Dartmouth's Laurelled Sons: Mighty Men of Old

By Michael J. Ellis and Eduardo E. Bertran | Thursday, April 3, 2003

Dartmouth men have always achieved great things, whether in business, academics, athletics, or civil service. Service to others has been a hallmark of the sons of Dartmouth for over two hundred years, so it comes as no surprise that Dartmouth has a long and rich history with the U.S. military, freely giving her sons to causes greater than themselves. The blood of Dartmouth men stains every major conflict the world has seen in modern history.

The War Between the States

The first war that had a major impact on Dartmouth was the Civil War, the great conflict tearing rifts between competing loyalties of all Americans. At the time, Dartmouth was a small school whose students were drawn heavily from New England, so the outbreak of war saw most line up behind the Union. But just as the nation was divided, so too was the campus. Forty-four Dartmouth men returned south to fight for the Confederacy, as opposed to 652 who rallied to the Union colors. Of those, a full third—220—were from the Medical School, as doctors were in high demand.

The majority of the remaining service records reflect the inherent Northern bias of the College; far less is known about Dartmouth's Rebels, those valiant few who shirked their Yankee education to defend their homeland. Nevertheless, in a notable display of equity, the memorial in Webster Hall for the 73 Dartmouth men who fell in 'the War for the Preservation of the Union' includes the names of the 10 who died fighting for the Confederacy—although they surely would have preferred to be enshrined in a memorial commemorating the 'War of Northern Aggression.' The list of battles in which they were killed reads like an atlas of the Civil War: Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Atlanta, and Andersonville, just to name a few. Proportionally, the College vastly contributed to the Union war effort, sending more to battle than any other school of similar size. Furthermore, the number of casualties suffered was immense. Eleven of 100 from the Class of 1863 lost their lives—a full ten percent.

In 1862, students organized a cavalry company, appropriately dubbed the 'College Cavaliers.' During the summer, they rode with the Rhode Island Volunteer Cavalry in Virginia, before returning to bucolic Hanover for fall classes.
Controversy erupted shortly thereafter when the polarizing issue of slavery came to a head. Nathan Lord, who had served as President of the College since 1828, advocated slavery despite hailing from Maine. A deeply religious man, who had previously been a Congregationalist minister, he felt slavery was biblically sanctioned. In one of his numerous sermons, he explained that 'slavery was incorporated into the civil institutions of Moses; it was recognized accordingly by Christ and his apostles. They condemned all intermeddlers with it.' There was initially no outward conflict between President Lord and the strongly anti-slavery students, faculty, town, and Trustees, but by 1863 the situation became untenable. Professor Jere Daniell, the de facto College historian, recounted that Amos Tuck, a trustee of the College and ardent supporter of the Union, created a controversy to purposefully entangle President Lord. Tuck proposed inviting Abraham Lincoln to receive an honorary degree, knowing Lord would reject the idea on principle. Tuck even rigged the Trustees' vote to be a tie, so Lord would be forced to take a public stand. Lord did not fail his convictions, and his decision elicited the expected storm of outrage; the Trustees promptly forced his removal.

Not willing to step down under duress of force, Lord resigned the day before the decision took hold. He was succeeded by a more politically palpable man—the abolitionist Asa Dodge Smith.

World War I

Dartmouth students greeted America's entry into the First World War enthusiastically; by 1918, all but 25 students volunteered for the Student Army Training Corps, officially becoming Privates training for war in addition to their normal academic and social duties. Students dug elaborate trenches, replete with barbwire and sandbags, on the grounds where Memorial Field now stands. They were even flooded on several occasions to provide realistic training environments for the burgeoning Dartmouth troops. Clad in army khakis, students followed strict military regimens from dawn to dusk.

Staffed by students, and furnished by College expensed ambulances, the only 'Dartmouth' unit to serve was an army medical unit serving the American Field Service in France.

Dartmouth sent over 3400 men from Classes 1883 to 1922 into World War I. One hundred and twelve did not return, but their names remain on the solemn granite tablet resting in an archway of Memorial Field.

World War II

In stark opposition to the 'Great War,' the majority of Dartmouth students and faculty opposed America's intervention in the Second World War. Over 70% of students expressed a preference for the isolationist Wendell Willkie in his 1940 campaign against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, however, shook Dartmouth students from their utopian isolationism; the 1942 Winter Carnival was cancelled, student enrollment dropped precipitously as men enlisted, and the town even practiced blackout drills. One such drill in March of 1942 was interrupted by fireworks set off by residents of North Mass hall, landing them in the poor graces of Hanover Police.

