This healed the breach between the two, never after reopened.
Besides the argument used by my father in favor of my going to West Point--that "he thought I would go"-- there was another very strong inducement.

I had always a great desire to travel.

I was already the best travelled boy in Georgetown, except the sons of one man, John Walker, who had emigrated to Texas with his family, and immigrated back as soon as he could get the means to do so.

In his short stay in Texas he acquired a very different opinion of the country from what one would form going there now.
I had been east to Wheeling, Virginia, and north to the Western Reserve, in Ohio, west to Louisville, and south to Bourbon County, Kentucky, besides having driven or ridden pretty much over the whole country within fifty miles of home.

Going to West Point would give me the opportunity of visiting the two great cities of the continent, Philadelphia and New York.