Alexander Macomb (1782-1841)
At the recommendation of Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Macomb was commissioned at 16 as a Cornet in the regular Army during the French Emergency also called the Quasi-War (1798-1800). He was later commissioned in the Corps of Engineers located at West Point and was one of the first to receive formal training there, though the military academy was not formally established until 1802.
Robert E. Lee USMA 1829 1807-1870
The son of a Revolutionary War officer, “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, Robert grew up in Virginia and attended the U.S. Military at West Point graduating second in his class with no demerits over the four years. Upon graduation, he entered the Corps of Engineer Branch of the Army. As a young officer, he was sent to Georgia to help build a fort on Cockspur Island to protect the port of Savannah. In the summer of 1835, he helped set up the border between Michigan and Ohio. A few years later, he was in St. Louis supervising the building of the St. Louis Harbor along the Mississippi River and mapped the Des Moines Rapids along the upper Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. During the Mexican War (1846-48), he gave distinguished service as a chief aide to General Winfield Scott. He fought in many of the battles of the Mexican War and was wounded at Chapultepec. In 1852, he was appointed the Superintendent of West Point. During his tenure there, he improved the buildings, updated the courses and loved spending time with the cadets under his care. His son, Custis Lee, was a cadet at the time; he graduated first in his class in 1854. From West Point, he was assigned to Texas to help protect settlers there.
George Meade USMA 1835 1815-1872
The son of a wealthy merchant family and the eighth of ten children, George was born in Cadiz, Spain. His family returned to the USA in 1817. When his father died when George was twelve, he was placed in a school in Washington D.C run by Salmon P. Chase, but that school closed after a few months. He went then to a school in Baltimore. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1835. He did not like his days at West Point receiving 168 demerits just 32 short of enough for dismissal. He was commissioned in the 3rdArtillery. He worked one summer as an assistant constructing the Long Island Railroad and then was assigned to duty in FL. He resigned his commission after the mandatory 1 year of service. He took a job in Florida in the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers as a civilian working on railroad projects. When Congress passed a law excluding civilians from the Topographical Engineers, Mead reentered the Army as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers to continue his work on the project. He also worked on several lighthouse projects. He served in the Mexican War. In 1857, he was given command of the Lakes Survey of the Great Lakes to survey Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. He worked on the Lakes Survey until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. On August 31, 1861, just a few months after the beginning of the War, Meade was appointed the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves and assigned to the construction of defenses around Washington, D.C. He would distinguish himself as the commander of the Army of the Potomac from 1863-65 fighting in key battles of the Eastern theater and defeated the Confederate Army of Northern Virgina at the Battle of Gettysburg.
** Happy Rockefeller, wife of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (1974-1979), was the great-great granddaughter of George Meade. She was the first lady of the State of New York, when her husband was NY Governor. In her own right, she was appointed a public delegate to the United Nations by President George H.W. Bush and was a renowned philanthropist.
Happy Rockefeller (1926-2015)
George McClellan USMA 1846 1826 – 1885
The young George McClellan wanted to be a doctor like his prominent father. Instead, at the age of 14, he entered the preparatory school of the University of Pennsylvania to study law. After two years there, he changed his goal to military service. His father wrote a letter to President Tyler asking for admission to the United States Military Academy with a waiver since he was only 15 – a year younger than the normal admissions age of 16. His closest cadet friends were A.P. Hill and George Pickett. He graduated in 1846 at the age of 19 and was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers. He was quickly shipped to the Mexican War where he was frequently under fire and was a reconnaissance officer for his father’s friend, General Winfield Scott. He returned to West Point to train cadets in engineering until he was sent to Ft. Delaware, a masonry project under construction. He was next sent to Ft. Smith, AK to serve on an expedition to discover the sources of the Red River. At the north fork of the river, the leader of the expedition named that small tributary McClellan’s Creek. A few years later, he was assigned to survey the rivers and harbors of Texas. In 1853, George was ordered by Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis (USMA 1828) to select an appropriate route for the planned transcontinental railroad. He surveyed the western portion of the northern corridor from St. Paul to the Puget Sound. With his political connections and ability with the French language, McClellan was sent to be an official observer of the European armies in the Crimean War in 1855. He observed the siege of Sevastopol, traveled widely and met with the highest military commanders and royal families. Upon his return to the US, he wrote a manual of cavalry tactics which the Army later adopted. He designed a saddle, patterned after what he had seen used by the Hussars in Prussia and Hungary. It was named the McClellan saddle and was used as the standard issue saddle as long as the U.S. Cavalry used horses and has continued to be used in cavalry ceremonies. In 1857, he resigned his commission to become the chief engineer and later President of the Illinois Central Railroad expanding the Illinois Central towards New Orleans. At the beginning of the Civil War, McClellan helped to process volunteers and was later formed to Army of the Potomac which he commanded. In 1864, he was nominated by the Democratic party to run for President against Abraham Lincoln. He was elected Governor of New Jersey in 1877.
