by John Jakes
“Good. I’m anxious to know what they’re really like. I have this picture, you see—”
“What kind of picture?”
“Southerners are people who eat pork and collards, fight with knives, and abuse their niggers.”
In spite of the way the description offended him, Orry managed to see the attempt at humor in it. “Each of those things is true about some Southerners, but it’s by no means true of all. That’s where misunderstandings arise, I reckon.” He pondered a moment. “I have a picture of a Yankee, too.”
George grinned. “I thought you might. What is it?”
“A Yankee’s always ready to invent some new thingamajig or to outwit his neighbor in court. He’s a pert sort who wants to sell you jackknives or tinware, but what he likes best is skinning you.”
The other burst out laughing. “I’ve met a couple of Yankees like that.”
“My father says Yankees are trying to run the country now.”
George couldn’t let that pass. “The way Virginia ran it for so many years?”
Orry gripped the varnished rail. “Look here—”
“No, look there.” George decided that if they were to be friends the subject should be changed posthaste. He pointed to the stern, where the two young female passengers were giggling under their parasols. The older woman with them had fallen asleep on a bench.
George had made love to two girls back home, thus felt worldly. “Shall we go talk to ’em?”
Orry turned pink and shook his head. “You go if you want. I’m not much for gallanting the belles.”
“Don’t like to?”
A sheepish admission: “Don’t know how.”
“Well, you’d better learn or you’ll miss half the fun in life.” George relaxed against the rail. “Guess I won’t talk to them either. I couldn’t conduct much of a romance between here and West Point.”
He fell silent, giving in at last to the anxiety that had been growing in him ever since he left home. His family would be staying on in the city, his father to transact some business, the others to enjoy the restaurants, museums, and theaters—while he traveled toward an uncertain future. A lonely one, too. Even if he survived the rigorous disciplines of the Academy, it would be two years before he saw Lehigh Station again. Cadets were granted just one leave, between their second and third years.
Of course he had to overcome a lot of obstacles before he became eligible for that little holiday. The academic work was reportedly hard, the deviling of plebes by upperclassmen harder still. The institution was frequently criticized for permitting hazing. The criticism usually came from Democrats who hated the whole concept of the place, as Old Hickory had.
As the steamer moved against the current, the palisades rose on either hand, green with summer leaves. There was no sign of human habitation on the bluffs. The vessel was carrying them into a wilderness. For that reason George welcomed the company of someone else fated to suffer the same uncertainties and, unless he guessed wrong, the same fears of what lay ahead.
2
THE STEAMER PROCEEDED NORTH into the Hudson Highlands. About one in the afternoon it rounded the point that gave the institution its more common name. Orry strained for a glimpse of the cadet monument to the great engineer, Kosciusko, on the bluff above, but foliage hid it.
As the boat maneuvered into the North Dock, the two young men had a breathtaking view of the Hudson gorge stretching north. Ancient glaciers had carved terraced mountainsides and created the peaks with which Orry had familiarized himself through reading. He pointed them out. Mount Taurus behind them on the east shore, Crow-Nest on the west, and, farther upriver, the Shawangunk range.
“Back there where we passed Constitution Island the Americans strung a chain and boom to hamper navigation during the Revolution. Fort Clinton stood up there on the point. It was named for the British general. The ruins of Fort Putnam are over that way.”
“Interested in history, are you?” George asked pointedly.
“Yes. Some of the Mains fought in the Revolution. One rode with Marion, the Swamp Fox.”
“Well, I suppose some Hazards fought, too. In Pennsylvania we don’t keep very close track of those things.” Testiness brought on by the heat and by their isolation had crept into George’s voice. He recognized that and tried to joke. “But now I understand why you haven’t time for girls. You’re always reading.”
Orry reddened. George held up his hand. “Don’t get me wrong. What you said is interesting. But are you always so serious?”
“What’s wrong with that? You’d better be serious too, if you want to last through your first summer encampment.”