That July, the College was essentially taken over by the US Navy, becoming a central site for the V-7 and V-12 programs, early predecessors of ROTC. Civilian student enrollment fell to 800 per class, while the Navy pumped approximately 2,000 men into Dartmouth's V-12 program, creating a campus resembling a military base more than a college. Navy trainees occupied Butterfield, Russell Sage, Lord, Gile, Streeter, Hitchcock, and Massachusetts Row dormitories, and Marines laid claim to New Hampshire, Topliff, and South Fayerweather. The College officially adapted Naval time, and the bells of Baker Library rang the hours of the watch. Since all the apprentice seamen were required to take physics courses in addition to a normal course load and military training, the College had many humanities professors teach physics as a part of the war effort. President Ernest Martin Hopkins found himself hard-pressed to maintain Dartmouth as a liberal arts institution amidst the bustling military presence.

There were even enough Dartmouth men versed in skiing and snow shoeing for a detachment that would later become part of the Army's 10th Mountain Division stationed in the mountains of Italy. The individual accounts of Dartmouth men serving in combat are varied and voluminous—they found themselves and their fellow classmates in the jungles of Guadalcanal, and, according to a 1943 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 'in the pubs of London, in freezing Quonoset huts in the Aleutians, on the busy decks of massive gray carriers. They would come to know the sights and sounds of kamikaze and the shattering burst of Browning Automatic Rifles. They would bellow 'Dartmouth's In Town Again' in cafés of the Montmartre, and pray to Michael the Archangel as they were dropped across the Rhine. And some would shout 'wah-hoo-wah' on the intercom, 18,000 feet above the Ruhr valley.'

The stoic manner in which they fought seems antiquated today, anachronistic after the era of draft-dodging and anti-war protests. Charles 'Stubbie' Pearson '42, served as his class's valedictorian, and later as a Navy dive-bomber pilot in the Pacific. In his valedictory address, he said 'this is a war for the future. Man must replace the importance of material gain. We must humanize ourselves. Man is man and that is all that is important...Do not feel sorry for us. We are not sorry for ourselves. Today we are happy. We have a duty to perform and we are proud to perform it.' Pearson's name can be found today with those other brave souls immortalized in the courtyard outside the Hopkins Center.

Over 11,000 Dartmouth students and alumni served in the war. Three hundred and ten men spanning 31 classes, Charles Pearson among them, never returned from Europe and the Pacific.

Interlude

Dartmouth and the military enjoyed a honeymoon after the end of the Second World War.The G.I. Bill, whose original intent was to prevent serious unemployment, unrest, and dissatisfaction among veterans profoundly altered Hanover. Immediately after the war only about 10% of students were strictly civilian, according to Professor Daniell.Veterans, armed service men, and their families converged on campus, giving 'Camp Dartmouth' an entirely different meaning.Barracks were even built on what are now Hanover High athletic fields to accommodate the surging population.

President Hopkins was an instrumental figure in the initiation of ROTC programs; he believed Dartmouth students were the best men to make soldiers and that a liberal arts institution could produce well-rounded, intelligent soldiers.

When classes resumed, however, there was a noticeable rift between those who had served and those who had not. Most considered school traditions like the freshman tug-of-war childish, and freshman no longer followed the hallowed practice of wearing distinguishing beanies. Drinking on campus increased, but so did tolerance.The transformation of young men to seasoned veterans marked the following years, but it was one of the last times the College willingly accommodated the military.

Eventually the numerous military programs waned, and ROTC remained as a lone stalwart. And so, like the G.I. Bill, ROTC helped pay tuition and other expenses for as many as 300-400 men per class. Military holidays such as Armed Forces Day and other national holidays were commemorated with massive marches around the Green and throughout town, where over 1200 hundred proud Dartmouth men in uniform displayed patriotism and loyalty to the United States.

The Korean War

Hopkins' successor, President John Sloan Dickey, was an adamant proponent of extending knowledge beyond the Upper Valley and into a new world.His experiences in the international realm and belief that 'the world's problems are your problems' led to a newfound emphasis on issues beyond Hanover. It thus comes as no surprise that during the 1950 Commencement exercises on the Green the valedictorian's speech was one that epitomized the mood and sentiment of worldly obligation felt by members of the graduating class, many veterans of WWII.Bob Kilmarx told his classmates that they had a chance to rid the world of evil, to live 'in a new kind of future-—a future unclouded by war.'Two weeks later, North Korea invaded its neighbor to the south and Dartmouth once again sent her sons to foreign soils.

