Santa Clara University’s ROTC roots extend back to the Civil War, with the establishment of an official military unit, “the Senior Company of Cadets,” in 1861. Like the nation, the Civil War brought different emotions and feelings to the Santa Clara College community: those who sympathized with the Confederacy withdrew their sons from the school, while other students left to join the Union forces.
Springfield Rifle
On the 10th of September 1863 the Governor of California, Leland Stanford, presented the Cadets of Santa Clara College with 40 Springfield rifles, Model 1839.The Santa Clara historian Gerald McKevitt, SJ describes the gift as “forty stand of Minnie Rifles, with accoutrements and side-arms and camp and garrison equipage necessary to forty men” (1979: 74). SCU built an armory and pistol range in Stanford’s honor, which was located southwest of the athletic field in 1936. The construction of an armory and pistol range highlights the importance of military training in 1863.
This rifle commemorates not only a tumultuous period in our nation’s history, but it also reveals the moral divide within the student body on the newly formed Santa Clara College campus.
Photograph of Santa Clara Cadets with Springfield Rifles
Additional Information:
ROTC History, http://www.scu.edu/rotc/history.cfm
Gerald McKevitt, S.J. The University of Santa Clara: A History 1851-1977.
Annals of Santa Clara, page 84. Archives.