Godfrey, Edward Settle, BG

Other Memories
He entered the United States Military Academy in July of 1863. During the earlier days there and despite conscientious and constant endeavor to carry the Academy work, he apparently was unable to prevent or avoid a steady accumulation of demerit marks. However, it eventually developed that a cadet officer detestably was trying to discredit him by reporting and exaggerating his every trivial delinquency and infraction. Upon being assured of the malicious telltale's identity the victim cadet promptly challenged him, soundly whipped him, won the respect of all, and thereafter made normal progress in the work. Other trouble impended when a clique of his classmates after inquiry as to his politics applied to him their self-styled stigma of "Black republican and damned abolitionist," followed up by discourteous and threatening treatment. But all that immediately ceased when an upper classman from Marysville, Ohio, said, "Gentlemen, Mr. Godfrey is going with me to my room." Prior to that the same upper classman had said to him, "That's right, plebe, stand up for your principles." Besides, in that period hazing was an almost unquestioned feature of Academy experiences, and he pluckily took his allotment of it. One night of the first summer encampment he was eighty times pulled from his tent and fifteen times sent rolling down Fort Clinton ditch.