HGB Ep. 402 - Virginia Military Institute

Moment in Oddity - Dentures (Suggested by: Scott Booker)

Many people erroneously believe that President George Washington had wooden teeth. His dentures were actually made with ivory from hippos and elephants, real human teeth, rivets, gold and spiral springs. Some of the first dentures were found in Mexico in 2500 BC and they were made from wolf teeth. Italy had dentures made from both animal and human teeth in 700 BC. Japan was the first country to fashion wooden dentures. Carved ivory and bones, along with human and animal teeth were what dentists of the 18th century experimented with. Dentists weren't the only profession working on dentures. Ivory Turners, Goldsmiths and Barber-Surgeons all got in on the action. A man named Alexis Duchateau had dentures made from hippopotamus, but they rotted so he joined forces with a dentist and they created the first porcelain dentures in 1770. In the 1850s, dentures started to be made from a hardened rubber called Vulcanite that was teamed with porcelain teeth. Celluloid was the first type of plastic used for false teeth and eventually was replaced by polymethylmethacylite in 1938 and is still used today. The history of dentures, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - James/Younger Gang Attacked by Townspeople

In the month of September, on the 7th, in 1876, the James-Younger Gang was attacked by an angry mob of townspeople while trying to rob a bank. Jim, Cole and Bob Younger joined forces with Bill Chadwell, Clell Miller and Jesse and Frank James to form the James-Younger Gang with the purpose of robbing banks. And that is what they were doing that September day. Five of the men galloped into town, firing their pistols and whooping and hollaring to create a distraction while three other members of the gang entered the Northfield Minnesota First National Bank. Jesse James ordered a cashier to open the bank safe, but the cashier stalled claiming that the safe was on a timer. A teller made for the back door and was shot in the shoulder on his way out. He cried for help from the townspeople and the citizens came running with their guns. Clell Miller was shot dead by a medical student and Bill Chadwell was mortally wounded by a nearby business owner who used a rapid-fire Remington repeater rifle. All three of the Youngers were badly wounded and Frank James was shot in the leg. Jesse shot the cashier in the head and ran out of the bank, managing to get on his horse without getting shot. What was left of the gang, rode out of town and the James brothers made off on their own. They escaped to the Dakota Territory and eventually reformed a new bank robbing gang in Nashville, Tennessee.

Virginia Military Institute (Suggested by and research assistance: Jules Schlosser)

Virginia Military Institute holds the distinction of being the oldest state-supported military college in the United States. This was founded over 180 years ago and the institute takes pride in having a competitive educational program that also develops cadets to be citizen soldiers and many have gone on to be officers in the various branches of the military. One of the members of the faculty was Stonewall Jackson and there are those who claim his spirit haunts the place. That's not the only ghost here though. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Virginia Military Institute!

Virginia Military Institute is located in Lexington, Virginia, which is in the Shenandoah Valley. The Cherokee and Monacan tribes had settled here, but left after European settlers came to the area. The city was named in 1778 after Lexington, Massachusetts in honor of that city being the place where the first shot in the American Revolution was fired. A fire in 1796 almost destroyed the city and it would also come under fire during the Civil War. Texas hero Sam Houston was born here in 1793. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee would have their final resting places here. And it was here that Virginia established a military school.

Virginia Military Institute or VMI was established in 1839 and one of the traditions started at that time is still carried on today: walking guard duty as a sentry. Every cadet that has come through the school has experienced this tradition. We love that the first cadet assigned this duty was named John B. Strange. But before this first official guard duty, there had been other "guards" here. What prompted the establishment of the institute was a desire by the citizens of Lexington to get rid of the riff raff that they had guarding the local arsenal that had been built during the War of 1812. The soldiers sent to protect this arsenal were apparently a bunch of party animals that created more trouble than they were worth. But the citizens wanted to keep their arsenal. An idea was put forward to establish something like West Point Academy. 

Lexington attorney John Thomas Lewis Preston took up the reigns and lead the charge by writing three anonymous letters in the Lexington Gazette in 1835. Preston put forward the idea that students getting a liberal education while learning military discipline would not only protect the arsenal, but give the state the ability to have trained officers for the state's militia. Preston got local business owners to join him and they managed to get the Virginia legislature to pass a bill authorizing the school's formation in 1836. The Governor signed it into law and a board was formed to organize the school. Preston came up with the name Virginia Military Insitute and Claudius Crozet became the first president of the board. He had been an engineer in Napoleon Bonaparte's army and Thomas Jefferson referred to Crozet as "the smartest mathematician in the United States." The initial plan for the school was to open as a military and engineering school, rather than offering a liberal education.

