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Second :edit god I love this chanel it feels illegal being this early :edit again oh my god I just I don’t know even if it’s just a small bit of recognition it’s still going to make my day
Having gone to a military school, happens all the time. Both when I was a cadet and when I came back to volunteer. As a cadet it was terrifying, as an adult volunteering it was hilarious.
On one hand, I feel like this would be humiliating for West Point, but they have to at least give the cadets credit for being able to fully arm themselves and fortify the college in a drunken stupor.
I know. It's actually a sign of the effects of the strict discipline they were under that, even sloshed as they were, they were able to organize and start setting up defenses.
Little-known fact about Robert E. Lee: He was such a teacher's pet at West Point, he's the only graduate in history to graduate without getting a single demerit.
@@Bill_Garthright General Thomas was a Virginian who stayed with the Union, he was considered a traitor by his state and family. Treason back then was a two edged sword. Betray the federal government? Or betray the state government you live in and your family? It's also hard for me to condemn 'treason' when we are only a country because a bunch of people committed treason against Parliament and King George III.
“How dare he try to stop their deep seated and wholesome tradition of celebrating the messiahs birth by getting utterly annihilated on cream drinks laced with cheap rock gut” Yeah how dare he! 🤣🤣
@@extrahistory "Don't ever step on me or my drunken buddies ever again." (imagine Gadsden flag with a few college fratboy snakes completely sloshed) This is absolutely hilarious and amazing, thank you for putting it up. PLEASE grab something crazy like this for the Air Force Academy, as I'll be going there hopefully next year!
To be fair, he was a war hero during the Creek Indian Wars. He and his scouting party were ambushed and as they tried to outpace the pursuing canoes he ordered his men to strip their jackets and tie them to their own oars as sails and managed to escape the Creeks.
Reading about his military career, I get the sense Davis would have been a better Confederate general than president. IIRC he outfitted his regiment during the Mexican war with superior weapons and performed quite well overall.
I'm so happy that we're getting treated to Christmas history videos. The Christmas Truce short series is still one of my all time favorites... (and since we're getting this one off video so early we might get another one next week, fingers 🤞).
@@extrahistory I'm curious: was this episode planned for awhile or is the splitting of channels already freeing you up a bit? I know you guys have in the past regularly put out one off videos and shorts but it seemed to slow down for awhile until recently. Now you guys seem to be ramping up both one off episodes and your shorts, (which I'm stoked for since your one-offs are usually on stuff I never heard of), so I'm just curious if there's a reason behind it. Thanks and happy holidays.
@@malachiphoniex8501 95% of the stuff we do is planned about 3 months in advance because of the time it takes for the writer and artists to do their thing. For the split we worked lots of extra hours to get extra content done for both channels. As well as working extra time to get ahead on videos before the holiday break. By the time the holiday comes around we all will be very thankful for the break
@@advanceringnewholder Lee’s reputation as a noble gentlemen stayed with him his whole life even during and after his time as a confederate general, and this personal image has been used to defend the confederates. Davis’ managed to avoid consequences despite being the instigator, in the same way he was president of the confederate states during the war but never faced trial for his obvious treason. Just to clarify I am also not an American nor an expert in the civil war this is just my understanding of it
@@advanceringnewholder Jefferson Davis basically committed high treason and got off scott free, after like, instigating the Civil War. Robert E Lee always tried to use his reputation to bail people out and was eventually a general for the confederacy and pushed for less brutal terms for surrender
@@advanceringnewholder After the Confederacy lost the war, Jefferson Davis was captured and sent to prison, but then the Union let him go after only two years. And Lee helped ensure that the men who served with the Confederacy were not charged with treason.
Yeah, as a current WP cadet, this makes complete sense. I could see this still definitely being a thing today. Hell, during covid, there were the Printer Riots, where cadets would throw their printers off of roofs and down stairwells to protest covid restrictions. Even today, Christmas dinner here is absolutely crazy with singing, cigar smoking, dancing, running naked across The Plain, and climbing on top of George Washington's statue to touch his horse's balls. We've got some weird things that happen here, and I'd love to see you guys make more videos about our rock-bound highland home, which is definitely not a prison.
As a former cadet of Texas A&M, it's probably for the best that weapons and booze were banned from our dorms. Historically, the worst that our cadets got up to, were losing a WWI field gun in a ditch (found and restored decades later, and is now fired at football games when we score a touchdown), and kidnapping and branding the winning score (13-0) onto UT's steer mascot. UT worked to save face, by naming it BEVO (Add some lines, and you can turn 13-0 into BEVO).
