The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-08-26

Wherever Duty called they went, their steps were
with Alma Mater on their lips. and Benny Ravens.
Benny Havens, Orr is the epic of West Point.
1t is a story in song, the story of West Pointers
and their sacrifices for duty, honor, West Point
and country.
This old academy of West Point, laid out on a
rugged shelf overlooking the majestic sweep of the
Hudson, has many priced traditions, unsullied, in
alienable, but none more sacred to her sons Than
that of Benny Ravens. Go to Cullum Memorial
hall at West Point and read in imperishable let
tiers of bronze the story of her sons. She has seen
them march out of her sallyports singing Benny
Ravens, Obi ~ and seen them brought back while
minute guns were echoing among the granite hills
that surround her. The history of West Point is
closely interviewer with that of our country; West
Pointers have written bright pages in the annals
of the land.
Their blood has watered Western plains and Northern
Has stained sierras highest peaks. where piercing
Has dyed deep red the Everglades. and deeper still.
The sacred Montezuma shades and walls of Mexico.
Wherever duty has summoned them West Ioint-
ers have carried Benny Ravens, Ohp
The story of Benny Ravens is almost as old as
that OF the academy itself. Many, many years ago,
in 1924 to be precise, Benny Ravens took up his
residence on the southern border of what then
constituted the post of West Point. Almost i'm
mediately he and the cadets became friends.
He was a genial soul, generous, and of good COM
pany and an inimitable spinner of yarns, and he
invariably piled his visitors with buckwheat cakes
and maple strip. Soon his refreshments acquired
such fame that cadets often slipped away from
their duties and made their way to Benny's retreat,
where they found oblivion for their disciplinary
woes. Almost every night after taps saw half a
dozen daring cadets, who should have been In bed,
gathered around Benny's b~ountiful table.
Only for a short time did Benny's fare contne
itself to buckwheat cakes and maple strip. Grog
and wine were added to the menu, an addition
whereby Benny's popularity increased tenfold.
About this time the West Point authorities, who
had previously shut their eyes to Benny's liberali-
ties, decided that the time had come to declare a
blockade on Benny in so far as cadets were con-
cerned, and consequently Benny's haven OF delight
became 'off limits for the future generals and
punishment was melted out by those caught run
ming the blockade. Jefferson Davis, afterward
president of the Confederate states, had the dis
tinction of being among the first batch of cadets
cOurt-martialed for midnight revels at Benny
Havens'.
Benny was warned that his generosity to cadets
was demoralizing to discipline and that unless he
called a halt summary proceedings would result
He was unable to refuse those few cadets who
iran 1t out" to his home and finally he was expelled
from the post shortly after 1929. taking up his abode
at the base of a high cliff near the rivers edge
about a mile below West Point. Here he lived in
a small frame house until his death in 1877 at the
age OF ninety. He was buried in Union cemetery,
about midway between Highland Falls and Fort
Montgomery on the West Point road.
Many men who rose to fame after leaving West