Jubal Anderson Early, Ruth Hairston Early, Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early , C. S. A.

[ii] my studies. My highest stand in any branch was in military and civil engineering and that was sixth. In the general standing on graduation my position was eighteenth in a class of fifty.

I was not a very exemplary soldier and went through the Academy without receiving any appointment as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer in the corps of cadets. I had very little taste for scrubbing brass, and cared very little for the advancement to be obtained by the exercise of that most useful art.

Among those graduating in my class were General Braxton Bragg, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, Major Generals Arnold Elzey and Wm. H. T. Walker, and a few others of the Confederate Army; and Major Generals John Sedgwick, Joseph Hooker, and Wm. H. French and several Brigadier Generals of minor note in the Federal Army. Among my contemporaries at West Point were General Beauregard, Lieutenant General Ewell, Major General Edward Johnson and some others of distinction in the Confederate Army; Major Generals McDowell and Meade and several others in the Federal Army.

The whole of my class received appointments in the United States Army shortly after graduation. By reason of the Indian War in Florida, there had been a number of resignations and deaths in the army and very few of the class had to go through the probation of brevet lieutenants. I was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Artillery, and was assigned to Company “E,” which afterward became celebrated as Sherman's battery. We did not enjoy the usual leave of absence, but in August, 1837, a number of my class, myself included, were ordered to Fortress Monroe to drill a considerable body of recruits which were in rendezvous at that place, preparatory to being sent to Florida, where the Seminole War was still in progress. From Fortress Monroe, with several other officers, I accompanied a body of recruits which sailed for Florida,