@@EvilPaladin11 You forgot the time the Corps robbed a national guard armory and used the rifles to put a small town under martial law because we were hunting some Rice students who had stolen their own owl mascot back that we had stolen first, and the commandant had to call out the Texas Rangers to disperse us lmao
You have to remember, at the time the US military academy at West Point was rapidly becoming like the British Army where rich and powerful individuals put their sons there to earn a officers commission for the sake of maintaining prestige and power. Discipline was before Thayer was not the order of the day per se. Rather they would try their hardest to ensure everyone graduated and the parents would be in the commandant's debt. It was a semi corrupt system that produce semi effective officers.
As a kid from West Point and having grown up living on Worth road, thank you for talking about this! I learned about this all through middle school we thought it was hilarious!
The parallels to Animal House are impressive. Sylvanus Thayer is your Dean Wormer, Hitchcock is Niedermayer, and playing the role of Bluto Blutarsky is Jeff Davis.
It’s been tradition in the Anglosphere for centuries. That’s why the Puritans banned Christmas. It was getting WAY too out of hand in England. After the interregnum, it got a lot more subdued.
Ya know Davis kinda strikes me as that one classmate who nearly always not punished for his trouble because his mother was good friends with the principal and faculty. And 2nd note Robert E Lee should had a moment with Davis during the civil war like “Do you I remember back in the academy?”
It would be more, all the confederate generals sharing anedoctes from the academy, except Robert E Lee, because he was the teacher's pet everyone hated XD
@@beeaggro2593 he was commandant of the point when grant was there if i recall correctly .. the civil war is truly a sad war friend fought friend and brother killed brother
@@50TNCSA When Lee was at Appomattox, Grant tried to cheer up Lee (who was feeling defeated, humiliated, and all around depressed) by telling Lee about how Grant admired him for the skill he displayed during the Mexican-American War. Told him about how he inspired him during that war. Lee’s response was something along the lines of “That’s nice.” Grant never had any hard feelings for Lee. That’s why it wasn’t hard for him to offer Lee amnesty for himself and his soldiers in return for his surrender. And Grant honored that agreement. Later on President Andrew Johnson was talking about possibly arresting Lee and trying him for Treason, Grant went right up to Andrew Johnson and told him that he would protest such a move with the strongest of words.
Getting pissed on Xmas isn't just an American tradition, it's the most traditional way to celebrate across much of western Europe. That's why Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas under his Puritanical rule as Lord Protector of England
A someone who used to go to military school, I often wondered what would happen if we all just stopped listening. I imagine it would be something like this with less shooting.
I first started watching EC when the pandemic hit. The sires on the 1918 flu pandemic was what brought me to the channel but the library of content, not in just history but literature, mythology, and politics has been a delightful, educational, and entertaining part of my life ever since. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication and Happy Holidays.
This would make an excellent Christmas Comedy film! I imagine it would have some references to what happens later, such as: “That Lee’s a good Cadet. He’ll do well in life! Be a credit to his country!”
Twis the night like no other, I can attest, Where I saw multiple West Point soldiers holding a drinking contest. The eggnog was great, And the spirts greater, All till some soldiers heard a meander. I could continue but you get it. Kilroy was here
For the Confederacy, it was an independence war however. "Civil War" is a bit of a Misnomer, as only one of the participants was trying to (re)establish political and military dominance.
A toast to all of us! To the fun we had outside of liquor stores sheepishly asking strangers to buy beer for us, and the stupidity hilarity that resulted after drinking only 2 bottles. We are only young once, I hope everyone can enjoy it both sober and sloshed!
lmao basically my highschool years in a nutshell. my friends and i bribed a liquor store owner 100 bucks to let us buy there whenever we wanted and his only rule was we couldn’t come inside if there were customers in the store. went there for two years straight and must’ve given that man over 4 grand in sales with all of the booze we bought for parties.
Tangentially, on the subject of rules-breaking at West Point and similar institutions and the almost pathological need for students to pursue Hijinks has been turned into a feature. Turns out that that flexible thinking is very valuable when you prefer achieving objectives over simple robotic obedience, and letting the students think they're getting away with stuff, within limits, is pretty good training for creative problem solving. You don't want folks who are trained too solidly to stick to procedure in situations where the procedure is actively detrimental to getting the job done due to the situation on the ground.
Yep, it's called "take-life" where we trained.. and you're encouraged to just not get caught with whatever is restricted.. it's justified as practice when you find yourself as a POW and need to get creative to survive 😅
@@diarradunlap9337 there's definitely a close-knit aspect and rivalry at the company level that would be familiar to a lot of people. As far as the second part, the focus is more on junior leadership - but you're right, ultimately the objective is to develop leaders to win our nation's wars.
9:36 John Archibald Campbell was actually the Assistant secretary of War for the Confederacy. He also tried to negotiate the surrender of Fort Sumter and attended the Hampton Roads peace conference in the last months of the war.
