In the years after the War of 1812, the Commonwealth
of Virginia built and maintained several arsenals to
store weapons intended for use by the state militia in
the event of invasion or slave revolt. One of them was
placed in Lexington. Residents came to resent the
presence of the soldiers, whom they saw as drunken
and undisciplined. In 1826, one guard beat another to
death. Townspeople wanted to keep the arsenal, but
sought a new way of guarding it, so as to eliminate the
"undesirable element." In 1834, the Franklin Society, a
local literary and debate society, debated, "Would it be
politic for the State to establish a military school, at the
Arsenal, near Lexington, in connection with Washington
College, on the plan of the West Point Academy?" They
unanimously concluded that it would. Lexington
attorney John Thomas Lewis Preston became the most
active advocate of the proposal. In a series of three
anonymous letters in the Lexington Gazette in 1835,
he proposed replacing the arsenal guard with students
living under military discipline, receiving some military
education, as well as a liberal education. The school's
graduates would contribute to the development of the
state and, should the need arise, provide trained
officers for the state's militia. | | After a public relations campaign that included Preston
meeting in person with influential business, military and
political figures and many open letters from prominent
supporters including Alden Partridge of Norwich
University, in 1836 the Virginia legislature passed a bill
authorizing creation of a school at the Lexington arsenal,
and the Governor signed the measure into law. The
organizers of the planned school formed a board of
visitors, which included Preston, and the board selected
Claudius Crozet as their first president. Crozet had
served as an engineer in Napoleon Bonaparte's army
before immigrating to the United States. In America, he
served as an engineering professor at West Point, as
well as state engineer in Louisiana and mathematics
professor at Jefferson College in Convent, Louisiana.
Crozet was also the Chief Engineer of Virginia and
someone whom Thomas Jefferson referred to as, "the
smartest mathematician in the United States." The board
delegated to Preston the task of deciding what to call the
new school, and he created the name Virginia Military
Institute. Under Crozet's direction, the board of visitors
crafted VMI's program of instruction, basing it off of those
of the United States Military Academy and Crozet's alma
mater the École Polytechnique of Paris. | | 
So, instead of the mix of military and liberal education
imagined by Preston, the board created a military and
engineering school offering the most thorough
engineering curriculum in America, outside of West
Point. Preston was also tasked with hiring VMI's first
Superintendent. He was persuaded that West Point
graduate and former Army officer Francis Henney
Smith, then professor of mathematics at Hampden–
Sydney College, was the most suitable candidate.
Preston successfully recruited Smith, and convinced
him to become the first Superintendent and Professor
of Tactics. |
