Long Gray Lines: The Southern Military School Tradition, 1839-1915

Long Gray Lines

Long Gray Lines The Southern Military School Tradition, – Rod Andrew Jr. The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill and London

©  The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Set in New Baskerville and Bulmer types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Andrew, Rod. Long gray lines : the Southern military school tradition, – / Rod Andrew, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.  --- (cloth : alk. paper) . Military education—Southern States— History—th century. . Military education—Southern States—History—th century. I. Title. .   '.'—dc

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Portions of this book were previously published, in somewhat different form, in ‘‘Soldiers, Christians, and Patriots: The Lost Cause and Southern Military Schools, – ,’’ Journal of Southern History  (November ): –, and are reprinted here with permission of the Journal of Southern History. Frontispiece: Citadel cadets in formation,  (Citadel Archives and Museum).     

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 Acknowledgments vii Introduction  Chapter . Educating the Citizen-Soldier: Republicanism and Militarism in Southern Military Schools, –  Chapter . Death and Rebirth  Chapter . Soldiers, Christians, and Patriots: The Impact of the Lost Cause  Chapter . Discipline and Defiance  Chapter . Military Law and Individual Rights  Chapter . Military Education for Black Youth  Chapter . Our Duty Is Plain: War and Patriotism in Southern Military Schools,   Conclusion  Appendix. Past and Present Names of Educational Institutions  Notes  Bibliography  Index 

            Francis Henney Smith  Asbury Coward  Citadel cadets firing at Star of the West  Charge of the Citadel cadets at Tulifinny  Citadel cadet corporal Edward Thomas, class of   Charge of  cadets at New Market   cadets capturing Union battery at New Market  North Carolina State’s first freshman class,    cadets at ‘‘summer encampment,’’   Stephen D. Lee  Lawrence Sullivan ‘‘Sul’’ Ross  Auburn cadets on Confederate Memorial Day,   Auburn cadets in ‘‘sham battle’’  Citadel cadets in barracks room,   Citadel cadets with dates,  

             Although I could never properly recognize the dozens of people who contributed to this work, it would be extremely ungrateful not to mention as many as possible. Several members of the history department at the University of Georgia deserve special mention. My dissertation adviser, Emory Thomas, provided far more enthusiastic and helpful guidance than graduate students have a right to expect. While not officially acting as my adviser, John Inscoe read countless drafts, gave valuable advice, and took a sincere interest in me and in this work’s success. I also appreciate the advice, kindly interest, and professionalism of Tom Dyer, Will Holmes, Tom Ganschow, and several others. During my two years as a temporary instructor at the Citadel, I benefited from the scholarly and professional advice as well as the sincere friendship of the entire history department, but particularly Bo Moore, David White, Kyle Sinisi, John Coussons, Keith Knapp, Laura Kamoie, Gary Nichols, Jamie Moore, Michael Barrett, Bill Gordon, Joe Tripp, Kathy Grenier, Jane Bishop, Jeff Pilcher, and Elizabeth Brooks. I could not have written this book without the help of dozens of archivists and librarians at colleges and universities across the South, who are obviously too numerous to mention. Those who stand out for going the extra mile to help someone they initially barely knew include Jane Yates at the Citadel, Michael Kohl at Clemson, Herman Trojanowski at North Carolina State, Ms. Maupin at Hampton University, Mike Ballard at Mississippi State, Murell Dawson at Florida A&M, Bev Powers and Sally Jirik at Auburn, Diane Jacob at , David Chapman and Angus Martin at Texas A&M, and Tamara Kennelly at Virginia Tech. I also thank David Perry and numerous staff members of the University of North Carolina Press for their professionalism, as well as Gary Gallagher of the University of Virginia, who offered sound advice and criticism as a reader of earlier versions of the manuscript. John David Smith also read an early version of the manuscript and provided very helpful comments. Bill Steirer was my mentor and master’s thesis adviser at Clemson University as well as the person who suggested the idea of using southern land-grant colleges to study the southern military tradition. Most of all, I am indebted to many family members, some unnamed,

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for their unfailing love and support. Those who stand out include the youngest, Jessica Charlotte Andrew and Lydia Grace Andrew, who provided countless sleepless nights but also immeasurable inspiration, laughter, and joy. And the written word will never be able to convey what I owe to my wife. I thank Karmin Heather Andrew for her love, devotion, patience, endurance, and faith in me. To her this book is affectionately dedicated. Gloria soli Deo

Long Gray Lines

 In the late nineteenth century the American South witnessed an explosion in the number of military colleges in the region. From Virginia to Texas ex-Confederate states took advantage of the Morrill Land Grant Act of  to establish agricultural and mechanical (A&M) colleges that aimed to offer an inexpensive and practical education for the South’s young men. Unlike most northern land-grant colleges, southern schools went far beyond the Morrill Act’s requirement that these schools offer some instruction in military tactics. Instead, southern colleges organized themselves on a military basis much like West Point, Annapolis, Virginia Military Institute (), and the Citadel, requiring their male students to be habitually in uniform, join a corps of cadets, and subject themselves to constant military discipline. Meanwhile, antebellum southern military schools such as the Citadel and  reopened after the war and continued their traditions of military education; southern military preparatory schools became fashionable in the s and s; and black colleges founded under the Morrill Act of  also adopted military education. The South’s postbellum preoccupation with military education was more than a passing fad. It had its roots in the antebellum era and was an expression of southern culture, educational beliefs, and political ideology.1 Much of what little study there has been on southern military education has addressed the concept of a distinctive southern military tradition. The idea of a southern military tradition is a prominent but not universally accepted theme in the historiography of the South. Some historians claim that due to geography, frontier conditions, incessant warfare, slavery, and cultural notions of honor, the South developed into a remarkably militaristic society, fond of military display, preoccupied with war and notions of martial glory, and holding up military service and military training as honorable activities for males.2 John Hope Franklin attributed the antebellum South’s fascination with military schools to this military tradition and to the South’s growing defensiveness and pugnacity as it perceived a growing threat to the institution of slavery. Other historians, such as Marcus Cunliffe and Don Higginbotham, have since denied that the antebellum South was a uniquely militaristic society, and they have pointed out that, at least initially, the

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military college was a northern innovation. They even deny Franklin’s assertion that military schools were very popular in the South before .3 The debate over the distinctiveness of southern militarism often bogs down in statistical comparisons of how many southerners and northerners attended West Point, sectional representation within the officer corps, the actual effectiveness of local militias, and similar issues. Confusion over the definition of militarism also muddles the debate. Some expand the definition to include the pervasiveness of violence in ordinary civil life, including high rates of violent crime. The issue may become more complex with the introduction of the concept of paramilitarism, referring to the protracted campaign of organized violence by white southerners against blacks and white Republicans during Reconstruction.4 In this work, then, I seek to reinterpret the current historiography in several ways. I define a military tradition as a society’s attitude toward its military past, its military institutions, and the latter’s relationship with the society’s other cultural and political traditions. I also employ a more precise definition of the term militarism, emphasizing that southerners subscribed to a brand of militarism that expressed less interest in policies of ‘‘aggressive military preparedness’’ than in the ‘‘exaltation of military ideals and virtues.’’ 5 I argue that southerners had a remarkable tendency to reconcile militarism with republicanism; indeed, they differed from many northerners in that they saw little contradiction between those two traditions. Particularly after the Civil War, the South’s Confederate past and the powerful appeal of the Lost Cause made southerners apt to equate military service and martial valor with broader cultural notions of honor, patriotism, civic duty, and virtue. Neither the southern landgrant schools of the late nineteenth century nor, for the most part, their state-supported predecessors in the antebellum era held the training of professional military officers to be their primary purpose. Rather, believing that the benefits of military training in the education of the young were ‘‘moral, mental, and physical’’ and ‘‘valuable to the citizen as to the soldier,’’ southern educators enthusiastically embraced it as an ideal way to instill the traits of manly bearing, courage, loyalty, patriotism, and morally correct behavior in the character of future engineers, farmers, teachers, and attorneys.6 While suspicion of the military and pockets of pacifism survived in the North, there was practically no dissent in the South against the idea that military discipline developed positive character traits in young men. Additionally, in this work I seek to shift the discussion of southern

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militarism from the antebellum to the postwar period, when celebrations of Confederate valor reinforced perceived links between martial and moral virtue. I aim also to reinterpret the Lost Cause itself, arguing that its most compelling and unchallenged element was the notion that soldierly virtues were the marks of an honorable man and a worthy citizen. The chapters on military school rebellions, black military schools, and the Spanish-American War reinforce the central thesis that southerners equated military virtue with civic virtue and agreed that a good soldier was by definition a good citizen. Another point I make in this work is that the southern military tradition combined elements of militarism and liberalism.7 To John Hope Franklin the South’s militarism was evidence of its growing distinctiveness, if not its open antagonism to dominant national trends. Franklin was writing in the s, and his portrayal of a ‘‘militant’’ South stubbornly resisting efforts toward racial equality corresponded to contemporary events. This work does not seek to challenge fundamentally the notion of southern distinctiveness. Militarism did begin to distinguish the South from the rest of the nation in the mid-nineteenth century. I believe the difference was noticeable by the s and perhaps even widened after the Civil War.8 A militaristic South, however, did not necessarily mean an isolated or backward South. Southern military schools of the nineteenth century could not survive simply by promoting ideals of hierarchy, rigid discipline, and blind obedience without important concessions to the larger society’s concern with individual autonomy and social equality (among white males). They not only accommodated but in several ways drew inspiration from the central tenets of republicanism. American republicanism of the mid-nineteenth century emphasized political equality for white men, insisted on a rough social equality and equality of opportunity, valued personal behavior that was at least outwardly moral, and stressed valor and self-reliance. Many Americans, particularly southerners, also saw a republic as a society in which a white man’s willingness to fight for his personal autonomy and in defense of his community or nation was a badge of manhood and, therefore, of citizenship. The ideal republican citizen, then, was self-reliant, outwardly moral, mindful of his rights and civic responsibilities, and most importantly, eager and capable of bearing arms in self-defense or for the public good. Politically, military school leaders vied for state financial support by emphasizing the egalitarian nature of their institutions and pointing to

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the large number of ‘‘poor boys’’ whom they provided with the opportunity for a useful education. Many Americans, in fact, particularly those with military experience or acquaintance with military education, saw the military as an inherently democratic and egalitarian institution. Military rank and authority rest on merit—merit based on ability, length of service, and education, not on birth or wealth. Likewise, authority within the corps of cadets rested on class rank and standing, not socioeconomic status, as was the case in many antebellum student bodies. Also, military schools sought to eliminate social distinctions based on dress by requiring uniforms, usually provided affordably by the school. The state-supported military schools deliberately sought to portray themselves as democratic institutions by selecting their students from a cross-section of the white population. Tuition was usually fairly low, and the student body of most schools included a large proportion of indigent youth that paid little or no tuition at all. Southern military schools, then, were not isolated islands of militarism lost in a stream of democratic and republican ideals. They were part of the larger current of American republicanism. And they showed that American militarism and republicanism could and did coexist; each was not always fundamentally antagonistic to the other. There were, however, points of conflict. Militarism, by any definition, insists on obedience and respect for lawful authority. But the American military tradition—especially the southern version—included a heritage of individualism, personal autonomy, and rebellion against authority. The mythical Revolutionary, as well as Confederate, soldier was a hero who had taken up arms not to enforce obedience but to assert personal autonomy and reject the illegitimate claims of established authority. The American heritage of rebellion against tyranny, often expressed in military terms, created serious problems for southern colleges that relied on military discipline and that thrived on the military tradition. Specifically, these schools were prone to frequent disturbances known as student walkouts, or strikes. Whenever the cadets began to feel that the discipline was becoming too irksome or arbitrary, there was the danger of rebellion by an entire class or student body. Frequently the students left campus en masse, causing severe crises for the colleges involved. College administrators responded, on one hand, by forcefully reasserting their authority but also, on the other, by making some concessions to democratic ideals of self-government. These concessions included relaxing some regulations,

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allowing limited student government, or instituting appeals processes for cadets charged with disciplinary offenses. By  Southerners had accepted military schools as a legitimate feature of the educational landscape. For many, military education seemed to solve the problem of discipline. The lawlessness and violence of southern society, acknowledged by contemporaries and historians alike, may have made southerners particularly susceptible to the argument that military training engendered submission to lawful authority. It was the conventional wisdom of the day that southern youth were rowdy, undisciplined, and riotous—lacking self-control and respect for law and order. As one southern father acknowledged just before sending his son to Alden Partridge’s private military academy in Vermont, youth were extremely liable to falling into ‘‘misguided behavior,’’ but especially ‘‘those bred under a Southern Sun.’’ 9 The periodic student rebellions in military schools were as disturbing as the ones that occurred in nonmilitary colleges. But rather than make southerners doubt the efficacy of military education, they often tended to reinforce the belief of many that what was needed in education of the young was more rigid discipline. Many educators even insisted that the very safety of the republic depended on the inculcation of discipline. Supporters of military schools worried that unchecked youthful license could undermine the respect for law on which the blessings of liberty depended. Military schools seemed even more important in the mid- to late s, as southerners anticipated the need for trained men to resist the mounting threat to slavery and the personal autonomy of white men. The trend of state-supported military schools had already begun to spread from Virginia and South Carolina to other states by , but the external threat to slavery provided further justification for the establishment of dozens of military schools with partial or full state support.10 Military readiness thus appeared by  as an additional justification for military education. It was after the Civil War, however, that military discipline and martial virtues stood tallest in southern colleges. One factor was the wording of the Morrill Act, which specified the inclusion of instruction in military tactics in the curriculum of land-grant schools. But while northern and western colleges often managed to meet this requirement in a halfhearted way by instituting a few drills per week, the southern white land-grant colleges drew upon the antebellum traditions of  and the Citadel, as

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well as the powerful cultural icon of the Confederate soldier. The legend of the Lost Cause and the virtuous Confederate citizen-warrior provided energy, vitality, and legitimacy for southern military education. All over the South, cadets in gray marched in Confederate Memorial Day celebrations, fired their muskets over Confederate cemeteries, and escorted old veterans to podiums, where the latter preached to them the values of duty, sacrifice, piety, and moral courage. The cadets themselves were indeed part of the pageantry and symbolism of the Lost Cause. To many southerners they symbolized the noble past and hopeful future of the South, thrilling crowds with their military precision and martial display. Several land-grant schools for African Americans, meanwhile, as well as Hampton and Talladega, struggled to create their own military traditions. Their military programs faced formidable obstacles in the period between Reconstruction and World War I—a relative lack of trained black ex-military officers to serve on the faculty, limited opportunities in the military for young graduates, and the reluctance of white southerners to allow young black men to drill and train with rifles. Their ordeal illustrates how closely Americans a century ago identified soldiership with citizenship, and vice versa. Just as African Americans were struggling unsuccessfully for full citizenship, they also had to overcome impediments against establishing black military traditions. A republic sometimes places a higher value on the military skills and services—and thus the citizenship—of one racial group over another.11 Since World War I the southern military school tradition has gradually faded. The day when cadets of the same year in school could march to the classroom together has given way to a time when students can choose from among hundreds of majors and electives. Personal desire and free expression have vanquished enforced order and discipline. The federal government, beginning with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps () in , has assumed from the states the initiative in training a cadre of college students as military officers. Yet the military tradition in the South is not dead. The Citadel, , and other military colleges and preparatory schools continue to flourish. The corps of cadets continue as distinctive and colorful aspects of several southern land-grant colleges. Southerners have not abandoned the idea that military service instills in youth the values necessary for the moral health and vigor of a democracy. These features of the modern South should serve as a reminder that the exaltation of military virtues

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is not confined to Prussian autocracy or European fascism. Militarism has shaped the American national experience. It may have helped lead the way into wars and imperialism, but it has also informed republican notions of citizenship, patriotism, and moral virtue. In turn it has adjusted and evolved in American history to accommodate the demands of liberty and equality.

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Educating the Citizen-Soldier Republicanism and Militarism in Southern Military Schools, – Southern military schools seem to be well outside the mainstream of American life. Many modern Americans view  and the Citadel, for example, as bastions of extreme conservatism, sexism, and neo-Confederate militarism. To many people they are anachronisms—bypassed islands in the onrushing current of sexual equality, democracy, and liberalism. This perception of southern military schools began with the reputation for bellicosity and militance ascribed by contemporaries to the nineteenth-century South. ‘‘The fiery blood of the South,’’ ‘‘a bloodthirsty ferocity,’’ ‘‘a modern Sparta’’—all were terms that outside observers used to describe a region that sometimes seemed to be out of touch with the prevailing currents of democracy and peaceful civilization.1 After the Civil War, and even before Fort Sumter, many northerners pointed to the many military schools of the South as proof that the region had been sharpening its military readiness in a plot to disrupt the Union. Historian John Hope Franklin likewise saw southern military schools as the natural symptom of a militaristic society. Southerners, he says, influenced by notions of ‘‘honor,’’ slavery, frontier conditions, and a lack of formal law enforcement institutions, developed violent personalities and militaristic beliefs. In such a society the popularity of military schools and military education for young men was only natural, particularly as southerners began to sense an ever intensifying attack on their social institutions and prepared for the day when they might have to defend their institutions and their rights with force.2 Mid-nineteenth-century military schools, however, were not out of the mainstream of Jacksonian republicanism. They were, instead, in touch

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with the dominant political and social trends of their day. Many Americans, perhaps southerners especially, saw military education for the young as essential to liberty and to the health of the republic. The southern preoccupation with inculcating military virtues in the young was a received tradition more than it was an indigenous development.3 It is true that the dangers and rigors of rural southern life, incessant warfare on the frontier, and the need to control a large slave population reinforced southerners’ respect for military prowess. But nineteenth-century southerners, along with their fellow Americans in the North, inherited the idea that the safety of a republic depended on a welltrained and law-abiding citizenry able to defend the nation in times of crisis. Educators and philosophers have traditionally offered two main justifications for including military training in the education of the citizens of republics. One, of course, was to meet the requirements of national defense. Closely related to this argument was the claim that military training molded a more virtuous, disciplined, and law-abiding citizenry. Republics as conceived by Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Cicero were small, homogeneous communities that placed great demands on all of their citizens.They necessarily required courage and strict discipline in their citizen armies as well as self-restraint in their exercise of self-government in councils and assemblies.4 English poet-philosopher John Milton helped carry the classical republican version of militarism into the Enlightenment. As he did so, the argument for military education shifted from stressing the requirements of national defense to lauding what military training did for both the martial abilities and the moral character of the citizen. In his seventeenthcentury tract On Education, Milton called for a ‘‘complete and generous education,’’ one that prepared a man ‘‘to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices both private and public, of peace and war.’’ 5 Along with a broad liberal arts curriculum, he prescribed swordsmanship exercises and military maneuvers both on foot and on horseback. The object of the military training was to make the young men healthy and strong ‘‘and to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage, which being tempered with seasonable lectures and precepts to them of true fortitude and patience, will turn into a native and heroic valor, and make them hate the cowardice of doing wrong.’’ 6 Milton clearly saw a connection between training the young for military service and preparing them for civil leadership.

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The argument that military education was vital for national safety was the main justification used by George Washington, Henry Knox, Benjamin Rush, John C. Calhoun, Alden Partridge, and others who argued for the establishment of military academies in the early republic and in the Jacksonian period. Washington, Knox, and Alexander Hamilton led the campaign for the national military academy that would become West Point. The art of war, they argued, was too complex and too important to be trusted to amateur militia officers. Rush included military training in his call for a Spartan-style education for American youth: ‘‘In a state where every citizen is liable to be a soldier and a legislator, it will be necessary to have some regular instruction given upon the    and upon  .’’ 7 Washington’s plans for a national military academy came to fruition with the founding of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in . One of its graduates and ex-superintendents, Alden Partridge, was responsible for transmitting the main features of West Point to private military academies and, indirectly, to similar state-supported institutions in the South. Shortly after his dismissal as the superintendent of West Point, Partridge founded the first private military school in the United States in his hometown of Norwich, Vermont, in . He and his former students then established a network of dozens of private military academies throughout the nation, mostly in the South.8 Partridge put a Jeffersonian twist on Washington’s old arguments for the necessity of military training. Washington had believed in the need for a trained professional army, led by officers who had been trained at a national military academy, to defend the new republic. Partridge, though, criticized the monopoly of West Point over the commissioning of officers. He fed the fear and resentment of those who charged that an aristocratic,West Point–led clique held a monopoly over the nation’s military power. What the republic needed, Partridge claimed, was a strong, efficient, well-led militia.9 The militia, though, almost universally, was notoriously ill-prepared and untrained for war. Partridge claimed that the private military academies founded by him and his former students could turn out hundreds of young civilians who could raise, train, and—in times of emergency—lead the militia in combat. At the same time, the private military academies could give the nation’s young men a classical and scientific education, training them as engineers, lawyers, teachers, and other civilian professionals.10

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The belief that a cadre of trained military officers dispersed throughout the civilian population was indispensable to the safety of the republic aided Alden Partridge in his movement to establish a network of private military academies. He and his former students established dozens of private military schools in the s, s, s, and s, especially in the South. His idea of combining military discipline and instruction with civilian education also reappeared in the nation’s first state-supported military schools,  in  and the South Carolina Military Academy (the Arsenal and the Citadel) in .11 In the long run the drive for military readiness was neither the sustaining force nor the overriding justification for the dozens of military schools that sprang up all over the South in the s and s, nor would it be the reason that southern educators between  and  enthusiastically embraced a West Point–style of education in the landgrant colleges. A summary of the arguments used to defend the establishment of  and the South Carolina Military Academy reveals that, initially, national and state defense were important but not primary considerations. As the threat of sectional conflict increased, the military services that these institutions could provide their respective states temporarily became more important. But even in  these military considerations never completely overshadowed the collateral civilian benefits they presumably provided to society. The boosters of , the Citadel, and the dozen or so other southern state-supported or state-encouraged military schools were at least as concerned with what military education could do for the internal health of society as with what it could contribute to society’s external defense. It is true that defense was one ostensible justification for establishing state military academies at Lexington, Virginia, and Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina. The state legislatures of Virginia and South Carolina intended for the student bodies at , the Citadel in Charleston, and the Arsenal in Columbia to function as military guards over state military supplies. These sites were not unguarded, but local citizens were unhappy with the existing guards and believed that the respective states could secure these arms as efficiently, and with better educational results, with student-soldiers. The citizens of Lexington viewed the state troops stationed there to guard the arms as a public nuisance, as an idle, dissolute, and odious class of drones.12 The residents of Charleston likewise wavered between the use of a municipal guard of hired ‘‘Aliens’’ and the equally distasteful sight of fed-

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eral troops protecting the arms there. During the Nullification Crisis of , the South Carolina state legislature instructed the governor to have the federal troops removed, and authorities reorganized the municipal guard. As late as , however, many Charlestonians still distrusted the quality and character of the city guard.The Charleston Mercury argued that the many ‘‘Aliens’’ who made up the guard should be replaced with sober, responsible natives.13 The search for a military guard that was less threatening and more amenable to local control took a new turn as early as the early s in Lexington. Local citizens there began to entertain the idea of replacing the arsenal guard with military school cadets. The most vocal proponent of a military school in Lexington was local attorney John T. L. Preston. Preston had no known military background, but he had been profoundly impressed with West Point when he had gone there with the son of a neighbor to have the young man enrolled as a cadet. He wrote several letters to the Lexington Gazette in which he suggested petitioning the Virginia General Assembly to turn the arsenal into a military school. He also expounded the major arguments in favor of military education.14 In his first ‘‘number’’ written to the newspaper, Preston, under the pseudonym ‘‘Cives,’’ set forth the principle on which the petition was to be based. That principle was not military readiness but the supremacy of popular will in a free government. Preston declared that the people had the right to inquire into ‘‘the character and operations of all public institutions, and to demand . . . that the benefits derived [from them] shall be as great as possible.’’ 15 Cives then pointed out that a military school would benefit Virginia by providing trained officers for the improvement of the militia, and he noted that the quality of the militia had ‘‘been a subject of ridicule in every portion of the Union.’’ 16 Well-known military school innovator Alden Partridge drove Preston’s point home in a letter to House of Delegates member and  supporter Colonel Charles P. Dorman later published in the Gazette. Partridge argued that without an efficient militia, the United States inevitably would have to rely on a mercenary army for defense, ‘‘and when this event shall arrive we can easily read our fate in that of every Republic which has gone before us. Some future Caesar will arise . . . [and] plant the standard of military despotism.’’ 17 The militia, then, was not only for national defense; it was also an internal safeguard for liberty. Along with improving the militia, the military school advocates

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claimed that military training would strengthen the character of Virginia’s young men. It would inculcate habits of order, diligence, and punctuality. Cadets would spend those hours not taken up with study in military drill rather than in the idleness that resulted in dissipation and mischief. Military education thus benefited the morals of the students as well.18 The most important habit that military education instilled, however, was that of ‘‘submission to lawful authority.’’ Antebellum southerners were deeply concerned with the perceived unruly, undisciplined, and rebellious behavior of their sons. Southern fathers had often confided to Alden Partridge in the s and s that they hoped he could discipline and reform their unruly sons.19 In the – session of the Virginia General Assembly, a committee assigned to investigate a disciplinary case at  applauded the school’s attempts to apply military discipline to the young men of Virginia, ‘‘just at an age when waywardness is the only fully developed trait in their character.’’ 20 Claudius Crozet, first president of ’s Board of Visitors, likewise argued that ‘‘at an age when passions are yet unmitigated by the lessons of experience, it is generally imprudent to trust to the self-government of a young man. Habits of unrestrained indulgence have frequently laid the foundation of ruin of youths, who, if submitted to proper discipline and restraint . . . would otherwise have become useful and distinguished members of society.’’ 21 In place of ‘‘waywardness,’’ Crozet, Preston, and Superintendent Francis Henney Smith of , as well as the leaders of the Citadel, sought to substitute patriotism, ‘‘subordination to lawful authority,’’ and ‘‘prompt obedience to every call of duty.’’ As Smith reported to the governor and the general assembly in , the cadets were members of an institution created and supported by the state. The faculty, therefore, taught them ‘‘to respect its laws, and to obey those in authority; and . . . we have every reason to believe they will always prove themselves . . . ‘faithful to Virginia.’ ’’ 22 Governor John P. Richardson argued before the South Carolina legislature that providing a free military education to fifty young men a year would imbue those youths with patriotic gratitude toward the state for allowing them to rise by their own merits.23 Professor John P. Thomas of the Citadel praised military training for ‘‘the habits of order, self-dependence, and restraint that they engender; the sense of duty and responsibility they inculcate; the manly bearing they impart.’’ 24 Professor Asbury Coward’s  commencement address at the Citadel stressed that ‘‘love of liberty, love of country, and . . . reverence of the laws’’ were





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Francis Henney Smith, ’s devoted and well-respected superintendent for its first fifty years, – ( Archives)

vital to the preservation of liberty, and that military education was a safeguard to liberty because it taught respect for the law.25 In his Cives letters Preston also justified the conversion of the Lexington arsenal into a military school in the name of education, especially scientific education. Anything that would promote the cause of education, he argued, would benefit the intelligence, virtue, and liberties of the people. It would also develop the wealth of the country by training engi-

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neers and scientists—‘‘useful’’ men like Clinton, Robert Fulton, and Sir Richard Arkwright. Preston’s reference to scientists illustrates the emphasis that military schools placed on engineering and the sciences. Preston believed that military education should not ‘‘antagonize’’ the established system of classical education but should prepare students for ‘‘the practical pursuits of life.’’ 26  and the Citadel fulfilled this stated purpose. By ,  of ’s  graduates had become civil engineers. Others were working for the U.S. Coastal Survey. The curriculum of both schools emphasized the sciences, engineering, and mathematics.27 There were also egalitarian justifications for military training. By the s, West Point was a target of increasingly bitter attacks as an ‘‘aristocratical institution.’’ 28 Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee offered a resolution to abolish the academy in , claiming it had become a preserve of the rich and influential. Even in active military service, he charged, West Point graduates superseded the sons of the poor who had been educated at their parents’ expense. More attacks came from Kentucky, Ohio, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The state legislatures of Ohio and Kentucky even passed resolutions calling for the abolishment of West Point.29 Most of these attacks did not oppose military education itself except as it represented elitism and the threat of an aristocratic clique dominating the nation’s military resources and knowledge. Indeed, many of West Point’s opponents seem to have believed that the government should have established more national military academies to make professional military education more accessible to the non-elite. When the Vermont State Militia Convention of  recommended that West Point be abolished, it also suggested that the academy be replaced with ‘‘State institutions . . . for the cultivation of and general examination into military science.’’ 30 Kentuckians and Tennesseans also seemed more interested in making military education more accessible to their own citizens than in abolishing it. In  Congressman Albert G. Hawes of Kentucky had suggested abolishing West Point. That same year there was discussion in Kentucky of appointing a professor of civil and military engineering to the state’s publicly funded Transylvania University (later called the University of Kentucky). In  Transylvania did institute military training. Five years later the legislature established the Kentucky Military Institute. Tennessee began providing state support to Western Military Institute in . In  it offered Andrew Jackson’s old plantation, ‘‘The Hermitage,’’ to the federal government for the purpose of establishing a branch





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campus of the U.S. Military Academy. The Kentucky legislature passed a resolution endorsing the idea. When Congress referred the idea to West Point superintendent Richard Delafield, he recommended establishing an infantry school in Tennessee, providing a cavalry school was established in Kentucky on land near Harrodsburg that was already owned by the federal government. The plan never came to fruition, but it illustrated that certainly by the s most Tennesseans and Kentuckians saw no problem with military education as long as it was widely available and not ‘‘aristocratical.’’ 31 In the s, however, proponents of state military schools had to address these egalitarian concerns. Preston and others conceived of the state military schools as beacons of opportunity for poor but diligent youths, who, they claimed, would have otherwise been unable to continue their education. They were able to make this claim because the military schools based their admissions policy on what was a unique arrangement at the time. The Virginia General Assembly required  to provide free tuition, room, and board for at least twenty indigent youths who would be known as ‘‘regular’’ or ‘‘state’’ cadets.Total annual expenses for these cadets amounted to about  in . In the first years of  they outnumbered the ‘‘pay’’ cadets, who were charged about  a year. By  one-third of ’s graduates had been state cadets. South Carolina adopted a similar system for admission to the Arsenal and the Citadel. Expenses for South Carolina cadets were even lower— for pay cadets and no fees for ‘‘beneficiary’’ cadets. States typically selected a certain number of boys from each county who had proven that they had limited financial means and who had passed a competitive entrance examination. Half of the Citadel’s cadets in , for example, were beneficiary cadets who paid no tuition, and this ratio appears to have held throughout the antebellum period. After the war the state provided free tuition for two indigent students, selected by competitive examination, from each county.This policy allowed the Citadel’s friends in South Carolina and military schools elsewhere to counter effectively the criticism that they were aristocratic institutions and to fight for their share of funds from the legislatures.32 Egalitarianism at southern military schools went further, though, than an enlightened admissions policy. Indeed, had it not, allowing indigent students to live and study alongside wealthy ones could have caused problems. In American colleges of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, students from poorer backgrounds often found themselves tip-

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ping their hats to and blacking boots for classmates who were their social betters. But military colleges had a built-in solution to this inequity. As it was at West Point, and continues to be in the modern military, rank and authority among students rested on experience and past achievement, not on social class. Fourth-class cadets (freshmen) made up the privates in the corps of cadets, while members of the third and second classes with the highest marks in academics and discipline were noncommissioned officers (s). Members of the first class (seniors) served as cadet officers. The egalitarian spirit prevailing at the military schools was as much the result of the founders’ conscious design as it was the natural product of military life. The Citadel’s cadet regulations explicitly mandated that ‘‘no difference shall be made in the treatment, or in the duties required, between the pay and State Cadets; nor shall any distinction between cadets be known in the Academy, other than that arising from merit.’’ 33 ’s Board of Visitors also made it official school policy not to discriminate according to a cadet’s social status and claimed that the military organization of the school prevented the state cadets from being ‘‘distinguishable’’ from the pay cadets.34 Uniforms also tended to erase social distinctions, and school authorities deliberately used them for this purpose. Cadet regulations, in fact, prohibited students from wearing or even keeping civilian suits in their barracks rooms, which ensured that lowcountry planters’ sons and upcountry farmboys were always dressed alike.35 Thus, even before the advent of the land-grant, or ‘‘people’s,’’ colleges, military training seemed to march hand in hand with the democratization of the American college campus. The state military academies also benefited education by serving as normal, or teacher training, schools. The Virginia legislature in  obligated those military school graduates who received reduced tuition to teach for at least two years in the public schools or colleges of the state.36 Other states, including North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia, also adopted this requirement when they established or aided their own military schools.37 Supporters pointed to the teaching requirement as further evidence of the schools’ usefulness to their respective states. By ,  of ’s  graduates were currently teaching or had taught school at one time.38 Before their first decade of existence had passed,  and the Citadel were enjoying rapidly growing enrollments and fairly generous appro-





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priations. They had, however, encountered opponents in their founding years.The opposition did not spring from pacifism or loathing of the military per se, but it nevertheless forced the founders and early leaders to justify the existence of their schools. The well-developed arguments they constructed were responses to pockets of doubt and criticism. One obstacle the schools had to overcome was the resistance of southern legislators to public support of education in general. In response to this attitude the military school boosters developed their claims of how economical their plans were. They argued that their schools were a sound investment in the improvement of the militia, in the defense of state military supplies, in scientific education and teacher training, and in improving the overall character and citizenship of the states’ young men.39 Some opposition arose from rivalry with other state-supported colleges jealous of their own patronage and support. But the objections that most clearly illustrated what nineteenth-century southerners believed to be the fundamental problem in education involved matters of discipline. Some critics scoffed that southern boys were too unmanageable to be trusted with the defense of arsenals. As one Virginian wrote to the Buchanan Advocate, ‘‘It would not be safe to trust frolicsome, inconsiderate boys with the duty of guarding instruments of death . . . especially a Virginia boy . . . proverbially indiscreet as our youths are.’’ And it was not just that Virginia youth could not be trusted with military defense. Even more fundamentally, southern youth were so recalcitrant that military education was simply unsuitable for them. The same writer went on to point out that of the ten young men appointed from his district to West Point, not one managed to graduate, ‘‘not from the want of talent but from the restive spirit of insubordination which so shamefully characterizes our youth. This may be considered a fair example of what the cadets at Lexington would do under the proposed system.’’ 40 To the extent that the leaders of southern military schools were able to establish those schools and receive significant state appropriations, they succeeded in turning the latter argument on its head. Yes, southern boys were undisciplined, and that was exactly why military schools were needed—to instill respect for the law, obedience to authority, and stern notions of civic duty and patriotism. Their arguments were obviously successful. Over the next decade the number of military schools in the South grew exponentially. Between  and  every slave state except Texas had at least one fully statesupported military school, and there were dozens of other private south-

