On November 11, 1839,  23 men reported to the Franklin Literary Society Hall in Lexington.  They became the first Virginia Military Institute cadets when their sole instructor, Major Francis Smith, assumed command of the old arsenal and established the nation's first state supported military college.  The history of VMI and its well-known graduates unfolds at the museum located on the campus parade grounds.

For 146 years VMI has trained officers who have made outstanding contributions to the military.  The young cadets study in spartan surroundings as you will learn in the museum's cadet exhibit room.  This is just part of the cadet life exhibit that details their surroundings, uniforms, ROTC program, and VMI’s sport, academic, military and spiritual program.  The collection of VMI rings dating from 1848 to the present is enormously popular.

The first graduates barely completed their college years before being called to serve in the Mexican War, 1846-48.  A captured Mexican general's war chest with its silver goblets provides a look at what the Mexican high command considered roughing it. 

Three years after the Mexican War in 1848, Thomas Jonathan Jackson resigned his army commission and joined the faculty at VMI.  He found the peacetime army too tedious and unrewarding for a man anxious to make his reputation.  As a teacher of natural philosophy and artillery tactics his students found him dull, rigid and severe (see Stonewall Jackson House selection).  The blackboard from his classroom is displayed at the museum.

Jackson's genius became apparent when he led the Stonewall Brigade in the War Between the States.  The VMI Museum displays the uniform Jackson wore as a teacher as well as his battlefield raincoat, a poignant reminder of his senseless death after the Battle of Chancellorsville.  Jackson was wearing the Indian rubber raincoat on May 3, 1863, when he was accidentally shot in the arm by one of his own men.  The bullet hole is clearly visible; it seems too small to have caused such a big hole in the Confederate command.  After his arm was amputated Jackson contracted pneumonia and died within a week.  It also interesting to discover that while teaching at VMI, Jackson had escorted cadets to stand guard at the hanging of John Brown.  A further historical footnote to that event, John Brown’s lawyer was a VMI graduate.  One of the museum’s most popular items is Little Sorrel, Jackson’s favorite horse.  Little Sorrel died in 1886; he was not stuffed but rather his hide was mounted over a plaster of Paris form.  The saddle was made by H. Peat, saddler to the queen of England.

It was not only teachers who marched off to battle during the Civil War.  The small butternut jackets on display remind visitors how young the boys were who were sent off to join General Breckenridge's battle-worn regulars.  The southern general was ordered to stop the northern push into the crucial Shenandoah Valley.  The Union troops numbered 6,300 against Breckenridge's 4,900.  To augment the ranks the 157 cadets at VMI were ordered out of the classroom into battle.  Ten cadets lost their lives on May 15, 1864, at the Battle of New Market (see New Market Battlefield selection).

Jackson is only one of the illustrious professors profiled in this museum.  Following him so closely that they used the same microscope, was physics professor Matthew Fontaine Maury (see Goshen Pass selection), noted for his marine charts.  A small section of the Trans-Atlantic cable is exhibited.  As Cyrus Fields, who laid the cable, explained, “Maury provided the brains, I provided the brawn.”  Another faculty member, John Mercer Brooke, designed the armor for the Merrimack, the ironclad the Confederates called the Virginia.  Brooke also invented a device to bring up samples from the ocean floor.  One of VMI's most gifted graduates was George Catlett Marshall (see George C. Marshall Museum selection), and his accomplishments are proudly noted.

Today when cadets enter the barracks through the Jackson Arch, they are reminded of Stonewall's determination.  Carved overhead are his time-honored words: "You may be whatever you resolve to be."  The museum shows that many VMI graduates have followed his advice.