Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1902-07-04
THE VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE.

1t was our privilege last week to wit
ness for the first time the closing exer-
cises of the Virginia Military Institute
and our experience was one of lasting
pleasure and profit. Having laid down
our arms in April 1865, as effectualIy as
did poor Ben Battle. but still retain
ing our legs, as Ben did not, we walked
in other paths and eschewed military
pageants and wars alarums. But it
has always been source of delight
that we were permitted to see the
cadets as they marched to New Market
In 1854, a few days later to write their
name where time nor tide cannot
efface it. On a wet April morning
they passed us, everything about them
damp, but their ardor. How they bore
themselves on that memorable day at
New Market others have told more
truthfully, more graphically than we
can. The Military Institute had at
tanned reputation of course, but never
uutil that gray line, in order, as If upon
dress parade, marched into the very
lannon's mouth, the gaps in it's ranks
made by grape and canister being
closed as if by magic; SO magnificent,
so superb, that the old Confederate
veterans-heroes of an hundred battles
forgot momentarily their part in
that drama; the enemy paused before
pulling the lanyard in amazement,
never having before beheld such
picture in the red panorama of war.
From that day when the West Point
OF the South received her baptism of
fire, has her name been the snyonyme
OF all that a soldier loves or citizen
hOnors. West Point has sent out her
Individual sons brave as the bravest,
to fight her country 3 battles, but West
Point has never sent her whole corps
as one man into the jaws of death,
where in a body their training. their
Valor and their every soldierly quality
might be tried, at one and the same
time. This test West Point will never
make, but this test the Virginia Mill
tary institute has made, and 1t was
satisfactory. Today the training, the
discipline, the soldierly bearing, the
esprit de corps are as high as then,
and should such demand be made on |
the men who today compose that |
battalion, as was made on those who
composed 1t in 1854, they would march
TO death and to fame as they did then,
faltering and without turn
ing. The army is fast filling with the
young men from this school, and while
they may have more difficulty in rising,
owing to the prejudice In favor of
West Point and the many advantages
cadets from that school possess in
'rmy circles, yet the youth of the
Virginia Military Institute have
school of arms not because
heir fathers had been in the army.
nor because of the prestige commits
hon may give,as does the West Pointer
n many cases, but because the bent
II their inclination turned them that
way, and under such exteriors we may
ook for the real soldier. This school
fast growing in favor, there is talk
II the National Government taking it |
lnder It's wing, but let that be as it I
nay, the advantages of the school as t
now stands are sufficient to insure !.
or 1t not only lasting but an in ,
reasing patronage, though it have no
Id but It's Individual merit, no fame 7
ut that it has with it's own hands
chieved. The next years. final will. !
7e think, mark the erection of a mon /
ment to those who fell either at New C
larket, Or in the civil war, when there 9
ill be gathering which will make y
lad the hearts of all true lovers of this g
Oy1c ~