Part 29 (2/2)
”General Sherman, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.: ”I appreciate the importance of the superintendency of the academy, and the compliment paid me by the President, Secretary of War, and yourself in desiring me to accept it. Under the circ.u.mstances I cannot decline... .
”J. M. Schofield, Major-General.”
”(Telegram.) ”Headquarters of the Army, ”Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., March 30, 1876.
”General J. M. Schofield, San Francisco, California.
”Despatch received, and am much pleased; think you could add new l.u.s.ter to the old academy. It has always needed a head with rank and experience, and now I am sure that the whole country will be satisfied... . I am not yet resolved on my own course of action, but will be governed by events to occur in this week.
”W. T. Sherman, General.”
SUPERINTENDENT AT WEST POINT
”Headquarters Mil. Div. of the Pacific, ”San Francisco, Cal., March 30, 1876.
”General Sherman, etc., Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.
”My dear General: I was not taken entirely by surprise by your despatch relative to the West Point superintendency. General Grant mentioned the subject to me soon after the war, and army officers since that time have spoken of it often enough to keep me in mind of the fact that I might some time be called upon to a.s.sume that responsibility. Yet it is with a strong feeling of reluctance that I have brought myself to regard it as a thing to be done. This feeling results from several causes, which I desire to explain to you, while I know you will give me credit for a desire to do what appears best for the public service, and satisfactory to all concerned, without too much concern for my own personal preference.
”In the first place, I have no little doubt of the possession of any special fitness for that position, and have pretty strong appreciation of its difficulties and importance. I do not feel at all confident that the flattering expectations of my friends will be realized from my management of the academy.
”I have been there enough to know pretty well how difficult a post that of superintendent is, and how varied the good qualities a man ought to possess to fit him in all respects for it.
”Rank and reputation will of course be of some a.s.sistance, but their good effect will be greatly impaired without the dignity of command belonging to them. To transfer an officer of rank from a high command and post of great responsibility and trust to one heretofore regarded as appropriate to an inferior grade, may be regarded as elevating the dignity of the new command, but looks much more like degrading the officer, and to that extent impairs the good effect desired to be produced. Besides, it is impossible for any officer not to feel that in taking such inferior command, although it is even for the avowed purpose of raising its dignity, that he is stooping to do so. Especially must both these effects be produced when the a.s.signment is only an executive act. If it was done in pursuance of law, the case would be materially different... .
”We were all delighted at the news of your return to Was.h.i.+ngton and the prospect of your restoration to the proper duties and authority of general of the army; and I sincerely hope the events to occur this week, alluded to in your telegram to-day, may be such as to justify you in taking the course universally desired by the army. We want our general where he can best look after all the interests of the military service, with power to command the army in fact as well as in name.
”I have read with the greatest pleasure your capital speech to the Knights of St. Patrick.
”Please present my respectful compliments to the Secretary of War, and my kindest regards to the President.
”I am, dear General, as ever, truly yours, ”J. M. Schofield.”
During the Civil War the demand for the services in the field of the most capable officers had, as was generally understood, been prejudicial to the interests of the military academy; and this continued some time after the close of the war, in consequence of the unusual increase in rank of those officers who were known to be fitted in all respects for the head of that inst.i.tution. This difficulty was increased by the very unreasonable notion that because the law had opened the academy to the line of the army, the superintendent must necessarily be taken from the line, and not from the corps of engineers, although the latter contained many officers of appropriate rank who had then added to their high scientific ability and attainments distinguished services in the field. Even in the line, officers were not wanting of appropriate rank, character, ability, education, and experience to qualify them for the duties of superintendent. For example, my immediate predecessor, Major-General Thomas H. Ruger, then a colonel of infantry, was in all respects highly qualified for that office; and when I relived him I found the academy in about the same state of efficiency which had characterized it before the war. There was, in fact, at that time little, if any, foundation for the a.s.sumption that the interests of the military academy required the a.s.signment of any officer of higher rank than colonel to duty as superintendent of the academy. Of course I did not know this before I went there, and it was a matter for the judgment of my superiors, whose duty, and not mine, it was to know the facts.
