USMA Class of 1926.
Assembly, Volume XXXII, No. 4, March 1974, Association Of Graduates, United States Military Academy
Hamilton Smith Hawkins
No. 7912A. Class of 1926.
Died May 14, 1926 at West Point, New York, aged 21 years.
Interment: West Point Cemetery, West Point, New York.
He was a tall, lanky, handsome Army boy with a wide grin and a zest for life. Everyone who knew Ham Hawkins gained from his personality and sunny, friendly disposition. He brought out the best in people. A man without enemies.
Hamilton Hawkins was a Romantic, with a capital R. One evening as a cadet he enjoyed the Broadway musical The Vagabond King. The sword play and rivalries on stage resembled the way this devoted follower of the Army team saw football: a rapier like game, contestants to be downed and conquered with lovely ladies waiting to applaud the victors. Shortly after returning to the Academy, Hawkins wrote a parody that became one of the most popular of Army’s stirring football songs:
Slum And Gravy
Sons of Slum and Gravy
Will you let the Navy
Take from us a victory?
Hear a warrior’s chorus,
Sweep that line before us,
Carry on the victory!
Onward! Onward! Charge against the foe,
Forward! Forward! The Army banners go!
Sons of Mars and Thunder,
Rip that line asunder,
Carry on the victory.
After writing the parody, Ham dashed a note to his sister Nancy that bore his contagious enthusiasm, I can’t wait to share (Slum and Gravy) with you. Tonight we sprung it on the Corps at a rally before the Yale game (1925). It went over big and it will be sung at that game!
To his cadet friends and Ham Hawkins had hundreds, it seemed only normal for this champion of the Army team to pen such words, which he did with the help of the Cadet Song Leader and a member of the Cadet Orchestra, two friends in the Class of 1927.
In addition to being a Romantic, Hawkins was a top athlete, a horseman at home in the saddle. He loved horses and controlled them with ease and little effort. He was like the jockey Jim Tully described, He talked with horses, not to them. The 1926 Howitzer says of Ham Hawkins, A man who loves a horse is worth loving as a friend.
Hamilton Smith Hawkins, the fourth to bear that name in the rolls of the United States Army, was born in Denver, Colorado on November 7, 1904. His trail to West Point, also followed by his sister Nancy, who became one of the most popular girls ever to pack a picnic basket for hungry West Point cadets, wound over half the globe. At the age of eighteen months Ham saw the 4th Calvary trot by on parade at Fort Meade, South Dakota. At the age of eight he walked with officers carrying books to school at Fort Leavenworth. Then in 1912-1913 he enjoyed seeing his father ride with the 6th Regiment of French Dragoons, on duty at Evreux, Normandy, France. From there the road led to Fort Sam Houston for three years, the 3d Calvary on the Mexican border, then to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and to Washington, D.C.
When his father, Colonel Hamilton S. Hawkins III, sailed for France to fight in 1918, Ham drew books at St. Paul’s School, Garden City, Long Island. After the Hawkins family moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, Ham took a competitive Senatorial exam and won it.
Consequently, Ham Hawkins held up his hand and was sworn in as a West Point plebe on the Plain in 1922. Not only was he inspired by his father’s magnificent record, but as a boy he had reveled in stories about his great-grandfather, a medical officer who fought yellow fever for the United States in the Mexican War and who died from that dreaded disease and of his grandfather – a hero of the Battle of San Juan Hill – who became governor of the Old Soldiers’ Home as a reward for his gallantry, by the order of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The 1926 Howitzer attempts to describe Ham Hawkins: He is a habitant of first sections, the Polo Field and Cullum Hall. He has always been more or less in favor with the god of academics and the Army hasn’t a harder playing man in the sport of princes.
His bluest moments find him presenting to the world his most cheerful exterior. He is no ‘B-acher’ about anything.
Ham’s code is the code of the Cavalryman – unselfishness, fairness, tolerance. His is a character of accepting half measures in nothing.
