The History of The Citadel began in the early 1820s with the formation of a militia and state arsenal in response to an alleged slave revolt in 1822. [1] By 1842 the arsenal grew into an academy, with the Legislature establishing it as the South Carolina Military Academy. Cadets played a key role in the Civil War by assisting in the battalion firing upon a federal ship three months before the war began. Many Confederate officers attended the school. [2] Renamed in 1910 as The Citadel, the school's academic reputation grew. After moving the campus near Hampton Park in 1922, the college has grown substantially. In 1969, graduate student Maxine Hudson became the first woman to earn a degree from The Citadel. [3] The Citadel saw the graduation of its first Black student, Charles D. Foster in 1970, 16 years after legal segregation ended in public schools. [4] Following a rocky journey, The Citadel graduated its first female Cadet, future congresswoman Nancy Mace, in 1999. The school has produced many military officers, business, and political leaders throughout its history.
The Citadel traces its origins to an arsenal constructed by the state of South Carolina to defend white Charlestonians against possible uprisings of enslaved people following the thwarted Denmark Vesey rebellion of 1822. [5] [6] [7] In 1829 South Carolina constructed an arsenal on what is now Marion Square in downtown Charleston to house arms and ammunition. The State entered into an agreement in 1830 with the War Department for Federal troops from nearby Fort Moultrie to garrison this new arsenal. State militia replaced them in 1832. Over the next 10 years arsenals throughout the state were consolidated in Charleston and Columbia. Governor John Richardson eventually proposed converting both into military academies based upon the Norwich University model and on December 20, 1842 the South Carolina Legislature passed "an Act to convert the Arsenal at Columbia and the citadel and magazine in and near Charleston, into Military Schools" thereby transforming the two state arsenals into the South Carolina Military Academy. The act specified:
That the students when admitted, shall be formed into a military corps, and shall constitute the public guard of the Arsenal at Columbia, and of the Citadel and Magazine in and near Charleston ... to guard effectually, the public arms and other property at the places aforsaid ... [8]
The first 20 cadets reported to the Citadel Academy at Marion Square in downtown Charleston on March 20, 1843, a date now celebrated as "Corps Day". Initially both schools operated as separate institutions governed by a common Board of Visitors, but in 1845 the Arsenal Academy in Columbia became an auxiliary to the Citadel Academy in Charleston. First year students attended the Arsenal then transferred to the Citadel Academy to complete their education. Both schools continued to operate during the Civil War, but the Arsenal in Columbia was burned by Union forces and never reopened. The only surviving building from the Arsenal is the current Governor's Mansion. [9]
Citadel cadets and faculty members trained South Carolina's Palmetto Regiment for service in the Mexican–American War; 17 graduates and cadets fought with the unit which teamed with U.S. Marines to enter the famous "Halls of Montezuma" in Mexico City in 1847. [10] Lt. William J. Magill, a member of the first graduating class of 1846 was the first alumnus to serve in the U.S. Army and was a member of the 3d Dragoons under future President Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War. [11] : 10
When South Carolina declared that it had seceded from the Union in December 1860, Major Robert Anderson moved his garrison of U.S. troops to Fort Sumter and requested reinforcements from the federal government. On January 9, 1861, a battery on Morris Island manned by Citadel Academy cadets fired on the U.S. steamer Star of the West , preventing it from reaching Fort Sumter with troops and supplies. [12] Along with Confederate troops, Citadel cadets also manned several guns at "the battery" on Charleston harbor during the firing on Fort Sumter of April 12–13, 1861; [11] : 23 The first shot of the bombardment is believed by many historians to have been fired by Second Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, Class of 1860. [13]
On January 28, 1861 the Corps of Cadets from the Arsenal Academy (in Columbia) and the Citadel Academy (in Charleston) known as The SC Military Academy was made part of the military organization of the state and named the Battalion of State Cadets. The Academy continued to operate as a military academy, but classes were often disrupted when the governor called the cadets into military service. Mounting and manning heavy guns, performing guard duty, providing security and escorting prisoners were among the services performed by the cadets. The Battalion of State Cadets participated in eight engagements during the Civil War. As a result of these actions, the state of South Carolina authorized the flag of the South Carolina Corps of Cadets to carry the following Confederate battle streamers: [14] [15] [16] : 11
(The Confederate States Army streamer is gray embroidered in silver and the remainder embroidered in blue) [15]
In early December, 1864 Governor Milledge Luke Bonham ordered the Battalion of State Cadets to Tulifinny Creek near Yemassee, South Carolina to join a small Confederate force defending the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. On December 7 and 9 the entire Corps of Cadets from the SCMA fought a much larger Union force (including a contingent of U.S. Marines) in the Battle of Tulifinny, successfully defending the rail line and forcing the Union troops to withdraw; the cadets suffered eight casualties and one cadet died after the battle from his injuries. The Battalion of State Cadets was commended for their display of discipline and gallantry under fire winning the admiration of the veteran troops who fought with them, only The Citadel and The Virginia Military Institute have fought pitched battle with their entire student bodies; The Citadel is also one of only 7 colleges to have received a battle streamer for wartime service. During the Civil War, 43 graduates and 200 former cadets were Killed in Action. [17]
On February 18, 1865, the school ceased operation as a college when Union troops entered Charleston and occupied the site. Following the war, the Board of Visitors eventually regained possession of The Citadel campus and with the urging of Governor Johnson Hagood, Class of 1847, the South Carolina Legislature passed an act to reopen the college. The 1882 session began with an enrollment of 185 cadets.
