officer in charge of the quarters deck on which Hart’s class lived was a lieutenant derisively called Savvy Dan. Dan was strict, devoid of humor, something of a prig, and had a trait that the midshipmen conceived of as “meanness.” One afternoon after infantry drill Hart was presented with some seventy-five blank cartridges and told by his fellows to make a bomb with a slow-burning fuse. Coxey’s Army was going to blow up Savvy Dan’s desk, his pride and joy. Tommy did as directed, constructing a bomb in a half-pint ink bottle. At 3:00 a.m. this was duly set in a drawer of the desk. Soon, the entire dormitory was shocked into wakefulness by a tremendous roar.12
Obviously Brownson could not allow this challenge to authority to go unpunished, so he announced that the third class would mount two sentries on the floor all night in two-hour shifts. The class felt that damaging Savvy Dan’s desk and reputation was worth this sacrifice, so after a few days Brownson increased the pressure. Letting it be known that he feared the culprits might be from outside the academy and capable of God knows what, he doubled the number of sentries. After a few days of this and the surmise that Brownson would continue the mathematical progression ad nauseam, Coxey’s Army surrendered. Instead of dismissing them, which he could have done, the commandant had them quartered in the Santee for two months with no recreation time. No demerits were assigned, so none of the cadets suffered in their class standing, and Brownson told them he was confining them merely to guard against danger to life and property. This method of both finding the guilty and leavening justice with mercy, Hart later considered “a perfect example of correct handling of men in a matter of discipline” even though he suffered on the Santee for two months.
It should not be assumed, though, that Brownson had turned Thomas Hart into a model cadet. For instance, although he says that by his third year he had decided to straighten up and come around, he was enticed to go to a party one Saturday afternoon even though he was restricted to “barracks” for previous indiscretions. In this case he not only made the mistake of leaving the barracks but also of going to a party hosted by the daughters of Commander Edwin White, who had succeeded Brownson as commandant of cadets. As if that were not bad enough, he made the fatal error of being so noteworthy that one of the hostesses mentioned him by name to her father. Commander White was not as accommodating as his predecessor had been. He ordered Hart and his roommate to account for themselves between the hours of 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on that Saturday. When they did so, he gave them fifty demerits each and sent them back to the Santee for confinement.
The class of 1897, U.S. Naval Academy. Naval Cadet Hart is immediately behind the man in the middle of the front row. Courtesy of Mrs. T. C. Hart
Statistics probably best tell the story of Hart’s career under academy discipline. In his youngster, or second, year he stood fifty-second out of seventy-seven in discipline; by his second-class year he had improved his conduct to stand thirty-first out of sixty; but in his first-class year, belying his comments about reforming, he stood thirty-second out of thirty-seven. What this means is problematic, but it is likely that Thomas Hart, who was only nineteen when he graduated, was full of boyish high spirits and they could not be dulled by the academy’s rigid rules. Whether he was misbehaving to gain attention will be left to the psychologists. Hart later took some pride in the fact that throughout his career he was considered by superiors to be slightly insubordinate; there is no doubt that he displayed these traits early.
We also know that Thomas Hart did not follow the same erratic course in academic matters. At the start of his youngster year, he stood forty-second out of seventy-seven; the next year he stood twenty-sixth out of sixty; he went to thirteenth out of fifty-six the following year; and by graduation he was seventh out of thirty-seven. Considering the aggregate of the four years, he stood twelfth out of thirty-seven, with a score of 610.23 out of a possible 700. Thus Hart showed steady improvement in his classroom work. And here it should be stressed that, although the academy has always put primary emphasis on turning out line officers rather than intellectuals, the teaching methods were rigorous. Classes were very small, eight to ten cadets, and, since recitation was the pedagogical procedure rather than lecture, it was virtually impossible for a cadet to go to class unprepared—and get away with it. Hence one can assume that Hart’s grades accurately reflected his knowledge. The subjects in which he did best were steam machinery, marine engines and boilers, physics and chemistry, history, international law, and seamanship. His worst subjects were French, calculus, mechanical drawing, trigonometry, and geometry.
But it was not all classroom work and inspections at the academy. Since 1890 there had been a renewed interest in athletics. At the alumni gathering in that year Robert M. Thompson, of the class of 1868, pointed out that “however valuable scholastic attainments might be, all would be useless if, at the crucial moment of conflict, nerves and body failed.”13 This remark fell on receptive ears and the cadets’ young bodies were soon being subjected to a full schedule of athletic events. Football was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm and the greatest spectacles were the contests between the two service academies. But that game became a victim of its own success and was not played for four years after 1894 “because of a supposed deleterious influence upon the class standing of the participants and the discipline of the academies.”14 One can fairly assume that Hart was one of those whose discipline was so affected. Although he was too small to participate in football, he found his niche in another sport revived in the athletic renaissance of the ’90s—crew. “Dad” was just the right size to act as coxswain in the academy’s eight-man shell and there he performed valuable service in 1895 and 1896. Then, partially in response to a “challenge from the New York Naval Reserves” and presumably at the urging of Superintendent Cooper, who wanted to see the cadets’ athletic energies expended as much as possible in their natural element, the water, Hart and some associates organized a cutter crew. Lieutenant Albert W. Grant of the Mathematics Department helped, offering such sage advice as “If a man only put his blade in the water and pulled hard enough it did not matter if he feathered a few inches too high.” Some of the academy crew were not paragons of physical prowess, but they had desire and they apparently took to heart Grant’s suggestion that they put enthusiasm ahead of style. In the end they won the race with the reserves by a length, aided, as Hart said, “by their pluck and endurance.”15
Evincing some of those same qualities, Tommy Hart made it to 4 June 1897 and graduation. There had been significant changes in him and in the school since his arrival a little more than four years before. He entered as a boy and was leaving at least well on his way to manhood. His knowledge had been increased and he had demonstrated an ability to master difficult academic subjects. His sense of decorum still left something to be desired, but at least he had learned the consequences of misconduct and, presumably, benefited from his punishment. He also had learned a number of practical things as a result of his athletic participation and his summer cruises. By the time he graduated, he had spent eight months and twenty-seven days afloat, most of that under sail. From these experiences he learned a life-long respect for seamanship and all manner of things to do with ships. Some of this may be attributed to the changes in the academy’s curriculum, in that more and more emphasis was being placed on shiphandling. Physical changes were also taking place in Annapolis; acreage was added to the grounds and the Board of Visitors began agitating for some uniformity in architecture. The renaissance of the school’s physical plant was yet to come, but like Naval Cadet Hart, the academy was poised to spring into a new and exciting period.
But first there was what should have been a triumphal return home on a short leave. However, as he would have been the first to admit, his activities at the academy, in things nonacademic, could hardly be pointed to with pride, and the results of some of his indiscretions could not be swept away with a diploma. Therefore, when Tommy Hart returned to Michigan he brought a sheepskin and a handful of bills for debts unwisely incurred. His father reached for the diploma and did not even look at the bills; they were Tommy’s personal property. Hence Tommy Hart would have slowly to pay off his debts, and buy his meals, all on the ninety dollars per month he would earn for the next two years.
At this period in the navy’s history, getting a commission took six years rather than four. This meant that Hart, now a passed midshipman, would spend two years