In the spring of 1926, Ham Hawkins was up before reveille to jog up Chapel Hill and to run around Lusk Reservoir, determined to report to his first post in the prime of condition.
One month before the Class of 1926 was to graduate, tragedy struck. Ham Hawkins, a star on the Academy’s intercollegiate, top flight polo team, went down in a crash during polo practice on the old North Athletic Field. It seemed incredible that this man of buoyancy, drive and life could be seriously injured.
For three days famous Head Barracks Policeman Sergeant Harold (Pop) Swartwood attended a blackboard he placed in the center of South Area, on which he chalked up to the minutes messages for the Corps, heart tearing messaged relayed from the Cade Hospital. Sample:
Ham Hawkins . . .Still out and sinking.
Ham’s funeral in the West Point Cemetery, on a perfect Hudson River day in May, is etched permanently in the minds of cadets of the Classes of 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929. The entire Post also attended and grieved with his family, close friends and the Corps over our irreparable loss.
Just before graduation a group of cadets presented Colonel Hawkins with his son’s sword, a sword Ham wore when he carried the Corps Colors on parade as Cadet Color Sergeant.
The Academic Board presented the Colonel and his wife with Ham’s diploma, which was testimonial to the fact that he had successfully completed the course of instruction and was, therefore, a full-fledged graduated of the Academy. For some unexplained reason, however, Ham’s name was carried for many years in the Register of Graduates under the heading, Non-Graduates. Finally in 1972, some interested classmates petitioned the Superintendent and the Academic Board to correct the discrepancy. Action on this request was approved and Ham’s name was moved belatedly to its rightful place among the Graduates of the Class of 1926, where it now appears in current Registers.
Looking back from a vantage point of twenty-eight years since the end of World War II, it is obvious that in Hamilton Smith Hawkins’ untimely death the United States suffered the loss of a most unusual leader, a sure choice to rise to high general officer rank.
- A Classmate
Assembly, Volume XXXII, No. 4, March 1974, Association Of Graduates, United States Military Academy
Hamilton Smith Hawkins
No. 7912A. Class of 1926.
Died May 14, 1926 at West Point, New York, aged 21 years.
Interment: West Point Cemetery, West Point, New York.
He was a tall, lanky, handsome Army boy with a wide grin and a zest for life. Everyone who knew Ham Hawkins gained from his personality and sunny, friendly disposition. He brought out the best in people. A man without enemies.
Hamilton Hawkins was a Romantic, with a capital R. One evening as a cadet he enjoyed the Broadway musical The Vagabond King. The sword play and rivalries on stage resembled the way this devoted follower of the Army team saw football: a rapier like game, contestants to be downed and conquered with lovely ladies waiting to applaud the victors. Shortly after returning to the Academy, Hawkins wrote a parody that became one of the most popular of Army’s stirring football songs:
Slum And Gravy
Sons of Slum and Gravy
Will you let the Navy
Take from us a victory?
Hear a warrior’s chorus,
Sweep that line before us,
Carry on the victory!
Onward! Onward! Charge against the foe,
Forward! Forward! The Army banners go!
Sons of Mars and Thunder,
Rip that line asunder,
Carry on the victory.
After writing the parody, Ham dashed a note to his sister Nancy that bore his contagious enthusiasm, I can’t wait to share (Slum and Gravy) with you. Tonight we sprung it on the Corps at a rally before the Yale game (1925). It went over big and it will be sung at that game!
To his cadet friends and Ham Hawkins had hundreds, it seemed only normal for this champion of the Army team to pen such words, which he did with the help of the Cadet Song Leader and a member of the Cadet Orchestra, two friends in the Class of 1927.
In addition to being a Romantic, Hawkins was a top athlete, a horseman at home in the saddle. He loved horses and controlled them with ease and little effort. He was like the jockey Jim Tully described, He talked with horses, not to them. The 1926 Howitzer says of Ham Hawkins, A man who loves a horse is worth loving as a friend.
