The Goats of West Point

April 6, 2006 2:38 AM

The Goats of West Point
”...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.”
A new book tells the story of Sergeant Major Edgar Allan Poe, Battery H (.pdf), First Artillery Washout, West Point, Class of 1834. And of other famous cadets.
posted by matteo (6 comments total)

Brilliant idea and I'm surprised no one's done it before.

There's a story about Whistler in some engineering class where he was told to draw a bridge. He did so, and added two small children looking over the water below. Told to get the children off the bridge, he put them on the bank of the river. Told to get them off the page entirely, he replaced them two small tombstones.

Clearly not cut out for army life.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:27 AM on April 6, 2006

[Jefferson] Davis further denied that the regulations even covered Benny Havens’, saying that it depends on what the definition of “public house” is.

Definitely presidential material!

Interesting subject. Not sure why the post focuses on Poe, though, since he and West Point played extremely minor roles in each other's lives.

Great Whistler story, IndigoJones. I love his quote "If silicon had been a gas, I would have been a major general."
posted by languagehat at 5:56 AM on April 6, 2006

I read "the ghosts of west point." Another good book idea, maybe starting with Poe.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:15 AM on April 6, 2006

I was expecting, you know, goats. But slackers are cool too. I can deal with slackers.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:54 AM on April 6, 2006

Not sure why the post focuses on Poe

because I like Poe more than I like Jeff Davis, and I'm also quite sure that non-USians are more interested in Poe than in Davis -- or, for that matter, in West Point.


he and West Point played extremely minor roles in each other's lives

poor William F. Hecker, among others, disagreed. Poe did write "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems" and "Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Second Edition" at West Point; and his prose tales started appearing in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier less than a year after he left West Point. I think that Poe's off-the-charts sad life story is interesting in so many ways that one is sometimes led to overlook those all-important early years in the military
posted by matteo at 7:07 AM on April 6, 2006

What? Oh. Never mind.
posted by toothgnip at 8:17 AM on April 6, 2006