The historical record is silent on Jefferson’s journey from Kentucky to New York, except for specifying that he left Lexington in early August and arrived at West Point sometime after September 1. As did most travelers to West Point, he most probably went to New York City, where he took a steamboat for the roughly forty-mile trip up the Hudson River.
The physical setting of the United States Military Academy is impressive indeed. West Point sits atop a bluff that rises 190 feet above the western shore of the wide and majestic Hudson. At the top, the land basically flattens out to form a plain. When Jefferson Davis first saw the place, it had a lush and bucolic appearance, which it retains even today. In his time the grounds seemed almost in a “state of nature.” Footpaths crossed the rocky and bare plain. Woods reached down nearly to the Academy grounds. The ruins of Revolutionary forts, huts, and graves scattered among the hills furnished concrete reminders to the cadets that their school occupied a site important in the birth of the nation.18
In 1824, the spare physical plant seemed to match the geographic seclusion. The Academy could boast of but four stone buildings, each with a stucco facade. The Academy building, with its two stories, contained classrooms, laboratories, a library, and a chapel. The North and South Barracks, the former with four stories and the latter with three, served as dormitories for the cadets, whose numbers varied but generally ranged between 200 and 250. Finally, there was a two-story mess hall, which contained a small hotel for Academy guests. On the west side of the plain, away from the cadet area, stood the superintendent’s quarters and a row of houses for faculty.
Jefferson Davis initially encountered West Point when he took the entrance examination. His appointment did not guarantee his admission, but only the right to be examined for admission. By Davis’s day prospective freshmen, or “plebes” in Academy terminology, were supposed to appear in early June for the summer camp held on the plain. Before the beginning of the fall semester in September, the faculty assessed their academic qualifications to become full-fledged cadets. By all accounts the examination was far from rigorous, yet substantial numbers failed because of inferior or nonexistent preparation, especially in mathematics.
Jefferson’s late appearance precluded his following the ordained schedule. In his letter to Secretary of War Calhoun accepting his appointment, Jefferson announced his forthcoming tardiness: “am not able to go on before sept. for reasons I will explain to the superintendent on my arrival.” The reasons remain unknown, but his delay ensured that he would miss the entire summer encampment. Evidently Davis’s reasons for his lateness were persuasive, or this regulation was not yet strictly enforced, for he suffered no penalty. The entrance examination was another matter, however. Upon reaching West Point, Davis learned that the entrance examination had already been given, that successful candidates had been admitted, and that classes had begun.19
At this juncture, Davis remembered, “chance favored me.” A cadet from the class of 1824 who had been allowed to withdraw for health reasons showed up and requested a special exam that would enable him to graduate. That exception was permitted, and simultaneously, through the intervention of Captain Ethan Allan Hitchcock, who had met the Davis family while on recruiting duty in Natchez, an exception was made as well for Jefferson Davis.
Davis recalled an anxiety replaced by serendipity. Along with the notification that he would be examined came word from Captain Hitchcock that arithmetic would be the chief topic. An apprehensive Davis indicated that he knew little arithmetic, though he did know some algebra and geometry. Alarmed, Captain Hitchcock brought Davis an arithmetic text and told him to study fractions and proportions. Once more Jefferson found himself bedeviled by his old nemesis. Hardly had he begun to study, Davis later wrote, when he was ordered to appear for the examination. From the mathematics professor he received a couple of questions on vulgar fractions and one asking for an explanation of the difference between vulgar and decimal fractions. Davis’s algebra enabled him to handle them. Then came one on proportions which he also answered correctly. The “Certainly, certainly” pronounced by his inquisitor relieved the nervous youth, who always believed he had been given credit for more than he knew. The next task, a demonstration that he could read and write legibly, posed no problem. When the French professor took his turn, he did not focus on French. Learning that the young candidate read Greek, this obviously frustrated classicist “launched into a discussion of some questions as to the construction of Greek, with which he was so delighted that he kept on till the superintendent stopped him, and that broke up my examination.” “Since that time,” Davis maintained in the last year of his life, “I have never believed that an examination formed a very conclusive rule of decision upon the qualifications of a person subjected to its test.”20 Qualified or not, Jefferson Davis commenced his plebe year at West Point.
