fe
as an engineer.

The seventh in the class was John M. Schofield, who was commissioned
in the artillery, and who had had some years of army experience in the
forts along the South Atlantic coast.

In the 45 who graduated below Schofield were many names afterwards to
become very prominent in history.

John S. Bowen, of Georgia, who commanded a regiment of the Home Guards,
and who did his utmost to drag his State into Secession, afterward be-.
coming a Major-General in the Confederate army, graduated 13th in the
class.

William R. Terrill, of Virginia, killed at Perryville while in command
of a Union brigade, was the 16th.

John R. Chambliss, of Virginia, who was killed while commanding a
Confederate brigade at Deep Bottom, Va., was the 31st, and William McE.
Dye, who commanded a brigade with success in the Trans-Mississippi,
afterwards helped to organize the Khedive's army, and who died while in
command of the Korean army, was the 32d.

Philip H. Sheridan, one of the most brilliant commanders the world ever
saw, stood 34th in the class, and Elmer Otis, of Philippine fame, was
the 37th.

107

John B. Hood, who rose to the rank of a full General in the Confederate
army, and commanded the forces arrayed against Sherman and Thomas at
Atlanta and Nashville, was the 44th.

It is very interesting to study this list and compare it with the
confident markings made by the West Point Faculty when the young men
were dismissed to the active life for which the Academy had prepared
them. It at least shows that, judged by West Point standards,
Schofield's intellectual equipment was of the very best. He had married
the daughter of his Professor of Physics, and children had come to
them; promotion was very slow; he had wearied of the dull routine of
the artillery officer in seacoast forts, and had seriously thought of
resigning and entering the profession of law. Friends had dissuaded
him from this, secured him a position as Professor of Physics in the
Washington University at St. Louis, and Gen. Scott, who liked him,
induced him to remain in the service and obtained for him a year's leave
of absence to enable him to accept the professorship. He was engaged in
his duty of teaching at the University and of writing a work on physics,
of which he was very proud, when the firing on Fort Sumter took place.
His political views were those of the Douglas wing of the Democracy, and
he remained a Democrat ever after. He made no pub