So where did the idea for this project come from?

Well, that is easy. As a seventeen year old Rook at Pennsylvania Military College, a good component of our "Rook Knowledge" was the history of PMC; leading back to Pennsylvania Military Academy and Gus George and his light artillery battery heading off to the Gettysburg Campaign. From there it weaves back to Delaware Military Academy and Henry C. Robinette, Battery Robinette, and the Battle of Corinth. Even further back takes one to Colonel Hyatt's Select School for Boys. The Broom Drill, as all cadets know, dates back to this period. Hence the title of this blog and the working title of my project.

That reminds me of one of our Jody Calls (little chants soldiers sing/shout while marching or double-timing in formation). "We are Colonel Hyatt’s" ... ah, I better not go there... this will be "G" rated blog throughout.

So here I was, highly impressionable and forced to inhale as much of this rook knowledge as rapidly possible. Some history was embellished, the sounds of the third day cannonade at Gettysburg being heard in West Chester and on and on.

Those stores and rook knowledge, as any grad of a military institution will tell you, stick with you forever. Why just the past school year I was sitting in Charleston, SC teaching two, soon to be Citadel Knobs, "How's the Cow" and giving them my spitshine rag and button board from "back in the day" at PMC.

That was the very seed of this project; the germination began from there. I always wondered about those cadets and what it must have been like. I remember, I think my senior year, going to West Chester to visit the Chester County Historical Society to do some research for a project about the history of PMC. Everything grew from there.

Since there had been a fire at the school in the 1880s much of this history was lost or ,at the very least, poorly remembered in Henry Buxton’s Pennsylvania Military College 1821 – 1921; in many cases more twistery than history, at least in my opinion. I began to question some “rook history” such as PMA’s role at Gettysburg. Did Guss’ battery actually make it to the fight? No, they were at Carlisle and left with rundown nags by a battery they relieved, but that is another story. Did DMA/PMA cadets fight on both sides of the Civil War? Yes. And on and on.

In the summer of 2008 I spent some time with Becky Warda at Widener talking history, checking out the artifact collection, and looking at the wonderful new timeline at the PMC Museum. I found a kindred sprit in her. Four days at Widener, the Chester County Historical Society, the Delaware County Historical Society, and the Delaware (state) Historical Society conducting preliminary research convinced me that there could be a project in here somewhere.

So with the grant assistance through American Public University/American Military University I decided to move forward with the project this year. Time will tell just how much of the history of these two men and DMA/PMA/PMC I will be able to unearth.

Keep History Alive
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