p1  Chapter One
The Key to America

The last official letter ever written by George Washington was addressed to Alexander Hamilton two days before the father of his country died at his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia. It was penned on Thursday, Dec. 12, 1799. On that very day Washington, in spite of stormy weather, ordered his horse saddled and rode out to keep an appointment with his managers for an inspection tour of the estate.

When the party returned wet and cold that night to the big house over­looking the Potomac, the general complained of a sore throat. He took to his bed and soon suffered an attack of ague. His condition continued to grow worse, and at twenty minutes past ten on Saturday night, Dec. 14, 1789, the nation's first President passed into immortality.

Washington's letter proved to be a recapitulation of the general's many urgent recommendations, dating from the beginning of the Revolutionary War, for the establishment of a military academy. He had been asked by Hamilton to comment on a plan of his for the organization of a military university consisting of several schools, including one for the Navy.

The reply was as follows:

Washington and the members of his military family had recognized at the beginning of the War for Independence the importance of providing some form of systematic instruction to officers who in turn could pass technical information along to their non‑commissioned officers and have it filter, finally, down through the ranks. The general and his aides knew that they were fighting an enemy well drilled in military sciences such as fortifications and gunnery. These leaders of the Revolutionary forces had made many proposals for military instruction, some of which were carried out at West Point during the war and the early years of the peace, and in a sense were the foundations from which the United States Military Academy of today has grown on the same site over­looking the Hudson.

For nearly a quarter of a century George Washington had advocated the establishment of a national military academy. On the day that he took to his deathbed he gave the idea his final blessing. A little more than two years later, on Mar. 16, 1802, the institution was established by act of Congress.

The United States Military Academy and the place from which it takes the name by which it is commonly known, West Point, have become completely identified with each other in the nation's military history. West Point was called, by Washington and other Revolutionary leaders, "the key to America," because the forces that held this strong point guarding a big bend in the Hudson River controlled the vats network of interior water communications of an area stretching out over half a continent. Although the site is no longer of such strategic importance, the institution whose gray walls rise above its eminences continues to exert the most powerful influence upon the military establishment which defends the nation for whose service the Academy exists.

It was fortunate for the cause of the colonies that the Highland passes, once taken by the British but regained, and again nearly lost through the treachery of Benedict Arnold, remained ultimately in American hands to seal off the utilize and prevent the river from becoming a broad highway for enemy conquest of the west through the Mohawk, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi.

Control of navigation of the Hudson River was one of the main issues  p3 fought out in the war. The British strategy, as reported in the Journal of the Provincial Congress of New York, based on a letter from London, was "to get possession of New York and Albany; to fill both of these cities with very strong garrisons; to declare all rebels who do not join the King's forces; to command the Hudson and East rivers with a number of small men-of‑war, and cutters, stationed in different parts of it, so as to cut off all communication by water between New York and the Provinces to the northward of it, and between New York and Albany, except for the King's service; and to prevent also all communication between the city of New York and the Provinces of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and those to the southward of them. By these means, the Administration and their friends fancy they shall soon either starve out or retake the garrisons of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and open and maintain a safe intercourse and correspondence between Quebec, Albany, and New York, and thereby afford the fairest opportunity to their soldiery and the Canadians, in conjunction with the Indians, to make continual irruptions into New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and to distract and divide the Provincial forces as to render it easy for the British Army at Boston to defeat them, break the spirits of the Massachusetts people, depopulate their country, and compel an absolute subjection to Great Britain."

The Provincial Congress of New York, aware of the reality of the threatened danger, gave its opinion on the subject to the Continental Congress in 1775:

The Continental Congress lost no time in authorizing the selection of sites on either side of the Hudson in the Highlands area where batteries might be erected to command the river. The New York legislative body immediately  p4 appointed a committee to implement the action of Congress by exploring the designated region for the choosing of proper site.

This committee made its report on June 13, 1775, not only recommending the building of three forts but making perhaps the first suggestion of laying a physical obstruction across the river. "Your Committee begs leave to observe," the report stated, "that they are informed by means of four or five Booms, chained together on one side of the river, ready to be drawn across, the passage can be closed up to prevent any vessel passing or repassing." This idea was eventually carried out with the stretching of the famous great chain across the Hudson at West Point.

Accepting this report, the New York Provincial Congress adopted a resolution on Aug. 18, 1775, providing "that the Fortifications formerly ordered by the Continental Congress (May 25, 1775), and reported by a Committee of this Congress, as proper to be built on the banks of Hudson's River, in the Highlands, be immediately erected."