Hamilton Smith Hawkins, the fourth to bear that name in the rolls of the United States Army, was born in Denver, Colorado on November 7, 1904. His trail to West Point, also followed by his sister Nancy, who became one of the most popular girls ever to pack a picnic basket for hungry West Point cadets, wound over half the globe. At the age of eighteen months Ham saw the 4th Calvary trot by on parade at Fort Meade, South Dakota. At the age of eight he walked with officers carrying books to school at Fort Leavenworth. Then in 1912-1913 he enjoyed seeing his father ride with the 6th Regiment of French Dragoons, on duty at Evreux, Normandy, France. From there the road led to Fort Sam Houston for three years, the 3d Calvary on the Mexican border, then to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and to Washington, D.C.
When his father, Colonel Hamilton S. Hawkins III, sailed for France to fight in 1918, Ham drew books at St. Paul’s School, Garden City, Long Island. After the Hawkins family moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, Ham took a competitive Senatorial exam and won it.
Consequently, Ham Hawkins held up his hand and was sworn in as a West Point plebe on the Plain in 1922. Not only was he inspired by his father’s magnificent record, but as a boy he had reveled in stories about his great-grandfather, a medical officer who fought yellow fever for the United States in the Mexican War and who died from that dreaded disease and of his grandfather – a hero of the Battle of San Juan Hill – who became governor of the Old Soldiers’ Home as a reward for his gallantry, by the order of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The 1926 Howitzer attempts to describe Ham Hawkins: He is a habitant of first sections, the Polo Field and Cullum Hall. He has always been more or less in favor with the god of academics and the Army hasn’t a harder playing man in the sport of princes.
His bluest moments find him presenting to the world his most cheerful exterior. He is no ‘B-acher’ about anything.
Ham’s code is the code of the Cavalryman – unselfishness, fairness, tolerance. His is a character of accepting half measures in nothing.
In the spring of 1926, Ham Hawkins was up before reveille to jog up Chapel Hill and to run around Lusk Reservoir, determined to report to his first post in the prime of condition.
One month before the Class of 1926 was to graduate, tragedy struck. Ham Hawkins, a star on the Academy’s intercollegiate, top flight polo team, went down in a crash during polo practice on the old North Athletic Field. It seemed incredible that this man of buoyancy, drive and life could be seriously injured.
For three days famous Head Barracks Policeman Sergeant Harold (Pop) Swartwood attended a blackboard he placed in the center of South Area, on which he chalked up to the minutes messages for the Corps, heart tearing messaged relayed from the Cade Hospital. Sample:
Ham Hawkins . . .Still out and sinking.
Ham’s funeral in the West Point Cemetery, on a perfect Hudson River day in May, is etched permanently in the minds of cadets of the Classes of 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929. The entire Post also attended and grieved with his family, close friends and the Corps over our irreparable loss.
Just before graduation a group of cadets presented Colonel Hawkins with his son’s sword, a sword Ham wore when he carried the Corps Colors on parade as Cadet Color Sergeant.
The Academic Board presented the Colonel and his wife with Ham’s diploma, which was testimonial to the fact that he had successfully completed the course of instruction and was, therefore, a full-fledged graduated of the Academy. For some unexplained reason, however, Ham’s name was carried for many years in the Register of Graduates under the heading, Non-Graduates. Finally in 1972, some interested classmates petitioned the Superintendent and the Academic Board to correct the discrepancy. Action on this request was approved and Ham’s name was moved belatedly to its rightful place among the Graduates of the Class of 1926, where it now appears in current Registers.
Looking back from a vantage point of twenty-eight years since the end of World War II, it is obvious that in Hamilton Smith Hawkins’ untimely death the United States suffered the loss of a most unusual leader, a sure choice to rise to high general officer rank.
- A Classmate
USMA Class of 1926.
Assembly, Volume XXXII, No. 4, March 1974, Association Of Graduates, United States Military Academy
Hamilton Smith Hawkins
No. 7912A. Class of 1926.
