Thirty Years' View (Vol. 1 of 2) / or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850

by Thomas Hart Benton

CHAPTER LV.

MILITARY ACADEMY.

The small military establishment of the United States seemed to be almost in a state of dissolution about this time, from the frequency of desertion; and the wisdom of Congress was taxed to find a remedy for the evil. It could devise no other than an increase of pay to the rank and file and non-commissioned officers; which upon trial, was found to answer but little purpose. In an army of 6000 the desertions were 1450 in the year; and increasing. Mr. Macon from his home in North Carolina, having his attention directed to the subject by the debates in Congress, wrote me a letter, in which he laid his finger upon the true cause of these desertions, and consequently showed what should be the true remedy. He wrote thus:

"Why does the army, of late years, desert more than formerly? Because the officers have been brought up at West Point, and not among the people. Soldiers desert because not attached to the service, or not attached to the officers. West Point cadets prevent the promotion of good sergeants, and men cannot like a service which denies them promotion, nor like officers who get all the commissions. The increase of pay will not cure the evil, and nothing but promotion will. In the Revolutionary army, we had many distinguished officers, who entered the army as privates."

This is wisdom, and besides carrying conviction for the truth of all it says, it leads to reflections upon the nature and effects of our national military school, which extend beyond the evil which was the cause of writing it. Since the act of 1812, which placed this institution upon its present footing, giving its students a legal right to appointment (as constructed and practised), it may be assumed that there is not a government in Europe, and has been none since the commencement of the French revolution (when the nobles had pretty nearly a monopoly of army appointments), so unfriendly to the rights of the people, and giving such undue advantages to some parts of the community over the rest. Officers can now rise from the ranks in all the countries of Europe—in Austria, Russia, Prussia, as well as in Great Britain, of which there are constant and illustrious examples. Twenty-three marshals of the empire rose from the ranks—among them Key, Massena, Oudinot, Murat, Soult, Bernadotte. In Great Britain, notwithstanding her Royal Military College, the largest part of the commissions are now given to citizens in civil life, and to non-commissioned officers. A return lately made to parliament shows that in eighteen years—from 1830 to 1847—the number of citizens who received commissions, was 1,266; the number of non-commissioned officers promoted, was 446; and the number of cadets appointed from the Royal Military College was 473. These citizen appointments were exclusive of those who purchased commissions—another mode for citizens to get into the British army, and which largely increases the number in that class of appointments—sales of commissions, with the approbation of the government, being there valid. But exclusive of purchased commissions during the same period of eighteen years, the number of citizens appointed, and of non-commissioned officers promoted, were, together, nearly four times the number of government cadets appointed. Now, how has it been in our service during any equal number of years, or all the years, since the Military Academy got into full operation under the act of 1812? I confine the inquiry to the period subsequent to the war of 1812, for during that war there were field and general officers in service who came from civil life, and who procured the promotion of many meritorious non-commissioned officers; the act not having at first been construed to exclude them. How many? Few or none, of citizens appointed, or non-commissioned officers promoted—only in new or temporary corps—the others being held to belong to the government cadets.

I will mention two instances coming within my own knowledge, to illustrate the difficulty of obtaining a commission for a citizen in the regular regiments—one the case of the late Capt. Hermann Thorn, son of Col. Thorn, of New-York. The young man had applied for the place of cadet at West Point; and not being able to obtain it, and having a strong military turn, he sought service in Europe, and found it in Austria; and admitted into a hussar regiment on the confines of Turkey, without commission, but with the pay, clothing, and ration of a corporal; with the privilege of associating with officers, and a right to expect a commission if he proved himself worthy. These are the exact terms, substituting sergeant for corporal, on which cadets were received into the army, and attached to companies, in Washington's time. Young Thorn proved himself to be worthy; received the commission; rose in five years to the rank of first lieutenant; when, the war breaking out between the United States and Mexico, he asked leave to resign, was permitted to do so, and came home to ask service in the regular army of the United States. His application was made through Senator Cass and others, he only asking for the lowest place in the gradation of officers, so as not to interfere with the right of promotion in any one. The application was refused on the ground of illegality, he not having graduated at West Point. Afterwards I took up the case of the young man, got President Polk to nominate him, sustained the nomination before the Senate; and thus got a start for a young officer who soon advanced himself, receiving two brevets for gallant conduct and several wounds in the great battles of Mexico; and was afterwards drowned, conducting a detachment to California, in crossing his men over the great Colorado of the West.

