Samuel E. Tillman

The experience in his seventieth year of Samuel Escue Tillman (U. S. Military Academy ’69) was an old soldier’s rosy wartime dream come true. In the spring of 1917, having been retired for age as a colonel in 1911 after several decades on the West Point faculty, he offered to serve as an instructor in chemistry and mineralogy under one of his former assistants at the Academy. In June, 1917, he was commissioned brigadier general and assigned to duty as Superintendent. Among his predecessors in this position were Robert E. Lee, Pierre G. T. Beauregard and O. O. Howard. He was succeeded by Douglas MacArthur. For his “especially meritorious and conspicuous services” as Superintendent he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1919. A native of Tennessee, he received his appointment to the Academy in 1865 from President Lincoln. As an artillery lieutenant he saw frontier service in Kansas and took part in the Wheeler expeditions in the Southwest. His record of 9000 miles on muleback has still to be topped by a Centurion. In 1874, he was attached as an assistant astronomer to the United States expedition to Tasmania to observe the transit of Venus. Yale University conferred an honorary degree upon him as “not only a soldier and an educator of soldiers but a scholarly scientist as well.” No Centurion under eighty is old. After eighty his friends are permitted to ask, “To what do you attribute your splendid mental and physical vigor?” Those who put this question to General Tillman were informed by him that he had always worn suspenders instead of a belt.

On the occasion of the Century’s celebration of fifty years in the Forty-third Street Club-house, a special medal, designed by Thomas Hudson JonesMember profile currently not available; contact Archivist for information on this Centurion and executed by Riccardo BertelliMember profile currently not available; contact Archivist for information on this Centurion, was conferred upon the General and several others in commemoration of their having been members for fifty years or more. General Tillman sent from California an affectionate message to his fellow members saying that the medal reached him on his ninety-fourth birthday, that it was the high spot of the day’s celebration, and that nothing had pleased him so much since he received the Distinguished Service Medal.

Geoffrey Parsons
1942 Century Memorials