Sergeant Major Edgar Allan Poe

Battery H, First Artillery

Washout, Class of 1834

When Edgar Allan Poe arrived at West Point he wrote his stepfather hopefully that while the discipline was strict and many new cadets failed, “I find that I will possess many advantages & shall endeavor to improve them.” After camp he was assigned to Old Barracks, Room 28, with Thomas W. Gibson and one other roommate. Gibson wrote that “Poe at that time, though only about twenty years of age, had the appearance of being much older. He had a worn, weary, discontented look, not easily forgotten by those who were intimate with him.” One joke had it that Poe was actually the father of a Cadet who had died and he had taken the appointment in his son’s stead. Another, that he was a descendant of Benedict Arnold.

Poe’s humorous rhymes, mischievous nature and access to contraband made him a favorite among the Corps, but few took him very seriously as a student. David E. Hale, a yearling, wrote that Poe "is thought a fellow of talent here but he is too mad a poet to like mathematics." Gibson recorded that Poe “utterly ignored” his studies. George W. Cullum called Poe a “slovenly, heedless boy, very erratic, inclined to dissipation, and, of course, preferred making verses to solving equations.” But Poe’s peers underrated him. He may have been eccentric, whimsical, and ill disciplined, but academically Poe was in the first section. At the board meeting of January 4, 1831, he placed seventeenth out of eighty-seven Cadets in mathematics, and third in his class in French. By contrast, twenty-seven plebes were “found” that January and sent home. Poe might have looked forward to a successful stay at the Academy. Yet one month later, he was brought up on multiple charges of “gross neglect of all duty” and “disobedience of orders.” Poe pled guilty to most of them, and was dismissed. He left West Point on February 19 and headed for New York with a terrible cold, no overcoat, and twelve cents in his pocket.

Please send comments to Author@LastInTheirClass.com