George sobered. “Guess you’re right.”
The young female passengers waved good-bye as George and Orry left the steamer. The heat was intense now; George doffed his coat.
Two soldiers in uniform waited on the dock. One, rather oafish, leaned against a rickety one-horse cart. He wore a roundabout with brass buttons, trousers, and gloves—all white but not clean. On his head sat a flat round cap decorated with some kind of brass ornament. A big cutlass hung from a heavy belt.
Orry and George were the only arrivals. The crewmen hurled their luggage onto the dock without concern for the contents. While the newcomers gazed about them, the gangway was quickly drawn up. Bells rang, paddles churned, a whistle blast signaled departure.
The smaller of the two soldiers, clad in a somewhat cleaner uniform, clutched the hilt of his cutlass and strode forward. He too wore one of those round caps. He had a wrinkled face and addressed them with a distinct Irish brogue.
“Corporal Owens, United States Army. Provost of the post.”
“We are new plebes—” George began.
“No, sir!”
“What’s that?”
“You are a thing, sir. To be a plebe you must survive the entrance examinations. Until then both of you are lower than plebes. You are things. Remember that and comport yourselves accordingly.”
That didn’t set well with George. “Everything ranked and pigeon-holed, is that it?”
With a sniff, Owens said, “Precisely, sir. The Academy puts great faith in rankings. Even the branches of the Army are ranked. The engineers are the elite. The acme. That is why cadets with the highest class standing become engineers. The lowest become dragoons. Remember that and comport yourselves accordingly.”
What a damn lout, Orry thought. He didn’t like Owens. As it turned out, few cadets did.
Owens indicated the cart. “Place your luggage in there, take that path to the top, and report to the adjutant’s office.” George asked where it was, but Owens ignored him.
The two newcomers trudged up a winding path to the Plain, a flat, treeless field that looked depressingly dusty and hot. Orry was feeling homesick. He tried to overcome that by recalling why he was here. The Academy gave him his best chance to get what he had wanted ever since he was small: a career as a soldier.
If George felt forlorn, he hid it well. While Orry studied the various stone buildings on the far edge of the Plain, George concentrated on a smaller frame structure immediately to their left; more specifically, on several visitors chatting and observing the Plain from the building’s shaded veranda.
“Girls,” George remarked unnecessarily. “That must be the hotel. Wonder if I can buy cigars there.”
“Cadets don’t smoke. It’s a rule.”
George shrugged. “I’ll get around it.”
Orry found the Academy’s physical setting impressive, but the buildings themselves had a spartan look; that was the Army way, of course. It certainly gave the lie to critics who said the place pampered those who enrolled. And West Point could hardly be a citadel of indolence if ninety to a hundred young men arrived each June but only forty to fifty of them graduated four years later. Orry and his new friend had a long way to go before they left the place as full-fledged members of the class of 1846.
Admittance to West Point was highly regulated. The minimum age
was sixteen, the maximum twenty-one. In any given year there could be enrolled but one cadet from each congressional district. An additional ten cadets held at-large appointments; these generally went to the sons of Army officers who had no fixed residence. There was also one presidential appointment from the District of Columbia.
Scarcely forty years old, the institution had managed to overcome a good deal of opposition from Congress and the public. Its academic excellence was now generally acknowledged, both at home and in Europe, but a fine scholastic reputation wasn’t the same thing as public favor. The Academy continually fought charges that it was elitist, a school serving only the sons of the wealthy and well connected. During President Jackson’s administration, Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee had introduced a bill that would have dismantled West Point had it passed.
Although the Academy had been established in 1802, it had received little attention or support from Congress or the Cabinet until after the War of 1812. During the war much of America’s military leadership had shown itself to be inept. As a consequence a new Academy superintendent had been appointed in 1817. Major Sylvanus Thayer had rapidly upgraded both the military and the academic curriculum. Since Thayer’s time West Point had graduated some outstanding officers. Orry had often heard his father mention Robert Lee of the Corps of Engineers. Lee had been a cadet in the late 1820s.