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ern military academies that received assistance in the form of arms, funding, or tuition for state cadets. In , for example, the North Carolina General Assembly created a state ‘‘Scientific and Military Academy’’ and endowed it with an annual appropriation of ,. It adopted the familiar system of state and pay cadets and required state cadets to teach for two years in the schools of the state upon graduation. Georgia provided arms and subsidized tuition for state cadets to the Georgia Military Institute (), with the same two-year teaching requirement. The Alabama legislature decided in  to subsidize the education of two indigent young men from each county at one of the state’s two private military academies, with the provision that the graduates would not only teach school but drill the militia for two years upon graduation. East Tennessee University adopted a system of demerits, while that state also sponsored Western Military Institute and Shelby Military Institute. Louisiana reorganized its state seminary into a military school under Superintendent William Tecumseh Sherman. Meanwhile, graduates of Partridge’s academy at Norwich and the Citadel and  founded dozens of private military academies, concentrating their efforts in the southern states. Historian Bruce Allardice claims that between  and  the slave states saw the opening of ninety-six military colleges, academies, and universities that operated on the military system, while the free states had fifteen.41 There seemed, then, to be several good reasons for educating the South’s young men in military schools. Yet despite the arguments and boasts of military school proponents, many northerners suspected that the southern military schools were really part of a plan to prepare for sectional warfare and break up the Union. Historians have sometimes endorsed this view, explaining that military schools in the antebellum South were the outgrowth of a naturally ‘‘militaristic’’ and pugnacious society, especially as it sensed an attack by its neighbors on one of its most cherished institutions.42 To what extent was the southern military school a product of sectional tension in the mid-nineteenth century? The answer is mixed. The early proponents of , the Citadel, and the Arsenal rarely used the explicit threat of northern aggression or Yankee fanaticism to justify their proposed system. Alongside Cives’s articles in the Lexington Gazette were editorials denouncing the abolitionist ‘‘frenzy’’ gripping parts of the North, but Preston himself never invoked the abolitionist bugbear. Neither did early reports of ’s Board of Visitors to the governor and the general



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assembly, though these accounts were the traditional place to advertise the usefulness of the institute. Perhaps the clearest reference to military schools’ potential to preserve states’ rights in Virginia came from the Yankee Alden Partridge. In an open letter to Virginia general assemblyman Dorman, Partridge wrote, ‘‘The separate states of our Confederacy can never exercise that influence, nor maintain that independence which belongs to them unless they adopt such a [military] system of education.’’ 43 The situation was slightly different in South Carolina when in  Governor Richardson induced the general assembly to consider a bill to convert Columbia’s Arsenal and Charleston’s Citadel into military schools. South Carolina’s nullification battle with the federal government was a recent memory, and Richardson stressed in his annual message to the legislature that the state must ultimately rely on military readiness, not the justice of its cause, if it hoped to resist federal encroachments on state authority. It was therefore necessary to protect and preserve the state’s arsenals and arms. From these comments Richardson deftly moved into his arguments for establishing military schools. He urged that the original duties of the arsenal guards be combined with a system of education, and he stressed the educational, economical, and social benefits of such a plan as well as its military necessity. Nowhere, though, did his speech specifically mention slavery.44 While North-South tension provided only a vague and often unspoken justification for the original founding of the first military schools, it soon became far more important. The three original state military academies had been in existence less than a decade before some southerners began to regard them as potential bulwarks against assaults on slavery. As early as  Colonel Philip St. George Cocke noted that there were ‘‘not a few who now look to the [Virginia Military] Institute as a West Point for the South in the case of disunion—which God forbid, but which the fanaticism of the North now threatens to bring about.’’ 45 The military school craze intensified through the s. Yet it would be a mistake to attribute all of the trend to the looming sectional crisis. Higher education as a whole, not just military education, was booming in the South in the s.46 Part of the military school boom was attributable to the maturity of Partridge’s academies and  and the Citadel, as they yearly yielded a new crop of professors and would-be superintendents trained under the military system. Advocates of the military system of education continued to stress its other merits (imparting discipline,

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character, and health), and many civilian educators were beginning to listen. When the University of Alabama, for example, decided to convert its student body into a corps of cadets under military organization in , the move originated from the need to strengthen discipline. The students there were notoriously rowdy and were known for instigating brawls with each other and with local Tuscaloosa residents. The school president, Landon Cabell Garland, lobbied the legislature throughout the s to convert the university into a military school. When one student killed another in self-defense in , the university became a topic of statewide controversy. Garland’s pleas were then hard to ignore, and the growing sectional tension only provided further justification for his plan. The legislature transformed the university into a full-fledged military school in . Faculty and townsmen were rejoicing at the improvement in discipline before the next term was over. The first commandant appointed by the University was Massachusetts-born and -bred Colonel Caleb Huse. Huse himself denied that sectional conflict had anything to do with the militarization of the university and pointed to his own appointment as proof.47 The institution that became Louisiana State University also illustrates the complexity of motives that led southerners to turn to military education. When the Board of Supervisors transformed the state seminary into the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy and instituted military discipline in , it hired a northern ex-army officer, William Tecumseh Sherman, as superintendent. Like Huse at Alabama, Sherman himself doubted that ‘‘these military colleges [were] part of an ulterior design’’ to break up the Union. He recognized that some men were ‘‘preparing for the wreck of the U.S. government,’’ but that ‘‘it was with great difficulty that the Board of Supervisors were prevailed upon by an old West Pointer to give the Seminary the military feature, and then it was only assented to because it was represented that southern gentlemen would submit rather to the showy discipline of arms than to the less ostentatious government of a faculty.’’ 48 Yet others did use the threat of civil war to argue for military training in the Louisiana State Seminary. An editorial in the Louisiana Democrat argued that ‘‘late events which have . . . agitated the public mind certainly indicate the necessity of each slave-holding State encouraging and supporting at least one Military school.’’ 49 The editor claimed that in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, Ken-





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tucky, and Missouri such institutions were regarded as key elements of the states’ military defenses. Even the writer of this article, though, placed more emphasis on the other, civil benefits of military education.50 If the southern public had decided that military schools should serve their respective states in defense of southern ideology, the leaders of these schools were determined to meet the demand. ’s Board of Visitors decided in  to extend the course of study to five years. One of its principal reasons for doing so was to add coursework in political economy and general history as presented in the texts of southern apologist Thomas R. R. Dew. The board believed that every citizen of Virginia should receive instruction in the science of government and in ‘‘the nature of the constitutional union of the United States, and the history and nature of its own state government.’’ It was also vital that the citizen ‘‘should understand and believe the foundation of that divine institution of slavery, which is the basis of the happiness, prosperity, and independence of our southern people, and thoroughly fortified to advocate and defend it.’’ 51 The Citadel made a similar move in  when it decided to replace New Englander Joseph Story’s Commentary on the Constitution with the writings of John C. Calhoun. With increasing sectional tension and more violent debates over slavery, military school leaders began to make a new claim for military education. Even without changes in the curriculum, they contended, military schools could stifle dangerous intellectual trends that could subvert law and order. Asbury Coward of the Citadel argued that systematic military training engendered a love of the law that could counteract the dangerous intellectual ideas of the North. In a passage that was more remarkable for eloquence than sound reasoning, Coward claimed that daring, ‘‘lawless’’ intellects could undermine the ‘‘foundation of religion and morality.’’ Coward thundered that ‘‘in the hotbed of Northern society the evil has already sprung up and is flowering out its pernicious isms with tropical luxuriance.’’ 52 The most logical conclusion is that sectional tension was one of the least important factors in igniting the southern military school craze of the s, s, and s. It became more important, however, during the s, as national political events led southerners to reconsider the benefits of union with the North. By the end of the decade, any discussion on state support of military academies was likely to include reminders that such schools would be a prudent safeguard in case of future conflict with the federal government or the North. By that time, sectional ani-

Asbury Coward,  Citadel graduate, cofounder and principal of King’s Mountain Military Academy (Yorkville, S.C.), Confederate colonel, South Carolina state superintendent of education, and superintendent of the Citadel, – (Citadel Archives and Museum)



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Citadel cadets firing at Star of the West, January ,  (Citadel Archives and Museum)

mosity had become intense enough that all southern institutions, including newspapers, churches, and schools, were scrutinized in their ability and willingness to defend southern ideology and southern ‘‘rights’’ if necessary. Most, including military schools, were anxious to display their loyalty to their home states and to the South. Even as late as , however, North-South animosity was only one of many justifications offered for southern military education. It was never the overwhelming factor until secession itself occurred. The military schools of the South could claim as their heritage a body of republican thought stretching back to antiquity. According to their traditional strand of thinking, an armed, trained, and disciplined citizenry was vital for the health of a free government, and there was something about military training that made a young man a more valuable, useful, and honorable citizen. These were not totally original innovations. West Point had been training a small corps of professional military officers for decades before  opened its doors. Alden Partridge of Vermont had founded or cosponsored a network of private military academies that he promised would strengthen the nation’s militia units. Yet the southern states did initiate the idea of state-supported military schools that aimed not only to bolster the militia but also to expand the scope of higher education into the sciences, democratize higher education through a unique student aid program for poorer scholars, increase the number of qualified public school teachers, and produce a more enlightened and publicminded citizenry.

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The southern state military schools made their debut, then, as enlightened innovations in American higher education. As the Civil War approached, however, they showed that they could also represent the forces of conservatism and reaction. While antebellum southern military education could bolster egalitarian democracy among white males, it could also, as Asbury Coward claimed, manfully resist the advances of more radical ‘‘isms,’’ including abolitionism and racial equality. One must remember, however, that even when the military schools performed this function, they were doing the bidding of their elected state governments. How far would the state military schools go to defend ‘‘the honor and liberties’’ of the states that nurtured them? Would they really fight for states’ rights and slavery? Could they prevent the destruction of the South at the hands of foreign invaders? The answer to the first two questions was not long in coming. In late November  the  cadets were deployed to Charlestown, Virginia, to prevent any attempts to rescue incendiary abolitionist John Brown. On December  they stood guard as he was hanged. Five weeks later, on January , , the Citadel’s cadets fired cannon at the Star of the West, a northern merchant vessel flying the American flag, as it tried to resupply Fort Sumter. The Citadel’s alumni later claimed this event to have been the first shots of the Civil War. Within a few months military school cadets from all over the South would march forth with confidence and exuberance, determined to exhibit their soldierly prowess and defend the South’s version of republicanism.53

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Death and Rebirth

The Civil War proved a severe test for the military schools of the South. As the war swept institutions, customs, and individual fortunes before it, military education retained a precarious toehold on the southern landscape. By the spring of  individual schools and academies had suffered destruction by Union armies, were occupied by federal troops, or had been forced to close as their faculties and students had gone off to war. Few were ready to resume classes in the fall of , and during Reconstruction, federal authorities allowed fewer still to issue weapons to their cadets. If the southern military school tradition were to survive, military school leaders would have to convince a new generation of southern state politicians that their institutions had produced and could again produce excellent soldiers and noble citizens. They would have to accomplish this in an era when state budgets were frugal, the economy was poor, and memories of the South’s most recent military experience were painful and bitter. Their survival depended largely on their ability to point out the contributions of the schools and their alumni to the Confederate war effort and their later service in civilian life. The military colleges and their alumni did indeed contribute much to the Confederacy. The military schools of the South rushed to the defense of the new Confederate nation in . Thanks to them, when the guns began firing, the South had a rather large cadre of men trained in the rudiments of soldiering and boasted thousands of graduates and ex-students from some ninety-six military college programs who had at least some familiarity with military drill and the duties of junior officers. The South enjoyed an overwhelming majority over the North in

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the number of men who had attended military schools. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was particularly fortunate, since the oldest and most prolific military schools were in Virginia and the Carolinas, and their graduates usually served in that army. Robert E. Lee’s famous host included at least  officers who had attended , along with scores of matriculants from other military schools.1 By the end of the war, the Citadel’s  graduates had provided  line officers to the Confederate war effort, including  generals and  colonels. Forty-three were killed in action or eventually died from wounds suffered in battle, while  more died of disease. Over  additional former students who did not graduate died in Confederate service.2 ’s larger body of ex-cadets and graduates provided , officers and enlisted men to the Confederate army, about  percent of those matriculated. At an early point in Jackson’s famous Shenandoah Valley campaign of ,  graduates made up fully one-half of his regimental commanders and one-third of his artillery battery commanders. The military knowledge and experience of these former cadets gave the Confederate forces in the East incalculable advantages in the early stages of the war when both sides desperately needed experienced officers to lead the hastily raised citizen armies.3 Thousands of other raw Confederate recruits who were not trained by military school alumni received their training from current cadets. Middle-aged and elderly men found themselves marching and drilling to the commands of beardless youths, who by all accounts performed their task well. Citadel cadets were drilling new recruits in Charleston by January , and they and their Arsenal comrades mobilized several times throughout the war for the same purpose. By late April other state military schools were doing their part as well.  cadets trained thousands in camps outside Atlanta.  cadets trained fifteen thousand new soldiers at Camp Lee in Richmond. Alabama’s strategy was to send small details of University of Alabama cadets to various camps throughout the state rather than centralize the training at one location. Although the university’s cadets rapidly left school to volunteer, commandant Caleb Huse managed to keep a corps of around eighty cadets intact through May , and by June  they had trained nine companies of Alabama troops. In  Alabama’s governor informed President Jefferson Davis that university cadets had trained twelve thousand Alabama troops. Cadets from the North Carolina Military Institute and Hillsboro Military Institute trained Tar Heel recruits, while Texas’s Bastrop Military Institute, the Louisiana State Seminary and Military Academy, and other private and state mili-

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tary academies did their part as well. Older men often resented being ordered about by teenage boys, but spectators and recruits alike were usually astonished at the youths’ skill and diligence.4 The military schools’ struggle for survival began as soon as the first calls for volunteers went out. At most southern military colleges, the student bodies simply dissolved in the early months of the war as their members left to join the army. The few schools that escaped this fate included the more firmly established , South Carolina Military Academy (both the Citadel and the Arsenal), as well as the University of Alabama,  in Marietta, and West Florida Seminary in Tallahassee. Two factors operated simultaneously on student enrollment at the surviving academies. On one hand, enrollment suffered severely from cadets leaving school, with or without their parents’ permission, to volunteer for active service. This problem was particularly acute in the early stages of the war. Thirtysix Arsenal and Citadel cadets, for example, withdrew from school in June  to form the nucleus of the Cadet Rangers, a cavalry company later designated Company F of the Sixth South Carolina Cavalry. Citadel authorities originally labeled the boys deserters for leaving school without permission. The passage of the Confederate Conscription Act of  induced nearly fifty  cadets to defy regulations as well as the wishes of their parents by leaving school to volunteer for the army. By May  the school’s enrollment had fallen to eighty-three cadets.  lost over  percent of its student body between January and July  and found itself with no seniors to graduate at the end of the term.5 Conversely, the war brought enrollment surges after the spring of , as parents sought to protect their sons from the draft. Despite the Confederate government’s refusal to exempt cadets over age eighteen, state authorities effectively protected state military school cadets from conscription, making the campuses attractive havens for sickly youth or for the sons of protective parents. Keith Bohannon points out in his study of  that some parents hoped that a military education would help their sons better serve the new Confederate nation, but to many others the move was a bid to dodge the draft.6 The youths themselves appear not to have appreciated their parents’ efforts. Those who did not subsequently desert or resign from school nurtured fantasies of covering themselves in glory on the battlefield, anxiously awaiting the day when they could prove their mettle in combat. A poignant example was James T. Proctor, a sixteen-year-old Arsenal cadet who left the academy without permission to serve in the Cadet Rangers.

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His uncle, General P. G. T. Beauregard, regarded his action as desertion and instructed Arsenal superintendent John P. Thomas to arrest the boy and shoot him if he proved recalcitrant. Proctor returned to the Arsenal but soon left again to join the First South Carolina Infantry. He earned a lieutenant’s commission at Fredericksburg for ‘‘valor and skill’’ and lost a leg at Chancellorsville. Beauregard then employed the boy on his staff.7 As the Confederacy prepared throughout the fall of  for a protracted conflict, military school superintendents as well as state and national military leaders had to determine what the military schools’ role would be. On one hand, the schools’ trustees and superintendents were eager for their institutions to be seen as useful to the state governments that had nursed them. They were aware, though, that transformation of the cadet corps into a frontline infantry battalion could mean rendering the school temporarily, or even permanently, useless in its original purpose of providing a civilian education. Once classroom work ceased altogether, the military school would no longer exist as an educational institution. The Citadel, the Arsenal, , , the University of Alabama, and West Florida Seminary managed to preserve an irregular academic routine for some time before the cadet corps melted permanently into the field forces of their respective states. The cadets mobilized repeatedly to perform duties as prisoner escorts, funeral details, provost guards, and garrison troops and occasionally in anticipation of combat. Usually they returned from the latter with their hopes of glory dashed. After a few days or weeks of duty in the field as soldiers, they found themselves once again in their own barracks, poring over their books and subject to weekly inspections and daily drill. As sympathetic Charlestonian Emma Holmes wrote, ‘‘It was very hard on them—at one time ordered to take to the field as men and soldiers, and the next moment treated as mere boys in a military academy.’’ 8 Gradually the South’s military situation became desperate enough that state authorities overcame their reluctance to mobilize the youthful cadets as full-time soldiers. When that happened, the well-drilled cadets often became part of makeshift forces composed largely of second-line troops.  cadets saw combat against Sherman’s forces in the spring of  at Resaca, Georgia, and later in the battles around Atlanta. By November their transformation from students into soldiers was virtually complete. Union troops had burned the campus and buildings, and the cadets found themselves part of a futile effort to defend what was

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left of Confederate-held Georgia against Sherman’s legions. They stubbornly resisted the vanguard of Sherman’s forces from November  to  along the banks of the Oconee River. By January  the cadets were bivouacked near Augusta, serving alongside paroled state convicts and militia units that suffered hundreds of desertions every night. One cadet wrote in disgust, ‘‘Are we on the way to fame and renown in such a command?’’ 9 The end of the war found them enforcing order in the streets of Milledgeville, the state capital, until they surrendered on May , .10 The University of Alabama’s cadet corps postponed the inevitable transformation into a combat unit until nearly the end. Fifty-four of the school’s cadets fought in the summer of , but the entire corps did not see combat as a unit until Union cavalry under Brigadier General John T. Croxton rode into Tuscaloosa on the night of April , . After a chaotic night battle in the burning city streets, the cadets withdrew from the city in the face of superior numbers. By the next morning, the university was in flames. Without a school, and without military orders or direction, Superintendent Garland realized the hopelessness of his predicament and furloughed the corps on April .11 The experiences of Citadel and Arsenal cadets roughly paralleled those of their counterparts at . Repeatedly called out for garrison duty, prisoner escorts, funeral details, and drilling new recruits, the young would-be soldiers longed for the excitement of combat. They finally tasted it in December . As Union major general John P. Hatch drove eastward from Beaufort, South Carolina, to cut the railroad between Charleston and Savannah, the Confederates desperately rounded up any available units they could find, including the Forty-Seventh Georgia Infantry and reserve units from Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The South Carolina cadets received orders as well and formed into a battalion of two companies; the Citadel cadets became Company A of the Battalion of State Cadets, while the Arsenal contingent became Company B. They rendezvoused at the Citadel, took the train to Pocataligo, and were attached to the Forty-Seventh Georgia. The cadets, with their relatively fresh uniforms and immaculate drill, presented a stark contrast to the ragged militiamen and older veterans with whom they were soon to fight the Yankees. Veterans wondered aloud whether ‘‘those Dandy-Jim looking kids’’ would fight.12 The South Carolina cadets did indeed fight well, earning the respect of the veterans and their superior officers. At the resulting Battle of Tulifinny Bridge on December , they fought on the defensive for several hours, stub-

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The charge of the Citadel cadets at Tulifinny, December ,  (Citadel Archives and Museum)

bornly holding their position. When the enemy in their front broke, they charged and drove them, suffering one killed and seven wounded.13 The Citadel cadets did not know it, but the day they had embarked for Pocataligo would be the last of their academic careers. The Arsenal cadets returned to Columbia for a few more weeks of study, but soon both companies had augmented the remnants of Confederate forces trying to slow Sherman’s advance through South Carolina. Like  and University of Alabama cadets, they soon found themselves campaigning in the field without a campus home. Union troops burned the Arsenal when they entered Columbia in February  and occupied the Citadel when they captured Charleston. The little bands of cadets continued in active service for several weeks after the surrender at Appomattox.14 Superintendent Smith of  managed to keep his cadet corps from being broken up into various military units and was among the most successful southern college presidents in continuing academic exercises almost until the end of the war. The  cadets did join the Confederate army on numerous occasions and saw combat at the Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley on May , . There they won immortality. Major General John C. Breckenridge had scraped together a makeshift force of , Confederates, including roughly   cadets, to oppose the advance up the valley of Major General Franz Sigel’s , Union troops. Due to Breckenridge’s reluctance to use the cadets in combat, they began the battle in reserve. Early in the day, older troops in other units taunted and teased the beardless youths in their natty uni-

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Citadel cadet corporal Edward Thomas, class of , who served as a cadet lieutenant at Tulifinny. Southern college students were often as young as fifteen or sixteen. (Citadel Archives and Museum)

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Painting of the famous charge of  cadets at the Battle of New Market, May ,  ( Archives)

forms. As Breckenridge’s line advanced under heavy fire, however, a dangerous gap opened in the Confederate center, and only the cadets were available to fill it. With deep regret, Breckenridge finally consented to send the cadets into the thick of the fight, saying, ‘‘Put the boys in, and may God forgive me for the order.’’ 15 The cadets advanced under heavy fire, with enemy bullets and artillery tearing through their ranks. One of

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the fallen was their commandant, Colonel Scott Ship, who was knocked unconscious by an artillery blast. After helping to repel a Union countercharge, the cadets advanced again, scattering the enemy in their front, capturing an abandoned enemy artillery piece, pouring enfilade into the wavering Union lines on their flanks, and awing both Confederate and Union veterans. When the battle was over, the cadet force of  had suffered severely; there were  casualties,  of whom were killed outright or wounded mortally.16 The charge of the New Market cadets became part of Confederate lore and  legend. Within days of the victory, news of their exploits had spread throughout the Shenandoah Valley and to Richmond, so that the cadets enjoyed lavish treatment throughout their march back up the valley. Before the month was over, they received the official thanks of the Confederate House of Representatives as well as President Jefferson Davis. The stories of their gallant conduct grew over the years into the realm of mythology. Some accounts had the cadets capturing an entire battery in hand-to-hand combat, rather than a single abandoned artillery piece; others asserted that the cadets charged the battery on their own initiative rather than under the orders of their tactical officers. Still, the cadets, like their counterparts in other military schools, had performed valiantly, and the  contingent had played a crucial role in the Battle of New Market.17 White southerners in the post-Reconstruction period did not forget the contributions of military schools to the Confederate war effort. The contributions of  and the Citadel, in particular, were visible and memorable enough to provide them the political capital they needed to survive after the war. What Virginian did not remember the glorious charge of the New Market cadets? What South Carolinian could forget the Citadel cadets firing on the Star of the West or the charge at Tulifinny? No white southerner after the war could accuse the military schools of the s of shirking their duties. Even more significant were the reputations of individual military school graduates and former faculty members who had served prominently. As Lost Cause mythology turned every capable Confederate officer into a legendary hero, their reputations in turn became political assets to their alma maters. To begin, southern military schools benefited indirectly from the prominence of many West Point graduates who fought on the southern side. Although West Point was not a southern military school, the fame of many of its graduates sustained the claims of mili-

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Tom Lovell’s painting of  cadets capturing a Union battery at New Market. The battery was not actually manned by Union troops at the time of its capture. ( Archives)

tary education in southerners’ minds. Southerners admired men like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, Jubal Early, P. G. T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston, and a host of lesser figures for their perceived character traits as well as their fighting prowess. While West Pointers predominated among Confederate army and corps commanders, the roll call of ‘‘ men’’ among high-ranking Confederate officers was equally impressive. Leading the list was an ex-professor, Thomas J. ‘‘Stonewall’’ Jackson, the eccentric  instructor and one of the Confederacy’s most beloved heroes. Those  graduates who became brigade or division commanders in Robert E. Lee’s army included Robert E. Rodes, James H. Lane, John M. Brockenbrough, Thomas S. Garnett, Raleigh Colston, Francis Mallory, William Mahone, John Mc-

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Causland, and Thomas Munford. Rodes, Garnett, and Mallory lost their lives in the conflict. Meanwhile, Thomas H. Carter and Stapleton Crutchfield served as high-ranking artillery officers. The Citadel’s list of brigade commanders—Ellison Capers, Evander Law, Johnson Hagood, Charles Courtenay Tew, and Micah Jenkins—was shorter but scarcely less notable. Tew, the Citadel’s first honor graduate, was shot through the temple at Sharpsburg, while the dashing cavalry leader Jenkins was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness.18 While the memories of battlefield heroics and fallen alumni bolstered the prestige of the military schools among white southerners after the war, the subsequent civilian careers of those who survived were equally if not more important. While some military school graduates struggled to make ends meet in their impoverished homeland after the war, an astonishing number claimed important positions of civil leadership throughout their native states. In the case of the Citadel, the influence of alumni helped persuade the state of South Carolina in  to dedicate part of its impoverished income to reopening and supporting their alma mater. Brigadier General Ellison Capers (Citadel class of ) was wounded several times while serving under Joseph Johnston, John B. Hood, and Beauregard and later became South Carolina’s secretary of state. He subsequently entered the ministry and became the Episcopal bishop of the diocese of South Carolina. Johnson Hagood (class of ) fought at Manassas and commanded a brigade along the South Carolina coast and in the battles around Petersburg, Cold Harbor, and Bentonville, North Carolina. He later served as South Carolina’s comptroller general, president of the state agricultural and mechanical society, and governor from  to . Peter F. Stevens (class of ) was a wartime superintendent of the Citadel before becoming a missionary and bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church. John Peyre Thomas went on from his graduation in  to serve as the wartime superintendent of the Arsenal and the commander of its cadets at Tulifinny. He later became a newspaper editor, founded the Carolina Military Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, led it for a decade, served two terms in the South Carolina legislature, and was superintendent of the resurrected Citadel from  to . Cadet Robert Aldrich deserted the Citadel as a third classman in  to join a cavalry company of ex-cadets. Rising to the rank of first lieutenant, he was wounded at Trevilian Station in  and later became a South Carolina state legislator and senator. Thus, both he and Governor John-

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son Hagood were elected officials in the South Carolina state government when the fateful vote was taken on whether to reopen the Citadel. Timothy George Dargan of the class of  served as a Confederate officer and later in Congress. Hugh S. Thompson of the class of  had no distinguished war record, but after the war he served as state superintendent of education from  to , as governor for two terms, and then as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury.19 The military schools’ contributions to military preparedness, however, had not been enough to prevent disaster. The South’s network of military schools, along with its other military traditions, had not been able to save the region from physical destruction, previously unimagined carnage, or the loss of one of its most cherished domestic institutions. Indeed, most southern military academies died with the Confederate armies. When the smoke cleared in the spring of , most southern military schools were occupied or had been destroyed by federal forces.  and the Arsenal in Columbia, South Carolina, were in ashes and did not open their doors again. In Charleston, federal troops continued to occupy the Citadel’s campus for over a decade before surviving alumni reclaimed it in . Union general David Hunter had burned most of ’s campus in . Superintendent Smith, however, managed to assemble a faculty and resume classes in October . The barracks were in ruins, but the cadets found lodging with families in Lexington. , along with Louisiana State, was among the few such schools to resume classes in the fall of ; most of the others would never reopen.20 Yet the fires of southern militarism arguably burned higher after the Civil War than before. A policy of aggressive military preparedness may have been part of southern militarism before the conflict, but afterward southern militarism existed mainly in the realm of legend, myth, and cultural notions of what it meant to be an honorable man. The new wave of military education that swept the South in the last decades of the nineteenth century was not intended to enhance the states’ military readiness or regional defenses. Militarism now found expression exclusively in more abstract, mythical terms—honor, patriotism, duty, respect for the law, sacrifice, and even piety. The claim that military service and education were intimately associated with these virtues was one element of the southern military tradition that survived the ravages of the war intact, indeed strengthened, and in turn profoundly affected higher education in the postwar South. The  that emerged literally from the ashes of war could no longer

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advertise to state authorities that it made a contribution to military readiness. Loyal Unionists now controlled the state government and saw  as a dangerous source of southern militarism. Superintendent Smith had to persuade the federally appointed governor, Francis Pierpoint, to let the institute reopen. He avoided mentioning ’s military usefulness and instead emphasized its curriculum of applied sciences, which was ‘‘preeminently fitted’’ for the job of rebuilding the South.21 ’s legacy as a training ground for militia officers was a liability as it sought state funding, federal reparations for its destruction, and private donations from old friends in the North.Washington was in no mood to recompense  for its destruction until well into the next century. State funds were nonexistent, and  survived the first several postwar years only through private donations and reductions in faculty salaries. Yet most of the more lucrative, northern sources of private donations had disappeared. Old friends from the North bitterly rejected Smith’s pleas for help.22 Thus, as  struggled back to its feet in the Reconstruction era, it publicly minimized its military character. Its academic mission triumphed completely over its military purpose. One modern historian of the school points out, however, that even as  recognized that its objective no longer included enhancing the military readiness of Virginia, it looked to its wartime past for ideological inspiration and mission. The flowering of the legend of the Lost Cause, ’s connections with Confederate glory, and the school’s early rebuffs by the postwar state government eventually caused the institution to turn inward and dwell on its Confederate past.23 The Citadel also faced the task of redefining itself in alumni efforts to resurrect it after the war. In  and  South Carolina governors asked the War Department to return the Citadel to the state, only to be refused. After further efforts by Citadel alumni and the state legislature, federal troops finally evacuated the school’s buildings in . During the – legislative session, however, Citadel boosters faced a tough battle to obtain state funding to reopen the school because opponents in the legislature stressed fiscal economy. During the  session the legislature had funded the University of South Carolina and Claflin College, and during the – session legislators argued that the state was simply too poor to support another institution of higher education at that time.24 The Citadel’s supporters minimized the costs of reopening their alma

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mater, but mainly they stressed the benefits of military education in character formation. Back in  Governor Richardson had advocated the establishment of military schools, partly with the argument that only by being militarily prepared could South Carolina defend itself against the encroachments of the federal government. Postbellum supporters abandoned that tack. No longer would the Citadel justify itself in terms of military readiness. In a letter-writing campaign to the state’s newspapers in the fall of , Citadel alumni stressed the collateral benefits of military discipline in education. A partial list of the titles of their articles effectively summarizes their arguments: ‘‘Military Training Useful Principally in the Formation of Character and the Maintenance of Discipline, and Not to Make Professional Soldiers’’; ‘‘Value of the Military School System as a Preparation for Practical Life’’; ‘‘The Low Cost of the Education at The Citadel, and the Opportunity for the Poor Boy’’; and ‘‘Results of Military Training on the Bearing, Character, and Spirit of the Cadet.’’ 25 Legislators used these same arguments in favor of the bill to restore the Citadel that came before the legislature the following December and January. The Citadel, they said, could provide a useful, inexpensive education while simultaneously infusing discipline and notions of honor and integrity in the cadet. The reputations of well-known Citadel alumni were crucial at this point. As proof of the school’s usefulness, supporters pointed to the large number of Citadel alumni who were then respected leaders in the state. Even opponents of the bill acknowledged their high regard for many Citadel graduates and the ‘‘proudest memories’’ of the Citadel’s past. After a difficult, seesaw battle, the restoration bill finally passed.26 Thus, the Citadel’s reopening was an example of how the legacy of the military school’s Confederate service and the postwar prestige of many of its graduates helped keep the southern military school tradition alive. The real story in the rebirth of military education in the South, however, lies not with  and the Citadel but with the land-grant colleges. Ironically, the liberality of the federal government helped make the rebirth of the southern military school tradition possible.Under the Morrill Land Grant Act of , the federal government pledged to grant land to each state in the amount of thirty thousand acres per congressman. If the state legislature accepted the land, it was to be sold and the proceeds of the sale invested in state or federal bonds yielding at least  percent interest. Income thus derived would support at least one college that provided instruction in scientific agriculture and the practical sciences.

