Samuel Baldwin Marks Young Samuel Baldwin Marks Young ( January 9 , 1840 – September 1 , 1924 ) was a United States Army general . He also served as the first president of Army War College between 1902 and 1903 . He then served from 1903 until 1904 as the first Chief of Staff of the General Staff of the United States Department of War . Biography . Young was born in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , to John Young Jr . and Hannah Scott Young . He was educated at Jefferson College ( now Washington & Jefferson College ) and married Margaret McFadden in 1861 . On the outbreak of the Civil War , he joined the 12th Pennsylvania Infantry in April 1861 as a private . After the expiration of his term he was commissioned Captain , 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry in September . He served with distinction in the Army of the Potomac throughout the war , receiving promotion to major in September 1862 , to lieutenant colonel in October 1864 and to colonel in December 1864 . Young was wounded four times in 1864 and 1865 . He served in brigade command in the cavalry corps during the last days of the Appomattox Campaign . He was mustered out of the volunteers on July 1 , 1865 . After the Civil War he rejoined the Regular Army as a First Lieutenant in May 1866 , and was promoted to Captain of the 8th U . S . Cavalry in July 1866 . On December 11 , 1866 , President Andrew Johnson nominated Young for appointment to the brevet rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers , to rank from April 9 , 1865 , in recognition for his services in the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign and the U . S . Senate confirmed the appointment on February 6 , 1867 . Young served with distinction throughout the Indian Wars and was regularly promoted ( to Major in 1883 and to Lieutenant Colonel in 1892 ) , rising to the rank of Colonel of the 3rd U . S . Cavalry in 1897 . On the commencement of hostilities with Spain he was promoted Brigadier General of Volunteers in May 1898 , and in July was made Major General of Volunteers while he commanded a division in Cuba during the Santiago Campaign of the Spanish - American War . During the Philippine - American War , he returned to the rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers and commanded brigades in the Northern Luzon District , of which he was made military governor . From February 1901 to March 1902 , he commanded the military district of California from the Presidio of San Francisco . In 1901 his daughter Marjorie married army surgeon John Heysham Gibbon , nephew of fellow Civil and Indian War commander John Gibbon . Under the new General Staff System , he was appointed as the first Chief of Staff of the General Staff in August 1903 , a position he held until retirement in January 1904 . In 1909 - 10 , he was President of a Board of Inquiry that investigated the alleged riot of black soldiers of the 25th U . S . Infantry at Brownsville , Texas , August 13 , 1906 , and affirmed the subsequent dishonorable discharge of 159 men by order of President Theodore Roosevelt . As Acting Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park at Fort Yellowstone in 1897 ( after a stint in the same role at Yosemite in 1896 ) Captain Young introduced fish conservation measures . In 1907 after his retirement , he was appointed full Superintendent by the Secretary of the Interior . He served as full Superintendent for two years . He died at his house in Helena , Montana , and was honored with a state funeral in Washington , D . C . , and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery .