“Boys will be boys,” the old saying goes, especially when they’re college boys, and doubly so when alcohol is involved. I tend to take a charitable view of such youthful indiscretions. A certain incident involving bourbon in my dorm room in February 1982 came within a whisker of ending my higher education three semesters shy of graduation. (The less said about that unfortunate affair, the better.)

Nearly 200 years ago, dozens of West Pointers got into holiday hot water, and some weren’t as fortunate as I was. This is the story of the Eggnog Riot of 1826.