Died May 14, 1926 at West Point, New York, aged 21 years.
Interment: West Point Cemetery, West Point, New York.
He was a tall, lanky, handsome Army boy with a wide grin and a zest for life. Everyone who knew Ham Hawkins gained from his personality and sunny, friendly disposition. He brought out the best in people. A man without enemies.
Hamilton Hawkins was a Romantic, with a capital R. One evening as a cadet he enjoyed the Broadway musical The Vagabond King. The sword play and rivalries on stage resembled the way this devoted follower of the Army team saw football: a rapier like game, contestants to be downed and conquered with lovely ladies waiting to applaud the victors. Shortly after returning to the Academy, Hawkins wrote a parody that became one of the most popular of Army’s stirring football songs:
Slum And Gravy
Sons of Slum and Gravy
Will you let the Navy
Take from us a victory?
Hear a warrior’s chorus,
Sweep that line before us,
Carry on the victory!
Onward! Onward! Charge against the foe,
Forward! Forward! The Army banners go!
Sons of Mars and Thunder,
Rip that line asunder,
Carry on the victory.
After writing the parody, Ham dashed a note to his sister Nancy that bore his contagious enthusiasm, I can’t wait to share (Slum and Gravy) with you. Tonight we sprung it on the Corps at a rally before the Yale game (1925). It went over big and it will be sung at that game!
To his cadet friends and Ham Hawkins had hundreds, it seemed only normal for this champion of the Army team to pen such words, which he did with the help of the Cadet Song Leader and a member of the Cadet Orchestra, two friends in the Class of 1927.
In addition to being a Romantic, Hawkins was a top athlete, a horseman at home in the saddle. He loved horses and controlled them with ease and little effort. He was like the jockey Jim Tully described, He talked with horses, not to them. The 1926 Howitzer says of Ham Hawkins, A man who loves a horse is worth loving as a friend.
Hamilton Smith Hawkins, the fourth to bear that name in the rolls of the United States Army, was born in Denver, Colorado on November 7, 1904. His trail to West Point, also followed by his sister Nancy, who became one of the most popular girls ever to pack a picnic basket for hungry West Point cadets, wound over half the globe. At the age of eighteen months Ham saw the 4th Calvary trot by on parade at Fort Meade, South Dakota. At the age of eight he walked with officers carrying books to school at Fort Leavenworth. Then in 1912-1913 he enjoyed seeing his father ride with the 6th Regiment of French Dragoons, on duty at Evreux, Normandy, France. From there the road led to Fort Sam Houston for three years, the 3d Calvary on the Mexican border, then to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and to Washington, D.C.
When his father, Colonel Hamilton S. Hawkins III, sailed for France to fight in 1918, Ham drew books at St. Paul’s School, Garden City, Long Island. After the Hawkins family moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, Ham took a competitive Senatorial exam and won it.
Consequently, Ham Hawkins held up his hand and was sworn in as a West Point plebe on the Plain in 1922. Not only was he inspired by his father’s magnificent record, but as a boy he had reveled in stories about his great-grandfather, a medical officer who fought yellow fever for the United States in the Mexican War and who died from that dreaded disease and of his grandfather – a hero of the Battle of San Juan Hill – who became governor of the Old Soldiers’ Home as a reward for his gallantry, by the order of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The 1926 Howitzer attempts to describe Ham Hawkins: He is a habitant of first sections, the Polo Field and Cullum Hall. He has always been more or less in favor with the god of academics and the Army hasn’t a harder playing man in the sport of princes.
His bluest moments find him presenting to the world his most cheerful exterior. He is no ‘B-acher’ about anything.
Ham’s code is the code of the Cavalryman – unselfishness, fairness, tolerance. His is a character of accepting half measures in nothing.
In the spring of 1926, Ham Hawkins was up before reveille to jog up Chapel Hill and to run around Lusk Reservoir, determined to report to his first post in the prime of condition.