"Turns out getting blitzed for the holidays was kind of an American custom." Presumably, this was how Washington knew how to exploit this weakness to defeat the Hessians in the Battle of Trenton.
What a merry episode! Fun fact: the fortifications at West Point were constructed by Polish military engineer - Tadeusz Kościuszko, who previously contributed to the victory at Saratoga and later became the leader of the resistance against the empires ganging up on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and partitioning it. Although ultimately unsuccessful, he is basically honoured as the greatest Polish national hero ever, and also considered their hero by many Lithuanians and Belarusians. Yes, I will use any excuse to write about Kosciuszko.
LOL!!! Reminds me of the Christmas Eve party in the permanent stationed enlisted barracks at Lowry AFB... Being the senior enlisted man in the barracks, I had a beer with the crew, and then had to break up the party because of a fight breaking out, resulting in one person going out of a second story window. Hmmm.... Bein a Sergeant, I ordered all the Airmen to go to their rooms, and then have a chat with the Base Police, saying the broken window was from someone too drunk trying to get out of the room (Base Police are going "yeah, right"), yet the party was over, after having another chat with the Base First Sergeant. It was late after all the questioning, so I checked in with fthe remaining partiers holed up in one room, with a bottle of Southern Comfort, and finished out Christmas Eve. The best part, I show up late the next morning, hungover, and was promptly sent back to the barrack. A few days later, I get thanks from all the airmen in the barracks for bailing them out Christmas Eve.
Of note, Mercer along with several other members (though not Humphreys) were pardoned by John Quincy Adams and readmitted to West Point. Mercer graduated from the Academy in 1829. Other thing to consider is that on the eve of the Civil War, both the Union and the Confederacy were DESPERATE for officers. Unlike today, in the 19th Century, the American military service wasn't really seen as something you made into lifelong career (there's really only one major figure during this period that did, Winfield Scott, who served in the US Army from 1808 until 1861). Before Lincoln's call to the states to start recruiting volunteers, the US Army was only 10,000 men (compared to the overall population of 31 million). So that Mercer and Humphreys ended up generals in the CSA isn't that big of a shock.
Yeah, Grant even wrote in his memoirs about how he probably wouldn't have been able to rise as far as he did during the war if he hadn't been *dismissed* from the Regular Army in the 1850s. He would have been shoved into some random role probably around DC instead of being out in the Midwest actually fighting and leading troops.
This was a hoot and a half! 🤣🤣🤣 I did fear for Hitchcock for a second there. Also I lost it with Rob's "USA! USA!" and then sipping on the eggnog again. No idea that this happened at WP, and that the cadets have continued the shenanigans for one reason or the other... It's endearing actually 🤣
These sorts of shenanigans are a fun reminder that people have always been people, and even major names in history were once the same sorts of idiot teenagers a lot of us were.
Maybe I'm mistaken but $0.35 in 1826 should be equivalent to around $10.50 today. Meaning that, despite the inflation, Matt was completely right. Corruption used to be SO affordable!
I been watching since I found you all on the escapist it’s been a real treat watching all your hard work. Thanks for the edutainment and happy holidays!
Growing up around West Point, can confirm legends of this story. As my mom works for WP museum, I can also confirm, there is no mention of this on the tour 🤣🤣
9:52 I imagine sending the cadets home for Christmas had more to do with the proliferation of ye olde planes, trains, and automobiles rather than any lessons actually being learned.
Soldiers love a good drink. This isn't even half as bad as some of the crap we got into in my unit. And I think there is a time for revelry and debauchery especially during the holidays
I never had eggnog... In my part of Canada it's not really a custom and lot of people dont even know about it. Although some grocery stores have some from time to time (fun fact, it's called and sold as "MILK OF CHICKEN" in the French part of Canada).
I learned about a week ago that the liquor helps kill any bacteria (i.e. Salmonella) that the raw eggs may have had. Also that people would let their eggnog set for about 3 weeks or so, so the alchohol could really do it's stuff
@@sryan5512 I can remember a lot of fun times as a cadet but that one stands out. I would've loved to have been there when we broke the Navy streak in 2016 too - I imagine that was wild
Hey Matt, I admit this may never happen anytime soon, but have you ever considered guest-starring in Drunken History? I think you'd make for a solid host. Also, and I edit this in forgetting to do it last time, but I'm genuinely surprised this ain't another story penned by Duncan Fyfe, this seems like a perfect story for Something True.
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Mathew gave me the rizz
Second
:edit god I love this chanel it feels illegal being this early
:edit again oh my god I just I don’t know even if it’s just a small bit of recognition it’s still going to make my day
1st
I was waiting for a this for so long I'm so glad it's here! 😁
4th!
No matter how strict or regimented, never doubt the power of teenagers finding a way to get into a drunken debauchery.
