America Army Academy at West Level, which has educated generations of American leaders to serve from the battlefield to the White Home, was established on at the present time in historical past, March 16, 1802.

Its graduates pioneered America’s means west and mankind’s path into the heavens. 

The academy’s creation was a part of the Army Peace Institution Act, launched by Massachusetts Congressman Joseph Varnum, and signed into legislation by President Thomas Jefferson.

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“Congress established a separate Corps of Engineers to be positioned at West Level, New York, and constituted it as a army academy with the Chief Engineer serving as superintendent,” writes the web site of the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers. 

“This motion, taken at a time when the general dimension of the Military was diminished, positioned the Corps on everlasting footing and capped a quarter-century of efforts to offer skilled coaching for officers.”

View of West Level. George Washington chosen Thaddeus Kosciuszko, one of many heroes of Saratoga, to design the fortifications for West Level in 1778. President Thomas Jefferson established the US Army Academy in 1802. Engraving by Milbert. Panorama Common. Historical past of the US of America, from 1st version of Jean B.G. Roux de Rochelle’s Etats-Unis d’Amerique in 1837.  (PHAS/Common Pictures Group through Getty Pictures)

America Army Academy opened for instruction on July 4. Massachusetts native Joseph Gardner Swift was its first graduate. 

West Level, as its generally identified, stands in the present day because the world’s premier institute of army coaching and likewise one in every of its high engineering faculties. 

The academy attracts the perfect and brightest patriotic younger People from coast to coast.

“West Level grads designed nearly all early American railways, roads and bridges because it was the one engineering school within the nation till 1824.” — American Battlefield Belief

“West Level grads designed nearly all early American railways, roads, and bridges because it was the one engineering school within the nation till 1824,” writes the American Battlefield Belief.

West Level grads within the twentieth century proved important to the NASA area program. Two of the three astronauts on Apollo 11, the primary mission to place males on the lunar floor, have been West Level graduates: command module pilot Michael Collins (Class of 1952) and moon walker Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (1951). 

Crew members of NASA’s Apollo 11 lunar touchdown mission pose for a bunch portrait a number of weeks earlier than the launch, Could 1969. From left to proper, Commander Neil Armstrong, and West Level graduates Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. (House Frontiers/Getty Pictures)

West Level occupies a strategic location on a dramatic west-bank bluff overlooking a bend within the Hudson River, about 60 miles north of New York Metropolis. 

The river is navigable all the way in which to Albany, about 100 miles additional north, which added to the waterway’s strategic significance through the combat for independence. 

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The British noticed management of the Hudson as a approach to drive a wedge between New England and the remainder of the colonies. West Level stood in the way in which of their ambitions. 

“West Level had a significant function in our nation’s historical past through the American Revolution,” the US Army Academy writes in its on-line historical past. 

Engraving depicts American military officer Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), seated at a desk, as he arms papers to British officer John Andre (1750-1780) through the American Revolutionary Struggle, mid-to-late 18th century. Arnold formally switched sides and joined the British.  (Inventory Montage)

“American Continental Line troopers constructed forts, gun batteries, redoubts and put in a 65-ton iron chain throughout the Hudson to dam British invasions alongside the river.”

West Level is “first in magnitude and significance … and most likely the actual [object] of the enemy’s designs,” Gen. George Washington wrote because the British made probing assaults up the river.

“West Level had a significant function in our nation’s historical past through the American Revolution.” – United States Army Academy

The garrison was the middle of maybe probably the most notorious act of treason in American historical past. 

Main Normal Benedict Arnold, a hero of the early years of the American Revolution, supplied to commerce West Level to the Redcoats in 1780 in change for £20,000 British kilos. 

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His betrayal was uncovered, West Level was saved and British conspirator Main John Andre was captured and executed. 

U.S. Army Academy, West Level, New York, circa 1915, classic {photograph}. (Schooling Pictures/Common Pictures Group through Getty Pictures)

Arnold escaped to England, his title perpetually tarnished in America. 

The ignominious act merely strengthened the significance positioned on West Level by army commanders on each side of the battle. 

Coupled with its location on a significant avenue of transportation, and its proximity to New York – quickly changing into the nation’s largest metropolis – West Level was an apparent selection for the positioning of the US Army Academy. 

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West Level has produced a protracted listing of the nation’s most celebrated army officers. Amongst them: “Buffalo Soldier” Henry O. Flipper (class of 1877), the academy’s first black graduate; World Struggle I American Expeditionary Pressure chief Gen. John J. Pershing (1886); and World Struggle II hero George S. Patton (1909). 

Accomplice generals Robert E. Lee (1829) and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (1846), two of probably the most expert battlefield commanders in American historical past, have been additionally West Level graduates. Lee was superintendent of the US Army Academy from 1852 to 1855. 

Future common and president, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), on the soccer discipline throughout his time as a army cadet at West Level Academy, New York, 1912. Eisenhower (class of 1915) performed soccer at West Level with classmate and fellow future World Struggle II common Omar Bradley.  (FPG/Archive Images//Getty Pictures)

West Level has produced 83 Medal of Honor recipients, greater than every other establishment of upper studying, and two U.S. presidents.

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Ulysses S. Grant (1843) led the Union military to victory within the Civil Struggle and served as president from 1869 to 1877. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1915) was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in World Struggle II and served as president from 1953 to 1961. 

West Level in the present day is the oldest constantly occupied common military submit in the US. 

It boasts about 4,400 college students and produces roughly 900 lieutenants annually, about 20 p.c of the brand new officers required yearly by the Military. 

United States Army Academy graduating cadets have fun on the finish of their graduation ceremonies, June 13, 2020, in West Level, New York. (AP Picture/John Minchillo, Pool)

“From the day of its founding on March 16, 1802, West Level has grown in its dimension and stature, but it surely stays dedicated to the duty of manufacturing commissioned leaders of character for America’s Military,” the US Army Academy proclaims on-line.

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“Guided by its timeless motto, ‘Responsibility, Honor, Nation,’ the Academy is poised confidently to offer the Military and the nation with its third century of service.”