Thus Thorn was with difficulty saved. The other case was that of the famous Kit Carson also nominated by President Polk. I was not present to argue his case when he was rejected, and might have done no good if I had been, the place being held to belong to a cadet that was waiting for it. Carson was rejected because he did not come through the West Point gate. Being a patriotic man, he has since led many expeditions of his countrymen, and acted as guide to the United States officers, in New Mexico, where he lives. He was a guide to the detachment that undertook to rescue the unfortunate Mrs. White, whose fate excited so much commiseration at the time; and I have the evidence that if he had been commander, the rescue would have been effected, and the unhappy woman saved from massacre.

This rule of appointment (the graduates of the academy to take all) may now be considered the law of the land, so settled by construction and senatorial acquiescence; and consequently that no American citizen is to enter the regular army except through the gate of the United States Military Academy; and few can reach that gate except through the weight of a family connection, a political influence, or the instrumentality of a friend at court. Genius in obscurity has no chance; and the whole tendency of the institution is to make a governmental, and not a national army. Appointed cadet by the President, nominated officer by him, promoted upon his nomination, holding commission at his pleasure, receiving his orders as law, looking to him as the fountain of honor, the source of preferment, and the dispenser of agreeable and profitable employment—these cadet officers must naturally feel themselves independent of the people, and dependent upon the President; and be irresistibly led to acquire the habits and feelings which, in all ages, have rendered regular armies obnoxious to popular governments.

The instinctive sagacity of the people has long since comprehended all this, and conceived an aversion to the institution which has manifested itself in many demonstrations against it—sometimes in Congress, sometimes in the State legislatures, always to be met, and triumphantly met, by adducing Washington as the father and founder of the institution.—No adduction could be more fallacious. Washington is no more the father of the present West Point than he is of the present Mount Vernon. The West Point of his day was a school of engineering and artillery, and nothing more; the cadet of his day was a young soldier, attached to a company, and serving with it in the field and in the camp, "with the pay, clothing, and ration of sergeant" (act of 1794); and in the intervals of active service, if he had shown an inclination for the profession, and a capacity for its higher branches, then he was sent, in the "discretion" of the President, to West Point, to take instruction in those higher branches, namely, artillery and engineering, and nothing more. All the drills both of officer and private—all the camp duty—all the trainings in the infantry, the cavalry, and the rifle—were then left to be taught in the field and the camp—a better school than any academy; and under officers who were to lead them into action—better teachers than any school-room professors. And all without any additional expense to the United States.

All was right in the time of Washington, and afterwards, up to the act of 1812. None became cadets then but those who had a stomach for the hardships, as well as taste for the pleasures of a soldier's life—who, like the Young Norval on the Grampian Hills, had felt the soldier's blood stir in their veins, and longed to be off to the scene of war's alarms, instead of standing guard over flocks and herds. Cadets were not then sent to a superb school, with the emoluments of officers, to remain four years at public expense, receiving educations for civil as well as military life, with the right to have commissions and be provided for by the government; or with the secret intent to quit the service as soon as they could do better—which most of them soon do. The act of 1812 did the mischief and that insidiously and by construction, while ostensibly keeping up the old idea of cadets serving with their companies, and only detached when the President pleased, to get instruction at the academy. It runs thus: "The cadets heretofore appointed in the service of the United States, whether of artillery, cavalry, riflemen, or infantry, or may be in future appointed or hereinafter provided, shall at no time exceed 250; that they may be attached, at the discretion of the President of the United States as students to the Military Academy; and be subject to the established regulations thereof."