One month before the Class of 1926 was to graduate, tragedy struck. Ham Hawkins, a star on the Academy’s intercollegiate, top flight polo team, went down in a crash during polo practice on the old North Athletic Field. It seemed incredible that this man of buoyancy, drive and life could be seriously injured.
For three days famous Head Barracks Policeman Sergeant Harold (Pop) Swartwood attended a blackboard he placed in the center of South Area, on which he chalked up to the minutes messages for the Corps, heart tearing messaged relayed from the Cade Hospital. Sample:
Ham Hawkins . . .Still out and sinking.
Ham’s funeral in the West Point Cemetery, on a perfect Hudson River day in May, is etched permanently in the minds of cadets of the Classes of 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929. The entire Post also attended and grieved with his family, close friends and the Corps over our irreparable loss.
Just before graduation a group of cadets presented Colonel Hawkins with his son’s sword, a sword Ham wore when he carried the Corps Colors on parade as Cadet Color Sergeant.
The Academic Board presented the Colonel and his wife with Ham’s diploma, which was testimonial to the fact that he had successfully completed the course of instruction and was, therefore, a full-fledged graduated of the Academy. For some unexplained reason, however, Ham’s name was carried for many years in the Register of Graduates under the heading, Non-Graduates. Finally in 1972, some interested classmates petitioned the Superintendent and the Academic Board to correct the discrepancy. Action on this request was approved and Ham’s name was moved belatedly to its rightful place among the Graduates of the Class of 1926, where it now appears in current Registers.
Looking back from a vantage point of twenty-eight years since the end of World War II, it is obvious that in Hamilton Smith Hawkins’ untimely death the United States suffered the loss of a most unusual leader, a sure choice to rise to high general officer rank.
- A Classmate
Assembly, Volume XXXII, No. 4, March 1974, Association Of Graduates, United States Military Academy
Hamilton Smith Hawkins
No. 7912A. Class of 1926.
Died May 14, 1926 at West Point, New York, aged 21 years.
Interment: West Point Cemetery, West Point, New York.
He was a tall, lanky, handsome Army boy with a wide grin and a zest for life. Everyone who knew Ham Hawkins gained from his personality and sunny, friendly disposition. He brought out the best in people. A man without enemies.
Hamilton Hawkins was a Romantic, with a capital R. One evening as a cadet he enjoyed the Broadway musical The Vagabond King. The sword play and rivalries on stage resembled the way this devoted follower of the Army team saw football: a rapier like game, contestants to be downed and conquered with lovely ladies waiting to applaud the victors. Shortly after returning to the Academy, Hawkins wrote a parody that became one of the most popular of Army’s stirring football songs:
Slum And Gravy
Sons of Slum and Gravy
Will you let the Navy
Take from us a victory?
Hear a warrior’s chorus,
Sweep that line before us,
Carry on the victory!
Onward! Onward! Charge against the foe,
Forward! Forward! The Army banners go!
Sons of Mars and Thunder,
Rip that line asunder,
Carry on the victory.
After writing the parody, Ham dashed a note to his sister Nancy that bore his contagious enthusiasm, I can’t wait to share (Slum and Gravy) with you. Tonight we sprung it on the Corps at a rally before the Yale game (1925). It went over big and it will be sung at that game!
To his cadet friends and Ham Hawkins had hundreds, it seemed only normal for this champion of the Army team to pen such words, which he did with the help of the Cadet Song Leader and a member of the Cadet Orchestra, two friends in the Class of 1927.
In addition to being a Romantic, Hawkins was a top athlete, a horseman at home in the saddle. He loved horses and controlled them with ease and little effort. He was like the jockey Jim Tully described, He talked with horses, not to them. The 1926 Howitzer says of Ham Hawkins, A man who loves a horse is worth loving as a friend.
