Grog ban sparks riot at elite US military school
One festive tipple too far and Christmas parties can sometimes get a little out-of-control.
But the award for the ultimate festive fracas goes to the cadets of West Point, whose legendary Christmas riot of 1826 was fuelled by eggnog.
That year, Christmas Eve at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, was far from a silent night.
Rebelling against a severe crackdown on alcohol implemented at the academy that year, a few bold cadets hatched a daring plan to hold their traditional boozy Christmas Eve party.
To procure their forbidden key ingredients, three cadets smuggled several gallons of booze from a tavern across the Hudson River by boat and into the North Barracks, where they set about concocting a potent eggnog made with rum and whisky.
Suspecting some slight Christmas shenanigans, the man behind the alcohol ban, the school’s superintendent, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, assigned two guards to the North Barracks.
They went to bed at midnight with no trouble to report but that changed at 4am.
One of the officers, Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock, awoke to sounds of partying and found dozens of drunk cadets in various dorm rooms upstairs.
They refused to go to bed and when Hitchcock insisted, things quickly escalated with the cadets calling their fellow students to arms to defend their right to some drunken Christmas debauchery.
Soon after, the infamous West Point eggnog riot was under way, with a third of the academy’s 260 cadets taking part. Among them was Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederate States.
While there were no fatalities, the chaos did result in assaults on two officers, several shattered windows, and banisters being ripped away from stairways. By Christmas morning, the North Barracks had been completely destroyed.
Rather that expel a third of his students and risk the academy’s reputation, Thayer chose to court-martial 19 of the riot’s ringleaders.
They were found guilty and sentenced to be dismissed but eight were offered clemency, and five ended up graduating from West Point.
The building where the riot occurred was destroyed.
Jefferson Davis managed to escape punishment by ratting out his fellow students.
Today, most students at West Point academy are unaware of the Christmas chaos of 1826. And while alcohol is allowed at Christmas parties, it’s unsurprisingly served in serious moderation.