Georgia Military Institute - History

History

GMI was established in Marietta, Georgia, on July 1, 1851. The campus consisted of 110 acres (0.45 km2).

Seven students started classes in July and twenty-eight men were in attendance by the end of the first year.

GMI operated regularly until the spring of 1864 when the cadets were formed into two companies and deployed to West Point, Georgia, as a result of the Civil War.

During the course of the Civil War, superintendent Francis W. Capers sent cadets to use as drill instructors for CSA, and other cadets volunteered or were drafted. On May 14, 1864, GMI Cadets fought in the Battle of Resaca and made contact with the 9th Illinois Mounted Infantry regiment. After this single engagement, the cadets were pulled off the front line.

The empty campus was burned by Sherman's troops on November 15, 1864. Following the Civil War, Georgia Military Institute was not rebuilt. In its place was founded North Georgia Agricultural College in Dahlonega, Georgia, as the Military College of Georgia.

To honor the legacy of GMI, the Georgia Army National Guard named its Officer Candidate School after it in 1961. In 2008, GMI returned to Marietta.

Read more about this topic:  Georgia Military Institute

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
    —Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

    “All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
    —Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)