The only case of downright
malice that has come to my knowledge and I'm
sure the only one that ever occurred is the
following:
It is a custom, as old as the institution I
dare say, for cadets of the first and second
classes to march in the front rank, while
all others take their places in the rear
rank, with the exception that third-classmen
may be in the front rank whenever it is
necessary for the proper formation of the
company to put them there. The need of such
a custom is apparent. Fourth-classmen, or
plebes not accustomed to marching and
keeping dressed, are therefore unfit to be
put in the front rank. Third classmen have
to give way to the upper classmen on account
of their superior rank, and are able to
march in the front rank only when put there
or allowed to remain there by the file
closers. When I was a plebe, and also during
my third-class year, I marched habitually in
the rear rank, as stated with reason
elsewhere. But when I became a
second-classman, and had by class rank a
right to the front rank, I took my place
there.
Just about this time I distinctly heard the
cadet captain of my company say to the first
sergeant, or rather ask him why he did not
put me in the rear rank. The first sergeant
replied curtly, "Because he s a
second-classman now, and I have no right to
do it." This settled the question for the
time, indeed for quite a while, till the
incident above referred to occurred.
At a formation of the company for retreat
parade in the early spring of 76, it was
necessary to transfer some one from the
front to the rear rank. Now instead of
transferring a third classman, the sergeant
on the left of the company ordered me, a
second classman, into the rear rank. I
readily obeyed, because I felt sure I d be
put back after the company was formed and
inspected, as had been done by him several
times before. But this was not done. I
turned to the sergeant and reminded him that
he had not put me back where I belonged. He
at once did so without apparent hesitation
or unwillingness. He, however, reported me
for speaking to him about the discharge of
his duties. For this offence, I submitted
the following explanation:
West Point, N. Y., April 11, 1876.
Offense: Speaking to sergeant about
formation of company at parade.
Explanation: I would respectfully state that
the above report is a mistake. I said
nothing whatever about the formation of the
company. I was put in the rear rank, and,
contrary to custom, left there. As soon as
the command " In place, rest," was given, I
turned to the nearest sergeant and said,
"Mr. , can I take my place in the front
rank?" He leaned to the front and looked
along the line. I then said, "There are men
in the front rank who are junior to me." I
added, a moment after, "There is one just up
there," motioning with my head the direction
meant. He made the change.
Respectfully submitted,
Henry O. Flipper,
Cadet Priv., Comp. "D,"
First Class.
To Lieut. Colonel , Commanding Corps of
Cadets.
This explanation was sent by the commandant
to the reporting sergeant. He indorsed it in
about the following words:
Respectfully returned with the following
statement: It was necessary in forming the
company to put Cadet Flipper in the rear
rank, and as I saw no third-classman in the
front rank, I left him there as stated. I
reported him because I did not think he had
any right to speak to me about the discharge
of my duty.
Cadet Sergeant Company "D."
A polite question a reflection on the manner
of discharging one s duty! A queer
construction indeed! Observe, he says, he
saw no third-classman in the front rank. It
was his duty to be sure about it, and if
there was one there to transfer him to the
rear, and myself to the front rank. In not
doing so he neglected his duty and imposed
upon me and the dignity of my class. I was
therefore entirely justified in calling his
attention to his neglect.
This is a little thing, but it should be
borne in mind that it is nevertheless of the
greatest importance. We know what effect
comity or international politeness has on
the relations or intercourse between
nations. The most trifling acts, such as
congratulations on a birth or marriage in
the reigning family, are wonderfully
efficacious in keeping up that feeling of
amity which is so necessary to peace and
continued friendship between states. To
disregard these little things is considered
unfriendly, and may be the cause of serious
consequences.
There is a like necessity, I think, in our
own case. Any affront to me which is also an
affront to my class and its dignity deserves
punishment or satisfaction. To demand it,
then, gives my class a better opinion of me,
and serves to keep that opinion in as good
condition as possible.
I knew well that there were men in the corps
who would readily seize any possible
opportunity to report me, and I feared at
the time that I might be reported for
speaking to the sergeant. I was especially
careful to guard against anger or roughness
in my speech, and to put my demand in the
politest form possible. The offence was
removed. I received no demerits, and the
sergeant had the pleasure or displeasure of
grieving at the failure of his report.
