The Night of the Drunken Cadets

Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock and Lieutenant William A. Thornton were placed at the North Barracks on Christmas Eve, 1826. They found 13 drunken cadets still drinking in room number 5; one tried to break down a door with a pistol. The next morning they disciplined all of the drunk cadets who had been hanging out that night. But two hours after the end of the riot, however, came bare-foot, cursing, disheveledStill drunk, everyone was dismissed from West Point early Monday morning.