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<em>Samuel Escue Tillman</em> was descended on both sides from ancestors of sturdy English and Scotch-Irish stock, established in Pennsylvania and Virginia before 1700. One of his forebears on the Tillman side was a Captain under Washington in Braddock’s unlucky expedition and later at Fort Duquesne. This great-grandfather and his seven sons all fought as officers in the Revolutionary War.</p>
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Gen. Tillman’s mother, Mary Catherine Davidson, was descended from John and William Davidson, also regimental officers in the Revolutionary War, the former a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence at Charlotte, North Carolina in 1776. Through intermarriage the Tillman family was closely connected with those of Chief Justice Marshall and of Henry Clay of Virginia.</p>
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Early in the 19th Century John Tillman moved to Bedford County, Tennessee, where his son Lewis was born in 1816. The latter died in 1886 having had eleven children of whom six sons and one daughter grew to maturity. Lewis Tillman at the age of twenty fought with a Tennessee regiment in the Florida Seminole campaign and subsequently held the rank of Colonel in the Tennessee militia. Before the Civil War he occupied various legal positions in the County and after the War he was Clerk and Master of Chancery Court, editor at a local paper, for a time a member of Congress and always a staunch churchman. He was a strong supporter of the Union cause while his eldest son James Davidson Tillman entered the Confederate Army where he had an adventurous career and at the end of the War, not yet twenty-four years of age, he commanded a Tennessee regiment made up of the remnants of ten others.</p>
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Gen. Tillman, the fourth son of Lewis and Mary Catherine Tillman, was born at his father’s place near Shelbyville, Tenn., October 2, 1847. In his boyhood he witnessed the shifting tides of war and experienced the stress of divided allegiances, though actually these did not seem to make the slightest break in the family affection and immediately after the War the Confederate ex-Colonel escorted his younger brother to West Point.</p>
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Belonging to a devoted family circle with numerous playmates, his brothers and the little negro slaves—who had large share of his affections and endowed with a sunny disposition and enjoying a healthy out-of-door life, with hunting and fishing and many other boyish delights, young Sammy’s childhood was quite idyllically nappy.</p>
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The Tillman boys studied under their Uncle Abram Marshall Tillman, who entirely alone conducted a school for forty boys ranging in age from eight to eighteen. This was known as the Duck River Male Academy. If the title has a tinge of humor to modern ears, the curriculum certainly has not, for before he was fourteen young Sam had “made fair progress in the Classics,” having completed Caesar’s Commentaries, Cicero’s Orations, Virgil and Horace; as well as Zenophon and Homer in Greek. He was “well-grounded” in mathematics having advanced through trigonometry. Uncle Abram had a lighter side, a love of fox-hunting. In this sport Nephew Sam was his chosen companion and the boy acquired eleven foxhounds of his own which were his pride and joy.</p>
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At this period of his life when only fourteen, all schools were closed in Tennessee because of the outbreak of the War. Lewis Tillman, Sr. determined that his sons should not be demoralized by idleness, set them all to work on the land In company with the colored boys. Their taskmaster was the old negro foreman Jim, who planned with uncanny accuracy the exact stint of work that each could do from Monday morning to Saturday noon, with no holiday for any who might not have finished. It was probably early and constant association in work and play which accounted for Gen. Tillman’s complete absence of racial discrimination or prejudice. He always kept in touch with the eldest survivor of his playmates, born in slavery, and supported the old man for some years after he became incapacitated when both were over eighty.</p>
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It is hard to refrain from recounting many such incidents for instantaneous and active kindness was characteristic all his life: whether it was a lonely cadet in trouble with studies or discipline, an enlisted man needing help, friends in illness or financial straits—all had a claim on his time and efforts. Yet his modesty and genuine lack of self-importance were such that his usual mental and moral qualities never seemed in the least noteworthy to himself. Blessed with geniality and humor he ever inspired affection and friendship throughout his long life.</p>
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The effect on a liberal mind of the scientific theories and discoveries of his early maturity prevented his belonging to any orthodox religious sect but his life was an exposition of Christian ethics. As Professor and Superintendent he regularly attended the Chapel services, no matter how busy he might be, for he felt that the officers whatever their private creed, should set this example to the cadets.</p>
