GEO. M. ROBESON,
Acting Secretary of War.
HENRY O. FLIPPER, Atlanta, Georgia.
Through Hon. J. C. FREEMAN, M.C.
CIRCULAR.
I. Candidates must be actual bona fide residents of the Congressional district or Territory for which their appointments are made, and must be over seventeen and under twenty-two years of age at the time of entrance into the Military Academy; but any person who has served honorably and faithfully not less than one year as an officer or enlisted man in the army of the United States, either as a Volunteer, or in the Regular service, during the war for the suppression of the rebellion, shall be eligible for appointment up to the age of twenty-four years. They must be at least five feet in height, and free from any infectious or immoral disorder, and, generally, from any deformity, disease, or infirmity which may render them unfit for arduous military service. They must be proficient in Reading and Writing; in the elements of English Grammar; in Descriptive Geography, particularly of our own country, and in the History of the United States.
In Arithmetic, the various operations in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, reduction, simple and compound proportion, and vulgar and decimal fractions, must be thoroughly understood and readily performed.
The following are the leading physical disqualifications:
1. Feeble constitution and muscular tenuity; unsound health from whatever cause; indications of former disease; glandular swellings, or other symptoms of scrofula. 2. Chronic cutaneous affections, especially of the scalp. 3. Severe injuries of the bones of the head; convulsions. 4. Impaired vision, from whatever cause; inflammatory affections of the eyelids; immobility or irregularity of the iris; fistula, lachrymalis, etc., etc. 5. Deafness; copious discharge from the ears. 6. Loss of many teeth, or the teeth generally unsound. 7. Impediment of speech. 8. Want of due capacity of the chest, and any other indication of a liability to a pulmonic disease. 9. Impaired or inadequate efficiency of one or both of the superior extremities on account of fractures, especially of the clavicle, contraction of a joint, extenuation, deformity, etc., etc. 10. An unusual excurvature or incurvature of the spine. 11. Hernia. 12. A varicose state of the veins of the scrotum or spermatic cord (when large), sarcocele, hydroccle, hemorrhoids, fistulas. 13. Impaired or inadequate efficiency of one or of both of the inferior extremities on account of varicose veins, fractures, malformation (flat feet, etc.), lameness, contraction, unequal length, bunions, overlying or supernumerary toes, etc., etc. 14. Ulcers, or unsound cicatrices of ulcers likely to break out afresh.
Every person appointed, upon arrival at West Point, is submitted to a rigid medical examination, and if any causes of disqualification are found to exist in him to such a degree as may now or hereafter impair his efficiency, he is rejected.
No person who has served in any capacity in the military or naval service of the so-called Confederate States during the late rebellion can receive an appointment as cadet at the Military Academy.
II. The pay of a cadet is $500 per annum, with one ration per day, to commence with his admission into the Military Academy, and is sufficient, with proper economy, for his support.