In the war with Spain in 1898 more Citadel alumni volunteered for service than were needed. [18] In World War I, Citadel graduates were among the first contingents of American troops to fight with the Australian, and later British and French divisions; several served prominently with the Marine Corps at the Battle of Belleau Wood. The name of the college was officially changed in 1910 to "The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina"; the word "Academy" had become synonymous with secondary schools and the public had the misconception that the South Carolina Military Academy was a preparatory school. [19] By that time the school had outgrown its facility despite numerous additions, in 1918 the city of Charleston offered the state of South Carolina 176 acres (71 ha) on the banks of the Ashley River for a new campus on the condition that the state fund the construction. [20] The state accepted the offer on February 26, 1919 and allotted $300,000 towards the construction of a new campus. [21] In 1921 the title of the head of the school was changed from Superintendent to President, Colonel Oliver J. Bond was the last Superintendent and first President of The Citadel.
The college moved to its current location in 1922; the new campus initially consisted of only a barracks, admin/classroom building, mess hall, gym and hospital but in the next 3 decades grew rapidly. New barracks were constructed in 1926, 1938 and 1942 bringing bed capacity up to nearly 2,000; between 1936 and 1939 a chapel, armory/field house, new mess hall and 2 more academic buildings were added. Capers Hall, the main academic building was built in 1951, a student activities building was added in 1957 and Daniel Library was completed in 1960; Deas Hall, the Physical Education facility opened in 1976.
During World War II, the entire Class of 1944 was drafted and only 2 graduated. By 1943 so many cadets had left school to join the military that enrollment had dropped to less than 500 but was soon bolstered with the addition of active duty service members attending as part of the Army Specialized Training Program. Of the 2,976 living alumni in 1946 all but 49 served their country. Citadel alumni were members of some of the most famous units of the war to include the Flying Tigers, the Doolittle Raiders and the RAF Eagle Squadrons; 280 alumni were Killed in Action, 67 were declared Missing and 65 became Prisoners of War. In the immediate postwar period veteran students utilizing the GI Bill swelled the size of the school to record levels and at one time outnumbered cadets more than 2 to 1. [18]
Starting in the late 1980s a major initiative was begun to renovate older campus facilities and replace aging ones; McAlister Field House underwent an extensive rebuilding in 1987–89 that increased seating capacity from 4,500 to 6,000; in 1991 a new mess hall and classroom building (Grimsley Hall) were completed, a major renovation of the administration building (Bond Hall) was finished in 1993 and the beach house was rebuilt in 1995 after having been destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. A new barracks was constructed in 1996 and over the next decade three of the original four barracks were razed and rebuilt, the newest academic building (Thompson Hall) was completed in 2003. The Holliday Alumni Center located on Hagood Avenue just south of campus was dedicated in 2001, Johnson Hagood Stadium has had major improvements in recent years including a new field house and reconstruction of the home stands including a new press box tower that features club level seating and luxury boxes. [22]
The growth of the college has allowed for continuously expanding academic offerings; in 1916 only 3 majors were offered, at present 65 courses of study are available at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. A Graduate School, the first in the Lowcountry area was established in 1968 to fill the educational needs of a growing metropolitan area. In recent years new majors in high demand fields such as Computer Science, Criminal Justice, Sports Management, Nursing and Mechanical Engineering have been established; minors are now offered in diverse subjects including Cybersecurity, East Asian Studies, International Relations, Management Information Systems and African American Studies. [23] [24] [25]
Additional facilities work continues, with a new building for the business school and a rebuilt Capers Hall (home of humanities and social sciences) slated for 2018 and beyond, and a rebuilt boat house and repairs to the beach house also recently undertaken.
