General Cullum's West Point Register

THERE are some desired literary works, in the departments of science, history, and biography, that have failed of being prepared and published because of the lack of a writer combining the essential qualifications of an absorbing interest in the subject, the knowledge and intelligence to do full justice to it, the public and professional spirit to carry him through a laborious task, and the pecuniary means for bringing his work to a result. Some of these works, chiefly those relating to science, may well be, and have been, assumed, conducted, and made the basis of publications under the patronage of government. At first thought it might seem as if a work like that in our hands, a Register of the Officers and Graduates of a great and important training institution established by the government of the United States, should look to that able and sometimes generous dispenser of patronage for abundant aid from its treasury. But, for a reason which we shall point out presently, it might have been that the submitting of this elaborate work to the approval of Congress for preparation and publication would provoke some contention. It was none the less a work to be done, and as, for its able and faithful performance, it needed all the exacting qualifications we have mentioned, it is probable that it would have failed of achievement had it not been undertaken and completed by the distinguished man who has so generously given himself to the task.

General Cullum, who retains his vigor of body and all his intellectual powers after completing his fourscore years, gives us here the third edition of a work the first edition of which appeared twenty-three years ago. Through the whole interval he has been extending and perfecting it. It is probable that he is the only living person competent and disposed to have done this special service for his countrymen. Himself a graduate of West Point nearly sixty years ago, an officer in one of its departments, for a time its superintendent, and ever since, until his retirement, in intimate relations with it and with a long succession of its pupils and officers, he is also a thoroughly read scholar, a man of wide culture, and of observation and experience obtained by extended and frequent travel abroad. His three substantial volumes contain a register of the names of 3384 graduates of the Academy. These are designated by numbers prefixed to their names in tle order of their cadetship. The ingenuities of typography are availed of to facilitate the arrangement of the matter for the easy information of the reader and for consultation. It would be impossible to make an approach to an estimate of the industry, the patience, the extent and difficulty of research where records are missing or imperfect, and, above all, of the correspondence by thousands of letters in wide and distant directions, in order to obtain information, verification, or correction, as they have been spent upon these volumes. The method is, to give in order the name and number of each graduate, and then his military history, grade and form of service, advances in rank and honors, till his death ; and if he left the service for civil life, his occupations and employments. In the cases of such graduates as left the service, and after civil employment returned to it, as during the civil war, the military history is resumed. These are written in a concise and simple way, with none of the materials common to memorial tributes, such as estimates of character, criticisms, eulogies, or private and domestic details. With due fullness, yet with modesty, the author’s own professional record is given. He is in the first thousand, his number 709. Graduating in 1833, his place being in the engineer corps, his first service was in the construction of Fort Adams, in Newport harbor. Then follows a long succession of services: on docks and piers, dykes and sea walls ; fortifications in Boston harbor ; recruiting engineer service; directing of sappers, miners, and pontoon bridges in the Mexican war; engineering work and instruction and treasuryship and superintendency at West Point; Fort Sumter and other defenses in Charleston harbor ; as aid-de-camp on the staff of General Scott and of Major-General Halleck ; of many other services in the civil war, and again in Boston harbor. His honors for meritorious services are noted, and his retirement at the point of age in 1874. Absences for the sake of recuperating health were improved by the general for travel, for scientific, literary, and historical purposes, the fruits of which appear in scholarly and interesting publications by the author. Several of the biographical sketches are extended by the simple relation of the honorable careers, the heroism, and the renowned achievements of the subjects of them. It is to be remembered that these severely drilled and trained pupils of the nation have not only been fighters in the field, but have done hard and needful work on forts, harbors, surveys, coast defenses, and as engineers, explorers, and pioneers.

We have hinted at the possibility that if Congress had been asked — as it well might have been — to provide for the preparation and publication of this monumental work, the record of the services and honors of its own trained élèves, there might have been contention on the discussion of the question. We must explain this hint by referring, after a preliminary remark, to one feature in General Cullum’s method in his work.

