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.

"There was nothing like an appeal to honor. It was a virtue that all craved, even those who lacked it. Fundamentally, honor was itself a debt, a code of behavior, a promise, something inside yourself that you owed to the others who saw it in you." -- Tom Clancy, 1994

Tom Blackburn's family ties were broad, deep, and at the very top of antebellum Virginia's social pyramid. They defined him and would, arguably, kill him.

Blackburn was born in September, 1834, at "Spring Grove," near Ripon, Virginia (now West Virginia) just off the main road between Berryville and Charlestown. In 1747, his great great grandfather, Colonel Richard Blackburn had built "Rippon Lodge," on the King's Road just south of Mount Vernon, naming it after the ancestral home of the Blackburns in Yorkshire. The Washingtons were neighbors, and Blackburn and his family would soon be counted among the first friends of the first, first family.

Colonel Blackburn was not only a talented builder (Washington asked him to help with the first Mt. Vernon), he was a successful planter, vestryman, legislator and soldier. During the Revolution he was wounded in action at Germantown while serving as Lt. Colonel of the 2nd Virginia regulars. At Washington's funeral he led the honor guard, walking "at the head" of the President's bier, carried by young lieutenants, and followed by honorary pall bearers.

The old Colonel's son, Tom's great grandfather and namesake also served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 2nd Virginia, and, later, as an aide to General Washington.

Tom's great uncle Major Richard Scott Blackburn, served as an engineer and artillery officer in the Continental Army. He would and his wife Judith Ball would marry both their daughters to nephews of the President: Anna Maria Thomasina ("Polly") to Bushrod Corbin Washington of "Claymont; Jane Charlotte to John Augustine Washington of "Blakely." Jane Charlotte Blackburn Washington was living at Mount Vernon while Tom was at VMI, one of the last of the Washington family to live there.

The Blackburns not only married well they were well-todo and blessed with large families, a happy combination that in the 18th and early 19th centuries almost inevitably yielded ties to most, if not all, the finest families of Virginia. By 1853 VMI Cadet Tom Blackburn was demonstrably related, by blood or marriage, to no less than 9 of the 11 men who served on the VMI Board of Visitors and to no less than 28 of the 44 members of the VMI class of 854.

From such ties flowed not only privilege and position, but high expectations and unavoidable, if sometimes questionable, standards of behavior. The combination would kill Tom Blackburn.

Uncle Frank

Despite his pedigree, not all Tom Blackburn's family ties were assets. Most problematic (and impossible to ignore in Lexington) was his mother's brother, Tom's notorious Uncle Frank Thomas, the former Governor of Maryland.

Frank had married, divorced and publicly humiliated Tom's erstwhile Aunt Sally, the daughter of Lexington's beloved James McDowell, the late Governor of Virginia. Both the Virginia and Maryland state legislatures had been required to debate and approve the divorce decrees, fraught with charges and counter-charges of incest, infidelity, abortion and abuse.

The divorce process had gone on for years, from 1842 until January, 1846. Humiliated, Sally Campbell Preston McDowell had become a virtual recluse in her dead father's house in Lexington, "Col Alto," the same house in which, at 20, she had married Frank Thomas.

In 1853, Tom's Uncle Frank had emerged from a post-divorce, self-imposed, 7-year "exile" to re-enter politics and run, once more, for the Governorship of Maryland.

If the salacious details of the Thomas/McDowell divorces, still smoldered in Lexington, Uncle Franks's new brand of politics reignited a bonfire.

Thomas campaigned with a newfound passion, damning slavery and all his former Democratic Party friends and affiliations. Even worse for Tom Blackburn, his Uncle was an articulate and talented politician, who missed being re-elected Governor of Maryland by just over a thousand votes.

The shocking irresponsibility (and in some circles, immorality) of Uncle Frank's anti-slavery rhetoric, coupled with his traitorous defection from the Democratic Party no doubt re-opened many old wounds and caused a few new ones, both for those who remembered, and those who had never heard of some of Tom Blackburn's more embarrassing family connections.

