form of answers
to the patent objections which have been brought against it.
The principal objection now made against West Point training
is, that it has not made great generals. It educates, and dwarfs
in the process, drill officers, instead of making cormmanders.
Of course, those who make this objection will concede that it
is equally forcible against all elementary military instruction in
the actual art of war. No military knowledge, as such, can make
generals. Generalship ( ,
the art of leading armies) is genius, a gift of God to individuals
; it is only soldiership that is an acquisition. But it is a
truism to say that genius is most useful when fully instructed. As
the poet who "is born" does not and cannot scorn
learning and culture, so the general must be an educated soldier.
The Iliad is the compend of the early Greek culture; an inspired
Moses is learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; the "Divina
Commedia" owes its wondrous and powerful delineations not
more to the wild imagination of the exiled Florentine than to his
varied knowledge of poetry, polity, and history, to the wars of
Guelf and Ghibelline, Pope and Emperor. Milton must range over the
entire scope of Grecian learning, borrowing from Aeschylus and the
later poets some of his choicest fancies and most striking
expressions.
But why need we illustrate by analogous instances? Caesar must
use the Tenth Roman Legion, perfected for him at an earlier period
and by other men; Parma, the forts and bridges of Italian origin;
Frederick, the matchless drill of his fathers tall grenadiers; and
Napoleon, not only the tactics, organization, and cannon of the
earlier wars of the Republic, but the early training under
Pichegru and other eminent masters at the military school of
Brienne.
Generals, then, are born and made. Genius is the germinating
seed, development its growth into the full and stately tree. But
further to carry out the figure, experience, long and even painful
experience, is the wind and the rain, the light and the air, which
must nurture this slow and real growth. The making process is slow
and hard, whatever be the genius.
But granting that generals cannot be altogether made, that the
germ must preexist, that great commanders are great geniuses, how
is it with the large masses of men who aspire to be officers, -
with the subordinates, who in numbers bear the pro- portion to
generals of thousands to units? These stand in closer and more
intimate relations with the soldiers: these should certainly be
educated. Let us grant that they have only ordinary talent, such
as men bring to the various business by which they gain their
livelihood ; what is to render this most useful? what but military
education, an encyclopaedia of natural sciences and industrial
arts, mathematics, mechanics, physics, history, directly applied
in all branches of the military art, with a knowledge of such
languages as enable research in these branches, and enlarged
communication with men?
Men who defend the instructions of West Point should meet the
sneers with which some speak of West Point generals, first, with
the concession that West Point cannot and does not arro- gate
omnipotence in giving men original genius, and then let them point
to Grant, McClellan, Halleck, Meade, Hancock, Hooker, Rosecrans,
Sherman, Reynolds, Sedgwick, and a hundred others, as a tacit
assertion that West Point has so fostered and instructed, if it
have not created, genius, that no uneducated genius has been found
fit to take the place of its educated developments. Quite as
striking are the illustrations of military excellence among West
Point men in the Rebel armies. Lee, Beauregard, Longstreet, both
the Hills, Ewell, Johnston, Hardee, and a score of others,
traitors and rebels though they be, are admirable soldiers and
excellent generals. Where are the exceptions on either side? There
are a few, among whom Banks and Butler may be named, but they are
very few in comparison with the long list of West Point generals.
And let it be further observed, that the young men who receive
appointments to West Point, in most cases, manifest in earlier
life a decided bent towards a military career; they think they
find in themselves a genius for war, just as one boy does for
trade, or another for the bar, or a third for medicine; and we
shall see that we are more likely to find military genius at West
Point than anywhere else.
