The Class of 1846

by John Waugh

  26. Ibid.

  27. The post-examination rankings are in U.S. Military Academy, Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point, June 1843), pp. 12–14.

  28. A complete list of the new corporals is in Post Orders, p. 102, p. 113.

  29. Raymond to Joshua Raymond, 6 May 1843, Raymond Papers.

  30. McClellan to John McClellan, 21 January 1843, McClellan Papers.

  31. Raymond to Mrs. Joshua Raymond, 11 August 1843, Raymond Papers.

  32. Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 320.

  33. George W. Cullum to Catherine Cullum, 24 April 1831; Forman, Cadet Life before the Mexican War, p. 14.

  34. The background on Weir is from Cullum, Biographical Register, vol. 1, pp. 38–40.

  35. Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 321.

  36. Michael E. Moss, “Robert W. Weir as Teacher,” in Robert W. Weir of West Point: Illustrator, Teacher and Poet, ed. Michael E. Moss (West Point, NY: U.S. Military Academy, 1976), p. 48.

  37. The various holiday celebrations, glad tidings, and strictures from the superintendent, although by no means couched in precisely those terms, are from the Post Orders, p. 136, p. 138.

  38. U.S. Military Academy, Staff Records, pp. 225–27.

  39. Jackson’s euphoria is reflected in a letter to Laura Jackson, 28 January 1844; Arnold, Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, pp. 62–64.

  40. These cadet infractions were publicized and commented on by the superintendent in the Post Orders, pp. 139–40, p. 149, p. 158.

  41. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 25 December 1843, Derby Papers.

  42. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 12 May 1844, Derby Papers.

  43. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 17 June 1844, Derby Papers.

  44. U.S. Military Academy, Official Register, June 1844, pp. 10–12, pp. 17–19.

  45. Post Orders, p. 170.

  46. Ibid., p. 169.

  Death in the Family

  1. Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 315.

  2. Darius N. Couch, “George Stoneman,” Twenty-sixth Annual Reunion of the Association of the Graduates of the United States Military Academy … June 10th, 1895 (Saginaw, MI: Seemann & Peters, 1895), p. 26.

  3. Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” pp. 50–51.

  4. Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, 2 vols. (New York: Baker & Taylor Company, 1907), vol. 1, p. 56.

  5. Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” p. 51.

  6. Edward S. Holden, “Biographical Memoir of William H. C. Bartlett, 1804–1893,” National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs 7 (June 1911), p. 186.

  7. Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 320.

  8. The low-down on optics is from Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, pp. 25–26.

  9. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 8 October and 24 December 1844, Derby Papers.

  10. Post Orders, p. 209.

  11. Adams to Cave Couts, 30 September 1844, Adams Letters.

  12. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 24 December 1844, Derby Papers.

  13. Adams to Cave Couts, 19 January 1845, Adams Letters.

  14. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 24 December 1844, Derby Papers.

  15. Hill to Frances Russell Hill, 3 April 1843, Hill Family Papers.

  16. Raymond to Mary Raymond, 28 December 1844, Raymond Papers.

  17. Jackson to Laura Arnold, 10 February 1845, Arnold, Early Life and Letters of Thomas J. Jackson, p. 69.

  18. Wood, The West Point Scrap Book, p. 337.

  19. Ibid., p. 339.

  20. McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 1 February 1845, McClellan Papers. Also see Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 4 February 1845, Derby Papers.

  21. Richard Delafield to Josiah Raymond, 20 January 1845, Raymond Papers.

  22. Arnold, Early Life and Letters of Thomas J. Jackson, p. 76.

  23. Gardner, “Memoirs,” p. 9.

  24. Delafield to Josiah Raymond, 20 January 1845, Raymond Papers.

  25. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 4 February 1845, Derby Papers; William Dutton, Truman Seymour, and Charles Stewart to Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Raymond, 30 January 1845, Raymond Papers.

  26. Irene Weir, Robert W. Weir (New York: House of Field-Doubleday, 1947), p. 112.

  27. Post Orders, pp. 214–15.

  28. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 4 February 1845, Derby Papers; McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 1 February 1845, McClellan Papers; Jackson to Laura Arnold, 10 February 1845; Arnold, Early Life and Letters of Thomas J. Jackson, p. 69.