Davis’s West Point was literally the creation of the superintendent who halted his entrance examination, Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, whose convictions and judgments molded West Point just as Horace Holley’s had underlain the shaping of Transylvania. Thayer, however, left a vastly more important legacy, for his impact on West Point lasted well into the twentieth century, and in some ways lives on even now. A New Englander, Thayer graduated from Dartmouth College in 1807, but because things military, especially Napoleon, and the soldier’s life had always fascinated him, he went to the Academy at West Point, founded just five years earlier. Thayer’s preparation at Dartmouth enabled him to race through the Academy’s courses, and after only one year he received his commission. He joined the Corps of Engineers, served in the War of 1812, and in 1815 was sent to Europe for study. Upon his return, President James Monroe in 1817 named him superintendent of West Point. At that moment the Academy was in disarray, wracked by factionalism and abysmal morale. Thayer proved to be a propitious choice.
Sylvanus Thayer had a clear sense of what he wanted to make of West Point. Impressed by what he had seen and heard in France, especially at the École Polytechnique, which was at that time the most famous military school in the world, Thayer wanted to create an American version. His vision had two interrelated dimensions: the academic mission, entailing both curriculum and pedagogy; and the conduct and discipline of the cadet corps.
Thayer’s ideas on curriculum differed sharply from those then prevailing among conventional pedagogues as well as from those of the reformers at Harvard. The former remained wedded to their fixed course centered on the classical languages, while the latter advocated electives, modern languages, and liberalism. Thayer envisioned a fixed curriculum, but not one that revolved around Greek and Latin. Thayer’s West Point would be an engineering school, the first in the United States. Cadets would take required mathematics and science courses each semester; Greek and Latin would not even be taught. French, however, was a requirement because Thayer believed that the best books on mathematics, engineering, and the art of war were in French. Physics (then called natural philosophy), chemistry, and engineering, mostly civil, complemented the mathematics courses. Cadets also had to take drawing to enable them to present data and designs graphically, not for the sake of artistic expression. Immersed in mathematics and science, they barely encountered the humanities and social sciences, except for French. The chaplain did teach to first classmen, or seniors, a smorgasbord course that included ethics, geography, history, and law. Courses on specifically military subjects like tactics, strategy, or even military history were not at all central in Thayer’s scheme.
Thayer believed in a specific pedagogical system just as firmly as he did in his curriculum. He organized the cadets into four classes: fourth class or plebe, third class or sophomore, second class or junior, and first class or senior. In every subject taught during the four years, the approach did not alter. Every student recited in every class every day; instructors gave daily marks on the recitation; cadets discovered their standing weekly when grades were posted. Examinations were held at the end of each semester, in Jan
uary and in June. In the June examination the Board of Visitors, a distinguished group that Thayer used to help advance the Academy with Congress and the public, witnessed Thayer and the faculty question the cadets. For the latter, facing simultaneously Superintendent Thayer, the faculty, and the Board of Visitors was doubtless a formidable experience.
For Thayer, conduct and discipline were as important as curriculum and pedagogy. West Point was a regimented place. The daily schedule allowed for practically no free time. Reveille came at dawn. Quickly dressing, the cadets formed for roll call, then returned to clean their rooms. They studied from 6 to 7 a.m., when they marched to breakfast. The cadets marched to all activities in formation. Following breakfast, a half hour of recreation was permitted. Classes ran from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m., the dinner hour. At 2 p.m. classes resumed and lasted for two more hours. Weather permitting, the cadets drilled from 4 until 6; if not, study and recreation filled those two hours. Supper was served at 6 p.m. From 7 to 9:30 more study; then another half hour of recreation, with taps at 10 p.m. Only on Sunday afternoons, the Fourth of July, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day did the cadets have any respite from their mandated regimen.
