Henry Knox
Henry Knox was born the seventh of ten children in Boston. When his father died when Henry was 9 years old, Henry left his schooling and was apprenticed to a bookseller. He became an avid reader with military, especially artillery topics, his favorites. Little did he know how important this interest would be to our young nation. In 1772, Henry joined the Boston Grenadier Corps, served in the Siege of Boston and led the artillery at Bunker Hill. General Washington, impressed with Knox’s artillery skill, placed him in charge of the artillery and sent him to recover cannons that had been captured in Ticonderoga. In the middle of the winter, it took fifty-six days to bring the fifty cannon the 300 miles to Boston. Soon, placed on Dorchester Heights, the cannons were vital in sending the British away from Boston to Halifax. Knox and his artillerymen participated in the important battles of the Revolutionary War. In 1778, Henry Knox established a winter encampment that became the first school for artillery and officer training which was a precursor to the United States Military Academy. In 1792, he was appointed the commander of the post at West Point, at the vital bend in the Hudson River; he remained there until the end of the war. Knox was named the first U.S. Secretary of War in 1785.
John Lamb
Henry Knox would need capable officers under his command of the cannons of the Army. John Lamb was an early member of the Sons of Liberty in New York City; he wrote pamphlets and handbills for them. Upon hearing of the battles of Lexington and Concord, he helped seize military stores at Turtle Bay and was quickly commissioned into the field artillery. He was in action in the Canada campaign under Generals Arnold and Montgomery and was wounded at the Battle of Quebec and then captured. He was exchanged in 1777. The Congress authorized Lamb’s Continental Artillery Regiment soon afterwards. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Ridgefield. From 1778-1780, his artillery regiment was assigned to the Highlands Department where he commanded the artillery at West Point. He would have been at West Point at the betrayal of Benedict Arnold. On the night after the treason, General George Washington appointed Lamb the temporary commander of Kings Ferry, a vital ferry point on the Hudson River. In 1781, Lamb’s regiment was assigned to go south to Yorktown, Virginia; he was the officer of the day as the first artillery was fired into the British lines pivotal to the success of the siege. He remained active until the end of the Revolutionary War.
Benjamin Bonneville
Born in France, Benjamin came to the US at the age of seven along with his family with the help of Thomas Paine who had known his family in Paris and was Benjamin’s godfather. Benjamin graduated from West Point in 1815 and became a light artilleryman. After assignments around the US, Bonneville traveled to France where he was a guest of Lafayette. While assigned to Jefferson Barracks, MO, Bonneville became interested in exploration of the American West. He petitioned Alexander Macomb, the Commander of the Army, to do reconnaissance of the Oregon Country. After exploration, he returned to the East and met Washington Irving who would eventually write a biography of Bonneville called The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. Bonneville served in the Army until 1861, but was called to active duty as the superintendent of recruiting on Missouri and from 1862 as commander of Benton Barracks in St. Louis. The Bonneville Salt Flats among other sites including a crater on Mars are named for Benjamin Bonneville.
Samuel Ringgold
Samuel Ringgold was the son of a veteran of the War of 1812. He graduated from West Point in 1818 and trained as an artilleryman. After commanding the Third Artillery Regiment, he was sent to Europe to study at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and at Sandhurst in London. There he learned the advantages of a light artillery system in combat. Upon his return from Europe, the Secretary of War ordered Ringgold to form four light artillery companies so that each regiment of heavy artillery would have one battery equipped with lighter cannons and horses for quicker movement. Company C, Third Regiment commanded by Samuel Ringgold was the first horse artillery battery in the U.S. Army. Company C received new field cannons; the cannoneers were mounted on horseback and were called “flying artillery”. Ringgold’s manual, Instructions for Field Artillery, was adopted by the Army in March 1845. He has been called the “Father of Modern Artillery” for his contributions to the Field Artillery. Ringgold’s flying artillery was at the forefront in the opening battle of the U.S -Mexican War on May 8, 1846 at the Battle of Palo Alto in the forces of General Zachary Taylor. Sadly, Samuel was the first casualty of the Mexican-American War. The fourth stanza of the Maryland State song immortalizes his courage:
Come! ’tis the red dawn of the day, Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array, Maryland!
With Ringgold’s spirit for the fray,
With Watson’s blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,Maryland! My Maryland!
