On the whole, Cadet Lyon's stay at West Point was successful. Especially considering his volatile temper, the fifty-five demerits Lyon compiled in four years at West Point stand up well.
Thirty-four of those demerits had been received during his first year at the Point, with the final twelve being handed out in his fourth and final year, for a single infraction.
In a confrontation with another cadet who was acting as officer of the day, Lyon for some reason refused to turn over his orders. The result was his only set of demerits for the year.
As biographer Christopher Phillips points out, this incident - which cost Lyon the difficult feat of finishing a year with no demerits - also revealed an important component of Lyon's personality. One that found itself at odds with the sense of duty hammered into all military cadets:
Though the details of the incident are incomplete, it is apparent that Lyon was confronted with a situation that forced him to choose between what he had been taught to be fealty and what he believed to be injustice. In a fit of rage, Lyon placed his own sense of rightness over the military's - or anyone else's. Hence, in matters of extreme personal importance, Lyon, and Lyon alone, would dictate the terms of duty to which he would subscribe.
This rather unusual characteristic of "[conforming] the military's idea of duty to his own" is one that would assert itself with increasing frequency as time went by.
On a more pleasant note, his high ranking in his class entitled Lyon to choose his branch of service upon graduation.
Traditionally the highest-ranking cadets entered the prestigious Engineering Corps, while lower-ranking students were assigned to the Infantry. Yet, the slow rate of promotion for military engineers weighed heavily on the ambitious young officer-to-be, and upon graduation the newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant requested and received an infantry assignment - Company I of the Second United States Infantry.
Unnecessary Severity
Lyon reported for duty with his company in far off Florida the following December, where he would serve a somewhat dreary but relatively uneventful six month stretch. In May of 1842 he was transferred to the scenic location of Madison Barracks in Sackets Harbor, New York, along the eastern Shore of Lake Ontario.
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