100%
I got pretty popular in high school and college since I knew how to make alcohol using cran grape juice some champagne yeast and a condom lol.
@@extrahistory hello sir
How crazy.
@@rc59191 What?
davis bursting into a room to warn the cadets about hitchcock only to find him already there sounds like something straight out of a movie
Having gone to a military school, happens all the time. Both when I was a cadet and when I came back to volunteer. As a cadet it was terrifying, as an adult volunteering it was hilarious.
Sounds like animal house tbh
On one hand, I feel like this would be humiliating for West Point, but they have to at least give the cadets credit for being able to fully arm themselves and fortify the college in a drunken stupor.
I know. It's actually a sign of the effects of the strict discipline they were under that, even sloshed as they were, they were able to organize and start setting up defenses.
Headmaster:Well…. We trained them at least
LOL that's fair!
@@rokkfel4999 A little too well it seems
If Taps and Hero was the same movie.
Little-known fact about Robert E. Lee: He was such a teacher's pet at West Point, he's the only graduate in history to graduate without getting a single demerit.
He wasn't known as "The Marble Man" for nothing.
Wow, he sure made up for that later, huh? But then, he clearly wasn't the only graduate in history to commit treason.
@@Bill_Garthright General Thomas was a Virginian who stayed with the Union, he was considered a traitor by his state and family. Treason back then was a two edged sword. Betray the federal government? Or betray the state government you live in and your family? It's also hard for me to condemn 'treason' when we are only a country because a bunch of people committed treason against Parliament and King George III.
*"NERD!"*
-Homer Simpson.
According to Wikipedia, there were five others who share this distinction in his class alone.
“How dare he try to stop their deep seated and wholesome tradition of celebrating the messiahs birth by getting utterly annihilated on cream drinks laced with cheap rock gut”
Yeah how dare he! 🤣🤣
But HE DARED!!!!!
@@extrahistory "Don't ever step on me or my drunken buddies ever again." (imagine Gadsden flag with a few college fratboy snakes completely sloshed)
This is absolutely hilarious and amazing, thank you for putting it up. PLEASE grab something crazy like this for the Air Force Academy, as I'll be going there hopefully next year!
*rot-gut
It will never stop making me laugh that Jefferson Davis was a drunken dunce.
Almost makes his (fake) story of fleeing from US troops in 1865 while dressed in women's clothing believable!
I'm not convinced he ever stopped
To be fair, he was a war hero during the Creek Indian Wars. He and his scouting party were ambushed and as they tried to outpace the pursuing canoes he ordered his men to strip their jackets and tie them to their own oars as sails and managed to escape the Creeks.
Legend has it he was never drunk. He was just such an idiot everyone thought he was drunk.
Reading about his military career, I get the sense Davis would have been a better Confederate general than president. IIRC he outfitted his regiment during the Mexican war with superior weapons and performed quite well overall.
I'm so happy that we're getting treated to Christmas history videos. The Christmas Truce short series is still one of my all time favorites... (and since we're getting this one off video so early we might get another one next week, fingers 🤞).
We did a sweet Holiday short on the Dark History of Good ole St. Nicholas too!
@@extrahistory I'm curious: was this episode planned for awhile or is the splitting of channels already freeing you up a bit? I know you guys have in the past regularly put out one off videos and shorts but it seemed to slow down for awhile until recently. Now you guys seem to be ramping up both one off episodes and your shorts, (which I'm stoked for since your one-offs are usually on stuff I never heard of), so I'm just curious if there's a reason behind it. Thanks and happy holidays.
@@malachiphoniex8501 95% of the stuff we do is planned about 3 months in advance because of the time it takes for the writer and artists to do their thing. For the split we worked lots of extra hours to get extra content done for both channels. As well as working extra time to get ahead on videos before the holiday break. By the time the holiday comes around we all will be very thankful for the break
I lost it when the drunken threat was delivered exactly like you'd expect a drunk person to sound like.
That line about the reoccurring themes in Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis’ lives was really well done, love it
I'm not from the US, what's the recurring theme?
@@advanceringnewholder Lee’s reputation as a noble gentlemen stayed with him his whole life even during and after his time as a confederate general, and this personal image has been used to defend the confederates. Davis’ managed to avoid consequences despite being the instigator, in the same way he was president of the confederate states during the war but never faced trial for his obvious treason.
Just to clarify I am also not an American nor an expert in the civil war this is just my understanding of it
@@advanceringnewholder Jefferson Davis basically committed high treason and got off scott free, after like, instigating the Civil War. Robert E Lee always tried to use his reputation to bail people out and was eventually a general for the confederacy and pushed for less brutal terms for surrender
@@advanceringnewholder Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis were loyal for the Confederacy a breakaway state from the US
@@advanceringnewholder After the Confederacy lost the war, Jefferson Davis was captured and sent to prison, but then the Union let him go after only two years.
