2

boastingly declared in a letter to the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835,1 he swam a distance of six miles in the James River "in a hot June sun" and "against one of the strongest tides ever known in the river." There is record also of his connection with a youthful military company; of his having taken active part in certain school-boy theatrical performances; and of his winning a prize in declamation. It is said that he was also gifted at drawing, and that he was extremely fond of music. It appears that he had few intimate friends at this time, but there is abundant testimony that he was a leader in his classes.

8

But at some time after his return to Richmond - perhaps as early as 1823—an estrangement had begun to grow up between Poe and his foster-father, who was at times overindulgent, at times stern and unforgiving; and in November, 1824, we find Mr. Allan complaining in a letter to Poe's brother, William Henry, who was living with his relatives in Baltimore, that Edgar had lost all sense of gratitude to him and had become "quite miserable, sulky, and illtempered to all the Family." How far Poe was to blame for this

3 Harrison, I, pp. 28 f.

4 T. H. Ellis, Richmond Standard, May 7, 1881.

5 Appleton's Journal, May, 1878 (new series, IV, p. 429).

6 This letter, inasmuch as it furnishes important testimony as to the relations of Allan and his ward at this time and has escaped the biographers of Poe, I give here in its entirety (save for the omission of a single sentence).

Dear Henry,

Richmond Nov! 1. 1824.

I have just seen your letter of the 25th ult. to Edgar and am much afflicted, that he has not written you. He has had little else to do for me he does nothing & seems quite miserable, sulky, and ill-tempered to all the Family. How we have acted to produce this is beyond my conception why I have put up so long with his conduct is little less wonderful. The boy possesses not a Spark of affection for us not a particle of gratitude for all my care and kindness towards him. I have given a much superior Education than ever I received myself. If Rosalie has to relie on any affection from him God in his mercy preserve her - I fear his associates have led him to adopt a line of thinking & acting very contrary to what he possessed when in England. I feel proudly the difference between your principles & his & hence my desire to Stand as I ought to do in your Estimation. Had I done my duty as faithfully to my God as I have to Edgar, then had Death come when he will had no terrors for me, but I must end this with a devout wish that God may yet bless him & you & that

estrangement we shall probably never know; though in later years he admitted1 that he had been guilty of "many follies" in youth.

The sympathy that was lacking at home was supplied in part in the homes of certain of his neighbors. According to a story which has probably been exaggerated in some of its details, he found a sympathetic friend in Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of one of his school-fellows, to whom he became deeply devoted and of whom he made a confidante in his boyish ambitions and sorrows. This lady died in 1824, but the poet remained loyal to her memory throughout his career.2 Sympathy of another sort he found at the home of another neighbor. In 1825 or earlier he had become acquainted with Miss Sarah Elmira Royster, the daughter of a friend of the Allan family; the two fell desperately in love, and before Poe left for the University of Virginia, in February, 1826, he had obtained her promise to marry him. But his letters to Miss Royster fell into the hands of her father, who destroyed them; and she, assuming that his love had grown cold, soon engaged herself to another.3

Poe's career at the University of Virginia was confined to a single year. The University then opened its doors in February, and ended the session in December. Poe matriculated on February 14, 1826. He stood well in his classes, as is established by the official records for the year, excelling in French and Latin;*

4

Sucess may crown all your endeavors & between you your poor Sister Rosalie may not suffer... Believe me Dear Henry we take an affectionate interest in your destinies and our United Prayers will be that the God of Heaven will bless & protect you. rely on him my Brave & excellent Boy who is willing & ready to save to the uttermost. May he keep you in Danger preserve you always is the prayer of your Friend & Servant

1 In a letter to J. P. Kennedy (Woodberry, I, p. 104).

John Allan

2 See, for further particulars, the notes on the earlier lines To Helen. 3 For further details see the notes on Tamerlane; see also Miss Royster's reminiscences in Appleton's Journal, May, 1878, and the article of E. M. Alfriend, "Unpublished Recollections of Edgar Allan Poe," in the Literary Era, August, 1901.

4 See Ingram, p. 37; Harrison, I, p. 61; and Professor C. W. Kent's article "Poe's Student Days at the University of Virginia" in the New York Bookman for July, 1901 (also in the Bookman for January, 1917).

and he appears to have enjoyed the respect of all his instructors. By his own confession, however, he drank to excess while at Charlottesville — though his statement that he “led a very dissipated life" is no doubt an exaggeration-and he gambled, and he ultimately fell into debt. Before the end of the year he had contracted gambling debts of upwards of two thousand dollars.2 These, or most of them, Mr. Allan refused to pay, and at the same time it was decreed that Poe should not continue his studies at the University.

After his return to Richmond there were stormy scenes between Poe and his foster-father, which culminated late in March (1827) in his leaving the Allan home, to which he was never again to return on the old footing. He sailed from Richmond for Boston * on March 24, 1827,5 and there, on May 26 of the same year, he enlisted in the army of the United States, adopting the name "Edgar A. Perry." He was assigned to a company then stationed

1 Harrison, I, p. 345. Griswold's story (" Memoir," p. xxv) that he was expelled from the University is entirely without foundation. See also the Valentine Letters, pp. 37 f., 253 f.