Another objection takes the harsh, and we think mistaken form,
that West Point, which should, above all other institutions,
inculcate national and patriotic sentiments, has been in reality a
nest of treason, out of which rebels spring full-fledged at the
first tocsin note of Southern treason. With the deepest sorrow,
dissatisfaction, and regret at the defection of so many of our
best West Point officers when the war began, we can not but regard
this assertion as based upon an entire error. We speak from
certain and intimate knowledge of a long period of West Point
history when we say, that the doctrine of our perpetual
nationality was ever placed in the fore-front of instruction and
practice there; that the standard which displays it was always
duly honored as our only emblem of sovereignty; that the morning
gun which accompanied its graceful rise upon the flag-staff, and
the reverberations that told of its nightly de- scent, taught
their daily lesson of reverence and love; that a sectional opinion
was never set forth; that the Constitution of the United States,
as yearly expounded, was made to teach its truest lesson, that the
Union meant our country, and that disunion was the rankest
treason.
If, then, we are asked to account for the resignation of so
many of our best officers at the very first call of Secession, the
answer is very simple. It was the result of that mistaken,
pernicious, unconstitutional doctrine of State Rights which had
been so long taught at the South, which had been fostered by a
difference of manners, customs, and interests, principally due to
slavery, and which was not a little aided by the favor of a party,
and not a small one, at the North. Many of the young men who were
sent to West Point had these principles instilled into them before
they went, and while there were by no means removed from home
teachings. The best, the most patriotic instructions of West
Point, were not proof against the seductions of friends and the
enticements of home. Principle is weak against such allurements.
Many struggled hard against the enemy in the form of the Siren.
Lee, one of the very best men among the Rebel leaders, an ornament
to our arms before his disgrace, thought long and in solitude,
with bitter tears and many prayers, before he flung away his
loyalty for no better reason than a mistaken interpretation of the
grand motto, Noblesse oblige. Stone wall Jackson, one of
the grandest soldiers of the age, twirled his thumbs for an hour,
and satisfied him- self without a scrap of logic to help him; -
"Secession is wrong, but, if Virginia secedes, I must go with
her", and he went. He never fought, except at Antietam, off
Virginia soil, and then he declared he was fighting in her defence.
Indeed, he is asserted to have said distinctly that he would not
fight elsewhere for the Confederacy. Huger held on long, and then,
resigning, declared that he would remain neutral. How impossible!
Longstreet, urged by his uncle, who had strenuously opposed
Secession at first, remained in our service until his State
seceded, and then, as he retired, declared that he would never
fight against the old flag. Would that he had kept his word! Was
West Point responsible for these things? As well charge upon
Cambridge teaching the fact that her Southern alumni are now in
Southern ranks, as charge the army defection to West Point. But
treason is treason, and the shades are not very different, whether
it lead Floyd and Cobb and Slidell and others to leave the fat
offices of the capital for what they hope will prove fatter
offices in the Confederacy, or an army officer to send in his
resignation. Or, with a closer analogy, quite as well charge the
navy with being a school of treason and hotbed of Secession,
because Maury deserted his astronomic post, and Semmes and Maflit
bravely burn help- less merchantmen, while they are very careful
to elude the guns of our men-of-war.
But it is further urged that West Point is too exclusive. This
charge refers, first, to the comparatively small number of cadets;
secondly, to the mode of appointment; and thirdly, by a slight
straining of the word, to the conduct and deportment of its
graduates in the army. Let us look at these objections in their
order. As to the small numbers that may be educated there, it
should be remembered that the Academy was established on its
present basis to supply our military needs in the day of small
things; and, to show that it was more than sufficient for that
day, we may state that, when the Mexican war broke out, and even
after the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca, there was an excess of
graduates, in the shape of supernumerary officers, attached to the
different arms as Brevet Second Lieutenants. In the artillery arm
alone there were more than twenty, who, however, were quickly
absorbed by the losses in the succeeding Mexican battles. Our
present needs are immeasurably greater, and the objection in this
form is of great force. The number of cadets should be increased,
or other schools established to instruct in partial military
courses.
