32 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE NEW WEST POINT. 



By WILLIAM J. ROE, 



NEW YORK. 



"TN the year 1802, by act of Congress, the United States Military 

 -*- Academy was established at West Point on the Hudson Kiver. 

 The experience of Washington during the war of the revolution with 

 the militia of the several states and with raw volunteers was con- 

 vincing as to the necessity for a permanent military establishment, and 

 especially for the creation of a considerable body of officers sedulously 

 trained in the art of war. The sentiments of the people then, and for 

 many years after, were not favorable to the formation of a standing 

 army, and it was not until the many and serious reverses of the land 

 forces in the 'war of 1812' that any progress was made at West Point 

 in the way of educating officers for their country's service. In the 

 year 1817, — James Monroe being president and George Graham 

 of Virginia secretary of war, Sylvanus Thayer, of Massachusetts, be- 

 came superintendent of the academy, and at once began a system of 

 instruction and discipline so complete and admirable as to have been 

 maintained in almost the minutest detail to the present day. General 

 Thayer remained at the head of the academy until 1833. 



During the period between the close of the war with Great Britain 

 and 1846, the sole opportunity for the graduates of West Point to 

 prove their value was upon the frontier as it then was, the Rocky 

 Mountains and the 'Plains' in contest with hostile Indians. In 

 this sort of warfare there was more room for the display of the for- 

 ester's and trapper's craft and experience than for the exercise of 

 tactics or 'grand-strategy,' and the consequence was that again the 

 people grew impatient with the appropriations for the acad,3my'8 

 maintenance. By this time a numerous body of officers had been 

 graduated, and the idea of a thousand or more men with a life tenure 

 of office and something akin to 'special privilege' and European 

 exclusiveness did not find favor with either 'democrats' or 'republic- 

 ans. ' About this time it was in fact seriously contemplated to 

 abolish the academy altogether. It is more than probable that this 

 would have been done by congress, if at this juncture the Mexican war 

 had not suddenly burst upon the country. We have, it must be con- 

 fessed, but little to be proud of as to the origin of this war, or to the 

 aggressive and not wholly unscrupulous terms that were finally forced 

 upon Mexico; but the war accomplished at least one good result by 

 demonstrating the merit and necessity of trained leaders. With a 



