Harbord, James Guthrie (21 March 1866–20 August 1947), army officer and corporation executive, was born in Bloomington, Illinois, the son of George Washington Harbord, a farmer who had served as a cavalryman in the Union army during the Civil War, and Effie Critton Gault. When James was a child, around 1870, the family moved to Pettis County, Missouri, then in 1878 to Lyon County, Kansas. Growing up on the family farm, Harbord had an active, outdoors-oriented boyhood, but he also was an avid reader. After high school he enrolled at Kansas State Agricultural College, a land-grant institution, where military training fostered his interest in an army career. Upon graduating in 1886 with a B.S., he taught school for two years while unsuccessfully trying to obtain an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. When this attempt failed, Harbord enlisted on 10 January 1889 as a private in Company A, Fourth U.S. Infantry....
