Andrews, George Leonard (31 August 1828–04 April 1899), soldier, engineer, and educator, was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, the son of Manasseh Andrews and Harriet Leonard. After attending the state normal school at Bridgewater, he was accepted as a candidate at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated at the head of the class of 1851 and was appointed second lieutenant of engineers. His first duty after graduation was in his home state, participating in the construction of Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. He then returned to the academy as an assistant professor....
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Andrews, George Leonard (1828-1899), soldier, engineer, and educator
Rod Paschall
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Barber, Francis (1750-1783), revolutionary war officer and schoolmaster
Harry M. Ward
Barber, Francis (26 November 1750–11 February 1783), revolutionary war officer and schoolmaster, was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the son of Patrick Barber, a farmer and county judge, and Jane Frasher (also spelled Fraser or Frazer). His parents had immigrated from County Longford, Ireland, in 1735. In 1764, while Barber was attending the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), the family moved to a 200-acre farm in Ulster County, New York. Upon receiving his A.B. in 1767, Barber and Stephen Van Voornees established a school at Newbridge, near Hackensack, New Jersey. Considered an able scholar in the ancient languages, especially Greek, Barber was named the master of the Elizabethtown Academy (a Latin grammar school) in 1771. ...
Article
Billings, John Shaw (1838-1913), army medical officer, library organizer, and public health activist
James H. Cassedy
Billings, John Shaw (12 April 1838–11 March 1913), army medical officer, library organizer, and public health activist, was born near Allensville, Indiana, the son of James Billings, a farmer and storekeeper, and Abby Shaw. Despite spotty secondary schooling, he ultimately went to Miami College (Ohio), where he earned his B.A. in 1857. He was awarded the M.D. by the Medical College of Ohio in 1860. Billings remained with the latter institution for a year as an anatomical demonstrator, but after the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the U.S. Army as a contract surgeon. In 1862 he was commissioned first lieutenant and assistant surgeon and went on to make army service his career. Also in 1862 he married Katharine Mary Stevens; they had five children....
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Billings, John Shaw (1838-1913)
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John Shaw Billings. Courtesy of the Clendening History of Medicine Library and Museum, University of Kansas Medical Center.
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Bliss, Tasker Howard (1853-1930), soldier, scholar, and diplomat
Edward A. Goedeken
Bliss, Tasker Howard (31 December 1853–09 November 1930), soldier, scholar, and diplomat, was born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of George Ripley Bliss, a Baptist clergyman and professor at Lewisburg Academy (now Bucknell University), and Mary Ann Raymond. After attending Lewisburg Academy for two years, Tasker Bliss was admitted to West Point, where he excelled in foreign languages and finished eighth in his class in 1875. After graduating, he was assigned to the First Artillery in Savannah, Georgia. The next year he returned to West Point for a four-year tour as an instructor in modern languages. His grasp of other tongues included not only his beloved Greek, which he studied relentlessly, but also Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. The Custer massacre in 1876 prompted him to request active duty at a frontier post, but Major General ...
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Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence (1828-1914), soldier, politician, and educator
Brooks D. Simpson
Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence (08 September 1828–24 February 1914), soldier, politician, and educator, was born in Brewer, Maine, the son of Joshua Chamberlain, a farmer and shipbuilder, and Sarah Dupee Brastow. After attending a military academy in Ellsworth, Chamberlain entered Bowdoin College in 1848, graduating in 1852. Three years later, after graduating from the Bangor Theological Seminary, he joined Bowdoin’s faculty and taught a broad range of subjects, including logic, natural theology, rhetoric, oratory, and modern languages. In 1855 he married Frances Caroline Adams; of the couple’s five children, three survived to adulthood....
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Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence (1828-1914)
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Joshua L. Chamberlain. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-B8172-1859).
