Feltan
Matrix Elite Guard

Posts: 1160
Joined: 12/5/2006 From: Kansas Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: William Amos Well VMI is an academy while West Point was the training spot for the entire US army. A bit of difference there. Not quite accurate. West Point is (and was) indeed a Federal institution for the training of regular Army officers. In pre-Civial War days, the Army was small and West Point filled the need quite well. VMI is a state institution. It provided officers for the Virginia Militia and guarded a strategic depot in the Shenendoah valley. At the time, the Virginia Militia was not that much smaller than the regular Army -- so too VMI filled the need quite well. Furthermore, due to this mission, VMI trained its students to be citizen-soldiers, not regular Army officers. The typical VMI grad of the time was gainfully employed as a lawyer, planter, doctor, merchant, engineer -- and a member of the Virginia Militia too. Much like our Army Reserve and National Guard operates today. VMI's first graduating class was in the early 1840's. So by the time the Civil War broke out, the oldest VMI grads were under 40. There were less than 1000 of them in 1861. They filled company and field grade officer billets in the Virginia Militia. VMI simply hadn't been around long enough, nor did it have the mission, to create generals for the regular Army. So, to what effect? Stonewall Jackson (a professor at VMI) raised the Stonewall Brigade in the Shenandoah valley. That unit, and many other units raised in Virginia, had a distinct advantage. The lower ranking officers in those brigades who were (early on) VMI grads actually had some idea of what they were doing. Compared to, say, a typical Union brigade whose company and field grade officers had no military experience or training whatsoever. During the war, VMI continued to produce young officers, but perhaps as importantly they were a training cadre for recruits in Richmond. In my opinion, much of the South's early victories in the east were due to a professional cadre of junior officers that knew their business. Jackson felt the same way. Prior to the battlefield at Chancellorsvilleon May 2, 1863, he was surrounded by former students and colleagues from his years at VMI; they were now his officers and comrades-in-arms. Overcome by emotion, Jackson said, "the Institute will be heard from today." Regards, Feltan (VMI graduate.)
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