We thank Jim Fox, West Point's Chief of Community Engagement for guiding our group around campus for the occasion. 

More than 200 years after Edgar Allan Poe's life there remains mystery about the man in his lifetime. It is known that Edgar himself embellished on his biography and intentionally blurred the lines of reality at times. Poe, the artist, who often dwelled in "a dream within a dream" and searching "over the mountains of the moon" for Eldorado the city of gold, probably understood that even history, is in the eye of the beholder. But a trail of evidence exists that his biographers have searched through,  letters, records from his adoptive family's successful merchant business, army records, school records, magazine publishings and of course his own stories an poems. 

While most people think of him as a writer of macabre tales in truth his talents and pursuits where much more varied than that. He was an accomplished poet, magazine editor, literary critic, cryptographer and twice a U.S. soldier. 

Poe had to quit the University for lack of funds and joined the Army while visiting Boston after using all the money he had to get his first chapbook of poems published there "Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827".   He joined the Army under a fake name Edgar A. Perry and also misrepresented his age to be 21. He was only 18.  
 
Poe quickly excelled in the Army though. In 2 years he was promoted to the highest enlisted rank of sergeant major, which could normally take decades to do. He was stationed first at Fort Moultrie, SC where it's known that he wrote his first successful short story, "The Gold Bug", then at Fort Monroe, VA.  Within a year he was appointed an artillery artificer.  His job was to construct bombs.  It required intense knowledge of the usage of the correct quantities of chemicals and complicated mathematical trajectories in order to produce the correct effects without causing harm to oneself and others. He would have to have had his officers' complete confidence.  He also had clerk duties, keeping logs and payroll records such duties would only be given to few enlists who would have had the education and capability.
 
After two years Poe left the Army but after some unsuccessful attempts to live off his writings in Baltimore with his paternal relations he again wishes to join the Army. With letters of support from superiors and his grandfather's reputation he gains entrance to West Point in 1830 as a cadet, this time with his real name. Here he could continue his education that was abruptly cut short after the fallout with John Allan.  Some of his superiors at Forts Moultrie and Monroe were West Point graduates and likely encouraged Poe to go there where Colonel Sylvanus Thayer had a reputation for promoting academic reforms.
 
But Poe is only at West Point for 2 years where again he lacks funds for commissary necessities. His two roommates are court martialed and drummed out, one for drunkenness, the other for drunkenness and unruliness and their discharge records state those reasons.  Poe becomes perhaps disillusioned or at least restless to leave.  But while nearly 200 years later rumors still abound about a drinking problem, Poe's West Point records reveal that he is court martialed for lack of attendance at required drills and duties. The Army is precise and would have listed drunkenness if that were the case therefore it is presumed that he voluntarily desired to get out. 
 
Poe had been busy writing poetry, and quatrains that he shared with the other cadets.  The short versus skewered various staff and faculty and entertained the core.  Before leaving West Point Poe asked Colonel Thayer and received permission to take up a collection of a dollar per cadet in order to publish his 3rd book of poetry simply titled "Poems" by Edgar A. Poe, 1831.  He dedicated it to the cadets but it wasn't what they thought it would be, a collection of funny verses instead it was serious poetry. 

Follow this link to read the full article.  

Milby is the author of five poetry books and has hosted events throughout the County since 1995