And Lee helped ensure that the men who served with the Confederacy were not charged with treason.
Yeah, as a current WP cadet, this makes complete sense. I could see this still definitely being a thing today. Hell, during covid, there were the Printer Riots, where cadets would throw their printers off of roofs and down stairwells to protest covid restrictions. Even today, Christmas dinner here is absolutely crazy with singing, cigar smoking, dancing, running naked across The Plain, and climbing on top of George Washington's statue to touch his horse's balls. We've got some weird things that happen here, and I'd love to see you guys make more videos about our rock-bound highland home, which is definitely not a prison.
Was there, got out. I feel you. Keep your head up! You're almost out!
based
to protest covid restrictions? god damn
@@williamcarter1993 Hey, today it's printers, tomorrow it's hand grenades. 🤘
Current USAFA cadet. The printer thing happened at Air Force and Annapolis as well. 2020 was a weird year.
I love how you can pretty much hear the massive grin plastered across Matt's face as he tells this particular tale.
We can't help watching it again and again!
As a former cadet of VT, love to see how things never change and nobody is ever held accountable
Golf Company will take all the blame, because its probably our fault anyway. G'11
As a former cadet of Texas A&M, it's probably for the best that weapons and booze were banned from our dorms.
Historically, the worst that our cadets got up to, were losing a WWI field gun in a ditch (found and restored decades later, and is now fired at football games when we score a touchdown), and kidnapping and branding the winning score (13-0) onto UT's steer mascot. UT worked to save face, by naming it BEVO (Add some lines, and you can turn 13-0 into BEVO).
Its just preparing them for the real military
Seven students were expelled and the president got involved
@@EvilPaladin11 You forgot the time the Corps robbed a national guard armory and used the rifles to put a small town under martial law because we were hunting some Rice students who had stolen their own owl mascot back that we had stolen first, and the commandant had to call out the Texas Rangers to disperse us lmao
You have to remember, at the time the US military academy at West Point was rapidly becoming like the British Army where rich and powerful individuals put their sons there to earn a officers commission for the sake of maintaining prestige and power. Discipline was before Thayer was not the order of the day per se. Rather they would try their hardest to ensure everyone graduated and the parents would be in the commandant's debt. It was a semi corrupt system that produce semi effective officers.
And some of the names that went through it are hilarious. Edgar Allen Poe!
this kinda explains how the pig war and most civil war blunders happened.
"Corruption used to be super affordable, freaking inflation."
Best line!
As a kid from West Point and having grown up living on Worth road, thank you for talking about this! I learned about this all through middle school we thought it was hilarious!
I can only imagine Sylvanus Thayer lamenting the whole ordeal by saying "That Jefferson Davis hooligan will NEVER amount to anything!"
The parallels to Animal House are impressive. Sylvanus Thayer is your Dean Wormer, Hitchcock is Niedermayer, and playing the role of Bluto Blutarsky is Jeff Davis.
And now I can't help but picture Jefferson Davis, wrapped in a Bed-Sheet, chanting "States Rights! States Rights! States Rights!"
All the more appropriate since Sylvanus Thayer is a graduate of Dartmouth College, the real-life basis for Animal House.
That's Senator Blutsrsky. Oh, wait.
this sounds like it would make a great pseudo-period college comedy movie.
Ferris Bueller’s day off Christmas special
@@nathankinkade5210
Nah!
National Lampoon’s Christmas at School
or
Judd Apatow’s Sword Swishing
I dunno about national lampoon’s Christmas at school, but the second one is definitely better
I imagine a sitcom based off of this would also have a dash of Blackadder mixed in.
With Seth Rogan
Nice to see that getting completely sloshed during the holidays has always been a longstanding tradition 👍
Some of us will be helping carry that tradition over this year.
@@extrahistory Absolutely 🍻
And also that other American tradition, public disorder and random gunfire.
It’s been tradition in the Anglosphere for centuries. That’s why the Puritans banned Christmas. It was getting WAY too out of hand in England. After the interregnum, it got a lot more subdued.
Ah, good ol Jeff Davis, a man famous for making correct and helpful decisions throughout his entire life
As a current cadet, I believe the same thing would happen if they try to make WP a dry campus
Also have been loving your channel for years!
Thanks so much for watching!
They made it dry for a year (I think) in 2012 or 13 while I was there... all I'll say in a public forum is that shenanigans happened...
Ya know Davis kinda strikes me as that one classmate who nearly always not punished for his trouble because his mother was good friends with the principal and faculty. And 2nd note Robert E Lee should had a moment with Davis during the civil war like “Do you I remember back in the academy?”