It is well known that during our civil war, as some of its graduates, under oath to the nation and its flag as its own favored pupils, joined in the war against the Union, there were bitter reproaches cast upon the Academy as “ the nursery of treason. " General Cullum sets himself cogently, but temperately, to meet this offensive charge. He first reminds us that not only sworn military officers reared by the nation, but in proportion many more in civil places of trust and honor, and with more power of insinuating mischief and disloyalty, gave their countenance and aid to the work of disruption. More than one of our ex-Presidents was in sympathy with, and gave efficient aid to, the secessionists. Members of the cabinet, foreign ministers, judges, Senators, and Representatives were openly and antagonistically disloyal, or obstructionists, partisans, time-servers, and in many ways worse than mere neutrals or waiters on circumstance. And what were the facts as to the West Point officers ? With all the artful and earnest appeals and all the blandishments brought to bear on them to induce them to turn against their country, fully one half of the Southern officers, in number one hundred and sixty-two, remained loyal to it, while sixteen Northern officers became disloyal. One fifth of the graduate officers in the Northern army were killed, and half of them were wounded. This showing does not warrant the opprobrious epithet attached to the Academy.

We are familiar with the point of honor and etiquette on which those men, politicians, officers in army and navy and in the ranks, who joined in hostilities against the government insist that their action was not to be stigmatized as rebellion, but simply as secession, their States having the same right and freedom to withdraw from the Union they had to enter it. But something more than a matter of honor or etiquette, namely a simple question of right, is involved. Of course no government can make an organic provision for its disruption and destruction. It is enough for it to provide for the disposal of grievances or conflicts under it. Of such a resource the Southern discontents did not avail themselves. They began by insulting and assailing the nation’s flag, to which they had sworn allegiance, by bombarding its forts and plundering its public property. So General Cullum, after faithfully following all the national services, and stating all the honors won by such graduates as afterwards turned against their country, curtly closes the record with the words, “ Joined in the Rebellion against the United States,” and then is done with them. Some of those thus designated write to him their complaints. They think he should continue the honors and services that might be attached to their names from the fields of hostility against their own government. General Cullum replies to the aggrieved that the term Rebellion is not of his invention for this purpose. He found it used in legal papers, and in the acts of various departments of government, to designate the form of hostility and warfare against it. Now, it was conceivable and possible that if a proposition had been made to Congress to assume the publication of this noble record of the graduates of its own honored Military Academy, some partisans of offended parties might espouse their grievances. Therefore the author takes the full responsibility. He submits his faithful labor to his associate loyal men.

It would not be strange if some of the “ secessionists ” obtained and consulted it “on the sly.”

General Cullum adds to his third volume a valuable historical paper which might well have served as an introduction to his work. This is a summary, covering two hundred pages, of the early history of the Academy. As one of the most intelligent and accomplished of the officers who had been trained in it for high service in scientific work, he naturally was moved to engage an interest in the origin, early fortunes, development, and successive administrators of the institution. He says that on his retirement from active service he sought to make a study of the subject by inquiry and research. At once he discovered what an amount of labor would be required, and the especial embarrassments and difficulties involved in it. The records were scanty and imperfect, some wholly lacking, and many had perished. His ingenuity, toil, and patience helped him largely to meet his needs in gaining information. The narrative which he has been able to work out is most instructive and animated, as he has traced through its early struggles in origin, and dubious fortunes with ill advisers, obstructionists, and hostile agents, the growth of a noble Academy which has given to the nation some twenty-five hundred educated officers. He says it was most fortunate in its first superintendent, Major-General Williams, eminent in his own military service previously, accomplished and gifted, and having in his veins the blood of the stock of Benjamin Franklin. Not so fortunate was the institution in the hands of his successor, Dr. William Eustis, who, as Secretary of War, might have been a wise and favoring administrator, but who harmed rather than advanced its interests. General Cullum’s highest esteem and homage go to Major Sylvanus Thayer, who, in the sixteen years of his superintendency, by his high personal and official qualities won the respectful and fond title of the “ Father ” of the Academy. General Cullum paid him a noble tribute in his memorial eulogy on the inauguration of his statue on the grounds. The day of small things in the institution, economical and stingy, with rude furnishings and accommodations, with experimental discipline and slender accomplishments, is presented in details which will amuse the reader with suggestions of a Dotheboys Hall. The author himself has done more than any other of the alumni to bring it before the nation as one of its foster children of which it need not be ashamed.