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The language of the Morrill Act also specified the inclusion of military tactics in the curriculum, but it did not require the land-grant schools to be military schools as such. The text of the law emphasized agricultureand science-related fields, not military instruction.27 Schools in the North and West tended to meet the requirement by prescribing some sort of military instruction in drill or tactics. Most of them did not require students to wear uniforms at all times, institute a West Point–style demerit system, or organize the students into companies for round-the-clock discipline. Rather, the northern land-grant schools typically functioned as civilian colleges with a smattering of military instruction thrown into the curriculum. The distinction between simply offering or requiring some instruction in military tactics and operating under a military system of student discipline is important. While the former arrangement illustrates little more than compliance with federal law, the presence of a full-scale military system on campus would indicate that military training was seen as critical to a young man’s socialization.28 Military education was far different in the South. Southern land-grant schools not only required all physically capable male students to participate in drill; they also typically required them to wear uniforms all day, to be constantly under the strict military supervision of a military officer (commandant) and their cadet officers, and to submit to military systems of demerits, courts-martial, and promotions. College students at southern land-grant schools awoke to a bugle at reveille and studied until another bugle sounded ‘‘Taps.’’ Every southern white college founded under the Morrill Act made its debut as, or soon became, a full-fledged military school: Texas A&M, Arkansas, and North Georgia, founded in ; Auburn and Virginia Tech, in ; Mississippi State, in ; Clemson, in ; and North Carolina State, in . The Louisiana State Seminary of Learning () returned to military organization when it reopened in , and the University of Tennessee had adopted a military regimen by .29 There was a parallel movement toward military education in several black colleges. Hampton Institute adopted the military system in the s, and Florida A&M, South Carolina State, and Georgia State Industrial College in Savannah were using it by the turn of the century. The South also witnessed the return of private military preparatory schools in the s, and they became fashionable by the s. These developments, more than the survival and resurrection of  and the Citadel, showed that southerners still believed that military discipline was benefi-

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cial in the education and moral development of young men.The southern military school tradition was reborn.30 Southern land-grant colleges routinely denied that their aim was to train professional soldiers. There were a variety of other reasons why the schools’ founders and leaders turned to the military system rather than simply introducing a few courses on drill and tactics. The imprecise wording of the Morrill Act was one reason why the land-grant schools became military schools, but probably one of the least important. Congress’s decision to append the military requirement to the  land-grant act was probably a result of the North’s shortage of trained military officers at the beginning of the Civil War. Morrill’s original version of the bill, proposed in , made no mention of military tactics.31 The final version passed in  without debate, but Morrill’s speech in favor of the bill on June , , indicated that northerners believed they had been unprepared for war.32 Most of Morrill’s speech stressed his bill’s benefits to agriculture and higher education, but he also added that ‘‘something of military instruction has been incorporated in the bill in consequence of the new conviction of its necessity forced upon the attention of the loyal States by the history of the past year. . . . These colleges, founded in every State . . . may to some extent guard against the sheer ignorance of all military art which shrouded the country, and especially the North, at the time when the tocsin of war sounded at Fort Sumter.’’ 33 Morrill explained that while West Point may be adequate for training and officering a peacetime regular army, it was ‘‘wholly inadequate’’ when a large citizen army had to be quickly raised and trained.34 Many northerners agreed with Morrill’s military assessment, believing that military education had given the southern rebels significant advantages at the beginning of the war. Still, the military training clause was only a subordinate feature of a bill passed by a northern Congress and president in a time of national military emergency. With their former colleagues from the eleven seceded states absent, northern politicians belatedly recognized the North’s inadequate military preparation. Morrill himself apparently regarded the teaching of drill and tactics as a tool to enhance national military readiness, not moral character.35 Ironically, though, it was the southern land-grant colleges that took the military training clause most seriously after the war. College leaders tended to interpret the law in a way that best fit their intentions and prejudices. Most southern administrators used it as an incidental justification for a system in which they already believed. In a report to his board of

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trustees, Texas A&M president Hardaway Hunt Dinwiddie defended the military system from criticism by pointing out how beneficial it was in inducing ‘‘habits of neatness, promptness, and order’’ and ‘‘furnishing excellent regular exercise.’’ ‘‘Besides,’’ he added, ‘‘the law of Congress requires that military tactics shall be taught here, and this law must be obeyed or the endowment fund surrendered to the United States government.’’ 36 Dinwiddie well knew, of course, that military education at Texas A&M involved far more than courses in tactics; it governed all aspects of student life. At Mississippi State it was clear that college president and ex-Confederate general Stephen D. Lee had his own reasons for adopting military discipline. The school’s first catalog in  stated that the military department of the college existed partly in the interest of the federal government and ‘‘partly in the interest of the College itself as an auxiliary means of governing the conduct of students.’’ 37 At Virginia Polytechnic (), however, one of the few schools that rejected the military system in its opening years, the trustees interpreted the Morrill Act differently. Initially the school chose in  not to compete with nearby , claiming that the Morrill Act only required the land-grant schools to conduct military drills a few times a week. Within a decade, though, the influence of Confederate veterans on the faculty and board of trustees resulted in  firmly embracing the military system as a means to instill discipline and character.38 George D. Tillman of South Carolina argued in  that the Morrill Act did not require instruction in military tactics at all. Tillman was the older brother of Benjamin R. ‘‘Ben’’ Tillman, U.S. senator and former South Carolina governor. Attacking Clemson Agricultural College’s teaching of tactics and drill, he claimed that the purpose of the act was to ensure that the colleges were under military discipline to cultivate obedience, promptness, courtesy, graceful carriage, gentlemanly conduct, and ‘‘a high sense of personal honor.’’ Thus, he aimed his criticism solely at the teaching of tactics and drill, not military discipline itself. George Tillman wanted Clemson to stop ‘‘pretending’’ to be a military school on a par with the Citadel and West Point and concentrate its curriculum instead on the agricultural and practical sciences. Interestingly, George Tillman’s reproach of Clemson probably represented an attack on his brother Ben, who provided the political impetus for the founding of the college in the late s and early s, and who was one of the college’s early trustees. Regardless of George Tillman’s intentions, his public position

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on military training at Clemson demonstrated that the Morrill Act was not the decisive factor in turning the southern land-grant colleges into military schools; protagonists used it to bolster whatever position they already held concerning military training.39 Another secondary, though more decisive, factor in the land-grant schools’ decisions to operate as military schools was that educators were convinced of the need for order and discipline on campus. Clemson’s Board of Trustees declared in  that it was impossible to run a college without strict discipline. As late as  Clemson president Walter M. Riggs asserted that as his school was located in ‘‘the country,’’ it had to have barracks life, and barracks life with eight hundred or more boys without strict discipline would be ‘‘unthinkable.’’ 40 The faculty of the black school that would become Florida A&M identified the cultivation of punctuality and obedience as a reason for installing the military system there.41 President Stephen D. Lee of Mississippi State reported to the Board of Trustees in  that military discipline ‘‘expedites and facilitates the workings of the College.’’ 42 Auburn’s  catalog claimed that it secured ‘‘good order, promptness and regularity in the performance of academic duties.’’ 43 Even at the University of Tennessee, where the administration’s attachment to the military system was weaker than at any other white college covered in this study, the – catalog praised military education as the ‘‘best means’’ for governing a group of young men and promoting scholarship.44 Southerners considered this discipline and subordination of youth to authority to be vital to the preservation of social order. Mississippi A&M’s – catalog asserted that habits of obedience to lawful authority instilled by military discipline would ‘‘be of great value to the communities to which [the cadets] belong.’’ 45 Asbury Coward, superintendent of the Citadel, declared in  that military education taught habits of obedience and ‘‘respect for legally constituted authority,’’ which engendered a ‘‘love and reverence of the law upon which the safety of the Republic must ever depend.’’ 46 Military life also tutored young men in the exercise of authority and responsibility and trained them to assume the leadership roles reserved for white males in southern society. As one father wrote to his son at  in , ‘‘We must first learn to obey before we can command.’’ 47 Mississippi A&M claimed that its cadets learned to exercise lawful authority and were ‘‘thus fitted for greater responsibilities at their homes.’’ 48 Military life also complemented the egalitarian purposes of the found-

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ers of the land-grant schools. Most leaders of southern land-grant colleges viewed them as ‘‘poor boys’ colleges,’’ where diligent members of the ‘‘industrial’’ classes could obtain an education. Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina, for example, claimed in the s that the founding of Clemson represented ‘‘a fight for the emancipation of the common people’’ and an attempt to ‘‘give practical education at such a slight cost that any boy in South Carolina, if he only be diligent, shall be able to attain it.’’ 49 By requiring the students to be in uniform at all times, school authorities hoped to clothe them cheaply and neatly. This was one part of a deliberate effort to keep college expenses as low as possible. Tuition was usually free; the schools often allowed the students to reduce their other costs by working on the college ‘‘farm,’’ and the mandatory uniform represented an attempt to reduce clothing expenses. Mississippi State, for example, required each cadet to purchase a uniform for around twelve dollars. Clemson required cadets to buy a fatigue uniform for eight dollars and a dress uniform for sixteen. If the requirement for a dress uniform prevented any young man from attending Clemson, however, he only had to buy the fatigue uniform, and the college would provide the dress uniform on loan.50 Due to the extreme poverty of the students attending black military colleges, economy was certainly an issue at those institutions as well. Florida A&M claimed that the uniforms the male students were required to wear were made in the college ‘‘shop’’ and sold at cost. Georgia State expected students to buy a uniform that cost approximately eight dollars, which, the catalog asserted, was ‘‘cheaper and neater than a citizen suit.’’ South Carolina State catalogs made the same claim.51 The required uniform was also a way to keep disparities in dress from distinguishing destitute students from the well-to-do. As one alumnus of Texas A&M bragged to a newspaper editor in , ‘‘The old gray uniform covers up poverty. There are no dress suits to buy at A. & M.; everybody looks alike, and it’s the qualities in the man that count there.’’ He went on to explain that barracks life allowed poor boys to keep their expenses low because they avoided paying rent at boardinghouses.52 Hierarchy of rank within the corps of cadets also reinforced egalitarian principles, because rank depended on seniority, grades, and good behavior, not socioeconomic status. Even in the antebellum period, leaders of  and the Citadel had claimed that the military system of education eliminated socioeconomic distinctions among cadets. Postbellum military schools made the same argument. As Lieutenant John S. Mallory,

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commandant at Texas A&M said, the military system ‘‘does away with all distinctions except those based on merit.’’ 53 Seniors with the highest grades and best military performances became cadet officers. Juniors and sophomores served as s. Freshmen were privates and, at most schools, endured the leveling effects of hazing. College officials condemned the latter practice, especially when it received negative publicity, but it nevertheless became entrenched in student life and culture.54 Thus several cultural and political realities reintroduced the drill musket and cadet gray uniform into southern higher education: the Morrill Act, the need for order on campus, the perceived need for discipline in youth, and egalitarianism. Yet the most powerful force legitimizing the military system in southern (white) higher education may have been the image of the knightly, valorous, virtuous, and pious Confederate soldier. The legend of the Lost Cause, in which the gray-clad paladins of the South sacrificed life and limb to defend their homeland against the Yankee horde, reinforced and solidified the southern cultural notion that martial and moral virtues were inseparable. As the new southern colleges began the task of molding the young men of the next generation, therefore, they sought to instill in them the habits, feelings, and qualities expected of soldiers. They dressed them in gray uniforms, put rifles in their hands, and exhorted them to imitate the virtues of their Confederate forebears.

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Soldiers, Christians, and Patriots The Impact of the Lost Cause In April  the military cadets of North Georgia Agricultural College in Dahlonega, Georgia, took the lead in organizing the town’s annual Confederate Memorial Day celebration. They announced in the Dahlonega newspaper their intention to demonstrate that ‘‘the thoughts of our cause are as dear to us now as ever’’ by laying aside their books and casting flowers on the graves of the Confederate dead at the local cemetery.1 The students appointed two of their own to deliver orations and asked the town’s citizens to join them. On the appointed day, the citizens, almost en masse, joined the students at the college. The entire procession repaired to the cemetery led by the college president and the students. ExConfederate captain Joseph W. Woodward lectured the audience on the chivalry and heroism of Confederate soldiers. Later, Cadet Frank L. Haralson paid homage to the piety and heroism of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson: ‘‘Our Lee and Jackson, two God-like heroes who were invincible in the battle field, scorned not to visit the dying soldier and kneel before his humble couch, and lift their hearts and hand to the throne of God and ask him to take the soldier’s spirit home. . . . They were the purest men who ever adorned or illuminated this land.’’ 2 Cadet John M. Williams linked the performance of military duty with patriotism and martyrdom: ‘‘Bravely did they bear aloft the banner of our country . . . they followed whenever they were called upon to go; and the best and noblest spirits of which this country could boast, have been offered up on the altar of their country.’’ Williams admitted that not all Confederate soldiers were blameless in character but asserted that their virtues so outweighed their faults that to dwell on such defects would be

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‘‘as futile as to object to the glorious light of the sun because an occasional spot is seen on his disc.’’ 3 The  ceremonies at North Georgia College were typical of Lost Cause celebrations at military schools across the South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is a rich body of literature on the Lost Cause. Collectively, the current literature indicates that the Lost Cause had several definitions and interpretations. Gaines Foster explains how the Lost Cause alternately served both New South advocates and traditionalists in their efforts to support or resist economic and social change. Fred Arthur Bailey has shown how elites sought to use it as an intellectual tool to reestablish social order and the traditional class hierarchy. Lee Ann Whites describes how it helped white men as they struggled to regain honor and self-esteem and reassert traditional gender roles. Charles Reagan Wilson identifies religion as central to the Lost Cause and explores its ritualistic and theological elements.4 The relationship of the Lost Cause to southern militarism, however, as well its impact on higher education, merits further study. Perhaps the most central and enduring element of the Lost Cause was the firm connection in the minds of southerners between martial virtues (courage, patriotism, selflessness, and loyalty) and moral rectitude. The image of the valorous soldier as a patriot and model citizen had antebellum roots, but it shaped and drew strength from the legend of the Lost Cause after the Civil War. The ideal of the valorous and virtuous soldier informed the ‘‘better-men concept’’ described by Thomas Connelly and Barbara Bellows and found symbolic expression in Lost Cause rhetoric about the Confederate army, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, other Confederate officers, and countless anonymous enlisted men.5 The Lost Cause strengthened the southern military tradition. White southerners in the postbellum period, particularly as a result of their Confederate past and the powerful appeal of the Lost Cause, were apt to equate military service and martial valor with broader cultural notions of honor, patriotism, civic duty, and virtue. Especially after the Civil War, southerners subscribed to a brand of militarism that was expressed less in policies of aggressive military preparedness than in holding up military virtues to the young as marks of honorable and virtuous citizenship. Thus the Lost Cause and the image of the honorable, upright citizensoldier contributed to and helped justify the resurgence of southern military schools after the Civil War. The most important argument behind postbellum military education

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was that military training produced citizens who were not only law abiding but morally upright as well. Historian Ted Ownby has pointed out that there was profound tension in southern culture between evangelical morality and expressions of masculinity that included drinking, fighting over perceived insults and points of honor, gambling, and other forms of behavior that signified a lack of self-control. Boisterous expressions of nineteenth-century male culture rivaled evangelical culture, which valued prayer, domestic quiet and harmony, and self-control. Ownby further claims that in the latter half of the century evangelical culture gained an ascendancy over its rival. After the Civil War, most young southerners ‘‘grew up with evangelical morals as the first and most important set of rules.’’ 6 Military school proponents sought to reconcile these two opposing codes of male behavior. They built on the well-established notion that military skill and the bearing of arms were defining characteristics of manhood. Their efforts, however, whether consciously or not, complemented those of evangelical reformers by promoting more selfdisciplined, self-controlled, and perhaps even more pious expressions of masculinity. They sought a middle ground between the ‘‘hell-raising, selfproving male code of behavior’’ and the ‘‘softness and humility of evangelicalism.’’ 7 Military schools sternly prohibited drinking, gambling, and fighting among cadets. They did not, of course, condemn violent male expression, but they condoned the controlled, disciplined violence of the soldier rather than the tavern brawl. Military schools described the ideal man and citizen as a brave soldier, not a swaggering, whiskey-drinking hellion eager to prove his prowess in gambling and fighting. Thus, while their interpretation of manliness was firmly embedded in the idea that fighting was honorable, their definition of moral character and manliness was not far from that of the evangelical clergy.8 College authorities indeed attributed a confusing variety of virtues to military training. The text of the  state law that legally combined  with Louisiana State A&M College assumed that military education inculcated ‘‘a noble sense of personal and patriotic and religious duty.’’ 9 Texas A&M president John G. James’s  report to the Board of Trustees asserted that ‘‘the military system of school government . . . [tends] to develop in the student a high sense of personal honor and moral responsibility, and to give him those habits of regularity, promptness, selfreliance, and respect for proper authority, which go far to make the good citizen and successful man of business. It thus becomes a potent factor in the formation of true character.’’ 10

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These mental connections between military, moral, and civic virtue echoed the claims of the antebellum military schools. They found even more forceful and widespread expression, though, after the war, especially as the Lost Cause became a prominent part of southern culture. From the early s until the passage of the National Defense Act and the beginning of the Reserve Officers Training Program in , the image of the noble and virtuous Confederate soldier, as well as the rhetoric and mythology of the Lost Cause, permeated southern military schools. The Lost Cause was a web of strongly held beliefs that helped bewildered southerners deal with the reality of Confederate defeat, postwar suffering, and rapid social and political change. As a myth it was not purely irrational but an attempt to make sense of a contradictory, ambiguous experience. There were several different interpretations of the Lost Cause—political, economic, and religious. Charles Reagan Wilson argues that the most important interpretation of the Lost Cause was religious. Wilson claims that the ritualistic, theological, institutional, and educational elements of the Lost Cause made up the ‘‘civil religion’’ of the latenineteenth-century South. As a civil religion, it represented a fusion of religion and a people’s history.11 The religious interpretation of the Lost Cause was only one of several, but glorification of the Confederate experience did produce a union of religious and military virtues in the southern value system. Southern clergymen cited the Confederate army as an example of the fusion of Christian and soldierly virtues, referring to it as a ‘‘noble army of martyrs’’ that had answered a sacred call to duty. Pastors and their people glorified a pantheon of individual military heroes, including Robert E. Lee, the perfect Christian knight, and Stonewall Jackson, the teetotaler and ‘‘stern Old Testament prophet-warrior.’’ Another heroic figure was Episcopal bishop and Confederate general Leonidas K. Polk, who ‘‘buckle[d] the sword over the gown’’ and died in battle with a bloodstained prayer book next to his heart. Images of Lee, Jackson, Polk, and others linked military to religious values in the minds of southerners. Wilson cites the dedication of a monument to Stonewall Jackson in Richmond in  as an example of these cultural beliefs. On October  of that year, nearly fifty thousand people turned out to witness the monument dedication. Governor James L. Kemper as well as several ministers gave speeches and said prayers, in which they lauded not only the strength and courage of Jackson but also his piety and moral excellence. Governor Kemper

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summed up the eulogies of Jackson when he called him a ‘‘Christian warrior.’’ The city of Richmond had prepared for the event by erecting appropriate decorations all over town. There were lots of Confederate flags but also several decorations that blended religious and military themes. The Grand Arch downtown, for example, included icons such as a saber, a Bible, a Confederate cap, an angel, and a pennant bearing the emblem of the cross. Inscribed on the arch were the words ‘‘Warrior, Christian, Patriot.’’ 12 White southerners repeated versions of this ritual hundreds of times in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Not all communities could sponsor ceremonies as elaborate and well attended as the one described above, but everywhere the Confederate soldier became a symbol of the character traits they hoped to instill in youth. Southerners lifted up the Confederate soldier, both literally and figuratively; praised his martial, moral, and civic virtues; and held him up to the young as an example worthy of emulation. The perceived philosophical connections between piety and military service made it only natural for southern military school cadets to receive heavy doses of Protestant evangelical Christianity. While high-spirited cadets rarely resembled devout choirboys, the machinery of discipline encouraged and enforced outward signs of piety. College regulations required the young men to attend church every Sunday and often chapel exercises every morning. Cadet officers stood at the doors of local churches on Sunday mornings, taking roll. Those who ‘‘played hooky’’ from church faced punishment. The rules strictly forbade drinking, profanity, betting, card-playing, ‘‘loitering about places of dissipation,’’ and ‘‘all offenses against good morals . . . to the prejudice of good order and gentlemanly bearing.’’ 13 School authorities forthrightly announced that they supervised ‘‘Christian’’ institutions, and that military discipline was an effective means of maintaining them. North Georgia College catalogs, for example, proclaimed, ‘‘The college is non-sectarian, but decidedly Christian in character. . . . We believe in shaping the discipline of the college so that manhood will be developed and our students will leave us with sound minds. . . . We are a religious people, and whoever wishes to live with us must put up with that fact.’’ 14 College leaders clearly assumed a connection between discipline and piety and assured parents that their programs could effectively combine military discipline with Christian development. The military education program also helped enforce the prevailing

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North Carolina State’s first freshman class shortly after matriculation in . Students at land-grant colleges were often a very rustic sort. (North Carolina State University Archives)

moral code through the supervision of the cadets themselves. Since it contained its own officers and s, the corps of cadets helped to police itself, with cadet officers responsible for ensuring proper behavior among the younger students. College authorities believed that this system inspired a ‘‘firmer moral tone’’ than what any ‘‘system of outside espionage’’ could achieve.15 Auburn’s commandant claimed in  that delegating authority to upperclassmen also helped break down the traditional antagonism between teachers and students, as the enforcement of discipline was no longer the sole responsibility of faculty members.16 Military school leaders probably did not differentiate between religious and military virtues and such civic virtues as courage, patriotism, respect for the law, and ‘‘correct habits of thought and action.’’ In a speech at ’s  commencement exercises, Captain John S. Wise lectured his audience that the term ‘‘ ‘Warrior’ . . . implies clusters and groups of attributes, the highest and noblest in our race—Patriotism, Virtue, Valor, Disinterestedness, Moderation, Patience, Fortitude, Equipoise in Victory and Defeat, [and] Humanity.’’ 17 Similarly, North Georgia’s catalog stated that ‘‘the benefits which the student derives from military training are

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 cadets at a ‘‘summer encampment,’’  ( Archives)

moral, mental, and physical, and are valuable to the citizen as to the soldier. Military instruction develops the student morally by instilling principles of patriotism, courage, obedience to law and respect for lawful authority, while military discipline enjoins correct habits of living.’’ 18 Thus with astonishing force and clarity, the leaders of many southern colleges articulated the cultural notion that by teaching young men to be good soldiers, they could make them good Christians and upright citizens as well. Many northerners shared southerners’ support of military training. In the North, however, there was enough opposition to mandatory military training in the college curriculum that the military programs in northern colleges were often feeble and halting in comparison to those in the South. Former Union general Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, for example, praised military training as an excellent way to develop character and discipline in youth. As president of Maine’s Bowdoin College, he attempted to institute mandatory drill (not a full military program) in . Vehement student opposition and lukewarm support from the public, faculty, and trustees brought a quick end to the experiment in .19 Military training was part of the curriculum when Ohio State opened its doors in . The Ohio General Assembly passed legislation in , however, that prohibited the school from making any sort of military training mandatory. University president Edward Orton opposed this move, though he conceded that ‘‘public sentiment in Ohio, as far as it takes cognizance of the subject [military training] at all, is divided in re-

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gard to it.’’ 20 Despite the  legislation, the school’s Board of Trustees voted in  to make military drill compulsory for all physically capable male students in the freshman and sophomore classes. The new president, Walter Q. Scott, rejoiced in  that no other department of the school besides the military department produced better results ‘‘in all that relates to the education of a citizen.’’ 21 Yet some trustees disagreed, proposing in  to make drill and the wearing of uniforms optional. The proposal did not pass, succumbing to a substitute motion that the faculty arrange the course schedule so that sophomores would have the ‘‘opportunity’’ to participate in drill.22 At Rhode Island, Rutgers, and Penn State, the strength of the military programs waxed and waned with the ability or availability of trained military officers to conduct training and with the vicissitudes of popular opinion and student enthusiasm. Even at these schools, the military programs merely required drill, the occasional wearing of uniforms, and sometimes tactics classes, and they never took charge of overall discipline and student life. For every northern educator in the land-grant schools who favored military education, there were enough apathetic or hostile students and citizens to weaken their programs to the point of absurdity. Cornell president Andrew D. White thought military training produced a leveling effect that broke down social barriers, corrected the ‘‘rustic slouchiness’’ of youth, and produced men who could exercise civil leadership in times of civic commotion.23 His military education program languished through the s, however. Only freshmen were required to drill, and in  the trustees made even that optional. The college again made drill compulsory in , but the state was slow to provide weapons, so that cadets often drilled with umbrellas and canes. The uniforms became so threadbare that they were abolished except for the required headgear, a blue kepi. Cadets of the s kept beer in the artillery caissons and regarded a hideous uniform fit as stylish. Denied the necessary means to enforce discipline, officers in the military department routinely endured insubordination and mutiny. Student interest in the program revived only during the commandancy of army captain Frank A. Barton from  to  and after the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in .24 Many southerners, of course, had no use for military education when they perceived it as a means of turning their sons into dandified martinets. South Carolina’s Ben Tillman, for example, ridiculed the Citadel as a ‘‘dude factory’’ in . Tillman’s comments, whether they originated

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from petty politics or populist principles, did not indicate philosophical opposition to military education itself. He later withdrew his criticism of the Citadel, opposed those who sought to cut its appropriation, and helped to oversee the organization of Clemson as a military school. Southern land-grant colleges also were vulnerable to criticism when outsiders perceived that the military feature was overshadowing agricultural and scientific education. Texas A&M, for example, came under attack from agrarian populists in . Stimulated in part by the depression of , a farmers’ movement represented by the Populist Party charged that A&M had neglected ‘‘farm and shop work’’ and become a ‘‘military peacockery.’’ 25 In their own defense, military schools responded that the military aspect of student life was a ‘‘distinctive, but by no means a characteristic feature’’ of their institutions.26 This line of defense was quite effective.When southern land-grant schools came under attack from various political factions, rarely, if ever, did their opponents challenge the fundamental premise that military training built character. Thus there was a general consensus in the South that military education would mold young men into good citizens. One reason this notion went unchallenged was the military background of the South’s political and educational leadership in the late nineteenth century. In his observations of twentieth-century America, retired Marine colonel James A. Donovan astutely noted that in the s, the United States was a ‘‘nation of veterans.’’ 27 As a result of World War II and the Korean War, about  percent of American males over age twenty-one were veterans in . For many veterans, their military service may be the most impressive and influential experience they ever have. ‘‘The pride and traditions experienced in military service remain with most men all their lives,’’ Donovan wrote.28 Thus the experiences of war and peacetime military service had made the United States a more militaristic nation.29 If the United States of the s was a ‘‘nation of veterans,’’ then certainly the post–Civil War South was a ‘‘land of veterans.’’ The Confederate states had . million white men of military age (eighteen to forty-five) in . Between , and  million men served in Confederate ranks during the war. Thus between  and  percent of adult white southern males saw active military service.30 Confederate veterans in the South enjoyed leadership roles for a far longer time than a society usually allots to a generation. Former Confederate soldiers held prominent positions in politics, business, and the churches for several decades after the war. The same was true in higher

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education. Confederate veterans dominated the faculties, governing boards, and president’s offices of postbellum colleges, including military schools. General Stephen D. Lee served as the first president of Mississippi State, while General Daniel Harvey Hill was one of the early leaders of the University of Arkansas. General Lawrence ‘‘Sul’’ Ross was probably Texas A&M’s most popular president. Confederate general James H. Lane was Virginia Tech’s first commandant of cadets and, later, a professor at Auburn. In fact, the list of ex-Confederate officers who served as college presidents, commandants of cadets, and early faculty members is much too long to complete here. The same is true for trustees. North Georgia’s founder and first president of the Board of Trustees was Confederate veteran William P. Price, and at least fourteen of the board’s twenty-five members in  were also former Confederate soldiers. Ten of Clemson’s original thirteen board members used military titles, and its first president of the board was Colonel Richard W. Simpson, a veteran of the Third South Carolina Regiment.31 These men were living symbols of the Lost Cause and heroes to their students. Cadets and other southerners regarded the veterans’ valor on the battlefield as evidence of, or complementary to, other noble traits of character. Sul Ross, for example, Texas’s Civil War hero and ex-governor, was already a legend when he assumed the presidency of Texas A&M in . Ross’s magnetic personality and past military exploits made him an object of veneration at A&M, where he managed to increase enrollment and strengthen the esprit de corps of the military program. The  student yearbook devoted two pages to hero worship of Ross. The Olio lauded his antebellum exploits fighting Comanches (killing , capturing  horses, and earning a commission from Sam Houston at the age of twenty); his rise from the rank of private to brigadier general in the Civil War while participating in  engagements; and his pursuit of a postwar career in public service distinguished by ‘‘firmness, conservatism, honesty, and patriotism.’’ The same publication rejoiced that their president was ‘‘a man whose character it was a blessing to emulate.’’ The cadets also formed an elite drill team called the Ross Volunteers, which still remains a Texas A&M tradition.32 Most ex-Confederate military college presidents and professors were not as wildly popular as Ross, but their young cadets generally looked up to them as worthy examples to follow. The general public did as well. An honorable Confederate war record was a valuable credential for teachers of the young. Mark B. Hardin, a  alumnus who was Clemson’s first

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Stephen D. Lee, ex-Confederate general, influential president of Mississippi State from  to , and supporter of the military system. This photo was taken in the s. (Mississippi State University)

Lawrence Sullivan ‘‘Sul’’ Ross, Indian fighter, Confederate general, Texas governor, and beloved president of Texas A&M from  to  (Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University)

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chemistry professor and its interim president in , , and , had been a Confederate artillery officer. A local newspaper stated that ‘‘not one of the least of [his] qualifications to teach the youth of South Carolina is that he was a gallant soldier under Stonewall Jackson.’’ 33 As if the silent testimony of war records were not enough, faculty members vehemently urged cadets to follow the example of the virtuous Confederate soldier. At commencement and Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies, cadets learned to idolize the virtuous warrior. In , for example, Clemson history professor William S. Morrison spoke to the Clemson cadets and a local chapter of the United Confederate Veterans. Between several recitals of the poetry of Father Abram Ryan, the ‘‘poetpriest’’ of the Confederacy, Morrison turned to address the cadets specifically: ‘‘Young gentlemen in gray—cadets of Clemson College, the State of your birth . . . the device on your buttons, the color of your uniforms— all call you to a life of study of the life story of these Southern soldiers, these surviving veterans and their ‘band of patriots’ whose valor on the field of battle . . . [has] made the name Confederate soldier synonymous with every element that goes to make a man.’’ 34 In  the famous Confederate leader and Georgia politician John B. Gordon delivered diplomas to the graduating class of  and then exhorted them to model the exemplary behavior of Stonewall Jackson.35 The cadets at Confederate Memorial Day celebrations were not yawning, unwilling participants performing an onerous chore. They were active participants: they marched, fired volleys, gave speeches, and even planned some of the ceremonies. The  ceremonies planned by the North Georgia cadets, for example, established the precedent for a local Dahlonega tradition that lasted for many decades and was mimicked in towns and military schools across the South. The activities usually began with the cadets forming at the college or the town square, where the survivors of the Fifty-second Georgia Volunteers (a local unit) joined them. The cadets, followed by the old soldiers and the townspeople, led the march to the cemetery, where locally prominent veterans, including professors and members of the Board of Trustees, delivered orations. Several of the cadets themselves also spoke. There were hymns and songs. Then the cadets fired three volleys in salute (a highlight for the civilian onlookers), and everyone present helped adorn the graves. Memorial Day celebrations at Auburn followed a remarkably similar format. As late as  the Confederate Veteran, organ of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, reported that Auburn’s ‘‘faculty and large student body of one thou-

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Auburn cadets on Confederate Memorial Day, , posed next to a Confederate monument in Pine Hill Cemetery, Auburn, Alabama. The Auburn Ladies’ Memorial Association erected the monument in . (Auburn University Archives)

sand splendid young men join[ed] the Ladies’ Memorial Association, the Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Veterans in paying tribute to the matchless heroes of –.’’ The cadet band played, the other cadets marched and fired salutes, and a member of the senior class gave an oration. Similarly, Virginia Tech cadets in  staged a dress parade and other ceremonial functions at the adornment of Confederate graves at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, just outside Blacksburg.36 The words of the cadets themselves show that they honored the ‘‘noble army of martyrs.’’ Upon learning of the death of Robert E. Lee in , the  Corps of Cadets met and adopted resolutions expressing sorrow over the death of the ‘‘illustrious warrior . . . christian gentleman, warm-hearted, noble, chivalrous.’’ 37 At Clemson’s  commencement, Cadet F. H. Jeter honored Confederate memories with a speech titled ‘‘The Glory of the Conquered.’’ 38 On Memorial Day , cadets at the Citadel recited Henry Grady’s ‘‘The New South,’’ Father Abram Ryan’s ‘‘The Phantom Host,’’ and ‘‘A Plea for Confederate Memories.’’ 39 Thus cadets across the South internalized and restated the themes of the Lost Cause. There were regional variations in the ceremonies. Each school had

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its own heroes; each state, its distinctive heritage.  cadets of course gave particular honor to the former professor at that school, Stonewall Jackson. They also held annual memorial services in honor of the cadets slain at the Battle of New Market. Auburn faculty and cadets formed the Camp Pelham chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, named after Major John Pelham, ‘‘the gallant and famous young Alabamian, killed at Kelley’s Ford.’’ 40 Texas A&M cadets performed drill exhibitions for the United Confederate Veterans, but they also celebrated San Jacinto Day in honor of Sam Houston’s victory over the Mexican army, which established the Republic of Texas in .41 At Tennessee (originally East Tennessee University), Republican or ex-Unionist factions controlled the faculty through the s. Located in the mountainous area of the state where loyalties had been divided in the Civil War years, authorities at that institution did not sponsor public celebrations of Confederate valor. Yet they were also unable to suppress them. At the  Junior Exhibition, a faculty member unsuccessfully attempted to prevent a cadet from delivering a eulogy on Robert E. Lee.42 Cadets had the opportunity to rub elbows with the South’s most famous heroes at these celebrations. Cadet William Wightman Smoak and his comrades at the Citadel, for example, were able to attend some of the events of Veterans’ Reunion Week in May  in Charleston. Smoak heard Wade Hampton, the Confederate cavalry hero, speak. Afterward Smoak’s sweetheart persuaded him to introduce himself to Hampton. Smoak, often very laconic in his diary, recorded in detail what happened next. I approached timidly and holding out my hand said ‘‘General, for my father.’’ ‘‘Your father, who was he?’’ ‘‘Smoak, sir. He did not belong to your command but he was a Confederate soldier.’’ ‘‘I am glad to know you Mr. Smoak, I am always pleased to know anyone wearing the gray.’’ Smoak confessed that the entire occasion ‘‘was splendid and I enjoyed it very much.’’ 43 Not only had Smoak had the opportunity to meet the great Wade Hampton, but the famous man had included him, by association, in a brotherhood of honored heroes. This sort of paternal benediction bestowed by veterans on gray-clad cadets was quite common. The same week, Smoak and his cadet com-

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Auburn cadets participate in a ‘‘sham battle’’ in the early s. Note the boys in the foreground watching and gathering souvenirs. (Auburn University Archives)

rades escorted the parade of veterans through the streets of Charleston, making, Smoak claimed, ‘‘a very creditable appearance.’’ John B. Gordon, leader of the United Confederate Veterans, announced that ‘‘it was the best escort they had ever had at any reunion.’’ 44 In many cases the young cadets themselves became symbols of the Lost Cause. The public enjoyed the military parades and sham battles staged by the cadet battalions. In their youth and martial enthusiasm, the gray-clad student-soldiers reminded many southerners of Confederate soldiers of yesteryear. The Raleigh News and Observer called the military parades at North Carolina State the most attractive and interesting events at the college. One of the paper’s journalists confessed in  that ‘‘it is with pride and love . . . [and] admiration that we look upon those strong, manly cadets, uniformed in the ‘Grey’ that is so dear to the South and its history.’’ 45 The North Georgia students evoked a similar reaction from the editor of the Mountain Signal in . The War Department had not yet supplied the cadet contingent with rifles. Nevertheless, the commandant organized a cadet military unit that drilled in the streets of Dahlonega with sticks, clubs, and barrel staves, reminding residents of the town’s ‘‘valiant little band of ‘Home Guards’ ’’ from the war years.46 Confederate Memorial Day activities, monument dedications, pa-

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rades, and other Lost Cause celebrations were thrilling occasions for impressionable young cadets. They got to show off their marching and oratorical skills, receive cheers from townspeople and accolades from newspapers, and most importantly, shake hands with gray-bearded heroes. The veterans became (rightly or not) living, breathing symbols of the values the cadets were expected to internalize—courage, honor, patriotism, and piety. The Lost Cause was indeed elusive, nebulous, and ephemeral. Southerners used celebrations of the Confederacy and its heroes for various and sometimes conflicting purposes. Fred Arthur Bailey has even described it as the intellectual tool of one class seeking to reassert its hegemony over others. Yet as Gaines Foster has pointed out, for a time the Lost Cause ‘‘provide[d] social unity during the crucial period of transition’’ from the Old South to the New.47 The Lost Cause contained certain assertions on which all white southerners, regardless of social class, could agree—particularly that the good soldier was indistinguishable from the honorable and useful citizen. This idea preceded the existence of the Confederacy, drew sustenance from the Lost Cause, and persists today. It was never an exclusively southern idea, but it appealed to all white southerners who had fought, sacrificed, or lost loved ones in the Civil War. The message that southerners had acted honorably and fought well was welcome to tenant, yeoman, merchant, and planter alike. The legend of the Lost Cause also strengthened southern militarism, not so much by encouraging regional rearmament or preparation for war, but by reaffirming the quite militaristic notion that valor and civic virtue were inseparable. The southern states did not introduce military discipline into the landgrant colleges solely to honor their Confederate past. There were other practical, economic, and egalitarian reasons for mimicking West Point, , and the Citadel. Lost Cause mythology, however, strengthened the arguments of those who claimed that military training exercised a wholesome influence on southern youth and molded boys into honorable men. It would have been unthinkable to tell the cadets (or to argue publicly) that it was possible for a man to be a good soldier without being a good citizen. The past was so alive in the South’s consciousness that to do so would have been paramount to denigrating the Confederate veteran himself. It would have involved not only overthrowing myths but desecrating the memory of lost loved ones, as well as dishonoring the living veterans, who held so much prestige and authority in the postbellum South.