It would be more, all the confederate generals sharing anedoctes from the academy, except Robert E Lee, because he was the teacher's pet everyone hated XD
Everyone in that war basically went to West Point together. Iirc, Lee actually taught Grant
@@beeaggro2593 he was commandant of the point when grant was there if i recall correctly .. the civil war is truly a sad war friend fought friend and brother killed brother
@@50TNCSA When Lee was at Appomattox, Grant tried to cheer up Lee (who was feeling defeated, humiliated, and all around depressed) by telling Lee about how Grant admired him for the skill he displayed during the Mexican-American War. Told him about how he inspired him during that war. Lee’s response was something along the lines of “That’s nice.”
Grant never had any hard feelings for Lee. That’s why it wasn’t hard for him to offer Lee amnesty for himself and his soldiers in return for his surrender. And Grant honored that agreement. Later on President Andrew Johnson was talking about possibly arresting Lee and trying him for Treason, Grant went right up to Andrew Johnson and told him that he would protest such a move with the strongest of words.
Like Forrest Gump?
As the son of a late Point Graduate, this brought a smile to my face. I don’t know if he even knew about this.
He probably did. It's like day 2 of orientation.
'Corruption used to be so affordable ... frickin inflation'.
That made it phrase of week for me!! XD
"I'm the show runner I can do whatever I want" my favorite line of the episode. XD
Matt gets real sassy on that eggnog! lol
Getting pissed on Xmas isn't just an American tradition, it's the most traditional way to celebrate across much of western Europe. That's why Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas under his Puritanical rule as Lord Protector of England
Ah, that stick in the mud.
@@pegmay7209 Never liked Mr. WartsandAll, myself
A someone who used to go to military school, I often wondered what would happen if we all just stopped listening. I imagine it would be something like this with less shooting.
I first started watching EC when the pandemic hit. The sires on the 1918 flu pandemic was what brought me to the channel but the library of content, not in just history but literature, mythology, and politics has been a delightful, educational, and entertaining part of my life ever since. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication and Happy Holidays.
This would make an excellent Christmas Comedy film! I imagine it would have some references to what happens later, such as: “That Lee’s a good Cadet. He’ll do well in life! Be a credit to his country!”
Yeah, and Jefferson Davis being the McLovin'est McLovin of them all
Happy holidays to the entire Extra Credit family. Thank you for improving my life one video at a time. ❤
Thank you!!! Have a wonderful holiday season!
Twis the night like no other,
I can attest,
Where I saw multiple West Point soldiers holding a drinking contest.
The eggnog was great,
And the spirts greater,
All till some soldiers heard a meander.
I could continue but you get it.
Kilroy was here
Another fantastic episode. Loved it!
Jeff Davis walking in was just chef’s kiss on this
The closing words were particularly touching. Cheers to the whole crew.
Thank you! Matt's such an awesome and caring guy. We think we will keep him around for a bit.
Imagine being stuck with a drunk college roommate and finding out years later he’s the one attempting to overthrow the government
Only in America 😵💫
You could be talking about either the civil war or like 2 years ago lmao
Is it overthrowing if you’re trying to break away from it altogether though?
You have clearly never been to Russia or Germany.
For the Confederacy, it was an independence war however. "Civil War" is a bit of a Misnomer, as only one of the participants was trying to (re)establish political and military dominance.
@@K9TheFirst1The difference between a civil war and a rebellion is a matter of perspective
Hilarious how Davis was a drunkard and Lee was discussing trigonometry ta the crack ass of dawn😂😂😂
As someone who lives near West Point and visits very frequently, I didn’t know any of this, and this is amazing for me to know
The fact that Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy doesn't subtly play in the background is CRIMINAL
I legit haven’t laughed this hard in a while.
Absolutely hilarious episode.
Thanks so much! We had a great time making it. We're still giggling.
A toast to all of us! To the fun we had outside of liquor stores sheepishly asking strangers to buy beer for us, and the stupidity hilarity that resulted after drinking only 2 bottles. We are only young once, I hope everyone can enjoy it both sober and sloshed!
lmao basically my highschool years in a nutshell. my friends and i bribed a liquor store owner 100 bucks to let us buy there whenever we wanted and his only rule was we couldn’t come inside if there were customers in the store. went there for two years straight and must’ve given that man over 4 grand in sales with all of the booze we bought for parties.
Davis and Lee story is the best example of “C students end up bossing A students”
Tangentially, on the subject of rules-breaking at West Point and similar institutions and the almost pathological need for students to pursue Hijinks has been turned into a feature. Turns out that that flexible thinking is very valuable when you prefer achieving objectives over simple robotic obedience, and letting the students think they're getting away with stuff, within limits, is pretty good training for creative problem solving. You don't want folks who are trained too solidly to stick to procedure in situations where the procedure is actively detrimental to getting the job done due to the situation on the ground.
