Union Generals from West Point

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Union Generals from West Point

List of Union General Officers who graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point), with their Class and the order in which they were graduated. At this stage, officers who were only brevetted to the rank of Brigadier General are not included. There is also a brief list of those Union Generals who attended West Point, but did not graduate.

Graduates

Name Class
ABERCROMBIE, John Joseph 1822 (37)
ALLEN, Robert 1836 (33)
ALVORD, Benjamin 1833 (22)
AMES, Adelbert 1861 (5)
AMMEN, Jacob 1831 (12)
ANDERSON, Robert 1825 (15)
ANDREWS, George Leonard 1851(1)
ARNOLD, Lewis Golding 1837 (10)
ARNOLD, Richard 1850 (13)
AUGUR, Christopher Columbus 1843 (16)
AVERELL, William Woods 1855 (26)
AYRES, Romeyn Beck 1847 (22)
BAIRD, Absalom 1849 (9)
BARNARD, John Gross 1833 (2)
BARNES, James 1829 (5)
BARRY, William Farquhar 1838 (17)
BAYARD, George Dashiell 1856 (11)
BENHAM, Henry Washington 1837 (1)
BRANNAN, John Milton 1841 (23)
BROOKS, William Thomas Harbaugh 1841 (46)
BUCHANAN, Robert Christie 1830 (31)
BUCKINGHAM, Catharinus Putnam 1829 (6)
BUELL, Don Carlos 1841 (32)
BUFORD, John 1848 (16)
BUFORD, Napoleon Bonaparte 1827 (6)
BURNS, William Wallace 1847 (28)
BURNSIDE, Ambrose Everett 1847 (18)
CANBY, Edward Richard Sprigg 1839 (30)
CARLIN, William Passmore 1850 (20)
CARR, Eugene Asa 1850 (19)
CARROLL, Samuel Sprigg 1856 (44)
CASEY, Silas 1826 (39)
CHAMBERS, Alexander 1853 (43)
COOKE, Philip St George 1827 (23)
COUCH, Darius Nash 1846 (13)
CROOK, George 1852 (38)
CULLUM, George Washington 1833 (3)
CURTIS, Samuel Ryan 1831 (27)
CUSTER, George Armstrong 1861 (34)
DANA, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh 1842 (29)
DAVIDSON, John Wynn 1845 (27)
DAVIES, Thomas Alfred 1829 (25)
DELAFIELD, Richard 1818 (1)
DENT, Frederick Tracy 1843 (33)
DOUBLEDAY, Abner 1842 (24)
DYER, Alexander Brydie 1837 (6)
EATON, Amos Beebe 1826 (36)
EMORY, William Hemsley 1831 (14)
EUSTIS, Henry Lawrence 1842 (1)
FORSYTH, James William 1856 (28)
FOSTER, John Gray 1846 (4)
FRANKLIN, William Buel 1843 (1)
FRENCH, William Henry 1837 (22)
FRY, James Barnet 1847 (14)
GARRARD, Kenner 1851 (8)
GETTY, George Washington 1840 (15)
GIBBON, John 1847 (20)
GIBBS, Alfred 1846 (42)
GILBERT, Charles Champion 1846 (21)
GILLEM, Alvan Cullem 1851 (11)
GILLMORE, Quincy Adams 1849 (1)
GORDON, George Henry 1846 (43)
GRANGER, Gordon 1845 (35)
GRANGER, Robert Seaman 1838 (28)
GRANT, Ulysses Simpson 1843 (21)
GREENE, George Sears 1823 (2)
GREGG, David McMurtrie 1855 (8)
GRIFFIN, Charles 1847 (23)
GROVER, Cuvier 1850 (4)
HALLECK, Henry Wager 1839 (3)
HAMILTON, Charles Smith 1843 (26)
HAMILTON, Schuyler 1841 (24)
HANCOCK, Winfield Scott 1844 (18)
HARDIE, James Allen 1843 (11)
HARDIN, Martin Davis 1859 (11)
HARKER, Charles Garrison 1858 (16)
HARTSUFF, George Lucas 1852 (19)
HASCALL, Milo Smith 1852 (14)
HASKIN, Joseph Abel 1839 (10)
HATCH, John Porter 1845 (17)
HAUPT, Herman 1835 (31)
HAWKINS, John Parker 1852 (40)
HAYS, Alexander 1844 (20)
HAYS, William 1840 (18)
HAZEN, William Babcock 1855 (28)
HEINTZELMAN, Samuel Peter 1826 (17)
HITCHCOCK, Ethan Allen 1817 (17)
HOOKER, Joseph 1837 (29)
HOWARD, Oliver Otis 1854 (4)
HOWE, Albion Parris 1841 (8)
HUMPHREYS, Andrew Atkinson 1831 (13)
HUNT, Henry Jackson 1839 (19)
HUNT, Lewis Cass 1847 (33)
HUNTER, David 1822 (25)
INGALLS, Rufus 1843 (32)
JOHNSON, Richard W 1849 (30)
JUDAH, Henry Moses 1843 (35)
KAUTZ, August Valentine 1852 (35)
KEYES, Erasmus Darwin 1832 (10)
KILPATRICK, Hugh Judson 1861 (17)
KING, Rufus 1833 (4)
