Ralph Kirshner has provided a richly illustrated forum to enable the West Point class of 1861 to write its own autobiography. Through letters, journals, and published accounts, George Armstrong Custer, Adelbert Ames, and their classmates tell in their own words of their Civil War battles and of their varied careers after the war.Two classes graduated from West Point in 1861 because of Lincoln's need for lieutenants: forty-five cadets in Ames' class in May and thirty-four in Custer's class in June. The cadets range from Henry Algernon du Pont, first in the class of May, to Custer, last in the class of June. "Only thirty-four graduated," remarked Custer, "and of these thirty-three graduated above me."Other famous names from the class of 1861 are John Pelham, Emory Upton, Thomas L. Rosser, John Herbert Kelly (the youngest general in the Confederacy when appointed), Patrick O'Rorke (head of the class of June), Alonzo Cushing, Peter Hains, Edmund Kirby, John Adair (the only deserter in the class), and Judson Kilpatrick (great-grandfather of Gloria Vanderbilt). They describe West Point before the Civil War; the war years, including the Vicksburg campaign and the battle of Gettysburg; the courage and character of classmates; and the ending of the war.Kirshner also highlights postwar lives, including Custer at Little Bighorn; Custer's rebel friend Rosser; John Whitney Barlow, who explored Yellowstone; du Pont, senator and author; Kilpatrick, playwright and diplomat; Orville E. Babcock, Grant's secretary until his indictment in the "Whiskey Ring"; Pierce M. B. Young, a Confederate general who became a diplomat; Hains, the only member of the class to serve on active duty in World War I; and Upton, "the class genius.""The Class of 1861", which features eighty-four photographs, includes a foreword by George Plimpton, editor of the Paris Review and great-grandson of General Adelbert Ames.
Ralph Kirshner, a contributor to the Dictionary of American Biography and the American National Biography, has worked as a librarian in Maine, New York, and Wyoming and currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
"This well-illustrated, tautly written gem of a volume deserves to be on the shelf of all Civil War readers."-Washington Times "[Ralph Kirshner] has exhaustively mined a rich archival lode on the class of '61. The result is a first-rate book."-Robert K. Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Lee's Colonels "Even in our unsentimental time there remains something romantic and glamorous about rising to be a general officer while in one's mid-twenties, and that sense of romance permeates this book."-Russell F. Weigley in the Journal of Southern History "For anyone interested in late-nineteenth-century history or in the effect war has on men's lives, The Class of 1861 should not be missed."-Military History of the West "Ralph Kirshner captures the exciting and thought-provoking stories of selected classmates as their character is tested in the fiery crucible of the Civil War. Equally important is the attention given to certain of the classmates' postwar careers as politicians, soldiers, explorers, diplomats, and engineers."-Edwin Bearss, Historian Emeritus, National Park Service