The Korean War did not have the vindictive cause of the Second World War or the moral problems of the forthcoming Vietnam War.It was a war that lay somewhere in the middle, and military service was seen not only as a duty, but a chance to grapple at the world's evils with distinguished pride.And so Korea was met with enthusiasm.The Alumni Magazine details the 'rush to sign up, even among those who weren't good at machinery or had to memorize the eye chart to get into Officer Candidate School.'Those that served in the Korean War ranged from the Class of 1913 to young graduates from the Class of 1952. Twelve sons of Dartmouth were killed in the 'forgotten' war.They are commemorated on the same memorial as the WWII dead.

The Vietnam War

Still under the guidance of President Dickey, the College left the Korean War behind her and came to grips with one of America's most controversial wars.The Vietnam War marked a pronounced shift in public sentiment, especially as the draft called Dartmouth men to Asia.Twenty-one died in combat, but their memorial is one of torn sentiment, a joint gift from the classes of 1958, 1968, and 1978. It has a singular purpose: 'to honor the twenty-one Dartmouth men listed on its plaque, not to celebrate either the war in which they died or the name of the country in whose armed forces they fought.' Vietnam still lingered in many minds as a tragedy that had no clear purpose, and no clear winner.This impression would affect Dartmouth for the next thirty years.

Vietnam caused a backlash against the military and authority, especially on college campuses.Dartmouth students and faculty spent the better part of the 1960's protesting. Activist groups including anti-war, black power, and student power groups organized and held rallies, sit-ins, and protests; the student government was disbanded and left impotent. 'Basically it was painful to Dickey because an awful lot of what he had mantled—what he had built up—was being systematically dismantled by students,' said Prof. Daniell, who conducted lengthy interviews with Dickey before his death in 1991. ''Authority sucks' was the language, and that was painful.'

While student's anti-authority notions were directed at Dickey and the administration, anti-military sentiment was directed at those students who, despite immense pressure, acted contrary to popular campus sentimentand donned the United States military uniform. These were members of the ROTC program on campus. Students in uniform drilling and marching throughout campus obviously upset the increasingly liberal students and faculty. The climax came during Dickey's last full year as president when the anti-war group Students for a Democratic Society threatened to take over Parkhurst Hall unless the College eliminated Dartmouth's ROTC program.In May 1969, 75 students and at leasta two faculty members seized Parkhurst and forced administrators to leave. Dickey left on his own after yelling, 'Get out of my way!' to protesting students. The leader of the group, John Spritzler '68, still holds his anti-military ideals, including the firm belief that 'the whole U.S. Army should be abolished.'
ROTC

This was not the end of ROTC's woes.The program saw a significant decline in numbers, funds, and ultimately prestige.The anti-military faculty fought and was successful in its attempts to rid the college of ROTC; by the early 1970s, it was completely abolished from Dartmouth's campus.

In the 1980s, College President David MacLaughlin enraged the faculty by reviving ROTC, on orders from the Trustees. What once was a cauldron producing some of the best soldiers became a cross-enrollment program with Norwich University due to paltry numbers.Even during the 1990s, College President James O. Freedman, along with a near unanimity of the faculty, fought to eliminate the ROTC program, now deemed anti-gay. The Board of Trustees, however, sided with the military, stating that although the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy was discriminatory it was a step in the right direction.

Today the ROTC program is a shell of what it once was, inconspicuous and lagging. But it has survived the test of time and the onslaught of various enemies. Regardless of current political whims, there are always Dartmouth students like Michael Golden '03, a proud ROTC member, willing to serve the United States. Golden feels 'part of something with great tradition and pride,' and believes that the United States has a 'moral obligation to remove a regime from power that perpetrates genocide against its own citizens.'

The Annals of the Dead

When asked if he had any advice for members of the graduating class of 2003, Korean War veteran Howie Weston, Class of 1950, said, 'Don't count on anything. This week's world won't be next week's world. Keep an open mind. And if you get the chance to go into the military, don't dread it. Take it. Have fun. It was better than I ever expected.'

The annals of Dartmouth's war dead are engraved upon granite and bronze monuments scattered about campus, tucked in inconspicuous corners. They are but echoes of the young men long dead, but their indelible sacrifice is carved on the face of every man, woman, and child that walks by with nary a glance or thought to those cold, lifeless names staring back. They may be dead, their lifeblood spilt on foreign lands by foreign soldiers, but their legacy remains, a testament to the virtues for which they fought, and the freedom everyone inherited from their demise on native and foreign soils.

Dartmouth's Laurelled Sons: Mighty Men of Old

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