Episode 3 of 4

First Sentinel Post

When: 1839
Where: Lexington, Virginia
Part of: Founding of the Virginia Military Institute

Private John Strange became the first cadet to march a sentinel post in 1839, establishing a continuous tradition.

In 1839, Private John Strange was the first cadet to march a sentinel post. With few exceptions, there have been sentinels posted at VMI every hour of every day of the school year since November 11, 1839, marking the start of the institute's guard tradition.

Sources

Virginia Military Institute Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-20

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.