[WHITTACKER JOHNSON CHESNUT] General Orders No 14 Headquarte

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[WHITTACKER, JOHNSON CHESNUT]. General Orders No. 14. Headquarters Department West Point, United States Military Academy. Single 8vo leaf, printed on recto only; small closed tear the top center edge, not affecting the text. West Point, 21 April 1880

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This General Order was issued on behalf of General Schofield by his aide de camp, William M. Wherry. It followed the brutal beating of Johnson C Whittacker, the first black cadet at the Academy, who was thrown out on charges that he failed an exam---this following his testimony that he had been brutally beaten by three other cadets. General Schofield's order assures the men of the Corps that they will not suffer because of this 'grievous wrong'--not the wrong done to Whittacker, but to the good name of the Corps from sources substantiating Whittacker's story. On the morning of 5 April, 1880, Whittacker had been found tied to his bed, unconscious and bleeding. His hands and face had been slashed with a razor. President Clinton pardoned Whittacker more than a century later