The first of these fortifications was built on an island in the bend of the river north of the point of land known as West Point. The island took its name originally from a French family named Martelaire who settled there in 1720, and at the time of the Revolution was known as Martler's Rock or Martyr's Cliff. But the builders gave it the name that it has retained to this day. They called their works Fort Constitution, and the island became known as Constitution Island.

The first official recommendation to occupy West Point, on the opposite side of the river from Constitution Island, came from an inspecting committee of the Continental Congress, which had been out to "take an accurate view of the state of our Fortifications on Hudson's River." The committee pointed out in its report that the fortifications on Constitution Island, while failing to command the reach of the river to the southward, were actually vulnerable themselves should the enemy succeed in setting up batteries on higher ground.

"The Fortress is unfortunately commanded by all the grounds about it," the report of Nov. 23, 1775, said, "but the most obvious defect is, that the grounds on the West Point are higher than the Fortress, behind which an enemy might land without the least danger. In order to render the position impassable, it seems necessary that this place should be occupied, and batteries thrown up on the shore opposite, where they may be erected with little expense, as the earth is said to be pretty free from stone, &c."

General Washington, surmising correctly the general plan of British  p5 operations, concerned himself seriously with the condition of Hudson River fortifications in 1776 and 1777. He urged the New York authorities to maintain the strong points in the best possible condition to receive the enemy and detailed Continental officers to command the forces manning them. By changes in command he sought to strengthen what he considered weaknesses in the defensive system.

Although five of his generals reported in the spring of 1777 that if the river were obstructed by chains or booms the enemy would not attempt a land operation, Washington was convinced by July 1 that the British were determined to strike in force at the Highlands defenses. "It appears almost ceremony to me," he wrote to General Putnam, "that General Howe and General Burgoyne design, if possible, to unite their attacks and form a junction of their two armies." He added, "I am persuaded, if General Howe is going up the river, he will make a rapid and vigorous push to gain the Highland passes."

The Commander in Chief was proved right. While General Howe was struggling with Washington for the possession of Philadelphia, a strong expedition of troops aboard naval vessels under General Sir Henry Clinton started out from New York for the passes in the Highlands early in October. The British succeeded in taking Forts Montgomery, Clinton, and Constitution but gave them up and returned to New York less than a month later when news came of Burgoyne's surrender and the capture of his army.

The British raid prompted Washington to urge in the most emphatic terms that thorough and effective fortifications and obstructions be erected without delay to protect the Hudson River Valley from further enemy attack. "The importance of the Hudson River in the present contest, and the necessity of defending it," he wrote to General Putnam in December, 1777, "are subjects which have been so frequently and fully discussed, and are so well understood, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon them. These facts at once appear, when it is considered that it runs through a whole State; that it is the only passage by which the enemy from New York, or any part of our coast, can ever hope to co‑operate with an army from Canada; that the possession of it is indispensably essential to preserve the communication between the Eastern, Middle, and Southern States; and further, that upon its security, in a great measure, depend our chief supplies of flour for the subsistence of such forces as we may have occasion for, in the course of the war, either in the Eastern or Northern Departments, or in the country lying high up on the west side of it. These facts are familiar to all; they are  p6 familiar to you. I therefore request you, in the most urgent terms, to turn your most serious and active attention to this infinitely important object. Seize the present opportunity, and employ your whole force and all the means in your power for erecting and completing, as far as it shall be possible, such works and obstructions as may be necessary to defend and secure the river against any further attempts of the enemy."

Accordingly General Putnam set about the task of restoring the fortresses in the Highlands. The Provincial Convention of New York appointed a committee to confer with him on the types of works to be constructed. The committee fell into disagreement over the question of location of the works, and the Convention appointed a board of kms to act with the committee in reaching a decision. The two groups went over the whole ground carefully for three days. In its report written at Poughkeepsie ton Jan. 14, 1778, the committee reviewed the situation respecting the probable strength and vulnerability of fortifications at Fort Clinton and West Point and recommended the latter as the place where the Hudson could be most effectively obstructed by passing a chain across the river.

Despite the winter's cold and a deep fall of snow, operations were begun at once to put the Committee's recommendations into effect, including the project for stretching a huge chain across the Hudson River. General Putnam sent his deputy quartermaster general to the Sterling Iron Works of Noble, Townsend and Company, near West Point, to negotiate a contract for construction of the chain. The foundry agreed to deliver, by Apr. 1, 1778, a chain 500 yards long composed of links •two feet long and made of iron two and one‑quarter inches square "or as near thereto as possible." The chain was to have a swivel every hundred feet and a clevis every thousand feet. Part of the quote was also to supply twelve tons of anchors. The price agreed upon for this job was £440 per ton pending price regulations by the national government, which might reduce the price to £400 per ton.