The Corps of Cadets was officially all male until 1996. In 1995, Shannon Faulkner won a two-and-a-half-year legal battle and was granted admission by order of a federal judge. She reported to the campus on the first day of freshman orientation, but was admitted to the school's infirmary immediately following lunch. She left the school after she received dozens of death threats and her family's home was vandalized. [26] [27] A Supreme Court ruling in a discrimination lawsuit against Virginia Military Institute eventually compelled the school to officially change its admission policy to admit women. [28]
The first group of four female cadets matriculated in August 1996; using credits from another school Nancy Mace completed her degree in three years and became the first female graduate in Corps history on May 9, 1999. Czech born Petra Lovetinska was the first female graduate to have attended for four years, the first foreign female cadet, and after receiving her U.S. citizenship by Act of Congress, the first female graduate to be commissioned into the U.S. military. [29] [30] The other two women did not remain to finish their first year. [31] As of September 2013 women comprise 7% of the Corps of Cadets and 21% of the overall student body. [32]
In the graduating class of 2012 Shanna M. Couch and Alexandria R. Burns were named First and Second Honor Graduates respectively. This was the first time in school history that either of the top two graduates of a class were women. A four-year starter on the soccer team, Couch was also the first woman at The Citadel to receive an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. [33] Burns, a native of Pendleton, South Carolina, was recognised for her remarkable academic achievement by the Anderson County Council in a resolution passed in June 2012. [34]
On March 21, 2018, The Citadel announced that Sara J. Zorn would serve as Regimental Commander, the highest ranking cadet for the 2018–19 academic year. She will be the first woman to hold that position. [35]
The Citadel Military College of South Carolina is a public senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Established in 1842, it is the third oldest of the six senior military colleges in the United States. The Citadel was initially established as two schools to educate young men from around the state, while simultaneously protecting the South Carolina State Arsenals in both Columbia and Charleston.
Star of the West was an American merchant steamship that was launched in 1852 and scuttled by Confederate forces in 1863. In January 1861, the ship was hired by the government of the United States to transport military supplies and reinforcements to the U.S. military garrison of Fort Sumter. A battery on Morris Island, South Carolina handled by cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy fired upon the ship, considered by some scholars to have been effectively the first shots fired in the American Civil War.
Johnson Hagood Stadium, is an 11,500-seat football stadium, the home field of The Citadel Bulldogs football team, in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. The stadium is named in honor of Brigadier General Johnson Hagood, CSA, class of 1847, who commanded Confederate forces in Charleston during the Civil War and later served as Comptroller and Governor of South Carolina.
Charleston, South Carolina, was a hotbed of secession at the start of the American Civil War and an important Atlantic Ocean port city for the fledgling Confederate States of America. The first shots against the Federal government were those fired there by cadets of the Citadel to stop a ship from resupplying the Federally held Fort Sumter. Three months later, the bombardment of Fort Sumter triggered a massive call for Federal troops to put down the rebellion. Although the city and its surrounding fortifications were repeatedly targeted by the Union Army and Navy, Charleston did not fall to Federal forces until the last months of the war. Charleston was devastated.
