Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Education
Poe was engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages. As expressed by Jeffery Myers, the author of Edgar Allan Poe: His life and Legacy, the university still emerging was established on the beliefs of its founder, the great Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules were generally shunned. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. As this system was still in the making, there was a high dropout rate. During his time at the university the love and affection between his foster fathers was refuted unfortunately lost over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts and fund for a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe’s debts increased. It all this turmoil Poe gave up on the university after a year, and not feeling welcome in Virginia traveled to Boston where he tried to sustain himself with odd jobs such a clergy and newspaper writer.
Poe attended the University of Virginia
In 1826 Poe left Richmond to attend the University of Virginia, founded by the utmost famous Thomas Jefferson, where he excelled in his classes while accumulating considerable debt. The miserly Allan had sent Poe to college with less than a third of the money he needed, and Poe soon took up gambling to raise money to pay his expenses. By the end of his first term Poe was so desperately poor that he burned his furniture to keep warm.
Humiliated by his poverty and furious with Allan for not providing enough funds in the first place, Poe returned to Richmond and visited the home of his fiancée Elmira Royster, only to discover that she had become engaged to another man in Poe’s absence. The heartbroken Poe’s last few months in the Allan mansion were punctuated with increasing hostility towards Allan until Poe finally stormed out of the home in a quixotic quest to become a great poet and to find adventure. He accomplished the first objective by publishing his first book Tamerlane when he was only eighteen.
Humiliated by his poverty and furious with Allan for not providing enough funds in the first place, Poe returned to Richmond and visited the home of his fiancée Elmira Royster, only to discover that she had become engaged to another man in Poe’s absence. The heartbroken Poe’s last few months in the Allan mansion were punctuated with increasing hostility towards Allan until Poe finally stormed out of the home in a quixotic quest to become a great poet and to find adventure. He accomplished the first objective by publishing his first book Tamerlane when he was only eighteen.
Military Experiance
Unable to support himself, on May 27, 1827, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private. Using the name “Edgar A. Perry”, he claimed he was 22 years old even though he was 18. Myers expresses that Poe served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month. During his time in the force he released a collection of works but unfortunately they did not gain any popularity. After serving for two years and attaining the rank of Sergeant Major for artillery (the highest rank a noncommissioned officer can achieve), Poe, sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and deposition to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, who demanded Poe to reconcile with John Allan, who was very unsympathetic. Several months passed with no replies from John Allan to a miserable Edgar Allan Poe. Allan may have not written to Poe even to make him aware of his fosters mother’s illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife’s death, John Allan agreed to support Poe’s attempt to be discharged to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Edgar Allan Poe’s return to Richmond after his first semester at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in December 1826 was not the joyous reunion with family and friends that most college freshmen experience. Poe’s friends avoided him. He discovered that his sweetheart, Elmira Royster, had gotten engaged in his absence. A two-year feud between Poe and his foster father, John Allan, erupted in an argument that sent Poe packing.
He enlisted in the Army on May 26, 1827, under the name of Edgar A. Perry, claiming to be a twenty-two-year-old clerk from Boston. He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor and was later moved to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, and then Fort Monroe, Virginia, usually earning around $5 a month.
According to the website, Mental Floss, "Officers at Fort Monroe described Poe as “good, and entirely free from drinking” and “highly worthy of confidence,” and he was soon promoted to “artificer”—a tradesman position that involved preparing artillery shells—and later, sergeant major for artillery."
Poe's fast success didn’t mean he was happy with army life. On the contrary, after two years of a five-year commitment, he badly wanted out, having served “as long as suits my ends or my inclination.” An early discharge would have been difficult to secure, so he approached his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, for advice. He dissembled his real name and age to the lieutenant and gave him the rundown of his troubled life. Howard took pity on Poe and agreed to arrange a discharge on one condition: Poe had to reconcile with his foster father, John Allan.
He enlisted in the Army on May 26, 1827, under the name of Edgar A. Perry, claiming to be a twenty-two-year-old clerk from Boston. He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor and was later moved to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, and then Fort Monroe, Virginia, usually earning around $5 a month.
According to the website, Mental Floss, "Officers at Fort Monroe described Poe as “good, and entirely free from drinking” and “highly worthy of confidence,” and he was soon promoted to “artificer”—a tradesman position that involved preparing artillery shells—and later, sergeant major for artillery."
Poe's fast success didn’t mean he was happy with army life. On the contrary, after two years of a five-year commitment, he badly wanted out, having served “as long as suits my ends or my inclination.” An early discharge would have been difficult to secure, so he approached his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, for advice. He dissembled his real name and age to the lieutenant and gave him the rundown of his troubled life. Howard took pity on Poe and agreed to arrange a discharge on one condition: Poe had to reconcile with his foster father, John Allan.