In considering the second form of the objection, which is
brought against the mode of appointment, we are also obliged to
acknowledge its validity. The members of Congress in both houses
have each the nomination of a cadet, not annually, but for the
four years course. The President of the United States has the
power to appoint a few at large, or from no special district or
locality. We believe that the appointments have been honestly
made, and as well as this mode will allow. There has been little
if any nepotism. Poor mens sons are as often appointed, if
meritorious, as those of the rich and influential. In what, then,
is the system faulty? In that the appointers are not always
competent judges, or cannot take the trouble to inquire much into
the merits of special cases. Thus numbers go to West Point only to
be sent away after a short sojourn; they incur the disgrace of
dismission, and carry to all the points of the compass harsh and
false statements of West Point rigors and injustice. But a far
greater evil grows out of this. As each member of Congress can
appoint but one, practically it often happens that only one or two
can come before him with such claims as seem to merit his
consideration.
To remove these evils, we propose that examining boards should
be appointed - of competent officers - in various parts of the
country, and that all young men of a certain age and physical
soundness, who can bring testimonials of good moral character, and
a prescribed amount of preparatory knowledge, should be permitted
to appear before these boards. The examination should be careful
and rigorous, and upon some of the subjects now taught in the
first year at West Point, with a view of enlarging and elevating
the curriculum there. In this way the best material would he
obtained, the positions would be thrown open to universal
competition, and the existing error of exclusiveness, growing out
of the mode of appointment, be entirely removed. No harm can thus
be done to anybody, while great good will accrue to the
service.
There remains to be considered, under this general and somewhat
vague head of exclusiveness, the charge of arrogance on the part
of the eleves of the Military Academy. They look, it is
said, with contempt upon all others, and despise even the honest
efforts of volunteers to do their duty. Frankly confessing that
this charge, sometimes at least, is not without foundation in
truth, we must seek for the causes of such deportment before a
final judgment upon it. We shall not justify it, but we think
former circumstances, not hereafter to be pleaded to the same
extent, will at least palliate it. We speak, of course, only of
the conduct of West Point officers to other men in military
positions; for in the great world, and to the mass of citizens ,
graduates of West Point are favorites, partly because of their
manly bearing acquired in their early training. More than any
other diploma in the country, that of the West Point graduate has
been received as a passport to good society; it is even recognized
abroad as the readiest claim of admission into the best
circles.
To come back, then, to military men and matters, it is to be
regretted that West Point men ever put on, as some do, an air of
contemptuous superiority towards volunteer and militia officers.
What is the ground for such conduct? In the former days, when the
army was small, there were very few regular officers -only here
and there one - who were appointed from civil life. The roll of
officers was made up almost entirely of West Point men. As a
general rule, to which there were noble exceptions, civilians who
became officers in the army gained their appointments through
family influence, and were ignorant of the first principles of the
military art, and mistaken in their conception of a soldiers life.
Appointed to fill vacancies for which cadets had been struggling
for four years, many of them dropped off from time to time, to
avoid exposure, leaving the few real and honorable exceptions to
pursue their solitary career.
It was at such a time, and towards such men, that the con-
tempt or arrogance of the graduates was mainly displayed. It would
have been better, indeed, to have done all in their power to
elevate and educate the citizen thus appointed; but, wrong as it
was, it was more natural for them to manifest an impatience at
ignorance and inaptitude, and a dissatisfaction at the neglect of
the claims of anxious and expectant cadets. But the complaint goes
further, and justly too. It may be brought against the manner in
which our regular officers have treated volunteers when brought
into service with them. Here, as before, notwithstanding the
education. of the one and the common ignorance of the other, this
was manifestly wrong. The volunteers who, in any war, give up
business and comfort to support the honor of our arms, deserve
great credit for their self-denial, and great patience with their
early lack of military knowledge. Our experience has been, that
they are eager to learn, modest in their endeavors, and acquire
tactical knowledge rapidly. It is just at the beginning that they
need counsel and comfort, instead of contemptuous rebuke, such as
they have too often met.
But let no one, in his eagerness to support the volunteers,
doubt for an instant that the real difference existed. In Mexico,
when a battery was to be stormed, more than once have brave
volunteers said, "Give us a company of regulars to lead
us." West Point men, educated from childhood to be soldiers
by profession, sometimes forget what is due to patriotism and
valor without pretension, and have treated volunteers badly. Such
are the facts; such the reasons; we attempt no further
vindication.
