West Point was America's only engineering school until 1824
Founded to train army officers, West Point was for two decades the only place in the United States to study engineering. Its graduates laid out much of the young nation's first railways, bridges and harbours, and then led both sides of the Civil War, commanding in every one of its 60 major battles.
The site came first. The Continental Army occupied the high ground above an S-bend in the Hudson on 27 January 1778, making it the oldest continuously operating army post in the country. The Polish engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko oversaw early defences, and a great iron chain across the river kept the Royal Navy from splitting the northern colonies from the south. It was here that Benedict Arnold tried to hand the fort to the British, after which it was renamed Fort Clinton.
Alexander Hamilton drafted plans for an academy, and Thomas Jefferson signed the law creating it on 16 March 1802; classes began that 4 July. The early years were chaotic, with cadets aged anywhere from 10 to 37 staying six months or six years. Order arrived with Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent from 1817, who had studied at France's École polytechnique and imposed strict discipline, a set curriculum and a code of honour. Revered as the father of the academy, he built an engineering programme that shaped every American engineering school founded before the Civil War, and West Point stood alone in the field until Rensselaer opened in 1824.
The Mexican–American War first proved its graduates, 452 of the 523 who served winning promotions or awards, among them Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. In the Civil War 294 alumni became Union generals and 151 Confederate ones. Afterwards the academy struggled to reintegrate Southern cadets and to accept Black ones; Henry O. Flipper became the first Black graduate in 1877. The death of former cadet Oscar Booz in 1900 put hazing under congressional scrutiny, and Douglas MacArthur, who testified, later tried to stamp it out as superintendent.
The class of 1915, including Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, is called the class the stars fell on because 59 of its 164 members became generals. Women were first admitted in 1976 and now make up about a fifth of the roughly 1,300 cadets entering each July. The academy also claims the first accredited civil engineering programme and the first class rings of any American college.
Source: United States Military Academy