  29. Derby describes the funeral in his letter to Mary Townsend Derby, 4 February 1845, Derby Papers.

  30. Dutton, Seymour, and Stewart to Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Raymond, 30 January 1845, Raymond Papers.

  31. McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 1 February 1845, McClellan Papers.

  32. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 13 February 1845, Dutton Papers.

  33. Washington’s birthday celebration is described in Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 22 and 23 February 1845, Dutton Papers; and Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 26 February 1845, Derby Papers.

  34. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 9 May 1845, Derby Papers.

  35. A. A. Gould, “An Address in Commemoration of Professor J. W. Bailey,” American Association for the Advancement of Science (19 August 1857), p. 7.

  36. Ibid, pp. 3–5.

  37. Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” p. 54.

  38. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 19 March 1845, Dutton Papers.

  39. Cullum, Biographical Register, vol. 1, p. 505.

  40. Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 1, lines 16–17.

  41. Cullum, Biographical Register, vol. 1, pp. 505–6. For descriptions of Bailey see Cullum, vol. 1, pp. 501–8, and Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” pp. 52–53.

  42. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 19 March 1845, Dutton Papers.

  43. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 26 February 1845, Derby Papers.

  44. McClellan to Frederica English, 6 January 1845, McClellan Papers.

  45. McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 1 February 1845, McClellan Papers.

  46. Jackson to Laura Arnold, 10 February 1845, Arnold, Early Life and Letters of Thomas J. Jackson, p. 69.

  47. Gardner, “Memoirs,” p. 9.

  48. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 21 November 1844, Derby Papers.

  49. The Derby-Oremieulx story is told in Rapp, West Point, pp. 71–72.

  50. George R. Stewart, John Phoenix, Esq., the Veritable Squibob: A Life of Captain George H. Derby, U.S.A. (1937; reprint, New York: De Capo Press, 1969), p. 38.

  51. Keyes, Fifty Years’ Observation of Men and Events, p. 198. Keyes paraphases the conversation; the quotation marks are mine.

  52. Mark Twain, Autobiography, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924), vol. 1, pp. 25–26.

  53. Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 315, p. 315n.

  54. Derby’s encounter with Crittenden and its aftermath are described in letters from Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 21 November, 4 December, and 24 December 1844, Derby Papers. Crittenden managed to remain at the academy his final year and graduate last in the class of 1845. He fought in the Mexican War, then resigned from the army in 1849 to become a filibusterer. He was captured in the filibustering venture in Cuba in 1851 at the age of twenty-eight and lined up to be shot. It is said that when all the prisoners were ordered to kneel before the firing squad, all did so but Crittenden, who cried defiantly, “I never kneel except to my God.” He was then shot dead. (See Parmenas Taylor Turnley, Reminiscences of Parmenas Taylor Turnley: From the Cradle to Three-Score and Ten [Chicago; Donohue & Henneberry, 1892], pp. 114–15.)

  55. Wood, The West Point Scrap Book, p. 338.

  56. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 2 July and 8 August 1842, Derby Papers. Derby apparently believed one didn’t have to observe all of the niceties when addressing an Irishman.

  57. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 26 February 18
45, Derby Papers.

  58. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 12 May 1844, Derby Papers.

  59. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 3 October 1845, Derby Papers.

  60. Jackson to Laura Arnold, 10 February 1845; Arnold, Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, p. 68.

  61. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 27 February 1845, Dutton Papers.

  62. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 26 February 1845, Derby Papers.

  63. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 3 March 1845, Dutton Papers.

  64. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 17 March 1845, Dutton Papers.

  65. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 26 December 1845, Derby Papers.

  66. Maury, “General T. J. (‘Stonewall’) Jackson,” p. 315; and Recollections of a Virginian, p. 23.

  67. U.S. Military Academy, Official Register, June 1845, pp. 9–10.

  68. This is a puzzling fact. There is nothing in the records to explain why Jackson was not promoted with many of the others, after having been a cadet sergeant his second-class year. He had continued to race upward through the pack in class rankings and his conduct all that year had been faultless, without a single demerit. He led the entire corps in conduct. It seemed that if anybody deserved promoting, it was Jackson. Since only third-classmen could be corporals and only second-classmen sergeants, all non-officered first-classmen were therefore high privates. Many were their number, and no stigma was attached. Nor is there anything in the records to indicate that Jackson was disappointed. The list of new officers is in the Post Orders, p. 240, p. 262.

