Curated category
United States Military Academy alumni
- Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was found semiconscious on the streets of Baltimore on the 3rd of October, 1849, wearing clothes that were not his own.
- Ed White (astronaut)Ed White took his last step back inside a spacecraft on the 27th of January 1967, and by that evening, he was gone. But the moment that defined his life came…
- Ulysses S. GrantUlysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on the 27th of April 1822, in Ohio, and by the time he died on the 23rd of July 1885, he had commanded the…
- Don Carlos BuellDon Carlos Buell arrived at the Battle of Shiloh on the second day of April 1862 convinced that he had saved the Union cause.
- Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight David Eisenhower drafted a message he hoped no one would ever read. On the eve of the D-Day landings on the 6th of June 1944, he wrote a short…
- Buzz AldrinBuzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 on the 21st of July 1969 (UTC), nineteen minutes after Neil Armstrong first touched the surface.
- Joseph E. JohnstonJoseph Eggleston Johnston died of pneumonia on the 21st of March, 1891, one month after refusing to put on his hat in the rain at a funeral.
- Robert E. LeeRobert Edward Lee was born on the 19th of January 1807 at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, into one of the oldest and most storied…
- Joseph HookerJoseph Hooker is one of the most contradictory figures of the American Civil War. He was the general who commanded the largest, best-organized army the Union…
- Frank BormanFrank Borman received a telegram after returning from the Moon. It was from a stranger, and it said simply: "Thank you Apollo 8.
- David ScottDavid Randolph Scott was born on the 6th of June 1932 at Randolph Field, near San Antonio, Texas. His middle name came directly from that base, a fitting…
- Braxton BraggBraxton Bragg was walking down a street in Galveston, Texas, on the 27th of September 1876, when he suddenly fell unconscious.
- John Pope (general)John Pope was serving on lighthouse duty when Abraham Lincoln won the presidency. The army chose him as one of four officers to escort the president-elect…
- Alfred WordenAlfred Worden was, for three days in 1971, the most isolated human being who had ever lived. While his crewmates David Scott and James Irwin walked on the…
- Michael Collins (astronaut)Michael Collins orbited the Moon thirty times in July 1969 and never set foot on it. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the Sea of…
- Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur was born on the 26th of January 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, the son of a Union Army captain who had earned the Medal of Honor…
- Jefferson DavisJefferson F. Davis was born on the 3rd of June, 1808, in a village his father had established in Kentucky, and he died in a borrowed New Orleans home on the…
- William Tecumseh ShermanWilliam Tecumseh Sherman was born on the 8th of February, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio, and by the time he died seventy-one years later, he had helped reshape…
- Irvin McDowellIrvin McDowell's name is permanently attached to one of the most humiliating afternoons in American military history. On a summer day in 1861, the Union Army…
- John Bell HoodJohn Bell Hood carried the physical toll of the Civil War in his own body long before he reached his highest command. The historian Bruce Catton later judged…
- John SedgwickJohn Sedgwick was born on the 13th of September 1813 in Cornwall, Connecticut. He attended Sharon Academy for two years before studying at Cheshire Academy…
- Quincy Adams GillmoreQuincy Adams Gillmore entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1845. He graduated in 1849 as first in a class of 43 members.
- George B. McClellanGeorge Brinton McClellan arrived in Washington in the summer of 1861 as the man the Union had been waiting for. He had won the only land battles of the war…
- James LongstreetJames Longstreet was born on the 8th of January 1821 in Edgefield District, South Carolina, and by the end of the Civil War he had become the man Robert E.
- Earl Van DornEarl Van Dorn died not on a battlefield but at his own desk, shot in the back of the head by a doctor who accused him of seducing his wife.
- Gordon GrangerGordon Granger was born on the 6th of November 1821, in Joy, Wayne County, New York, and by the end of his life he had shaped two of the most consequential…
- John SchofieldJohn McAllister Schofield arrived in the world on the 29th of September 1831. He was born in Gerry, New York to Reverend James Schofield and Caroline…
- Timothy LearyTimothy Francis Leary was arrested 36 times between the 1960s and 1970s, a record that tells you something about how seriously the American establishment…
- Philip SheridanPhilip Henry Sheridan was born on the 6th of March, 1831, the third of six children of Irish Catholic immigrants from Killinkere parish in County Cavan…
- Albert Sidney JohnstonAlbert Sidney Johnston graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1826. He finished eighth out of forty-one cadets in his class and…
- David HunterDavid Hunter rode on Abraham Lincoln's inaugural train in February 1861, shoulder to shoulder with the president-elect as the locomotive made its way from…
- George CrookGeorge Crook was born on the 8th of September 1828 on a farm near Taylorsville, Ohio, and by the time he died in 1890, he had fought in two of the defining…
- George Henry ThomasGeorge Henry Thomas was born on the 31st of July, 1816, into a plantation family in Southampton County, Virginia, five miles from the North Carolina border.
- Leonidas PolkLeonidas Polk was born on the 10th of April 1806 in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father William served as a Revolutionary War veteran and later became a…
- William W. AverellWilliam Woods Averell was born on the 5th of November 1832, in Cameron, New York, and before he was done, he would be the only Union general to win a major…
- George MeadeGeorge Gordon Meade woke in the early morning hours of the 28th of June 1863, to a messenger at his tent. He assumed he was being arrested.
- P. G. T. BeauregardP. G. T. Beauregard ordered the first shots of the American Civil War fired from Fort Johnson in the early hours of the 12th of April 1861.
- Ambrose BurnsideAmbrose Burnside is best remembered for two catastrophic failures, but the word his name spawned is used every day by people who have never heard of him.
- Nathaniel LyonNathaniel Lyon was born on the 14th of July 1818, to Amasa and Kezia Lyon. His father worked as a sawmill operator while also farming the land they owned.
- William Babcock HazenWilliam Babcock Hazen was born on the 27th of September 1830 in West Hartford, Vermont. He moved to Ohio when he was three years old and spent his boyhood in…
- William RosecransWilliam Starke Rosecrans was born on the 6th of September 1819, on a farm near Little Taylor Run in Kingston Township, Ohio, and by the time he died on the…