Alexander, Edward Porter (26 May 1835–28 April 1910), Confederate soldier and author, was born in Washington, Georgia, the son of Adam Leopold Alexander, a planter and banker, and Sarah Hillhouse Gilbert. Educated by tutors in his wealthy family’s household, Alexander entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1853 and graduated third in the class of 1857. He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant of engineers on 1 July 1857 and was promoted to second lieutenant on 10 October 1858. Marked from the first as a promising officer, he taught at West Point immediately upon graduation, accompanied ...
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Alexander, Edward Porter (1835-1910), Confederate soldier and author
Gary W. Gallagher
Article
Barnes, James (1801-1869), railroad executive and soldier
D. Scott Hartwig
Barnes, James (28 December 1801–12 February 1869), railroad executive and soldier, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Captain William Barnes and Jane (maiden name unknown). He was educated at the Latin School of Boston and went into business after graduation; but he desired a military life and in 1825 secured an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Barnes was an excellent student and graduated fifth in the illustrious class of 1829, which included ...
Article
Boyd, John R. (23 January 1927–09 March 1997), air force officer
Robert L. Gale
Boyd, John R. (23 January 1927–09 March 1997), air force officer, was born John Richard Boyd in Erie, Pennsylvania, the son of Hubert Boyd, a paper mill official, and Elsie Mae Beyer. When Boyd was three, his father died and his mother became a telephone-advertising salesperson. At Strong Vincent High School in Erie, Boyd was an honor student and a member of the swimming team. He received his diploma in absentia in 1945 because he was serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces. During his tour of duty in Japan (1945–1946), Boyd criticized the bivouacking of enlisted men in freezing tents and giving them cold K rations while officers enjoyed warm quarters and hot food. When Boyd and others dismantled and burned a wooden hangar for warmth, he was threatened with court-martial; but he ultimately helped to implement reform measures. His stubborn maverick personality was forming....
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Boyle, Jeremiah Tilford (1818-1871), soldier and railroad entrepreneur
Edward G. Longacre
Boyle, Jeremiah Tilford (22 May 1818–28 July 1871), soldier and railroad entrepreneur, was born in Mercer County, Kentucky, the son of John Boyle, a judge, and Elizabeth Tilford. His father was described as “one of the most conspicuous figures in the public life of Kentucky for more than a third of a century” (Levin, p. 157). Boyle was educated at Centre and Transylvania colleges in his native state and in 1839 graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1841, he practiced law in Harrodsburg and later that year in Danville. In 1842 he married Elizabeth Owsley Anderson; they had twelve children....
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Burns, Otway, Jr. (1775-1850), privateer, shipbuilder, and state legislator
Max R. Williams
Burns, Otway, Jr. (1775–25 October 1850), privateer, shipbuilder, and state legislator, was born on Queen’s Creek, Onslow County, North Carolina, the son of Otway Burns and Lisanah (maiden name unknown), farmers. Little is known of Burns’s education or youth. Apparently he went to sea at an early age and became a skilled seaman. In 1806 the Onslow County Court apprenticed an orphan lad to Burns to learn navigation. Prior to the War of 1812, Burns was master of a merchantman engaged in the coastwise trade between North Carolina and New England....
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Burnside, Ambrose Everett (1824-1881), soldier and businessman
Michael C. C. Adams
Burnside, Ambrose Everett (23 May 1824–13 September 1881), soldier and businessman, was born in Liberty, Indiana, the son of Pamelia Brown and Edghill Burnside, a law clerk and farmer. The Burnsides had nine children and only a modest income, so Ambrose received no more than a rudimentary education before starting work as an apprentice tailor in 1840. His father took advantage of a term in the state legislature to have the boy appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, which he entered on 1 July 1843. He graduated eighteenth out of thirty-eight cadets in the class of 1847 and was commissioned second lieutenant in the Third U.S. Artillery. His battery was serving in the Mexican War, and he joined it in Mexico City, too late to see action. Bored, he gambled away six months’ pay. Further embarrassment was prevented by a posting, in spring 1848, to Fort Adams, Rhode Island....
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Burnside, Ambrose Everett (1824-1881)
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Ambrose E. Burnside Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-B8172-1625).
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Chennault, Claire Lee (1893-1958), military officer and airline executive
William M. Leary
Chennault, Claire Lee (06 September 1893–27 July 1958), military officer and airline executive, was born in Commerce, Texas, the son of John Stonewall Jackson Chennault, a small-scale cotton grower, and Jessie Lee. Chennault grew up on a small farm in Franklin Parish in northeastern Louisiana. His mother died when he was eight years old. Two years later, his father married Lottie Barnes, a local schoolteacher. Educated in the nearby town of Gilbert, he entered Louisiana State University in 1909. Shortly thereafter, his stepmother, who had persuaded him to continue his education, died. “I was alone again,” he later wrote, “and really never found another companion whom I could so completely admire, respect, and love.”...
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Chennault, Claire Lee (1893-1958)
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Claire Lee Chennault Right, with Major General Gilbert Cheves, at the start of a softball game in China, each serving as captain of a team drawn from the men under their command, 1945. Courtesy of the National Archives (NWDNS-111-SC-203553).