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The strength of the Lost Cause in higher education illustrates that, to many southerners, the lines between martial, moral, and civic virtues were very fine indeed. In the military schools of the South especially, the words in the epitaph ‘‘Warrior, Christian, Patriot’’ were seen as all but synonymous.

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Discipline and Defiance

Student strikes or ‘‘walkouts’’ were quite common in the military schools of the South. Friction between cadets and college officials often led to massive rebellions in which hundreds of cadets went absent without leave as a form of protest against what they considered tyrannical authority. While serious injury and vandalism rarely accompanied these walkouts, the withdrawals of an entire academic class or even the bulk of the student body were profound crises for the institutions in which they occurred. They attracted unwanted scrutiny from newspapers across the state. Parents and politicians got involved; many of them backed the college administrators, but others supported the students and questioned the fitness of administrators and faculties to govern the campus. These disturbances were particularly troubling for institutions that placed a high value on order and discipline. If military schools were places where ‘‘obedience to lawful authority’’ was supposed to prevail, why were they so often threatened by student defiance and rebellion? The simple response would be to assume that the upheavals resulted simply from the cadets’ resentment of strict military discipline. This explanation may be sufficient for many northern land-grant colleges. Seymour Martin Lipset claims that many students in land-grant universities strongly resented military drill. At the University of Wisconsin, for example, a college newspaper rejected ‘‘militarism’’ as antithetical to the American tradition. Student newspapers protested that the mandatory drill requirement had ‘‘given rise to a semi–West Point military despotism directly opposed to the liberal policy of our institution,’’ and that the

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military program would be successful only ‘‘when the students get accustomed to it and lay aside some of their Americanism.’’ 1 In  Wisconsin students demonstrated their resentment of mandatory drill by breaking into the armory and vandalizing over one hundred muskets, rendering them useless. Resistance to military drill also fueled student protests at the University of Illinois in – and –, resulting in the resignation of two of the school’s presidents. Students at Illinois perceived a fundamental antagonism between republicanism and military training. A student newspaper argued, ‘‘It seems inconsistent in this age and country to educate young men in republican sentiments and at the same time attempt to govern them by a set of laws in the making of which they have no voice at all.’’ 2 A similar student reaction occurred at Bowdoin College, a private school in Maine led by Union ex-general Joshua L. Chamberlain. Perhaps due to his military experience, Chamberlain agreed with many southerners that military training engendered courage, discipline, and character in young men, while it simultaneously prepared the next generation to fight future wars as the United States moved to fulfill its ‘‘destiny.’’ 3 Less than a year after assuming the presidency of Bowdoin in , Chamberlain secured an officer from the War Department, Major Joseph P. Sanger, to teach military drill to the students. Sanger arrived in January , and the drill was quite popular at first. The novelty soon wore off, however. In September  the faculty required all students not exempt from drill to purchase a uniform ‘‘at an expense not exceeding six dollars.’’ 4 The students were outraged. The college newspaper protested that ‘‘the last, worst, and most unpopular act of our military government, so fast becoming a military despotism, has been enacted and carried into effect. Henceforth every student must provide himself with a uniform, whatever may be his means, whatever his individual choice.’’ 5 A committee of students went over Chamberlain’s head by sending petitions signed by  of the  members of the upper three classes to the Board of Overseers and the Board of Trustees. The boards initially supported Chamberlain, while the students seethed through the winter and the following spring. On May  and May , , the junior class expressed its opposition to drill so forcefully and disrespectfully on the drill field that Chamberlain and the faculty dismissed six members of that class the next day. The junior, sophomore, and freshman classes immediately vowed never to drill again. When they stuck to their pledge by not reporting for drill,

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Chamberlain had them suspended and informed their parents that they would be dismissed if they did not return within ten days and pledge to obey all college rules.6 Chamberlain lost the battle. While many New Englanders supported his stand, others responded in a way that illustrated a fundamental distrust of military institutions. One newspaper excoriated Chamberlain’s ‘‘craze for epaulets and gold lace’’ and ‘‘sickly longing for the exercise of autocratic power.’’ 7 All but three of the students returned to school under the deadline, but the boards voted officially a few weeks later to make drill voluntary. Four students signed up for drill the following fall. The faculty recommended in  that drill be abolished entirely, and it died in , unmourned by virtually all at Bowdoin except Chamberlain.8 While southern students often tired of regulations and a strict daily routine, they rarely developed the antipathy to things military exhibited by the Wisconsin, Illinois, and Bowdoin students. For most, pride, camaraderie, and the thrill of military display mingled with weariness from the unending routine of morning formations, inspections, shining boots and brass, and sentry duty. As a  graduate of Texas A&M later wrote, ‘‘Some of [the military feature] was enjoyable—some was irksome even to the point of being intolerable.’’ 9 Southern students, though, rarely challenged the military system of education itself.They could develop intense dislikes for specific personalities, such as presidents, commandants, or faculty members. They often objected to certain rules, policies, or acts by school administrators that insulted their sense of ‘‘honor’’ or manly independence. Yet unlike northern students, they saw no contradiction between militarism itself and ‘‘Americanism’’ or republicanism. Another way to place the frequency of insurrections at southern military schools in context is to note that student rebellion was prevalent in many types of American colleges in the nineteenth century, not just military schools. Episodes of student unrest occurred in military as well as nonmilitary academies throughout the century. One historian has attributed student uprisings in the first two decades of the century to generational consciousness. Sons of the leaders of the American Revolution reenacted the bold acts of defiance of their fathers, thereby symbolically asserting their manhood. Another observer, commenting on student rebellions after the Civil War, says they represented students’ bids for greater freedom and participation in campus government.10 Southern boys attending military colleges were sometimes mindful of these goals when they defied the college authorities. But there were other

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issues present to a greater or lesser degree in every southern military school mutiny. Students’ concerns reflected southern cultural notions of militarism, republican citizenship, and manhood and the tension between order and personal liberty in a free society. The bonds of loyalty existing between cadets, their passionate hunger for status as independent men, and their use of patriotic, militaristic language to justify their actions represented key themes of southern militarism. One underlying cause of collective resistance by cadets was the strong social bond that developed among them, particularly those of the same academic class. Samuel Huntington has noted the importance of ‘‘corporateness,’’ or organic unity, as a fundamental part of military life.11 Corporateness involves loyalty, the submission of the will of the individual to that of the group, and esprit de corps, ‘‘the common spirit . . . inspiring enthusiasm, devotion, and strong regard for the honor of the group.’’ 12 This sense of organic unity pervaded cadet life. Cadets of the same class and the same company worked, studied, played, ate, worshiped, and lived together, usually seven days a week. When a cadet suffered discipline, his fellow cadets usually sided with him in the case rather than with the commandant or faculty member. When the punishment seemed unduly harsh or unfair, the resentment of comrades sometimes boiled over and resulted in mass mutiny. The normal pattern was for an entire class to meet, draw up a set of demands that they wished the college president or trustees to address, and threaten to withdraw en masse if their demands were not met immediately. Even cadets who were not particularly angry over the issue at hand felt honor-bound to leave school out of loyalty to their classmates, knowing that leaving would result in expulsion and ruin their chances for a college education. The corporate spirit, then, which is so much a part of military life, fostered collective resistance to authority.13 In April  sixty-nine of Clemson’s seventy-four sophomores withdrew when the faculty suspended their classmate, Cadet E. A. Thornwell, for stealing—a dubious accusation, as it turned out. The junior and freshman classes, meanwhile, vowed to leave school the next day unless the faculty reinstated Thornwell and the other sophomores. The seniors met and passed a resolution approving the sophomores’ action. The Clemson trustees finally resolved the affair by overturning Thornwell’s suspension and allowing the other sophomores to return to campus by petitioning the president for reinstatement and agreeing to make up all lost coursework and examinations.14 Mississippi State endured a similar crisis in . Following the pre-

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cipitous dismissal of Cadet Captain E. R. Blanton, the senior class withdrew in protest. The lower classes soon joined the rebellion. The campus did not settle down until an executive committee of the Board of Trustees held an emergency session and decided to reinstate Blanton and to invite all who had withdrawn to return. The senior class later boasted of its solidarity in the  annual: ‘‘Honor-bound to stand by [our classmate] to the last, and knowing that we were doing all that a gentleman and a classmate could do, the men in the class quietly withdrew in such a manner as to require the approval of all. With pride and sorrow mingled, but feeling that we could still hold up our heads without shame, we returned home.’’ 15 Cadets regarded loyalty to their comrades as a sacred duty. To fail in one’s duty to one’s fellow cadets was to invite rejection and reproach as a coward and traitor. Texas A&M cadets even had a name for such a person. A ‘‘piker,’’ explained the  annual, was ‘‘a cadet who goes back on his crowd at a critical moment.’’ 16 The bonds of corporatism, obviously, could place a cadet in a difficult position when his friends decided on a walkout. When the freshman and sophomore classes decided to withdraw in the  rebellion at Clemson, one agonized cadet wrote his father, ‘‘Now Dad between you and me this is a hell of a mess. What on earth shall I do if the class goes and leaves like a pack of fools. It is rather serious when a bunch of boys try to take things in their own hands. . . . I, for one, don’t want to leave but if all the rest go what can I do.’’ 17 With such a strong loyalty ethic, it is not surprising that cadets regarded a fellow cadet who deserted his comrades with horror and disgust. The discovery that a cadet had placed loyalty to the college authorities over allegiance to his classmates could rouse his comrades to fury. In April  the Citadel expelled nearly two-thirds of the cadet corps for attempting to remove forcibly a fellow cadet from the barracks. The despised young man, Samuel O. Cantey, had broken an unwritten rule among cadets. Despite the fact that he was not on sentry duty and was not officially bound to report disorders, he had ‘‘snitched’’ on several other cadets who had gone absent without leave the night of March . To report other cadets when it was one’s official duty was proper; to do so when duty did not require it was, to the cadets, treason. Other cadets were outraged that Cantey ‘‘should be so low as to report his fellow cadets.’’ 18 The unwritten rule that loyalty to one’s comrades came before loyalty to the school administration held tremendous sway over the Citadel cadets, so much so that they collectively demanded that Cantey be court-martialed.

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Citadel cadets in barracks room, . Note the clothes press, a standard feature of cadet rooms, in which personal effects, laundry, and mattresses were kept. Citadel regulations required that mattresses and cots be stowed away until : .. Regulations strictly forbade lounging or sleeping behind clothes on top of the press, as the cadet at the top of the picture is doing. (Citadel Archives and Museum)

The Citadel’s administration refused this impertinent order. The cadets then decided to take the matter into their own hands and literally throw Cantey out of the Citadel themselves. A riot ensued on the night of April  when Superintendent Coward and the commandant, Lieutenant John B. McDonald, stationed themselves at the door of Cantey’s room to prevent his enraged schoolmates from forcefully ejecting him. Order returned only after the arrival of the Charleston police. Alumni sought unsuccessfully to prevent the expulsion of the cadets by appealing to the Board of Visitors. The board nevertheless dismissed sixty-four cadets from a cadet corps of approximately one hundred, twenty-four of whom were seniors only weeks from graduation. Only five seniors remained to graduate that May. The intervention of the police and the subsequent expulsion of the rebellious cadets brought embarrassment and sorrow to the Citadel. It showed, however, the vast importance cadets placed on solidarity within their ranks.19 Cadets also rebelled over principles of honor or status. Seniors, for example, often struggled to maintain or expand their traditional privi-

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leges. In  George T. Winston, North Carolina State’s chancellor, revoked seniors’ visiting privileges to downtown Raleigh. The seniors responded by immediately resigning their commissions and refusing to enforce discipline on the underclassmen. Winston relented but made the same move again in . This time when the seniors tried to hold class meetings to discuss their reaction, Winston broke up each meeting, calling the rebellious seniors a bunch of ‘‘thugs.’’ Finally, the class went on strike, and thirty-two of the forty-five seniors returned home. With the loss of most of the graduating class, Winston once again retreated and restored senior privileges.20 At Mississippi State, claims to status took the form of cadets asserting their roles as the protectors of women. By  Mississippi State had become one of the growing number of white land-grant schools experimenting with coeducation, enrolling a few female students who, of course, were not members of the corps of cadets. Victorian mores naturally required that the faculty closely control social interaction between the cadets and the young women. In November  Vice-President W. H. Magruder noticed a cadet ‘‘talking to one of the young ladies’’ in the English library room.21 The school authorities immediately prohibited the cadets from visiting the female students in their study rooms between classes and from meeting them at the chapel to socialize or study. The seniors regarded the order as an insult and a slur on the character of the ‘‘young ladies.’’ They passed a resolution demanding that Magruder and President George R. Hightower make a public apology. When Hightower refused to receive additional resolutions from the other classes, a massive walkout ensued involving the senior class and most members of the other classes. All but  of the school’s , students refused to attend classes.22 For their part, the female students signed a statement saying that they did not regard the official order as an insult and appreciated it as an attempt to give them more opportunity for study. It turned out, though, that President Hightower had instigated this statement. Five women later signed another statement claiming that they had signed the original declaration without being fully aware of its contents, and that they appreciated the action of the male students in their behalf. These five coeds then joined the strike.23 The cadets’ claim that they were protecting the honor of their female classmates was only one part of a bid for the status and privileges of grown men. Tension had been brewing between the students and the ad-

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Citadel cadets with their dates on the Battery along Charleston Harbor,  (Citadel Archives and Museum)

ministration for several months. At the beginning of the year, for example, the senior class had unanimously adopted resolutions claiming certain ‘‘senior privileges.’’ The Board of Trustees recognized this when it claimed that the strikers had been ‘‘misled by the false cry of ‘protecting our womanhood,’ a matter about which all true Southerners and gentlemen agree.’’ 24 Governor Earl Brewer, though, himself a member of the board, refuted this indirect acknowledgment of the cadets’ status as gentlemen. He rejected their claim to manhood when he declared that if he had been dealing with men rather than ‘‘boys,’’ he would have called out the state militia and crushed the rebellion with ‘‘Gatling guns and bayonets.’’ 25 The result was that the college eventually readmitted most of the cadets after they signed a pledge apologizing to the president and the faculty and promising to uphold discipline, law, and order. Seniors lost their rank and graduated the following spring as privates. Meanwhile, the trustees decided that ‘‘co-education at Mississippi State A&M College is not desirable’’ and that future enrollment of female students would be discouraged. There were no female students on the rolls for the – session.26 Sometimes upperclassmen reacted angrily when the administration acted too aggressively to suppress the tradition of hazing freshmen. To

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the older cadets hazing was a right they had earned from surviving their own rite of passage in their freshman year. As a Virginia Tech ex-student, teacher, and historian explains, older cadets came to view harassment of the freshmen as vital to ‘‘keeping the freshmen in their place’’ and perpetuating a high state of discipline in the corps. By the time the freshmen they harassed had become upperclassmen, they, too, had adopted the same belief. They also had come to look upon hazing of the next class of freshmen, or ‘‘rats,’’ as ‘‘an inherent right to be jealously guarded and protected.’’ 27 In September  Superintendent Francis Smith of  dismissed Cadet Nicholas, a third classman (sophomore) for hazing. Two days later fifteen of his classmates protested by refusing to attend dress parade unless Smith reinstated their comrade. The fifteen suffered dismissal the next day, never to be readmitted.28 Virginia Tech narrowly avoided a mass walkout in  when the faculty and administration moved to prevent the traditional ‘‘bucking’’ session on the day the freshmen drew their uniforms. Bucking at Virginia Tech involved several older students holding a freshmen by his hands and feet and striking him against a wall or post, or paddling his backside with a plank or scabbard. When the ‘‘rats’’ resisted the traditional bucking session in , a near-riot ensued. In the investigation that followed, the upperclassmen ‘‘not only admitted that they were of the bucking party . . . but boldly defended the practice, declaring that they had been bucked, and that the new men should be bucked; that as bucking was an established practice here it should be continued.’’ 29 Rebellion, then, grew out of corporatism, and also out of cadets guarding what they perceived as their rights, or assertions of their status as grown men. Whether defending seniors’ privileges, asserting traditional rights to indoctrinate and subdue the freshmen, or posing as the protectors of the honor of women, they took militant stances to force the administrations to acknowledge their claim to manhood. Perhaps the most fundamental cause of the massive student rebellions in southern military colleges, however, was the existence of a profound contradiction within the southern military tradition itself. The school authorities, on one hand, insisted on perfect order and discipline. Just as in any military organization, they insisted on instant, usually unquestioning, obedience to those in authority. Other strands of the southern military tradition, however, legitimized or even encouraged resistance to authority. Part of a southern boy’s upbringing was the veneration of forebears. Southern youth in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-

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turies absorbed notions of military glory from stories about their fathers and great-grandfathers, heroes of the Revolutionary War, the War of , the Mexican War, and the Civil War. Postbellum southern students, in particular, were sons and grandsons of the men who had fought in the Civil War. The enduring legend of the Lost Cause—the firm belief that their ancestors had nobly resisted tyranny and oppression—was still very strong. From infancy, southern youth learned that just as their greatgreat-grandfathers had revolted against British tyranny in , so had their fathers and grandfathers sacrificed all in defense of their constitutional rights in the War of Secession. Thus the military tradition that the cadets inherited was a curious one in that it legitimized rebellion as much as it emphasized submission to authority. The examples of their ancestors taught the cadets that if the citizen-soldier were being treated unfairly, the only honorable thing to do was revolt.30 Students’ explanations of their conduct can be difficult to find. When they are extant, however, it is clear that cadets defended themselves not by challenging militarism or southern military traditions but by citing those very traditions as justifications for their behavior. A participant in Texas A&M’s student rebellion of  compared himself and the rest of the senior class to the heroes of ,  (Texas’s rebellion against Mexico), and . He acknowledged that personal grievances and mild annoyances did not justify rebellion against constituted authority, but he insisted that the cadets had endured ‘‘a long train of abuses and usurpations,’’ and that ‘‘there is a limit to the endurance of those who live in the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave.’ ’’ 31 A Clemson senior used a similar defense in a letter to a newspaper to defend his classmates in the wake of the  walkout at that school.32 I was a member of the senior class, composed of young men who were full-blooded Americans; some of them were descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and of the soldiers who followed Washington and other Revolutionary leaders who made possible the existence of the United States of America. Most of them had close relatives who had made the supreme sacrifice either in the War of Secession or on the sacred fields of France. . . . If what has been said is correct, then why an act of insubordination or rebellion? The following questions suggest the answer: What made the thirteen colonies throw off the yoke of Britain; what made the people of England cut off the head of Charles I? It was tyranny.

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. . . If tyranny existed at Clemson, then the descendants of Englishmen and Americans should not submit to it.33 Adults often sympathized with the cadets when the latter claimed to be acting from within a tradition of militant resistance to tyranny. In the  rebellion the Clemson cadets had asked the Reverend John McSween, a local clergyman, to speak to the Board of Trustees for them. McSween said that the vast majority of the boys realized that they had made a mistake (the rebellion was then over a week old), but that their intentions had been honorable. ‘‘These boys,’’ he explained, ‘‘are true South Carolinians. . . . They are descendants of men who because of a principle were willing to sacrifice everything. . . . They are standing by what they believe to be a principle, a point of honor.’’ 34 Trustees, college presidents, and faculties obviously felt an obligation to assert their authority and restore order. While southern militarism allowed room for rebellion, it also valued social order, obedience to law, and deference to legally constituted authority. Discipline and submission to authority were therefore essential in the education of youth. Texas A&M’s Board of Directors insisted in the wake of the  rebellion that it would close the college before it would allow the students’ mutiny to succeed: ‘‘We would close the school before we would set the precedent of permitting a student body to rise in open rebellion and in open and bold defiance of constituted authority and, for frivolous and unjust causes, force the governing body to yield to a peremptory demand.’’ 35 Earlier the board had declared that to yield the principle of law and order would be to endorse a principle that ‘‘destroys organized society and undermines governments.’’ 36 Bishop Johnson, president of the West Texas Military Academy, publicly supported the directors’ stand: The lack of reverence for authority, beginning in badly regulated homes and running through life, is one of the crying evils of our times, and it is also the greatest menace to the perpetuation . . . of our free institutions. . . . For the State authorities to yield to the demands of the students of a State institution, where they are being generously given a gratuitous education . . . would be to weaken the hands of every father and mother in the land who is struggling to do his or her duty by their children; and who are thereby doing all in their power to combat the socialistic and anarchistic tendencies of our times by implanting in the minds of their offspring reverence for constituted authority.37

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Since concern for discipline and respect for defiance sprang from the same military tradition, adversaries in these student walkouts understood each other and frequently even sympathized with one another’s motives. Cadets who were readmitted after walkouts—and most of them eventually were—had to admit that they had made a mistake and pledge to uphold the authorities in the future. But even in the minority of cases in which the president or trustees backed down, cadets sometimes worried that they had succeeded in establishing an improper precedent. Cadet Thomas Hart Law of the Citadel was a prime example. In March  Superintendent Francis W. Capers issued an order that appointed a member of the second class (a junior) as an assistant instructor, an honor that had previously been reserved for members of the first class (seniors). The members of the first class, including Law, collectively demanded the revocation of the order. To Law’s surprise, Major Capers met the seniors’ demand. With this development, Law lost respect for the faculty, confiding to his diary, ‘‘I believe the class were perfectly satisfied now. But who ever heard of such a proceeding in a Military Institute? A number of the Cadets take the law into their hands and compel the Superintendent to revoke an order! It is certainly most ridiculous. I feel almost sure now that the current faculty must go. What authority have they? . . . I consider that the discipline is almost gone now and the Institution fast going to ruin.’’ 38 Law went on to express doubts and guilt concerning his role in the affair. The cadets’ superiors, meanwhile, often sympathized with their motives, especially as the young men gambled their chance to get an education for the sake of principle or out of loyalty to their comrades. Torn between duty and admiration, military school leaders found themselves in difficult predicaments.  superintendent David French Boyd found himself in such a situation in the ‘‘Bell Scrape’’ of . In the fall of that year, some cadets vandalized the bell of the nearby Deaf and Dumb Asylum. When Boyd interrogated several cadets about the matter, they refused to answer his questions out of fear of incriminating their classmates. Boyd responded by dismissing fifteen of the uncooperative cadets. The New Orleans Republican admired the ‘‘manly spirit’’ of the cadets and criticized the ‘‘extraordinary rules of jurisprudence which appear to prevail at the school.’’ It was a mistake, claimed the Republican’s editor, to ‘‘bully’’ the boys by making dismissal the penalty for refusing to testify, for ‘‘boys are the most difficult little fellows to bully in the world.’’ 39 Boyd explained that for the sake of property, order, discipline, the integrity of the university, and the safety of its neighbors, he must have the

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right to interrogate every cadet and require him to give evidence. But Boyd also admired the cadets’ loyalty to their comrades. In a letter written nearly two years later, Boyd admitted that had he been a cadet at the time, he too would have felt it his duty to refuse to testify against his comrades. Boyd wrote that he ‘‘sympathized’’ with the cadets who chose to remain loyal to their comrades rather than the university: The sympathy of one cadet for another—or as they say, their duty to each other—is usually stronger than their duty to the Institution; hence in the ‘‘Bell Scrape’’ many failed in their duty to the University, in order to befriend their fellows; and I think that if I had been a cadet, with all the feelings and associations of a cadet, that I would have done likewise at my peril. Just as a witness in court may refuse at his peril to testify—that is, be punished for contempt of court. Similarly, I did so myself at Mr. Powers’s school in Staunton, Virginia, and was dismissed. Boyd went on to explain, though, that as superintendent, it had been his duty to dismiss the refractory cadets.40 Clemson’s Board of Trustees endured similar soul-searching in  when it decided on how to deal with the cadets who had walked out because of the faculty’s unjust suspension of Cadet Thornwell. The board objected to the way the sophomore class had gone about protesting Thornwell’s punishment. Rather than respectfully appeal to the board, as allowed in the cadet regulations, the cadets had presented an ultimatum to the faculty. On one hand, the board members had to remain true to their objective of instilling respect for lawful authority and established procedure, yet they could not help betraying admiration for the boys’ noble martyrdom for their friend. When the board decided to readmit the rebellious students who petitioned for reinstatement, it issued a long declaration explaining its decision. It is worth quoting at length as it shows how authorities at southern military schools were torn by contradictions within the southern military tradition: Understand, we want it distinctly understood, that the idea which seems to prevail to some extent among the cadets that they have the right to assemble in mass meetings or class meetings and legislate on college affairs cannot be too strongly condemned. . . . We want to stress with all due solemnity the feeling of the Trustees that rather than submit to [unreadable] law taking control of Clemson and having the students attempt to coerce the faculty or to resist the College authorities

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we will . . . in future dismiss the entire student body and begin anew. . . . It may be stated in mitigation of their offence that their sense of justice had been outraged and that their hot and impulsive young blood had led them to resort to this revolutionary action because they were sensible of the wrong done their class mate and were unwilling to subject themselves to similar treatment. We sympathize with the chivalrous feeling that led them to do this. We have sons of our own, some of us, and were boys ourselves once [sic] therefore, we are ready to make allowance for this blunder of youth and permit such of the class as may wish to do so to resume their studies. In other words, the sophomores had erred not in rebelling but in the way they went about it. It was a natural reaction of youth and ‘‘chivalrous feeling’’ to challenge authority in response to an injustice.41 There were many sources of friction between students and administrators in southern military schools. The withdrawal of traditional privileges, conflicts over hazing, real or perceived slights, seemingly unfair disciplinary actions, and probably even youthful impatience with the monotonous routine of military life—all of these contributed to student unrest. But more fundamentally, student rebellion stemmed from southern notions of what it meant to be a man; notions of honor, loyalty, integrity, and soldierly duty ironically led to disorder and disobedience. The citizen-soldier—the fiercely independent revolutionary of  or the Confederate of  epitomized these ideals. Even as the soldier in southern society stood for discipline, law, and order, he also symbolized defiance and manly resistance to authority. The southern military tradition, then, did not mimic militaristic notions of deference and obedience. Along with upholding authority, it also incorporated the republican idea that, for the health of society and the honor of its citizens, the latter must sometimes resist authority as well.

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Military Law and Individual Rights

Tension has always existed between military discipline and American civilian concepts of civil rights. Militarism typically includes a deep concern for order and obedience; it also demands the subordination of the rights and will of the individual for the collective good. Thus militarism shares a mutual hostility with liberalism because of the latter’s concern with the rights of the individual. Although some scholars have gone so far as to argue that militarism and liberalism are fundamentally antagonistic and irreconcilable, militarism and liberalism have always had to coexist within the American—and southern—military traditions. Southern military schools provide an excellent backdrop for the interplay of militarism and republican notions of individual rights. For while college officials, parents, and even cadets saw order and discipline as essential to the health and usefulness of the school, most of the young men were not there to learn to become professional soldiers, and they often demanded the rights enjoyed by civilians. Militarism and liberalism met and often accommodated each other in cases of cadet discipline. Cadets frequently challenged seemingly arbitrary disciplinary procedures and rulings, and they often were able to change the ways in which they and their classmates were tried and disciplined. Where the sources are rich enough, one can examine the evolution of disciplinary and legal procedures at a single military college (in this case, Clemson Agricultural College from its opening in the s until the s) to study how military discipline and liberalism could accommodate each other through the adoption of established procedures of military law.1 The American military has its own legal tradition. In June  the

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Continental Congress, responding to military necessity, enacted  articles that became known as the Articles of War.2 Congress repealed the existing articles the following year and replaced them with a new set of  articles. In  the articles were rearranged. The Articles of War went through limited changes and additions, particularly in , but remained much the same until Congress replaced them with the Uniform Code of Military Justice () in .3 Cadets at Clemson Agricultural College, like U.S. soldiers, did not have the same constitutional rights that are normally guaranteed to American civilians. The college authorities eliminated or curtailed their First Amendment rights, such as freedom of speech, assembly, and petition, in a way that was roughly consistent with American military tradition. The college also usually ignored cadets’ Sixth Amendment rights, including rights to a public trial, legal counsel, impartial jury, and compulsory process for defense witnesses, at least before . After  cadets gained these legal rights, but they were protected in a way that was similar to American military rather than civilian jurisprudence. Military organizations place restrictions on their members’ freedom of speech, and Clemson restricted the freedom of speech of its cadets. The American military normally restricts its members’ freedom of speech when it involves the criticism or denigration of superiors. The old Nineteenth Article of War forbade a soldier from publicly using ‘‘denunciatory or contumelious words’’ against the president, Congress, or the governor or legislature of a state. Military lawyer Major H. B. Spinelli explained in  that a ‘‘sober, temperate adverse criticism’’ of the acts of those officials was not a violation when it was clearly not meant to be disrespectful or to ‘‘excite animosity against them.’’ 4 Article Eightyeight of the  is today’s equivalent of the old Nineteenth Article. Like its predecessor, Article Eighty-eight does not censor adverse criticism in a private conversation or political discussion, unless perhaps the words used are ‘‘personally contemptuous.’’ 5 Article Eighty-nine of the  prohibits disrespectful behavior toward one’s superior officer, and this disrespect may include epithets, contemptuous language, neglecting to salute, ‘‘marked disdain, indifference, insolence, impertinence, undue familiarity, or other rudeness.’’ 6 Restrictions on freedom of speech are thus part of the American military tradition.7 Clemson College adhered to the military practice of restricting the criticism of superiors. Article  of the  Cadet Regulations stated that ‘‘deliberations or discussions among cadets, having the object of con-





                         

veying censure, or any mark of disapprobation toward their superiors or others at the College, are strictly prohibited.’’ 8 Apparently this rule applied to faculty as well as students. In  the faculty expelled a cadet for writing a poem ‘‘disrespectful to the Faculty and Board of Trustees and calculated to produce disorder in the barracks.’’ Another cadet faced the same penalty for posting the poem on the barracks bulletin board.9 In March  the Board of Trustees preferred charges against Professor W. J. Quick for ‘‘talking disrespectfully of President [of the Board of Trustees] Simpson and for his other indiscretions.’’ 10 It is not exactly clear what Quick’s other indiscretions were, or what he said about Simpson, but Quick submitted his resignation in July of that year.11 Thus the military tradition that it was not permissible to speak disrespectfully of one’s superiors applied to both cadets and faculty in Clemson’s early years. Freedom of assembly is another civil right that is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Military law, however, does not protect the right to freedom of assembly, and neither did the authorities at Clemson. No statute in American military law specifically suspends freedom of assembly for military personnel, but military service members may hold on-base public meetings or demonstrations only if they obtain prior approval. If a group of soldiers or sailors meets without permission, a superior can simply order them to disperse. If he orders them not to hold a meeting, and they do so anyway, they could be charged with mutiny, conspiracy, or disobeying a lawful order.12 The civilian principle of freedom of assembly clashed with the military need for order at Clemson. The cadet regulations stipulated that no more than ten cadets could assemble in a room at one time without special permission. At least by  the college had changed this rule to prohibit cadets from meeting at any place without permission from the commandant.13 During the walkouts of , , , and , the cadets violated these rules. In , , and , they assembled without permission, drew up a list of grievances or demands for the president or for the trustees, and pledged to defy authority en masse and leave the college if their demands were not met. They obviously were acting on the civilian principle of freedom of assembly. During the  episode the trustees condemned the ‘‘idea which seems to prevail . . . among the cadets that they have the right to assemble in mass meetings . . . and legislate on college affairs.’’ 14 Clearly, militarism and liberalism collided over the principle of freedom of assembly. Military organizations also place certain restrictions on the civilian

                         

right of freedom of petition. The First Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to ‘‘petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’’ 15 American military law allows individuals to complain to their commanding officers. The  further specifies that if the commanding officer does not address the complaint to the complainant’s satisfaction, the latter may take his grievance directly ‘‘to any superior officer.’’ 16 It is also clear that individual service members may directly petition members of Congress.What is certainly not permissible in the American military is for service members to draw up a list of complaints, collect signatures, and present a group petition to their superiors. Military officers regard such an act as mutiny. As recently as  the Supreme Court upheld military regulations restricting the right of service members collectively to petition their superiors or members of Congress. Furthermore, most military leaders will not allow subordinates to question their decisions informally in the presence of the leader’s own superiors or other subordinates, even if it is done in a respectful manner. The complainant must express his discontent privately; otherwise the leader’s wisdom or authority is publicly questioned. Finally, military discipline prohibits individuals from questioning superiors in combat situations or in other conditions of imminent danger.17 Before  no regulations prohibited Clemson cadets from making group petitions and submitting them to the Board of Trustees. Such petitions were not unusual, and the board did not discourage them. In  the cadets petitioned the board to do away with Saturday morning recitations. The board granted their request, with the stipulation that the cadets would devote two hours every Saturday to ‘‘study or miscellaneous reading.’’ 18 In  the seniors petitioned the board to excuse them from the annual spring encampment so that they would have more time to complete their thesis work and other tasks that they had to ‘‘make up.’’ The board also granted that petition. After the  student strike, or walkout, the trustees condemned the sophomore class for not presenting their grievances to them before leaving the college. The board insisted that it had ‘‘on several occasions previously shown its willingness and purpose to give a patient hearing to the students and to redress grievances.’’ 19 In , however, the Board of Trustees ruled that it was no longer permissible for cadets to submit group petitions. Only individual students or their parents could submit petitions, and these had to be submitted through the college president before they reached the Board of Trustees. This change in regulations represented a move away from the right to





                         

petition as interpreted by civilian law and toward the more restricted, military version of this civil right. The provision that all petitions must be submitted through the college president before they reached the Board of Trustees resembled the principle of the chain of command in military units, as well as the rule that a soldier’s immediate commanding officer must have a chance to deal with any grievance before it reached higherranking officers.20 It is not entirely clear what caused this change in policy at Clemson. The college president at the time, Walter M. Riggs, enjoyed a high degree of confidence from the board—probably more than any president preceding him. The board trusted his judgment and his ability to handle problems and grievances on a daily basis. The authority of the position of college president increased under Riggs. Also, it may have been clear to Riggs and to members of the board that it was in the interest of discipline that they handle grievances on an individual basis and by means of an established chain of command. When groups of cadets banded together in an attempt to change the rules through group petitions, cadet solidarity threatened order and military discipline. That is indeed what happened during the walkouts of , , and . The fact that two different policies existed in Clemson’s early years concerning the right of petition shows that democratic ideas of the rights of the governed conflicted with the need for discipline in military organizations. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution safeguards the rights of citizens accused of a crime by protecting the right to counsel, the right to a public trial by an impartial jury of citizens, and the compulsory process of hearing witnesses for the defense. Military law protects all of these rights for service members accused of a crime.21 Until , the Clemson regulations did not protect any of these rights for cadets who got into trouble. It does not appear that the trustees, president, or faculty made a deliberate or systematic effort to deny the cadets their Sixth Amendment rights. Rather, it seems that before  they did not consider that these rights needed to be protected in a system that was ‘‘designed for boys.’’ 22 In fact, Clemson’s trustees and presidents usually referred to the cadets as boys rather than men. In  cadet discontent boiled over and resulted in another mass walkout. The students believed that the Faculty Discipline Committee had made several recent decisions that were drastic and unfair to the cadets being tried. This belief stirred the cadets to push for several changes in the way cadet trials were conducted. They asked for the right

