Middlebury College in Wartime, 1812-1975

I. War of 1812 (1809-1815)

A) The War of 1812

-- December 1807 -- Congress passes the Embargo Act, forbidding export from the US.
-- March 12, 1808 -- Jefferson signs an addendum to the Embargo Act, outlawing overland trade as well.
-- August - November 1808 -- Smuggling to Canada across Lake Champlain comes to a head when ten men are arrested for smuggling. One is sentenced to death. The incident, known as the Black Snake Affair, sets off a firestorm of political controversy throughout Vermont.
-- June 1812 -- War Hawks led by Henry Clay declare war on Britain. -- Numerous consequential naval battles (Oliver Hazard Perry).
-- December 1814 -- Hartford Convention - Northerners contemplate secession.
-- December 1814 Treaty of Ghent officially ends the war.

B) The College and Community

-- Henry Davis is college president as the administration deals with financial and student life difficulties.
-- Several Middlebury alumni serve, including Jacob Lansing, Bela Edgerton, and Justus Post, but few (if any) students leave their studies to do so.
-- Military enrollment occurs before or after time spent at Middlebury and is motivated by alumni's identification with Vermont and New York, since much of the fighting took place around Lake Champlain.
-- Walter Sheldon is District Paymaster for the Northern Army

II. Mexican-American War (1835-1850)

A) The War

-- November 1835 -- Texas Rebellion begins.
-- March 1836 -- Mexican Troops storm and siege the Alamo.
-- December 1845 -- Texas admitted into the Union.
-- May 1846 -- President Polk receives word that Mexicans have ambushed two American companies and declares that the Mexican War has begun.
-- February 1848 -- The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and giving the United States new territories.

B) The College and Community

-- Most Vermonters opposed the war, although some, particularly Democrats, supported it. Regardless of how they felt about the war, Vermonters enjoyed reading about it in the newspapers.
-- The years during the Mexican-American War were the most dismal in the college's history.
-- The college underwent a great decline due to shifting religious beliefs and poor economic conditions. An epidemic swept the campus killing several students. Two professors also died.
-- In 1847 enrollment dropped dramatically and the College almost vanished.
-- University of Vermont offered a joining resolution that would aid both colleges, but Middlebury refused.

III. Civil War (1861-1865)

A) The War

-- March 4, 1861 -- Lincoln is inaugurated as president of the United States.
-- April 12, 1861 -- Confederate troops in South Carolina attack Fort Sumter after months of failed negotiations.
-- July 2, 1861 -- Lincoln suspends the writ of Habeas Corpus.
-- July 21, 1861 -- Confederates win the Battle of Bull Run.
-- September 16-18, 1862 severe casualties for both sides in the battle at Antietam.
-- January 1, 1863 -- Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation.
-- November 19, 1863 -- Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.
-- November 15, 1864 -- Sherman begins his "March to the sea."
-- April 9, 1865 -- Lee surrenders the Confederate troops in Virginia, officially ending the fighting.
-- April 14, 1865 -- Lincoln is assassinated

B) The College and Community

-- 1861 -- "The outbreak of war [gives] rise to an excitement among students of Middlebury College."
-- Enrollment falls drastically due to the coming of the war. Average enrollment was fifty-five students.
-- The Civil War contributes to (and coincides with) a general loosening of campus discipline. As one student reflected, "it was a poor time to study, the professors lenient. A glee club sang nothing but patriotic airs and attended war meetings. Middlebury College has reason to be proud of the patriotism and gallantry of her alumni."
-- During the war, fraternities emerge as dominant factor in college social life.
-- A drill company is created on campus.
-- Aldace F. Walker, '62, addresses his graduating class in Union uniform.
-- During the war, Vermont gives the highest number of soldiers and suffers the greatest number of military deaths in proportion to the population.
-- The town of Middlebury and state of Vermont are extremely pro-Union. Vermonters strongly favor Lincoln over Vermont-born Stephen Douglas.
-- College and town mourn Lincoln's death. "The Congregational Church was draped in black. College students all attended wearing crepe on the left arm."

IV. Spanish-American War (1898)

A) The War 

-- A U.S. battleship, the Maine, anchored off of the Cuban capital of Havana, exploded. This brought U.S. out of neutrality. Battles took place far away.
-- The war was quick, beginning and ending in the same year.

B) The College and Community

-- Militiamen, including members from Middlebury, are called into service in the war.
-- As David Bain notes, "Accounts of the 'Splendid Little War" inflamed Middlebury students to patriotic parades down College Hill and through the village." However, Bain finds evidence of only two student enlistees, Michael Halpin '98 and Ernest James Waterman '99.
-- Female enrollment had been climbing throughout the 1890s; in 1901 there would be by women than men in the freshman class.

