Poets and Presidents

WEST POINT: THE MEN AND TIMES OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY by Thomas J. Fleming. 402 pages. Morrow. $8.50.

Daniel Webster remarked about Dartmouth, "It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those who love it." If a similar statement could sum up West Point, it might be found in the words of one devout cadet who said, "It's better to sire an illegitimate child than to marry and violate West Point regulations."

The capacity to inspire such awe, affection and loyalty suggests deep roots and firm beginnings. Yet Thomas Fleming's chronicle of West Point shows that the academy established in 1802 was "an uneasy compromise between young America's suspicion of a standing army and the nation's obvious need for soldiers skilled in the art and science of war."

Old Pewter. Treated warily by Congress, the academy on at least one occasion survived an appropriations ballot by a single vote. Fortunately, the performance of West Point officers during America's various wars kept the school from being abolished. In the War of 1812, while the militia (except for Jackson's defense of New Orleans) was a disgrace to the nation, not a single fort constructed by West Point graduates fell into the hands of the British.

However, the school in 1812 still had an air of the comic opera about it. Its saltbox headquarters, "Long Barracks," half a dozen officers' houses, small hospital and tailor shop were surrounded by crumbling forts and ancient, rusting equipment. Its textbooks on warfare were outrageously out of date. Its acting superintendent, Alden ("Old Pewter") Partridge, punished refractory cadets by putting them in an 8-ft.-square pit with a lid on it.

His replacement in 1817 was Major Sylvanus Thayer, the man most responsible for shaping West Point's future. A graduate of the class of 1807, Thayer envisioned a school that would not only produce leaders in wartime but would also train engineers and scientists to develop the growing country. Despite his ability, Thayer was constantly thwarted by Congressmen who saw the fledgling academy as a waste of money and a potential instrument of federal power, and so tried to have it abolished. Political favoritism in Washington forced reinstatement of dismissed cadets. Lack of funds became so crucial that cadets were obliged to take the place of horses in dragging cannon.

Benny's Tavern. Eventually the animosity of President Andrew Jackson toward the school and what he considered its pampered and aristocratic students (despite the fact that these students were forced to sleep on the floor) caused Thayer's resignation. But by that time, the school was well established. Along came students like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant.

Jeff Davis quickly became a leader of his class but also showed certain rebellious qualities befitting a future President of the Confederacy. Davis was one of the first cadets to be court-martialed for frequenting Benny Havens' off-limits tavern at nearby Buttermilk Falls. There were other charges, including cooking in quarters, spitting on the floor, and "firing his musket from the window of his room." And Ulysses S. Grant, though he was never court-martialed, stole turkeys from the superintendent and roasted them in his fireplace.

Silicon Gas. Everyone is aware that Presidents Grant and Eisenhower passed through the Point, but there were also artists, scientists and businessmen. George Goethals built the Panama Canal, Henry du Pont became an industrialist, and Robert Wood became president of Sears, Roebuck. Edgar Allan Poe, on the other hand, was court-martialed for "gross neglect of duty," and James Whistler failed his chemistry exam. "If silicon were a gas," he said later, "I would be a major general today."

Despite the current suspicion of the military, West Point's disciplined and talented men have profoundly influenced the political, military, scientific and artistic life of the U.S. In the reflective style of his earlier books about the Revolutionary and Colonial periods, Fleming proves that beyond the suspicion lies a relatively unexplored source of the American experience.

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