Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-06-21
WEST POINT.
Scenes During the Cavalry
DrlIi-Rnnawt Horses, Broken
GIFths, aud the CadeIs' TenacItY.

DFAtl-huuhW ~ horses, Broken
GIrths, aud the cadets TenscIty.
WEST POINT, june IL" You
can't kill a cadet or a government
horSe," is proyerb at the Academy,
and it is founded upon the recollec-
tiOn of long list of escapes that
are truly marvellous. Another was
added to the list to-day, when the
graduating class was going through
the last of the drills. This was a
cavalry exhibition-school of the
company-under the direction of
Colonel Eugene B. Beaumont, the
present instructor in riding. The
weather was charming, the ground
was in splendid condition after the
rain Of yesterday, and a large mum
Der Of spectators had assembled to
witness the spectacle, which is gem
orally considered the most inter-
esting and exciting of military ex-
ercises. When the seventy-five
young men, in their neat uniforms,
with brass buttons glistening in the
sunlight, cleaning SabreS at their
hips and mounted upon spirited
and well groomed horses, drew up
in line in front Of the barracks, and
facing the hotel, a quarter Off mile
distant across the plain, they pre-
sented pretty picture.
After performing various tactical
notwithstanding right and
left, and forming and reforming
into companies and columns, and a
dozen figures known only to the
initiated ed-with a rapidity and de-
cision that indicated long training
under skillGul teachers, they were
again brought into line, and each
drew his sabre. A blast from the
trumpet and they set off across the
plain at a trot, the horses prancing
and neighing and the youthful rid
ers bounding first to the right and
then to the left, slashing the gravel
with their Sabres as they went, asif
striking at the PROSTATE foes. An
other call of the trumpet, and the
horses, as if moved by a common
mechanism, break into a gallop, and
the line, without q break, dashes
forward, the riders making the
gravel fly with increased rapidity.
Around each gray jacket, like fork
ed lightning, the cleaning sabre
plays, the horses warm up to their
work, and with foaming mouths and
distended nostrils, strive to escape
the curb, and the hills re-echo with
the mighty thud of their hoofs
mingling with the stirring noises of
the trumpet.
"My God.~ exclaimS a nervous
spectator, "they will dash right into
the river.
But no. Just before the elder
hedge, which with light rail di-
vides the plain from the lawn of
the hotel, ths shrill "Halt" Of the
bugle rises above the clangor, and
the horses are with difficulty reined
in. Turning about an order sends
the company charging back TO the
other side of the plain. A few
seconds TO give the horses breath
and once more the line whirls
across. 1t is hardly well under way
when the notes of the bugle ring
our, "Oharges as foragers," and
with a yell that would do credit to
a Comanche Indian, each rider digs
his heels into the foaming Aanks of
his steed, wildly brandishes his
weapon and thunders madly for
ward at the top Of his speed regard
less Of his fellows, as if pursuing a
routed enemy. The quality of the
horses now tells. Some springing
with the velocity Of an arrow re-
leased from the bow bear their riders
far in advance of the rest. Horses
aud men seem mad, Both catch
their breath, both dilate their nos
trils, and the flushed face of the
man corresponds to the foaming
mouth of the beast Us they wildly
dart across the field. Another hall
minute of this, and it will be i'm
possible to restrain them from going
over the heights into the river. But
u few yards from the hedge are they