  69. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 29 March 1845, Dutton Papers.

  70. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 26 February 1845, Derby Papers.

  71. Ibid.

  Gone Are the Days of Our Youth

  1. Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 16 May 1845, Dutton Papers.

  2. Impressions of the artillery laboratory are in Dutton to Lucy J. Matthews, 1 April 1845, Dutton Papers; and Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 321.

  3. Joseph Stewart, “The Class of 1842,” Army and Navy Journal 39 (14 June 1902), p. 1028.

  4. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 1 November 1845, Derby Papers.

  5. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 28 November 1845, Derby Papers.

  6. Ibid.

  7. A Guide Book to West Point and Vicinity, p. 26.

  8. Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” p. 43, pp. 59–60.

  9. A Guide Book to West Point and Vicinity, pp. 26–28.

  10. Cullum, Biographical Register, vol. 1, p. 323, p. 325.

  11. Ibid., p. 323.

  12. William D. Puleston, Mahan: the Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S.N. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1939), p. 9.

  13. Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” p. 322.

  14. Dennis Hart Mahan, Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops, with the Essential Principles of Strategy, and Grand Tactics for the Use of Officers of the Militia and Volunteers, new ed. (New York: John Wiley, 1863), p. 30.

  15. For Mahan’s opinions on celerity see Ibid., p. 200.

  16. Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” p. 95.

  17. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, pp. 51–52.

  18. Cullum, Biographical Register, vol. 1, p. 320; Puleston, Mahan, p. 6. For brief sketches of Mahan see Cullum, vol. 1, pp. 319–25; Ambrose, Duty, Honor, Country, pp. 99–102; Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” pp. 47–49.

  19. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 18 September 1845, Derby Papers.

  20. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 18 January and 14 February 1846, Derby Papers.

  21. James L. Morrison, Jr., “Educating the Civil War Generals: West Point, 1833–1861,” Military Affairs 38 (October 1974), p. 109.

  22. McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 18 March 1846, McClellan Papers.

  23. McClellan to Frederica English, 13 May 1846, McClellan Papers.

  24. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 14 and 24 May 1846, Derby Papers.

  25. Complete, final class rankings are in U.S. Military Academy, Official Register, June 1846, pp. 7–8.

  26. Gardner, “Memoirs,” p. 8.

  27. William B. Franklin, “George Brinton McClellan,” Seventeenth Annual Reunion of the Graduates of the United States Military Academy … June 10th, 1886 (East Saginaw, MI: Evening News, Printers and Binders, 1886), p. 56.

  28. Gardner, “Memoirs,” p. 8.

  29. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, p. 59.

  30. Keyes, Fifty Years’ Observation of Men and Events, p. 197.

  31. Gardner was among those who thought Jackson unprepossessing. See “Memoirs,” p. 23.

  32. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, p. 23.

  33. Maury, “General T. J. (‘Stonewall’) Jackson,” p. 311.

  34. Turnley is quoted in Henderson, Stonewall Jackson vol. 1, p. 20.

  35. Jackson to Laura Arnold, 1 January 1846; Cook, The Family and Early Life of Stonewall Jackson, p. 96.

  36. Jackson to Laura Arnold, 2 August 1845; Arnold, Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, p. 71.

  37. The matching of ranking with assignments is in the U.S. Military Academy, Register of Merit, 1836 to 1852, No. 2, U.S. Military Academy Archives. The descriptive sidequotes are from the whimsical pen of John C. Tidball, in Morrison, “Getting through West Point,” pp. 323–24.

  38. Darius N. Couch, “Cadmus M. Wilcox,” in Twenty-second Annual Reunion of the Graduates of the United States Military Academy … June 12th, 1891 (Saginaw, MI: Seemann & Peters, 1891), p. 28.

  39. Maury, “General T. J. (‘Stonewall’) Jackson,” pp. 311–12. Maury closes the account with the comment that “this was ‘Old Jack’s’ first and last frolic, to which in years long after his fame had filled the world he dimly alluded, when he said he was too fond of liquor to trust himself to drink it.”