The military skills of the graduates of the past few decades had never been demonstrated to a skeptical population, however. There had been no wars, and without war West Point’s claims about the worth of its program couldn’t be validated. That skepticism was fueled by the attitude of many of the cadets; few of them planned long Army careers. They sought appointments simply to take advantage of a fine educational opportunity. The present law required just four years of military service after graduation. On the steamer George had told Orry that he intended to serve that length of time, then return to civilian life. No wonder some people said it was a crime to spend public funds on young men who had no intention of repaying the debt with long service.
From clear on the other side of the Plain came shouting. Orry and George quickly saw the source: cadets in uniform bawling orders in the dusty street that ran past the two stone barracks. Other young men in an assortment of civilian outfits stumbled into military formation in response to the hectoring. The haphazard way they lined up marked them as new arrivals.
A drum rattled somewhere, the beats staccato, the pattern distinctive. Closer at hand, a cadet in a splendid uniform walked briskly toward them, bound for the hotel. George held up a hand to catch his attention.
“Excuse me.”
The cadet halted, standing rigid and fixing them with hard eyes “Did you address me, sir?” Rather than speaking, he bellowed.
George managed to keep smiling. “That’s right. We’re looking for the—”
“If you are a newcomer, sir,” the other screamed, “take off your hat, sir.” He whipped his eyes to Orry. “You also, sir. Always uncover when you address a superior, sir.” To George again. “Now, sir. What did you say to me, sir?”
Intimidated by the shouting and all the sirs, George barely managed to ask directions to the adjutant’s office.
“That way, sir. I will see you again, sir. Make no mistake about that, sir.”
He marched on. George and Orry exchanged dismayed looks. It was their first introduction to the West Point style of address. Neither young man liked it.
The adjutant’s clerk was another Irishman, but a genial one this time. He took their appointment papers. A second assistant relieved them of their pocket money and recorded the amount in a ledger. They were then directed to see Cadet Sergeant Stribling in room fourteen of South Barracks.
Near the barracks the two paused by the communal water pump and looked past Superintendent Delafield’s grazing cow to groups of young men drilling on the Plain. Orry and George knew they were newcomers because they still wore civilian clothes. The adjutant’s clerk had answered Orry’s question about uniforms:
“You don’t get one until you’re officially a plebe, m’lad. And you’re not a plebe until you pass the entrance examinations.”
The marchers on the field executed commands sloppily and stumbled often. This caused their cadet drillmasters to shout all the louder. Soon the newcomers were replaced by members of the cadet battalion, in uniform. Their drill was so smart and synchronized, Orry knew there was hope for the new arrivals.
They found Cadet Stribling turned out in immaculate white trousers and a cadet-gray jacket adorned with black cord herringbones and three rows of bullet-shaped gilt buttons. Stribling abused them verbally, just as the cadet near the hotel had done, then sent them to the post store where they drew supplies: bucket and broom, a tin dipper, a lump of soap, an arithmetic book and slate, and blankets. The blankets were so new they still reeked of sheep’s oil. It was the traditional smell of the plebe.
Their room on the third floor of South Barracks was hardly a haven for lovers of luxury: a single window, a few storage shelves, a huge chimney and fireplace dominating one wall. Orry wondered whether the room would hold heat on snowy winter nights. He had seen but one snowfall, and that had lasted just two hours on the ground, but this wasn’t South Carolina.
George studied the narrow iron beds with a professional eye. The legs were badly cast, he said. Another drum call, this one different from the first, drifted up to them in the sultry air. George made a face. “That drum seems to signal every activity around here. I feel like a damn slave to it already.”
“Do you suppose that’s the call to supper?” Orry said with a hopeful look.
“It better be. I’m starved.”
But it was not yet mealtime. Downstairs they were ordered to fall in to watch the evening parade. A cadet band struck up a march, and Orry quickly forgot his hunger.
