This location helped keep away West Point officials, and a number of cadets patronized the tavern with regularity. A popular song called "Benny Havens, Oh," which is still sometimes sung by cadets, was even dedicated to the humble tavern keeper. Ulysses Grant, Jefferson Davis and many others were very fond of Benny and his wife, and cadet Edgar Allen Poe called Benny "the only congenial soul in this godforsaken place.
During an otherwise uneventful period of service on Long Island with the unit, he met the young woman of sturdy Dutch stock who would become his bride, Letitia Stuyvesant. Ostensibly, Havens simply was running a small woodcutting business out of his cottage. Meanwhile Sylvanus Thayer, the stern superintendent at the time, was seeking to address the annoying problem of his carousing cadets.
At his court-martial, Cadet Jefferson Davis put up a particularly obstinate defense. Havens a public house as I believe this cannot be established.
But a review of his overall record persuaded the authorities to grant him a pardon. One visit a year later would have near-fatal consequences.
Havens hustled his patrons out the back door into the dark of night and sent them scampering up the steep embankment that walled his establishment. Running along its edge, Davis lost his footing and went tumbling back down the slope, rolling some 60 feet head over heels before managing to break his fall—at the cost of tearing up both hands and suffering enough internal damage to keep him in the post hospital for weeks.
How Davis explained the injuries to authorities is uncertain, but he had escaped what would have been certain dismissal if he had been caught again at the tavern. Some 30 years later, Davis would pay Havens another pleasant visit. This time wearing a frock coat and high hat, he conducted an official inspection of the military academy in his capacity as, of all things, U. Secretary of War.
Senate and then president of the Confederate States of America. The more the scheme defied academy regulations and controls, the more it appealed to him. For example, Cadet John M. Schofield of Illinois, destined to become a highly regarded general in the Civil War, superintendent of the academy and later commanding general of the U. Army, once made a sizable wager that he could leave the academy grounds after evening roll call, make the mile trip to New York City, and return before morning roll call without being detected.
Not only was their popular establishment padlocked, but both Benny and Letitia also were forbidden to ever set foot on academy property again—making them the only citizens ever to be so ostracized.
In response, Havens simply rented a four-room house in nearby Buttermilk Falls now Highland Falls , where his operations were promptly resumed. Havens had long planned to erect a house and dock on the river to facilitate his wood-shipping operation, as well as receive shipments of whiskey, tobacco and other stock for the tavern. Many of our famous generals were fond of recalling the cold winter nights when they had slipped out of barracks and skated down the river to partake of the good cheer at benny's.
It is even recorded that Cadet Jefferson Davis, in attempting to evade some officers who had descende upon Benny's tavern, once fell over a cliff and was nearly killed. He had been an assistant surgeon in the army, but had just been commissioned in the infantry when, in , he visited his friend Ripley A.
Arnold of the First Class. Together thy made many visits to Benny's where O"Brien composed the first few stanzas of the song and sang them to the tune of "The wearing of the Green" O'Brien died in a florida campaign a few years later.
If God permits us mortals there his blest domain to view, Then we shell see in glory crowned, in proud celestial row, The friends we've known and loved so well at Benny Havens'oh! Come, fill your glasses, fellows, and stand up in a row, To singing sentimentally we're going for to go; In the army there's sobriety, promoting's very slow, So we'll sing our reminiscences of Benny Havens, OH!
Chorus: Oh! Benny Havens, oh! We'll sing our reminiscences of Benny Havens, oh! Let us toast our foster-father, the republic, as you know, Who in the paths of science taught us upward for to go; and the maidens of our native land, whose cheeks like roses glow, They're oft remembered in our cups at Benny Haven's, oh! To the ladies of our Army our cups shall ever flow, Companions in our exile and our shield'gainst every woe; May they see their husbands generals,with double pay also, And join us in our choruses at Benny Havens', oh!
Come fill up to our generals, God bless the brave heroes.
0コメント