George Washington Whistler
Born to a military family in the Northwest Territory in 1800, George branched into the Field Artillery at his graduation from West Point in 1819. After two years, he returned to West Point as an assistant professor of drawing. He was reassigned back to artillery duty as a topographical engineer supporting the Commission that traced the international boundary between Lake Superior and Lake of the Woods. He later conducted surveys for locating railroads under the heard of the Topographic Bureau. Though he was still on active duty, Whistler became a member of the board of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and in 1828, he was sent to England to study steam locomotive construction. He left the Army in 1833 to work on the Middlesex Canal and became the superintendent of the Locks and Canals machine shop until 1837. His stone arch railroad bridges built in 1841 are still in freight and passenger service in western Massachusetts. Tsar Nicholas I invited Whistler to help build the St. Petersburg to Moscow railroad. He died of cholera in Russia in 1849. He seems to have been the first civil engineer in America to use contour lines to show elevation and relief on maps.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James A.M. Whistler was the first child of George Washington Whistler (above) and Anna McNeill Whistler. He moved with his family to Russian in 1842. At eleven, he took private art classes in St. Petersburg. At that time, even at such a young age, he was discerning a career in art, but when his father died, the family moved back to the U.S. He was sent to Christ Church Hall School to study for the ministry, but it was soon clear that this was not a good fit for him. Instead, he applied to his father’s Alma Mater, the United States Military Academy. This was also a misfit as Whistler had bad eyesight and ill-health besides finding military authority difficult. After many efforts to train Whistler, Superintendent Robert E. Lee felt it was impossible for Whistler to remain at West Point. Whistler left after three years as a cadet. He took away from West Point skills in drawing and mapmaking from Robert W. Weir, an instructor at West Point and a member of the National Council of Design. He would use these skills throughout his life culminating in 1871, when Whistler painted the portrait of his mother, Anna, called Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, more commonly known as Whistler’s Mother or Portrait of Artist’s Mother
George Thomas
George Thomas was born in Virginia, one of six children with two brothers and three sisters. His father died in a farm accident when he was 13 leaving the family in hard times. A traumatic experience for his fatherless family happened in 1831 when the Nat Turner rebellion came to the door of their own home. The family had a harrowing escape trying to navigate the nearby woods at Mill Swamp and bottomlands of Nottoway River in the dark of night. This would have an effect on the young George. Later, George was appointed to West Point at the ripe old age of 20 – other cadets called him “Old Tom”. His cadet roommates were William T. Sherman and Stewart Van Vliet (who also branched Artillery at graduation). George’s first assignment was in Florida. As an artillery officer, George later served under General Zachary Taylor in the battle of Monterrey in 1846 and the battle of Buena Vista. He served in Captain Braxton Bragg’s Battery E, Third U.S. Artillery becoming friends with his future Civil War foe. Even in his early years, he was known as “an accurate and scientific artillerist” according to General Wool. George served at West Point from 1851-1854 as an instructor of artillery and cavalry tactics for cadets under the leadership of Superintendent Robert E. Lee. George met his wife during this assignment, and they were married in the West Point Cadet Chapel in 1852. George Thomas participated in many battles of the Civil War on the side of the Union. He fought in the battle of Chickamauga against his former commander, Braxton Bragg. After the battle, future President, BG James Garfield said that George Thomas was “standing like a rock”; this provided George with the nickname, “The Rock of Chickamauga” reflecting his determination to hold a vital position against strong odds. George led men in many of the battles of the Civil War becoming known as a “soldier’s soldier” and at the Battle of Nashville, earned another nickname, “Sledge of Nashville”. He was promoted to Major General. His legacy lay in development of modern battlefield doctrine and his mastery of artillery and strategy.
Abner Doubleday
Abner was from a long line of American military patriots. Both of his grandfathers served during the American Revolutionary War; one entered the army at 14 and was a mounted messenger for George Washington. His great-grandfather was a minuteman. His father Ulysses served in the War of 1812 and would later serve four years in Congress. Abner worked as a surveyor for two years before going to the United States Military Academy graduating in 1842. He was commissioned into the Field Artillery. He served at several coastal garrisons and then in the Mexican War and the Seminole Wars before being assigned to Charleston Harbor. He was second in command under Major Robert Anderson at Ft. Sumter. His cannon would be the first to respond to the Confederate barrage that began the Civil War. He commanded the Artillery Department of the Shenandoah Valley and later commanded the artillery of the Army of the Potomac. His units would participate in many battles of the Civil War including Gettysburg. He was assigned the duty of defenses of Washington, D.C where he was a supporter of President Lincoln and rode on the train with the President as he went to deliver the Gettysburg Address in November 1963. After the War, he was posted to San Francisco where he obtained the patent for the cable car railroad that still runs there today. He retired in 1873. The West Point baseball field is called Doubleday Field.
Henry DuPont
Henry was the grandson of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont who had immigrated to the US in 1800 escaping the Reign of Terror in France. As a young man, Eleuthere was fascinated with explosives (and would become the most successful gunpowder manufacturing company in the US), so when Henry graduated from West Point in 1861, it was natural that he would go into the Field Artillery branch. Initially, he served in the defenses of Washington and New York Harbor and then chief of artillery in the Army of West Virginia. He served in Sheridan’s army in the Shenandoah Valley where he earned the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Cedar Creek (awarded thirty-four years later in 1898). He continued his military service until 1875. Returning to Delaware, DuPont became president of the Wilmington & Northern Railroad Company and ran an experimental farm on his family property, Winterthur. He represented the state of Delaware twice in the U.S. Senate. (1906-1917).
Fox Conner
Interested in the military even as a young child, Fox Conner received an appointment to West Point. His company tactical officer his Firstie year was John J. Pershing who would play a large part in Fox’s life. Graduating in 1898, Fox Conner would become a Field Artilleryman. While posted at Ft. Riley, KS, he was given the assignment to “revise the field artillery officer course to incorporate lessons from the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese wars”. In October 1911, he was attached to the French 22nd Field Artillery Regiment in Versailles. John J. Pershing selected him to be a part of his staff in the American Expeditionary Force when the U.S. entered WWI. After WWI, he commanded in Panama. It was there that Dwight Eisenhower became a part of his staff. Fox Conner became Ike’s mentor suggesting various readings in military history and warfare and testing Ike daily on these readings. General Conner would prepare Ike for his later duties as commander of Allied Forces in WWII by teaching the importance of working with allies. Though Eisenhower worked with many notables (Pershing, Patton, Marshall, Bradley, MacArthur), he said of Conner that “in sheer ability and character, he was the most outstanding soldier of my time.” After his retirement, Conner remained a resource and mentor for active-duty soldiers throughout WWII.