ULTERIOR REASONS FOR THE APPOINTMENT
But General Sherman had other reasons, some of them very cogent in his own estimation at least, for desiring my presence somewhere in the Eastern States; and the West Point ”detail” was the only way in which that could be readily brought about. He had just been restored, or was about to be, to the actual command of the army, after having been practically suspended from command a long time because of his differences with the Secretary of War. He desired especially to bring the military academy under his command, and appears to have been a.s.sured of President Grant's support in that regard. General Sherman also wished me to revise the army regulations, so as to incorporate the theory of relation between the administration and the command which he and General Grant had maintained as the true one, but which had generally, if not always, been opposed by the Secretaries of War and by the chiefs of staff departments. These were doubtless the princ.i.p.al reasons for General Sherman's anxiety to have me accept the a.s.signment to West Point. But very soon after my arrival in the East I found that I was also expected to preside over a board of review in the case of General Fitz-John Porter and in that of Surgeon-General William A. Hammond; and that my junior in rank, Major-General Irvin McDowell, could not be given a command appropriate to his rank unless it was the division which I had consented to vacate. Of course I could not but feel complimented by this indication that my superiors thought me capable of doing well so many things at once, nor yet could I fail to see that, after all, my care of West Point had not been considered of so vital importance, since it would not interfere with the all-important revision of the army regulations, and the retrial of Porter and Hammond.
But I had given my consent, though under erroneous impressions as to reasons and necessity, to what my superiors desired, and hence determined to keep my thoughts to myself so long as the promises made by General Sherman were fulfilled. But I had hardly got settled in the academic chair before I received a great affront from the Secretary of War, through the adjutant-general of the army, in direct violation of General Sherman's promise that I should ”be subject to no supervision except by the usual board of visitors and the general commanding the army.” This offensive action arose not simply from ignorance of General Sherman's promise, of which the adjutant-general and the Secretary of War had evidently not been informed, but from culpable ignorance of the academic regulations on the part of the adjutant-general, and still more culpable disregard of the invariable rule of courtesy enjoined by military law among military men. With no little difficulty I restrained my indignation so far as to write a calm and respectful letter to the Secretary of War, inclosing a copy of my correspondence with General Sherman respecting my command at West Point, and pointing out the regulation which he or the adjutant-general had ignored, and requesting him to submit the whole matter to the President. It is due to the Honorable Secretary, and is a pleasure to me, to say that he did not wait the slow course of the mail, but telegraphed me at once that it was all a mistake, and that he made all the amend that a gentleman could make under the circ.u.mstances. He as well as I had been made the victim of the ignorance and discourtesy of a staff officer, in a matter about which the Secretary of War could of necessity know nothing unless the staff officer informed him. But I was determined to guard against any such outrage in the future, and hence insisted that West Point be erected into a military department. By this means I would become ent.i.tled to the effective intervention and protection of the general of the army. This is the origin of that anomaly which must have puzzled many military men, namely, the ”Department of West Point.”
But I discovered in time that even this safeguard was by no means sufficient. I had some apprehension on this subject at the start, and telegraphed General Sherman about it; but his answer of May 25 was accepted as sufficiently rea.s.suring. Indeed it could hardly have been imagined that a President of the United States would disregard an honorable obligation incurred by his predecessor; but before I got through with that matter I was enlightened on that point.
CASE OF THE COLORED CADET WHITTAKER
In the spring of 1880 there arose great public excitement over the case of the one colored cadet then at West Point. This cadet, whose name was Whittaker, had twice been found deficient in studies, and recommended by the academic board for dismissal; but had been saved therefrom by me, in my perhaps too strong desire to give the young colored man all possible chance of ultimate success, however unwise his appointment to the military academy might have been. As was stated by me at the time, in my report of the case to the War Department, that second and unusual indulgence was based upon the fact that he was the only representative of his race then at the academy. Being again, for the third time, in danger of dismissal, that colored cadet, either by his own hands, or by others with his consent (of which he was finally convicted by a general court- martial), was bound hand and foot and mutilated in such manner as, while doing him no material injury, to create a suspicion of foul play on the part of other cadets. An official investigation by the commandant, Colonel Henry M. Lazelle, led him to the conclusion that the other cadets had no knowledge whatever of the outrage, and that the colored cadet himself was guilty. Not being fully satisfied with that conclusion, I appointed a court of inquiry to investigate the matter more thoroughly. The result of that investigation fully sustained the finding of Colonel Lazelle, that the colored cadet himself was the guilty person.
But those judicial conclusions did not suffice to allay the public clamor for protection to the recently emanc.i.p.ated negroes in the enjoyment of the privileges in the national inst.i.tutions for which they had not become either mentally or morally fitted. A presidential election was pending, and the colored vote and that in sympathy with it demanded a.s.surance of the hearty and effective support of the national administration. Nothing less than a radical change at West Point would satisfy that demand, and who could be a more appropriate victim to offer as a sacrifice to that Moloch than one who had already gone beyond the limits of duty, of justice, and of wisdom in his kind treatment of the colored cadet. It was decided in Was.h.i.+ngton that he, the over-kind superintendent himself, should be sacrificed to that partizan clamor before the coming election. Some rumor of this purpose had reached me, though it had been concealed from General Sherman, who a.s.sured me that no such purpose existed.
GENERAL TERRY'S FRIENDLY ATt.i.tUDE
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