d to present themselves to us as they appeared before
the public of their own day. The first part of the volume gives the
history of the place as it has been occupied for strategic purposes. The
second part is devoted to its history as the seat of the Military
Academy, a history which succeeds immediately to the former, and is
intimately connected with the history of our internal government from
its first organization under the Constitution to the present hour; so
that the history of the locality presents itself as a brilliantly
colored thread running through the warp of the national history. In the
composition of this portion, as of the other, the author has presented
his subject, not so much in his own narrative, as by a judicious
combination of extracts from documents and papers of original authority;
although his own observations, by way of connection and explanation, are
given in good taste, and indicate a candid judgment, founded upon a
manifestly loving, but still essentially impartial, observation. It
should be no wonder, if the graduates of the Academy, who continue their
connection with the army in mature years, should always regard the place
through a vista of memory and affection, shedding over it a brilliancy
to which others might be insensible. To most of them it has been as a
home,--to many, probably, the only home of their youth; and, in the
unsettled life of the soldier, we can conceive that to no other spot
would their recollections recur with like feeling. We believe, that, in
the society which gathers more or less permanently around the Academy,
the feeling of a home-circle towards its absent members follows the
graduates during their military service; and that they, on the other
hand, are always conscious of a peculiar observation exercised from the
place over their conduct; so that each one, during an honorable career,
may look forward to revisiting it, from time to time, as a place
associated by family-ties. This influence upon the individual graduate
must be a very powerful incentive. It must, in the nature of the case,
be unperceived by the public, but its value to the public will be
enhanced by the observation which they may extend to the Academy; and it
is eminently proper that such observation should be courted by the
Government, and by those who represent it on the spot; the opportunity
should be given to all, irrespectively of civil or military place, to
become acquainted with its general man