Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1916-08-25
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Point-Grant Fitzhugh Lee, Sherman Custer and
others-spent happy hours in Bennys retreat.
In 1888 Lieut.. Lucius O'Brien of the Eighth
United States infantry paid a visit to Cadet Ripley
A. Arnold, who then first classman
Arnold introduced O'Bren to Benny Ravens,
, warm friendship at once springng up between the
two In the academy at this time 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 Havens Lieutenant O'Brien, Metcalfe and
Arnold together composed the original five verses
of the song Benny Ravens, Obi! and set it to the
tune of ""rhe Wearing of the Green" An obituary
notice of Doctor Metcafe says: "He had an early
taste for versifyng, and with skill at the guitar
and a good tenor voice, composed many dltty
to pass away the idle time. It was thus that he
! wrote the celebrated song Benny Ravens, Oh?'
1t is not what would be called good poetry. Some
of it is crude. Today there about SO verses,
almost all of which were composed before Bennys
death in 1877 Glass after class added 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 your glasses fellows and on stand fnd up u in row.
Tn fhe army there's sobrety promotions very slow,
So we'll sing our "reminiscences of Benny Havens On!
Soon came along the Mexican war to furnish IN
spiration to the cadet poets. Several verses
were added to the poem in commemoration OF the
deeds of those whose gallantry carried the Amer
lean flag from Vera Cruz to the heights of Chapul-
tepec overlooking Montezuma's ancient capital
Two of these are:
Here's health to General Taylor, whose rough and
struck Terror to the rancheros of braggart Mexico
May country meier forget his deeds and ne FOR
she holds him worthy of place at Benny Havens.
Oh!
To the ..ven vidi, vici" man Scott the greatest
Fill the goblet to the brim, let no shrinking 60
May lfe's his honored head fall light as hakes
And his Fair fame great Benny 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
81 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 We're writ
fen lust after the lost. There seems to
be only the following intact:
To the arrny's brave commanders let glasses
flow,