| Former
Augusta superior court judge John Pendleton King was appointed
to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate in 1833. He recommended
the appointment of Lafayette McLaws to the U.S. Military Academy
in 1837. West Point did not have an opening for Georgia, so
McLaws and his older brother William R., attended the University
of Virginia for the 1836 — 1837 school year. |
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"Students
entering the University for the first session presented
themselves to a clerk who recorded their name, residence,
parent or guardian and course of study. Beginning in 1827
students signed in themselves. These simple
listings are the only records available for many of
the earliest students. Among the students who signed in
for the 1836 session was future Confederate general
Lafayette McLaws." (1)
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Lafayette
McLaws entered the U.S. Military Academy on July 1, 1838. |
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| "The
seventeen-year-old cadet's classmates included future
Civil War generals James Longstreet, Gustavas Woodson
Smith, Daniel Harvey Hill, Earl Van Dorn, Abner Doubleday,
John Pope, and Williams Starke Rosecrans." |
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| Virginian
James Monroe Goggin was another member of the Class of 1842.
Goggin left the Academy to fight in the Texas revolution. He
would later become McLaws's adjutant general in the Army of
Northern Virginia. (2) |
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| McLaws
graduated forty-eighth in his class of fifty-six in June 1842. |
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| "He
outranked James Longstreet in ethics by sixteen positions.
These rankings were somewhat reversed in infantry tactics,
where Longstreet ranked fortieth and McLaws fiftieth —
neither turning in stellar academic performances."
(3) |
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Cadet
McLaws accumulated 353 demerits before he graduated from West
Point. The Academy's roll noted "but three in his class
of fifty-eight members, worse in conduct." (4)
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Source:
USMA,
Merit and Conduct Rolls, NARA M 2037, RG 94:1.
LM entries for 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. |
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(1) University of Virginia.
(2) ASG, 8.
(3) ASG, 9; USMA Merit and Conduct
Rolls, NARA M 2037, RG 94: LM entry, First Class, June 1842.
(4) Ibid.
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