KIRBY, Edmund 1861 (10)
LOCKWOOD, Henry Hayes 1836 (22)
LYON, Nathaniel 1841 (11)
MACKENZIE, Ranald Slidell 1862 (1)
MANSFIELD, Joseph King Fenno 1822 (2)
MARCY, Randolph Barnes 1832 (29)
MARTINDALE, John Henry 1835 (3)
MASON, John Sanford 1847 (9)
MCCALL, George Archibald 1822 (26)
MCCLELLAN, George Brinton 1846 (2)
MCCOOK, Alexander McDowell 1852 (30)
MCDOWELL, Irvin 1838 (23)
MCKEAN, Thomas Jefferson 1831 (19)
MCKINSTRY, Justus 1838 (40)
MCPHERSON, James Birdseye 1853 (1)
MEADE, George Gordon 1835 (19)
MEIGS, Montgomery Cunningham 1836 (5)
MERRITT, Wesley 1860 (22)
MITCHEL, Ormsby MacKnight 1829 (15)
MONTGOMERY, William Reading 1825 (28)
MORELL, George Webb 1835 (1)
MORGAN, Charles Hale 1857 (12)
MORRIS, William Hopkins 1851 (27)
MORTON, James St Clair 1851 (2)
NAGLEE, Henry Morris 1835 (23)
NEILL, Thomas Hewson 1847 (27)
NEWTON, John 1842 (2)
ORD, Edward Otho Cresap 1839 (17)
PAINE, Eleazar Arthur 1839 (24)
PALMER, Innis Newton 1846 (38)
PARKE, John Grubb 1849 (2)
PATRICK, Marsena Rudolph 1835 (48)
PAUL, Gabriel RenČ 1834 (18)
PECK, John James 1843 (8)
PHELPS, John Wolcott 1836 (24)
PITCHER, Thomas Gamble 1845 (40)
PLEASONTON, Alfred 1844 (7)
PLUMMER, Joseph Bennett 1841 (22)
POE, Orlando Metcalfe 1856 (6)
POPE, John 1842 (17)
PORTER, Fitz John 1845 (8)
POTTER, Joseph Haydn 1843 (22)
PRINCE, Henry 1835 (30)
QUINBY, Isaac Ferdinand 1843 (6)
RAMSAY, George Douglas 1820 (26)
RENO, Jesse Lee 1846 (8)
REYNOLDS, John Fulton 1841 (26)
REYNOLDS, Joseph Jones 1843 (10)
RICHARDSON, Israel Bush 1841 (38)
RICKETTS, James Brewerton 1839 (16)
RIPLEY, James Wolfe 1814 (12)
ROBERTS, Benjamin Stone 1835 (53)
ROSECRANS, William Starke 1842 (5)
RUGER, Thomas Howard 1854 (3)
RUSSELL, David Allen 1845 (38)
SANDERS, William Price 1856 (41)
SAXTON, Rufus 1849 (18)
SCAMMON, Eliakim Parker 1837 (9)
SCHOFIELD, John McAllister 1853 (7)
SEDGWICK, John 1837 (24)
SEYMOUR, Truman 1846 (19)
SHERIDAN, Philip Henry 1853 (34)
SHERMAN, Thomas West 1836 (18)
SHERMAN, William Tecumseh 1840 (6)
SILL, Joshua Woodrow 1853 (3)
SLEMMER, Adam Jacoby 1850 (12)
SLOCUM, Henry Warner 1852 (7)
SMITH, Andrew Jackson 1838 (36)
SMITH, Charles Ferguson 1825 (19)
SMITH, William Farrar 1845 (4)
SMITH, William Sooy 1853 (6)
STANLEY, David Sloane 1852 (9)
STEELE, Frederick 1843 (30)
STEVENS, Isaac Ingalls 1839 (1)
STOKES, James Hughes 1835 (17)
STONE, Charles Pomeroy 1845 (7)
STONEMAN, George 1846 (33)
STOUGHTON, Edwin Henry 1859 (17)
STRONG, George Crockett 1857 (5)
STURGIS, Samuel Davis 1846 (32)
SULLY, Alfred 1841 (34)
SYKES, George 1842 (39)
TERRILL, William Rufus 1853 (16)
THOMAS, George Henry 1840 (12)
THOMAS, Lorenzo 1823 (17)
THRUSTON, Charles Mynn 1814 (15)
TODD, John Blair Smith 1837 (39)
TORBERT, Alfred Thomas Archimedes 1855 (21)
TOTTEN, Joseph Gilbert 1805 (3)
TOWER, Zealous Bates 1841 (1)
TURNER, John Wesley 1855 (14)
TYLER, Daniel 1819 (14)
TYLER, Robert Ogden 1853 (22)
UPTON, Emory 1861 (8)
VAN CLEVE, Horatio Phillips 1831 (24)
VAN VLIET, Stewart 1840 (9)
VIELE, Egbert Ludovicus 1847 (30)
VINTON, Francis Laurens 1856 (10)
VODGES, Israel 1837 (11)
WARNER, James Meech 1860 (40)
WARREN, Gouverneur Kemble 1850 (2)
WEBB, Alexander Stewart 1855 (13)
WEED, Stephen Hinsdale 1854 (27)
WEITZEL, Godfrey 1855 (2)
WESSELLS, Henry Walton 1833 (29)
WHIPPLE, Amiel Weeks 1841 (5)
WHIPPLE, William Denison 1851 (31)
WILLCOX, Orlando Bolivar 1847 (8)
WILLIAMS, Seth 1842 (23)
WILLIAMS, Thomas 1837 (12)
WILSON, James Harrison 1860 (6)
WOOD, Thomas John 1845 (5)
WOODBURY, Daniel Phineas 1836 (6)
WOODS, Charles Robert 1852 (20)
WRIGHT, George 1822 (24)
WRIGHT, Horatio Gouverneur 1841 (2)