                         

of a cadet to select a member of the faculty to serve as legal counsel, for ‘‘open’’ trials, and for a student representative on the Discipline Committee. The Board of Trustees granted the first two of these requests.23 When the trustees granted cadets the right to counsel, they gave them a right that was already established in American military law. When they mandated that all trials would be open to the public, however, they guaranteed a right that was spelled out in the Constitution but not yet in the Articles of War. The  stipulates that all proceedings, except the deliberations and the voting of the court-martial ( jury), must occur in the presence of the accused and the defense counsel. Supreme Court decisions in  and  ruled that the accused was always guaranteed the right to a public trial, but this was not specified in the  articles, nor was it clear from the  in . The trustees, therefore, granted a right that was available for civilians but not yet guaranteed for military personnel.24 The right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers is a concept embedded in civilian law. At least until , though, all the members of a courtmartial in the U.S. Army consisted of officers, even if the accused were an enlisted man. In  the new  stated that if the accused was an enlisted member and being tried by a general or special court-martial, then at least one-third of the members of the court had to be enlisted as well, unless ‘‘physical conditions or military exigencies’’ prevented the availability of eligible enlisted persons.25 The Clemson cadets wanted a student representative on the Discipline Committee, which would correspond to having enlisted personnel participate in the trial of another enlisted individual. The Discipline Committee, which tried cadets, was composed of faculty members. They could be considered officers of the college in that cadets had to obey their orders, salute them, and otherwise defer to them. The cadets’ status was that of enlisted men. Since the Articles of War in this period did not yet provide for participation of enlisted men in the trials of other enlisted men, the cadets’ desire for student representation on the Discipline Committee was ahead of its time in regard to American military law. Finally, there is the question of compulsory process of hearing witnesses for the defense. Military law protects this right for suspected military criminals.26 In the first four decades of Clemson’s existence, though, there is no record of the trustees guaranteeing this right in writing, or of the cadets requesting that it be spelled out in the bylaws or the cadet regulations. The Clemson authorities did not seem to either deny or pro-





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tect the right in any deliberate, systematic way. In , for instance, a cadet requested that six fellow cadets be allowed to testify in his behalf. The faculty granted his request. Only one cadet spoke up, defending the ‘‘good character’’ of the accused.27 Thus, in regard to the right to counsel, the trustees granted protection in  to a right that was already protected in both civilian and military law. When they decreed that all trials would be open to the public, they adhered to a principle that was protected in civilian law but not yet in military law. Regarding the issue of compulsory process of hearing witnesses, which was part of civilian and military law, Clemson had no written policy. The picture is even murkier in regard to the issue of the right to a trial by an impartial jury of one’s peers, but the trustees followed the contemporary military practice of having the jury consist only of officers. Clemson’s treatment of Sixth Amendment rights became neither more military nor more ‘‘civilianized’’ as time passed. One could generalize that before , the administration did not regard formal protection of Sixth Amendment rights to be important in running a military school for boys. It is also clear that, for the most part, the rules at Clemson did become more codified and explicit over time. The Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees ‘‘due process of law’’ to those accused of crimes before they can be deprived of ‘‘life, liberty, or property.’’ 28 The American military has its own judicial processes that differ from civilian law. Their purpose is to ensure due process and provide legitimacy to military judicial procedures, while at the same time streamlining and hastening the legal process so that military units can devote more time and energy to training and fighting. Clemson’s judicial process of the s was relatively informal and uncodified. As time passed, however, the methods of handling cases of cadet discipline became more structured and prescribed. As they did so, they became more similar to the judicial processes of the American military. In Clemson’s early years, the trustees did not establish in writing any detailed system to determine which cadet violations were punished by whom. There were no written instructions prescribing how to deal with serious offenses. The trustees did establish that the commandant (primarily) and the president were responsible for overall discipline and for investigating all violations of regulations. Beyond that, the trustees resolved that the faculty would play some role in deciding when a cadet should leave the college. Whenever two-thirds of the faculty agreed that a student should leave Clemson, they were authorized to ask his parents to

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withdraw him from the college. By  the faculty was meeting regularly and interrogating cadets charged with offenses such as cheating, drinking, and being absent without leave. They had the authority to suspend or dismiss a cadet.29 By  the full body of the faculty no longer dealt with disciplinary cases. The trustees ordained that when a cadet was charged with ‘‘an offence of a serious nature, he [would] be tried by the Commandant, Directors, and [full] Professors only.’’ 30 In the ensuing years the membership of this disciplinary group changed somewhat, and it came to be known as the Discipline Committee. The board also defined the role of the college president when students were tried by the faculty. The president’s part came to resemble that of the ‘‘convening authority’’ of a court-martial. The convening authority of a court-martial was the officer who usually instituted the court-martial, decided who would serve as members of the court, and set the time and place of the trial. Usually he was the commanding general or the colonel commanding an army or department, or he was the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy for trials of cadets at West Point. The bylaws of  stated that the college president could veto the faculty’s decision to suspend or dismiss a cadet, but only if the president reported the proceedings and the reason for his veto to the trustees. This provision made the president’s power similar to that of the convening authority of a courtmartial. The convening authority could disapprove of the sentence of the court, which meant acquittal. If the sentence was the death penalty or the dismissal of an officer, he could suspend execution of the sentence until the pleasure of the president of the United States was known. Just as the convening authority appointed officers to serve on a court-martial, the president soon gained the power to appoint some members of the Discipline Committee.31 Clemson eventually began to streamline its pretrial procedures in a way that was similar to that of the American military. Most military personnel accused of breaking the rules do not receive a trial by courtmartial, a procedure that requires time, labor, and money. Military units deal with most minor offenses by means of what will be called here the Article Fifteen shortcut, or nonjudicial punishment. Article Fifteen of the  says that the commanding officer of an accused service member may punish minor offenses without holding a trial by court-martial. The offense cannot involve moral turpitude—such as rape, murder, or larceny—and the commanding officer is limited as to the kind and de-





                         

gree of punishment he may inflict. Serious crimes and those that may result in the death penalty must be tried by a court-martial. Before a commanding officer assigns punishment under Article Fifteen, however, the accused can demand a trial by court-martial, even for a minor offense. The accused knows that a court-martial is authorized to punish him more severely than his commanding officer and that the process is probably more drawn-out and stressful in the long run than Article Fifteen proceedings. Still, in theory, he has the right to a trial by jury (court-martial) if he desires it.32 The Article  shortcut has its origins in the old Articles of War. For instance, in  there were five types, or levels, of courts-martial, just as there are three today. The lowest level was called a Summary Court and consisted of only one officer acting as judge and jury. A soldier had the right to object to a trial by a Summary Court, in which case he was tried by a higher court composed of a jury of three officers and a judge advocate. In  Congress amended the articles to allow commanding officers to impose minor punishments without the intervention of a court-martial, unless the accused demanded such a trial.33 Not until  did Clemson institute in writing any version of the Article Fifteen shortcut. The  bylaws stated that ‘‘the Commandant, with approval of the President, may suspend (but not dismiss) a student for an offense severe enough to be tried by the Discipline Committee. But a cadet so sentenced may insist on a trial by the Discipline Committee, in which case the sentence of the Commandant is deferred.’’ 34 Once again the authorities had refined the judicial system. In so doing, they affirmed the right of a cadet charged with a serious offense to be tried by a jury. Since such trials were now open to the public and allowed the cadet to select a faculty member to serve as defense counsel, they had also strengthened protection of the cadets’ rights under the Sixth Amendment. If a cadet had the right to a trial, he had the right to a public trial, in which he had legal counsel. While providing greater protection for Sixth Amendment rights, the trustees simultaneously brought the justice system at Clemson more in line with that of the American military. Finally, the Clemson authorities refined and codified the college’s legal system by carefully defining the part that the commandant would play in student trials, and by making his role similar to that of the judge advocate in military courts-martial. Military law has several provisions that make it impossible for the officer who initially brought the charges

                         

against the accused to participate in the court-martial. Even in the old summary courts of the nineteenth century, the single officer who served as both judge and jury could not be the accuser in the case.35 The roles of accuser and jury member were not entirely separate in Clemson’s early years.Until  the commandant voted with the rest of the faculty in student disciplinary hearings. This involved a conflict of interest. The commandant’s main responsibility was to enforce discipline, and he usually brought cases before the faculty in the first place. Thus he was serving as both accuser and jury member. The trustees officially abolished this practice in , ruling that the commandant would no longer sit on the Discipline Committee, ‘‘since he was already involved with the cases.’’ 36 The trustees further defined the commandant’s role by making him a judge advocate of sorts. In military courts-martial, the Judge Advocate is responsible for acting as prosecuting attorney, summoning witnesses, and in general seeing that the trial is conducted in an orderly, systematic manner.37 By  the commandant’s role was beginning to resemble that of the judge advocate. In March of that year the trustees officially ruled that his role was to present the case, call witnesses, and ‘‘in general act as Prosecuting Attorney.’’ 38 The removal of the commandant from the jury and his assignment to the role of prosecuting attorney accomplished two things. It made the jury more impartial, and it made Clemson’s trials look more like court-martials of the American military. Over the years the Clemson cadets gained many legal rights that are guaranteed to civilians—for example, the right to counsel and to public trials. A few freedoms, such as the freedom of petition, actually became more restricted as time passed. Overall, though, the trend was toward a more structured, formal, and codified set of rules and legal procedures. To achieve military discipline and efficiency along with the conflicting goals of individual freedom and due process of law, the Clemson authorities often turned to the example of the American military legal tradition.The overall result was that cadet discipline became less arbitrary and more prescribed by regulations. It is not clear whether all southern military schools followed the same course as Clemson—moving from an unwritten, arbitrary set of rules and judicial procedures to one that was more codified and therefore protected the civilian constitutional rights of students. There are simply not enough records extant from most schools to determine exactly how they handled serious cases of cadet misbehavior. But Clemson’s records illus-





                         

trate that the southern military tradition could not easily ignore American constitutional principles for the sake of military order. In fact, American military law itself made important concessions to civil rights and the rights of the accused. In accommodating both liberalism and militarism, the Clemson leadership was attempting to satisfy the demands of two traditions that were very different but not totally incompatible.

 

Military Education for Black Youth

On a typical morning in a southern college in the early s, the young men have risen precisely at : .. at the ringing of a bell. By : they hear the order ‘‘Fall in,’’ and all of them, now in military uniforms, march in formation to the dining hall. They stand behind their chairs opposite the young ladies of the school, and at the ringing of another bell they sing the morning hymn and recite the blessing. After thirty minutes a faculty member dismisses the boys. Their strictly regimented daily routine continues. They march to meals and classes and respond to the ringing of bells until the bugler outside their dormitory sounds off at : .. and the night watchman yells ‘‘Lights out!’’ Instructors pause beside every door in the dormitories to ensure that the students are quiet and in bed. The scene above could easily describe the daily routine of many military schools in the South. Eyewitness observers, however, would immediately notice two differences between this scene and that of Mississippi State, North Georgia, or other similar institutions. First, all the cadets were black. Second, none of them carried rifles. In fact, the scene described above occurred at Florida A&M, a land-grant college for African Americans.1 The story of southern military education would be incomplete without some mention of the differences in how the tradition developed in black and white colleges. Educators at black colleges pursued goals similar, though not identical, to the objectives of leaders of white schools when they incorporated military training. Conditions unique to black schools, however, stunted the growth of military traditions at those institutions



                         

before World War I. Black normal and land-grant schools found it practically impossible to obtain arms, which inhibited student interest in the military program, dampened esprit de corps in student military companies, and limited the perceived benefits of military drill. Leaders of black schools faced other difficulties stemming from the fact that a military tradition among African Americans as a whole was still only partially developed. Perhaps most important, though, was the fact that white Victorian Americans, at heart, desired neither full citizenship nor soldiership for African Americans. In the South especially, the idea of black youth fortified with a combination of arms and military discipline was repugnant and threatening to white citizens. The black military tradition, therefore, along with black citizenship, was only precariously established in the age of Jim Crow.2 The first black school to introduce elements of military life to its male students was Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, founded by Samuel Chapman Armstrong in Hampton, Virginia, in  and initially supported by the northern-based American Missionary Association. Armstrong was a former Union army officer who had commanded black troops in the Civil War. He was heavily influenced by many of the racist attitudes of his day. While he praised the abilities of black men as soldiers, Armstrong believed that slavery had instilled strong tendencies of laziness and sloth in the black race. Through strict discipline (provided in part through the military program at Hampton) and steady, routine work, Armstrong hoped to train a corps of self-disciplined black teachers in the industrial arts who would transmit the Puritan work ethic to the black working class. Hampton male students, therefore, drilled in military formations, wore uniforms, and were subject to daily personnel and room inspections. In  Hampton began admitting Native American students as well.3 Hampton continued as one of the few black ‘‘military’’ colleges until the s, when Congress passed a second Morrill Act largely to ensure that the states provided for higher education for black as well as white youths. Under the  law, states had either to admit blacks to existing land-grant colleges or to establish separate institutions for them. The southern states, of course, all chose the latter option. The second Morrill Act, unlike the first, did not explicitly call for military education. Its stated purpose was ‘‘the more complete endowment and maintenance of colleges’’ established under the original Morrill Act, but it omitted any reference to military instruction, mandating that land-grant funds ‘‘be

                         

applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural, and economic science, with special reference to their applications in the industries of life.’’ 4 The passage of the second Morrill Act led to the opening of several black institutions that followed Hampton’s lead in concentrating on teacher training and industrial education. Some of them instituted the military system as well. Georgia State Industrial College (now Savannah State) opened in Savannah in  and had organized its students into a corps of cadets by . In  the South Carolina legislature formed the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College of South Carolina (now South Carolina State) out of an earlier institution, and this school immediately established a military program. The Florida legislature reorganized the school now known as Florida A&M as a landgrant institution in –, and the faculty had instituted a military system for the young men possibly by  and certainly by .5 Inasmuch as Armstrong was interested in the role of military discipline in the formation of character, his goals at Hampton were similar to those of the leaders of white military colleges. The main difference was that racial stereotypes influenced Armstrong’s objectives. He saw military drill and routine as a means to correct the perceived flaws of the Negro (and Native American) races. Whereas military discipline supposedly tamed the high-spirited, rebellious nature of southern white boys, Armstrong intended for it to correct the perceived sloth, licentiousness, lack of selfdiscipline, and improper bearing of blacks and Indians. ‘‘Military drill,’’ he wrote, ‘‘makes possible a training in self-discipline . . . and does much to promote that esprit de corps in which the Negro is markedly lacking.’’ 6 Daily drill and inspections of rooms and persons would ‘‘create ideas of neatness, order, system, obedience, and produce a better manhood.’’ 7 It would also contribute to the students’ physical bearing, selfcontrol, and sense of personal responsibility. As in the case of white military schools, Armstrong also thought military discipline complemented his school’s emphasis on piety, regular church attendance, and mandatory daily chapel.8 Skeptics argued that Armstrong’s policy of allowing coeducation at Hampton was unwise, as they saw the character of African Americans as both ‘‘passionate and indolent.’’ Armstrong’s reply was that ‘‘there is little mischief done when there is no time for it. Activity is a purifier. . . . I have little fear of the abuse of co-education at Hampton. My boys are rung





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up at  o’clock in the morning, called to military parade before breakfast, kept busy all day until  .., always under military discipline, and after that hour I will risk all the harm they will do to anybody.’’ 9 Thus, according to Armstrong, the military system could reform the behavior, if not the inborn character, of the Negro race. Northerners who supported Hampton agreed that blacks lacked discipline. Lyman Abbot, Congregational minister and executive secretary of the American Freedman’s Union Commission, lauded the system of work and drill at Hampton, saying, ‘‘This is just the discipline the Negro race needs to fit it for manhood.’’ 10 Armstrong and the commandants who supervised his cadets also instituted a system of student courts-martial, or ‘‘officers’ court,’’ in which cadet officers (older students) tried and punished their fellow students for breaches of conduct. Thus Hampton leaders claimed they could use the military system to teach their students lessons in ‘‘self-government.’’ Armstrong’s successor as principal, Hollis Burke Frissell, reported to the trustees in  that ‘‘discipline has more and more been administered by the cadets themselves, through their own court martial. Self-government is as important a lesson as self-help.’’ 11 This self-government, though, always meant that blacks oversaw and supervised the behavior of members of their own race, and the standards of behavior corresponded to those of the northern, white, middle-class Protestants who ran the school. It never implied the possibility of black control over whites or full participation in American democracy.12 Remarkably, some of Armstrong’s graduates and faculty members repeated these racial stereotypes when they praised the usefulness of military education. One of the most prominent black educators of the early twentieth century, Robert Russa Moton, echoed these claims. Moton was a Hampton graduate and served as commandant of cadets there from  to , when he succeeded Booker T. Washington as president of Tuskegee. In his  report to Principal Frissell, which was forwarded to the Board of Trustees and printed in the Southern Workman, Moton wrote, The physical training which military drill makes imperative . . . is of great value, securing the best physical culture, a firm and elastic step, erect form, graceful carriage, and vigorous bodily powers. The habit of attention and mental concentration, which the Negro and Indian sadly lack, is developed in a large measure, the habits of neatness, good order, and promptness form a part of his daily rou-

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tine, while the constant necessity of quick, responsive, and decided physical and mental action results in habitual decision of manner, movement, and speech. Further than this, he receives training in selfgovernment, self-restraint, in prompt obedience, in submission to law and authority, and in the exercise of authority.13 Black colleges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries mimicked Hampton’s focus on strict discipline, hard work, and piety. In this sense they were similar to white land-grant schools. Yet only a handful turned to the military system before World War I and the advent of the  program. The biases of their white supporters and sponsors were partially responsible for that. A large number of the black schools founded between  and  (including Hampton, Claflin, Fisk, LeMoyne, Talladega, Tuskegee, Meharry Medical, Wiley, Morgan State, Rust, Howard, and what became Atlanta University) grew from the initiative and oversight of northern philanthropy and missionary efforts. Most of these, except Talladega and Claflin, never seriously contemplated instituting a full-fledged military system.Their northern missionary sponsors were certainly interested in imparting middle-class Victorian virtues of punctuality, neatness, order, and self-discipline, but they probably did not see military discipline as a means of instilling the desired traits. Subsequently, the second Morrill Act virtually forced southern states after  to provide land-grant schools for blacks. Though the states satisfied black demands by usually allowing the schools to hire black principals and faculty, the illusion of black control was just that. In reality, white administrators were determined to exercise firm control over the black colleges’ organization, policies, curriculum, and finances. These southern white state officials were indifferent if not hostile to the idea of establishing military programs at those schools. Southern land-grant schools that did not incorporate the military feature until after World War I included North Carolina A&M, Prairie View A&M (in Texas), Southern (in Louisiana), and Tennessee A&I.14 Black land-grant schools that did organize a corps of cadets justified the move for reasons similar to those of Hampton’s administrators. South Carolina State catalogs claimed that the military organization taught obedience to law and order and promoted healthful habits and physical vigor. Florida A&M declared that it complemented study, taught manly bearing, instilled respect for law and order, and contributed to the overall ‘‘physical, mental, and moral development of the boys.’’ 15

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

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Often, though, the military feature at black colleges evolved slowly. In the schools’ earliest years it had little influence on student life. While most white land-grant schools, for example, soon after their opening required students to wear uniforms on a daily basis, black schools were slow to adopt this requirement. Florida A&M did not insist on uniforms or military drill until , twelve years after its reorganization as a landgrant school. The first mention of uniforms at Georgia State appeared in the – catalog, which advised male students that they ‘‘would be wise’’ to purchase a uniform from the school’s department of tailoring, since it was cheaper than a civilian suit.16 Another indicator of how much prominence educators gave the military system is whether they appointed a faculty member whose full-time job was teaching military science courses and overseeing the discipline of cadets. White schools designated this instructor professor of military science and tactics and usually referred to him as the commandant. Usually they were able to obtain the services of a regular army officer sent by the War Department to help them comply with the provisions of the Morrill Act regarding military instruction. When the War Department neglected to send an instructor, schools hired retired officers or former cadets at their own expense. It was some time before the black colleges gave military instruction enough attention to designate a faculty member officially as the commandant. Florida A&M did not appoint a commandant of cadets until it hired William A. Howard in . Howard took his military duties seriously, but even he was not a full-time commandant, since he was also professor of mathematics and painting. At Georgia State the original plans laid down for the college in  specified that the faculty was to include a ‘‘Drillmaster’’ who would be selected from among the instructors. Listings of the faculty and staff in college catalogs do not indicate that the college officially appointed anyone to that post until , when S. L. Lester—who was also the ‘‘Instructor in Painting, Glazing, Sign-Painting, and Kalsomining’’—took the job.17 The degree to which a school relied on cadet officers rather than faculty alone to maintain discipline was another measure of how military an institution it was. The white military colleges relied heavily on cadet officers and s. Hampton handled many of its disciplinary cases by means of student courts-martial and made older students responsible for the care of the dormitory. Other black schools, however, were slow to establish a viable student chain of command for disciplinary purposes.

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Professor Howard of Florida A&M had appointed cadet officers at least by , but the formula for selecting officers was not as simple for him as it was at white colleges. At Florida A&M there was no simple division of students into seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen. In most black colleges the students ranged from primary school to high school and college levels. Most of the students at Florida A&M were members of the high school, junior high school, or normal departments, rather than the collegiate department. Howard simply selected the cadet officers from among students who had proven most exemplary in ‘‘conduct and soldierly bearing,’’ without strict regard for seniority.18 Georgia State had a well-organized corps of cadets complete with cadet officers and s at least by the s, but commandant S. L. Lester faced a situation similar to Howard’s when he appointed officers. The number of students at college level was so small that he selected several of the cadet company commanders and lieutenants from the high school department.19 There was another area in which black colleges steered their curricula away from a military orientation. They neglected the study of military tactics. Hampton students occasionally received instruction in military tactics, especially when the commandant was a regular army officer or when the school was able to get an officer from nearby Fortress Monroe to visit the campus a few times a week. But Armstrong carefully tried to calm white fears that he was training a black soldiery. He made it clear that ‘‘it is not intended to make soldiers out of our students, or to create a warlike spirit. Such a course would be most unwelcome to our friends and supporters.’’ 20 South Carolina State was exceptional among black schools in that it provided its students instruction in tactics, administration, and discipline of armies; logistics, security, and information; manufacture and use of gunpowder, high explosives, small arms, cannon, and mines; construction of bridges and coast defenses; military law; and military history. That school was uniquely fortunate in its early years to have as faculty members Robert Shaw Wilkinson and Johnson C. Whittaker, two of the very few black men who had attended West Point. The school dropped its military science courses in . It continued, though, to retain a corps of cadets for purposes of discipline.21 South Carolina State, however, was unique in this regard. At Georgia State and Florida A&M there was probably no official instruction in military tactics. Despite the fact that Georgia State’s original ‘‘Plan of

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

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Organization’’ stipulated that the students would take military science courses, there is no evidence from college catalogs and course schedules that they did. Georgia State allowed students to form a military company in  as an extracurricular activity and provided it with a tactics manual, but this training never became part of the official curriculum. Lack of official white encouragement was probably a reason for this, as Georgia State received no federal or state funds for military equipment. Georgia State and Florida A&M quickly gave up all pretensions of being training grounds for professional soldiers, or even citizen-soldiers.22 Even more significant is the fact that cadets at black schools rarely, if ever, were allowed to carry rifles. Federal law provided for the War Department to supply  Springfield rifles and other ordnance items to land-grant schools that enrolled at least  male students. Despite easily meeting that criterion, Georgia State and Florida A&M cadets never drilled with weapons.The South Carolina State – catalog contains a picture that appears to show some of the cadets carrying a rifle, stick, or short lance, and the text indicates that military instruction included ‘‘the manual of arms and bayonet exercise.’’ 23 Talladega cadets drilled with lances during that school’s brief experiment with military training from  to , and Hampton cadets in some years had the opportunity to drill with wooden sticks or pikes. Yet the remarkable fact remains that at most black military schools, male students awoke every morning to a bell or bugle, wore military uniforms, formed into companies, marched and drilled, and yet rarely, if ever, touched a rifle.24 The correspondence of black college presidents that is still extant does not explicitly indicate whether college officials, War Department officers, or white men in state and local government most objected to black cadets drilling with rifles. There is, however, a small collection of reports and letters written by Hampton commandants and faculty members which indicates that although a few Hampton officials and regular army officers connected with Hampton desired weapons for their cadets, it was an extremely sensitive issue. In  Hampton cadets drilled with wooden sticks. From  through , however, Armstrong reported to the Board of Trustees that his cadets were not supplied and did not drill with weapons. Possibly, then, Hampton cadets had stopped drilling even with wooden sticks after . In  the commandant, First Lieutenant George Leroy Brown of the U.S. Army, reported the same thing. Brown went on to recommend

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that the school acquire a stand of arms so that he could instruct the senior class ‘‘in the manual and the use of the rifle.’’ This, he said, would ‘‘do much towards increasing the spirit of the battalion.’’ 25 Probably in response to white fears of a large black armed force, however, Brown carefully advocated arming only the seniors, not ‘‘the entire battalion.’’ 26 Brown’s implied complaint that the absence of weapons impaired the spirit, or esprit de corps, of the cadet battalion ironically echoed the laments of white military school leaders during Reconstruction. Federal military authorities for some years denied  cadets the privilege not only of carrying arms but also of wearing uniforms and drilling. Between  and  President David French Boyd of  repeatedly asked for permission to train with arms, saying that ‘‘without the uniform, the musket, and the drill, a military academy has no soul, and without these necessary aids, the military discipline is out of place and impossible to be maintained, except by the utmost vigilance of the officers of the institution, and even then always liable to break down.’’ 27 Military authorities and Republican governor Henry Clay Warmoth consistently refused Boyd’s requests until . The Republican government of Virginia likewise did not allow  cadets to carry weapons until the school was able to supply its own swords and muskets from private sources in . In  Superintendent Francis H. Smith asked General William T. Sherman to have the War Department supply the weapons instead, but Sherman refused.28 While southern white cadets were gradually regaining permission to train with weapons, Hampton cadets were losing that privilege. Lieutenant Brown did not give up, though. In  he repeated his argument that arms were needed to aid in the drill exercises and in increasing the ‘‘spirit of the drill,’’ although the ‘‘foot-lance or pike [recently] approved by the principal’’ would help.29 By  the cadets once again used a ‘‘swordstick’’ at drill.30 In  another officer made a long, determined argument in favor of Hampton cadets being allowed to train with rifles. By this time Hampton had its first black commandant, Robert R. Moton.The request came not from Moton, however, but from First Lieutenant E. W. Hubbard, an officer stationed at Fortress Monroe who aided Moton in drilling the cadets. After discussing the situation with Principal Frissell, Hubbard wrote a letter to Frissell so that the latter could pass it on to the trustees. Hubbard anticipated the objections of local white citizens and the concern, perhaps of the trustees, that arming young black men would lead to violence and other ‘‘improper use’’ of the weapons:

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

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Sir— In accordance with my verbal agreement with you, I have the honor to submit for your consideration and that of the Trustees at their approaching annual meeting, the following considerations relative to the procuring of arms and equipments for the use and instruction of the cadets of the Institute. This question is, I am aware, somewhat complicated by considerations which do not obtain elsewhere, and I write solely from the standpoint of Military Instructor, and with a view of bringing the cadets to as high a standard of drill, soldierly bearing and conduct as the necessarily limited time devoted to military matters will permit. Without entering into any argument as to the value of military drills at a school such as this, it may be said that the highest benefits of such instruction can only be obtained by the use of arms at drill. The bearing of arms is the natural aim of all military instruction. Although at this school the incidental advantages of discipline, soldierly bearing etc. must properly outweigh mere proficiency in the use of arms, still it must be acknowledged that the prospect of bearing arms would operate powerfully towards securing the incidental advantages mentioned. A prime requisite of successful instruction is to get and keep the pupil’s interest. Applying this to the case in hand nothing would do more among the cadets to foster an interest in drill than the prospect of having arms put into their hands on their attaining a proper degree of proficiency. . . . Without arms the drill is limited almost entirely to the gymnastic or ‘‘setting up’’ drills and marching manoeuvres. This naturally becomes somewhat monotonous. With arms a greater variety could be introduced, the appearance of the battalion made more effective and an opportunity given for acquiring a degree of exactness and steadiness at drill which can scarcely be obtained without their use. In case arms are issued to the School the time now devoted to military instruction need not be increased. The drill session would begin at the bottom as now, without arms, and arms taken up later on. Arms and equipments are issued to institutions of learning by the Government under conditions set forth in circular from the Chief of Ordnance, U.S. Army, herewith enclosed. It is suggested that the arms be not actually put into the hands of the cadets except during drills. At other times they could be securely stored in a suitable room fitted up as an arsenal. If any additional precaution is needed against improper

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use the firing pins can be removed from the arms and placed securely elsewhere as without them the arms are useless. Very respectfully, E. W. Hubbard st Lieut. rd Artillery, U.S.A. Military Instructor 31 Lieutenant Hubbard clearly understood that the question of arming black and Indian youths at Hampton was ‘‘complicated by considerations which do not apply elsewhere.’’ Probably those considerations included local white hostility to the idea of hundreds of black and Indian youth being trained to use arms at a school founded by an ex–Union army officer. They may also have included the fears of the northern white men who led Hampton’s board that arming what they believed to be inferior, undisciplined races was improper if not dangerous. The lieutenant therefore made several pledges to reassure the trustees that Hampton would not become a training ground for black warriors, nor would serious incidents occur that would give the school negative publicity. The amount of time devoted to military instruction would remain the same, the cadets would not handle the weapons except during drill, the school would secure the arms in an armory, and the firing pins would be removed.32 Hubbard’s diplomatic appeal failed to secure arms for the cadets. In the following year, , Commandant Moton repeated Hubbard’s request, and Principal Frissell officially endorsed it. Moton avoided the issue in  but returned to it in , saying, ‘‘I think the time has come when the school could reasonably adopt guns to be used in the squad, company, and battalion drills, though not necessarily for other ceremonies.’’ 33 By ‘‘other ceremonies,’’ Moton probably meant parades, commencements, and other occasions in which the public was invited. That spring Hampton ex-cadets enlisted, became s in the regular army, and deployed to fight against Spain, and Moton could reasonably argue that ‘‘the time had come’’ to trust blacks with rifles. Yet his argument failed to convince the authorities, and he dropped it in later reports. There is no evidence that Hampton cadets ever drilled with rifles before World War I, and pictures from the period continue to show the young men of the school standing in formation in blue uniforms without weapons.34 The details of this story are, of course, sketchy. It is unclear whether

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

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the leaders of Georgia State and Florida A&M, preoccupied with more pressing issues, even sought rifles. Richard R. Wright Sr., the black principal of Georgia State, was constantly trying to persuade white trustees and administrators to give him more control over the organization, curriculum, and finances of the school. Georgia State fell under the administrative control of the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia, and the trustees believed that the black college required the ‘‘oversight of competent white [men].’’ 35 White trustees and local administrators denied Wright the opportunity to appeal directly to the state legislature for funds or to attend meetings of the trustees—privileges enjoyed by the leaders of white colleges of the state. With these handicaps, Wright waged an ongoing and mostly unsuccessful campaign to acquire adequate funding for his school. Probably, then, he regarded securing arms and a professor of military science as the least of his problems. He had to pick his battles, and meeting the more basic needs of his impoverished institution came first.36 The available evidence from Hampton indicates that black military leaders as well as some white principals (such as Frissell) and army officers did seek to supply black cadets with rifles. Rifles, they thought, would increase the cadets’ interest in drill, make them a more efficient unit, and contribute to developing the traits that military instruction was supposed to provide. The resistance came either from white trustees, local politicians, or both, who apparently thought it impolitic or even dangerous to civic order to arm blacks. Besides the absence of weapons, several factors may have inhibited the growth of a military tradition at some black schools, especially those with no military program. Many, such as Florida A&M, Georgia State, and South Carolina State, maintained a policy of having an all-black faculty, and there was a severe shortage of trained military and ex-military officers who were black. This is not to say that there was no black military tradition. Blacks were justifiably proud of their service in the Civil War. Over , had served in the Union army, helping to secure their own freedom. But while white military schools could draw from a vast reservoir of experienced and senior Confederate officers, very few black men had received wartime commissions even as junior officers. By the time South Carolina State, Georgia State, and Florida A&M opened three decades later, these black veterans would have been quite old. During the Spanish-American War, the War Department decided that blacks could

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serve as officers in the four regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops but that none would be commissioned above the rank of lieutenant.37 For a time the tradition of African American military service survived in the many black militia companies organized in the South during and after Reconstruction. These units had been important to black communities and offered their members social status and self-respect. The War Department, however, seldom sent regular army officers to assist in their training. It did send inspectors general, who wrote critical evaluations of the readiness of these units. It is questionable whether these black units produced many officers capable of teaching drill at the battalion level, much less men familiar with the West Point system of adapting military discipline to an educational environment. In any case, the black militia and national guard units were already beginning to decline by the time of the Spanish-American War. One by one, southern states (and some northern states) took legislative action to restrict and finally eliminate black units. By  the black contingent of the national guard had virtually disappeared.38 White schools additionally could, and did, draw from a large pool of white men educated in the dozens of antebellum southern military schools. Besides Hampton, of course, there were few black military schools, nor were there many black men educated under the military system. Between  and  only twenty-two black men received appointments to West Point. Twelve passed the entrance examination, and only three survived the ostracism and demanding coursework to graduate, only to struggle against severe discrimination in their regular army careers. The record of Annapolis was even more dismal. African American military experience, then, largely resided in the enlisted and  ranks. The black military man was typically an enlisted figure, trained, disciplined, and supervised by white officers. The cadre of black officers who had been allowed to command large bodies of troops or who had experience with the system of military education was small indeed.39 While it was some time before Georgia State and Florida A&M hired anyone truly qualified to teach military science and tactics, South Carolina State was unusually fortunate. In  the school applied to the secretary of war for an army officer to teach military science and tactics and requested that he be ‘‘colored.’’ 40 The War Department replied, probably quite truthfully, that no colored officer was available. Eventually the school was lucky enough, however, to secure Robert Shaw Wil-

