Memoirs of General William T. Sherman | Page 5

fall and next spring, marking two
experimental lines, and for our work we each received a silver
half-dollar for each day's actual work, the first money any of us had
ever earned.
In June, 1835, one of our school-fellows, William Irvin, was appointed
a cadet to West Point, and, as it required sixteen years of age for
admission, I had to wait another year. During the autumn of 1835 and
spring of 1836 I devoted myself chiefly to mathematics and French,
which were known to be the chief requisites for admission to West
Point.
Some time in the spring of 1836 I received through Mr. Ewing, then at
Washington, from the Secretary of War, Mr. Poinsett, the letter of
appointment as a cadet, with a list of the articles of clothing necessary
to be taken along, all of which were liberally provided by Mrs. Ewing;
and with orders to report to Mr. Ewing, at Washington, by a certain
date, I left Lancaster about the 20th of May in the stage-coach for
Zanesville. There we transferred to the coaches of the Great National
Road, the highway of travel from the West to the East. The stages
generally travelled in gangs of from one to six coaches, each drawn by
four good horses, carrying nine passengers inside and three or four
outside.
In about three days, travelling day and night, we reached Frederick,
Maryland. There we were told that we could take rail-cars to Baltimore,
and thence to Washington; but there was also a two-horse hack ready to
start for Washington direct. Not having full faith in the novel and
dangerous railroad, I stuck to the coach, and in the night reached
Gadsby's Hotel in Washington City.
The next morning I hunted up Mr. Ewing, and found him boarding with
a mess of Senators at Mrs. Hill's, corner of Third and C Streets, and
transferred my trunk to the same place. I spent a week in Washington,

and think I saw more of the place in that time than I ever have since in
the many years of residence there. General Jackson was President, and
was at the zenith of his fame. I recall looking at him a full hour, one
morning, through the wood railing on Pennsylvania Avenue, as he
paced up and down the gravel walk on the north front of the White
House. He wore a cap and an overcoat so full that his form seemed
smaller than I had expected. I also recall the appearance of
Postmaster-General Amos Kendall, of Vice-President Van Buren,
Messrs. Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Cass, Silas Wright, etc.
In due time I took my departure for West Point with Cadets Belt and
Bronaugh. These were appointed cadets as from Ohio, although neither
had ever seen that State. But in those days there were fewer applicants
from Ohio than now, and near the close of the term the vacancies
unasked for were usually filled from applicants on the spot. Neither of
these parties, however, graduated, so the State of Ohio lost nothing. We
went to Baltimore by rail, there took a boat up to Havre de Grace, then
the rail to Wilmington, Delaware, and up the Delaware in a boat to
Philadelphia. I staid over in Philadelphia one day at the old Mansion
House, to visit the family of my brother-in-law, Mr. Reese. I found his
father a fine sample of the old merchant gentleman, in a good house in
Arch Street, with his accomplished daughters, who had been to Ohio,
and whom I had seen there. From Philadelphia we took boat to
Bordentown, rail to Amboy, and boat again to New York City, stopping
at the American Hotel. I staid a week in New York City, visiting my
uncle, Charles Hoyt, at his beautiful place on Brooklyn Heights, and
my uncle James, then living in White Street. My friend William Scott
was there, the young husband of my cousin, Louise Hoyt; a
neatly-dressed young fellow, who looked on me as an untamed animal
just caught in the far West--"fit food for gunpowder," and good for
nothing else.
About June 12th I embarked in the steamer Cornelius Vanderbilt for
West Point; registered in the office of Lieutenant C. F. Smith, Adjutant
of the Military Academy, as a new cadet of the class of 1836, and at
once became installed as the "plebe" of my fellow-townsman, William
Irvin, then entering his Third Class.
Colonel R. E. De Russy was Superintendent; Major John Fowle, Sixth
United States Infantry, Commandant. The principal Professors were:

Mahan, Engineering; Bartlett, Natural Philosophy; Bailey, Chemistry;
Church, Mathematics; Weir, Drawing; and Berard, French.
The routine of military training and of instruction was then fully
established, and has remained almost the same ever since. To give a
mere outline would swell this to an inconvenient size, and