Virginia Military Institute
600 pages, Illustrated & Indexed

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By Jennings C. Wise

Published 1915

Bonus - VMI-Its Building and Rebuilding
(details below)

On November 11, 1839 the Virginia Military Institute was founded on the site of the Lexington state arsenal, and the first Cadets
relieved personnel on duty.

Under Major General Francis Henney Smith, superintendent, and Colonel Claudius Crozet, president of the Board of Visitors, the Corps
was imbued with the discipline and the spirit for which it is famous. The first cadet to march a sentinel post was Private John Strange in 1839.
Except during the Civil War, there havebeen sentinels posted at VMI twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, during the school year,
since Strange's posting nearly 170 years ago.

The class of 1842 graduated 16 cadets. Living conditions were poor until 1850 when the cornerstone of the new barracks was laid. In 1851
Thomas "Stonewall"Jackson became a member of the faculty and professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. Under then-Major Jackson
and Major William Gilham,VMI infantry and artillery units were present at the execution by hanging of John Brown at Charles Town, Virginia
(now West Virginia) in 1859.

Jennings Cropper Wise, lawyer and army officer, was born on September 10, 1881 in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from the
Phillip Exeter Academy (New Hampshire) in 1882 and from the Virginia Military Institute in 1902. He subsequently received a law
degree from the University of Virginia.

Wise spent the majority of his career in the practice of law, primarily in private practice. He was associated with the firms of Pollard ,
Wise andChichester (Richmond, Virginia), and Munn, Anderson and Munn (Washington, DC). In addition, he taught at his alma mater,
the Virginia Military

Institute (1912-1915) and he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the AEF during World War I.

In 1915 he published this book on the history of his alma mater.

Following his retirement in 1954, he concentrated on researching and writing a book ultimately published under the title
Sunrise of the Virginia Military Institute as a School of Arms.. He died in 1968

                                                                                                                            CONTENTS

I. THE GENESIS OF THE VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE 24 
II. FOUNDING OF THE SECOND AMERICAN SCHOOL OF 
ARMS 86 
III. "THE WEST POINT OF THE SOUTH" AND MAJOR GIL- 
HAM 45 
IV. THE COMING OF JACKSON 68 
V. IN TIME OF PEACE PREPARE FOR WAR — GILHAM AND 
JACKSON 76 
VI. CHAIR OF STRATEGY CREATED — THE EXECUTION OF 
JOHN BROWN 99 
VII. MILITARY PREPARATION 114 
VIII. "DRAW THE SWORD AND THROW AWAY THE SCABBARD" 126 
IX. UNION SENTIMENT — MOBILIZATION — THE CORPS OF 
CADETS ENTERS THE SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERACY — 
CAMP LEE — "FIRST BLOOD OF THE WAR". . 184 
X. JACKSON AT HARPER'S FERRY AND MANASSAS 158 
XI. CADETS AT MANASSAS — IN MEMORIAM 165 
XII. THE WEST POINT OF THE CONFEDERACY 171 
XIII. WINTER OF 1862 — BATTLE OF McDowELL 184 
XIV. BACK TO WORK AGAIN — CHANCELLORSYILLE — "THE 
VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE WILL BE HEARD 
FROM TO-DAY" — THE BURIAL OF JACKSON 211

XV. THE SUMMER OF 1868  AVERELL'S FIRST RAID — A 
NEW SESSION AND NEW ARMS 288 
XVI. GETTYSBURG AND THE V. M. I. IN PICKETT'S CHARGE — 
LATIMER, "THE BOY MAJOR" 244 
XVII. THE FALL AND WINTER OF 1868 — AVERELL'S SECOND 
RAID — A NEAR BATTLE 252 
XVIII. AVERELL'S THIRD RAID — CADETS CALLED OUT AGAIN — 
A WEEK OF SEVERE FIELD SERVICE 264 
XIX. FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS 276 
XX. BRECKINRIDGE ORDERS OUT THE CORPS — THE MARCH 
DOWN THE VALLEY 284 
XXI. THE BATTLE OF NEW MARKET, MAY 15, 1864 808 
XXII. THE CHARGE OF THE CADETS 815 
XXIII. VICTORY AND LAURELS — RICHMOND AGAIN AND BACK 
TO LEXINGTON 888 
XXIV. HUNTER'S RAID — DESTRUCTION OF THE INSTITUTE — 
IN THE TRENCHES AT LYNCHBURG — FURLOUGHED 852 
XXV. INSTITUTE REOPENED IN RICHMOND — ON THE LINES —
THE NEW ALMSHOUSE — IN THE TRENCHES AGAIN 881 
XXVI. 1865— IN THE TRENCHES AGAIN — "SAUVE Qui 
PEUT" 406 
APPENDIX 421 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Bonus - VMI-Its Building and Rebuilding
295 pages
By Maj. Gen. Francis H. Smith, Published 1912
 
"When I commenced writing the following pages, my design was to prepare, for the use and benefit of my children, 
some appropriate sketch of my own public life...
But as I progressed in this work, my personality was soon lost in the transcendently more important history of the 
Virginia Military Institute. Its rise, progress, and development, the distinctive mission for which it seemed to be providentially
 prepared and adapted, the many difficulties by which it had been surrounded, its early struggles amidst the strongest and most
 bitter prejudice and opposition, the exacting duties and sacrifices to which its alumni were called during four years of 
Civil War, its total destruction by the torch of the invader, its restoration from the ashes in more than its original proportions
 and usefulness,—all these were subjects not only worthy of preservation as an important part of the educational history of 
Virginia, but demanding the faithful labors of the historian, as due to the distinguished gentlemen who, from time to time, 
as members of the Board of Visitors, had directed and controlled its destiny, to the faithful men who were called by them to 
serve as professors and officers in the various departments of the institution, and to the long roll of alumni who, as sons 
of the Virginia Military Institute, have been all the time its crown and its glory."