But all this, as to reasons at least, and we hope as to facts,
is now changed. Honoring as we do the noble education imparted at
West Point, we must see that there is another vast school of the
military art and of military practice, in which the pupils number
more than half a million. When Napoleon said to the cammissaire
who objected to give him an important command on account of his
youth, One grows old rapidly on the field of battle,? his remark
implied that one learned rap- idly, gathered in months what
book-knowledge would not teach in years, and, thus acquiring the
practical, reasoned back with the greatest ease to the merely
theoretical. And now West Point men, although they have a better
basis of knowledge, although still and ever in the front of the
military profession, have not the shadow of an excuse for assuming
superiority to veteran volunteers, who have learned their best
drill under many a storm of fire, and graduated with high honors
on the immortal battle-fields of the Republic.
It is worth inquiry whether the Military Academy has not been
kept too isolated from the great world. It is shut off
topographically on a narrow point, guarded on all sides from
ingress and egress. Unlike other colleges, it has not frequent
vacations. For two years without intermission the cadets are there
enclosed, and, although engaged in vigorous exercises of mind and
body, they are as complete monks as ever dwelt in Vallombrosa, in
duties, in dress, in conventual customs of cell and refectory.
Then for a brief space of a month and a half they come out to see
the great world, only to return to a similar monachism for two
years more. We doubt the excellence of this system. It keeps them
up in their studies, but it keeps them also from a knowledge of
the world, at the very age when that knowledge is best obtained.
The Academy is their microcosm.
If the Military Academy were placed in the heart of a great
city, and the cadets allowed far more liberty, to see all that was
to be seen, to be educated as citizens, while they were acquiring
the knowledge of the military art, - taken to inspect
fortifications, to join the great processions on national
festivals, to see new men-of-war, the founding of mammoth guns,
the workings of the great industrial world, - we honestly think it
would be far better for them and for the country; and all this
might be done without lowering the standard of scholarship or
soldiership in the slightest degree.
But, again, we are told that the standard of scholarship is too
rigorous; that it sends away, for deficiency in one unimportant
branch, those who excel in all others, and would make excellent
soldiers. We have not time to dwell upon this subject. One thing
is certain, for every young man sent away because he fails in one
branch, another is appointed who will succeed in all. What
can be fairer than this, especially wheu the government pays for
entire excellence, and has the right to demand it?
We had much more to say, but our space is already filled.
By a comparison of the West Point curriculum with those of
European military colleges, we find it the most complete as a
preparation for any and all arms. All the cadets learn the entire
course. The engineer officer is thorough in infantry tactics, the
infantry graduates know how to build forts and work guns. There is
a harmony of knowledge thus imparted. In the French and English
schools there are special courses for the various arms, which
carry the pupil farther in special studies, but do not give him
the same general scope of military knowledge. As our armies are at
present constituted, the West Point system is better for us than
that of English or French schools.
In our present exigency, military instruction, generally
confined to infantry and artillery tactics, is being introduced
into a great number of our colleges and schools. That this will be
but a temporary thing in many of them we must believe; but in the
most important institutions this additional branch should be aided
by the United States government, so that it may grow into an
important component of the department of the arts. Long a warlike
people, we are becoming, we must be, a military nation, and the
best assurance of success will be, to teach all our sons that
noble art which can defend our freedom, and hurl back the invader,
with readiness, address, and the Least bloodshed. West Point must
ever be the great mother of our future educational development in
arms; while we cherish her, let us improve and increase her
utility, and join to her elementary instruction such excellent
schools of army practice as shall extend the knowledge of the art
of war in America, and, by rendering us more formidable, diminish
the chances of war.
We cannot close without thanking Captain Boynton for the vast
amount of information so well collated in his book, and for his
clear statement of the history and condition of the Academy from
the beginning to the present time.
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