This is the story of the 1854 murder of VMI Cadet Tom Blackburn, the trials that followed, and the impact of those events on young men and women who would all too soon face the larger trials of the American Civil War.

"And what most stimulates their courage is that their squadrons . . . are composed of families and clans. Close by them, too, are those dearest to them, so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants. They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his bravery -- they are his most generous applauders." -- Tacitus

On Saturday morning, January 14, 1854, Cadet Tom Blackburn walked across the VMI parade grounds to the Samuel McDowell Moore house to visit his cousin, Mary Evelyn Anderson. He arrived to find her with her Aunt Evalina Moore entertaining his friend, classmate and former roommate, Cadet Alexander Broadnax Bruce.

"Sandy" Bruce was one of the most eligible young bachelors in Virginia, if not the entire south. He was the third son of James Coles Bruce, the builder of "Berry Hill" in Halifax County, Virginia, a planter, businessman (heir to a chain of successful country stores) land speculator, and the owner of more slaves than there were free white citizens of Lexington.

Though rich and handsome, Bruce was by no means the sharpest blade ever drawn from a VMI scabbard. At the time he stood dead last in the class of 1854, with little or no hope of improvement.

When Blackburn walked in, conversation at the Moore house turned to mail: letters written, letters received, and how important they were to young men and women far from home.

When Blackburn described a letter he had written recently, Evalina Moore interrupted to ask if he had seen the "very ridiculous" letter Charles Burks Christian had written to his cousin Mary Evelyn, describing it as absolutely "calculated to produce laughter."

Blackburn asked Mary Evelyn if the story were true. When she reluctantly admitted she had, indeed, received a letter from Christian, Aunt Evalina suggested she show it to Blackburn and Bruce, just for fun.

Mary refused.

Mary's aunt said she "didn't think there would be any harm in showing it, as it was something rich."

Mary refused again, insisting the letter was really "nothing."

When that didn't convince the group, she complained that she really didn't feel like going all the way upstairs to fetch it.

At that point Aunt Evalina offered to send a "servant."

Mary gave in, went to her room, fetched Christian's note, and gave it to her cousin Tom to read, later swearing that she herself had read the note only once and that "hastily" before giving it to Blackburn.

By all accounts her cousin's first reading of Christian's note elicited nothing more serious than laughter.

Mary Evelyn said he read the letter quietly to himself, except for ". . . the Latin sentences which he read aloud . . . ." and that he ". . . smiled several times when reading it." (Christian had apparently lifted the Latin from a medieval love poem.)

Sandy Bruce said Blackburn laughed at every single line, English or Latin, but agreed with Mary that he had read only the Latin passages aloud.

After the "reading" Aunt Evalina pointedly reminded everyone that Christian's note had been read aloud "in confidence" remembering no doubt that Christian had specifically asked that Mary Evelyn send it back to him as soon as she had read it.

For her part, Mary Evelyn said she had "no thought" that the note "contained anything that would create a difficulty" between her cousin and Mr. Christian or "anything that my cousin could take exceptions to."

Mary Evelyn Anderson, in fact, firmly believed that the "calumniator" referred to in Christian's missive was not her cousin Tom at all, but another Cadet she had known for about a year and a half, James White Humes of Abingdon, Virginia.

Humes was both a classmate and close friend of Tom Blackburn. Another of Humes' friends, Robert "Kit" Carson, also from Abingdon, was one of Blackburn's roommates.

Humes would, indeed, later testify that he had heard that Christian ". . . had made an engagement with Miss Anderson to escort her to church" at least a week before the murder.

He told Blackburn "immediately", he said, not only about the "arrangement" but about rumors already in circulation, that Christian was to be considered "a suitor" of Miss Anderson.

Humes then strongly advised Blackburn to keep Mary Evelyn away from the man, later swearing that "Christian's reputation so far as I was acquainted with it was not such . . . that it would be to his cousin's credit to go to church with him . . . ."

As for who, if anyone, should take the matter up with Christian, Humes was certain of at least one thing: it was not to be Cadet James White Humes.

"I considered Blackburn more responsible to Christian than I was," Humes later testified. In fact, Humes said, he did not consider himself "responsible at all."

Blackburn would soon clear up all confusion about who said what, about whom, and when.

Humes would become responsible, assigned by the Commandant of VMI to carry the news of Tom Blackburn's death to the Blackburn family.

Sandy Bruce would be spared the indignity of ranking last in his class by the granting of a posthumous degree, issued to a Cadet who would have no grades for his last semester: Bruce's friend and confidant, Tom Blackburn.

To be continued