West Pointless

We have seen previously that TFSmith likes West Point, to the extent of staffing the Union army with West Point graduates who happpened to be insane, or who publicly expressed regret that McClellan had not led a military coup to overthrow the Lincoln administration and rescind the Emancipation Proclamation. How far does this admiration for military education go? Let's find out.



TFSmith's love of West Point extends to noting in text the graduation year of every officer who went there. This habit is shared by no fewer than five of his fictional authors (Aaron Foreman, Geraldine J. Prokopowicz, Irene Musicant, Josephine Glatthaar, and Stephanie Sears). Strangely, none of their real-life counterparts (Amanda Foreman, Gerald Prokopowicz, Ivan Musicant, Joseph Glatthaar, and Stephen Sears) have this habit. This is presumably because they are all professional authors with editors, who informed them (if it was necessary) that constant sequences of parentheses make paragraphs awkward, repetitive and clunky:

The static forces were left under the overall command of Major General David Hunter (USMA, 1822), with Major General George C. Thomas (USMA, 1836) commanding general of the District Militia, in Washington, and Brigadier General Henry Brewerton (USMA, 1819) in Baltimore; the Annapolis defenses were under the command of Brigadier General Henry H. Lockwood (USMA, 1836).

The fort was under the direct command of Major William Austine, 47, (USMA-1838) an artillery officer who had been promoted twice for distinguished service in Mexico, studied gunnery in Europe, and taken command of the fort in 1861. His command included two regular batteries, B and H, of the 3rd Artillery, and Company K, of the 9th Infantry. The three regular companies were led by Capt. James Van Voast, 37, (USMA – 1852), with service in the infantry and artillery; Capt. George H. Elliot (USMA – 1855), an artilleryman and engineer who served as superintending engineer of the Defenses; and Capt. Joseph Stewart (USMA – 1842), an artillery officer who had served in Mexico. 

In command of the Washington defenses under Hunter was Thomas, an 1836 USMA graduate with 10 years of active service in the artillery. The four sector commanders included brigadier generals William R. Montgomery (USMA, 1825), an infantry officer who had earned two brevets in Mexico; Henry Prince, (USMA, 1835), another Mexican veteran, and also with two brevets; and colonels Joseph A. Haskin (USMA, 1839), an artilleryman with two brevets in Mexico, and Alexander C. H. Darne (USMA, 1841), a Maryland militia colonel and former brigade staff officer. 

TFSmith is also prepared to highlight where Union officers have alternative forms of military education. We are told, for instance, that Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles 'although not a naval officer, was a graduate of Norwich, the little military academy in Vermont that had become as well known in recent days as West Point and Annapolis.' One Union brigade commander is noted to be 'a graduate of the Prussian Military Academy at Potsdam'. Clearly, then, Union military education is an asset to be prized.

Needless to say, there are very few mentions of the professional education of British officers, and some of these messages suggest that TFSmith doesn't actually know how it worked. Take this comment from chapter 6, part 1:

“My dear Captain Morgan, let me say, General Paulet, Colonel MacDougall, and myself have little concern about the Americans, whatever their designation,” Lane Fox said. “MacDougall and I were both at the Staff College, and spent considerable time considering their capabilities;

Here's the problem: Lane Fox was never at the Staff College. Lane Fox spent less than six months at the Junior Department of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, which was for training junior officers before their first commission. Even before the Staff College was elevated into a separate institution in December 1857, it was the Senior Department of the Royal Military College. There is no indication whatseover that Lane Fox is supposed to be exaggerating his intellectual achievements, and so we must conclude that this is a failure in research on the part of TFSmith.

When TFSmith is not misunderstanding the structure of British military education, he is denigrating its achievements. For instance, take this comment from chapter 9, part 2, made by Garnet Wolseley:

Damnitall, Grant, can’t you read? This requisition was for fodder, not food … what the hell are we going to feed the horses, beef? Send a man to Staff College and this is what the Army gets back…

In reality, a British Staff College graduate was far more professionally qualified than the overwhelming majority of Union officers. He had at least three years service, and had placed in the top fifteen of a competitive examination which included military history, fortification, and military drawing. Moreover, British staff officers who had not been to the college were still expected to pass tests of professional competence, which varied depending on the role they would be fulfilling. The fact that TFSmith has one of these officers struggle to fill out basic forms shows not only his lack of knowledge, but his contempt for those who .

There were certainly a large number of British officers who did not have the benefit of even the Junior Department of the Royal Military College. However, this is because the demand for officers was so much greater in the British army. There were 1,098 officers in the Union army in 1861: there were 9,246 officers in the British army at the same time. It was only after its post-Bull Run expansion that the Union had similar staffing requirements as the British did in peacetime.

In fact, the British produced more national academy-educated officers than did the Union. Between 1802 and 1861, West Point graduated 1,966 cadets, or around 33 a year: between 1858 and 1860, classes ranged from 21 to 40 members. As of 1861, RMC Sandhurst took in 90 candidates a year and RMA Woolwich, which trained engineer and artillery officers, took in between 97 and 174. Moreover, other than the few British officers who took service in the Union army, and who TFSmith apparently believes would continue to serve, Britain had exclusive use of this larger pool Sandhurst graduates. On the other hand, the Union had already lost a sizeable contingent of its pre-war officers to the Confederacy.

You may be wondering why TFSmith does not use parenthetical notifications to show where a British officer is a Sandhurst graduate. There are presumably two reasons for this, the first being that it would require doing research into British officers - something which TFSmith has proved remarkably keen to avoid. Yet even a few minutes googling the names of those involved in the battles in Maine brought to light not just the fact that the following had gone to Sandhurst, but their years of attendance.

• Charles Hastings Doyle (1816-1819)
• Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar (1838-1841)
• AT Hemphill (1822-1826)
• AA Dalzell (1813-1817)
• Sir John Ewart (1835-8, ‘where he obtained special distinction’)
• Charles Ash Windham (1823-6)

There is a second reason that he does not note their education, and it is perhaps the more persuasive one. For TFSmith, the British army is a collection of untrained amateurs, too stupid to mutiny and too incompetent to recognise their own flaws. To acknowledge that the British had a system of professional military education- that it too produced talented officers who could be both brave and competent- would be almost impossible for him to do.