FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
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While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
It is a common saying among cadets that
"first-class camp is just like furlough." I rather think the
assertion is an inheritance from former days and the cadets
of those days, for the similarity at present between
first-class camp and furlough is beyond our conception.
There is none, or if any it is chimerical, depending
entirely on circumstances. In the case of a small class it
would be greater than in that of a large one. For instance,
in "train drill" a certain number of men are required. No
more are necessary. It would be inexpedient to employ a
whole class when the class had more men in it than were
required for the drill. In such cases the supernumeraries
are instructed in something else, and alternate with those
who attend train drill. In the case of a small class all
attend the same drill daily, and that other duty or drill is
reserved for autumn. Thus there is less drill in camp, and
it becomes more like furlough when there is none at all.
Again, first-classmen enjoy more privileges than others, and
for this reason their camp is more like furlough. If,
however, there are numerous drills, the analogy will fail;
for how can duty, drills, etc., coexist with privileges such
as first-class privileges? Time which otherwise would be
devoted to enjoyment of privileges is now consumed in
drills. Still there is much in it which makes first-class
camp the most delightful part of a cadet s life. There are
more privileges, the duties are lighter and more attractive,
and make it withal more enjoyable. First, members of the
class attend drill both as assistants and as students. They
are detailed as chiefs of platoon, chiefs of section, chiefs
of caissons, and as guidons at the light battery; as chiefs
of pieces at the several foot batteries; attend themselves
at the siege or sea coast batteries, train drill, pontoon
drill, engineering, ordnance, and astronomy, and they are
also detailed as officers of the guard. These duties are
generally not very difficult nor unpleasant to discharge.
Second, from the nature of the privileges allowed
first-classmen, they have more opportunity for pleasure than
other cadets, and therefore avoid the rather serious
consequences of their monotonous academic military life. A
solitary monotonous life is rather apt to engender a dislike
for mankind, and no high sense of honor or respect for
women. I deem these privileges of especial importance, as
they enable one to avoid that danger and to cultivate the
highest possible regard for women, and those virtues and
other Christian attributes of which they are the better
exponents. A soldier is particularly liable to fall into
this sans souci way of looking at life, and those to whom
its pleasures, as well as its ills, are largely due. We are
indebted to our fellows for every thing which affects our
life as regards its happiness or unhappiness, and this
latter misfortune will rarely be ours if we properly
appreciate our friends and those who can and will make life
less wretched. To shut one s self up in one s self is merely
to trust, or rather to set up, one s own judgment as
superior to the world s. That cannot be, nor can there be
happiness in such false views of our organization as being
of and for each other.
At this point of the course many of the first-class have
attained their majority. They are men, and in one year more
will be officers of the army. It becomes them, therefore, to
lay aside the ordinary student s role, and assume a more
dignified one, one more in conformity with their age and
position. They leave all cadet roles, etc., to the younger
classes, and put on the proper dignity of men.
There are for them more privileges. They are more
independent more like men; and consequently they find
another kind of enjoyment in camp than that of the cadet. It
is a general, a proper, a rational sort of pleasure such as
one would enjoy at home among relatives or friends, and
hence the similarity between first-class camp and furlough.
But it is not thus with all first-classmen. Many, indeed the
majority, are cadets till they graduate. They see every
thing as a cadet, enjoy every thing as a cadet, and find the
duties, etc., of first-class camp as irksome as those of
plebe or yearling camp. Of course such men see no similarity
between first-class camp and furlough. It is their
misfortune. We should enjoy as many things as we can, and
not sorrow over them. We should not make our life one of
sorrow when it could as well be one of comfort and pleasure.
I don t mean comfort and pleasure in an epicurean sense, but
in a moral one. Still first-classmen do have many duties to
perform, but there is withal one consolation at least, there
are no upper classmen to keep the plebe or yearling in his
place. There is no feeling of humbleness because of junior
rank, for the first class is the first in rank, and
therefore need humble itself to none other than the proper
authorities.
Again, their honor, as "cadets and gentlemen," is relied
upon as surety for obedience and regard for regulations.
They are not subject to constant watching as plebes are. The
rigor of discipline is not so severe upon them as upon
others. It was expended upon them during their earlier years
at the Academy, and, as a natural consequence, any violation
of regulations, etc., by a first-classman, merits and
receives a severer punishment than would be visited upon a
junior classman for a like infringement on his part.
The duties of first-classmen in first-class camp are as
follows: The officer of the day and two officers of the
guard are detailed each day from the class. Their duties are
precisely those of similar officers in the regular army. The
junior officer of the guard daily reports to the observatory
to find the error of the tower clock. Also each day are
detailed the necessary assistants for the several light
batteries, who are on foot or mounted, as the case may
require. The remainder of the class receive instructions in
the service of the siege and sea-coast artillery. These
drills come in the early forenoon. After them come ordnance
and engineering.
The entire class is divided as equally as may be into two
parts, which alternate in attendance at ordnance and
engineering.
In ordnance the instructions are on the preparation of
military fireworks, fixing of ammunition and packing it, the
battery wagon and forge. This instruction is thoroughly
practical. The cadets make the cases for rockets, paper
shells, etc., and fill them, leaving them ready for
immediate use. The stands of fixed ammunition prepared are
the grape and canister, and shell and shot, with their
sabots.
The battery wagon and forge are packed as prescribed in the
"Ordnance Manual."
The instructions in engineering are also practical and
military. They are in the modes of throwing and dismantling
pontoon bridges, construction of fascines, gabions, hurdles,
etc., and reverting batteries with them. Sometimes also
during camp, more often after, foot reconnaissance's are
made. A morning and night detail is made daily from the
class to receive practical instruction in astronomy in the
field observatory.
Night signaling with torches, and telegraphy by day, form
other sources of instruction for the first class.
Telegraphy, or train drill, as the drill is called, consists
in erecting the telegraph line and opening communication
between two stations, and when this is done, in
communicating so as to acquire a practical knowledge of the
instruments and their use.
These various drills all of them occurring daily, Sunday of
course excepted, and for part of them Saturday also complete
the course of instruction given the first class only during
their first-class camp. It will be observed that they all of
them are of a military nature and of the greatest
importance. The instruction is thorough accordingly.
I have sufficiently described, I think, a cadet s
first-class camp. I shall, therefore, close the chapter
here.
Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet
at West Point, 1878