Yep, it's called "take-life" where we trained.. and you're encouraged to just not get caught with whatever is restricted.. it's justified as practice when you find yourself as a POW and need to get creative to survive 😅
Or just hire people that y'k, don't drink, makes you stupid and overall not worth the day after.
Have a good christmas, keep up the good work
Thank you!
OMG, I love random history mini-episodes like these. 😂
These upper crust military academies, worldwide, are little more than frathouses.
😂there are more than a few similarities... but there are definitely some minor differences lol
@@sethmaxfield6658 Yes. They're "frat houses" that turn out men who can lead armies and nations into war and win (and sometimes lose) said wars.
@@diarradunlap9337 there's definitely a close-knit aspect and rivalry at the company level that would be familiar to a lot of people. As far as the second part, the focus is more on junior leadership - but you're right, ultimately the objective is to develop leaders to win our nation's wars.
BTW...this is why I love history.
Things that really happened are better than what is thought up by writers for movies.
Extra History has truly helped make me aware of how awesome history can be. Thank you so much for continuing to make education fun!
9:36 John Archibald Campbell was actually the Assistant secretary of War for the Confederacy. He also tried to negotiate the surrender of Fort Sumter and attended the Hampton Roads peace conference in the last months of the war.
Both, actually.
Can we talk about how good Matt is with the voices
He just keeps getting better!
This should be made into a movie like _The Death of Stalin._
Hell yea!
This should be made into a movie like any movie.
The mid-video ad break for booze was quite hilarious…😂
Thank you all AND a very Happy Holidays to you all! Donation sent!
AMAZING!!! Thank you so much and we hope enjoy your Holiday to the fullest!
"Turns out getting blitzed for the holidays was kind of an American custom."
Presumably, this was how Washington knew how to exploit this weakness to defeat the Hessians in the Battle of Trenton.
You really must admit they still fortified and made access diffcult while heavily intoxicated
These cadets are absolute legends!
They are literally teh definition of me and and the boys on 3 am
Between this and the Christmas Truce, y’all tell us about all the coolest Christmas stories!
Christmas Truce was SUCH a good one too! We're hoping to continue the yearly trend.
What a merry episode!
Fun fact: the fortifications at West Point were constructed by Polish military engineer - Tadeusz Kościuszko, who previously contributed to the victory at Saratoga and later became the leader of the resistance against the empires ganging up on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and partitioning it. Although ultimately unsuccessful, he is basically honoured as the greatest Polish national hero ever, and also considered their hero by many Lithuanians and Belarusians.
Yes, I will use any excuse to write about Kosciuszko.
"... tries to hide his identity behind a hat"
Hitchcock: "Do I look like Lois Lane to you?"
Cadets: ".....Who's Lois Lane?"
The fact that no one has made this movie yet causes me great spiritual pain.
there's something so humanizing about those important generals and leaders of the civil war being teens like us in high-school
Who knew historical figures could get into such hilarious situations 😂
2 EH videos in just a days? What kind of early Christmas is this?!
A Christmas Miracle!
LOL!!! Reminds me of the Christmas Eve party in the permanent stationed enlisted barracks at Lowry AFB... Being the senior enlisted man in the barracks, I had a beer with the crew, and then had to break up the party because of a fight breaking out, resulting in one person going out of a second story window. Hmmm.... Bein a Sergeant, I ordered all the Airmen to go to their rooms, and then have a chat with the Base Police, saying the broken window was from someone too drunk trying to get out of the room (Base Police are going "yeah, right"), yet the party was over, after having another chat with the Base First Sergeant. It was late after all the questioning, so I checked in with fthe remaining partiers holed up in one room, with a bottle of Southern Comfort, and finished out Christmas Eve. The best part, I show up late the next morning, hungover, and was promptly sent back to the barrack. A few days later, I get thanks from all the airmen in the barracks for bailing them out Christmas Eve.
Of note, Mercer along with several other members (though not Humphreys) were pardoned by John Quincy Adams and readmitted to West Point. Mercer graduated from the Academy in 1829. Other thing to consider is that on the eve of the Civil War, both the Union and the Confederacy were DESPERATE for officers. Unlike today, in the 19th Century, the American military service wasn't really seen as something you made into lifelong career (there's really only one major figure during this period that did, Winfield Scott, who served in the US Army from 1808 until 1861). Before Lincoln's call to the states to start recruiting volunteers, the US Army was only 10,000 men (compared to the overall population of 31 million). So that Mercer and Humphreys ended up generals in the CSA isn't that big of a shock.
Yeah, Grant even wrote in his memoirs about how he probably wouldn't have been able to rise as far as he did during the war if he hadn't been *dismissed* from the Regular Army in the 1850s. He would have been shoved into some random role probably around DC instead of being out in the Midwest actually fighting and leading troops.
