eloped and increasing baldness, a
graduate of West Point, and of some eight years' experience in the
military establishment.

John McAllister Schofield was born in Illinois, the son of an itinerant
Baptist preacher, who mainly devoted himself to the cause of church
extension. Schofield's name would indicate Germanic extraction. His face
and figure supports the same theory, as do most of his mental habits.
The McAllister in his name hints at an infusion of Celtic blood, of
which we find few if any intellectual traces. Without any special
enthusiasm or public demonstration of his attachment to principle, with
a great deal of the courtier in his ways, he was yet firm, courageous
and persistent in the policy he had marked out for himself. He was
true to the Union cause, in his own way, from the time he offered his
services to Gen. Lyon, was obedient and helpful to his superiors, always
did more than respectably well what was committed to his charge, and no
failure of any kind lowers the high average of his performance.

105

When after four years of the most careful scrutiny and tutelage the
Military Academy at West Point graduates a young man, it assumes that it
has absolutely determined his X--that is, has sounded and measured
his moral and intellectual depth, and settled his place in any human
equation.

It will, therefore, be quite interesting in making our estimate of Gen.
Schofield, to examine the label attached to him upon his graduation from
West Point in the class of 1853.

At the head of that class was the brilliant James B. McPherson, who was
to rise to the command of a corps and then to the Army of the Tennessee,
and fall before Atlanta, to the intense sorrow of every man in the army
who had come in contact with him.

The second in the class was William P. Craighill, a fine engineer
officer, who, however, rose no higher during the war than a brevet
Colonel.

The third in the class was Joshua W. Sill, a splendid soldier, who died
at the head of his brigade on the banks of Stone River.

The fourth in the class was William R. Boggs, a Georgian, who became
a Brigadier-General in the Confederate army and achieved no special
distinction.

106

The fifth in the class was Francis J. Shunk, of Pennsylvania, who went
into the ordnance and became a brevet Major.

The sixth in the class was William Sooy Smith, an Ohio man, who attained
the rank of Brigadier-General, and who achieved prominence in civil li