Hamilton Smith Hawkins, the fourth to bear that name in the rolls of the United States Army, was born in Denver, Colorado on November 7, 1904. His trail to West Point, also followed by his sister Nancy, who became one of the most popular girls ever to pack a picnic basket for hungry West Point cadets, wound over half the globe. At the age of eighteen months Ham saw the 4th Calvary trot by on parade at Fort Meade, South Dakota. At the age of eight he walked with officers carrying books to school at Fort Leavenworth. Then in 1912-1913 he enjoyed seeing his father ride with the 6th Regiment of French Dragoons, on duty at Evreux, Normandy, France. From there the road led to Fort Sam Houston for three years, the 3d Calvary on the Mexican border, then to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and to Washington, D.C.
When his father, Colonel Hamilton S. Hawkins III, sailed for France to fight in 1918, Ham drew books at St. Paul’s School, Garden City, Long Island. After the Hawkins family moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, Ham took a competitive Senatorial exam and won it.
Consequently, Ham Hawkins held up his hand and was sworn in as a West Point plebe on the Plain in 1922. Not only was he inspired by his father’s magnificent record, but as a boy he had reveled in stories about his great-grandfather, a medical officer who fought yellow fever for the United States in the Mexican War and who died from that dreaded disease and of his grandfather – a hero of the Battle of San Juan Hill – who became governor of the Old Soldiers’ Home as a reward for his gallantry, by the order of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The 1926 Howitzer attempts to describe Ham Hawkins: He is a habitant of first sections, the Polo Field and Cullum Hall. He has always been more or less in favor with the god of academics and the Army hasn’t a harder playing man in the sport of princes.
His bluest moments find him presenting to the world his most cheerful exterior. He is no ‘B-acher’ about anything.
Ham’s code is the code of the Cavalryman – unselfishness, fairness, tolerance. His is a character of accepting half measures in nothing.
In the spring of 1926, Ham Hawkins was up before reveille to jog up Chapel Hill and to run around Lusk Reservoir, determined to report to his first post in the prime of condition.
One month before the Class of 1926 was to graduate, tragedy struck. Ham Hawkins, a star on the Academy’s intercollegiate, top flight polo team, went down in a crash during polo practice on the old North Athletic Field. It seemed incredible that this man of buoyancy, drive and life could be seriously injured.
For three days famous Head Barracks Policeman Sergeant Harold (Pop) Swartwood attended a blackboard he placed in the center of South Area, on which he chalked up to the minutes messages for the Corps, heart tearing messaged relayed from the Cade Hospital. Sample:
Ham Hawkins . . .Still out and sinking.
Ham’s funeral in the West Point Cemetery, on a perfect Hudson River day in May, is etched permanently in the minds of cadets of the Classes of 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929. The entire Post also attended and grieved with his family, close friends and the Corps over our irreparable loss.
Just before graduation a group of cadets presented Colonel Hawkins with his son’s sword, a sword Ham wore when he carried the Corps Colors on parade as Cadet Color Sergeant.
The Academic Board presented the Colonel and his wife with Ham’s diploma, which was testimonial to the fact that he had successfully completed the course of instruction and was, therefore, a full-fledged graduated of the Academy. For some unexplained reason, however, Ham’s name was carried for many years in the Register of Graduates under the heading, Non-Graduates. Finally in 1972, some interested classmates petitioned the Superintendent and the Academic Board to correct the discrepancy. Action on this request was approved and Ham’s name was moved belatedly to its rightful place among the Graduates of the Class of 1926, where it now appears in current Registers.
Looking back from a vantage point of twenty-eight years since the end of World War II, it is obvious that in Hamilton Smith Hawkins’ untimely death the United States suffered the loss of a most unusual leader, a sure choice to rise to high general officer rank.
- A Classmate
Family Members
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Records on Ancestry
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1910 United States Federal Census
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New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957
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New York, U.S., Newspapers.com™ Stories and Events Index, 1800's-current
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New York, U.S., Death Index, 1852-1956
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U.S., Veterans' Gravesites, ca.1775-2019
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