Edgar Allan Poe’s military career? Nevermore!

(Detail from Poe’s court-martial record)

(Source: Library of Congress)

“Charge 1 . . . Gross neglect of Duty.”

“Charge 2 . . . Disobedience of Orders.”

On January 28, 1831, a court-martial convened at the U.S. Military Academy found the defendant guilty of these charges and “adjudg[ed] that the Cadet E. A. Poe be dismissed.”

So ended Edgar Allan Poe’s short career at West Point. He had been admitted to the academy on July 1, 1830, and nearly seven months later, he was out.

In those months, he accumulated an impressive record—though not of the sort to which a cadet usually aspired. The Conduct Roll for July–December 1831 lists the number of offenses committed by cadets and their corresponding demerits. Poe’s name appears about midway down the list of top offenders, with 44 offenses and 106 demerits for the term. The roll for January alone shows Poe at the top of the list with 66 offenses for the month. It would appear that Poe was trying very hard to get kicked out of West Point.

As an example of his neglect of duty, the charges listed his absences from mathematics class “on the 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25 and 26 January 1831.” Just two months earlier, a weekly class report had ranked him among the best students in mathematics. The Consolidated Weekly Class Reports are quite interesting to read. They list the best and worst students in the academic subjects for each week. Poe also placed among the best in French for several weeks.

Other records in the National Archives relating to Edgar Allan Poe’s military career include enlistment papers and muster rolls from when he served in the U.S. Army from 1827 to 1829, a register of cadet applications to West Point, and letters of recommendation to support his application.

Seven pages from the court-martial case file and Poe’s 1827 Army enlistment papers (under the name Edgar A. Perry) are online and accessible through the National Archives Catalog at Archives.gov. The other records are not digitized yet but are on microfilm (Publication M2031). Although you can’t have instant access to them through a convenient link, if you’re in the neighborhood of the National Archives in Washington, DC, think about dropping in. Poe makes for fascinating reading even if he’s not the author.

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