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Chittenden, Hiram Martin (1858-1917), historian and civil engineer
Gordon B. Dodds
Chittenden, Hiram Martin (25 October 1858–09 October 1917), historian and civil engineer, was born in Cattaraugas County, New York, the son of William Chittenden and Mary Wheeler, farmers. Chittenden was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy, but he spent two terms at Cornell University in 1879–1880 to broaden his education before entering West Point in the spring of 1880. He graduated from the military academy in 1884, ranked third in a class of thirty-seven cadets, a position that earned him an assignment in the Corps of Engineers. After marrying Nettie Parker later that year (a union that produced three children), Chittenden spent the next three years in postgraduate study at the Engineer School of Application in New York City. Then, after a year of mapping and surveying for the Department of the Platte, he was transferred to river and harbor work on the Missouri and Ohio rivers, where he remained until 1896....
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Clark, Mark Wayne (01 May 1896–17 April 1984), general and college president
Günter Bischof
Clark, Mark Wayne (01 May 1896–17 April 1984), general and college president, was born in Watertown, New York, the son of Charles C. Clark, a U.S. Army colonel, and Rebecca Ezekiels, the daughter of a Jewish immigrant. Clark’s father led the typical peripatetic life of an army officer, serving in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and China prior to World War I. An army officer’s pay was adequate to raise a family, so the Clarks lived well, if modestly. As was often the case with army officers, Charles Clark pushed his son to follow in his footsteps, and Mark entered West Point in June 1913. At West Point Clark met and struck a lifelong friendship with ...
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Clark, Mark Wayne (01 May 1896–17 April 1984)
Maker: Harry Warnecke and Robert F. Cranston
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Mark Wayne Clark (01 May 1896–17 April 1984), by Harry Warnecke and Robert F. Cranston, 1945
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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Dodge, Theodore Ayrault (1842-1909), soldier, businessman, and military historian
Arden Bucholz
Dodge, Theodore Ayrault (28 May 1842–25 October 1909), soldier, businessman, and military historian, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel Shattswell Dodge, a wealthy writer and a U.S. War Department official, and Emily Pomeroy. His great-grandfather fought at Bunker Hill. When Theodore was eight years old, his father was appointed American commissioner to the London Exhibition, and the family moved to Europe. Theodore was sent to school at the College des Josephites in Tirelmont, Belgium, and was tutored in Berlin. There he lived with the family of retired Prussian general Gebhardt von Froerich, attended the Friedrich Werderschen Gymnasium, and absorbed the Prussian work ethos, including dedication to the profession of arms and commitment to the importance of ideas in war. He graduated from the University of London in 1861....
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Duffy, Francis Patrick (1871-1932), Catholic military chaplain, editor, and teacher
Scott Appleby
Duffy, Francis Patrick (02 May 1871–26 June 1932), Catholic military chaplain, editor, and teacher, was born in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, the son of Irish immigrants Patrick Duffy and Mary Ready. The third of six children who lived to maturity, Duffy received his early Catholic education from the Sisters of St. Joseph but had to leave school at the age of thirteen to work in a mill. At fourteen, however, he was thought to be too frail to work, so he returned to school. Duffy earned a teacher’s certificate from the Cobourg Collegiate Institute in 1888. Feeling a call to the priesthood, he attended St. Michael’s College in Toronto, studying with the Basilian Fathers and graduating with a baccalaureate degree in 1893. In 1894 he accepted a position at St. Francis Xavier College in New York City, where he earned a master’s degree and applied for formal entry into the seminary. Archbishop ...
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Dumont de Montigny, Jean-François-Benjamin (1696-1760), officer in the French colonial military in Quebec and Louisiana, historian, and memoirist
Gordon Sayre
Dumont de Montigny, Jean-François-Benjamin (31 July 1696–1760), officer in the French colonial military in Quebec and Louisiana, historian, and memoirist, was born in Paris, France, to Jacques-François Dumont and Françoise Delamare. His father was a magistrate in the parlement of Paris, the most important of the French high courts of appeal. He was the youngest of six sons and something of a black sheep compared with his brothers, who achieved prominence as lawyers and priests....
