History of Kappa Alpha Order
It happened on December 21, 1865, when today’s students probably would have been skiing in Colorado or lounging around his family home. Instead, four students at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, spent their holiday season in the midst of a war-torn community, which had been victimized by raids during the War Between the States. Life was difficult in the turbulent Reconstruction Era.
These four men, among the first 50 students to return to the college following the war, sought to bind their friendship by “mutual pledge of faith and loyalty.” James Ward Wood, Stanhope McClelland Scott, William Nelson Scott and William Archibald Walsh formed Phi Kappa Chi, adapting a ritual from an extinct fraternity. However, the members of the group soon changed the name to Kappa Alpha, by request of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity that already existed on campus.
The Kappa Alphas met at the Ann Smith Academy where the Scott brothers’ father was headmaster. During the first year, KA initiated seven new men — among them was Samuel Zenas Ammen.
Ammen, unimpressed with the borrowed ritual, said it was “mere verbal pyrotechnics in florid sophomoric style with nothing to touch the imagination of initiates nor stir their fancy.” He decided a new ritual was necessary to bolster the fraternity and attract new members from the College, which was experiencing a boom in enrollment. He collaborated with Wood and William Nelson Scott to write a new ritual which changed Kappa Alpha from a fraternity into an order of Christian knights pledged to the highest ideals of character and achievement. Ammen and his contemporaries sought to preserve the masculine virtues of chivalry, respect for others, honor and reverence for God and woman. Thus, they emulated their college’s president – Robert E. Lee – a great man eminent in character. Lee was not a member of Kappa Alpha, but his influence on the early members shaped the destiny of the young fraternity. Kappa Alphas often visited the Lee home, and there is one account that the only person outside the Lee family to ride Traveler (Lee’s famous war horse) was a chapter president.
Definition of a Gentleman
The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly–the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the men in a plain light.
The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled when he cannot help humbling others.
-Robert Edward Lee