The first graduating class consisted of 16 cadets who graduated in 1842. Something that has kept VMI unique is that unlike other senior military colleges in America, VMI enrolls only cadets and only offers bachelor degrees. Over the years, degrees have been offered in engineering, science and liberal arts and all cadets have to be a part of ROTC. In 1851, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson became a part of the faculty. He was a major at that time and taught Natural and Experimental Philosophy. In 1859, he led a group of VMI infantry and artillery units in traveling to Charles Town, Virginia to witness the execution of John Brown. Shortly thereafter, the Civil War started and VMI cadets were pulled into active duty. Many served with the Confederacy and many of the VMI alumni were considered the best officers in both armies, with 15 graduates attaining the ranks of general in the Confederate Army.

One of those to obtain general during the Civil War was Thomas Jackson, who also earned his nickname "Stonewall" at that time too. He would also die during the war at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. Before fighting began, Jackson saw that many of the men under him were from VMI and he declared, "The Institute will be heard from today." Jackson was hit by friendly fire the evening of the battle. He and his staff were returning to camp when another regiment thought it was a Yankee trick and that men from the Union cavalry were sneaking in for a surprise attack. The General was hit in the left arm twice and once in the right hand. He was not given care right away and by the time he got help, his arm had to be amputated. He developed pneumonia and died from it eight days after being shot. His doctor, Henry McGuire, said of Jackson's death, "A few moments before he died he cried out in his delirium, 'Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks—' then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, 'Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.'" On May 15, 1863, the Corps of Cadets escorted Jackson’s remains to his grave in Lexington. His arm didn't make the trip. It was buried at the field hospital. Perhaps that is why he is at unrest, but more on that later.

The cadets of VMI were called into service again during the Civil War for the Battle of New Market. This campaign helped turn the tide in favor of the Confederacy. Two hundred forty-seven cadets marched 80 miles from Lexington to New Market before the battle started on May 15, 1864. The VMI cadets held the line and pushed the Union forces back over an open muddy field, capturing Union artillery along the way and securing a victory. Ten of those men would perish and 47 were wounded. Six of the dead are buried on the VMI grounds behind a statue named "Virginia Mourning Her Dead" by sculptor Moses Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a cadet at VMI and wounded in that battle. The American Battlefield Trust recognizes this as the only time in US history that a student body from an operating college fought as a unit in pitched combat in battle. In all, VMI cadets were called into action fourteen times. And on that term pitched battle, we weren't sure what that was, but apparently it is like a date. A very bad date. Worse than a blind date because there will be causalities. This is a planned battle where both sides commit to it with the option of pulling out before the battle begins. So this differentiates it from an ambush or a meeting engagement, which is at an unexpected time and location. The Institute would suffer its own damage during the war when it was shelled and burned on June 12, 1864. This was only a temporary set-back as the damage was repaired and the Institute was reopened on October 17, 1865.

The school would continue to grow and expand, educating more and more cadets into the early 1900s. Fourteen hundred thousand alumni would serve during World War I and cadets at the school practiced building trenches and conducting trench warfare where Foster Stadium would eventually be built. After the war, the library was added as well as a new engineering building. Special training programs were added during World War II and more than 4,000 alumni served during the war. So many veterans of the war wanted to use their GI Bill at VMI, that a new barracks needed to be built. However, like so many other areas, VMI was slow to diversify their cadet body. The first cadets were strictly from Virginia and numbered twenty-three. It wasn't until 1857 that the institute was open to all residents of America. And it wouldn't be until 1972 that the first black cadets would graduate. Back in 1991, VMI was taken to court because it would not admit women. The Justice Department said that it was unconstitutional for tax payers to support a school that didn't allow women while the school argued that "admitting women would destroy the camaraderie among men that is at the heart of its military training." Women won and the first female cadets entered the Corps in 1997. Today, women comprise about 8 percent of the 1,600-member cadet Corps. 

