Читать книгу Last in Their Class - James Robbins - Страница 11

EPHRAIM KIRBY SMITH

THE TACTICAL CURRICULUM AT WEST POINT was designed to produce Napoleonic warriors equipped to fight traditional, European-style wars. Critics of the Academy noted the unlikelihood of such conventional conflict and stated that what the country really needed were Indian fighters. Two decades of relative calm, however, made the debate academic. Most graduates of Thayer’s time saw neither conventional conflict nor frontier war, but instead applied their training to peacetime pursuits.

The most important effect of class rank was its impact on branch assignments. The top few cadets were made engineers, the most challenging and most prestigious branch. They designed America’s forts, major roads, canals, railroads, harbors and lighthouses, carving a growing nation out of the wilderness. The next most distinctive branch was Ordnance, followed by Artillery. Those further down the list would be sent to the Infantry or the Dragoons. Cadets from the Immortal sections were unlikely to spend the early years of their Army careers supervising large-scale building projects, attending conferences or pursuing post-Academy education in Europe. They were much more apt to find themselves in distant frontier garrisons, with little prospect of adventure or advancement. The spartan conditions at West Point in the Thayer era were good moral and physical preparation for Army life in the 1820s and 1830s. Even in peacetime, it was a difficult and dangerous occupation. Of the thirty-three graduates in Jefferson Davis’s Class of 1828, fourteen died within ten years of graduation. Three of these were civilians; ten were on active duty and fell to accident or disease. Only one of them, James F. Izard, was killed in battle, by the Seminoles.

If a newly commissioned officer was looking for a remote posting in those days, he could not go much farther than Fort Mackinac, on tiny Mackinac Island at the northern tip of Lake Huron. It was one of dozens of such forts along the northwest frontier, erected as border defenses against incursions from Canada. It had been seized by the British in a surprise attack in July 1812, and transferred back in September 1815 per the terms of the Treaty of Ghent.¹ Since then the area had seen no action, nor was it likely to.

In 1829, Fort Mackinac became the home of Ephraim Kirby Smith, the Goat of the Class of 1826.² He had spent the previous three years at the equally remote Fort Howard, fourteen miles up the Fox River from Green Bay. Kirby, as he was known, was born in 1807 in Lichtfield, Connecticut, to a distinguished military family. His maternal grandfather, Ephraim Kirby, was an officer in the Continental Army who fought at Bunker Hill. His father, Colonel Joseph Lee Smith, fought in the War of 1812 and was a hero at the 1814 Battle of Lundy’s Lane.³ Colonel Smith was appointed federal judge for the eastern district of the Florida Territory in 1821, whence Kirby was appointed to West Point in 1822, the first (though nominal) Floridian to attend.

Kirby was a quixotic, proud and willful young man, and his strong views on personal honor often led him into difficult situations. He had a poor disciplinary record at USMA, and if the point system had been in use when he was a cadet, he would have had a hard time avoiding expulsion. He was frequently found visiting or absent during study hours. He was cited for neglect of fender, oversleeping, being late, sitting down on sentry duty, and being AWOL for a week in August 1824, though this was probably due to travel difficulties returning from furlough. Kirby missed classes and sometimes slept through those he did attend. In March 1823 he spent twelve days in the stockade for disorderly conduct. Clearly he had become such a lightning rod for quill (i.e., reports) that he was reported even for trivial misbehavior such as “candlestick out of place” (on September 7, 1825) and “playing with football near the barracks” (on April 10, 1826).

After graduation, Kirby traveled to St. Augustine to visit his family before departing for his first assignment. At a local tavern he was introduced to Edgar Macon, a former U.S. district attorney who had been openly slanderous against Kirby’s father for convincing President John Quincy Adams to fire him. Kirby would not shake Macon’s hand, which led to an exchange of words, the young officer slinging “epithets suited to [Macon’s] malignity.” Macon challenged Kirby to a duel, and he accepted. Dueling was a federal crime, and military law provided that no commissioned officer could either send or accept a challenge to fight a duel, “upon pain of being cashiered.”⁴ Kirby thought better of it later, but explained that “as a man and a soldier, my word, without regard to consequences, must through life be sacred.” They agreed to meet on an isolated shore. Kirby showed up with his second, Captain Wood, and they waited alone for the other pair.

