Last in Their Class

by Robbins, James S.

• ISBN13: 9781594031410
• ISBN10: 159403141X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-25
• Publisher: Encounter Books

Summary

Today's Goat, the West Point cadet finishing at the bottom of his class, is temporary celebrity among his classmates. But in the 19th century, he was something of a cult figure. Custer's contemporaries at the Academy believed that the same spirit of adventure that led him to carouse at local taverns motivated his dramatic cavalry attacks in the Civil War and afterwards. And the same willingness to accept punishment from Academy authorities also sent George Pickett into the teeth of the Union guns at Gettsyburg. The story James S. Robbins tells goes from the beginnings of West Point through the carnage of the Civil War to the grassy bluffs over the Little Big Horn. The Goats he profiles tell us much about the soul of the American solider, his daring, imagination and desire to prove himself against high odds.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Nathaniel Wyche Hunter	1	(12)
Benny Havens'	13	(16)
Ephraim Kirby Smith	29	(6)
The Seminole War	35	(19)
Henry Heth	54	(13)
Flirtation Walk	67	(16)
Zeb Inge	83	(11)
Churubusco	94	(13)
Chapultepec	107	(10)
James McNeill Whistler	117	(16)
William Logan Crittenden	133	(13)
The Battle of Blue Waters	146	(13)
Solomon's Fork	159	(14)
The Pig War	173	(10)
George Armstrong Custer	183	(12)
Absent Friends	195	(10)
James McQueen McIntosh	205	(16)
Charles Nelson Warner	221	(10)
Gettysburg	231	(8)
Pickett's Charge	239	(16)
Laurence Simmons Baker	255	(14)
Five Forks	269	(13)
Appomattox	282	(16)
The Reunion	298	(13)
Charles Dempsey	311	(12)
John Jordan Crittenden	323	(12)
Hurrah for Custer	335	(11)
Washita	346	(12)
The Boy President	358	(8)
The Sioux Campaign	366	(7)
Little Bighorn	373	(12)
My Every Thought Was Ambition	385	(6)
The Immortals	391	(18)
Whither the Goat?	409	(4)
A Note on Sources	413	(1)
Endnotes	414	(67)
Index	481