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Claghorn, George (1748-1824), army officer and shipwright
John C. Fredriksen
Claghorn, George (06 July 1748–03 February 1824), army officer and shipwright, was born in Chilmark, Massachusetts, the son of Shubael Claghorn, a soldier, and Experience Hawes. He was a great-grandson of James Claghorn of Scotland, who was captured at the battle of Dunbar and deported to the colonies by Cromwell. His father was a veteran of the Louisburg expedition of 1745. Claghorn himself eventually settled in New Bedford and in 1769 married Deborah Brownell of Dartmouth. They had eight children....
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Cochran, Jacqueline (1910?–09 August 1980)
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Jacqueline Cochran Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-105221).
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Cochran, Jacqueline (1910?–09 August 1980), pioneer aviator and business executive
Erik Thomas Robinson
Cochran, Jacqueline (1910?–09 August 1980), pioneer aviator and business executive, was born in Muscogee, Florida, near Pensacola. Her parents both died during her infancy, and she was raised by foster families with whom she worked in the lumber mills of the Florida panhandle. By the age of fifteen she had also worked in a Columbus, Georgia, cotton mill and learned how to cut hair in a beauty shop. Cochran took nursing training at a hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, from 1925 to 1928, but by 1930 she had returned to Pensacola to work in a beauty salon. In 1932 she traveled to Philadelphia to work in a beauty shop and then moved in the same year to New York City, where her skill earned her a job at Antoine’s, a well-known Saks Fifth Avenue beauty shop. For the next four years she worked for this business, spending every winter working in Antoine’s branch in Miami Beach, Florida. She met ...
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Doolittle, James Harold (1896-1993), aviator and air force commander
James H. Willbanks
Doolittle, James Harold (14 December 1896–27 September 1993), aviator and air force commander, was born in Alameda, California, the son of Frank Henry Doolittle, a carpenter and gold prospector, and Rosa Shepard. Doolittle grew up in California and Alaska, where his parents moved in the gold rush of the period. He was educated in Nome, Alaska; at Los Angeles Junior College; and, for three years, at the University of California. He left the university at the beginning of his senior year when the United States entered World War I....
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Doolittle, James Harold (1896-1993)
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James Doolittle. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103547).
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Doolittle, James Harold (1896-1993)
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James Doolittle Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-90021).
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Drake, Francis Marion (1830-1903), army officer, railroad promoter and executive, and governor of Iowa
H. Roger Grant
Drake, Francis Marion (30 December 1830–20 November 1903), army officer, railroad promoter and executive, and governor of Iowa, was born in the western Illinois hamlet of Rushville, the son of John Adams Drake, a merchant and small-time capitalist, and Harriet Jane O’Neal. Drake grew up in a family of modest means. In 1837 his father relocated the family to the raw frontier settlement of Fort Madison, Iowa, then part of Wisconsin Territory. The Drakes stayed in this Mississippi River community until March 1846, when they moved to inland Davis County. There Francis’s father founded the town of Drakesville and pursued agricultural and banking interests. Like his thirteen brothers and sisters Francis received rudimentary formal education. He attended public schools in Fort Madison, although he never graduated from high school. But Drake expanded his knowledge through his own initiative; he read widely and enthusiastically and associated with “learned” people....
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Dwight, William (1831-1888), soldier and businessman
Arthur W. Bergeron
Dwight, William (14 July 1831–21 April 1888), soldier and businessman, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of William Dwight and Elizabeth Amelia White, occupations unknown. After attending a private military academy, Dwight received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in 1849. Because of poor grades he was dismissed from West Point on 31 January 1853. One of his subordinate officers during the Civil War later wrote that army gossip said that Dwight “was expelled from West Point on account of his drunkenness and shameless association with obscene women” (quoted in Bacon, p. 158). Dwight then entered the manufacturing business in Boston. He married Anna Robeson in 1856; the number of their children, if any, is unknown....
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Engen, Donald Davenport (1924-1999), naval officer, test pilot, public servant
E. T. Wooldridge
Engen, Donald Davenport (28 May 1924–13 July 1999), naval officer, test pilot, public servant, was born in Pomona, California, the son of Sydney M. Engen, a stockbroker and later an Internal Revenue Service employee, and Dorothy Davenport Engen. Engen spent his childhood years in southern California, principally in Pasadena. When he was in fourth grade, he decided that he wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and become a naval officer....
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Engen, Donald Davenport (1924-1999)
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Donald D. Engen. Photograph by Carolyn Russo. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution (#99-15320).
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Ericsson, John (1803-1889), inventor and engineer
Michael A. Cavanaugh
Ericsson, John (31 July 1803–08 March 1889), inventor and engineer, was born in Langbanshyttan, province of Wermland, Sweden, the son of Olof Ericsson, a mine proprietor and inspector, and Brita Sophia Yngstrom. His earliest education was instruction by his parents and private tutors. John often spent his days drawing and building models of the machinery in his father’s mine. His father was well educated, but John’s strong character traits were attributed to the influence of his mother. Sweden’s war with Russia ruined John’s father financially, but he was able to secure a position as an inspector on a canal project and to obtain appointments for his two sons as cadets in the Corps of Mechanical Engineers. Thus at age thirteen John began his first formal education, and his natural aptitudes for mechanical drawing and solving engineering problems were encouraged and developed....