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In January 1865, young Sam was informed by his father, that through the request of Andrew Johnson, then Military Governor of Tennessee, President Lincoln had awarded him an appointment at large to the Military Academy at West Point. In March he was sent to review his studies, principally mathematics, at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, since he had not been to school for over four years. However, his “grounding” had been such that no serious work was necessary and he passed several weeks pleasantly, beginning his life-long habit of making many friends. In after years he recalled tolling the University bell for Lincoln’s funeral and his difficulty in getting accustomed to the sight of white servants.</p>
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On June 14th, 1865, he reported at West Point and received the usually disconcerting reception by the upper classmen, then known as “devilling.”</p>
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Far from being upset however, he found it amusing and apparently his equanimity soon freed him from further annoyance. The word hazing came in much later. Tillman always felt that this practice within limits was harmless, even beneficial, but unfortunately some would always carry it too far. For this reason he never practiced it as an upper-classman and discouraged it as an officer for he felt its abuse had never been successfully prevented.</p>
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A father and uncle of the old school had so trained the new plebe that he wrote home that he found life at West Point “surprisingly easy and free from care and responsibility, with only two lessons a day to learn.” Surely a novel point of view—On account of his Initial <em>T</em> he was originally placed in the last section but at the first transfer was jumped to the first where he remained for the rest of his term.</p>
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He stood third in the class during the last three years. Drawing and French were his stumbling blocks but the subjects in which he excelled each year make a formidable list.</p>
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One of his plebe roommates named Rawson was not so fortunate. A favorite story of Tillman’s was of how Prof. Church in exasperation in one of the lower sections of “math” turned to Rawson exclaiming ... ”Mr. Rawson no one here has had an idea. Can you tell me why a quantity changes from plus to minus in passing through zero?” Rawson replied, “it pulls the cross piece off in going through.” Tillman had many amusing stories about this man who was a real wit though he did not shine in his studies. He had fought in the Union army throughout the War though only eighteen and a half when he entered, and hence much latitude was allowed for him for he never could take the cadet discipline seriously. It seems sad that he died on his Graduating leave.</p>
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In those days the Corps was so small that Tillman had intimate friends in every class during his stay. He survived all the brilliant and delightful men who were his fellow-cadets. Mallery, Miller, Barber and Farragut of ‘67. Payson of ‘68. In his own class of ‘69, Bergland, Osgood, Duvall, Lyle, Morgan Taylor, uncle of Admiral Robley Evans, John Brisben Walker, newspaperman and editor, originator of the <em>Cosmopolitan,</em> the first popular priced magazine, and Arthur Sherburne Hardy, diplomat and novelist, Col. Charles W. Larned, Francis Vinton Greene and Edward S. Holden in ‘70. Adding all the later graduates who were his friends, their names are legion and space forbids a list.</p>
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On his Graduation in June 1869, Tillman was assigned to the artillery and reported at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he remained for nearly a year during several months of which his battery served as Cavalry in the field. On August 28, 1870, he returned to West Point as instructor in the Department of Chemistry, Minerology and Geology; he was transferred to the Engineers in 1872 and in 1873 was relieved at his own request.</p>
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His new station at Camp Apache, Arizona, was 750 miles from a railroad and this part of the trip was made by stagecoach. The new detail was for survey work west of the 100th meridian, with prolonged expeditions in the open by packtrain. He remained until December and returned to Washington for the winter. The same schedule was repeated in the years ‘76 to ‘79. During his whole survey work he covered 9,000 miles on muleback through unmapped country.</p>
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On one occasion he rode for an entire day, from dawn until dark, through a vast herd of buffalo, not travelling in the same direction but crossing his path. One could tell many delightful stories of his experiences in the magnificent scenery of the western mountains and plains, of Indians and soldiers, half-breed guides and prospectors, game and fish and Army mules, but alas, space does not permit.</p>