I am sorry to know that I have been charged,
by some not so well acquainted with West
Point and life there as they should be to
criticize, with manifesting a lack of
dignity in that I allowed myself to be
insulted, imposed upon, and otherwise
ill-treated. There appears to them too great
a difference between the treatment of former
colored cadets and that of myself, and the
only way they are pleased to account for
this difference is to say that my good
treatment was due to want of "spunk," and
even to fear, as some have said. It
evidently never occurred to them that my own
conduct determined more than all things else
the kind of treatment I would receive.
Every one not stubbornly prejudiced against
West Point, and therefore not disposed to
censure or criticize every thing said or
done there, knows how false the charge is.
And those who make it scarcely deserve my
notice. I would say to them, however, that
true dignity, selon nous, consists in being
above the rabble and their insults, and
particularly in remaining there. To stoop to
retaliation is not compatible with true
dignity, nor is vindictiveness manly. Again,
the experiment suggested by my accusers has
been abundantly tried, and proved a most
ridiculous failure, while my own led to a
glorious success.
I do not mean to boast or do any thing of
the kind, but I would suggest to all future
colored cadets to base their conduct on the
aristonmetpon, the golden mean. It is by far
the safer, and surely the most Christian
course.
Before closing this chapter I would add with
just pride that I have ever been treated by
all other persons connected with the Academy
not officially, as becomes one gentleman to
treat another. I refer to servants,
soldiers, other enlisted men, and employees.
They have done for me whatever I wished,
whenever I wished, and as I wished, and
always kindly and willingly. They have even
done things for me to the exclusion of
others. This is important when it is
remembered that the employees, with one
exception, are white.
National Schools And Snobocracy.
"Cadet Smith has arrived in Columbia. He did
not "pass." Phoenix
"Alexander Bouchet, a young man of color,
graduates from Yale College, holding the
fifth place in the largest class graduated
from that ancient institution. Exchange.
"These simple announcements from different
papers tersely sum up the distinction
between the military and civil education of
this country. One is exclusive, snobbish,
and narrow, the other is liberal and
democratic.
"No one who has watched the course of Cadet
Smith and the undemocratic, selfish, and
snobbish treatment he has experienced from
the martinets of West Point, men educated at
the expense of the government, supported by
Negro taxes, as well as white, who attempt
to dictate who shall receive the benefits of
an education in our national charity schools
no one who has read of his court martialings,
the degradations and the petty insults
inflicted upon him can help feeling that he
returns home today, in spite of the Phoenix
s sneers, a young hero who has passed in
grit, pluck, perseverance, and all the
better qualities which go to make up true
manhood, and only has been found because
rebel sympathizers at West Point, the
fledglings of caste, and the Secretary of
War, do not intend to allow, if they can
prevent it, a Negro to graduate at West
Point or Annapolis, if he is known to be a
Negro.
"Any one conversant with educational matters
who has examined the examinations for
entrance, or the curriculum of the naval and
military academies, will not for a moment
believe that their requirements, not as high
as those demanded for an ordinary New
England high school, and by no means equal
in thoroughness, quantity, or quality to
that demanded for entrance at Yale, Amherst,
Dartmouth, or Brown, are too high or
abstruse to be compassed by Negroes, some of
whom have successfully stood all these, and
are now pursuing their studies in the best
institutions of the North.
"No fair minded man believes that Smith,
Napier and Williams, Conyers and McClellan,
have had impartial treatment. The government
itself has been remiss in not throwing about
them the protection of its authority. Had
these colored boys been students at St. Cyr,
in Paris, or Woolwich, in England, under
despotic France and aristocratic England,
they would have been treated with that
courtesy and justice of which the average
white American has no idea. The South once
ruled West Point, much to its detriment in
loyalty, however much, by reason of sending
boys more than prepared. It dominated in
scholarship. It seeks to recover the lost
ground, and rightly fears to meet on terms
of equality in the camp the sons of fathers
to whom it refused quarter in the war and
butchered in cold blood at Fort Pillow. We
cannot expect the sons to forget the lessons
of the sires; but we have a right to demand
from the general government the rooting out
of all snobbery at West Point, whether it is
of that kind which sends poor white boys to
Coventry, because they haven t a family name
or wealth, or whether it be that smallest,
meanest, and shallowest of all aristocracies
the one founded upon color.
