Thomas Lafayette Rosser left West Point without waiting to graduate with the class of 1861. Accepting a commission in the Confederate army, he was in a number of famous battles, including First Manassas (Bull Run), the Seven Days, Beaver Dam Creek, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Sharpsburg (Antietam), Gettysburg, the Wilderness and Appomattox. He was wounded three times. Thirty-three years later, McKinley made Rosser a brigadier general of United States volunteers in the Spanish-American War. Peter Conover Hains didn’t see as much action as his Southern counterparts, but no other officer had the distinction of serving in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and the First World War. Hains graduated from the United States Military Academy on June 24, 1861, two months after the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter. His West Point classmates included George Armstrong Custer and Thomas L. Rosser. Hains was commissioned a second lieutenant and promoted to first lieutenant, Light Battery M,...