Rules and regulations pervaded the institution and cadet life. Of course each cadet wore the prescribed uniform—gray pants, vest, and coat; blue fatigue jacket and pants; white duck pants for summer; black leather hat seven inches high and topped with a pompom; high-top black shoes. To help ensure that each cadet was judged on merit alone, Thayer banned all financial distinctions. Cadets were not permitted to receive money, or even to have money. Their government payment, $16 per month plus $12 per month subsistence allowance, went into an account from which they drew for various items, like uniforms. Prohibitions included alcohol, tobacco, playing cards, novels, plays, and leaving the Academy grounds. There was also no hazing; every student from plebe to first classman stood as a full member of the cadet brotherhood. Emphasizing that equality, intermingling among the cadets of all four classes was commonplace.
Thayer devised a structure of demerits to enforce his regulations. For each infraction of any rule a cadet received demerits according to the seriousness of the incident. The possibilities were legion, from a candlestick out of place, to inattention at drill, to missing a class or a formation. For the most serious violations cadets could face trial by court-martial. Demerits became a part of class standing. A confirmed rebel could not do well even if he performed superbly in the classroom. The accumulation of 200 demerits in a single year could result in separation from the Academy. Cadets lived in this world from the summer encampment preceding their plebe year until their graduation. Only once during their four years, in their second summer, were cadets usually permitted to leave the grounds. A tough, demanding place, West Point suffered considerable attrition. In each class those that fell by the wayside reached 50 percent and beyond. But those who made it through the four years forged a powerful common bond.
Thayer’s system concluded with class standing. Each year ended with all cadets given their rank in their class based on academic performance combined with the record of demerits. For Thayer this ranking served a larger purpose: the assignment of young officer-graduates to various branches of the army on the basis solely of their records, rather than of favoritism or political influence. Those at the top of each class, around 12 percent, would go into the Corps of Engineers, the elite branch. Cadets next down the line got assignments in the artillery or cavalry, while the lowest portion of each class joined the infantry.
Jefferson Davis spent four years, from age sixteen to age twenty, in this military monastery. His academic performance precluded his ever being at the top of his class. The honors he had won at Transylvania belonged to a different time and place. Never adept at mathematics, Davis clearly struggled with the many courses he now had to take. Mathematics, science, and engineering accounted for over 70 percent of classroom hours and made up 55 percent of the score for class rank. At the close of his plebe year he finished forty-third out of seventy-one in mathematics; the next year he was thirty-third out of forty-nine; and as a second classman he stood thirtieth out of thirty-seven in physics. Although at times he did much better in other subjects, such as French and drawing, his highest standing came as a plebe, when he finished in the middle of the class. Thereafter his standing declined, and he ultimately graduated twenty-third in a class of thirty-three.21
The discipline or conduct portion of the grading undoubtedly contributed heavily to Davis’s declining class rank. Starting off as a dutiful cadet obeying regulations, he committed just over two dozen offenses as a plebe. Quickly afterwards, however, a cascade of demerits piled up against him. In his final year he amassed 137, which in the corps as a whole ranked him 163 of 208.22
Most of Davis’s demerits came from infractions committed by large numbers of cadets. They included making unnecessary noise during study time, allowing noise on his post, failure to police his room, inattention at drill, lingering in bed after reveille, and hair too long. Then there were also more serious ones, such as absences from drill, parade, and laboratory, firing his musket from the window of his room, and disobeying a special order. Still, it was the frequency of Davis’s violations that kept him in trouble. He clearly did not commit himself to abide by the rules governing the conduct of the cadet corps. He was certainly no Robert E. Lee, class of 1829, who went through the Academy without receiving even one demerit. Davis willingly and knowingly challenged the system in both small and large matters. His brother Joseph worried that Jefferson might end up in the guard-house.23
On three occasions Jefferson’s risk-taking jeopardized his survival at West Point. Any of them could have gotten him shipped home, and one did result in his arraignment before a court-martial. Another led to a serious injury. All of them involved alcohol, either the quest for it or the drinking of it, or both.