"If the government is not able to root out
these unrepublican seeds in these hot beds
of disloyalty and snobbery, then let
Congress shut up the useless and expensive
appendages and educate its officers at the
colleges of the country, where they may
learn lessons in true republican equality
and nationality. The remedy lies with
Congress. A remonstrance at least should be
heard from the colored members of Congress,
who are insulted whenever a colored boy is
ill treated by the students or the officers
of these institutions. So far from being
discouraged by defeats, the unjust treatment
meted out to these young men should redouble
the efforts of others of their class to
carry this new Bastile by storm. It should
lead every colored Congressman to make sure
that he either sends a colored applicant or
a white one who has not the seeds of
snobbery and caste in his soul. Smith, after
four years of torture, comes home, is driven
home, because, forsooth, he might attend the
ball next year! He is hounded out of the
Academy because he would have to be assigned
to a white regiment! There are some Negroes
who feel that their rights in the land of
their birth are superior to the prejudices
of the enemies of the Union, and who dare to
speak and write in behalf of these rights,
as their fathers dared to fight for them a
very few years ago.
"Bouchet, under civil rule, enters Yale
College the best prepared student of one
hundred and thirty freshmen, and all through
his course is treated like a gentleman, both
by the faculty and the students, men who
know what justice means, and have some
adequate idea of the true theory of
education and gentlemanly conduct. Two freed
boys, from North Carolina and South
Carolina, slaves during the war, prepare at
the best Northern academics, and enter,
without remonstrance, Amherst and Dartmouth.
What divinity, then, hedges West Point and
Annapolis? What but the old rebel spirit,
which seeks again to control them for use in
future rebellions as it did in the past. The
war developed some unwelcome truths with
regard to this snobbish and disloyal spirit
of our national institutions, and the
exploits of some volunteer officers showed
that all manhood, bravery, skill, and energy
were not contained in West Point or
Annapolis, or, if there, did not pertain
solely to the petty cliques that aim to give
tone to those academies. It is not for any
officer, the creature of the government it
is not for any student, the willing ward of
that government to say who shall enter the
national schools and be the recipients of my
bounty. It is the duty of every member of
Congress to see that the government
sanctions no such spirit; and it becomes
every loyal citizen who wishes to avoid the
mistakes of the former war to see to it that
no class be excluded, and that every boy,
once admitted, shall have the strictest
justice dealt out to him, a thing which,
thus far, has not been done in the case of
the colored cadets.
"The true remedy lies in the feelings and
sympathies of the officers of these
academies, in the ability and fair
investigations of the board of examiners;
not from such gentlemen as at present seem
to rule these institutions.
"Niger Nigrorum."
This article was taken from some South
Carolina paper during the summer of 74. Its
tone is in accordance with the multitude of
articles upon the same subject which
occurred about the same time, and, like them
all, or most of them, is rather farfetched.
It is too broad. Its denunciations cover too
much ground. They verge upon untruth.
As to Conyers and McClellan at the Naval
Academy I know nothing. Of Napier I know
nothing. Of Smith I prefer to say nothing.
Of Williams I do express the belief that his
treatment was impartial and just. He was
regularly and rightly found deficient and
duly dismissed. The article seems to imply
that he should not have been "found" and
dismissed simply because he was a Negro. A
very shallow reason indeed, and one "no fair
minded man" will for an instant entertain.
Of four years life at the Academy, I spent
the first with Smith, rooming with him.
During the first half year Williams was also
in the corps with us. The two following
years I was alone. The next and last year of
my course I spent with Whittaker, of South
Carolina. I have thus had an opportunity to
become acquainted with Smith s conduct and
that of the cadets toward him. Smith had
trouble under my own eyes on more than one
occasion, and Whittaker* has already
received blows in the face, but I have not
had so much as an angry word to utter. There
is a reason for all this, and had "Niger
Nigrorum" been better acquainted with it he
had never made the blunder he has.
Johnson Chestnut Whittaker, of Camden, South
Carolina, appointed to fill vacancy created
by Smith s dismissal, after several white
candidates so appointed had failed, entered
the Academy in September, 1876. Shortly
after entering he was struck in the face by
a young man from Alabama for sneering at
him, as he said, while passing by him.
Whittaker immediately reported the affair to
the cadet officer of the day, by whose
efforts this belligerent Alabama gentleman
was brought before a court martial, tried,
found guilty, and suspended for something
over six months, thus being compelled to
join the next class that entered the
Academy.
I cannot venture more on the treatment of
colored cadets generally without
disregarding the fact that this is purely a
narrative of my own treatment and life at
West Point. To go further into that subject
would involve much difference of opinion,
hard feelings in certain quarters, and would
cause a painful and needless controversy.
Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point, 1878