Besides the above-mentioned buildings, several houses and gardens are situated on the plain of West Point, occupied by the officers and professors. Large wooden barracks also stand here, inhabited by a company of artillerists, and some soldiers condemned to confinement in irons, who are employed to blast the rocks. These culprits have a long chain attached to one foot, and the other end of the chain is fastened to a twenty-four pound ball, which they must either drag or carry. Three iron six pounders stand in front of the barracks. The Americans use iron cannon, like the Swedes, and are very well satisfied with them. At another place on the same plain, we saw five six pounders, with which the cadets exercise. Three are French pieces, presented to the Americans by Louis XVI. decorated with the French arms; and the motto, ultima ratio regum. The two other pieces are English, were taken during the revolution, and as an inscription says, were given by congress to General Greene as a reward for his conduct in the south of the United States during the war. His heirs have not yet reclaimed them, and they consequently remain here. A pyramid of white marble not far from these pieces was, according to the inscription, erected by General Brown, to the memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Wood, a pupil of this school, who fell in 1814, at a sally of Fort Erie.
In the evening we saw the cadets exercise; they form a small battalion of four divisions, and are commanded by their officers, and the eldest cadets of the first class, who wear officer's scarfs, and swords. The young men perform their exercises uncommonly well, and I was gratified at the good order which prevailed. A band of music, paid by the government, belongs exclusively to them, and is said to afford the best military music in the United States. Every one has his taste, but I must confess that even the celebrated music of the English guards, and the American music, are far behind that of the French, Netherlanders, and Germans.
In company with Colonel Thayer, we crossed the Hudson to visit an iron foundry which belongs to a society, whose director is Mr. Campbell, a friend of Colonel Thayer. Two high furnaces are in constant employment, as the foundry furnishes all the iron arms which government requires. One piece had just been cast, and we saw several other pieces cast from a new high furnace. Next to the foundry is a building for boring the guns, in which ten pieces may be bored at once; for this purpose they lie in a horizontal position, the machinery being turned by a large wheel. As, however, in hot and very dry summers, or in very cold winters, the water now and then fails, they contemplate substituting a steam-engine in place of water-power.