Author: Matthew Davis / Source: Big Think
- In 1826, Americans loved to drink, and the young cadets at West Point Academy were no exception.
- After being forbidden from imbibing everyone’s favorite egg-based holiday beverage, West Point cadets would go on to start a riot that lasted into the early hours of Christmas morning.
- The story behind the Eggnog Riot both offers a glimpse into life in 1826 and the history behind how West Point became the disciplined institution it is today.
Americans used to really enjoy a stiff drink or five. Today, the average American drinks a little over two gallons of pure alcohol a year, but in 1830, that number was 7.1 gallons. It makes sense: Clean drinking water was hard to find, the dangers of alcohol were less understood, and it was just common practice to toss a few back throughout the day.
Unfortunately, maintaining a near-constant buzz has a tendency to limit your prospects in life. In 1826, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer was tasked with molding the nation’s top military minds at West Point Academy, but he had a problem: the academy’s cadets were drunks.
The student body in 1826 was a particularly bad bunch. Among them was Jefferson Davis, who’d later go on to become the president of the Confederacy. Before this, though, Davis drunkenly stumbled into a 60-foot-deep ravine, and was the first cadet to be arrested for visiting the local tavern.
He was arrested because Thayer was determined to whip some discipline into the fledgling academy and its cadets. Thayer is known as “the father of West Point” because of the many reforms he made, such as raising admissions standards, introducing engineering as a key subject, and outlawing the consumption of alcohol. Before 1826, though, students were permitted to drink on the fourth of July and Christmas; this would be the first year that Thayer forbade drinking even on these special occasions, with disastrous consequences.
Smuggling whiskey
Wikimedia Commons
Sylvanus Thayer, who would go on to be known as “the father of West Point.”
Come Christmas Eve, several boozehound cadets hatched a plan. Traditionally, they would drink eggnog on Christmas Eve. The creamy beverage was a luxury in Europe, but because the United States had so many farmers, it was easy to come by the requisite eggs and milk. Normally, the drink was spiked with rum (unless you were George Washington, whose private recipe called for brandy, whiskey, rum, and sherry). This year, there’d be eggnog, but no liquor.
This wouldn’t do, obviously. So, with the enthusiastic support of Davis, a number of cadets set out across the Hudson river to go find some precious brown stuff to spike their nog with.
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