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kinson, one of the few African Americans who had attended West Point as its professor of mathematics, and he assumed the additional duties of commandant. Wilkinson had attended West Point from  to , when he had resigned due to ‘‘insufficient physical strength.’’ 41 In  another black ex-cadet of West Point, Johnson C. Whittaker, assumed Wilkinson’s duties. Whittaker had been the victim of a brutal hazing incident perpetrated by white cadets in his final year at West Point, and he was court-martialed before graduation for allegedly inflicting his own injuries. After his dismissal from West Point, he became a teacher and lawyer in Camden, South Carolina. Thomas E. Miller, Whittaker’s good friend and former classmate at the University of South Carolina, was then president of South Carolina State and asked Whittaker to join the faculty there as professor of mathematics and commandant.42 The lack of opportunity for a career in the armed forces surely dampened the military enthusiasm of many black cadets. While the white landgrant schools never aimed specifically to train professional soldiers, some of their cadets did win commissions to West Point. Others who distinguished themselves in the military department had their names published in War Department reports so that the army would have a pool of potential officers to call upon in case of war. Some college catalogs advertised this fact. A large number of white ex-cadets, in addition, became militia officers. Black men, however, had little chance to become militia officers in southern states, especially after the abolition of black militia units around the turn of the century. Their opportunities in the regular army also were slim. In  the total number of black line officers in the regular army was three; in , five. Even if a black college student wanted a career in the enlisted ranks, opportunities were few. Between  and  Congress and the War Department limited the number of black regiments in the regular army to four. When these regiments were filled, which was often, the army allowed no blacks to enlist until vacancies appeared.43 There were, then, several reasons why a black military school tradition remained only partially developed. The ambivalence or hostility of white southerners, the shortage of trained black commandants, and the lack of opportunity for a military career for black cadets all played a role. Yet the most fundamental factor and the one that underlay all the others was the recognition that soldiership implied full citizenship, and whites were unprepared to concede the latter to blacks. Historians today recognize that, like other white educators of his day,

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Samuel Chapman Armstrong of Hampton had limited goals for black education. Armstrong did not believe blacks should engage in politics or push for equal civil rights. Instead, he sought to instill social discipline and good work habits so they could properly fill ‘‘subordinate roles in the southern economy.’’ 44 Armstrong even favored black disfranchisement. As James D. Anderson has noted, Armstrong insisted on a ‘‘second-class education’’ for blacks, to prepare them for ‘‘second-class citizenship.’’ 45 Thus he probably never endorsed the recommendations of white army officers from Fortress Monroe that his cadets should have rifles. Instead he assured local white citizens that his cadets were not a threat, and that he was not preparing them to challenge white hegemony. Military training, then, was useful for imparting habits of discipline, obedience, and industry to a subordinate race, but when it included the bearing of arms, it became a dangerous recognition of full citizenship.46 The story was similar for southern land-grant schools. Occasionally both white and black educators recognized the usefulness of, or at least tolerated, military training for black youth, in the belief that it contributed to an orderly, industrious, and responsible black community. White leaders conceded that as long as military training aimed only to foster discipline and lawful subordination, it was acceptable, if not beneficial, for black youth. But black military education was a double-edged sword. White leaders balked when it included the bearing of arms. The bearing of arms implied first-class or full citizenship, in which the citizen was encouraged to defend his rights in a bold, assertive way. A group of armed citizen-soldiers imbued with a sense of martial pride and the belief that it was an aggrieved minority reminded white southerners too much of themselves in . Whether consciously or subconsciously, then, white southerners understood that an unhindered black military tradition implied full citizenship for blacks, and thus racial equality and the end of white supremacy. It was no accident, therefore, that the disfranchisement of blacks in the southern states occurred during the same period in which the states disbanded their black militia or national guard units. Joel Williamson has identified the period between  and  as the time when the ‘‘Radical’’ mentality most governed white thinking on race. Racial radicals, he says, believed that the Negro was ‘‘retrogressing rapidly into his natural state of savagery’’ and that there was ‘‘no place for the Negro in the future American society.’’ 47 This was also the same period in which black landgrant schools were opening, trying to establish military traditions, and

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perhaps contemplating the possibility of obtaining arms for their young cadets. Their timing could not have been worse. Military education for African Americans got off to a difficult start. It began at Hampton, where a Union ex-general introduced the concept in an attempt to create a disciplined, industrious, and subordinate black working class. A few black land-grant schools followed. When they instituted military programs, some of their reasons for doing so were similar to those of the white schools: to instill discipline and mold character. The postbellum white schools, however, had a far deeper heritage of military education from which to draw than did the black schools. The South had a long tradition of educating its white youth to be soldiers as well as citizens. The myth of the Lost Cause perpetuated the southern military tradition and strengthened the connection between martial and moral virtues in the minds of white southerners.This in turn had an effect on how educators at white land-grant schools ran their institutions. The South also had a long history of keeping weapons out of the hands of black men, as well as denying them access to higher education. Thus black colleges had no antebellum tradition of black military schools to sustain them.The federal government, too, was ambivalent, if not hostile, to the idea of black men serving as U.S. soldiers and took little interest in developing a black officer corps. Most important, whites recognized the political implications of granting blacks the status of armed soldiers and, therefore, of full citizens. Thus, while black southerners did have a proud tradition of military service drawn from their militia, Civil War, and earlier experiences, there were serious obstacles to black military achievement in the age of Jim Crow. Consequently, black military education as a whole was slow to develop. Perhaps this chapter will provoke further study and more detailed answers concerning the extent of black military education. But the information presented here indicates that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States, especially the South, citizenship implied soldiership, and vice-versa. The society that granted only nominal citizen status to blacks was also hesitant to honor them or train them as soldiers. While blacks struggled unsuccessfully for full citizenship during this period, their military traditions—their claims to status as citizensoldiers—foundered as well.

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Our Duty Is Plain War and Patriotism in Southern Military Schools,  The beginning of the Spanish-American War in April  gave Charlestonians special occasion to think of the Citadel and to rejoice in the honor it brought the city. That spring, former Citadel cadet Edward Anderson, a general in the South Carolina militia, formed some ex-cadets into a battery of heavy artillery. On May  the battery breakfasted within the walls of the Citadel. From there, the school’s current cadets and the Charleston ‘‘regiment’’ of United Confederate Veterans escorted the newly formed unit to the train depot. The battery, enthusiastically cheered by a thousand spectators, then embarked for Columbia. Almost two months later, the battery was back on nearby Sullivan’s Island, across the river from Charleston. A large crowd crossed over to the island on June  to witness a ceremony in which a woman identified as ‘‘Miss Taylor’’ presented an American flag to Anderson and his troops. Taylor instructed Anderson, ‘‘This flag is the emblem of our country’s honor and our country’s glory, our own America. See to it that it suffers no dishonor.’’ 1 As the banner changed hands, the band played ‘‘The Star-Spangled Banner’’ and the crowd cheered wildly. A performance of ‘‘Dixie’’ soon followed. Anderson announced that he and his battery would defend the Stars and Stripes ‘‘as our banner’’ and do their duty ‘‘as Americans and South Carolinians.’’ 2 The events involving Anderson’s battery of Citadel ex-cadets resembled scores of others across the South that spring. More emphatically than at any time since Appomattox, southerners reasserted their loyalty to the larger American nation, though without renouncing their Confederate past. By  the southern exercise of patriotism had broad-

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ened to include demonstrations of loyalty to the larger American nation as least as much as fealty to state or region. Southerners professed their newfound national allegiance, though, in militaristic terms. For the most part, they expressed their American patriotism not so much as a commitment to democracy or other abstract ideals, but as a determination to fight as fiercely for the Stars and Stripes as they had fought against it over three decades earlier.3 Several historians have recently observed that around the turn of the twentieth century, Americans as a whole began returning to a more masculine, militaristic understanding of citizenship and patriotism that had been popular at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some analysts suggest that the ties between manly honor and militarism had temporarily weakened in the North in the middle of the century, only to be revived by the Civil War. Others claim that ties between military service, martial valor, and citizenship had started to lose their force among younger men prior to the Spanish-American War.4 Most agree, however, that as the century came to a close, the veteran or soldier became the symbol epitomizing manly honor and patriotic citizenship. By the time of the Spanish-American War, says Kristin Hoganson, ‘‘gendered understandings of citizenship’’ had strengthened the links between manhood, military service, and civic virtue enough to exercise a profound influence on foreign policy.5 One must temper these observations, however, with the realization that the links between martial valor and civic virtue had never weakened in the South—before, during, or after secession. The images of the gallant soldier, ideal citizen, and virtuous man had always blended together for southerners. In the s climate of militant patriotism, therefore, the Spanish-American War provided a convenient means for southerners to reassert their loyalty. Northerners and southerners still disagreed over the meaning of the Civil War and over whether Confederate soldiers should be remembered as traitors or patriots. Most southerners still had no use for the national government that had attempted to legislate racial equality in the s and s. But as long as Americans could define patriotism as martial sacrifice and valor—as fealty on the battlefield to a particular people, a particular place, and a particular banner— the war with Spain would give southerners an opportunity to express their loyalty.6 Southern white military schools participated wholeheartedly in this patriotic exercise. The war gave youthful cadets a chance to honor the

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sacrifices of their Confederate fathers and simultaneously declare their loyalty as Americans. Black military schools, such as Hampton Institute, also found themselves wrestling with the meaning of patriotism. Should African Americans enlist to serve a nation that was at that moment allowing their disfranchisement and excluding them as citizens? Or did patriotism demand military sacrifice even when the nation was unjustly denying them their constitutional civil rights? The South responded enthusiastically to the call for volunteers in , and its military schools led the way.  boasted that at least  of its graduates served as officers in the Spanish-American War, while  others served as s and  as privates. Texas A&M had provided  cadets and ex-cadets to the army by December . Clemson, the Citadel, Auburn, Mississippi State, North Carolina State, and North Georgia contributed as well, and official college catalogs, pamphlets, and other reports boasted of their support of the nation’s military effort.7 Cadets caught up in the war fever were eager to offer their services. Texas A&M’s corps of cadets petitioned school president Lafayette Lumpkin Foster for permission to organize a regiment, even though most of the cadets were underage for military service. Nothing came of the effort, but several cadets enlisted over the summer. The Citadel’s cadets also offered their services as a body to the state. About two-thirds of Clemson’s cadets expressed a desire to enlist, but President Henry S. Hartzog insisted they were underage and therefore ineligible to serve. Virginia Tech’s corps volunteered as a unit, though the federal government did not accept their offer. Most of the cadet band members resigned and enlisted anyway, returning to campus after the war.8 College administrators had no wish to see their entire student bodies march off to war, but they made support of the war official school policy. Mississippi State graduated its senior class several weeks early so that the young men could enlist. Louisiana State president Colonel Thomas Duckett Boyd attempted to organize a regiment composed largely of excadets, to be known as ‘‘The Louisiana Cadets.’’ Boyd declared, ‘‘Here at this great State and National military school, we have been trained for just such emergencies as this. Our great country calls us; let us not be found wanting!’’ Over four thousand young men answered Boyd’s call for volunteers. When Governor Murphy James Foster offered the regiment’s services, however, the War Department refused, endeavoring instead to fill the ranks of the other two Louisiana regiments that had already been organized.9

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Proclamations and boasts made by military school leaders and cadets reveal that loyalty to the United States did not replace fealty to Confederate memories. The heroic legend of the Lost Cause, rather, reinforced and facilitated national loyalty. When southerners predicted that they would heroically defend the Stars and Stripes, they based their claims on an older generation’s defense of the Stars and Bars. A Virginia Tech student newspaper boasted, ‘‘We are all sons of Johnny Reb, and there are about three hundred and fifty of us and we have as many Springfield rifles, and a battery of four guns, and whenever it comes to fighting, the President of the United States can call on us and we shall be ready to march in six hours.’’ Another cadet wrote, ‘‘The South’s soldiers have shown our Yankee brethren how well we can fight against them, now, if necessary, they will show how Southern soldiers can fight with them.’’ 10 Thomas Duckett Boyd also invoked the Confederate past when he called for Louisiana’s young men to join his ‘‘Louisiana Cadets’’ regiment: ‘‘Sons of the veterans who followed Beauregard and the Johnstons, Jackson and Lee, come and sustain the glorious record of the Louisiana soldier!’’ 11 Cadets and military school leaders thus boasted of their Confederate heritage while simultaneously sounding patriotic themes of camaraderie with the North. One historian has argued, in fact, that sectional reconciliation between North and South occurred as Civil War veterans renegotiated the meaning of patriotism. By the s, says Cecilia Elizabeth O’Leary, white veterans on each side of the Mason-Dixon line had begun to pay tribute to the martial valor of the other. Northern veterans abandoned their earlier interpretation of the war as a patriotic struggle for racial equality and began to hail ex-Confederate soldiers as fellow heroes rather than as traitors or rebels. Northerners forgot the wartime call for racial justice, and popular memory instead regarded the Civil War as a gallant struggle among brothers. It was possible for all of this to occur, however, only as Americans, particularly veterans, redefined patriotism as ‘‘male warrior heroism,’’ or ‘‘battlefield valor.’’ 12 This definition gradually superseded the meaning of patriotism as civic virtue or respect for racial equality. The Spanish-American War consolidated this reconciliation and redefinition of patriotism.13 O’Leary’s work astutely traces changing perceptions of the Civil War among Union veterans. At least for southerners, though, the definition of patriotism itself changed little. There was no wholesale reformulation of patriotism as a function of militarism rather than of civic and moral virtue. Southern antebellum military school leaders, as well as postwar

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official college catalogs and bulletins, had always had difficulty separating martial valor from the moral and civic virtues of integrity, duty, selflessness, and love of country. After the great era of reconciliation in the s and s, southern military school leaders continued to claim that military education trained upright citizens and good Christians as well as effective soldiers. When they and their cadets praised Lee, Jackson, and other Confederate heroes both before and after , they did so to reinforce the mental link between moral and martial virtues in the minds of their audiences. Finally, unlike many northerners, southerners found it unnecessary to abandon the ideas of racial equality and nonprejudice as moral virtues, since they had never associated those ideas with virtue or patriotism in the first place. Still, it was on the plane of martial valor and soldierly duty that sectional reconciliation occurred, and on which southerners reasserted their loyalty to the nation. Southerners still had trouble honoring the nation that had crushed their bid for independence, invaded their homeland, and attempted to enforce racial equality. They certainly managed, though, to express their patriotism in martial terms in . Ideals and lofty goals meant far less to them during the Spanish-American War than a desire to prove their valor, and therefore their worth, as U.S. citizens. South Carolina state senator and former Citadel cadet Robert Aldrich revealed this in his  commencement address at the Citadel. Even though some viewed the war as one ‘‘of doubtful propriety,’’ he said, ‘‘our duty is plain.’’ Aldrich insisted, ‘‘ ‘My country, may she ever be right, but right or wrong, my country’ is the patriot’s sentiment.’’ 14 The same sentiment motivated the commander of the United Confederate Veterans of South Carolina to call on the group’s members to support South Carolinians going to war. C. Irvine Walker called on Charleston’s veterans to escort Anderson’s battery of ex-cadets as it marched to the train station on May , claiming that ‘‘nothing connected with the justifiability of the war with Spain . . . can lessen our duty to give a God-speed to Charleston’s sons about leaving their homes in defence of our State and our country. All Veterans are cordially asked to join in this movement.’’ 15 It was blind filial duty, not the ‘‘justifiability of the war,’’ that inspired the new allegiance to the nation. The valor-as-patriotism theme enabled southerners to relive the struggles and bitterness of the Civil War while simultaneously expressing their pride in being Americans. One of the most remarkable examples of this sentiment was Aldrich’s commencement speech at the Citadel. Aldrich

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first referred to South Carolina’s bravery in war and its humiliation by the United States: ‘‘We have seen [South Carolina] in the fiery throes of war, displaying a prowess unspeakable and wreathed all around with glory. We have seen her in the grasp of the conqueror, whose hatred could be appeased only by her degradation; but she suffered and grew strong.’’ 16 Only a few paragraphs later, though, Aldrich shifted the focus of patriotism from South Carolina to the United States, the nation he had just referred to as the hated conqueror. Whipping up support for the war with Spain, he prophesied, ‘‘When the world beholds the spectacle of all the men who fought under Grant standing shoulder to shoulder with those who fought under Lee, fighting in a common cause, under a common flag, and that flag the starry banner, which has gone across the continent in blood and around the world in glory, no nation or alliance of nations will wage causeless war with us.’’ Aldrich’s incredible ability to hail the camaraderie between northern and southern soldiers only minutes after reminding his audience of their humiliation in  was only possible within the militaristic strand of American patriotism, and only alongside the idea of ‘‘right or wrong, my country.’’ 17 This warlike brand of patriotism, however, did not completely replace other formulations of honorable citizenship. When the fiery excitement of the war had faded, military school supporters still regarded military ardor as only one measure of moral and civic worth. College catalogs still praised military training as beneficial to young men’s moral character, piety, and civic virtue. North Georgia’s trustees claimed in , ‘‘While we make good soldiers we are making better citizens.’’ 18 John P. Thomas, ex-superintendent of the Citadel, wrote that the Citadel used military training ‘‘as an aid in producing sound scholarship and robust citizenship . . . not so much to make soldiers, as to make men, equal to the emergencies of both peace and war.’’ 19 The Spanish-American War also forced African Americans to examine their loyalties and their definition of patriotism. Some of this reexamination took place in military schools, particularly Hampton Institute. Hampton’s graduates, cadets, and administrators responded enthusiastically to the call for troops in . Hampton cadets offered their services in the war and asked their commandant, Robert Moton, to command their unit if they were called. Moton agreed, and Principal Hollis B. Frissell went to Washington to confer with War Department officials on the matter. Secretary of War Russell A. Alger told Frissell that the Hampton

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cadets were not yet needed, but that he would inform the school if they were.20 Many Hampton graduates and ex-cadets enlisted, however. Several served as s in the four Negro regular army regiments that fought in the war, and others were officers in ‘‘colored’’ volunteer regiments. The Southern Workman, the official organ of Hampton, proudly noted that ‘‘inquiry has been made by parties interested in the enlistment of colored troops as to how many thoroughly trained colored officers the School could furnish.We were able to submit a list of thirty.’’ The state of Virginia raised two volunteer battalions of African American troops officered by men of their own race. One of the battalion commanders, Major W. H. Johnson of Petersburg, was a Hampton graduate.21 Hampton graduates performed well in combat. Hamptonian Horace W. Bivins became a sergeant commanding a gun section in the Tenth Colored Cavalry. Bivins’s battery suffered several casualties but eventually participated in the famous charge on San Juan Hill. Bivins himself received a commendation for ‘‘conspicuous gallantry’’ while leading his gun section.22 The decision of many African Americans to support the  war effort, however, involved some soul-searching. Theodore E. Rose of Savannah revealed this in a speech he made at Hampton’s  commencement exercises. Rose acknowledged that some of his race argued that ‘‘the Negro in some sections of our country is not accorded equal rights and privileges as an American citizen. To this state of things the masses of the race regard the general government as presenting an indifferent front, and taking no steps to redress or prevent the wrongs, and because of this it is argued that the Negro should not fight.’’ 23 Rose agreed that the Negro suffered ‘‘hard, cruel, and relentless abuses’’ but stated that the federal government had no constitutional right to interfere in the ‘‘domestic affairs’’ of the offending states. Second, Rose insisted that, legally at least, ‘‘we are citizens’’ and that Negroes had a corresponding duty for every right they enjoyed as citizens. As citizens, the duty of African Americans was as clear as it was for white southerners. This conception of duty led Rose into the same ‘‘my country, right or wrong’’ idea espoused by Aldrich at the Citadel: ‘‘Beggarly will be the Negro if he allows the ills he bears as a citizen to overbalance his love of country. . . . For God and country we have but one duty, the duty of loyalty—loyalty to God under all conditions, loyalty to country in spite of conditions.’’ 24

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Finally, and most importantly, Rose emphasized the connection between soldiership and citizenship, that bearing arms in defense of the nation solidified one’s claim to being a man and therefore a citizen. His argument is worth quoting at length. The Negro cannot afford to concede to the Anglo-Americans the exclusive right or privilege of doing the duties of a patriotic citizen in war, or those of a patriotic citizen in peace. In this hour of danger we should be a nation of brothers standing ready to fight for right and the common good. Ushered into new life by the roar of cannon, and the blaze of musketry, christened citizens by the blood of those who bled and died at Chattanooga, Bull Run, and Gettysburg, it would ill befit the Negro to hold aloof, or to allow prejudice to stand in the path of duty. Rose then argued that the valor of African Americans in battle would make white Americans respect them as men, patriots, and citizens. In this hour of danger . . . the Negro has the opportunity to show the power of patriotism over prejudice, to diminish prejudice . . . to reach a higher position before the American people as a man. True bravery, true manhood, are bound to win their due recognition. They break down and walk over prejudice. They make men recognize men. . . . When men fight side by side, meet death and defeat together, all for the same cause, becoming companions in danger, they are friends in peace; they become brethren. . . . Here lies the Negro’s opportunity: allow it to pass and as a race the chance of our life is gone; grasp it and the probabilities are that in the coming century there will happen nothing that will have such an effect in bringing the races together in fraternal love, in binding them closer together in the brotherhood of man under the fatherland of God, in proving to the world that the Negro is patriotic and that he has all the possibilities of true and unstinted manhood.25 Rose could not have made the philosophical connection between military service and citizenship any clearer: After the African American proved his worth as a soldier and a patriot, no one would be able to deny his status as a citizen.26 Most African Americans who served in the Spanish-American War, like Sergeant Bivins of Hampton, performed well in combat. At times it seemed that they might get the recognition and status they sought.

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At an  speech at Georgia State, President William McKinley congratulated his African American audience on ‘‘the splendid heroism of the black regiments that fought side by side with the white troops’’ at El Caney and San Juan.27 General Joseph Wheeler, ex-Confederate and commander of the division that included the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry Regiments (Colored) in Cuba in , followed McKinley’s speech with praise for his black troops. Wheeler also promised ‘‘that in your efforts for education and advancement in material prosperity, the people of the entire South and the entire country will aid you, just as in that army every white soldier applauded to the echo the good conduct of the colored soldiers.’’ 28 The praise black troops received, of course, did not last long; when they returned home, they encountered the same prejudice as before. Black troops, especially when stationed in the South, endured abuses, insults and physical attacks from white civilians. Even units that proved themselves in combat, like Sergeant Bivins’s Tenth Cavalry, came home to face white hostility rather than praise. Disfranchisement of African Americans continued in the southern states, as did the spread of Jim Crow segregation laws. The American military continued to discriminate against black troops and to limit opportunities for black officers for over five more decades.29 Thus while the militarism-as-patriotism formulation hastened reconciliation between northern and southern whites, it did not secure full citizenship for African Americans as many had believed or hoped it would. The martial enthusiasm of the Spanish-American War facilitated reconciliation between North and South. It encouraged the recital of militant patriotic themes that, in the last few decades, had chiefly appeared in the rhetoric of the Lost Cause or at reunions of Union soldiers. For southerners especially, the war represented an opportunity. In a society that had never doubted that being a good soldier was an integral part of being an honorable man—and therefore a citizen—the war and its martial strand of patriotism gave cadets, veterans, and other southerners a chance to solidify their claim as full citizens in an expanding, dynamic, imperial republic. The war was, in this sense, particularly successful for white southerners. President McKinley’s appointment of ex-Confederates and other southerners as generals, as well as his declaration that care of Confederate graves was a national duty, signaled that the North was officially ready to recognize the South’s claims to valor and honor. White southerners were, undoubtedly, once again fully welcome as mem-

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bers of the nation. The outcome was far different for black southerners. Their experience illustrates the limits of martial valor as a badge of citizen status in a racist society. Like other Americans in the North and South, most African Americans ultimately brushed aside ethical or moral qualms about military service and decided to fight for their country, ‘‘right or wrong.’’ But no matter how well African Americans performed as soldiers, the nation was not yet prepared to guarantee them the corresponding rights of citizens.30 Southern military schools were proud of the contributions of their alumni and cadets in the war.They offered them as proof that the military system of education did indeed prepare men for all the duties of citizenship, in both peace and war. The federal government apparently noticed. Congress and the War Department began to scrutinize the land-grant schools, as well as  and the Citadel, ever more closely as potential sources of trained military manpower. The institution of two programs,  () and the Student Army Training Corps (), would turn scores of college campuses virtually into military installations. In  and  the entire nation—not just the South—would exploit the concept of the student-soldier to the fullest.

 It is difficult to summarize the military school movement without offering the irresistible numerical comparisons this work seeks to transcend. Still, while this work focuses on southern state-supported and land-grant military schools, it is useful to trace the growth of these institutions within the nationwide military school movement as a whole. The northern innovation of private military schools spread quickly to the South through the efforts of Alden Partridge and his followers. While Partridge and his protégés also set up a few military academies in the North, including the venerable institution at Norwich, undoubtedly it was in the South that the idea was most popular. Most of the antebellum, private, southern military schools enjoyed brief periods of success before closing their doors or suffering the loss of their founders as the latter left to start new projects.1 But by  every southern state government except Texas had reaffirmed its faith in the idea of military education by establishing state military schools, while every northern state neglected to do so.2 After the Civil War, more private military academies sprang up all over the nation. There were approximately one hundred such schools in the eleven ex-Confederate states, and about an equal number in the North and West. The generosity of the federal government was a stimulus to this trend. Beginning in , Congress passed a series of laws authorizing the War Department to supply military officers, arms, accoutrement, and equipment to private institutions that included courses in military tactics in their curriculum. Often the War Department also allowed these military instructors, most of whom were West Point graduates, to teach courses in mathematics, the sciences, and engineering in addition to drill and tactics. In the North, South, and West, therefore, private colleges recognized that including military training could help them acquire an additional faculty member whose salary was fully or partially paid by the government. Meanwhile, private college leaders repeated the familiar arguments in favor of military education.3 As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the nation as a whole began returning to a more militaristic understanding of patriotism, one that interpreted martial valor and other characteristics of the soldier as evidence of honorable citizenship. While it may be true that this development was a change for some parts of the country, it was not for the South.





This definition of patriotism often, though not necessarily, included a jingoistic desire for an aggressive foreign policy. Always, however, that definition corresponded with expressions of patriotism, moral and civic virtue, and honorable conduct for men, which had never weakened in the South. It parroted ideas that had sustained the southern military school tradition for half a century, with themes so central to southern culture that they formed a critical part of the southern educational program for young men from the Jacksonian period until at least World War I. Military education, therefore, claimed supporters in all parts of the country after the Civil War. Almost without exception, though, only in the South was military education so unanimously popular that state governments provided full support to thoroughgoing military schools. Virginia continued to support , the Citadel was reborn in South Carolina, and other southern states established new state military colleges— the North Carolina Military and Polytechnic Academy (), the South Florida Military and Educational Institute (), and the Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College (). The University of Alabama reopened with its antebellum military system in place. New Mexico established the New Mexico Military Institute in , but no other nonsouthern states took that step.4 Every state cooperated with the federal government to establish landgrant colleges under the Morrill Act. The major difference was that the white southern land-grant colleges uniformly turned to the example of West Point and other antebellum military schools in the government of student life, while land-grant schools outside the South usually met the minimum military requirements of the Morrill Act. Even when nonsouthern land-grant colleges attempted to require weekly drill and the occasional wearing of uniforms, they often collided with determined student opposition and skeptical trustees and legislators. One advantage of the study of nineteenth-century military schools is that it sheds light on the old question of whether the South has a unique military tradition. The South did, and does, have a unique military tradition. The deep southern commitment to military education for civilians testifies to it. It represents southerners’ particular tendency to emphasize soldierly virtues as fundamental elements of a complete man and a worthy citizen.This is not to say that the North, or other areas of the country, does not share in the larger American military tradition. It was in the South, though, that military education flourished most dramatically, against no significant dissent until at least the s.



Another important lesson of this story is that American militarism and American liberalism are not necessarily incompatible. They have coexisted throughout the nation’s history. Perhaps what made the South most militaristic was not an extraordinary enthusiasm for war or large standing armies but its superior ability to reconcile militarism with republicanism. The South exhibited remarkable faith in the efficacy of military training in molding responsible, patriotic, law-abiding, republican citizens. The soldierly virtues—or what military school leaders and Lost Cause orators called soldierly virtues—were really the same character traits valued by the larger society. Americans of the late nineteenth century shared in the Victorian appreciation for self-discipline, law and order, piety, physical vigor, courage, and adherence to a strict moral code of personal behavior, a code that did not tolerate drunkenness, licentiousness, or gambling. Military schools claimed that military service, rather than corrupting young men, instilled those virtues valued in civilian society. By inducing desired traits of character, southern military schools sought not to mold professional soldiers or to create a military caste apart from the larger society. They aimed instead to train lawabiding and responsible citizens. When military institutions failed to support the loftier claims of liberalism—the ideals of racial equality and full citizenship for racial minorities—they only reflected flaws in American democracy itself. Black West Point cadets who endured cruelly unfair treatment and the cadets of black schools who were not trusted with weapons suffered their indignities not because they were members of military organizations, but because they lived in a republic that had yet to recognize the full citizenship of their race. The two traditions—militarism and liberalism—sometimes came into conflict in military schools, especially when the robust individualism of American boys on the verge of manhood clashed with the enforced order, uniformity, and discipline of military units. When the conflict became intense, cadets at northern schools were quick to label military education un-American or undemocratic. Southern boys, while just as indignant, did not. They focused their resentment and contempt not on the military system itself but on the leadership, judgment, or worth of individual commandants, faculty, presidents, and trustees. Justifying their rebellions in the time-honored rhetoric of their Revolutionary and Confederate forebears, they were able to challenge authority and yet still see themselves as good soldiers, good cadets, and honorable men. To them, military in-







junctions of obedience need not, and did not, conflict with the citizen’s prerogative to defend his individual rights. After World War I the proportion of southern students who daily wore military uniforms gradually shrank. One by one, southern land-grant schools abolished the requirement that all male students join the corps of cadets. Tennessee, Auburn, North Carolina State, Mississippi State, and  were among the first to relax the military requirement. Hampton, South Carolina State, Savannah State, and Florida A&M now have strong  units, but they long ago ceased to function as military schools. Clemson retained the military requirement (except for students who were veterans of the world wars) until . Arkansas resisted the trend until ; Texas A&M, until . The military tradition at the latter school, however, is still vibrant. The Texas A&M corps of cadets, with its rich traditions, is somewhat more than a typical  detachment and is a distinctive and colorful feature of student life. Virginia Tech dropped the military requirement for juniors and seniors as early as  but kept it compulsory for freshmen and sophomores until . Like Texas A&M, its military traditions remain dynamic and vibrant. North Georgia’s military orientation continues into the s.  and the Citadel, of course, tenaciously cling to their military traditions. Instead of being the vanguard of what was once a regional trend, though, the latter two schools are now clearly distinctive, if not anachronistic.5 The story of how the military school tradition faded belongs properly to another book. It is worthwhile, though, to offer some suggestions here. There was a backlash against military institutions following World War I, accompanying postwar disillusionment with the goals and outcome of the war. This may ultimately prove a weak explanation, however, for the waning of military education in the South. Pacifist and antimilitarist attitudes have never been strong in the region. Southern college campuses, for example, were relatively silent in protesting against the Vietnam War even in its most unpopular phase. Another possible explanation concerns changes in what many perceived to be the true purposes of higher education. Educational leaders began seeking to develop the latent talents and interests of the individual student. Colleges relaxed their emphasis on conformity to a strict moral code as well as their attempts to instill a list of Victorian character traits that Americans of an earlier generation had never questioned. Additionally, with the establishment of the  program, the federal government assumed from state institutions the initiative and full respon-



sibility for training military officers.6 Primarily interested in national military readiness and only incidentally concerned with the development of character, the War Department assumed more control over college military programs. It was convenient for college administrators, faced with increasing bureaucratic responsibilities and the management of larger student bodies, simply to turn college military departments over to military officers and other federal officials. This was especially the case when  involved only a portion of the student body. When  involved some rather than all students, it generated less friction between military officers and college officials over issues of student control. Today a very large proportion of college graduates who take  join the active duty military force—unlike the situation before , when most military school cadets did not. Those who do take  find themselves somewhat set apart from the rest of the student body by their haircuts and uniforms. Many spend their summer vacations training at military bases or on naval vessels. By enrolling in the military program, they choose a course that immediately differentiates them from most of their peers on campus. They join a smaller group set apart from the rest of the student body by their dress, haircuts, lifestyle (arising early for morning formations and physical training), and chosen career path. Cadets at nineteenth-century military schools had no such choice to make. Wearing a uniform and attending drill could never make them feel different or set apart. Perhaps now, at the turn of the twenty-first century, Americans are more apt to see military personnel as members of a caste apart from the larger society. More Americans may perceive military culture itself, with its enforced discipline, order, and uniformity, as alien and threatening. The Citadel, , and other military schools, however, will continue to flourish. Despite recent controversies over single-sex education, these schools will adapt. Though they were defeated in their efforts to maintain an all-male environment, this setback will not be enough to make them abolish the military requirement, much less close their doors. They still draw their direction and purpose not so much from a commitment to single-sex education but from the conviction that military education molds upright citizens as well as good soldiers. Many Americans, southerners especially, share this faith in military training as an excellent preparation for citizenship. That belief, after all, is the most important legacy of the southern military school tradition.



 Past and Present Names of Educational Institutions The colleges covered in this work often had long names and changed them frequently. In the text I generally use modern, shortened versions of their names. The text refers to the ‘‘Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College of South Carolina,’’ for example, simply as ‘‘South Carolina State.’’ The table below matches some of the early names of the schools with the names they are generally known by today. Name used in text Arkansas Auburn Clemson Florida A&M

Georgia State (currently known as Savannah State) Hampton LSU

Early name(s) Arkansas Industrial University; University of Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama; Alabama Polytechnic Institute Clemson Agricultural College State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students; Florida State Normal and Industrial School

Georgia State Industrial College Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy Mississippi State Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi North Carolina State North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts North Georgia North Georgia Agricultural College South Carolina State Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College of South Carolina Tennessee East Tennessee University Texas A&M Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas The Citadel South Carolina Military Academy Virginia Tech Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College; Virginia Polytechnic Institute VMI Virginia Military Institute

             AU Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Ralph Brown Draughon Library, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama CA The Citadel Archives, The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina CU Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina FAMC Catalog Florida State Normal and Industrial School Twenty-First Annual Catalogue (), Black Archives Research Center and Museum, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee GSIC Catalog Announcement and Catalogue of the Georgia State Industrial College, Savannah State College Library, Savannah Hampton Reports Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute Annual Reports, Hampton University Archives, Harvey Library, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia HU Hampton University Archives, Harvey Library, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia LSU Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge MAMC Catalog Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi, Special Collections, Mitchell Library, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State MSU Mississippi State University, Mississippi State NGAC Catalog North Georgia Agricultural College Catalogue, Stewart Library, North Georgia College, Dahlonega SCS Catalog Catalogue and Special Announcements of the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College of South Carolina, Special Collections, Miller F. Whittaker Library, South Carolina State University, Orangeburg



           –  Texas A&M Report Report of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas ( January – January ), bound in Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College Reports, –, Texas A&M Collection, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station UT University Archives, Special Collections Library, University of Tennessee, Knoxville VMI Virginia Military Institute, Lexington VPI Archives, Carol M. Newman Library, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg

 . Wilson and Ferris, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, . The white, ‘‘military,’’ southern land-grant schools founded during this period include Texas A&M (), Arkansas (), North Georgia (), Auburn (), Virginia Polytechnic (), Mississippi State (), North Carolina State (), and Clemson (). The University of Tennessee and Louisiana State also operated as military schools, as did the University of Alabama from  to . . Franklin, Militant South. . Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians, , –, –; Higginbotham, ‘‘Martial Spirit in the Antebellum South’’; Boney, ‘‘Military Tradition in the South.’’ Keith Bohannon’s study of the antebellum Georgia Military Institute concludes that that school’s emphasis on civilian subjects as well as the niggardly support it received from the state legislature cast doubt on the idea of a distinctly militaristic South (see Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters’’ and ‘‘Not Alone Trained to Arms’’). Works that generally support the idea of a southern military tradition include Meade, ‘‘Military Spirit of the South’’; Bonner, ‘‘Historical Basis of Southern Military Tradition’’; McPherson, ‘‘Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism’’; Napier, ‘‘Militant South Revisited’’; Osterweis, Romanticism and Nationalism in the Old South, –, –; and WyattBrown, Southern Honor. Charles Reagan Wilson discusses the romanticization of military figures in the postbellum era in Baptized in Blood. . For a few examples of statistical comparisons, see Bonner, ‘‘Historical Basis of Southern Military Tradition,’’ –; Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians, –; Higginbotham, ‘‘Martial Spirit in the Antebellum South,’’ , –; and May, ‘‘Dixie’s Martial Image,’’ , . For an example of including violence in the definition of militarism, see May, ‘‘Dixie’s Martial Image,’’ –, –, . Paramilitarism is addressed in ‘‘The  Battle of Colfax: Paramilitarism and Counterrevolution in Louisiana,’’ an anonymous essay submitted to Journal of Southern History for publication, .

