Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 5, May 1842

by Various

That cheered their morning ray;

How dark, how cold, how loud the storm

That raging closed their day!”

The dauphin, whose birth was thus honored in the far-off land which his royal father was assisting in her contest for liberty, died, happily for himself, in early childhood; thus, escaping the miseries that were heaped upon the unfortunate boy who succeeded him.

The West Point balls seem to have peculiar charms for strangers, particularly if these strangers are young ladies, and it is a pleasure to the residents of the place to see them enjoy the novelty of the scene. The fair visiters are always delighted with the decorations of the room, with the chivalric gallantry of the officers and cadets, and still more with the circumstance of all their partners being in uniform. To those who are not “to the manner born,” there is something very dazzling in the shine of a military costume.

At the New Year’s ball to which I have alluded, among other invited guests was a party that came over in an open boat from the opposite side of the Hudson, notwithstanding that the weather was intensely cold, the sky threatening a snow-storm, and the river almost impassable from the accumulating ice. The young ladies belonging to this party were certainly valuable acquisitions to the company, as they were handsome, sprightly, beautifully drest, and excellent dancers. I particularly recollect one of them—a tall, fair, fine-looking girl, attired in white satin with an upper dress of transparent pink zephyr, the skirt and sleeves looped up with small white roses. Her figure was set off to great advantage by an extremely well-fitting boddice of pale pink satin, laced in front with white silk cord and tassels—and a spray of white roses looked out among the plats that were enwreathed at the back of her finely-formed head. This young lady and her friends seemed to enter con amore into the enjoyment of the scene and the dance. But their pleasure was dearly purchased. As they had made arrangements to return home that night, after twelve o’clock, when the ball was over, they could not be persuaded to remain at West Point till the following day. They embarked with the gentlemen who belonged to their party. At daylight their boat was descried in the middle of the river. It was completely blocked up by the ice that had gathered round it, and in this manner they had passed the cold and dreary remainder of the night whose first part had afforded them so much enjoyment. A boat was immediately sent out from West Point to their rescue, and the ladies were found benumbed with cold, and indeed nearly dead. The ice was cut away with axes brought for the purpose, they were released from their perilous condition, and with much difficulty the passage to the other side of the river was finally achieved. After the ladies had recovered from the effects of so many hours severe suffering, they were said to have declared that they would willingly go through a repetition of the same for the sake of another such ball.

My compassion was much excited by a contre-tems that happened to certain fair young strangers from New York, whom I found in the dressing-room at the close of one of the summer balls annually given by the cadets about the last of August, on the eve of the day in which they break up their encampment, and return to their usual residence in the barracks. The above-mentioned young ladies had come up from the city that evening, in consequence of invitations sent down to them a week before. By some unaccountable oversight either of themselves or of the gentlemen that escorted them, the trunks or boxes containing their ball-room paraphernalia, instead of being landed on the wharf at West Point had been left on board the steam-boat, and had gone up to Albany. As it was a rainy evening, these young ladies (four or five in number) had embarked in their very worst dresses, which they considered quite good enough for the crowd and damp and heat of the ladies’ cabin, in whose uncomfortable precincts the bad weather would compel them to seclude themselves during their voyage of three or four hours. They did not discover that their baggage was missing till after their arrival at the dressing-room, supposing that the trunks were coming after them up-stairs. Here they had remained the whole evening, and all they knew of the ball and its anticipated pleasures was the sound of the music from below as it imperfectly reached them; the shaking of the windows as the floor vibrated under the feet of the dancers; and a glance at the dresses of the ladies as they came up when the ball was over, to muffle themselves in their shawls and calashes. None of the distressed damsels had sufficient courage to go down to the ball-room in their dishabille, and sit there as spectators: though much importuned to do so by their unlucky beaux. I give this little anecdote as an admonition to my youthful readers to take especial care that their baggage does not give them the slip when they are travelling to a ball.

The cadets are remarkably clever at getting up fancy-balls, and in dressing and sustaining whatever characters they then assume. The corps being composed of miscellaneous young gentlemen from every section of the Union, each is au fait to the peculiar characteristics of the common people that he has seen in his native place—and they represent them with much truth and humor. There will be, for instance, a hunter from the far west; a Yankee pedlar with his tins and other “notions;” an assortment of Tuckahoes, Buckeyes, Hooshers, Wolverines, &c.; and also a good proportion of Indians.

At one of these fancy-balls the squeak of a bad fife (or perhaps of a good fife badly played on) and the tuck of an ill-braced drum, was heard ascending the stair-case followed by an irregular tramp of feet and the chatter of many voices. The door (which had been recently closed) was now thrown open with a bang, and a militia company, personated by a number of the choicest cadets, came marching in, with a step that set all time and tune at defiance; some trudging, some ambling, and some striding. They were headed by a captain who, compared to Uncle Sam’s officers, certainly wore his regimentals “with a difference.” Having “marshalled his clan,” whom he arranged with a picturesque intermixture of tall and short, and in a line partaking of the serpentine, he put them through their exercise in a manner so laughably bad as could only have been enacted by persons who knew perfectly well what it ought to be. Their firelocks were rough sticks, cornstalks, and shut umbrellas—and when the captain was calling the muster-roll, the names to which his men answered were ludicrous in the extreme.

I have before alluded to the West Point Band, which must always be classed among the most agreeable recollections connected with that place; particularly by those who were familiar with its excellence when Willis was the instructor in military music. He was an Irishman, and had belonged to the lord lieutenant’s band at Dublin Castle. His own exquisite performance on the Kent bugle can never be forgotten by any one who has been so fortunate as to hear it; and he taught all the members of the West Point Band to play on their respective instruments in the most admirable manner. One of them, named Ford, excelled on the octave flute. Sometimes when, on a moonlight summer evening, they were playing under the beautiful elms that are clustered in front of the mess house, and delighting us with a charming composition called the Nightingale, Ford would ascend one of the trees, and seated amidst its branches, perform solo on his flute those passages that imitated the warbling of the bird.