by John Waugh
10. Albert Ensign Church, Professor of Mathematics—one cadet thought him “an old mathematical cinder,” dry as dust.
11. Wlliam H. C. Bartlett, Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy—a world-respected scientist and arguably the academy’s most brilliant graduate.
12. Jacob W. Bailey, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Geology—one in the class called him “a perfect love of a man.”
13. Robert W. Weir, Teacher of Drawing—“he disciplined their hands to draw what their eyes could see.”
14. Henry L. Kendrick, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Geology—a cadet favorite. At Puebla in Mexico he ordered his lieutenant to “fire at the crisis.”
A Gallery of Young Graduates from the Class of 1846
15. Thomas J. Jackson as a young officer. The face is genuine; the uniform was painted on later.
16. George B. McClellan as a new lieutenant—with his father and younger brother, Arthur.
17. George Derby of the topographical engineers—he would become a famous American humorist.
18. William Montgomery Gardner, the wildly handsome young Georgian, desperately wounded at Churubusco.
19. General Winfield Scott, commanding the Army of Invasion in Mexico—he brought into their lives “some of the splendor that attaches to bravery and achievement.
20. The landing of the army at Vera Cruz—Jackson thought it the most thrilling sight he had ever seen.
21. The battle of Cerro Gordo, where the war ended abruptly for George Derby and Dabney Maury.
22. The storming of Chapultepec castle, where Thomas Jackson dodged cannonballs, distinguished himself, and won his third brevet promotion.
23. General Scott entering the City of Mexico in triumph—to the class of 1846 it had been “a perfect war.”
24. The not-so-perfect war in the American West—fighting Indians where “the front is all around, and the rear nowhere.”
25. The young A. P. Hill—he won the beautiful Mary Ellen Marcy’s heart …
26.… but his West Point roommate, George McClellan, won her hand.
27. The Union officers at Fort Sumter. Seated left to right: Abner Doubleday, Robert Anderson, Samuel Wylie Crawford, John Gray Foster.
Standing: Truman Seymour, George W. Snyder, Jefferson C. Davis, and R. K. Meade Not pictured: Theodore Talbot and Norman C. Hall.
28. Truman Seymour’s drawing of Fort Moultrie as seen from Fort Sumter.
29. Fort Sumter before the bombardment.
30. The wives and children of the Union soldiers leaving Fort Sumter in early February 1861.
31. Truman Seymour of the class of 1846, a hero of Sumter—he married the boss’s daughter and drew elegant sketches of the Confederate positions.
32. John Gray Foster of the class of 1846, another hero of Sumter—he counted the Confederate guns ringing the fort and erected the defenses.
33. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson of the class of 1846—a Union officer called him “the supremest flanker and rearer” the world has ever seen.
34. Harpers Ferry, Jackson’s first Confederate command in the Civil War.
35. Engine 199, hijacked to the Confederacy in the spring of 1862—the biggest of the locomotives appropriated by Jackson’s railroaders.
36. George B. McClellan of the class of 1846—after his three little victories in western Virginia, he was ordered to Washington to save the Union.
37. The battle of Rich Mountain—McClellan didn’t know he had won it until the next day.
A Gallery of General Officers from the Class of 1846
38. Samuel Davis Sturgis, hero of the Indian Wars who later had the bad luck to run into Nathan Bedford Forest, the Confederate Wizard of the Saddle, in Mississippi.
39. Jesse Lee Reno, killed at South Mountain and immortalized by the city of Reno, Nevada.
40. Darius Nash Couch, competent, acerbic Union major general.
41. Dabney Herndon Maury—he always preferred the middle of the class, but rose to excellence in the Confederate Army.
42. Birkett Davenport Fry—he flunked out of West Point, but became a Confederate general and “a man with a gunpowder reputation.”
43. David Rumph (Neighbor) Jones—he and A. P. Hill threw back the Union attack at Antietam and then he died of a broken heart.
44. Stonewall Jackson and his staff of “your wide awake, smart young men.”
45. Richard Stoddert Ewell, Jackson’s right hand in the Shenandoah Valley—he thought his commander crazy, which was rather like the pot calling the kettle black.
46. George Henry Gordon of the class of 1846—he commanded the Union rear guard against his old classmate in the Valley, and acquitted himself well.
47. John C. Fremont’s weary soldiers pursuing Jackson’s foot cavalry up the Valley—one of the war’s more thankless tasks.
48. George B. McClellan and his staff—it was said he was “the only man ever born who could strut while sitting down.”
49. McClellan passing through Frederick, Maryland, on his way to Antietam.
50. Union soldiers attempt to carry the Burnside bridge “at all hazards.”
51. A. P. Hill, erstwhile of the class of 1846—he drove his division from Harpers Ferry to Antietam at the tip of his sword and saved Lee’s army.
52. President Lincoln confers with George McClellan in the general’s tent at Antietam—a few days after the battle.
53. George Stoneman, Jackson’s taciturn West Point roommate—victimized at Chancellorsville by the rain and the piles.
54. Lee and Jackson meet for the last time before Jackson’s electrifying Saturday evening flank attack on Hooker’s army at Chancellorsville.
55. Stonewall Jackson, as he looked in his last photograph taken only days before he fell at Chancellorsville.
56. Anna Jackson, the loving wife who watched her husband die at Guiney’s Station.
57. Jackson’s Mill in western Virginia, Stonewall Jackson’s boyhood home.
58. The cottage at Guiney’s Station, where Jackson died.
59. George Edward Pickett of the class of 1846—he finished last in the class and led the charge at Gettysburg that made his name immortal.
60. George Pickett, the soldier in love, and his young wife, LaSalle Corbell Pickett.
61. Pickett’s charge, with General Lewis Armistead guiding the storm with his hat at the tip of his sword.
62. Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox of the class of 1846—the competent workaday Confederate general who turned up at Appomattox in his skivvies.
63. John Gibbon, erstwhile of the class of 1846—a fellow Union officer called him “steel-cold General Gibbon,” but he commanded the Union divisions taking the Confederate surrender at Appomattox with sympathy and consideration.
64. Confederate soldiers sadly furl their flags for the final time at Appomattox.