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He also saw the Antipodes at this early period during the months which he spent in Australia and Tasmania in 1874-75, on an astronomical trip to observe the transit of Venus. The Voyage “down under” was made by sailing ship, not from any necessity but from an attack of economy on the part of the Government. The intention had been to leave the unfortunate party for five months on Crozet Island, a barren rock in the ocean off Australia, but the ship circling it for three days, was unable to land and so the astronomers were carried on to Tasmania.</p>
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On his return Tillman spent a year at West Point as instructor in the Department of Natural Philosophy. Then followed Western survey work until ‘79, when he returned as Assistant Professor of Chemistry, being appointed a full Professor in 1880, at the age of 33.</p>
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There was then no fixed retirement age for Professors and Col. Kendrick, Tillman’s predecessor voluntarily retired in order to make sure of his assistant’s appointment. A War Department memorandum sent to Tillman in later years and which gave him great gratification, stated that “the department had on file recommendations of the most emphatic kind from the Superintendent and all the members of the Academic Board, from Generals Sherman, Crook and Parke, from Professor Simon Newcomb, the astronomer” and from a long list of other Generals, Senators and scientific men.</p>
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As Professor, Tillman labored for thirty-one years, not only for his own Department but for every aspect of the Academy’s activities. Soon after his appointment he induced the Academic Board to substitute semi-annual written examinations for the oral test of the whole year’s course which had customarily been held in June. He also felt that the daily system of marking and grading cadets was excellent in itself but that it was largely neutralized by the subsequent manner of assigning proportional weights in the different subjects. In 1884 when he first suggested a change in the then current method of marking, the Academic Board refused to consider it but he persisted and in 1895, the change was finally recommended and adopted, and has been in use ever since.</p>
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The buildings of the period were most inadequate in their teaching facilities. In those days the June Board of Visitors was an important and influential body. In 1885, Tillman showed the Board of that year plans he had drawn up, and actually gave a demonstration on the ground to let them see where a new Academic Building might be set up. The Board of Visitors adopted his recommendations, but this inspired all departments with larger ideas and there was consequently considerable delay and revision of the plans, so it was not until the fall of ‘94, that the new (now the old) Academic Building was ready for occupancy and therein Tillman had been allotted the space and arrangements he had originally planned for his beloved Department.</p>
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Another of his ideas was the institution of the post of librarian. It had been the custom for one of the professors to hold this more or less honorary office which was attended to casually in spare moments. Tillman felt this arrangement to be most inadequate. When he was appointed librarian in 1901 he wrote a letter to the Superintendent (published in the report for 1902), setting forth what he considered the functions of the library should be and the necessity for an able full-time librarian. The Board of Visitors of 1902 endorsed this recommendation and Congress was induced to create the post of librarian. At Col. Tillman’s suggestion Dr. Edward S. Holden was appointed.</p>
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The later, astronomer, educator, historian, was one of the Academy’s most brilliant graduates and under the stimulus of his erudition in many fields the library was built up and developed to take its place with those of other important institutions of learning.</p>
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During the years of Tillman’s professorship the knowledge of science was making tremendous strides. He first reorganized the course in his Department and then strove to incorporate in it as much as possible of the growing fields of knowledge. The study of electricity was greatly expanded and in 1896 when the X-ray was first being explored he experimented in his laboratory and took a photograph of his hand at the same time that Prof. Pupin of Columbia was making the first publicized X-ray photograph.</p>
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The need of suitable text-books, as a citation for the degree of M.A. from Yale University later expressed it, “for the somewhat peculiar needs of his classes” induced him in 1888 to write his book on “<em>Heat</em>,” in ‘94 his “<em>Rocks and Minerals</em>” and in 1898 his “<em>Descriptive General Chemistry</em>.” (In the latter the famous definition of leather bestowed unexpected fame.) These text-books continued in use until superseded by ever-changing scientific and technical requirements.</p>