V. World War I (1914-1918)

A) The War

-- June 1914 -- Assassination of Austria-Hungary Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
-- July 1914 -- Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
-- August 1914 -- Germany invades Belgium.
-- September 1914 -- Battle of the Marne and beginning of trench warfare.
-- May 1915 -- German U-Boat sinks the Lusitania, American merchant marine boat, killing 120 American citizens.
-- March 1917 -- February Revolution in Russia.
-- April 2, 1917 -- United States enters the war.
-- November 11, 1918 -- Armistice Day and the end of the war.

B) The College and Community

-- WWI was financially disadvantageous for the college.
-- Male attendance dropped in the 18 months of US involvement.
-- By the end of the war, Middlebury resembled more of a military camp than a college.
-- February 16, 1917 -- men of the college meet to form a military company under Prof. Raymond McFarland.
-- Due to a lack of training officers, the college was unable to establish a unit of the Federal Officers Reserved Training Corps.
-- In 1917, the Vermont National Guard was activated for duty. They became part of the 26th Yankee Division which saw action in Europe.
-- A unit of the Vermont Volunteer Militia is established on campus.
-- Fall 1918 -- Students' Army Training Corps is established at Middlebury - almost 300 men enroll. (Only 99 SATC enrollees are re-accepted into the college at the end of the war.)
-- By the end of the war nearly 1/3 of the male students had left the college.
-- The influenza epidemic reaches campus in October 1918, 200 students are hospitalized, but only two die.

VI. World War II (1939-1945)

A) The War

-- September 1, 1939 -- Germany attacks Poland.
-- September 3, 1939 -- Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
-- June 22, 1941 -- Germany invades the Soviet Union.
-- December 7, 1941 -- America is attacked at Pearl Harbor by Japan and the next day President Roosevelt declares war.
-- November 1943 -- Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin meet at Tehran Conference.
-- June 6, 1944 -- Allied invasion of Europe on the beaches of Normandy.
-- May 5, 1945 -- V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day.
-- August 6, 1945 -- Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
-- August 14, 1945 -- V-J Day, Victory over Japan Day.

B) The College and Community

-- Male applications for admissions drop sharply.
-- Acting President Stephan Freeman persuades the board to enroll more women.
-- Freeman also notes that "it is the duty of the college to devote itself entirely to the service of our country."
-- War transforms student life. Female enrollment grows and women take over the student life of the college. Fraternity activities are postponed and in 1943 the college orders fraternities to lease their buildings to the Woman's College.
-- Athletic program is significantly reduced and several teams are eliminated due to shortage of male students.
-- July 1, 1943 -- Navy V-12 unit enters the College. The presence of the V-12 program changes the social and political mentality of the college.

VII. Korean War (1950-1953)

A) The War

B) The College and Community

-- The college is severely damaged by a hurricane in November 1950.
-- The ROTC program is established to keep enrollment stable. The first two years are compulsory, and students may choose to continue and become commissioned officers.
-- Just as Americans supported the government and their troops in World War I, they rallied and backed them for this war as well.
-- Fighting in Korea was not protested like the Vietnam War, and the feeling on campus was more similar to World War II, which ended just five years before this war began.
-- Many veterans wanted to attend college once back home (GI Bill).
-- The administration obtained increased funding to improve and expand the campus.

VIII. Vietnam War (1962-1975)

A) The Conflict

-- February 6, 1962 -- Military Assistance Command of Vietnam established under General Paul Harkins.
-- March 22, 1962 -- Strategic Hamlet program starts.
-- November 22, 1963 -- John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
-- August 7, 1964 -- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
-- March 8, 1965 -- US combat troops arrive in Danang and the "Americanization" of the war begins.
-- February 4, 1966 -- Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins special hearings on Vietnam War.
-- January 30, 1968 -- Tet Offensive.
-- February 27, 1968 -- Walter Cronkite predicts the US cannot win the war.
-- August 15-17, 1969 -- Woodstock Festival.
-- May 4, 1970 -- National Guard kills 4 at Kent State.
-- April 15, 1972 -- US begins bombing Hanoi.
-- April 29-30 1975 -- North Vietnamese Army takes Saigon and officially ends the conflict.

B) The College and Community

-- ROTC is made voluntary in 1966.
-- At the onset of the war, students were generally becoming more liberal in their politics.
-- Generally, the campus took an opinion against the war in Vietnam.
-- Strike in 1970 was the pinnacle of Middlebury protest against the war.
-- May 5, 1970 hundreds of Middlebury students sign petition against the deaths of the Ohio Four and the invasion of Cambodia.
-- College suspends "normal activities" for the next six days in response to student petition.
-- -- May 7, 1970 -- Recitation Hall (site of ROTC classes) is burned down.
-- The end of the Vietnam era marked a withdrawal from national political concerns on the part of many students.