A clause in the contract exempted from military duty for nine months sixty artificers who were to be employed on the project until the chain and anchors were completed. The company further agreed to use its "utmost endeavours to keep seven fires at forging and ten at welding, if assisted with such hands as are necessary and can be spared from the army, in case of their not being able to procure others, the said Company making deductions for their labor."

While the great chain was being forged the work on the fortifications proceeded, but with difficulties because of weather and working conditions and  p7 administrative details. By the middle of March, Brigadier General Parsons, in direct charge of the work, reported that the chain was expected to be ready and stretched across the river in a week, and that work on the other defenses was expected to be practically finished in a fortnight. With a note of resignation he added, however, "We have the works going on as fast as could be expected from our small number of men and total want of money and materials provided. I have several times advanced my last shilling towards purchasing materials, &c., and I believe this is the case with almost every officer here."

It was at this time that Major General Putnam was relieved of his command at West Point and Major General McDougall was designated by Washington to take charge.

The exact date on which the chain was first stretched across the river is uncertain, but correspondence and reports of those concerned with the project indicate that it was in place by the end of April, 1778. The links of the chain were transported from the Sterling Iron Works to Captain Machin's forges at New Windsor and joined together there. The chain was floated across the river and supported on the water by logs. In front of it was also placed a boom that was made of logs and chain and acted as an additional barrier.

After the war the great chain was broken up and portions of it sold to foundries. Several of the huge links have been preserved, however, and are an interesting exhibit on the grounds of the Military Academy.

In the spring of 1780 the British thought that they had good reason to believe that they were well along toward winning the war. They based their opinions on the information that the people of the colonies were even more sick of the conflict than the people of the mother country. It was believed that large numbers of Americans were on the verge of abandoning their cause and seeking to reunite with Britain. American currency was no good. The army was poorly clothed, poorly fed, and irregularly paid. General Washington admitted that "there never has been a stage of the war in which the dissatisfaction has been so general and alarming." It seemed likely that France would withdraw her support of a people engaged in a seemingly futile struggle.

The time seemed right for the British to make a decisive move, provided it could be executed with care and assurance of success. Sir Henry Clinton again turned his eyes toward West Point. Possession of its new fortifications, built over a period of three years at a cost of $3,000,000 to the colonies,  p8 would give the British a strangle hold on the entire Atlantic seaboard — the New England, Central, and Southern states — cutting communications between them and threatening their populations with starvation. Thus a speedy end might be brought to the whole conflict.

Although as yet unfinished, the fortifications at West Point were nevertheless formidable. To reduce them would undoubtedly be a costly venture requiring a considerable force. Sir Henry Clinton sought an easier way, through the treachery of an American general.

That Benedict Arnold sought the command at West Point for the purpose of delivering the place over to the British is probably a well-founded suspicion. He received General Robert Howe on Aug. 3, 1780. Nearly a month earlier he had disclosed to his British employers the probability that he would receive the command. Five days after taking over at West Point he asked General Washington to see that he was supplied with a map of the country between West Point and New York, "particularly on the east side of the river, which would be very useful to me."

The discovery of Clinton's emissary as he was attempting to make his way back to the British lines after his all‑night meeting with Arnold near the river's bank on the west shore below Stony Point saved the union from what might have proved a complete disaster. Major John André, adjutant general to the British Army, paid with his life for his part in the plot, while Arnold escaped to the British lines in a last-minute flight in which he abandoned his wife and child.

Clinton later disclosed the extent to which his designs on West Point were woven into the strategy of an extensive campaign. "My idea of putting into execution this concerted plan with General Arnold with most efficacy," he said, "was to have deferred it till Mr. Washington, co‑operating with the French, moved upon this place to invest it; and that the Rebel magazines should have been collected and formed in their several depots, particularly that at West Point. General Arnold surrendering himself, the forts, and garrisons at this instant, would have given every advantage that could have been desired. Mr. Washington must have instantly retired from King's bridge, and the French troops on Long Island would have been consequently left unsupported, and probably would have fallen into our hands."

Never again was West Point seriously threatened. Before the end of the war, however, it was the scene of an exceptionally interesting function through which the Commander in Chief of the continental forces sought to  p9 demonstrate the firmness of typography nation's friendship for France. The army had passed the winnower of 1781‑82 in the Highlands, and at the end of May General Washington issued a series of orders from his headquarters in Newburgh for a celebration at West Point on May 31 in honor of the birth of the dauphin of France.

For this occasion 1,000 men were put to work for ten days constructing a pavilion •220 feet long and 80 feet wide. The structure had a roof of woven branches of trees supported by a grand colonnade of 118 pillars made from tree trunks. The whole thing was decorated with flowers, flags, muskets, and bayonets.

