Against the grain
Subtitle: Colonel Henry M. Lazelle and the U.S. Army
By: James O. Carson
Series: Number 9 in the North Texas Military military biography and memoir series; North Texas military biography and memoir series -- no. 9.
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Denton, Texas
Language: eng
Number of pages: 399
ISBN-13: 9781574416114; 9781574416251
Subjects: United States; Generals; Biography; Civil War, 1861-1865; United States. Army; Regimental histories; Officers; American Authors; History
Description: Henry Martyn Lazelle (1832-1917) was the only cadet in the history of the US Military Academy to be suspended and sent back a year (for poor grades and bad behavior) and eventually return as Commandant of the Corps of Cadets. After graduating from West Point in 1855, he scouted with Kit Carson, was wounded by Apaches, and spent nearly a year as a "paroled" prisoner-of-war at the outbreak of the Civil War. Exchanged for a Confederate officer, he took command of a Union cavalry regiment, chasing Mosby's Rangers throughout northern Virginia. Lazelle's service was punctuated at times with contention and controversy. In charge of the official records of the Civil War in Washington, he was accused of falsifying records, exonerated, but dismissed short of tour. As Commandant of Cadets at West Point, he was a key figure during the infamous court martial of Johnson Whittaker, one of West Point's first African American cadets. Again, he was relieved of duty after a bureaucratic battle with the Academy's Superintendent.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: List of maps; title: A five-year man; title: Operations against the Apaches; title: From prisoner of war to prisoner exchange agent; title: Defending Washington; title: The pride of Mecklenburg County; title: Indian Territory; title: West Point: a new battleground; title: A new challenge: General Howard takes command; title: First to purgatory, then to India; title: Back to Washington and controversy; title: Fort Clark, the 18th Infantry and retirement; title: A lost soul.