When Macon arrived, he was accompanied by his second, Dr. Richard Weightman, an Army officer and according to Kirby a well-known “scandalous calumniator of a brother officer.” They also brought along five other men, a group of women and servants, and even the soldiers who rowed the boat that carried them there. Kirby said that this was “in violation of every honorable pledge by which all persons are bound in affairs of this nature,” in particular because it increased the chances that the duelists might be arrested. In the end, the fight never took place; Macon prompted delay after delay, claiming sickness and making other technical objections. Kirby stated that “mattresses and morning gowns had been provided for him, yet his brandy bottle, and all the other ammunition he had brought to the field, were exhausted without effect.” But the event drew the attention of the authorities and the pair were thrown in jail. Macon and Weightman, who knew the local magistrates well, cooperated in the subsequent trial, which Kirby found even greater proof of their perfidy. Kirby was convicted, though under the circumstances, and given his father’s position, the court recommended leniency. Kirby released a transcript of his impassioned speech before the court as an appeal to his brother officers, and was spared a court martial.⁵

Life in the Michigan Territory did not offer Kirby the adventure he might have craved. The last serious Indian disturbances had ended with the death of Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. In the late 1820s, the only Indians likely to be seen were in fleets of canoes on the lakes, going to outposts for their annual emoluments, occasionally stopping by to sell fish or game or to get rations. Samuel P. Heintzelman, a classmate of Kirby’s who served at Mackinac and kept detailed diaries of his days at West Point and afterwards, one day noted “eleven canoes of Saginacs and Ottowas,” a splendid sight.⁶

The duties at the remote posts were rudimentary, and the biggest challenge was staying motivated. Jefferson Davis, then a second lieutenant of the First Infantry stationed at Fort Winnebago, in the area later to become Wisconsin, wrote his sister that “the officers of the Post are like those of the Army generally, men of light habits both of thinking and acting, having little to care about and less to anticipate.”⁷ Officers would keep themselves and their men busy improving local roads, building and repairing bridges, traveling the countryside assessing the timber and natural resources (particularly those of military significance such as sulfur), surveying, making maps, and undertaking construction projects on their posts, not so much to make them more defensible as to make them more comfortable. The forts were sometimes thrown up as temporary expedients that gradually became permanent, and they often needed work. Heintzelman wrote of Fort Gratiat, “Thursday the 2nd of November [1830] made two years since my arrival at this detestable place. I hoped when I arrived that we would have left long ere this; but our prospect is more distant still.”⁸

A frontier posting allowed a great deal of time for disconsolate introspection. Heintzelman wrote to his diary, “I completed my twenty fifth year yesterday. It is melancholy to think how I am spending my best days, in this out of the way place, without society, amusement, or improvement.”⁹ In a similar vein, Jefferson Davis wrote to his sister, “Today I am 22 years old. When I was a boy and dreamed with my eyes open as most do, I thought of ripening fame at this age of wealth and power. As I grew older I saw the folly but still thought that at the age of 22 I should be on the highway to all ambition desired, and lo: I am 22 and the same obscure poor being that I was at fifteen, with the exception of a petty appointment which may long remain as small as it is at present.—and yet,” he added, “I am not dissatisfied for I behold myself a member though an humble one of an honorable profession.” Davis believed that given his experiences, he had few alternatives. “I cannot say that I like the Army, but I know of nothing else that I could do which I would like better.” He said that had he returned home directly from Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky, where he attended briefly before going to the Academy, he might have been able to become a respectable citizen, but he did not think he could do so anymore because “the four years I remained at West Point made me a different creature from that which nature designed me to be.”¹⁰

For the enlisted soldiers, frontier life was more difficult. Soldiers signed up for five years, drawing five dollars a month. Morale was the biggest problem. Their duties kept the men busy, but in their free time they had little to do. They had less freedom of movement than the officers did, and no chance to enjoy high society in the cities. On the other hand, they were probably less self-pitying. Cards were a diversion for officer and enlisted alike, though not always approved because card games led to disputes, which were sometimes violent. Drinking was also a popular pastime, mostly whiskey and brandy. Until 1830, troops were issued a whiskey ration, and afterwards were given the cash equivalent. Sutlers sometimes sold whiskey beyond the ration as well, and there were taverns near the forts where soldiers could visit for libations. Revelries (“frolicking”) could last until dawn and become quite clamorous. Camp followers constituted another amusement, and women would pitch their tents outside the garrisons with no need for advertisement. Some officers tried to combat this by inviting them to make camp inside the fort, where they could be watched, but most simply ran the women off.