In the United States, a senior military college (SMC) is one of six colleges that offer military Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs under
, though many other schools offer military Reserve Officers' Training Corps under other sections of the law. The six senior military colleges are:The South Carolina Military Academy was a predecessor, two-campus institution to The Citadel. It was established in 1842 by the South Carolina Legislature and classes began at the Arsenal (Columbia) in 1843. South Carolina had constructed a series of arsenals around the state after the Denmark Vesey planned slave revolt of 1822; these were consolidated into Columbia and Charleston arsenals. No longer seen as militarily necessary, they became in 1842 the South Carolina Military Academy, consisting of the Arsenal Academy in Columbia and the Citadel Academy in Charleston. During the Civil War students from both served as the Battalion of State Cadets; SCMA cadets were among the battalion which fired the first shots of the Civil War on January 9, 1861 while manning a gun emplacement on Morris Island, South Carolina which shelled the Union steamship Star of the West; the Battalion of State Cadets made up over a third of a Confederate force that defended a strategic rail bridge in the Battle of Tulifinny in 1864. The Arsenal Academy was burned by Union troops in 1865 and never reopened; the only surviving building became the South Carolina Governor's Mansion. The Citadel Academy and the South Carolina Military Academy closed in 1865; its buildings were in Federal hands until 1882. An 1882 act of the South Carolina Legislature reopened the South Carolina Military Academy, using only the campus in Charleston. Known commonly as The Citadel Academy, the school was renamed in 1910 as The Citadel, after the name "Academy" became common to high schools rather than colleges. The school was moved to its current location in the 1960s.
The Charleston Arsenal was a United States Army arsenal facility in Charleston, South Carolina, seized by state militia at the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Richard Woodward Colcock was the second Superintendent of the South Carolina Military Academy from 1844 through 1852.
Major General James W. Duckett was an American military official. He served as the 14th President of The Citadel from 1970 to 1974, succeeding General Hugh P. Harris.
Charles Courtenay Tew was a colonel in the Confederate States Army and was killed in action at the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War.
The Battle of Tulifinny was a military engagement of the American Civil War that was fought from December 6–9, 1864 in Jasper County, South Carolina during Sherman's March to the Sea. Outnumbered five-to-one, a Confederate force led by Major-General Samuel Jones, consisting in part of the entire cadet corps of the South Carolina Military Academy, successfully defended a strategically important section of the Charleston and Savannah Railway from attacks by Union forces. The engagement was one of the rare occasions when the United States Marine Corps fought in combat during the conflict and was also the only occasion that the entire student body of a U.S. college fought in combat.
The South Carolina State Arsenal in Charleston, South Carolina was built in 1829 in response to the alleged 1822 slave revolt led by Denmark Vesey. The alleged uprising never came to fruition and Vesey was publicly hanged in 1822. In 1842 the South Carolina Military Academy, a liberal arts military college, was established by the state legislature, and the school took over the arsenal the following year as one of 2 campuses, the other being the Arsenal Academy in Columbia, South Carolina. The school became known as the Citadel Academy because of the appearance of its building. From 1865 to 1881, during Reconstruction, Federal troops occupied the Citadel, and the school was closed. Classes resumed in 1882 and continued in this building until the school was relocated to a new campus on the banks of the Ashley River in 1922.
The President of The Citadel is the chief administrator of The Citadel. Previously known as the Superintendent, the title was changed in 1921 during the tenure of Colonel Oliver J. Bond.
The campus of the Citadel Military College of South Carolina consists of a 300-acre (120 ha) space adjacent to Hampton Park in Charleston, South Carolina. It has been home to the Citadel Military College of South Carolina since 1922 when the school moved from its location on Marion Square, including the Old Citadel. Arranged with the primary buildings surrounding a central 10-acre (4 ha) parade ground, it consists of barracks for the Corps of Cadets, academic buildings, a mess hall, chapel, library, athletic and recreational facilities, support buildings, and housing for faculty and staff.
The Arsenal Academy was a military academy in Columbia, South Carolina, originally established in 1842 as an independent school by the state of South Carolina. In 1845, the academy became a component of the South Carolina Military Academy, in which first year cadets underwent their initial year of training before completing their studies at the larger Citadel Academy in Charleston, South Carolina. The school was burned by Sherman's forces in 1865 and never reopened.
Peter Fayssoux Stevens was an American soldier, educator and clergyman. He was an officer in the Confederate States Army and a bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church who also served as 4th superintendent of the South Carolina Military Academy.
Colonel John Peyre Thomas Sr. was an educator, politician and historian who served as 6th Superintendent of the South Carolina Military Academy.
Colonel Oliver James Bond, South Carolina Militia was an American educator and college administrator who served as both Superintendent and President of The Citadel from 1908 to 1931.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Nugent Courvoisie was a United States Army Officer and Assistant Commandant of Cadets at The Citadel who was the subject of The Boo, the first book authored by famed novelist Pat Conroy and the inspiration for “The Bear” in Conroy's novel The Lords of Discipline.