During furlough some of my classmates visited me, and I visited some of them, and we had a jolly good time of course, for all college men enjoy their vacations. While students of other colleges usually have several months’ vacation every year, West Point cadets have but one vacation in their four years. With many pleasures and not a care the summer soon passed, and as usual most of the furloughmen met in New York to return together from there.
A warm welcome awaited us in “Camp Belknap,” that being the name of the camp at the Point this year. Mustaches and side whiskers that we had grown during the summer all had to come off before we reported our return to the Adjutant. We soon shaved, visited the trunk rooms, donned our uniforms and reported for duty. After a gay time on the “color line” that evening we turned in with the first classmen, who had long been our friends, although they were once the yearlings who had deviled us in our plebe camp; so quickly is the deviling forgiven and yet never forgotten. The next day we “broke camp” and returned to barracks, this time to begin on the hardest studies[51] of the four years. It did not take us long to get down to hard study and drill again and to become interested once more in the few things that afford pleasure to cadets during the Academic year.
After arriving at the Point and before reporting the return from furlough, it has long been a custom to have a class picture taken upon the chapel steps, and when sitting for this picture furloughmen generally look as “tough” as possible, as may be seen from the picture of the group of furloughmen.
When marching to and from meals, long before I myself became a second classman, I observed four members of the then second class who did not march with the battalion, but who strolled leisurely to and from the Mess Hall. My first thought was that they had been excused by the Post Surgeon from marching to and from meals, but upon inquiry I learned that these four were “Company Clerks,” and that they were detailed on special duty upon the recommendations of the first sergeants. Hence I promptly secured the promise of D⸺t that if he obtained the first sergeancy of C Company I should be the company clerk. He was made the first sergeant and kept his promise to me, and for more than a year I made out the muster rolls and guard details of C Company. From that day I have not walked post as a sentinel; the first year because I was company clerk, and the next year because first classmen do not do guard duty after the plebes begin to go on guard. Neither did I march to and from meals any more; the first year because I was company clerk and the next because I was one of twelve first classmen who, at that time, took their meals at a private house in Professor’s Row.