The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-08-26
'cnAeD NoUy71.W WJT HaWT

~roint-Grnnt, Fitzhugh Lee, Sherman, Custer and
others-spent happy hours in Benny's retreat.
In 1888 Lieut.. Lucius O'Brien of the Eighth
United States Infantry paid a visit to Cadet Ripley
A Arnold, who was then Il first classman.
Arnold introduced O'Brien to Benny Ravens, a
warm friendship at once springing up between the
TWO. In the academy at this time were John
Thomas Metcalfe, who after graduation studied
medicine and became one of the foremost surgeons
in the country, and Irwin Mcdowell, who COM
manded the Union forces at the first battle of Bull
Run. Both Metcalfe and Mcdowell were great
friends of Benny.
Benny Ravens, Lieutenant O'Brien. Metcalfe and
Arnold together composed the original five verses
of the song Benny Ravens, Oh u and set it to the
tune of 1.-THE Wearing Of the Green" An obituary
notice of Doctor Metcalfe says: HE had an early
taste for versifying, and with skill at the guitar
and a good tenor voice, composed many a ditty
to pass away the idle time. 1t was thus that he
wrote the celebrated song Benny Ravens, Ohp
1t is not what would be called good poetry. Some
of it is crude. Today there are about so verses,
almost all of which were composed before Benny's
death in 1877. Glass after class added a verse. In
the waning years of Benny's life almost every
night the cadets sang them through, crowding
round Benny, with glasses full, while their host led
them with his fiddle and his low clear ~barytone.
This fiddle, by the way, is still in possession of an
old citizen of Highland Falls.
Come. fill your glasses, fellows, and stand UP in a row,
To To singing Se49fbI an were going for to go.
So we'll sing our "reminiscences OF Benny Ravens, OH
Soon came along the Mexican war to furnish in
SEPARATION to the cadet poets. Several verses
were added to the poem in commemorative of the
deeds of those whose gallantry carried the Amer
lean flag from Vera Cruz to the heights of Chnpul-
tepec, overlooking Montezuma's ancient capital
Two of these are:
Here's a health to General Taylor, whose rough and
Struck terror to the rancheros OF braggart Mexico
May his country meier forget his deeds and neer for
She holds him worthy of a place at Benny Ravens,
Oh!
To the 'veni, vidi. vici!' man to Scott. the greatest
Fill the goblet 10 the brim, let no one shrinking go.
May lfe's cares on his honored head fall light as flakes
of snow
md his lair fame be ever great at Resny Ravens, Oh!
The civil war saw stressful times at the Point
and the cadets turned their attention to sterner
things than poetry. The ranks of the corps were
thinned by the loss of the Southerners, who went
home to take up the cause of their respective
states. Many of those from the North and South,
who had been friends of Benny, fell on the field
of glory-Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, the
Wilderness and a hundred other places were
stained with the blood of West Pointers.
There was little gayety at Benny's during the
stern four years, for Benny was getting old and
the almost daily news of the loss of his former
friends on the battlefield robbed him of his old
time lightheartedness.
Some of the verses of the poem which were writ
ten just after the war are lost. There seems to
be only the following intact:
now.