Those who departed before graduation

Name Dates
CORSE, John Murray Entered West Point 1853; resigned 1855.
CROCKER, Marcellus Monroe Entered West Point 1847; resigned 1849.
DE RUSSY, Gustavus Adolphus Entered West Point 1835; permitted to resign 1838 (for drinking).
DWIGHT, William Entered West Point 1849; dismissed 1853 for academic reasons.
ELLIOT, Washington Lafayette Entered West Point 1841; resigned 1844
EWING, Hugh Boyle Entered West Point 1844; resigned 1848.
PORTER, Andrew Entered West Point 1836; resigned 1837.
ROBINSON, John Cleveland Entered West Point 1835; dismissed 1838 (for insubordination).
MORGAN, George Washington Entered West Point 1841; resigned 1843 for academic reasons.
TILLSON, Davis Entered West Point 1849; resigned 1851 after an accident in which he lost a foot.
WILLIAMS, Nelson Grosvenor Entered West Point 1839; resigned 1840.

Acknowledgements

These lists have been based on several works: Ezra Warner's Generals in Blue, Francis Heitman's Historical Register and Dictionary of the U.S. Army and John and David Eicher's Civil War High Commands.

Recommended Reading: Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (Hardcover). Description: More than forty years after its original publication, Ezra J. Warner’s Generals in Blue is now available in paperback for the first time. Warner’s classic reference work includes intriguing biographical sketches and a rare collection of photos of all 583 men who attained the rank of general in the Union Army. Here are the West Point graduates and the political appointees; the gifted, the mediocre, and the inexcusably bad; those of impeccable virtue and those who abused their position; the northern-born, the foreign-born, and the southerners who remained loyal to the Union. Continued below.

Warner’s valuable introduction discusses the criteria for appointment and compares the civilian careers of both Union and Confederate generals, revealing striking differences in the two groups. Generals in Blue is that rare book—an essential volume for scholars, a prized item for buffs, and a biographical dictionary that the casual reader will find absorbing.

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Recommended Reading: Commanding the Army of the Potomac (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover). Description: During the Civil War, thirty-six officers in the Army of the Potomac were assigned corps commands of up to 30,000 men. Collectively charged with leading the Union's most significant field army, these leaders proved their courage in countless battlefields from Gettysburg to Antietam to Cold Harbor. Unfortunately, courage alone was not enough. Their often dismal performances played a major role in producing this army's tragic record, one that included more defeats than victories despite its numerical and materiel superiority. Continued below...

