|
CLASS OF 1854
|
Howard completed four years at Bowdoin College before
attending West Point. Unlike many Northern graduates, he stayed in
the army.
Two years later he married Elizabeth Ann Waite. They had two
children. Howard soon returned to West Point to teach math, a tour of
duty cut short by war.
Well connected politically, he rose rapidly to corps command,
despite losing his right arm in an 1862 battle. Strong religious,
civil rights, and temperance views led to his choice as head
of the new Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865. His record as commissioner
was, like his army record, mixed. But a real concern for
African American education made him active in founding Howard
University. Spending
the 1870s in several western Indian campaigns, Howard became
West Point superintendent in 1881.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
