The Laurelled Sons of Dartmouth

By Michael C. Russell | Friday, October 21, 2005

Service is one of the oldest and proudest traditions of Dartmouth College. From Antietam to Khe Sanh, the sons of Dartmouth have proudly fought for their nation and continue to do so today.

The Civil War was the first war to have a major impact on the College, tearing both the nation and the college apart. Like most schools of the time, Dartmouth was a regional school that pulled most of its students from the North, however forty-four of her sons left to follow General Lee into battle for the South. This number is dwarfed by the six hundred and sixty-two men who joined the ranks of the Union army, representing thirty one classes from 1822 to 1863. Included in those who left for the army were two hundred and twenty-one who were trained at the medical school. Dartmouth has the distinction of having taught the first college undergraduate to enlist in the Union Army, Charles L. Douglas '62, and having the highest proportion of her students of any Northern school to fight for the Union.

The college enthusiastically supported the war effort, despite President Nathan Lord's pro-slavery tendencies. There were many groups formed on campus that performed military drill for students in those years leading up to the war, like the Dartmouth Zouaves. When the war began they readily enlisted, and it was those of the Class of '63 who formed the nucleus of the aptly named 'College Cavaliers,' a cavalry composed of college students from New England, including Dartmouth, Bowdoin and Norwich. It was the only company of its typed formed during the war and Dartmouth men energetically answered the call to join.

In battle the men of Dartmouth showed leadership and rose swiftly through the ranks. Four hundred and thirteen were commissioned officers by war's end. Of that number, twenty-two became generals in the Union Army and so a small Northern college provided one of every twenty Union generals. Not all the sons of Dartmouth returned from battle however, seventy-three fell on both sides of the conflict. The battles where they fell reflect the ubiquity of Dartmouth men, from Bull Run to the Wilderness they fought in service of the nation. Their names are enshrined on the bronze plaques that hang on the doors of Rauner library, a gift of the Class of 1863 in 1913. In an act that attests to the words of their alma mater, 'brother stands by brother,' the Class included the names of their rebel classmates who lost their lives.

One other casualty of the war was President Lord who became increasingly unpopular for his views on slavery and it's ordainment by God. Lord published an open letter in 1859 to other ministers trying to convince them of the biblical history of slavery, which did not strain relations with his students, but put him in a precarious position once the war began. Amos Tuck, the namesake of Dartmouth's business school, deviously maneuvered to remove Lord from his office. Tuck recommended that the college give an honorary degree to Abraham Lincoln, knowing that Lord would object on principle. Then Tuck, who served as a Trustee, rigged the election so that the vote would tie and force President Lord to take a public stance on the issue. After Lord � predictably � voiced his opposition to the proposal, outrage swept the campus and he was promptly removed from his office by the Board of Trustees.

Possibly in an effort to improve upon their ancestors' effort, Dartmouth's sons readily embraced the nationalist fervor of the Great War, as only 25 of the fifteen hundred students did not volunteer for the Students Army Training Corps. It became a common practice for those in S.A.T.C. to gather together in Webster Hall to sing patriotic songs. The faculty also contributed to the war effort, as 52 of them served in posts as diverse as retainer of the Department of State and Lieutenant in the Army's Ordnance Corps.

All counted, over 3,400 men from Classes 1883 � 1922 served in the First World War. Of these, one hundred and twelve paid the ultimate price and they are remembered on the granite memorial that stands in the main archway of Memorial Field.

The prelude to the next great conflict was far more conservative, as the campus was firmly against American intervention into Europe. This was reflected by a 1940 poll that showed 70 percent of students preferred Wendell Willkie, the isolationist opponent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the election of 1940, shocking College President Ernst M. Hopkins and as well as the nation. In stark contradiction to their progeny of the Vietnam War, the faculty voted 200-227 to send a letter to President Roosevelt calling for increased aid to the Allies. Impressions about the war began to change over time, though, due to this pressure from the faculty and President Hopkins on the student body.

On December 8, 1941, the Daily Dartmouth had only one complaint: that we might be forced to fight a "secondary-enemy" and not be able to concentrate our efforts on fighting fascism in Europe. President Hopkins changed the academic calendar for the Class of '42 by canceling the Winter Carnival and shortening the winter break so that the Class could graduate a month later on May 20th.

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. 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.