Isn't Winfield Scott the one involved in the Pig War?
@@ianhomerpura8937 As a negotiator, yes, but not in a military capacity. That was William S. Harney,
This was a hoot and a half! 🤣🤣🤣 I did fear for Hitchcock for a second there.
Also I lost it with Rob's "USA! USA!" and then sipping on the eggnog again.
No idea that this happened at WP, and that the cadets have continued the shenanigans for one reason or the other... It's endearing actually 🤣
10:34 everyone at EC really are wonderful beans. They got no arms and necks!
So the Confederacy can be traced to a drunken binge? I can work with that.
3:14
I HAVE A SITCOM IDEA
YES
These sorts of shenanigans are a fun reminder that people have always been people, and even major names in history were once the same sorts of idiot teenagers a lot of us were.
Glædelig jul from Denmark. May Zoey stay ever fluffy and may the shows never lack in insightful funniness 🍻😊 SKÅL!
Thank you! Have a happy holiday!
This was an amazing story and this should be mentioned and studied more in American history. 😂
It would liven up the history books!
I used to live across the Hudson from West Point and today cold springs prices on anything would be much higher then the West Point side
Maybe I'm mistaken but $0.35 in 1826 should be equivalent to around $10.50 today. Meaning that, despite the inflation, Matt was completely right. Corruption used to be SO affordable!
"Corruption used to be so cheap."
"Damned inflation."
That just killed me.
I been watching since I found you all on the escapist it’s been a real treat watching all your hard work. Thanks for the edutainment and happy holidays!
Thanks so much for watching and Happy Holidays to you too!
Growing up around West Point, can confirm legends of this story.
As my mom works for WP museum, I can also confirm, there is no mention of this on the tour 🤣🤣
9:52 I imagine sending the cadets home for Christmas had more to do with the proliferation of ye olde planes, trains, and automobiles rather than any lessons actually being learned.
Imagine dying because you told people to stop drinking eggnog.
Soldiers love a good drink. This isn't even half as bad as some of the crap we got into in my unit. And I think there is a time for revelry and debauchery especially during the holidays
Reminds me of a story from WWII where a detachment of seabees tactically acquired a train full of booze.
Why?
Because they could.
"Tactical redeployment of resources for the purpose of raising morale."
Fixed it for you.
I thought it was the Korean War
Thank you so much, Extra Credits Team!!!
Your content is always entertaining and well put together!!
Happy Celebrations to all! 🥰
I never had eggnog... In my part of Canada it's not really a custom and lot of people dont even know about it. Although some grocery stores have some from time to time (fun fact, it's called and sold as "MILK OF CHICKEN" in the French part of Canada).
I learned about a week ago that the liquor helps kill any bacteria (i.e. Salmonella) that the raw eggs may have had.
Also that people would let their eggnog set for about 3 weeks or so, so the alchohol could really do it's stuff
I've been watching you guys for about 5 years now, and I learned a lot, Robert A campfire stories, a merry Christmas to you guys
Merry Christmast Rellyrell!
Cheers guys. Thanks for all the content for all the years. Happy holidays.
Thank you! Have a fantastic Holiday!
This definitely reminds me of some of my favorite memories as a cadet... the night Bin Laden was killed was absolutely wild
To be fair, I think the entire military celebrated that night in the wildest way possible
@@javieraravena5345 I have no doubt about that!
As a current plebe, I can only imagine how that night would've gone.
@@sryan5512 I can remember a lot of fun times as a cadet but that one stands out. I would've loved to have been there when we broke the Navy streak in 2016 too - I imagine that was wild
So the civil war was just basically a giant frat reunion where they decided to stage one last prank
Glad to catch something early
This needs to be a movie
Jesus, its like a fricking Civil War prequel
I remember when I first started watching Extra Credits on the escapist and it’s so wonderful to see how far Extra everything has come.
Hey Matt, I admit this may never happen anytime soon, but have you ever considered guest-starring in Drunken History? I think you'd make for a solid host. Also, and I edit this in forgetting to do it last time, but I'm genuinely surprised this ain't another story penned by Duncan Fyfe, this seems like a perfect story for Something True.
Beautiful episode beautifully told! Amazon animation and narration on this one EC team :)
Cheers and Merry Christmas!!! I write this as I unknowingly watched this episode while sipping on a beer. Hilarious!!!
Look at all of these cadets, living in the moment. Not a phone in sight.
Good times. Internet has ruined us
This Episode was amazing.
Wholsome Holidays to all of you
I’m currently sloshed sitting on my couch watching this
Merry Christmas and
Happy holidays to all
🍻 cheers EC!
Love the videos been watching for years.
Thanks so much for watching!
That went from Christmas wholesome to 100 real quick