Last in Their Class. James Robbins
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are coming! Turn out the Corps! Turn out the Guard!” Cadets milled about in the hallways, shouting and demonstrating, waving swords and clubs, and calling Hitchcock out with threats. It was a night of uninterrupted bedlam. The rioters shattered windows, smashed furniture, broke off the stairway banisters and discharged firearms. Cadet Richard B. Screven was particularly wild, shouting, breaking tables and brandishing a musket.
Seventy cadets were arrested for the mutiny, and detailed proceedings were held from January to March 1827. For his part, Davis was never brought up on serious charges. He had obeyed Captain Hitchcock’s order to repair to his room, and he remained there under arrest throughout the night. He testified during the trials, but as in the previous case, he worded his responses carefully to protect his friends. He was released from arrest on February 8, 1827. Scores of cadets were called as witnesses, including Davis’s friend Robert E. Lee, who of course was uninvolved. Of the seventy originally arrested, nineteen were sentenced to be expelled. Richard Screven was found guilty of disorderly but not mutinous conduct, and was likewise sentenced to dismissal, but because of his excellent character and “frank admission of his errors,” the court recommended remission of the sentence, and Screven was allowed to stay at West Point. President John Quincy Adams, who had followed the case, noted the painful duty of dismissing so many young men “from whom their country had a right to expect better things.” He hoped that the example would “not be lost upon the youths remaining at the Academy,” and that they would be “admonished to the observance of all their duties,” lest they bring similar shame onto themselves, their virtuous parents and their dearest friends.
Despite these brushes with authority and President Adams’ entreaties, Davis continued his forays to Benny Havens’, and one such outing almost cost him his life. He was at the tavern when someone warned that an officer was coming. Davis and Cadet Emile Laserre quickly ducked out a back way and scrambled back to the Academy along the cliffs above the river.6 At some point, Davis slipped and fell sixty feet towards the rocks below, but his fall was broken by a stunted tree, and he lay on the ground semiparalyzed. Laserre looked down over the embankment and called out, “Jeff, are you dead?” Davis wanted to laugh but was suffering too much to say much of anything. They made it back to post, Davis stumbling and with his hands cut severely. He was ill for weeks—close to death, his wife later wrote—and he acquired a limp that was with him for months after.
“The sole congenial soul in this God-forsaken place”
ANOTHER REGULAR DENIZEN OF Benny Havens’ who would also one day rise to prominence was Cadet Edgar Allan Poe.7 Compared with the average cadet, Poe was a remarkable oddity. He entered West Point a former sergeant major of artillery. He was a published though as yet little known poet, grandson of Quartermaster General Poe who fought in the Revolution, and a relative of General Winfield Scott’s, whom he claimed helped secure his appointment. Poe told his fellows romantic tales of his past: of running away from home and sailing to Europe in a coal ship on a Byronic quest to fight for the Greeks in their continuing war of independence from the Turks; being detained in St. Petersburg, Russia, for passport irregularities but being rescued by the American consul; spending time as a crewman on a whaling vessel; signing on to a merchantman and sailing to the Mediterranean; debarking in the East and touring Egypt and Arabia; living in London as a writer; being wounded in a sword duel over a lady’s honor in France; and publishing a fictionalized account of his adventures in French under the pseudonym Eugene Sue.
It would have been a marvelous story, if true. But Poe’s autobiography was largely a work of fiction. He had lived in England for five years as a boy, and the events in Russia may have happened to his brother, but the rest of his travels were pure invention. He had lied about his age to secure his appointment to the Academy—he was in fact almost twenty-two and beyond the legal age of admission. General Scott, whom Poe had never met before going to West Point, was uncle to the second wife of Poe’s adopted father, John Allan, a wealthy Richmond tobacco trader, and had no role in his appointment.
Poe did, however, serve in the Army from 1827 to 1829, and rose in rank from private to sergeant major in nineteen months. He was a disciplined worker and respected by his superiors. His immediate commander, Lieutenant John Howard, wrote favorably of Poe, stating that “his habits are good, and intirely free of drinking.” Armed with this and other recommendations, Poe sought an appointment to West Point shortly after the death of his stepmother Fanny in February 1829. His initial attempts met with failure, perhaps due to a particularly frosty testimonial from his stepfather, who mentioned Poe’s gambling habit at the University of Virginia—the debts he had accrued there having become a matter of some contention between them. A year later Poe came to the attention of Senator Powhatan Ellis of Mississippi, who was Mr. Allan’s business partner’s younger brother. Ellis wrote a letter of inquiry to Secretary of War John Eaton in March 1830, and Poe received his appointment within a few weeks. He was admitted as a member of the Class of 1834 on July 1, 1830.
When Poe arrived at West Point, he wrote his stepfather hopefully that while the discipline was strict and many new cadets failed, “I find that I will possess many advantages & shall endeavor to improve them.” After camp he was assigned to Old Barracks, room 28, with Thomas W. Gibson and one other roommate. Gibson wrote that “Poe at that time, though only about twenty years of age, had the appearance of being much older. He had a worn, weary, discontented look, not easily forgotten by those who were intimate with him.” One joke had it that Poe was actually the father of a cadet who had died and he had taken the appointment in his son’s stead; another, that he was a descendant of Benedict Arnold.
At USMA he was a popular composer of japes and songs, and was soon well known as a wit with an edge. Many of his verses made fun of faculty and students, and George W. Cullum wrote that “these verses were the sources of great merriment with us boys, who considered the author cracked, and the verses ridiculous doggerel.” One example skewered Lieutenant Joseph Locke, an 1828 grad and Tac who showed an inordinate interest in inspecting barracks for cadet misconduct:
John Locke was a very great name;
Joe Locke was a greater in short;
The former was well known to Fame,
The latter well known to Report.
Locke spent a great deal of time looking in on the irrepressible residents of Number 28. Poe had quickly discovered Benny Havens’ and by the fall of 1830 was a regular visitor. He described Old Ben as “the sole congenial soul in this God-forsaken place.” Poe and Gibson had established a contraband commissary of sorts, and their room became a storehouse for supplies procured at Benny’s, including food, spirits, and other necessaries. Gibson tells that “many a thirsty soul, with not enough of pluck to run the blockade himself, would steal into our room between tatoo and taps to try the merits of the last importation.”
On one such occasion, Poe showed that his sense of the macabre was not limited to his literary pursuits. One cold, wet November night, the brandy bottle empty, Poe and Gibson drew straws to see who would make the run to Benny’s. Gibson lost and loaded up with four pounds of candles and Poe’s last Mackinaw blanket for barter. He set out to the sound of the bugle calling to quarters. “It was a rough road to travel, but I knew every foot of it by night or day, and reached my place of destination in safety, but drenched to the skin.” Benny was in a bad mood for bargaining—he had accepted far too many barter items already and was overstocked with cadet candles and blankets. Gibson finally made a deal for a bottle of brandy and an old gander, which Benny obligingly decapitated for the journey back, a squawking fowl being an unacceptable security risk.
Gibson made it to post by nine o’clock, having sampled the brandy en route. His shirt, hands and face were streaked with blood from the bird, which he had carried slung over his shoulders. Poe met him outside, and upon seeing his friend’s grisly condition formulated a plan. They tied the bird up in a ball with feathers bristling, and Poe returned to the room, taking the brandy for safekeeping. Back in Number 28, Poe’s other roommate was sitting in a corner trying to study, and another cadet awaited Gibson’s return to share in the bounty. Poe said nothing but sat down and pretended to read. Moments later Gibson staggered into the room, covered in blood, empty-handed, seemingly drunk.
“My God! What