A Reputation of His Own

After three full years as a VMI Cadet, Tom Blackburn had also contributed several chapters of his own to his family's reputation in Lexington. Indeed, by late 1853 he was (and would remain) one of the most talked-about Cadets at VMI.

As an underclassman Blackburn had already developed a reputation among the students, faculties, and townspeople of Lexington both as a drinker, and for his readiness to solve problems with his fists, with the help of a "posse" of fellow Cadets if necessary.

After a local "cow drover" had "abused a young Cadet," Blackburn was said to have joined a group of Cadets (some said as many as thirty) who "pursued" the drover and, as one witness later testified administered "...that justice which the heartless drover denied to the boy."

Cadet George Baylor Horner, Blackburn's roommate in 1851-52, swore that he had seen Blackburn in at least three "difficulties" during their time together at the Institute. One of them, he said, pitting Blackburn against "a man at least a third larger than himself." In that fight, Horner said, Blackburn "fought fair" and "...did not resort to rocks or weapons of any kind" even though he "got the worst of it.

In December, 1852, VMI Commandant Francis Henney Smith let the Blackburn family know, officially, that one of Tome's drinking incidents had "great discredit to the Institute."

Court Martial

In 1853, Tom's senior year, at the instigation of Mexican War hero and VMI professor Major Thomas Jonathan (later "Stonewall") Jackson, Tom Blackburn was court-martialed and dismissed from VMI for participating in one of the most famous pranks in the history of the Institute.

Roughly a year before his death, on another a long dark night in Lexington, Tom Blackburn and John Moncure Robinson of the class of '55 tied Cadet James Edward Towson to a chair.

Then they leaned it (and Towson) against the door of the room in the new VMI barracks occupied by Jackson and Lieutenant Thomas Harris, banged "violently" on the door, ran and hid to watch the fun.

Jackson, himself, opened the door. Poor Towson tumbled into the room.

Unfortunately for Blackburn and Robinson, the Major's sense of humor, such as it was when it came to Cadets, did not extend at all to pranks or hazing. After seeing to the release of Cadet Towson, Jackson promptly asked a few questions and filed charges against both Blackburn and Robinson, for "abusing" their fellow Cadet and "disrespectful conduct to a superior officer."

Both were tried before a Garrison Court Martial in late January, 1853, with Blackburn confidently pleading "not guilty" to all charges and specifications.

During the hearing Blackburn staged a vigorous if, at times, insulting defense on his own behalf.

Though accused of "disrespectful conduct" by Major Jackson, Blackburn did not hesitate to insult him during cross examination. "Have you ever, by word or action, given me any cause to be disrespectful [to you]?" he asked.

Jackson, an awkward and notoriously untalented teacher, had been the butt of barracks-room jokes since his first arrival on the VMI campus, some three years earlier.

The court transcripts indicated he replied to Blackburn, quietly: "Not that I know of."

Blackburn's "summation," taken down verbatim in the court reporters tight script, filled nearly nine large pages.

Despite those efforts, (or more likely, because of them), on January 24, 1853, the court found Blackburn and Robinson guilty on all counts and dismissed them from VMI.

Never a man to back down, the well-connected young Blackburn immediately appealed to his family's friends and relations on the VMI Board of Visitors.

His reinstatement took less than a month. On February 8, 1853, the Board ordered the Court Martial reversed, and both Blackburn and Robinson reinstated.

Blackburn's classmates demonstrated their views on the affair by promptly electing him to the Board of Managers for the July 4, 1853, graduation-day Military Ball, the last he would attend.

Cadet Robinson never returned. His father, a Sorbonne-trained civil engineer, credited with building the first railroad in Virginia, requested that his son be allowed to resign, citing fears that he would not be able to "redeem his lost time in his studies so as to pass his annual examination...."

In 1889, Robinson was granted an honorary degree from the Institute, having followed in his father's footsteps, serving as an engineer and staff officer in the Confederate Army and as President of both the Baltimore Steam and Packet Company and the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad.

James Edward Towson, the Cadet Blackburn and Robinson had tied to the chair, would soon be chosen as one of the three-cadet honor guard that took Blackburn's body home to his family in Ripon. Towson, like the other two, was a friend of Tom Blackburn and, of course, a cousin.