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Reaching the retirement age in 1911, Tillman was invited by his friend Gen. Thomas B. Barry, then Superintendent, to make the graduating address in June of that year. Gen. Barry spoke of him as “the embodiment of West Point and the best example to the class about to graduate, as well as to the many classes in which he has had a helping hand.” To his gratification Tillman was adopted as an honorary member of the class of 1911, and the address which he made to them, expresses so much of his ideals and personality that one would wish to quote it in full, however, one excerpt only can be given—”Remember that the law of life is labor, the joy of life is accomplishment. The full conviction that accomplishment is the end and that recognition and appreciation are but incidents, requires a certain maturity of mind: but this conviction is essential to the best effort.”</p>
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After five years of retirement when it became apparent that the United States would become involved in the first World War, Tillman in 1916, offered his services to the War Department as instructor at West Point in order to release a younger man. His offer was not accepted at that time, but when he renewed it in 1917, he was appointed Superintendent instead of being assigned the modest role he had suggested. Because of the shifting requirements of the War situation, the postion was exacting and difficult but that he met the test successfully was commented upon as late as 1922, by the Congressional Board of Visitors of that year. “that such disruption of the course and such hurrying the classes prematurely out of the Academy did not destroy it is evidence of its stability and is due largely to the fact that during this period there was in command at West Point as Superintendent, Brig. Gen. Samuel E. Tillman, whose more than forty years’ service at the Academy as Cadet, Instructor and Professor formed the anchor which kept it firmly fixed to the ideals and traditions of the past.” He was promoted to Brigadier-General on the retired list in March 1919, and received the Distinguished Service Medal in June of that year from Secretary of War Baker, who had previously written him “as a matter of fact I am coming (to the Graduation Exercises) chiefly for the pleasure of publicly conferring on you the Distinguished Service Medal.”</p>
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Tillman was elected President of the Association of Graduates in 1919. He belonged to the Army-Navy Club of Washington and for more than fifty years had been a member of the University Club and of the Century Association of New York. Up to the time of his death he had been one of three surviving officers whose names were carried continuously in <em>Who’s Who</em> since its inception in 1899: the other two being Gen. William Crozier, class of 1875 and Col. John Millis, of 1881.</p>
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During Gen. Tillman’s Superintendency greater emphasis was placed on the celebration of Alumnae Day in June Week. He originated the Memorial Ceremony at the Thayer Monument and this custom gave him the greatest gratification on his many subsequent visits on Alumnae Day for at his fabulous age the friends who had gone before became merged with those of the present.</p>
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After his second retirement in June 1919, the remaining twenty-two years were still full of interest and friendship. His permanent home was at Southampton, Long Island, but the winters were usually spent in New York, Washington, the South, or even California. He made three trips to Europe and two to Mexico, whose charms of scenery and climate, dramatic history and future possibilities interested him greatly. He read widely and kept in touch with world events. During the twenties he wrote rather extensively on the subject of the European War Debts, the correspondence appearing in the <em>New York Tribune</em>. His opinion, (since amply vindicated) was that the demand for the repayment of the debts was impossible economically and unjust morally.</p>
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His wife, Clara William, whom he married in 1887, died in 1921. Because of mutual devotion and congeniality, their home was a stimulating and kindly centre for their friends. It was a tragedy for both that for the last fifteen years of her life she was an invalid from acute arthritis but her charming personality and brilliant mind remained undimmed. They had one daughter, Katharine Tillman Martin, who survives as does Mr. Abram M. Tillman of Washington, Gen. Tillman’s youngest brother.</p>
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His wife’s illness and her loss were almost the only shadows on Tillman’s life and his old age was serene and happy. Looking back over the incredible span of years, he seemed free not only of remorse but of any trace of regret. He had amazing health always. A week before his death he fell and broke his hip; he did not suffer or know he had been injured but gradually grew weaker each day until the last.</p>
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<em>Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee,</em><br />
<em>In whose heart are Thy ways.</em></p>
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