Since the Mexican-American War, VMI cadets have served in every war involving the United States. During World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, over 300 alumni were killed; during Operation Desert Storm two alumni were killed; two VMI alumni were killed on September 11, 2001 in the terrorist attacks on America and twelve alumni were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another well known graduate of VMI was General of the Army George C. Marshall who graduated in 1901 and served as the World War II Army Chief of Staff. He was architect of the Marshall Plan, which was named for him and was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The Marshall Plan was an economic plan for Europe to rebuild after World War II and was enacted in 1948. The plan also wanted to halt the spread of communism and led to the start of the Cold War and called for the formation of NATO.

Another well known graduate was Jonathan M. Daniels who graduated in 1961 as valedictorian. After Daniels graduated, he realized he was called into the ministry and attended the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He heard Dr. Martin Luther King calling for clergy to become involved in the Civil Rights movement and Daniels went to Alabama to help register black voters. He was arrested for doing that. After being released, he accompanied a Catholic priest named Richard Morrisroe and two black teenagers named Joyce Bailey and Ruby Sales to a store to buy some sodas. A man named Tom Coleman, who was the part-time deputy sheriff, stopped them on the steps of the store. He held a shotgun and aimed it at sixteen-year-old Ruby Sales. Daniels pushed Ruby down and stepped in front of her, taking the shot from the gun, killing him instantly. Coleman fired again, seriously wounding the Catholic priest. Martin Luther King, Jr. said of the incident, "One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels." Daniels would eventually be named a Lesser Saint of the Episcopal Church for his sacrifice.

There are several legends and ghosts reputedly that are connected to the military institute. The first legend is connected to the Virginia Mourning Her Dead Statue for the fallen students from the Battle of New Market. Cadets claim to have heard cries coming from the statue. And there have even been real tears reported to be coming from the eyes. One of the ghosts at VMI is also connected to the Battle of New Market. Cadet William Hugh McDowell from North Carolina started at VMI in August of 1863. He was killed on May 15, 1864 at the battle while serving as a cadet Private in Company B. (You know who else was a part of Company B: the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy!) Private McDowell's remains were taken to his father, along with his effects. His father noticed that a gold watch he had given his son was not among those effects. Nobody knows what happened to the watch, but the cadet seems to be at unrest over that. People claim to see the ghost cadet walking around as though he is looking for something on the battlefield.

There are claims of a helpful ghost who knocks on the doors of cadets that are set to do guard duty. It is as though the spirit is making sure they are not late for sentry duty. And another ghost seems to belong to a hanged man and there is a story told about a cadet who hanged himself from the balcony at JM Hall. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson also seems to be hanging out here in the afterlife. Some of his possessions and the bones of his war horse Little Sorrel are on display at the campus chapel. This was only one of two Civil War horses that were mounted when they died. Jackson's body laid in state in his classroom. Many people have witnessed a blue light that drifts through the hallways and goes into Jackson's old classroom. They believe that blue light is Jackson's spirit.

The most disturbing spirit here is called The Yellow Peril. This figure appears on the third floor of the barracks and got its name because it has a bony and yellow face. The best narrative about this entity we found on Reddit by poster libertyordeath11, "I have had a couple of different experiences/encounters at VMI, but none compare to this one. There was a story about a ghost/poltergeist called The Yellow Peril. Apparently it was a ghost that was only seen on the 3rd floor near a particular stairwell inside the barracks that had a yellow face with a bloody gash down the center. (I’m literally getting chills as I write this…) Anyway, there were a couple of cadets and faculty that had claimed to have seen it. Always the same description, same location, and always at around 0330 at night. (This is also the time when drum-outs take place; when a cadet is dismissed for an honor violation). Everyone who said they saw it always said that they were walking the stoops when they got the powerful feeling that they were being watch or that someone was following them. When they turned around, there it was, the yellow face with a bleeding scar, staring right at them.

Anyway, one night when I lived on the 3rd floor of the barracks (I was a sophomore cadet at the time, and all sophomores live on the 3rd floor), I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. (Cadet rooms do not have bathrooms, and you have to leave your room and walk on the outside stoop to go to one.) I remember looking at my clock and it said 0329, but I didn’t think anything of it. Well I went to the bathroom and was walking back to my room, passing by that particular staircase, when every hair on my body stood up. (Again, I’m getting chills right now just writing this.) I have never before nor since had such a strong “sixth sense” feeling like it, and I can actually remember an internal voice in my head telling me that if I turned around, I was going to see something I did not want to see. Well, I’d love to tell you that I was brave and turned around, but I didn’t, and instead I pulled my bathrobe up over the back of my head and walked as swiftly as I could back to my room. Everything in me wanted to run, but I knew that if I did that, I would panic. The whole way back I felt like I was being followed, even once I got into my room. I went to go lay down in my rack, pulled my blanket over my head, and tried to go back to sleep.

