Harry Castlemon

Don Gordon's Shooting-Box Harry Castlemon

The Bridgeport Military School was a time-honored, wealthy, and aristocratic institution. It was modeled after the school at "the Point," and although its course of study differed materially from that pursued at the national academy, its rules of discipline were almost the same. It was intended to fit boys for college, for business, for civil or mining engineering, or for West Point, if they wanted to go there and could command influence enough to secure the appointment; and in order that they might begin early in life to realize the majesty and dignity of law, and to see the necessity of submitting to it as becomes good citizens of the republic, they were put through a course of military drill as strict as that to which they would have been subjected if they had been private soldiers in the regular army.