...s the first field assigned to George B. McClellan by the Federal War Department, an officer of great promise, who, graduating at West Point in 1846, had for his classmates, among others, Burnside and Stonewall Jackson . He served first in the Engineer Corps, and in 1855 was appointed a captain in the First Cavalry. His previous military experience had been much the same as Lee's. In 1857 he resigned, to take up...