Desertion was a perennial problem. On average there were around 620 desertions per year in these days, which was about 12 percent of the enlisted strength, and the number rose to over 900 in 1829.¹¹ In some parts of the country a soldier could make a dollar per day as a laborer, which was six times his Army pay and a tremendous inducement. The Army paid a bounty to civilians who returned deserters, which led some enterprising soldiers to go over the hill and have a friend turn them in, with whom they would split the reward.¹² Congress outlawed the death penalty for desertion in May 1830, and the spring of that year was rife with flight. “If matters go on in this way much longer we shall be left without any men,” Heintzelman remarked. “All a man has to do is to make the attempt, he is almost certain to succeed.”¹³ It was almost impossible to apprehend a clever fugitive, who had only to wait in the woods for a chance to cross over to Canada. Sometimes deserters would send letters explaining themselves, seeking assurances that they would not be punished if they returned. Other times they would wander back after a few days on their own, to be disciplined at the discretion of the commanding officer. Some left and came back many times. Hunting down the runaways became another amusement, and was enjoyed particularly by the other enlisted men. President Jackson signed an order giving free pardon to all deserters, releasing all those confined for desertion, and discharging those who so desired, with the provision that they could not rejoin the Army again. This did not solve the problem.

Yet desertion, for all its stigma, was a useful safety valve. It removed the soldiers most dissatisfied with Army life, usually in their first year of enlistment, and left behind those better able to adapt. In the winter, however—with fewer distractions, the stresses of cold weather, claustrophobic conditions, and no possibility of flight—the atmosphere at a frontier post could get vicious. The period of isolation at West Point in the winter months was good training for the frontier, but did not fully replicate the brutality of the cold, or the depth and persistence of the snow. Furthermore, when the cadets “mutinied” at West Point, it was something of a game. On the frontier, mutiny was played for keeps.

On Christmas Day 1829, the Fort Mackinac post commander, Colonel Cutler, took two of his senior officers to dine in the nearby village. Ten minutes after they left, a group of two dozen men gathered on the parade ground. Kirby, the officer of the day, ordered them to disperse. As he gave the order, three soldiers rushed him, falling onto the lieutenant with murderous force. Other officers ran out of their quarters and came to Kirby’s relief, whereupon the assembled men retired to their quarters. After an investigation, the ringleaders, nine members of Smith’s company, were confined. Kirby was outraged. On his own initiative, he had four men flogged that very day and two others whipped later. Inflicting corporal punishment on soldiers was risky. Aside from being painful, it was humiliating, and it courted retribution. An English visitor to the United States observed at the time that “the American peasant, though a brave and hardy man, and expert in the use of the rifle and musket, is naturally the worst soldier in the world as regards obedience and discipline. He has been brought up to believe himself equal to the officers who command him.”¹⁴ Soldiers were not above leveling the field; for example, in June 1830 an officer was shot and killed at Green Bay by a soldier after minor punishment for neglect of duty.

Beyond the humiliation, flogging was illegal and had been since 1812. Kirby was brought before a court martial in Detroit in July, presided over by Colonel Cutler. He was found guilty and sentenced to dismissal, but the court recommended that the president remit the sentence given the circumstances. After all, the soldiers tried to kill him. Kirby was ordered to New York to report to General Scott and await disposition. President Jackson, who had protested against the 1812 law and been infamous for harsh discipline while a commander, had changed his views on corporal punishment by the time he reached the White House. In General Order 28 of 1829 he cautioned against mistreatment of soldiers, who feel protected by the law, and “still less [punishments] should be suffered to be inflicted by an officer, whose duty it is to be the soldier’s protector.”¹⁵ Jackson did not sympathize with the young officer and he let the sentence stand. Kirby was dismissed from the Army on October 6, 1830.¹⁶