Washington invited practically everyone to the affair. He issued an order requesting the present of all general, regimental, and staff officers of the Army. Another went out directing that the troops be supplied with an extra gill​a of rum per man. A memorandum was sent to the officers' ladies asking them to dinner and adding that "the General will be happy to see any other Ladies of his own or his friends' acquaintance, on the occasion, without the formality of a particular invitation."

At West Point the inspector general ordered the issue of three blank cartridges for each man and noncommissioned officer and directed that blank cartridges be furnished for the cannon at the post. The program of the day was begun with a gigantic parade of troops on both sides of the river, after which dinner was served. This was followed by the drinking of thirteen appropriate toasts, each accompanied by the firing of thirteen cannon and the playing of music.

In the evening, with the pavilion illuminated, a general feu de joie was staged, with the thunderous firing of cannon and small arms as a prelude. The final feature of the program was a fireworks display. General Washington, exhibiting exceptional good humor, was the gayest of the participants and danced the evening away with the rest.

The history of military instruction at West Point goes back almost to the earliest use of the area as a military establishment. It was not long after our complete break with England that the colonial leaders and people in general began to realize the necessity for providing the citizen army with trained leader­ship. A little more than two months after the pealing of the Liberty Bell announced the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to appraise the situation of the Army and recommend means of supplying its needs. This group found, among other things, that some units of the armed forces were badly officered,  p10 and recommended that the Board of War be directed to prepare "a Continental Laboratory, and a military" to remedy this defect.

Credit for suggesting an institution along the same general lines as that ultimately developed at West Point duly goes, however, to Colonel Henry Knox of the Artillery, who was one of the officers with whom the committee conferred. He furnished the Congressional group with a statement entitled "Hints for the Improvement of the Artillery of the United States," in which he said:

The hint, given on Sept. 27, 1776, impressed the committee, for on Oct. 1, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee "to prepare and bring in a plan of a Military Academy for the Army." Although no action was taken on this plan until the close of the Revolutionary War, another system of officer training was adopted and put into practice at West Point during the war years.

Rather than adopt Knox's idea for an academy in the British style, the Congress, on June 20, 1777, passed a resolution providing for a training program more along the French lines. This plan involved the establishment of a branch of the service to be known as the Corps of Invalids, for which veterans of previous service not physically fit for general military duty might be recruited. The corps, organized under Colonel Lewis Nicola, a French officer, was to be used not only to garrison certain cities and protect military property and hospitals, but also "as a military school for young gentlemen previous to their being appointed to marching regiments."

The plan provided that all subaltern officers would be required to attend classes in mathematics during off‑duty hours. In adopting it on July 16, 1777, Congress declared: "As this corps is intended, not only as a provision for disabled officers and soldiers, but as a school for propagating military knowledge and discipline, no officers need apply but such as produce ample certificates."

Knox, then a general, established an academy of his own at Pluckemin,  p11 N. J., during the winter of 1778. This was set up in a building where lectures in tactics and gunnery were read to his artillery officers.

The first units of the Corps of Invalids detailed to West Point arrived in the spring of 1778, probably in April. The first garrison for the post had arrived on Jan. 20 to begin work at Fort Clinton. During that year the establishment grew rapidly with the arrival in February of a company of sappers and miners, some of the Corps of Invalids two months later, and two companies of artillery in November. In December a laboratory was built.

The Corps of Invalids had been organized in Philadelphia in July, 1777. Four years later General Washington requested that it be transferred to West Point, and the long march from Philadelphia was begun. By August, 1782, the entire corps was at West Point.

By 1780 an engineer school was being conducted at West Point, probably through the joint efforts of both the engineers and the officers of the Corps of Invalids. Instruction was given there in conjunction with experiments in gunnery at the laboratory and various kinds of general military instruction. At that time the West Point garrison totaled 3,000 men.

The approaching end of the Revolutionary War turned the minds of the nation's leaders toward the necessity of planning for the scaling down of military forces to a peacetime level of strength and efficiency. In the spring of 1783 Alexander Hamilton, as chairman of the Committee of Congress on Peace Arrangements, asked General Washington for his opinion as to what the national peacetime military establishment should be. Washington in turn asked his officers to state their views. Many of those responding took pains to point out the value of systematic instruction for officers. Some of them when so far as to suggest plans for establishing schools or training programs.

