1854 Meyer print KOSCIUSZKO'S MONUMENT, WEST POINT, NEW YORK STATE, #9

Description: Universum16_09 1854 Meyer print KOSCIUSZKO'S MONUMENT, WEST POINT, NEW YORK STATE, #9 Nice print titled Das Kosciuszko-denkmal bei Westpoint am Hudson, from steel engraving with fine detail and clear impression, approx. page size is 27 x 18 cm, approx. image size is 15 x 10 cm. Print was published in Germany in Meyer's Universum by Bibliographic Institute Hildburghausen. United States Military Academy, byname WEST POINT ACADEMY, institution of higher education for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Army. It was originally founded as a school for the U.S. Corps of Engineers on March 16, 1802, and is one of the oldest service academies in the world. Framed by the Hudson Highlands and poised above the Hudson River, the academy currently occupies about 16,000 acres (6,000 hectares) of Orange county, N.Y., 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City. Although the site of West Point had been occupied continuously by troops since 1778, it did not become U.S. government property until 1790, when at the request of its owner, Stephen Moore, Congress appropriated the money for its purchase. Subsequent acquisitions were made from time to time. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, both the colonists and the British had recognized the importance of gaining possession of the Hudson River valley, and West Point became the strategic key to its defense. General George Washington established his headquarters there in 1779. In 1780 Major General Benedict Arnold, who was then in command at West Point, attempted to betray it to the British; but his treason was discovered and he fled to the enemy. The founding of an American military school had been proposed by General Henry Knox in 1776, and Washington and Alexander Hamilton had repeatedly urged adoption of the plan, but it was not until March 16, 1802, that Congress passed the act establishing the United States Military Academy at West Point. The academy opened on July 4, 1802. Before 1812 it was conducted as an apprentice school for military engineers and, in effect, as the first U.S. school of engineering. During its early years, however, the institution suffered from lack of proper organization and discipline. An act of Congress of April 29, 1812, reorganized the academy and increased the authorized strength of the corps of cadets to 250, expanded the staff of the academy, and established a four-year curriculum. This legislative goal was not effective until the superintendency of Colonel Sylvanus Thayer (1817-33), who became known as the "father of the military academy" because of his lasting influence upon the West Point physical plant, the library, the curriculum, and the pedagogical method. Under Thayer's leadership the academy produced military technicians whose skills were adaptable to meet the civil-engineering needs for the program of internal improvement that accompanied America's westward expansion. An act of Congress of July 13, 1866, allowed the selection of a military academy superintendent from branches of the Army other than the Corps of Engineers. The academy is under the immediate supervision and control of the Department of the Army, exercised through the superintendent, in whom is vested the immediate military command of the academy and the military post. The goal of the educational program is to instruct and train the corps of cadets so that each graduate will have the qualities and attributes essential to continued development through a lifetime career as an officer in the Army. The four-year course of college-level education and training leads to a bachelor of science degree and a commission as second lieutenant in the Army. The curriculum is balanced between mathematics and basic and engineering sciences, the humanities and social sciences, military science, and physical education. Cadets must be at least 17 years of age but not yet 22, as well as unmarried, at the time of their appointment. They must have a high-school education or its equivalent and must take scholastic-aptitude tests and a medical examination before admission. Enrollment is 4,417. The great majority of appointments to the academy are made by U.S. senators and representatives. Citizens of the Philippines, the various Latin-American republics, Canada, and certain other countries, if fully qualified, may also be admitted to the academy. Women were first admitted to the academy in 1976. The academic year lasts from August to May, inclusive. The third class (sophomores) receives extensive field training at the training areas on the academy reservation. The second and first classes (juniors and seniors) obtain supplementary instruction at other Army training centres. The second class also takes part in joint amphibious maneuvers with the midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md. First classmen serve as instructors for the new fourth class (freshmen), which enters the academy in July; they also assist in training the third class. West Point has trained most of the great American military commanders since the first half of the 19th century. Among its graduates have been Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Thomas ("Stonewall") Jackson, Jefferson Davis, John J. Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, and George Patton. Koshciuszko, Tadeusz, in full TADEUSZ ANDRZEJ BONAWENTURA KOShCIUSZKO, English THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO (b. Feb. 4, 1746, Mereczowszczyzna, Poland [now in Belarus]--d. Oct. 15, 1817, Solothurn, Switz.), Polish army officer and statesman who gained fame both for his role in the U.S. War of Independence and for his leadership of a national insurrection in his homeland. Early life. Koshciuszko was born to a family of noble origin and was educated at the Piarist college in Lubieszów and the military academy in Warsaw, where he later served as an instructor. Koshciuszko's outstanding abilities soon attracted the attention of King Stanislaw II Augustus Poniatowski, who sent him to Paris for further study in military and civil architecture and in painting. Returning home in 1774, he taught drawing and mathematics to the daughters of a general, Józef Sosnowski; he fell in love with Ludwika, one of the daughters, and tried unsuccessfully to elope with her. U.S. War of Independence. Facing the wrath of Ludwika's father, Koshciuszko fled to France, and in 1776 he went to America, where he joined the colonial forces fighting for independence from the British. That August he was transferred to the Pennsylvania Committee of Defense in Philadelphia, where he took part in planning fortifications to defend the residence of the Continental Congress against the British. For this work he was given the rank of engineer colonel. In spring 1777, he was assigned to the army of General Horatio Gates at Fort Ticonderoga, in northern New York. Beginning in July he became active in Gates's army, closing by fortifications all roads along the Hudson River and thus contributing to the capitulation of the British army under General John Burgoyne at Saratoga on October 17. He spent the next two years fortifying West Point, N.Y., where in March 1780 he was appointed chief of the engineering corps. That summer, serving under General Nathanael Greene in North Carolina, he twice rescued the army from enemy advances by directing the crossing of the Yadkin and Dan rivers. In the spring of 1781 in South Carolina, he conducted the Battle of Ninety-six and then a lengthy blockade of Charleston. At the end of the war he was given U.S. citizenship and was made a brigadier general in the U.S. Army.

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