Stephen Taaffe takes a close look at this command cadre, examining who was appointed to these positions, why they were appointed, and why so many of them ultimately failed to fulfill their responsibilities. He demonstrates that ambitious officers such as Gouverneur Warren, John Reynolds, and Winfield Scott Hancock employed all the weapons at their disposal, from personal connections to exaggerated accounts of prowess in combat, to claw their way into these important posts. Once appointed, however, Taaffe reveals that many of these officers failed to navigate the tricky and ever-changing political currents that swirled around the Army of the Potomac. As a result, only three of them managed to retain their commands for more than a year, and their machinations caused considerable turmoil in the army's high command structure. Taaffe also shows that their ability or inability to get along with generals such as George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, George Meade, and Ulysses Grant played a big role in their professional destinies. In analyzing the Army of the Potomac's corps commanders as a group, Taaffe provides a new way of detailing this army's chronic difficulties-one that, until now, has been largely neglected in the literature of the Civil War.

 

Recommended Reading: The Gallant Dead: Union and Confederate Generals Killed in the Civil War (Hardcover). Description: More than 400 Confederate and 580 Union soldiers advanced to the rank of general during the course of the Civil War. (More than 1 in 10 would die.) A total of 124 generals died--78 for the South and 46 for the North. Continued below...

Weaving their stories into a seamless narrative of the entire conflict, Derek Smith paints a fascinating and often moving portrait of the final moments of some of the finest American warriors in history, including Stonewall Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston, Jeb Stuart, James B. McPherson, John Reynolds, and numerous others.

 

Recommended Reading: Civil War High Commands (1040 pages) (Hardcover). Description: Based on nearly five decades of research, this magisterial work is a biographical register and analysis of the people who most directly influenced the course of the Civil War, its high commanders. Numbering 3,396, they include the presidents and their cabinet members, state governors, general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), and admirals and commodores of the two navies. Civil War High Commands will become a cornerstone reference work on these personalities and the meaning of their commands, and on the Civil War itself. Continued below...

Errors of fact and interpretation concerning the high commanders are legion in the Civil War literature, in reference works as well as in narrative accounts. The present work brings together for the first time in one volume the most reliable facts available, drawn from more than 1,000 sources and including the most recent research. The biographical entries include complete names, birthplaces, important relatives, education, vocations, publications, military grades, wartime assignments, wounds, captures, exchanges, paroles, honors, and place of death and interment. In addition to its main component, the biographies, the volume also includes a number of essays, tables, and synopses designed to clarify previously obscure matters such as the definition of grades and ranks; the difference between commissions in regular, provisional, volunteer, and militia services; the chronology of military laws and executive decisions before, during, and after the war; and the geographical breakdown of command structures. The book is illustrated with 84 new diagrams of all the insignias used throughout the war and with 129 portraits of the most important high commanders. It is the most comprehensive volume to date...name any Union or Confederate general--and it can be found in here. [T]he photos alone are worth the purchase. RATED FIVE STARS by americancivilwarhistory.org

 

Recommended Reading: Leaders of the American Civil War: A Biographical and Historiographical Dictionary (Hardcover) (504 pages). Description: Covering both the great military leaders and the critical civilian leaders, this book provides an overview of their careers and a professional assessment of their accomplishments. Entries consider the leaders' character and prewar experiences, their contributions to the war effort, and the war's impact on the rest of their lives. The entries then look at how history has assessed these leaders, thus putting their longtime reputations on the line. Continued below...

The result is a thorough revision of some leaders' careers, a call for further study of others, and a reaffirmation of the accomplishments of the greatest leaders. Analyzing the leaders historiographically, the work shows how the leaders wanted to be remembered, how postwar memorists and biographers saw them, the verdict of early historians, and how the best modern historians have assessed their contributions. By including a variety of leaders from both civilian and military roles, the book provides a better understanding of the total war, and by relating their lives to their times, it provides a better understanding of historical revisionism and of why history has been so interested in Civil War lives.
 

Recommended Reading: Generals in Bronze: Interviewing the Commanders of the Civil War (Hardcover). Description: Generals in Bronze: Revealing interviews with the commanders of the Civil War. In the decades that followed the American Civil War, Artist James E. Kelly (1855-1933) conducted in-depth interviews with over forty Union Generals in an effort to accurately portray them in their greatest moment of glory. Kelly explained: "I had always felt a great lack of certain personal details. I made up my mind to ask from living officers every question I would have asked Washington or his generals had they posed for me, such as: What they considered the principal incidents in their career and particulars about costumes and surroundings." Continued below…

During one interview session with Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Kelly asked about the charge at Fort Damnation. Gen. Chamberlain acquiesced, but then added, "I don't see how you can show this in a picture." "Just tell me the facts," Kelly responded, "and I'll attend to the picture." And by recording those stirring facts, Kelly left us not only his wonderful art, but a truly unique picture of the lives of the great figures of the American Civil War. About the Author: William B. Styple has edited, co-authored, and authored several works on the Civil War. His book: "The Little Bugler" won the Young Readers' Award from the Civil War Round Table of New York. He is currently writing the biography of Gen. Phil Kearny.

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