Bayonets on shouldered muskets flashed in the orange light of the sinking sun. The colors and officers’ hat plumes danced in the breeze. The marching and the music thrilled Orry, and all at once he felt less homesick, almost happy to be here. West Point was, after all, a kind of fulfillment of a boyhood ambition that still dominated his life.
Orry couldn’t remember exactly when he had decided to become a soldier, but he was very much aware of why he thought so highly of the profession. It was glamorous—much more so than the life of a rice planter—and it was important in the universal scheme of things. Many people looked down on military men, yet no one could deny that generals and their armies frequently changed the shape of entire countries and altered the course of history.
Growing up, he had read book after book about commanders who had done just that. Alexander. Hannibal. Jenghiz Khan. Bonaparte, whose apocalyptic shadow had covered Europe less than half a century ago. Out of Orry’s reading and his boyhood dreams, which mingled danger and pageantry, nobility and bloodshed, had come his decision about his life’s work. He would be thankful forever that his older brother hadn’t wanted the appointment.
After the conclusion of the impressive evening ceremony the drum called them again—this time for supper. Cadet Stribling commanded the squad of newcomers who marched to the mess hall in slovenly fashion. In the hall everyone stood until the senior cadet captain gave the command to sit.
The squad was placed at a tottery wooden table reserved for newcomers. At other tables, however, Orry noticed new cadets seated with upperclassmen. He could only assume those things had arrived the day before, The first classmen had the best seats at the ends of the tables. Next along the sides came the second classmen, then the yearlings, then the plebes. Finally, at the very center of each side—farthest from the food—were the nervous newcomers Orry was observing. The upperclassmen passed snide comments about them but were slow to pass the bowls of food. Orry was thankful he wasn’t at that kind of table tonight.
Someone said the main meal of the day was midday dinner. Hence all they got for supper was standard Army leftovers—beef and boiled potatoes. George and
Orry were hungry enough that it made no difference. Besides, there were some positively delicious extras: homemade bread, country butter, rich coffee.
At the conclusion of supper the cadet captain gave the order to rise. Cadets and newcomers marched back to barracks, with fifes supplementing the drum cadence. While George and Orry spread their blankets on their iron beds, George’s sullen look asked why they had come to this place of loneliness and regimentation.
Between all-in and tattoo, a couple of upperclassmen stopped by to introduce themselves. One, a six-footer named Barnard Bee, was a South Carolinian, which pleased Orry. George was greeted by a cadet from his home state, Winfield Hancock.
South Barracks housed most of the new arrivals, and that night George and Orry met some of them as well. One was a bright, glib little chap from Philadelphia who introduced himself as George McClellan.
“Real society stuff,” George noted after McClellan left. “Everybody in eastern Pennsylvania knows his family. They say he’s smart. Maybe a genius. He’s only fifteen.”
Orry left off examining his image in the small looking glass over the washstand; he had already been ordered to get a haircut.
“Fifteen? How can that be? You’re supposed to be sixteen to get in here.”
George gave him a cynical look. “Unless you have connections in Washington. My father says there’s a lot of political pull employed to get certain men admitted. And to keep ’em here if they can’t handle the work or get in a jam.”
Two more newcomers stopped in a few minutes later. One, an elegantly dressed Virginian named George Pickett, was of medium height, with a quick smile and dark, glossy hair that hung to his shoulders. Pickett said he had been appointed from the state of Illinois, where he had clerked in his uncle’s law office. There had been no Virginia appointments available to him. Pickett seemed even more contemptuous of the rules than the other George; his breezy manner was immediately likable.
The second visitor was also a Virginian, but Pickett’s enthusiasm seemed forced when he performed introductions. Perhaps Pickett had struck up an acquaintance with the tall, awkward fellow and now regretted it. There was a marked difference between George Pickett of Fauquier County and the new cadet from Clarksburg. Of course that far western section of the state could hardly be considered an authentic part of the South; it was mountainous and populated with a lot of illiterate rustics—
