Morris Schaff: "West Point During Those Fateful Six Months"

Morris Schaff graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the Class of 1862. He was at West Point as the Civil War began, and cadets considered secession and union. Later, in his 1907 memoir The Spirit of West Point, Schaff recorded some of his recollections of 1860 and 1861.

We returned from our furlough on the 28th of August, 1860. In the next six months Lincoln was elected, the South seceded, and the war between the States began. These events are the broad foreground of a great picture, and one in which is reflected much of West Point's life. The longer we gaze at it the more we see in it, and the more conscious we become, I think, of a mysterious historic effulgence. Does our imagination spiritualize the events, and make us see Fate forcing her way as she leads the country to its destiny; is it Slavery dragging herself death-stricken at last out of the world; is it the glow from faces of high-minded youths in gray and blue; or is the radiance in the face of Peace .? My heart beats before it.

There is a strange fascination to me in the memory of my life at West Point during those fateful six months.

I have referred to the circumstance by which, through the suggestion of my Southern roommate, I had been assigned to D Company. It was the distinctively Southern company; in fact, over half, perhaps two thirds, of its members were from the South. In it at that time were Rosser, Young, Dearing, Pelham, Patterson, Willett, Watts, Faison, John Lane, and "Jim" Parker, all of whom reached high rank in the Confederacy. From the North were Babbitt, Dimick,—of Dimick's Battery, pure-hearted Sanderson, "Deacon" Elbert, and Custer. The latter, with Jim Parker, lived in a room diagonally below me; and with that well-mated pair I fooled away many an hour that should have been devoted to study.

West and myself occupied a room on the third floor of the 7th Division. It looked out on the gardens attached to the quarters of Professor Kendrick, and of Lieutenant Douglass, a smallish man with a voluminous red beard, who was an instructor of drawing, and who, besides an artistic sense, had a greater propensity for chewing tobacco (fine-cut) than any one I ever saw. Behind the garden rose the hills, streaked with ribs of gray rocks, clothed with tapering cedars and struggling trees, from whence, as spring drew along, came many a richly warbled note.

Of course, between me and my roommate there was no concealment. We talked over the state of the country and everything else, as boys and loving friends might. He told me about his home, the slaves, and the plantation….

We had barely settled down to our work again before the smothered excitement, that had lain smoking ominously, blazed up all over the country, like fires in a clearing….

It may sound strange to civilians, and especially to students of the history of that period, to be told that national affairs even at that time were not discussed at West Point. The discussion, by officers or cadets, of the politics dividing the nation into parties would have struck the average man as crude, and totally unbecoming young men or old men whose lives were consecrated to the service of the country, regardless of which party might be in control. Moreover, the tension was too great, and inasmuch as we professed to be gentlemen, we naturally refrained from touching on disagreeable subjects. Representing, however, as we did, every Congressional district, we were in miniature the country itself. The letters and local papers from home kept us acquainted with the state of public feeling, and, since the consciousness of a national crisis is always contagious, it was not long before it was felt at West Point.

As a result, a state of recklessness as to discipline, and a new indifference to class standing, were more or less noticeable in the conduct of the entire corps, save among that laudable few who worked day and night to get into the engineers. The effect on the conduct and temper of some of the Southern cadets was marked by increasingly provoking arrogance; and strangely enough, savage encounters took place between Southerners themselves. For instance, one in which my roommate engaged with a fellow Southerner was, I believe, wholly due to the prevailing impatience and irritability aroused by the political situation. I have no idea what it was about, or who was to blame; but I do know that I urged West to settle it. His Southern blood was up, however, and seeing that I could do nothing to stop it, I asked him to get somebody else to go with him, for I could not bear to see those two friends in a fight. With a heavy heart I stayed alone in our room; and when he came back, terribly punished, I went with the impulsive, warmhearted fellow to the hospital. The day came when he and his antagonist were the best of friends, and fellow officers of the same Confederate battery.

