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Cadets dance at an Academy ?hop,? drawn by Winslow Homer in 1859. During the summer, the cadets enjoyed three such dances a week, with ladies. The hop managers that year included cadets Dodson Ramseur, Adelbert Ames, and Charles Edward Hazlett.
future.? In the weeks to come they refought the old battles and called up the young faces gone forever.
Three years later, when Custer?s command was cut off on the Little Big Horn, Rosser prepared to lead a volunteer force to the rescue. Before he could start, word came down the river that it was no use. But Rosser?s friendships did not end with life. To the end he defended Custer?s reputation.
The day came when Thomas Rosser even renewed his old friendship with the United States. At the outbreak of the Spanish-Amer-ican War he and two other former Confederate officers?Fitzhugh Lee, class of 1856, and Joseph Wheeler, class of 1859?thought it an excellent example of unity to lead their part of the country back into the blue fighting ranks. Rosser was 61 years old when he received the commission for which he had trained in his youth?brigadier general, United States Army.
?There were veterans down our way,? writes a native of Alabama, ?who were considerably shaken by the event. I remember one old fellow saying, ?I?m a Confederate, and a Christian, and I always aimed to live so right, so?s I?d
go to Heaven. But if them newspapers ain?t lyin?, an? this here is true, I ain?t so sure. Now I recon I?d ruther go to Hell an? see the Devil rip them blue coats of Tom Rosser and Fitz Lee!?
It was a short war in ?98. General Rosser soon returned to his plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia. He became postmaster of the city. His acres were secured by the money he had earned in his bitter western days right after the old war. He died in'1910 an honored and respected man, his children and grandchildren around him, his country unified, happy, and at peace.
Fates more terrible awaited some. Perhaps there were boys in gray who died in Union prison camps in the very state where they had gone to school. It is hard to trace these young southerners. Once a man had resigned, the old records usually cut off his career with the bitter words, ?Joined in the rebellion against the United States.? Occasionally, if he were killed while ?in rebellion,? that grim fact is noted. So died at Gettysburg William Westwood McCreery, class of 1860, known to his fellow cadets as ?Rip.? He died commanding the guns of a North Carolina battery on July 3.
The artillery seems to have been particularly unhealthy
10 CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES
WEST POINT MUSEUM COLLECTION