            –  . These definitions of militarism appear in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. ‘‘militarism.’’ . Quoted from NGAC Catalog, –, . . My working definition of liberalism here is relatively simple and generic: a concern for egalitarianism, personal autonomy, and civil rights of the individual as listed in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, assembly, and petition and judicial rights for the accused). . Noted political scientist Samuel Huntington has argued that militarism and liberalism are fundamentally incompatible. He portrays the tension that exists between military professionals and civilian democrats as inevitable and enduring. See Huntington, Soldier and the State, esp. –. My study deals with education rather than the professional officer corps, but it indicates that militarism and liberalism could and did accommodate each other in nineteenth-century America. See also Franklin, Militant South. . Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ . . See Knight, Documentary History, :–. Lester Austin Webb traces the southern state military school movement in detail and points out that there were no state-supported military schools in the North (see Webb, ‘‘Origin of Military Schools,’’ , –). Additionally, there had been dozens of private military schools established; see Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection’’; Law, Citadel Cadets, –; and Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ . . This study covers several black land-grant colleges that enforced discipline through mandatory membership in a corps of cadets: Hampton, Florida A&M, Georgia State Industrial College (now Savannah State College), and South Carolina State. Hampton was originally a private institution but later received the portion of Virginia’s land-grant funds reserved for black colleges. Other black land-grant schools did not institute the military system before World War I, including Alcorn, Jackson State, and Southern (in Louisiana), though they established ROTC programs later.

  . Franklin, Militant South, . . See ibid., esp. vii–x, –, –, –. . Unlike Franklin, Wyatt-Brown, in Southern Honor, attributes southern militarism more to a received ethical tradition known as ‘‘honor,’’ with ancient barbaric and classical roots, than to conditions unique to the American South. I do not deny the influence on militarism of the cluster of ethical rules known as ‘‘honor,’’ but my thesis agrees most explicitly with Wyatt-Brown’s in its emphasis on received traditions rather than indigenous cultural developments. . Pangle and Pangle, Learning of Liberty, –, –. . Ibid., –; Milton, ‘‘On Education,’’ . . Milton, ‘‘On Education,’’ –; quote from .





            –  . Pangle and Pangle, Learning of Liberty, . See also Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, –; Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians, ; Weigley, Towards an American Army, , , –; Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ –. . Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ –, –, –, –. . Ibid., esp. –, –. The opposition to West Point as a dangerous or aristocratic institution is discussed in Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians, –. . Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ –; Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ –, –. . Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ –, , –, –, –, . For examples of southern leaders echoing Partridge’s claims that military schools would benefit the militia, see Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ . The Citadel opened in Charleston and the Arsenal in Columbia. The Arsenal was not as successful as the Citadel, and in  the Board of Visitors, which oversaw both schools, made the Arsenal subsidiary to the Citadel. Only freshmen would attend the Arsenal, and they would transfer to the Citadel as upperclassmen (see O. J. Bond, Story of The Citadel, –). . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :–; O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, –; Lexington Gazette, August , September , . . Charleston Mercury, December ,  (quote); O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, –. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :–. . Lexington Gazette, August , . . Ibid., September , . . Ibid., January , . Partridge’s letter to Dorman was dated December , . Governor Richardson of South Carolina also stressed the importance of a viable militia to the state’s defense of its honor and liberty, pointing out that the state’s constitution and institutions prevented any other means of ‘‘cultivating our military resources’’ (Governor’s address to the General Assembly, in Proceedings of the Senate and House of Representatives, November , ). On the roots of the traditional Anglo-American belief in a trained citizenry and viable militia for the preservation of the people’s liberties, see Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms, . . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :; Lexington Gazette, January , September , ; Annual Report of the Virginia Military Institute, December , , VMI. See also O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, , in which the Citadel’s Board of Visitors is quoted in its first annual report to the legislature in  as saying, ‘‘By requiring [the cadets] to account for every moment of their time, [the military system] prevents them from acquiring vicious habits, and withdraws them from the allurements of dissipation.’’ The outdoor exercise of military drill was also thought to have a positive effect on the cadets’ health (see Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ ; Annual Report of the Virginia Military Institute, December , , VMI).

            –  . Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ ; Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ –; Franklin, Militant South, –, , . . Francis H. Smith, History of the Virginia Military Institute, . . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :. . See Annual Report of the Virginia Military Institute, December , , VMI; Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :; and Lexington Gazette, September , . . Governor’s message to the General Assembly, Proceedings of the Senate and House of Representatives, November , . . John P. Thomas, ‘‘On the Profession of Arms,’’ address delivered to the South Carolina Military Academy Association of Graduates, April , , Citadel Speeches Collection, CA. . Colonel Asbury Coward, Commencement Address, June ,  (reread in ), Citadel Speeches Collection, CA. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :–; Lexington Gazette, September , . . Register of the Officers and Cadets, , VMI; Regulations of the Military Academies of South Carolina, , –, CA. . Quote in Knight, Documentary History, :. . Webb, ‘‘Origin of Military Schools,’’ –; Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians, –; Knight, Documentary History, :–. . Webb, ‘‘Origin of Military Schools,’’ . . Ibid., , , , . . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :, , , ; Semi-Annual Report of the Virginia Military Institute, January , VMI; Regulations of the Military Academies of South Carolina, , –, CA; O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, , ; Charleston News and Courier, December , , January , , , January , , February , ; The State, August , ; Journal of the Senate of the State of South Carolina, January , , . . Regulations of the Military Academies of South Carolina, , , CA. . Report of the Board of Visitors, July , , and Semi-Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, January , , VMI. . Regulations of the Military Academies of South Carolina, , , CA. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :. . Knight, Documentary History, :–, –; Yates, History of the Georgia Military Institute, –; Franklin, Militant South, –. . Semi-Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, January , , and Semi-Annual Report of the Virginia Military Institute, January , VMI; Richmond Daily Whig, February , . . For VMI’s enrollment and financial support, see Wise, Drawing Out the Man, , . While Franklin claims that southerners in the early part of the nineteenth century had an aversion to taxation for and state support of education, Knight argues that the theory of universal education and educational opportunity has always found wide acceptance in the South, but that its ‘‘practical

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            –   application’’ has always been slow (see Knight, Public Education in the South, vi, and Franklin, Militant South, ). . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :–. . Knight, Documentary History, :–, :–, –, –, – ; Yates, History of the Georgia Military Institute, –; Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection’’; Law, Citadel Cadets, –; Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ ; Webb, ‘‘Origin of Military Schools,’’ –; Fleming, Louisiana State University, –. . See esp. Franklin, Militant South, vii–x, –. . Richmond Daily Whig, January , . . Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina, November , . . Philip St. George Cocke to Francis H. Smith, February , , Francis H. Smith incoming correspondence, Records of the Superintendent, VMI. Cocke was a member of the VMI Board of Visitors. See also Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ . . Franklin, Militant South, . Knight speaks of a general educational revival in the United States in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that began to bear fruit in the South by the s; see Knight, Public Education in the South, –. . Sellers, History of the University of Alabama, :–; Wolfe, University of Alabama, –. . Fleming, Louisiana State University, . . Copy of article in Louisiana Democrat, August , , in Fleming Collection, LSU. . Ibid. . Report of the Board of Visitors, July , and Minutes of the Board of Visitors, July , , and July , , VMI. . Colonel Asbury Coward, Commencement Address, June , , Citadel Speeches Collection, CA. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :–; O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, .

         . Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ , , –.The point that many private military academies in the South were short lived is made in Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ –, passim. For other discussions of the contributions of southern military schools to the Confederate war effort, see Conrad, Young Lions, esp. chap. , and McMurry, ‘‘Civil War Leaders,’’ –. Lester A. Webb traces northern efforts to catch up with southern military education during the Civil War in his ‘‘Origin of Military Schools,’’ –. . Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, –. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I, :; Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, ;

             –   McMurry, Virginia Military Institute Alumni, ; Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ , , . . Allardice, ‘‘West Points of the Confederacy,’’ –; Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters,’’ ; Conrad, Young Lions, –; Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, , , –, ; Franklin, Militant South, . . Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, –; Conrad, Young Lions, ; Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters,’’ . . For more on conscription, exemptions, and draft dodging in the military schools, see Conrad, Young Lions, –, –, ; Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters,’’ –; and Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, –. For enrollment figures, see O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, ; Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, ; Conrad, Young Lions, , –; and John P. Thomas, History of the South Carolina Military Academy, –. . Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, –; Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters,’’ , , ; O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, . . Quote from Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, . . Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters,’’ . . Conrad, Young Lions, –, –, –, ; Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drillmasters,’’ –. . Conrad, Young Lions, –, –. . Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, . . Ibid., –; Conrad, Young Lions, –. . O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, –; Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, –, – . . Conrad, Young Lions, . Witnesses noticed a tear in Breckenridge’s eye as he ordered the cadets into the front lines. . Davis, Battle of New Market, , , , , , –, –, –; Loope, ‘‘ ‘Wealth of Hallowed Memories,’ ’’ –; Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I, :–; Conrad, Young Lions, , –. . Davis, Battle of New Market, –. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., : n; Wise, Drawing Out the Man, ; John P. Thomas, History of the South Carolina Military Academy, –, –, –. . John P. Thomas, History of the South Carolina Military Academy, –, – , –; Meriwether, History of Higher Education in South Carolina, ; Gary Baker, Cadets in Gray, ; Bailey et al., Biographical Directory of the South Carolina State Senate, –; Albert S. Thomas, Career and Character of John Peyre Thomas, –, –, –, –, . In his  message to the legislature, Hagood recommended that the state reopen the Citadel. During the following session, Citadel ex-cadet George Johnstone, as well as other ex-cadets and alumni, played key roles in pushing the bill through the legislature (see Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina, –, , , –, –, –). Johnstone was a freshman at the Citadel in  (see John P. Thomas, History of the South Carolina Military Academy, ). . Yates, History of the Georgia Military Institute, , ; Bohannon, ‘‘Cadets, Drill-

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

             –   masters,’’ –; O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, –; Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :–, –; Fleming, Louisiana State University, , . The few that eventually reopened included VMI, the Citadel, the University of Alabama, and the institution that would become Louisiana State University (see Wolfe, University of Alabama, ). Former Arsenal superintendent John P. Thomas revived the North Carolina Military Institute as a private school in  and renamed it the Carolina Military Institute (see Charles Lee Smith, History of Education in North Carolina, ). . Loope, ‘‘ ‘Wealth of Hallowed Memories,’ ’’ –; quoted phrase from . . Ibid., –. . Ibid., , –, , , . . O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, –; Charleston News and Courier, January , , , February , , and January , , . The  legislature had narrowly passed a bill to reorganize the University of South Carolina and to provide funding for Claflin College for the state’s black students. Opponents of the bill had argued that the state was still too poor to fund higher education. Legislators from the western, upcountry portions of the state tended to support denominational institutions. Jealous of the university’s patronage, they charged that it would be primarily an aristocratic school, benefiting only the state’s wealthier students. . ‘‘Message from the Governor’’ in Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina, November , , –; article titles quoted from O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, . For a particularly eloquent and lengthy argument in favor of military education, see supplement to the Charleston News and Courier, October , . . Charleston News and Courier, December , , January , , , . . U.S. Statutes at Large, :–. . Ibid., . Northern and western land-grant colleges that did not institute a full-fledged military system of student life included the University of Arizona, the University of California, the University of Connecticut, Iowa State, Kansas State, New Mexico State, Ohio State, Purdue, Rutgers, the University of Washington, and Washington State. The campuses of Pennsylvania State, Nebraska, and Cornell operated to some degree as military schools, but only during certain years, depending on the personalities and moods of the current trustees and administrators. The University of Illinois functioned for some time as a military school, but by the s it had made military training optional for juniors and seniors and abolished the demerit system. See Solberg, University of Illinois, –, –; Martin, Lamp in the Desert; Stadtman, University of California; Stemmons, Connecticut Agricultural College, ; Bishop, History of Cornell, –, , ; Ross, Land-Grant Idea at Iowa State College, , –; Carey, Kansas State University, , –; Kropp, That All May Learn, –, ; Pollard, History of the Ohio State University, ; Bezilla, Penn State, , , ; Topping, Century and Beyond, –; McCormick, Rutgers, –; Frykman, Creating the People’s University, , –; and Gates, First Century at the University of Washington, .

             –   . These are founding dates, not the dates the respective schools opened. See Wilson and Ferris, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, s.v. ‘‘Military Schools.’’ See also Bettersworth, People’s University, , , –; Wright Bryan, Clemson, , ; Dethloff, Texas A&M University, :xii–xiii, ; Folmsbee, Tennessee Establishes a State University, –; Montgomery, Folmsbee, and Greene, To Foster Knowledge; Fleming, Louisiana State University; Kinnear, First Hundred Years; Leflar, University of Arkansas, –; Logue and Simms, Auburn, , , ; Temple, Bugle’s Echo; and Reagan, North Carolina State University, , . . Armstrong and Ludlow, Hampton and Its Students, ; Peabody, Education for Life, ; Range, Rise and Progress of Negro Colleges, ; Neyland and Riley, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University; Potts, South Carolina State College. . The text of the earlier bill is in Congressional Globe, th Cong., st sess., April , , . See debates on it in ibid., –, –, and Congressional Globe, th Cong., d sess., –, , –, –. . Ibid., th Cong., d sess., appendix, –; Ross, Democracy’s College, ,  n. ,  n. . . Congressional Globe, th Cong., d sess., appendix, , . . Ibid., . . Ibid., –. . Texas A&M Report, . . MAMC Catalog, –, . . Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, third session, –, ,VPI; Kinnear, First Hundred Years, –, –; Temple, Bugle’s Echo, , –. . The State, August , ; Wright Bryan, Clemson, –, . . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, May , , and March , , CU. . FAMC Catalog, . . Report of the Trustees, President, and Other Officers of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi . . . to Dec. st, , , MSU. . Catalogue of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, , , AU. . Quoted from Register of the University of Tennessee and State Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Year Ending , , UT. In  Tennessee became the first southern white school to limit the wearing of uniforms and other military activities to the period set aside for drill. For the administration’s ambivalence or antagonism to the military program at Tennessee, see Annual Report of the Military Department of the University of Tennessee,  and , UT, and Montgomery, Folmsbee, and Greene, To Foster Knowledge, –. . MAMC Catalog, –, . . Colonel Asbury Coward, Commencement Address, June , , A., Citadel Speeches Collection, CA. . John W. Carter to Louis Carter, October , , Discipline Folder, box , Barringer Collection, VPI. . MAMC Catalog, –, . A rare exception to the rule of official enthusiasm for southern military programs was Paul Brandon Barringer, president





             –   of Virginia Tech from  to  and vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League of Virginia. Barringer recommended in  and again in  that the Board of Visitors abolish the military requirement for juniors and seniors, believing that it took time from study and nourished a militaristic spirit. The board rejected his motion both times. Later in  Barringer resigned, and the military feature remained popular among the students. See Kinnear, First Hundred Years, , –, , –, ; ‘‘Report of the President to the Board of Visitors,’’ , Barringer Papers, VPI; and Paul Barringer to Erving Winslow, April , , and Erving Winslow to Paul B. Barringer, May , , Biographical File, Barringer Papers, VPI. . Wright Bryan, Clemson, . . Bettersworth, People’s University, –; Wright Bryan, Clemson, , ; MAMC Catalog, –, ; Andrew, ‘‘Clemson Agricultural College,’’ –; Minutes of the Board of Trustees of Clemson Agricultural College, March , , and July , , CU. See also Texas A&M Report, . . FAMC Catalog, –; GSIC Catalog, -, ; see also SCS Catalog, –, . . Unidentified newspaper clipping, March , , Folder T-, Milner Biography, Texas A&M University. See also Bryan Eagle, April , , Folder -, ibid. . Texas A&M Report, , . . For discussions of hazing and a few of the many examples of hazing scandals, see Wright Bryan, Clemson, –; Kinnear, First Hundred Years, –; large sections of the Milner Biography, Texas A&M University, dealing with hazing at Texas A&M; and Minutes of the Faculty, April , , and April , , AU. See also Regulations of the Military Academies of South Carolina, , , , CA.

  . Mountain Signal, April , . . Ibid., May ,  (quotation). See also ibid., April , . . Quotations from ibid., May , . . Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy; Bailey, ‘‘Free Speech and the ‘Lost Cause’ in Arkansas,’’ ‘‘Free Speech and the ‘Lost Cause’ in Texas,’’ ‘‘Free Speech and the ‘Lost Cause’ in the Old Dominion,’’ and ‘‘Textbooks of the ‘Lost Cause’ ’’; Whites, Civil War As a Crisis in Gender. Wilson notes that southern clergymen perceived similarities between religious and military virtues. He also includes a chapter on higher education but focuses exclusively on private denominational colleges; see his Baptized in Blood, , –, –, –. Thomas L. Connelly and Barbara Bellows also emphasize that the Lost Cause had several definitions; see their God and General Longstreet, esp. chap. . For other perspectives on the Lost Cause, see Davis, Cause Lost; Starnes, ‘‘Forever Faithful’’; and Osterweis, Myth of the Lost Cause.

             –   . Connelly and Bellows, God and General Longstreet, ; for a discussion of Lee’s image and the Lost Cause, see chap. . . Ownby, Subduing Satan, . . Quoted phrases from ibid., , . . Ibid., esp. ix–x, , –. Others have commented on the growth of southern evangelical religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Samuel S. Hill Jr. in Hill et al., Religion and the Solid South, , and Woodward, Origins of the New South, –. . Acts Passed by the General Assembly of . . . Louisiana . . . , , Louisiana Collection, LSU. . Fourth Annual Report of the President of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, –, , Texas A&M University. . Wilson, Baptized in Blood, –, –, passim. Gaines M. Foster does not see religion as central to the Lost Cause as Wilson does, but Foster acknowledges that orators at Confederate celebrations often included a moral message and held up Confederate soldiers as models of upright behavior for the young; see Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, –, –. . Wilson, Baptized in Blood, –, –, –, –; quotes on , , , , , . . Quoted from NGAC Catalog, –, . For other mentions of mandatory chapel and religious life, see Wright Bryan, Clemson, –; MAMC Catalog, –, ; Catalogue of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, –, , Texas A&M University; Logue and Simms, Auburn, ; Minutes of the Board of Trustees, July , , AU; Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, –, VPI; and Leflar, University of Arkansas, . At Clemson at least, the small minority of Catholic and Jewish students were excused from attending services; see Wright Bryan, Clemson, . . Quoted from NGAC Catalog, –, –. See also Logue and Simms, Auburn, . Military colleges’ official endorsement of Christianity also took the form of supporting campus chapters of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Clemson paid a salary to the YMCA secretary, who lived in the barracks to exercise a wholesome influence over the cadets. The –  college catalog stated that the purposes of the YMCA were to encourage students to become disciples of Christ, to lead them to join the church, ‘‘to promote growth in Christian faith and character,’’ and to train them in Christian service (Clemson College Catalogue, –, , CU). . NGAC Catalog, –, . . ‘‘Report of the President of the College,’’ in Minutes of the Board of Directors, October , , AU. For a clear and concise explanation of how cadet officers and sentries helped enforce discipline, see Texas A&M Report, –. . Lexington Gazette and Citizen, June , . . NGAC Catalog, –, . . Wallace, Soul of the Lion, –; Trulock, In the Hands of Providence, –; Golay, To Gettysburg and Beyond, –. See also chapter  of this text.





             –   . Pollard, History of the Ohio State University, . . Ibid., . . Ibid., , , , , , –, –. . Bishop, History of Cornell, . . Ibid., , , , , –; Eschenbacher, University of Rhode Island, –; McCormick, Rutgers, , ; Bezilla, Penn State, , , , . . The State, August ,  (first quotation); Dethloff, Texas A&M University, : (second quotation). Ben Tillman made his ‘‘dude factory’’ remark in . As governor, he spoke later against efforts to cut the Citadel’s appropriation (Edgefield Weekly Monitor, December , ). Tillman spoke at the Citadel’s  commencement and on the occasion said that his dude factory comment had been made in a spirit of fun, that he had always been a friend of the Citadel, and that he had great respect for the Citadel and the University of South Carolina (see Commencement Exercises of the South Carolina Military Academy, –, Citadel Speeches Collection, CA). . These words are quoted from MAMC Catalog, –, but all the schools, including the Citadel and VMI, made similar statements. . Donovan, Militarism, U.S.A., . . Ibid., . . Ibid., –, . . Roller and Twyman, Encyclopedia of Southern History, s.v. ‘‘Civil War’’ and ‘‘Confederate Veterans.’’ . Ibid., s.v. ‘‘Confederate Veterans’’; Hesseltine, Confederate Leaders in the New South; Hattaway, General Stephen D. Lee, , , –; Dethloff, Texas A&M University, :, ; Benner, Sul Ross, –; Leflar, University of Arkansas, , –; Bettersworth, People’s University, , –; Andrew, ‘‘Martial Spirit,’’ –, and ‘‘Clemson Agricultural College,’’ –; Richard W. Simpson Folder, Clemson University Biography File, CU; Frantz, ‘‘General James H. Lane,’’ –. . Olio (), – (first quotation) and  (second quotation); Dethloff, Texas A&M University, :–; Benner, Sul Ross, . . ‘‘All Hail Clemson,’’ clipping from Greenville (S.C.) News, December , , ‘‘Commencement’’ Folder, Clemson University Subject File, CU (quotation); McKale, Tradition, –. . ‘‘An Address Delivered at the Old Stone Church,’’ May , , by William S. Morrison, William S. Morrison Folder, Clemson University Biography File, CU. . Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting and Reunion of the United Confederate Veterans, . . Mrs. R. P. Dexter, ‘‘Memorial Work in Alabama,’’ Confederate Veteran, February , . Auburn cadets began participating in local Decoration Day ceremonies in  (see Levon Vinson Rosser to Leroy S. Boyd, April , , in Leroy S. Boyd Reminiscences, AU, ). See Andrew, ‘‘Martial Spirit,’’ – , and Temple, Donning the Blue and Gray, . For a few examples of Lost

             –   Cause celebrations at other schools, see O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, , ; Logue and Simms, Auburn, ; and Lexington Gazette, May , . . ‘‘Resolution of the Corps of Cadets,’’ October , , Records of the Office of the President, RG A, LSU. . Unidentified newspaper clipping, ‘‘Clemson Commencement Ends,’’ June , ‘‘Commencement’’ Folder, Clemson University Subject File, CU. . Smoak Diaries, May , , CA. . Confederate Veteran, January , . . Benner, Sul Ross, ; The Long Horn, . . Montgomery, Folmsbee, and Greene, To Foster Knowledge, , –, –. . Smoak Diaries, May , , CA. . Ibid. . Agromeck, . . Cain, History of Lumpkin County, . . See works cited by Bailey in n. , above; quote from Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, .

  . Curti and Carstensen, University of Wisconsin, , . . Lipset, Rebellion in the University, ; Curti and Carstensen, University of Wisconsin, –; Solberg, University of Illinois, –, –. . Quote in Trulock, In the Hands of Providence, . See also Wallace, Soul of the Lion, , and Golay, To Gettysburg and Beyond, . . Wallace, Soul of the Lion, . . Ibid. . Ibid., –; Trulock, In the Hands of Providence, –; Golay, To Gettysburg and Beyond, –. . Wallace, Soul of the Lion, . . Ibid., –; Trulock, In the Hands of Providence, –; Golay, To Gettysburg and Beyond, –. . ‘‘Reminiscences of Sam A. McMillan,’’ in Cofer, Fragments of Early History of Texas A&M, . A  graduate of Mississippi State wrote, The opinion of the student body on military life was divided. Many did not like the discipline and the routine of having to do what they were told. . . . There were many others who profited by the military life: drills proved to be a wholesome exercise, inspections taught neatness and orderliness; the adherence to a tight schedule taught promptness and the value of time. We were also taught to use instead of abuse authority. These habits are still with many of us. Military life also taught us a greater love for our country and a greater respect for the flag. See J. K. Muether, ‘‘By Bugle and Bell’’ (), in ‘‘History, –’’ File, MSU.





             –  . Novak, Rights of Youth, –, –, ; Lipset, Rebellion in the University, , ; Harrison, ‘‘Rowdies, Riots, and Rebellions,’’ –. . Huntington, Soldier and the State, . . Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. ‘‘esprit de corps.’’ . Strong feelings of loyalty and solidarity developed among members of the same company as well. A company of cadets would consist of seniors serving as officers, juniors and sophomores as NCOs, and members of all classes as privates. However, the bonds between members of the same class who had endured their freshman year together as ‘‘plebes,’’ ‘‘rats,’’ or ‘‘fish’’ were usually stronger, and it was members of the same class who initiated collective action against the college authorities. For a discussion of how cadets dealt with conflicting loyalties, see Temple, Bugle’s Echo, . . McKale, Tradition, –; Minutes of the Board of Trustees, May , , and clippings in ‘‘Student Strikes’’ File, Clemson University Subject File, CU. . Reveille (), ; Bettersworth, People’s University, –; Minutes of the Board of Trustees, January , , , MSU. . Longhorn (), . . Anonymous letter from cadet to father, Riggs Papers, CU. . Smoak Diaries, March , , CA. . Ibid.; Moore, ‘‘Riot at The Citadel’’; Charleston News and Courier, April , . . Reagan, North Carolina State University, –. Some other disturbances that involved conflict over seniors’ privileges occurred at the Citadel in  and Virginia Tech in . See Law, Citadel Cadets, –, and Papers of the Office of the President, VPI. . Bettersworth, People’s University, . . Ibid., . . Ibid. . Ibid. . Ibid. . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, November , , MSU; Bettersworth, People’s University, –. . Kinnear, First Hundred Years, –. . Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :; Order Books, Order nos. ,  (), VMI. . Kinnear, First Hundred Years, ; Temple, Bugle’s Echo, –. . Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, ; Franklin, Militant South, chap. . . Casey, History of the A. & M. College Trouble, foreword; see also , . . The Clemson walkout of  falls nine years outside the dates of this study, but it grew out of the same immediate causes that fomented rebellion in earlier years: mess hall conditions, class loyalty and the suspension of a popular senior, and a crackdown on hazing. See McKale, Tradition, –; Wright Bryan, Clemson, –; and ‘‘The  Walkout,’’ Riggs Papers, CU. . T. H. Clarke to ‘‘Editor the News,’’ in ‘‘Student Strikes’’ File, Clemson University Subject File, CU.

            –   . Testimony of the Reverend John McSween to the Board of Trustees, October , , in ‘‘The  Walkout,’’ Riggs Papers, CU. . Minutes of the Board of Directors, June , , Texas A&M University. . Ibid., February , . . Casey, History of the A. & M. College Trouble, . . Law, Citadel Cadets, . . New Orleans Republican, November , . . Fleming Collection, box , LSU. . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, May , , CU.

  . Legal historian Jonathan Lurie points out that the awareness that military justice is fundamentally different from civilian law and must fulfill different needs is very old, but it has always made Americans uneasy; see Lurie, ‘‘The Role of the Federal Judiciary in the Governance of the American Military: The United States Supreme Court and ‘Civil Rights’ and Supervision over the Armed Forces,’’ in Kohn, United States Military under the Constitution, – . For a discussion on the fundamental antagonism between liberalism and militarism, see Huntington, Soldier and the State, –. Again, my working definition of liberalism is the rather simple one I offer in the introduction. Clemson opened its doors in  and remained an all-male military school until after World War II. . Rules and Articles for the Better Government of the Troops Raised. These original sixty-nine articles were derived from the Articles of War issued by Charles I in  and the English Mutiny Act of . See Spinelli, Catechism of CourtMartial Duty, . . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, –. The UCMJ applies equally to all the armed services. Between  and  the Navy and, in most cases, the Marine Corps were governed under the Articles for the Government of the Navy. Before  they were governed by an increasingly unwieldy combination of congressional statutes and customs dating back to the British Royal Navy. See Byrne, Military Law, –. See also Adjutant and General Inspector’s Office, Military Laws and Rules and Regulations; Callan, Military Laws of the United States; and Articles of War for the Government of the Armies of the United States. The Articles of War as amended in  are accessible in an appendix of Schiller’s Military Law and Defense Legislation. . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, . . Bureau of Naval Personnel, Extracts from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, April , . . Ibid., –. . See also Shanor and Terrell, Military Law in a Nutshell, –. . Regulations for the Government of the Cadets, , , CU. . Minutes of the Faculty, December , , CU.





             –   . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, March , , CU. . Ibid., July , . . These last offenses are covered under articles , , and , respectively, in the UCMJ (see Bureau of Naval Personnel, Extracts from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, –). See also Shanor and Terrell, Military Law in a Nutshell, –. . Regulations for the Government of the Cadets, , , and , , CU. This change was not yet made in the  regulations, and the  regulations are not extant. . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, May , , CU. . Kohn, United States Military under the Constitution, . . Shanor and Terrell, Military Law in a Nutshell, . . Ibid., –. . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, June , , CU. . Ibid., May , ; May , ; April , ; June , . . Ibid., June , . . The right to a public trial was not spelled out until , when the recently updated Manual for Courts-Martial appeared to allow courts-martial to exclude the public if matters of national security ‘‘or other good reasons’’ were involved. However, the Supreme Court has since upheld the right of the accused to a public trial even in security-sensitive cases. See Department of Defense, Manual for Courts-Martial, , and Shanor and Terrell, Military Law in a Nutshell, . . President Riggs used this phrase in his memo ‘‘Reflections on the  Uprising at Clemson’’ (Riggs Papers, CU). He was trying to explain why he believed that the end of the world war and the return of war veterans to Clemson had caused student dissatisfaction and unrest. Riggs claimed that the older students had matured as soldiers in wartime and were returning as men to a system that was designed for boys. . See ‘‘Riggs to Members of the Junior and Senior Cooperative Committees,’’ March , , and ‘‘Riggs to the Board of Trustees,’’ March , , Riggs Papers, CU. The Cooperative Committees were groups of students from each class organized by Riggs beginning in . They were to meet with him to discuss student affairs. He hoped to use the committees to achieve voluntary student cooperation in enforcing discipline, rather than relying on the commandant alone. See Riggs’s report to the Board of Trustees, in Minutes of the Board of Trustees, March , , CU. See also ‘‘Extracts from the Bylaws of the Board of Trustees of the Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina,’’ in Regulations for the Government of the Cadets, , . . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, –; Bureau of Naval Personnel, Extracts from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, , . . Tillotson, Articles of War, ; Schiller, Military Law and Defense Legislation, ; Bureau of Naval Personnel, Extracts from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, . General and special courts-martial are the two highest, or most serious, classifications of courts-martial. They are reserved for more serious crimes and

             –   are authorized to mete out more serious punishments. The summary courtmartial consists of only one officer and may only try crimes of a less serious nature. . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, –. . Minutes of the Faculty, December , , CU. . Kohn, United States Military under the Constitution, . . See Regulations for the Government of the Cadets, , ; Minutes of the Board of Trustees, July , ,  and September , ; and Minutes of the Faculty, –, CU. . Minutes of the Faculty, –, CU. The term ‘‘Directors’’ referred to the heads of departments. . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, –, , –; By-Laws of the Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, , , and Regulations for the Government of the Cadets, , , CU. . Article Fifteen procedures are commonly called Captain’s Mast in the Navy and Office Hours in the Marine Corps. . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, , –; Schiller, Military Law and Defense Legislation, . . By-Laws of the Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, , , CU. . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, –; Kohn, Military Laws of the United States, . . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, September , , CU. . Spinelli, Catechism of Court-Martial Duty, –. . Minutes of the Board of Trustees, March , , CU.

