George Stoneman Quotes
I have therefore concluded to apply for the privilege of becoming a Cadet at West Point.
Fordney, Ben Fuller. George Stoneman: A Biography of the Union General. McFarland, 2008, p. 13.
Most of the experienced Southern Military officers were graduates of West Point and elementary and secondary Northern Military Schools, and the South if it were to be independent, would have to have a parallel structure.
West Point to us is a military academy and its benefit to the nation today is military. However, this was not true before the 20th century. The preparation of military officers was always one objective but there was another—much more important. West Point was the premier engineering school until relatively recently. Even as late as 1900 almost ever bridge built in the United States was designed, engineered and the construction was supervised by a graduate of West Point. That is the main reason that Adams was advocating the spending of public money to support the school. Interestingly, the first American Nobel Prize winner was a professor at the U. S. Naval Academy. The Military Academies were major science and engineering incubators and developers up through the First World War.
Lee, a graduate of West Point, ended his career as the president of a liberal arts college, Washington and Lee.
George Stoneman Jr. was a United States Army cavalry officer and politician who served as the fifteenth Governor of California from 1883 to 1887. He was trained at West Point, where his roommate was Stonewall Jackson, and graduated in 1846. Stoneman served in the Army for thirty-six years, though he was relieved of command in 1871. During this time, he was involved in multiple conflicts, including the Mexican–American War, though he did not see any combat, the Yuma War, and the American Civil War. In 1861, Stoneman was promoted to Brigadier General, and was later put in command of the Army of the Potomac's 3rd Infantry Corps, and subsequently the newly-created cavalry corps.