2 T. H. Ellis, the Richmond Standard, May 7, 1881.

3 Valentine Letters, p. 52. For a pathetic account of his desperate circumstances at this time see his letter of March 20, 1827, to John Allan (ibid., pp. 63 f.).

4 For several romantic stories as to Poe's movements at this time — for most of which he was himself responsible - see Harrison, I, p. 345; Ingram, pp. 53 f.; Woodberry, I, pp. 72 f.; and Whitty, pp. xxix f. According to one of these accounts, Poe went to Russia; according to another he went to France, where he fought a duel, in which he was seriously wounded, and where he later wrote a novel dealing with his adventures; according to a third account he went to some Mediterranean port, and thence into Africa; and according to yet another account, his trip lasted only a few months but included a water trip to Norfolk and thence to an English seaport, followed by a trip to London in search of literary employment, and thence to Paris on the same errand, then back to London, and thence to the coast and oversea to Boston.

5 Valentine Letters, p. 52.

6 The fact of Poe's connection with the army was first fully established by Professor George E. Woodberry in an article, "Poe's Legendary Years," in the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1884 (LIV, pp. 814-828), though it had been hinted at, in a garbled account, by Griswold (III, p. xxvii) in 1850.

at Fort Independence. During the summer he brought out, at Boston, his first volume of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems. On October 31 of the same year he was transferred with his company to Fort Moultrie, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; and a year later he was transferred to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. On January 1, 1829, he was made sergeantmajor.

Poe's whereabouts presently became known to his foster-parents, and steps were taken, probably on the initiative of Mrs. Allan, to effect his release from the army and to procure for him a cadetship at West Point. Mrs. Allan died on February 28, 1829, but a discharge for the young sergeant-major was not forthcoming until April 15; and something less than a year later, through the activities of Mr. Allan and certain influential friends of the family, Poe was formally appointed a cadet to West Point.1 During the year intervening between his leaving the army and his admission to West Point, he made his home in Baltimore; but he went on occasional visits to Richmond. In December, 1829, he published at Baltimore a second volume of poems.

In July, 1830, Poe was enrolled at West Point. His record at the Academy was at first creditable, his standing at the end of the year being third in French and seventeenth in mathematics in a class of eighty-seven. Mr. Allan, however, had in October married a second time; and Poe, becoming finally convinced that he could no longer rely on him for substantial support, and believing, as he afterwards wrote, that "the army does not

1 Mr. Allan's letter to the Secretary of War in support of his application for a cadetship (see Woodberry, I, pp. 52-53) serves as a cruel reminder of his want of sympathy and of consideration for his foster-child.

2 From a letter written to John Neal on December 29, 1829 (see Woodberry, I, p. 369), we know that Poe was in Baltimore at that time, and the office books of Charles Ellis (Mr. Allan had withdrawn from the firm of Ellis & Allan in 1824) show that he was in Richmond on January 8, 1830, and again on January 28 (perhaps he had remained in Richmond during the interim), and still again on May 12, on which date John Allan is charged with a bill of $14.97 for blankets and handkerchiefs purchased by Poe.

suit a poor man,"1 resolved, with the beginning of the new year or earlier, to leave the Academy. He asked permission of his fosterfather to resign,2 but, this being refused, he deliberately set about getting himself dismissed. He neglected his studies, absented himself from roll calls, and otherwise set the authorities at defiance, with the result that he was court-martialed; and on March 6, 1831, he was officially expelled from the Academy.

8

Before leaving West Point, he made arrangements for the sale among his fellow-cadets of a third volume of his poems, dedicated to them. This volume was published at New York in the spring of 1831.

4

The next four years Poe spent mainly in Baltimore, though it is impossible to follow his career during this period with complete certainty. He was in Baltimore in May, 1831, shortly after his expulsion from West Point; during the first nine months of 1832, according to the testimony of one of his associates, Lambert A. Wilmer, he was living with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, in Baltimore; 5 and he was living in Baltimore in the summer and fall of 1833 and in 1834, as is established by the letters and journals of John Pendleton Kennedy. In December, 1831, he was reduced to desperate financial straits, and was threatened with imprisonment for debt. At some time during these years he figured in love-scrapes with a Miss Mary Devereaux' and (in 1831 or per

1 Harrison, I, p. 345.

2 Valentine Letters, pp. 257, 267.

8 Particulars as to the trial are given by Ingram, pp. 73-74.

4 See his letter to William Gwynn (Woodberry, I, p. 88).

5 See his "Recollections of Edgar A. Poe," Baltimore Daily Commercial, May 23, 1866. That the period of Poe's earlier association with Wilmer in Baltimore was not 1833 (as Professor Woodberry conjectures, I, p. 92), but 1832, is established by contemporary references in the Baltimore newspapers to a suit between Wilmer and the proprietors of the Baltimore Saturday Morning Visiter instituted in August, 1832.

6 Valentine Letters, pp. 287 f.

7 Cf. the article, "Poe's Mary," by Augustus van Cleef, in Harper's Monthly Magazine, March, 1889 (LXXVIII, pp. 634 f.); and see also the Dial for February 17, 1916.