  . This description is taken from the recollection of a former student at Florida A&M, found in Neyland and Riley, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, –. This particular recollection did not mention uniforms, but from other episodes in the book and from college catalogs, it is clear that male students from this period wore military uniforms (see ibid., , , and FAMC Catalog, ). . This chapter focuses on Hampton Institute, Florida A&M, Georgia (now Savannah) State, South Carolina State, and to a lesser degree, Talladega. The records of these schools, especially in regard to military training, are generally sparser, more scattered, and more difficult to locate than those of some of the white schools studied here (Hampton is an exception). Often there is enough evidence to support speculations and educated guesses, but not enough to prove them. I hope this chapter will be the springboard to more conclusive studies of this topic. Special thanks go to the librarians and archivists of the five schools mentioned above. . Anderson, ‘‘Historical Development of Black Vocational Education,’’ –;





            –   Anderson and Franklin, New Perspectives on Black Educational History, –; ‘‘Hampton Institute Military Drill,’’ HU, a collection of reports concerning military matters by Hampton officials; Armstrong, Twenty-Two Years’ Work, – , , , . . U.S. Laws, Statutes, Session Laws, –. Though Hampton originally relied exclusively on private funding, it secured one-third of Virginia’s land-grant funds for several years beginning in , making it less dependent on private northern funding. See Engs, Freedom’s First Generation, . . GSIC Catalog, –, , and –, ; Potts, South Carolina State College, , , . Anecdotal evidence suggests Florida A&M boys were marched to breakfast in military formations by ; certainly by  the school had a well-organized corps of cadets with a commandant and cadet officers appointed. See Neyland and Riley, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, –, and FAMC Catalog, –. . Southern Workman, April , . . Hampton Reports, . . Southern Workman, June , , and June , ; Peabody, Education for Life, , –; Catalogue of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, –, , and ‘‘Hampton Institute Military Drill,’’ HU; Armstrong and Ludlow, Hampton and Its Students, –. . Peabody, Education for Life, ; Armstrong, Twenty-Two Years’ Work, . . Luker, Social Gospel, . Other northern educators and reformers agreed that black people needed discipline. See the ‘‘Report of President Hopkins, Williams College, Massachusetts, Mr. Hyde, of the Board of Agriculture, Massachusetts, Secretary Northrup, of the Board of Education, Connecticut, and General Garfield, M.C. upon the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute,’’ written in : ‘‘Emotional in their nature, unaccustomed to selfcontrol, and improvident by habit, Freedmen need discipline and training even more than teaching’’ (in Hampton Reports, –, ). . Hampton Reports, . For other references to cadet self-government, see, for example, Southern Workman, June , . . Engs, Freedom’s First Generation, –, –. . Southern Workman, June . . Patton, ‘‘Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr.’’; Range, Rise and Progress of Negro Colleges, , –; Jones and Richardson, Talladega College, –; Butler, Distinctive Black College. Besides Hampton and the three land-grant schools studied here, Tuskegee made limited moves toward the military system by adopting regular inspections and military drill; Talladega experimented with organizing the male students into a corps of cadets between  and , when Principal Edward P. Lord was fired and replaced with Henry DeForest; and the original curriculum of Claflin University included instruction in military tactics. See Butler, Distinctive Black College, , ; Jones and Richardson, Talladega College, , ; Southern Sentinel, September , and March ; Fitchett, ‘‘Claflin College,’’ ; Pollard, Military Training in the LandGrant Colleges, –; Taylor, Travail and Triumph, ; Woolfolk, Prairie View;

             –   Richardson, Fisk University; and Lloyd, Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University. . Bulletin of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, –, – , Florida A&M University; FAMC Catalog, ; State Agricultural and Mechanical College of South Carolina Extension Work Bulletin: Twenty-first Year Catalogue (–), –, South Carolina State University. . GSIC Catalog, –, ; FAMC Catalog, ; Neyland and Riley, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, . . FAMC Catalog, ; GSIC Catalog, –, ; –; –; –; –, ; –, . . FAMC Catalog, ; Southern Workman, September , . . GSIC Catalog, –, , –. . Hampton Reports, ; , ; ; ; Southern Workman, June , . A course of study from  shows that Hampton students still participated in drill but had no regular courses in military tactics (see Pleasant, Hampton University, . . Nix, ‘‘Tentative History,’’ ; Potts, South Carolina State College, , , , ; SCS Catalog, –, , –. . Patton, ‘‘Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr.,’’ , ,  n,  n. See also Georgia State and Florida A&M catalogs, esp. GSIC Catalog, –, , and Neyland and Riley, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, , . . SCS Catalog, –, –. . Adjutant General’s Office, ‘‘General Orders no. ’’; Southern Sentinel, February ; ‘‘Hampton Institute Military Drill,’’ , HU; Hampton Reports, . . Hampton Reports, , , ; ‘‘Hampton Institute Military Drill,’’ , HU. . ‘‘Hampton Institute Military Drill,’’ , HU. . David French Boyd to General Winfield S. Hancock, Commander of Fifth Military District, January , , Fleming Collection, LSU. . E. D. Townsend to Major General P. H. Sheridan, November , ; Report of the Superintendent of the State Seminary, January , ; Boyd to Governor Warmoth, December , ; and Special Orders No. , September , , all in Fleming Collection, LSU; Loope, ‘‘ ‘Wealth of Hallowed Memories,’ ’’ , ; Couper, One Hundred Years at V.M.I., :, , –; Fleming, Louisiana State University, –. Republican authorities in Louisiana feared that an armed cadet corps at the Louisiana Seminary would bring violence and disorder. Their fears were probably justified, since most of the older cadets at that time were members of the white supremacist group Knights of the White Camellia (see Fleming, Louisiana State University, , ). . Hampton Reports, . . Southern Workman, June , . . First Lieutenant E. W. Hubbard to H. B. Frissell, May , , Military Science Collection, HU. . Ibid. The same collection also includes a document written in pencil, appar-

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             –   ently by a faculty committee to the Board of Trustees. The letter specifically supported Lieutenant Hubbard’s recommendation. The committee said the use of arms would encourage ‘‘worthy ideals,’’ and that the argument that the use of weapons in school instills a ‘‘barbaric view of duty and ambition . . . seems without force, especially in the case of young men, who may at any time be called on to defend their country, & who know what their country has suffered for the sake of the negro race’’ (undated letter with heading ‘‘Discipline and Military Instruction,’’ Military Science Collection, HU). . Hampton Reports, . . Ibid., . See also Moton’s reports to Frissell in  and March , , in Military Science Collection, HU, and Southern Workman, September , . A picture of the cadet battalion without arms appears in Catalogue of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, , , HU. . Patton, ‘‘Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr.,’’ . . Ibid., –, –. . Glatthar, Forged in Battle, , –, ; McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, – ; Hargrove, Black Union Soldiers, –, . For further evidence of black men’s pride in their Civil War military service, see Williamson, After Slavery, , and Gatewood, Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden, . . Johnson, African-American Soldiers in the National Guard, –, –, ; Barr, ‘‘Black Militia of the New South,’’ –; Muskat, ‘‘Last March,’’ –; Gatewood, ‘‘North Carolina’s Negro Regiment,’’ ; Frances Smith, ‘‘Black Militia in Savannah,’’ , –. . Foner, Blacks and the Military, , ; Williamson argues for the existence of a significant black military tradition in South Carolina during Reconstruction, vestiges of which were still present at the turn of the century (see Williamson, After Slavery, –). . Potts, South Carolina State College, . . Nix, ‘‘Tentative History,’’ . . Potts, South Carolina State College, , . For a detailed account of Whittaker’s court-martial and subsequent career, see Marszalek, Court-Martial. . NGAC Catalog, –, ; Bulletin of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, , , and Biennial Report of the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, -, Texas A&M University; Foner, Blacks and the Military, , ; Young, Minorities and the Military, . . Anderson, Education of Blacks in the South, . . Ibid., , . . Engs, Freedom’s First Generation, . . Williamson, Crucible of Race, .

  . Charleston News and Courier, June , . . Ibid., May , , , .

             –  . For an interesting commentary on the evolution of southern concepts of filial duty and patriotism, see Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, –. . Both ideas are found in Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood, , , , . . Ibid., . See also Mrozek, ‘‘Habit of Victory,’’ –; Stearns, Be a Man!, , ; Rotundo, American Manhood, –, and ‘‘Learning about Manhood.’’ For the persistence of manly honor in the South and its waning in the North, see Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, –, –. . For other discussions of the meaning of patriotism and its shifting definition during the late nineteenth century, see Buck, Road to Reunion; Curti, Roots of American Loyalty; Greenfeld, Nationalism, , –; Silber, Romance of Reunion, –, –; and Bodnar, Bonds of Affection, esp. chap. , Cecilia Elizabeth O’Leary, ‘‘ ‘Blood Brotherhood’: The Racialization of Patriotism, –,’’ –. . List of Graduates of Clemson College, S.C., and Occupations Represented, –, pamphlet in ‘‘Commencement’’ Folder, Clemson University Subject File, CU; O. J. Bond, Story of the Citadel, ; Bulletin of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, , , AU; Bettersworth, People’s University, ; (N.C. State) Alumni News, November , ; NGAC Catalog, –, –. These numbers are more impressive when one considers that enrollment at these colleges was usually between two hundred and five hundred during this period. Most graduating classes consisted of no more than a few dozen young men. . Dethloff, Texas A&M University, :–; Kinnear, First Hundred Years, ; Temple, Donning the Blue and Gray, ; Charleston News and Courier, April , . Two hundred and twenty Clemson cadets signed a document saying they wanted to enlist; the college’s enrollment was  at the beginning of the – term (see McKale, Tradition, ; Charleston News and Courier, May , ). . Wilkerson, Thomas Duckett Boyd, –; Bettersworth, People’s University, . . Temple, Donning the Blue and Gray, . . Wilkerson, Thomas Duckett Boyd, . . Quoted phrase from O’Leary, To Die For, , . . Ibid., –, –, –, –. Nina Silber also stresses northern society’s redefinition of patriotism as manliness, moral virtue, and martial valor, a trend noticeable in the s and rising through the s and the Spanish-American War. Silber further notes the importance of this phenomenon to sectional reconciliation. See Silber, Romance of Reunion, –, , –. . Address by Hon. Robert Aldrich, June , , Citadel Speeches Collection, CA. Aldrich was a former student of the Arsenal and the Citadel and an exConfederate officer. He was also a leader of the ‘‘Red Shirt’’ campaign of  (see Bailey et al., Biographical Directory of the South Carolina Senate, :–. . Charleston News and Courier, May , . . Address by Hon. Robert Aldrich, June , , Citadel Speeches Collection, CA.

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            –  . Ibid. . NGAC Catalog, Mid-Winter Prospectus, –, . . Clipping from –, Thomas Collection, University of South Carolina. . Southern Workman, July , . . Ibid. Though African Americans obtained commissions in volunteer units, federal law required white officers for black regular army units (see Gatewood, ‘‘Smoked Yankees,’’ –). . Southern Workman, July , , , and November , . . Southern Workman, July , . For further discussion of African Americans’ attitudes toward the Spanish-American War, see Gatewood, ‘‘Smoked Yankees,’’ –, and Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden, –. . Southern Workman, July , . . Ibid., . . Many African American newspaper editors shared this view. See Gatewood, Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden, –. . GSIC Catalog, –, ; Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley, . . GSIC Catalog, –, . . Gatewood, Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden; Young, Minorities and the Military, –; Foner, Blacks and the Military. . Buck, Road to Reunion, .

 . Dean Paul Baker, ‘‘Partridge Connection,’’ , –, . . Webb, ‘‘Origin of Military Schools,’’ . . Ibid., –, –, –, . . The North Carolina school, established by the general assembly in , lasted only a year. The Georgia school, founded in , still flourishes as the Georgia Military College. The Florida institution was established by the state in  and later became the Florida Military Institute. See ibid., –, –, –, –. . Montgomery, Folmsbee, and Greene, To Foster Knowledge, ; Bettersworth, People’s University, ; Reagan, North Carolina State University, ; McKale, Tradition, ; Leflar, University of Arkansas, ; Dethloff, Texas A&M University, :; Kinnear, First Hundred Years, , –; New York Times, April , , Education Life supplement. . The War Department began showing greater interest in the military training in the land-grant schools as early as , issuing new guidelines on the detailing of military officers and on the content of military science courses. See Ross, Democracy’s College, .

              Educational Institutions Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Ralph Brown Draughon Library Boyd, Leroy S., Reminiscences Broun, William Leroy, Papers Bulletin of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute Catalogue of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute Catalogue of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama Minutes of the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama Minutes of the Faculty, - Thach, Charles C., Papers The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina The Citadel Archives and Museum Citadel Speeches Collection Coward, Colonel Asbury, Papers Law, Thomas. Citadel Cadets: The Journal of Cadet Tom Law. Clinton, S.C.: P.C. Press, . Moore, John W. ‘‘The Riot at The Citadel in .’’ ‘‘Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry Convened by General Orders, nos.  and , S.C.M.A., The Citadel, Charleston, S.C., June  and July , ’’ Regulations of the Military Academies of South Carolina (, , , ), Citadel Regulations Regulations for the South Carolina Military Academy at the Citadel (), Citadel Regulations Smoak, William Wightman, Diaries South Carolina Military Academy Catalogue Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries By-Laws of the Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina (, ) Clemson College Catalogue (–) Clemson University Biography File Clemson University Subject File Crouch, Sydney James Leonbardt, Papers

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 Minutes of the Board of Trustees of Clemson Agricultural College (–) Minutes of the Faculty Quattlebaum Collection Regulations for the Government of the Cadets at Clemson Agricultural College Riggs, Walter Merrill, Presidential Papers Sikes, Enoch Walter, Presidential Papers The Tiger (student newspaper) Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Black Archives Research Center and Museum The Famcean () Florida State Normal and Industrial School Twenty-First Annual Catalogue () Bulletin of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College (–) Georgia State Industrial College (now Savannah State College), Savannah Savannah State College Library Announcement and Catalogue of the Georgia State Industrial College (–, , , –) Year-Book of the Georgia State Industrial College (–) Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia Hampton University Archives, Harvey Library Armstrong, Samuel Chapman, Papers Catalogue of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute Frissell, Hollis Burke, Papers Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute Annual Reports Military Science Collection ‘‘Hampton Institute Military Drill’’ Minutes of the Faculty Moton, Robert Russa, Papers Southern Workman Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library Boyd, David French, Letter Books Fleming, Walter Lynwood, Collection Records of the Office of the President Mississippi State University, Mississippi State Special Collections, Mitchell Library Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi Biennial Report of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi Bulletin of the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College ‘‘History, –’’ File Minutes of the Board of Trustees

 Regulations of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi Report of the Trustees, President, and Other Officers of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi The Reveille North Carolina State University, Raleigh University Archives, D. H. Hill Library The Agromeck Alumni News Annual Catalogue of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts Chancellor’s Office, Papers Heib, Dolores Maria. ‘‘NCSU’s ROTC and Military History.’’ Unpublished essay. Minutes of the Board of Trustees North Georgia College, Dahlonega Alumni Building Commencement Collection Anthony, Madeline K., Collection. Lumpkin County Public Library, Dahlonega, Ga. Stewart Library North Georgia Agricultural College Catalogue (–) Report of the North Georgia Agricultural College to the Governor () South Carolina State University, Orangeburg Special Collections, Miller F. Whittaker Library Annual Reports of the Board of Trustees of the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College of South Carolina to the General Assembly Catalogue and Special Announcements of the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College of South Carolina Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama College Archives, Savery Library Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Talladega College Southern Sentinel Texas A&M University, College Station University Archives and Manuscript Collections, Cushing Memorial Library Annual Catalogue of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas Annual Report of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas Annual Reports of the Officers and Faculty of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas Announcement and Circular of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College,  Biennial Report of the Board of Directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas Bulletin of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas

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 Catalogue of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas The Longhorn () Milner, Robert T., Biography Minutes of the Board of Directors Minutes of the Faculty The Olio () Rules and Regulations of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Texas Shuffler, R. Henderson. Son, Remember. . . . N.p.: A&M Press, . Texas A&M Collection University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C. South Caroliniana Library Thomas, John Peyre, Collection University of Tennessee, Knoxville University Archives, Special Collections Library Annual Report of the Military Department of the University of Tennessee Catalogue of the University of Tennessee Minutes of the Board of Trustees Presidents’ Papers Register of the University of Tennessee and State Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Year Ending  Virginia Military Institute, Lexington Institute Archives, Preston Library Annual Reports of the Virginia Military Institute Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute Order Books Records of the Superintendent Register of the Officers and Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute Regulations of the Virginia Military Institute Report of the Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute Semi-Annual Reports of the Virginia Military Institute Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg Archives, Carol M. Newman Library Annual Report of the Virginia Polytechnic and State University (–) Barringer, Paul Brandon, Collection Papers of the Office of the President The Bugle (–) Bulletin of the Virginia Polytechnic and State University (–) Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College Correspondence Collection Discipline File The Gray Jacket (–)

 Harrison, G. F. ‘‘Military Discipline in Agricultural Schools.’’ Educational Journal of Virginia, March , –. Minutes of the Board of Visitors (–) The Skirmisher () The Virginia Tech (–) Newspapers Bryan Eagle (Bryan, Texas) Charleston Mercury Charleston News and Courier Dahlonega Nugget (Dahlonega, Georgia) Dahlonega Signal (Dahlonega, Georgia) Edgefield Weekly Monitor (Edgefield, South Carolina) Greenville News (Greenville, South Carolina) Lexington Gazette (Lexington, Virginia) Mountain Signal (Dahlonega, Georgia) Richmond Daily Whig Savannah Morning News The State (Columbia, South Carolina) Government Publications Acts and Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina. Adjutant and General Inspector’s Office. Military Laws and Rules and Regulations for the Armies of the United States of America. Washington, D.C., . Adjutant General’s Office. ‘‘General Orders no. .’’ Washington, D.C.: Headquarters of the Army, July , . Articles of War for the Government of the Armies of the United States. Atlanta: Headquarters, Department of the South, . Rare Book Room, University of Georgia Library, Athens. Bureau of Naval Personnel. Extracts from the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Washington, D.C.: GPO, . Department of Defense. Manual for Courts-Martial. Washington, D.C.: GPO, . Journal of the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia. Journal of the Senate of the State of South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia. Proceedings of the Senate and House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia.

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 Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley from March ,  to May , . New York: Doubleday and McClure, . Spinelli, H. B. A Catechism of Court-Martial Duty. Kansas City, Mo.: HudsonKimberley, . Spivey, Donald. Schooling for New Slavery: Black Industrial Education, –. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, . Stadtman, Verne A. The University of California, –. New York: McGrawHill, . Starnes, Richard D. ‘‘Forever Faithful: The Southern Historical Society and Confederate Historical Memory.’’ Southern Cultures , no.  (winter ): –. Stearns, Peter N. Be a Man! Males in Modern Society. d ed. New York: Holmes and Meier, . Stemmons, Walter. Connecticut Agricultural College: A History. New Haven, Conn.: Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor, . Stetar, Joseph. ‘‘In Search of a Direction: Southern Higher Education after the Civil War.’’ History of Education Quarterly  (fall ): –. Taylor, Arnold H. Travail and Triumph: Black Life and Culture in the South since the Civil War. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, . Temple, Harry Downing. The Bugle’s Echo: A Chronology of Cadet Life at the Military College at Blacksburg, Virginia—the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College . . . . N.p.: Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Alumni, . X. Donning the Blue and Gray: A Pictorial History of the Cadet Uniforms of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College . . . . Richmond, Va.: William Byrd Press, . Thomas, Albert S. The Career and Character of John Peyre Thomas. N.p., . Thomas, John P. History of the South Carolina Military Academy, –. Charleston, S.C.: Walker, Evans, and Cogswell, . Tillotson, Lee S. The Articles of War (Annotated). Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Pub. Co., . Topping, Robert W. A Century and Beyond: The History of Purdue University. West Lafayette, Pa.: Purdue University Press, . True, Alfred C. A History of Agricultural Education in the United States, –. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publications, no. , . Trulock, Alice Rains. In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlain and the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Vagts, Alfred. A History of Militarism: Civilian and Military. . Reprint, n.p.: Meridian Press, . Veysey, Lawrence R. The Emergence of the American University. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Wakelyn, Jon L. ‘‘Antebellum College Life and the Relations between Fathers and Sons.’’ In The Web of Southern Social Relations: Women, Family, and Education, edited by J. Fraser Jr., R. Frank Saunders Jr., and Jon Wakelyn, –. Athens: University of Georgia Press, .

 Wallace, Willard M. Soul of the Lion: A Biography of General Joshua L. Chamberlain. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, . Wallenstein, Peter. Virginia Tech, Land Grant University, –: History of a School, a State, a Nation. Blacksburg, Va.: Pocahontas Press, . Webb, Lester Austin. ‘‘The Origin of Military Schools Founded in the United States in the Nineteenth Century.’’ Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, . Weigley, Russell. Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall. New York: Columbia University Press, . Whites, LeeAnn. The Civil War As a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, – . Athens: University of Georgia Press, . Wilkerson, Marcus M. Thomas Duckett Boyd: The Story of a Southern Educator. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Williams, Roger L. The Origin of Federal Support for Higher Education: George W. Atherton and the Land-Grant Movement. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, . Williamson, Joel. After Slavery: The Negro in South Carolina during Reconstruction, –. Hanover, Pa.: Wesleyan University Press, . X. The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South since Emancipation. New York: Oxford University Press, . Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, – . Athens: University of Georgia Press, . Wise, Henry A. Drawing Out the Man: The VMI Story. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, . Wolfe, Suzanne Rau. The University of Alabama: A Pictorial History. University: University of Alabama Press, . Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, –. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Woolfolk, George Rable. Prairie View: A Study in Public Conscience, –. New York: Pageant, . Wyatt-Brown. Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South. New York: Oxford University Press, . Wyeth, John Allan. History of LaGrange Military Academy and the Cadet Corps. New York: Brewer, . Yates, Bowling C. History of the Georgia Military Institute. N.p., . Young, Warren L. Minorities and the Military: A Cross-National Study in World Perspective. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, .

             Bailey, N. Louise, Mary L. Morgan, and Carolyn R. Taylor. Biographical Directory of the South Carolina Senate, –. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, .

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 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, –. Washington, D.C.: GPO, . Henderson, Lillian. Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, –. Vols. –. Hapeville, Ga.: Longino and Porter, –. Register of Graduates and Former Cadets of the United States Military Academy, – . West Point, N.Y.: Association of Graduates, . Roller, David C., and Robert W. Twyman, eds. Encyclopedia of Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Wilson, Charles Reagan, and William Ferris, eds. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, .

 Abbot, Lyman,  Abolitionism, , ,  African Americans, , ; citizenship of, , –, –; disfranchisement of, , ; patriotism of, –; as soldiers, , –; in Spanish-American War, –; white attitudes toward, , , –. See also Colleges and academies—black; Military tradition: African American; Militia Alabama, military education in, ,  Aldrich, Robert, , –,  Alger, Russell A.,  Allardice, Bruce,  Alumni, of military schools, ,  ‘‘Americanism,’’ ,  American Missionary Association,  American Revolution, , , ,  Anderson, Edward A., ,  Anderson, James D.,  Aristotle,  Arms, , –, – Armstrong, Samuel Chapman, –, ,  Army of Northern Virginia,  Arsenal, , , , , –, ,  (n. ) Articles of War, ,  Auburn University, , , , , –, ,  Authority, respect for, , , ,  Autocracy,  Bailey, Fred Arthur, ,  Barracks, ,  Barton, Frank A.,  Bastrop Military Institute,  Battles and campaigns: Appomattox,

; Atlanta, ; Bentonville, ; Bull Run (Manassas), , ; Chancellorsville, ; Chattanooga, ; Cold Harbor, ; El Caney, ; Fredericksburg, ; Gettysburg, ; New Market, , –, ; Petersburg, ; Resaca, ; Sharpsburg, ; Shenandoah Valley, ; Trevilian Station, ; Tulifinny, –, , ; Tuscaloosa, ; Wilderness,  Beauregard, P. G. T., , –,  Bellows, Barbara,  Bivins, Horace W., , ,  Blanton, E. R.,  Bowdoin College, , – Boyd, David French, –,  Boyd, Thomas Duckett, ,  Breckenridge, John C., ,  Britain,  Brockenbrough, John M.,  Brown, George Leroy, – Brown, John,  Buchanan Advocate,  ‘‘Bucking,’’  Cadet Rangers. See Units, military Cadets: ‘‘beneficiary,’’ ‘‘regular,’’ or ‘‘state,’’ ; ‘‘Pay,’’ ; contributions to Confederacy of, –. See also Rank, cadets’ military Calhoun, John C., ,  Cantey, Samuel O., – Capers, Ellison,  Capers, Francis W.,  Carolina Military Institute, ,  (n. ) Carter, Thomas H.,  Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence, , –



 Charles I (king of England),  Charleston, S.C., –, , , , , ,  Charleston Mercury,  Chivalry, , , , ,  Cicero,  Citadel, , , , , , , , , , , , ; as anachronism, , ; antebellum students of in Civil War, –, , –; egalitarianism at, –, ; federal occupation of, , –; founding of, –, ; growth of, –; influence of alumni of, –; and Lost Cause celebrations, – ; occupations of alumni of, ; opposition to, –; rebellions at, –, ; reopening of, –, ; and Spanish-American War, , ; and Star of the West, ; tuition assistance at,  Citizenship, , , , , , , –, , ,  ‘‘Civil religion,’’  Civil War, , –, , , –, , . See also Battles and campaigns Claflin College,  (n. ) Clemson University, –, , ; cadet rights at, –; Memorial Day ceremonies at, –; origin of, , ; rebellions at, , , –, –, , ; and SpanishAmerican War,  Cocke, Philip, St. George,  Coeducation, –, –,  Colleges and academies: agricultural and mechanical,  (see also Colleges—southern land-grant); American land-grant, ; northern, –, , , , –, –, ; and preparatory schools, ; private, –, , ; southern state-supported, –, , –, –, , ; southern white, ; western, , , 

—black, , , , , ; arms for, , –, , ; curricula of, , , –; goals of, , ; military drill in, ; and shortage of military instructors, –; white control over,  —southern land-grant, , , –, , , , –; founding of, ; goals of military training in, – ; and Spanish-American War, ; waning of military emphasis in, – Colston, Raleigh,  Confederacy: myth/symbol of soldier(s) of, , , , , –, , , , ; veterans of, –, , –, –, , . See also United Confederate Veterans Confederate Conscription Act of ,  Confederate Memorial Day, , , –,  Confederate Veteran,  Connelly, Thomas,  Cornell University,  ‘‘Corporateness,’’ –, , – Coward, Asbury, , , , ,  Crockett, David,  Croxton, John T.,  Crozet, Claudius,  Crutchfield, Stapleton,  Cunliffe, Marcus,  Curriculum: of military and landgrant schools, , , , , , ; prescribed by Milton,  Dahlonega, Ga., ,  Dargan, Timothy George,  Daughters of the Confederacy,  Davis, Jefferson, ,  Defense. See Readiness, military Delafield, Richard,  Dew, Thomas R. R.,  Dinwiddie, Hardaway Hunt,  Discipline: lack of, –, , , ,

 –; procedures for, –, – ‘‘Dixie’’ (song),  Donovan, James A.,  Dorman, Charles P., ,  Draft dodging,  Drill, military, , , , , –, –, , , ,  (n. ) Drinking, , ,  Early, Jubal,  Egalitarianism, –, , , , – ,  Enlightenment,  Enthusiasm of students for military training,  Esprit de corps, , ,  Evangelicalism, ,  Fascism,  Fifth Amendment, ,  First Amendment, –,  Florida A&M University, , , , , , , , , ,  Fortress Monroe, , ,  Fort Sumter, , ,  Foster, Gaines, ,  Foster, Lafayette Lumpkin,  Foster, Murphy James,  Franklin, John Hope, –,  Frissell, Hollis Burke, , , , ,  Frontier, influence of, , ,  Gambling, ,  Garland, Landon Cabell, ,  Garnett, Thomas S., – Georgia, military schools in,  Georgia Military Institute, , –,  Georgia State Industrial College, , , , , , , , ,  Gordon, John B., ,  Grady, Henry,  Grant, Ulysses, 

Hagood, Johnson, –,  (n. ) Hamilton, Alexander,  Hampton, Wade,  Hampton Institute, , , –, ; arms for, –; goals of, ; military drill at, –; tactical instruction at,  Haralson, Frank L.,  Hardin, Mark B., ,  Harrodsburg, Ky.,  Hartzog, Henry S.,  Hatch, John P.,  Hawes, Albert G.,  Hazing, , –,  Higginbotham, Don,  Hightower, George R.,  Hill, Daniel Harvey,  Hillsboro Military Institute,  Hoganson, Kristin,  Holmes, Emma,  Honor, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  (n. ) Hood, John B.,  Houston, Sam, ,  Howard, William A., ,  Hubbard, E. W., – Hunter, David,  Huntington, Samuel,  (n. ) Huse, Caleb, ,  Imperialism,  Individualism,  Jackson, Andrew,  Jackson, Thomas Jonathan ‘‘Stonewall,’’ , , , , , , , , ,  Jenkins, Micah,  Jeter, F. H.,  Jingoism,  Johnson, Bishop,  Johnson, W. H.,  Johnston, Joseph E., ,  Johnstone, George,  (n. )





 Kemper, James L.,  Kentucky, attitude toward military education in, – Kentucky Military Institute,  Knights of the White Camellia,  (n. ) Korean War,  Ladies’ Memorial Association,  Lane, James H., ,  Law, Evander,  Law, Thomas Hart,  Lee, Robert E., , , , , , , , , ,  Lee, Stephen D., , ,  Lester, S. L., ,  Lexington, Va., –,  Lexington Gazette, ,  Liberal arts,  Liberalism, , , , , , ,  (n. ) Lipset, Seymour Martin,  Lost Cause, –, , , – passim, , , ,  Louisiana Democrat,  Louisiana State Seminary and Military Academy. See Louisiana State University Louisiana State University, , , , , , , , –,  McCausland, John, – McDonald, John B.,  McKinley, William,  McSween, John,  Magruder, W. H.,  Mahone, William,  Mallory, John S.,  Manhood, –, , , ,  Martyrdom, ,  Masculinity, , ,  Mexican War,  Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College,  Militarism, , , , , , ,

; defined, ; and liberalism, , , , ; in modern U.S., ; and republicanism, –, –; southern, –, , , –, , , ,  Military school tradition, ; U.S. military legal, – passim Military tradition: African American, , –; American, , , ; defined, ; southern, , , , –, , , ,  Militia, , , , , –, ,  Miller, Thomas E.,  Milton, John,  Mississippi State University, , , , , –, –, ,  Morrill, Justin S.,  Morrill Land Grant Act of , , , –, –, , ,  Morrill Land Grant Act of , , –,  Morrison, William S.,  Moton, Robert Russa, , , ,  Mountain Signal,  Munford, Thomas,  National Defense Act,  Native Americans,  New Mexico Military Institute,  New Orleans Republican,  ‘‘New South,’’ , ,  Nicholas, Cadet,  North Carolina, military schools in,  North Carolina Military and Polytechnic Academy,  North Carolina Military Institute, ,  (n. ) North Carolina Scientific and Military Academy,  North Carolina State University, , , , ,  North Georgia College, , –, , , , , , 

 Norwich University, , , ,  Nullification Crisis, ,  Ohio State University, – O’Leary, Cecilia Elizabeth,  Olio,  Opposition to military education, , , –, ,  (n. ), – (n. ) Orton, Edward,  Ownby, Ted,  Pacifism, ,  Parades, , , –,  Paramilitarism,  Partridge, Alden, , –, , , , , ,  Patriotism, , , , , , –, , , , – passim, – Pelham, John,  Pennsylvania State University,  Philanthropy, northern,  Physical health, military training improves, , , , , , ,  (n. ) Pierpoint, Francis,  Piety, , , –, , , , ,  Plato,  Polk, Leonidas K.,  Populist Party,  Preston, John T. L., ,  Price, William P.,  Proctor, James T., – Quick, W. J.,  Raleigh News and Observer,  Rank, cadets’ military, , –, , , , , , , – ‘‘Rats,’’  Readiness, military, ; and militia, , ; national, –, ; of North, –, ; of South, , , –, , ; state, , , , 

Rebellions, –, , –,  Reconciliation, sectional, , – ,  Reconstruction, , ,  Religion: in Lost Cause, , –; in military schools,  Republicanism, –, , , –, , , –,  Republics, ancient,  Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), , , , , – Respect for authority, , , ,  Revolutionary War, , , ,  Richardson, John P., , ,  Riggs, Walter M., ,  Rodes, Robert E., – Rose, Theodore E., – Ross, Lawrence Sullivan,  Ross Volunteers,  Rush, Benjamin,  Rutgers University,  Ryan, Abram, ,  Sanger, Joseph P.,  San Jacinto Day,  Scott, Walter Q.,  Sectionalism, , , – Sexism,  ‘‘Sham battles,’’  Shelby Military Institute,  Sherman, William Tecumseh, , , ,  Shipp, Scott,  Sigel, Franz,  Simpson, Richard W., ,  Sixth Amendment, , –, – Slavery, , , , , , ,  Smith, Francis Henney, , , , ,  Smoak, William Wightman, – Socrates,  Sons of Confederate Veterans, ,  South Carolina Military Academy, . See also Arsenal; Citadel South Carolina State University, ,





 , , , , , , , ,  Southern Workman, ,  South Florida Military and Educational Institute,  Spanish-American War, –, –  Sparta, ,  Spinelli, H. B.,  Star of the West, ,  ‘‘Star Spangled Banner,’’  Stevens, Peter F.,  Story, Joseph,  Stuart, J. E. B.,  Student Army Training Corps,  Student government, , ,  Talladega College, , ,  (n. ) Teachers, training of, ,  Tennessee, attitude toward military education in, – Tew, Charles Courtenay,  Texas A&M University, , , , , , , , ; attacks on, ; founding of, ; rebellions at, – ; and Spanish-American War,  Thomas, John Peyre, , , , ,  (n. ) Thompson, Hugh S.,  Thornwell, E. A., ,  Thucydides,  Tillman, Benjamin R., , , – Tillman, George,  Tradition. See Military school tradition; Military tradition Transylvania University. See University of Kentucky Tuition, , , , ,  Uniform Code of Military Justice, , , , – Uniforms, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Unionists, , 

United Confederate Veterans, , , ,  United Daughters of the Confederacy,  U.S. Coastal Survey,  U.S. Constitution. See Fifth Amendment; First Amendment; Sixth Amendment U.S. Military Academy, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; alumni of in Confederate Army, –; black cadets at, , –; opposition to,  U.S. Naval Academy, ,  U.S. Supreme Court, ,  U.S. War Department, , , , , , , , , , ,  Units, military: Army of Northern Virginia, ; Battalion of State (S.C.) Cadets, ; Cadet Rangers, , ; Fifty-second Georgia Volunteers, ; First South Carolina Infantry, ; Forty-seventh Georgia Infantry, ; ‘‘Home Guards,’’ ; Ninth Colored Cavalry, ; Sixth South Carolina Cavalry, ; Tenth Colored Cavalry, , ; Third South Carolina Regiment,  University of Alabama, , , , , ,  University of Arkansas, , ,  University of Illinois, – University of Kentucky,  University of Rhode Island,  University of South Carolina,  University of Tennessee, , , , , ,  (n. ) University of Wisconsin, –,  Valor, , , , , , , , , –, –, ,  Victorianism, , , ,  Vietnam War,  Violence, in southern society, , , , 

 Virginia General Assembly,  Virginia Military Institute (VMI), , , , , , , , , , , ; as anachronism, , ; antebellum growth of, –; arms for, ; Board of Visitors, , , ; in Civil War, –; curriculum of, ; egalitarianism at, ; and execution of J. Brown, ; founding of, – ; hazing at, ; and Lost Cause activities, , ; occupations of alumni of, ;  reopening of, –, ; and Spanish-American War, ; and tuition assistance,  Virginia Polytechnic Institute, , , , , , , , ,  Virtue, ; civic, , , , , , , , , , , –, –, –, , ; martial, , , , , , , , , , , ; moral, , , , , , , , , –, , –, , 

Walker, C. Irvine,  Warmoth, Henry Clay,  War of ,  Washington, Booker T.,  Washington, George, ,  Western Military Institute, ,  West Florida Seminary, ,  West Point. See U.S. Military Academy West Texas Military Academy,  Wheeler, Joseph,  White, Andrew D.,  Whites, Lee Ann,  Whittaker, Johnson C., ,  Wilkinson, Robert Shaw, , – Williams, John M.,  Wilson, Charles Reagan, ,  Winston, George T.,  Wise, John S.,  World War I, , , ,  World War II,  Xenophon, 