Among these were Baron Steuben, General Huntingdon, Timothy Pickering, the quartermaster general; and Brigadier General Du Portail, the chief engineer. Steuben, writing to Washington, outlined a plan for an academy with 120 cadets and proposed a curriculum practically as broad as that in use today. He also suggested that Army commissions be restricted to graduates of the Academy, except for veterans of the Revolutionary War. General Huntingdon recalled the key situation of West Point and urged that a permanent garrison of 500 to 600 men be maintained there in addition to establishing an academy. Pickering proposed West Point as the principal one of five arsenals that he suggested be established in different parts of the country, and that a military academy be established there. Brigadier General  p12 Du Portail's comment was: "The necessity of an academy to be the nursery of the corps is too obvious to be insisted on."

Washington's own reply to Hamilton recommended for the peacetime military establishment the organizing of "academies, one or more, for the instruction of the art military, particularly those branches which respect engineering and artillery." He proposed continuing the Corps of Invalids as a garrison at West Point.

In spite of these recommendations, Hamilton's committee rejected the academy idea with its British flavor and gave preference instead to a "school of application" plan under which professors were to be employed to give instruction to military personnel in such subjects as mathematics, chemistry, natural philosophy, and civil architecture. This was similar to the Navy plan, followed for many years, of placing instructors on board the larger vessels of the fleet to train midshipmen.

The plan of the Committee of Congress on Peace Arrangements provided for the establishment of a corps of engineers to which the responsibility of providing military instruction would be given. It was not an illogical one at the time and honored the French influence under which the engineer corps of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War had developed as an instructing agency. Although that corps was established by act of Congress on March 11, 1779, an order from headquarters of the Army at Valley Forge on June 9, 1778, had contemplated its function as "a school of engineering" which "opens a prosper to such gentlemen as enter it."

The committee proposed that professors be appointed to the Corps of Engineers with the pay of lieutenant colonels. It dismissed the academy idea with the comment that "the committee are of the opinion that the benefits of such institutions rarely compensate for the expense; and that, by having the 3 professors proposed to be attached to the Corps of Engineers all the utility to be expected from academies may be substantially obtained; that, at all events, such institutions can only be the subject of future consideration."

It developed that nothing, however, was done about the Hamilton committee's report or the subject of military education until Washington, as President, revived the academy idea in his message to Congress on Jan. 8, 1790. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton favored retention of West Point as a military post. General Knox, then Secretary of War, reiterated his advocacy of a military academy immediately following the President's recommendation.

Knox laid this argument before Washington:

Three years later the subject of military instruction came up for thorough discussion by the President and his Cabinet. Jefferson reported the meeting of November 28, 1793, in his memoirs:

The following month Washington delivered his fifth annual address to Congress and urged as "an inquiry that can not be too solemnly pursued" consideration of amending the military act by providing "an opportunity for the study of those branches of the military art which can scarcely ever be attained by practice alone."

On May 9, 1794, Congress passed an act establishing a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, with a provision that a company include two cadets, who were to receive the pay, clothing allowance, and rations of a sergeant. This authorized the appointment of thirty‑two cadets in all, who were placed in training to become commissioned officers. For their studies the act directed the Secretary of War to provide, at public expense, all the books, instruments, and apparatus required.

A school for the instruction of these cadets was established at West Point in 1794 on the recommendation of Washington and was continued for two years until fire destroyed the structure and contents of the two‑story building that it occupied. Undismayed by the fire, which may have been of incendiary  p14 origin, the officers at West Point continued to provide instruction and drills in the military sciences.

In June, 179, Hamilton was advocating his plan for a joint military and naval academy which a year and a half later he transmitted officially to Secretary of War McHenry and to Washington. The proposal, which drew Washington's comment in the very last official letter from his hand, was for an institution organized along lines much the same as that eventually established, except, of course, for the school of the Navy. It was, in fact, essentially the plan of Knox for an institution similar to the British academy at Woolwich. The plan finally reached Congress in 1800 through Secretary McHenry and President Adams but failed to gain favorable action.

Meanwhile more or less attention continued to be given to military instruction at West Point until 1801 when definite plans for the establishment of a military school were placed under way. On July 2, 1801, all cadets intention service were ordered to report to West Point in September. When Major Jonathan Williams, grandnephew of Benjamin Franklin, became superintendent of the new school on Dec. 14, 1801, he found himself at the head of an establishment attended by twelve "gentlemen cadets," as they were called in those days. It was like a country school. All the cadets were taught in one class in a small building, and the superintendent reported that school was kept, during his first summer, "in disorder."

Finally, Congress established the United States Military Academy at West Point by its act of March 16, 1802. The future role of the "key to America" was at last assured.

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Thayer's Note:

a Half a cup, about 12 to 14 centiliters. On top of the men's regular ration, this should have had them decidedly cheerful.

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