Edited sentence: Born in 1859 in Americus, Georgia, he attended Mercer University in Penfield, Georgia.Due to a physical disability, he was unable to have a military career; instead, he taught mathematics at the Georgia Military Academy in Kirkwood, Georgia for two years and subsequently at the South Carolina Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina from 1883 to 1886.He was appointed to the United States Military Academy in 1877, and graduated from West Point in 1881.He was then a professor at the Moreland Park Military Academy before Georgia Tech recruited him