“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the House…” and blah blah and double blah. It’s Christmas Eve, we get the drift after a month of sledgehammer promotion, but that’s not the only National Day on December 24th, not by a long shot. Or many, many shots. Raise your glasses and pour another one down for
NATIONAL EGGNOG RIOT AT WEST POINT DAY!
Also called “The West Point Grog Riot,” it commenced on December 24, 1826 and continued right through the night and all of Christmas Day.
Our nation’s future military leaders had gotten themselves into an epic drunken brawl over a smuggled cask of whiskey and a gallon of rum to spike the eggnog at their Christmas party.
Seems some cadets from Southern States had been clashing with classmates from Northern States all week, and when everyone was good and liquored up, they staged the first rehearsal for the Civil War in which many of them would command troops 35 years later. It’s no coincidence that two of the 70 implicated cadets were named Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
Twenty cadets and an enlisted man eventually faced Courts Marshal, with 18 cadets expelled and the enlisted man serving one month at hard labor and the loss of whiskey privileges during that time.
The oil painting here was snapped moments before the riot on an iPhone 1, while the cadets were still convivial. Moments later, all hell broke loose. These things happen.
•Suggested Activities: Drinking and brawling like patriots