  40. Maury, “General T. J. (‘Stonewall’) Jackson,” p. 309, p. 311; and Recollections of a Virginian, p. 22.

  41. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, pp. 14–15. For brief biographical sketches of Maury’s famous uncle see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Maury, Matthew Fontaine”; “Matthew Fontaine Maury,” Confederate Veteran 26 (February 1918), pp. 54–56; and Charles Lee Lewis, “Matthew Fontaine Maury,” Confederate Veteran 33 (August 1925), pp. 296–301.

  42. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, pp. 16–17.

  43. Seymour to William Dutton, 31 August 1846, Dutton Papers.

  44. Post Orders, pp. 323–24.

  PART 2 GONE FOR A SOLDIER

  War at Last

  1. McClellan to Frederica English, 13 May 1846, McClellan Papers.

  2. Derby to Mary Townsend Derby, 14 May 1846, Derby Papers.

  3. Background on the war is available in several good histories. One of the earliest general accounts was written by a member of the class of 1846: Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, History of the Mexican War, ed. Mary Rachel Wilcox (Washington: Church News Publishing Company, 1892). A somewhat later history, and still one of the best, is the two-volume work by Justin H. Smith, The War with Mexico, 2 vols. (1919; reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1963). The most recent history is by John S. D. Eisenhower, So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–1848 (New York: Random House, 1989). One of the most interesting and useful books, a combined narrative and compilation of original accounts, is George Winston Smith and Charles Judah, eds., Chronicles of the Gringos: The U.S. Army in the Mexican War, 1846–1848. Accounts of Eye-witnesses & Combatants (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968). An excellent bibliography of works on the war is in Seymour V. Connor and Odie B. Faulk, North America Divided: The Mexican War, 1846–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971).

  4. Smith and Judah, Chronicles of the Gringos, p. 1.

  5. McClellan to Frederica English, 13 May 1846, McClellan Papers.

  6. The genesis of the engineer company is mainly from Gustavus W. Smith, Company “A,” Corps of Engineers, U.S.A., 1846–48, in the Mexican War (Battalion P
ress, 1896), pp. 7–10. Also see William M. Robinson, Jr., “The Engineer Soldiers in the Mexican War,” The Military Engineer 24 (January-February, 1932), pp. 2–3; Sears, George B. McClellan, 13; William Addleman Ganoe, The History of the United States Army, rev. ed. (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1942), p. 206; and Morrison, “The Best School in the World,” p. 8.

  7. McClellan to Frederica English, 16 August 1846, and to Elizabeth McClellan, 23 August 1846, McClellan Papers.

  8. George Brinton McClellan, The Mexican War Diary of George B. McClellan, ed. William Starr Myers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1917), pp. 7–9; McClellan to Frederica English, 8 October 1846, McClellan Papers.

  9. Jackson to Laura Arnold, 25 September 1846, Arnold, Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, pp. 80–81; Cook, The Family and Early Life of Stonewall Jackson, pp. 98–99.

  10. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, pp. 27–28. For background on the Mounted Rifles: Robert M. Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 65; and Theo F. Rodenbough and William L. Haskin, eds., The Army of the United States: Historical Sketches of Staff and Line with Portraits of Generals-in-Chief, (New York: Maynard, Merrill, 1896), pp. 193–210.

  11. McClellan to Frederica English, 8 October 1846, McClellan Papers.

  12. Gardner, “Memoirs,” p. 10.

  13. Ephraim Kirby Smith, To Mexico with Scott: Letters of Captain E. Kirby Smith to His Wife, ed. Emma Jerome Blackwood (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917), p. 91.

  14. Gardner “Memoirs,” pp. 10–11.

  15. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, pp. 28–29.

  16. McClellan to Frederica English, 8 October 1846, McClellan Papers.

  17. McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 14 November 1846, McClellan Papers; Sears, George B. McClellan, p. 15.

  18. Smith, Company “A”, p. 10.

  19. McClellan to Elizabeth McClellan, 14 November 1846, and to Frederica English, 20 December 1846, McClellan Papers.

  20. McClellan, The Mexican War Diary, p. 12.

  21. Ibid., p. 16.

  22. Thomas Williams, quoted in Smith and Judah, Chronicles of the Gringos, pp. 39–40.