The initial incident occurred in Davis’s first summer. The preceding year he had reached West Point too late to participate in the encampment, but in the summer of 1825 he lived on the plain in a tent, as did all the cadets. On the night of July 31 the rain fell in torrents and flooded a number of tents, Davis’s among them. Washed out of bed, Davis and several comrades decided to visit Benny Havens’s tavern.24
Located in Buttermilk Falls, two miles from West Point, Benny Havens’s tavern was off-limits to cadets. Havens had worked for a sutler serving the Academy, but lost his job when discovered selling alcohol to a cadet. Thereupon, in 1824, he set up his own tavern, which he ran until after the Civil War. “The most famous establishment in all West Point history,” it has been called. For cadets willing to chance apprehension and punishment Benny Havens’s became a haven indeed. Havens sold cadets food and, more important, alcohol, in the form of hard cider, cider and ale flip, and porter. A staunch friend of the future officers, he welcomed them to his tavern, offered them credit when needed, accepted barter for drinks, and on occasion held barrels of whiskey brought back by cadets returning from furlough. One miserable youth, Edgar Allan Poe, who remained a cadet less than a year, called him “the sole congenial soul in the entire God-forsaken place.”25
Jefferson and his companions followed a well-worn path to Benny Havens’s. Unfortunately for them, however, on that Sunday, Captain Hitchcock also showed up at the tavern. He reported running into the wandering boys. All of them were arrested and scheduled for trial by general court-martial.26
Davis’s case came before the court on August 3. The seventeen-year-old boy had to confront the reality that he was in a most precarious position. Asked if he had any objection to any member of the court, Davis responded negatively. Davis then argued that the regulations he had been accused of violating did not apply to him. He asserted that “the new regulations were to him in the nature of an ex post facto law, having never been published to his corps.” The court rejected that claim.
In the formal procedure of the military, Cadet Davis was accused of violating two paragraphs of general army regulations
that pertained to cadets. The first charge specified that on July 31 he had ventured “beyond the limits prescribed to Cadets at West Point without permission.” The second was divided into two parts: (1) that on July 31 he “did drink spirituous and intoxicating liquor”; and (2) that on the same day he “did go to a public house or place where spirituous liquors are sold, kept by one Benjamin Havens.…” Davis admitted guilt to the first, and to the latter part of the second. But he denied that he had been drinking. Immediately after the reading of the charges and Davis’s response, Captain Hitchcock testified for the prosecution. Recounting that he saw Davis “at the time specified” at Benny Havens’s with several friends, the captain made a crucial point: “all of whom except one appeared to be under the influence of spirituous liquor.” Hitchcock admitted, however, that he “did not see Mr. Davis make use of any liquor, and judged that he had used it perhaps more from the circumstances in which I saw him than from either his conduct or appearance generally.” When Davis spotted him, Hitchcock continued, “he exhibited extreme embarrassment bordering upon meekness.” Hitchcock considered that such behavior “might have proceeded from being found in the circumstances I stated,” but he concluded that “the use of spirituous liquors” was involved. That Davis had been drinking, Hitchcock had “not a doubt of it.”
Having to cope with this devastating testimony, Davis initially tried to persuade the court that he was not a wayward, undisciplined scamp. He called in his defense both Captain Hitchcock and Commandant of Cadets Major William J. Worth, who was then in fact presiding over the court-martial. Both officers confirmed that Davis’s “general deportment” had been “marked by correct and strict attention to his duty.…” Heretofore he had not “committed any offense which called for animadversion.” Having obtained these positive statements about his character and record, Davis requested that the court give him until the following morning to prepare his defense.
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