In October, 1860, some evil spirit stole his way into West Point and thence into the room of a couple of the bitterly partisan Southerners in my division. The next day — as a result of his visit — a box was set up at a suitable place, with a request that cadets should deposit therein their preferences for President of the United States.

Now, the father of big, swarthy John Lane, a member of my company and one who subsequently joined the South, was running for Vice President on the ticket with Breckinridge. Although John was very far from being a leader intellectually, nevertheless he was a well-meaning, whole-souled, and generally popular man. Whether his popularity had anything to do with the result of the balloting, I do not know, — the fact of his father's candidacy is mentioned only to throw a sidelight on the situation.

A better scheme than this straw ballot to embroil the corps, and to precipitate the hostilities between individuals which soon involved the States, could not have been devised. When I went to deposit my ballot I met Frank Hamilton, of my class, who had just voted. "How have you voted, Frank?" I asked good-naturedly.

" Oh, for Honest Old Abe," he answered with his peculiar bubbling chuckle. "I suppose you are for Douglas?"

"Yes, for the 'Little Giant,' Frank."

Now Hamilton was from the Western Reserve of my State and a Republican, and I should have been surprised had he not voted in harmony with his courage and convictions. My roommate voted for Bell.

When the ballots were counted (I cannot recall the exact number of votes for each candidate) the South with surprise and indignation found that there were sixty-four votes for Lincoln. It was always a peculiarity, almost childlike in simplicity, for the old South, to take it for granted that every one was going its way; it never understood the silence of the Puritan….

On the 6th of November, 1860, the people reversed our little boyish ballot, solemnly, and overwhelmingly; but the undreamed-of fiat had gone forth. With the election of Lincoln the doors of the new era, which in the fullness of time the Ruler of the World had ordered, began slowly and inexorably to swing open….

[Cadets begin leaving West Point during the Secession Winter. The cadets observed the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday on February 22, 1861, and Schaff describes a last moment of unity for some.]

After the ceremony there was a holiday for the rest of the 22d. It was the custom on that day, and it may be so still, for the full band to take the place of the drum corps at tattoo. When the hour came, it formed as usual near the morning gun and set out across the Plain toward barracks, playing Washington's March. The band was large and its prevailing instruments were brass, pouring forth their tones, now with high defiant clearness, now with resounding depth, and now with lamenting pathos.

It was a soft, heavily clouded night, and when the band was drawing near, its notes becoming clearer and clearer as it advanced across the Plain, a number — in fact almost every one — in D Company gathered at the open windows fronting the area. Just before the band passed under the elms which front the barracks it struck up the "Star-Spangled Banner," and came swinging proudly through the Sally Port. I never have heard such a burst of music as at that moment, when it freed the granite arch. Had Duty, Honor, and Courage, had old West Point herself and every Revolutionary ruin called to the spirits, "Go, join the band and breathe our love for the land into every note! Go, for the sake of Peace! Go, for the sake of the impulsive, generous-hearted South itself! Go, for the hopes of the world!"

I was at a window on the third floor of the 8th Division, with Custer, Elbert, and possibly Sanderson. In the room across the hall were a number of Southerners, and immediately below them on the second floor were Rosser, Young, Watts, Williams, Faison, and Thornton, Dresser of Massachusetts, and others opposite. Every room fronting the area was aglow, every window up and filled with men. With the appearance of the band at the Sally Port a thundering cheer broke, and, upon my soul! I believe it was begun at our window by Custer, for it took a man of his courage and heedlessness openly to violate the regulations.

But the cheer had barely struck the air before the Southerners followed it with a cheer for "Dixie." Our 7th and 8th Divisions formed an ell, so that from them the rear of the four-storied barracks, the Sally Port and its battlemented towers, were in full view, and a cheer from our quarter for "Dixie" raked the entire line. Beyond the Sally Port, in A and B Companies, were the majority of the Northerners; and they flung back a ringing cheer for the stars and stripes; and so cheer followed cheer. Ah, it was a great night! Rosser at one window, Custer at another. A few years later they faced each other again and again in cavalry battles….

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