Dartmouth men, well known for their affinity for the outdoors, were well acquainted with skiing and became a part of the Army's 10th Mountain Division that fought in the Italian Alps.

The words of Class of 1943 valedictorian Charles Pearson elicit a feeling and manner that has been greatly lost. In his valedictory address he told the world, "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. Dartmouth, we thank you for what you done for us. Our new world is in our hands. We must not, we dare not fail." These words are archaic in the current era of moral relativism and rampant anti-Americanism, but it was this feeling of duty and service that sent Dartmouth to war.

Once more Dartmouth surpassed itself as over 11,000 students and alums fought for Democracy around the world. Dartmouth makes great men but not invincible ones, and three hundred and ten men from thirty-one classes fell in battle. Charles Pearson was among them; he and his classmates are now remembered in the Hopkins Center courtyard.

Over the course of the two world wars the College accrued a great deal of debt and was kept afloat mainly due to its participation in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. This solution was not unique to Dartmouth, many other small New English schools were financed by the ROTC including Middlebury, Norwich, and the University of Vermont. In fact if Dartmouth had not served as a Navy training base during the Second World War then the financial woes of drastically reduced enrollment could have bankrupted the College.

President Dickey presided over Dartmouth in the 1950's and shepherded in a new age for the school as both Navy and Air Force ROTC programs were added to the campus. Nearly forty percent of the students enrolled in the 1950's participated in one of the ROTC programs on campus and thirty percent of each senior class were commissioned at graduation. It was at this time of military pageantry that the site of cadets parading through the streets of Hanover was not a rare one.

However Dartmouth's honeymoon with the military was not destined to last as the social upheaval of the 1960s began to reach even the far flung woods of New Hampshire. The Students for a Democratic Society established an organization on campus in 1967 and began distributing propaganda pieces to the student body as well as pressuring the College to sever ties with the ROTC Chinese Professor Jonathan Mirsky would lead students in a black-arm-band protest of the ROTC as both the faculty and students lined up against the program.

The Students for a Democratic Society, SDS, were the most vocal group on campus against the ROTC and would accept nothing less than an absolute separation between the College and the military. One of the leaders of SDS, Joseph Benemo Class of '68, wrote in one of his memorandum that Dartmouth College, "exists to serve the corporate structure of America by training businessman and future capitalist leaders" which is therefore "not a neutral institution at all." The organization demanded that there be no dialogue with the military, that the College unilaterally expel it from campus.

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 sentiment and 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 least 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."

This was to mark the beginning of the end of the ROTC as the faculty voted to remove the ROTC program from campus, to be effective by 1972 and preventing the military from soliciting students in classes later than the Class of '72. In 1972 the college commissioned a poll to reexamine how students felt about ROTC, and two-thirds of the student body supported keeping the ROTC on campus in its current, however neutered, state. This caused an uproar from the faculty who condemned the poll and felt that it should not have been an issue even raised and the administration was quick to apologize.

Things changed in 1984 when the Board of Trustees came out and endorsed the idea of recreating the Navy ROTC program, which President David McLaughlin voiced his support for in 1985. This was in stark contrast to the faculty votes of 125-52 and 113-39 against Navy and Army ROTC programs respectively. However, the Student Assembly came out and voted in favor of the idea of bringing back the ROTC. Parkhurst and the Trustees went ahead over the faculty's objections and established a joint ROTC program with Norwich in Vermont that Dartmouth students could enroll in.

President James Freedman was not as sympathetic to the ROTC program and worked with the faculty to undermine the program the best he could. Eventually he succeeded in compelling the Trustees to set an expiration date, 1993, on the ROTC if the policy towards gays does not change. When President Bill Clinton was elected this date was extended one year due to Clinton's campaign promise to reform the military's policy on gays. However, 'don't ask, don't tell' was insufficient for the faculty who voted unanimously to oust the ROTC program, but that was to little avail as the Trustees voted in 1994 to keep the program indefinitely.

The current ROTC program is a shell of its former self. A program that once had a thousand members every year has been shrunk to a half-dozen. The history of Dartmouth and service is long and distinguished, as is its history of military service. While the history of ROTC may be tumultuous, there are still those at Dartmouth who bravely enlist in the ROTC despite the opposition to join in the global war on terror.

The Laurelled Sons of Dartmouth

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