Here’s where it gets even creepier… A couple of months later I was doing some personal research in the bottom level of the library in the section on VMI history (which is rather extensive). Anyway, I found this book called “Memories of VMI” or something like that, published in 1937. It was a collection of different stories from alumni around the turn of the century, some comical, some not so. Well, as I was flipping through the various chapters/stories, I saw one titled “The VMI Phantom”. It sounded interesting, so I began to read it. It was a story from an alumnus who was talking about an event back when he was a cadet. He said that one morning a sophomore cadet seemed pretty shaken during breakfast, and his roommates were trying to find out what was wrong. After a while, he finally told them that the night before, around 0330, he awoke in his bed to the feeling that he was being watched. When he looked up, he saw standing over him a ghost with a yellow face and a bleeding scar… (More chills.) His roommates all laughed at him and told him that he was just dreaming. Well, a few nights later two other sophomore cadets said they both woke up in the middle of the night after feeling the sensation that they were being watched, and both saw the ghost with a yellow face and bleeding scar. Word traveled through barracks about the apparition, and a number of cadets decided to try to “catch” the spirit. The next night two cadet roommates who were on the football team woke up and saw the ghost. Both apparently leapt at the ghost and tried to pin it to the wall with a chair. One cadet was flung over a table by the ghost and the other broke his arm. After that, the entire barracks was in a state of panic. Cadets slept with their rifles, bayonets, and a few kept pistols underneath their pillows. Officers who normally performed midnight checks to make sure cadets were in their beds after lights out were apparently rushing along the stoops as quickly as possible, completely neglecting to even look into rooms. After a time, the ghost hadn't been seen for a while, and everything went back to normal…

After finishing the chapter, I was utterly stunned. Here was a story, written from a no doubt honorable man, almost 100 years prior, describing the exact same ghost, with the same descriptions and in the same location, that cadets and faculty were seeing today. No one I talked to ever knew anything about “the yellow peril” having been seen decades before, and the book I found probably hadn’t been read for well over 50 years. After that, I knew that what I felt on the 3rd stoop that night wasn’t my imagination. It was the same ghost that has been haunting that area of the old barracks for a hundred years. I never walked anywhere near that part of the barracks after dark for the rest of my cadetship." 

In 2019, LuckySquirrel 21 wrote on Reddit, "I remember when I was a cadet there. I was on guard one foggy night and I was walking along my assigned route. It was dead silent. All of a sudden I thought I heard foot steps behind me. I looked back but no one was there. I kept walking and I heard them again. Again, I turned around, no one there. I was pretty scared at this moment so I thought I’d play a trick. I walked a couple of steps and then suddenly stopped before my foot touched the ground, AND I SWEAR TO THIS DAY I HEARD A STEP BEHIND ME! Also, I remember hearing a story from an alumni, class of ‘76 who heard this story from another alumni, class of ‘47. He told me that him and his roommates were up late one night in their room studying, when all of a sudden the door flew open in a gust of wind and a ghostly cadet dressed in civil war style clothes walked in carrying a lantern. All he said was “turn out your candles” before he disappeared." 