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Earle, Ralph (1874-1939), naval officer and college president
Paolo E. Coletta
Earle, Ralph (03 May 1874–13 February 1939), naval officer and college president, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Stephen Carpenter Earle, an architect, and Mary Eaton Brown. After attending the Worcester Polytechnic Institute for less than a year, he was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1896. In keeping with the normal career pattern, he would alternate between ship and shore duty. His first active duty was in the battleship ...
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Eastman, William Reed (1835-1925), engineer, clergyman, and librarian
Kathleen Molz
Eastman, William Reed (19 October 1835–25 March 1925), engineer, clergyman, and librarian, was born in New York City, the son of the Reverend Ornan Eastman, an ordained evangelist, and Mary Reed. Eastman descended from an old New England family. Like his father, Eastman attended Yale University, where he achieved election to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1854 with honors. During the first of his three distinctive professional endeavors, he worked as a civil engineer, initially on the enlargement of the Erie Canal, subsequently on the construction of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad, and finally on the survey of the first railroad from Vera Cruz to Mexico City....
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Eddy, William A. (09 March 1896–03 May 1962)
David A. Hollinger
Eddy, William A. (09 March 1896–03 May 1962), diplomat, intelligence agent, and military officer, was born in Sidon, a city in present-day Lebanon, to William King Eddy and Elizabeth (Nelson) Eddy, both of whom were Presbyterian missionaries. Eddy was reared in Beirut, where his father taught at the American University. He had a near-native facility with the Arabic language and could recite long passages from the Koran in several Arabic dialects. After completing his undergraduate degree at Princeton University in 1917, Eddy served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War I. For his valor as a captain in the Battle of Belleau Wood he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, and two Purple Hearts. As a result of his wartime injuries, Eddy walked with a limp for the rest of his life and often used a cane. In 1917 he married Mary Garvin, also the daughter of Protestant missionaries; the couple had four children....
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Fithian, Philip Vickers (1747-1776), tutor and chaplain
Robert M. Calhoon
Fithian, Philip Vickers (29 December 1747–08 October 1776), tutor and chaplain, was born in Greenwich, New Jersey, the son of Joseph Fithian and Hannah Vickers, farmers. He was educated at Enoch Green’s school in Deerfield, New Jersey, and received an A.B. in 1772 and an A.M. in 1775 from the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he studied theology and Greek with the Reverend Andrew Hunter....
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Frost, Holloway Halstead (1889-1935), naval officer
John Kennedy Ohl
Frost, Holloway Halstead (11 April 1889–26 January 1935), naval officer, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Halstead H. Frost, a lawyer, and Mary Louise Downing. In 1910 he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was assigned to the battleship ...
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Garden, Alexander (1757-1829), soldier and scholar
Paul David Nelson
Garden, Alexander (04 December 1757–24 February 1829), soldier and scholar, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Alexander Garden, a famous naturalist, and Elizabeth Peronneau. Growing up in the long shadow of his father, Garden’s life was carefully monitored, and he received his early education at home. In 1771 he was enrolled at Westminster School in England and after four years there matriculated at the University of Glasgow. He received an M.A. in 1779 and then began the study of law at Lincoln’s Inn. Garden did not long pursue his legal education for in 1780, despite the vehement protests of his Loyalist father, who had fled to London as a refugee, he returned to America to assist his fellow countrymen in their struggle against Britain. For this act of filial defiance he was never forgiven by his father, who died in 1791....
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Hill, Daniel Harvey (1821-1889), soldier, educator, and editor
Malcolm Lester
Hill, Daniel Harvey (12 July 1821–24 September 1889), soldier, educator, and editor, was born at Hill’s Iron Works, York District, South Carolina, the son of Solomon Hill, a farmer, and Nancy Cabeen. Signally influenced by the military and religious traditions of his forebears, Hill was descended from Scotch-Irish and Scottish Presbyterians who had settled in the Carolina upcountry before the American Revolution. Both grandfathers had fought with distinction under General ...