Douglas MacArthur USMA 1903 1880 – 1964
Douglas MacArthur had a distinguished life beginning as the son of a career Army officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor during the Battle of Missionary Ridge during the Civil War, the grandson of the Governor of Wisconsin who was later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and even a distant relative of Commodore Matthew Perry. Both his father and grandfather requested Presidential admission to West Point from President Grover Cleveland later President William McKinley – both requests were rejected. Douglas had to earn his way into West Point by taking an admission test (he passed with a 93.3 result); he later said it was a great lesson that he remembered throughout his life. He graduated with the third highest academic record ever recorded and branched into the Corps of Engineers. His first assignment was in the Philippines where the engineers would construct a wharf. This assignment was cut short when on a survey of Bataan, he caught malaria and was returned to CA. Until 1914, MacArthur held several engineer jobs around the US. He participated in the occupation of Veracruz. When the US became involved in WWI, MacArthur joined a French trench raid helping to capture a group of German prisoners. He was awarded seven Silver Stars for his courageous leadership. He was then appointed the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy (1919-1922) where he instituted many needed reforms and began to be called the father of the modern Academy. He retired from active duty in 1937, but was called back to service in 1941. His leadership in WWII and Korea are well known. MacArthur spent the first 14 years of his military career in the engineer branch about which he was very proud. Upon his graduation he received golden castle pins (the emblem of the Corps of Engineers) as a gift. He carried the castle pins with him for over 40 years and in 1945 he gave them to Major General Leif J. Sverdrup. Sverdrup gave them to the Chief of Engineers in 1975. Since then, every Chief of Engineers has worn MacArthur’s pins.
USMA 1903 1881-1968
U.S. Grant III, the grandson of President (General of the Army) Ulysses Grant, was born in Chicago and educated in Austria where his father was the U.S. minister to Austria-Hungary. He was in the same West Point class as Douglas MacArthur; they shared the same issue – being the sons of prominent military notables. Grant branched Corps of Engineers and served in Mindanao, Philippines (1903-04), the Cuban Pacification (1906, the Mexican Border Service (1913-17) and in WWI, represented the U.S. at the Supreme War Council at Versailles and assisted with treaty negotiations with Germany on the treatment of prisoners of War. He served the Wilson commission to negotiate peace in Paris. Between the World Wars, Grant was the District engineer in San Francisco, the executive officer of the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission, the director of the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks of the National Capitol, the commander of the 1st Engineer Regiment at Ft. DuPont and the Delaware Civilian Conservation Corps and the division engineer for the Great Lakes Engineer Division in Cleveland, OH. As WWII began, Grant commanded the Engineer Replacement Training Center at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO before he was made chief of the Protection Branch of the Office of Civilian Defense in DC – in charge of the civil defense of the nation. In July 1945, he reached 64, the mandatory age of retirement and retired; the next day he was recalled to active duty and served until 1946 – forty-three years of active service.
Bruce C. Clark USMA 1925 1901-1988
Bruce Clark joined the US Army right after high school enlisting in 1917 and served in the Coastal Artillery during WWI. Through the New York National Guard, he gained an appointment to the United States Military Academy and graduated in 1925 with a commission in the Corps of Engineers. By WWII, he was a full Colonel and then Brigadier General commanding Combat Command A of the 4th Armored Division in Patton’s Third Army. He led the in the Battle of the Bulge slowing the German attack and received this accolade from General Eisenhower: Clark’s actions were the turning point in that battle. He commanded I Corps in Korea and helped train the First Republic of Korea Army. As a four-star general he commanded the Continental Army Command which headed the entire Army school system which at that time had over 250,000 participants.