Jkinster shared his experience on Reddit 11 years ago, "First let me begin by saying that I am a Cadet at the Virginia Military Institute and am bound by the nations strickest code to tell things how they truly happen, not loaded with a bunch of half truths and what not. Having said that, my first encounter, if you will, happened oh about 2 years ago in my second year here at the I. I was the corporal of the guard that night, 2nd relief and my shift ran from 220 to 440 in the morning. So one night as I was making my nightly check of the Jackson Memorial Chapel, I noticed a thick fog setting in over the parade ground, which is never very settling at 330 in the morning. Anyway, my job was to ensure that all the doors were locked and no one was in there after hours. Well I checked the three main entrances in front of the building, all locked, and made my way to the one door behind the chapel which happened to be down two stories of concrete stairs that ran along the outside of the building. Being in uniform for guard includes a dark grey blouse, starched white pants, and thick soled leather low quarters which make a very distinct sound hitting concrete pavement. As I was walking down these stairs, I could feel chills running down my spine and noticed my flashlight trembling from my hands shaking so badly, which is no normal occurrence for me. I reached the last step and reached for the door when as I stopped moving heard two more clacks of low quarters hitting pavement as clear as day come down the stairs right behind me. Shaking I spun around saw nothing and proceeded to run back up to the ground level dropping my flashlight behind the chapel. As I was moving back to the guard room at a rather brisk pace, I looked across the parade deck and noticed what looked like a deer grazing just inside the fog line. Weird for 330 AM. But I kept moving and after a few more steps looked again and saw its head perked up staring directly at me, now this animal was about 100 yards away in fog but I could clearly see it on all fours and the faint outline of its head perked up in my direction. And after what just happened, I was a little spooked until I saw it rear up on two legs and dart in the opposite direction into the fog... I'm not sure if this has any historical occurrence here at VMI, but I know what I saw and I was terrified, so I ran back into the guard room and stayed put til my shift was over...

Another odd occurrence was with what my roommate and I believed to be the legendary yellow peril of VMI, said to haunt the third stoop in a corner of barracks with a not so bright history. The yellow peril is said to take the form of a cadet in a dark grey blouse wearing a garrison cap with the brim pulled down over his eyes and a faint yellow tinted face with a gash strewn across it. So one night during Virginia's biggest wind storm in the past decade, My roommate and I were sitting our room when we heard a loud screech coming from the wind rattling the window panes in the windows when all of a sudden the windows slammed shut, which open inward and the transom above our door slammed shut which also opens inward. That alone was enough to worry us when as we moved towards the door to see what happened we both saw crystal clear a figure without a face in a cadets uniform walk past the door window looking in. We realized it was around 2 AM so we looked to see who it was and saw nothing, looked in rooms to our left and right and saw no one awake. came back to our room and saw no one there. Petrified, we both sat for a while staring aimlessly out the doorway until we both eventually fell asleep. If any of you aver get a chance to talk to a VMI alumni, ask him what hes seen, it'll blow your mind." 

Another Redditer wrote, "I've had some weird shit happen to me and one of my roommates in that corner of Old Barracks. We were in room 121 and squatted there from 3rd class year till 1st class. So two stories. 1: My roomie and I were up late cramming for a statics final 3rd class year while our other two roomies were out in scott ship doing whatever it is LA majors do. It's just a bit before 2am and we're tired and decide to call it quits for the night. Lights go out, pillow over the head, and I'm drifting to sleep. A few minutes later the light of one of our other roommates turns on, there was no audible flick of the switch or anything. It wakes us both up and we have a minor "Yo wtf just happened" moment. Eventually we calm down and get back to snoozing. A few nights later, we're studying some more late at night and the same thing happens. This time we're both still up and visibly saw it. The switch indeed did not move, the light just turned on. We really freaked out this time and didn't fall asleep for the rest of the night. Left for winter furlough the next day.

2: First class year I woke up around 3:30 having the urge to take a massive piss. I get myself out of bed, through my bath robe and warm comfy slippers on, and stumble over to that small men's room in the corner. Relief washes over me as I execute and exquisite midnight pee. After I wash my hands and dry them, I walk out of the bathroom. As my eye's are adjusting from the bright light inside to the almost pitch black of old barracks, I make out the shape of someone coming into the bathroom through that really narrow entryway. So I go sideways and reach out to pat him on the back and guide myself around him. Except my hand goes through him. If I had not just used the restroom I would have pissed myself in shock. I ran back to my room and was awake all night from the adrenaline."

A cadet named James D. Hankins wrote in a letter in 1921 to a friend named Florence about a spook haunting the Old Barracks. In the letter he tells the woman that the ghost has them all so scared that they are sleeping with loaded pistols on their tables and bayonets under their pillows. He remarks, "Poor Old Ghost." (Citation: James D. Hankins papers. Manuscript # 0144, Virginia Military Institute Archives https://archivesspace.vmi.edu/repositories/3/resources/224 Accessed September 10, 2021.) Clearly, the Institute has a firm place in military history. Is Virginia Military Institute haunted? That is for you to decide!