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162 boys seemed a second Arnold of Rugby. He was matriculated at Franklin and Marshall college, and in his junior year (1873) was appointed a cadet to the United States military academy, where he was graduated at the head of the class of 1877, and was assigned to the corps of engineers with the rank of second lieutenant. He was also graduated at the Engineer School of Application, United States army, Willett's Point, New York, class of 1880. He passed through the various grades as officer in the corps of Engineers, U. S. A., to that of major. He was commissioner of the District of Columbia, 1897-98; lieutenant-colonel and chief engineer, U. S. V., 1898-99, in which capacity he commanded the first troops landed in the face of the enemy at Guanica, Porto Rico, at the beginning of that campaign; chief engineer Department of Havana and Department of Cuba, 1899-1901, and was largely responsible for the thorough sanitary condition in which the cities of that island were placed. He was commander of the United States Engineer School of Application, Washington Barracks, District of Columbia, 1901-03, and on duty in the Isthmus of Panama, 1903-04, under the Isthmian Canal Commission. He was elected a member of the Military Order of Foreign Wars of the United States and of the American Society of Civil Engineers. His religious affiliation is with the Protestant Episcopal church. He was married September 1, 1877, to Daisy Peyton, daughter of Captain George Horatio Derby, U. S. A. ("John Phoenix"), and Mary A. Coons Derby, of St. Louis, Missouri. She died April, 1889, and he was married a second time September, 1891, to Gertrude Totten, daughter of Commodore William M. Gamble, U. S. N., and Eliza Canfield Gamble, of Morristown, New Jersey. Four children were born to him, of whom three were living in 1904. His choice of a profession was the result of his own personal preference, largely determined by the scenes and surroundings of his youthful days during the progress of the Civil war, 1861-65. The associations of his home and school stood first in influencing his future life; and private study and contact with men in public life strengthened his early training. His message to young men is : "Be true. Do your duty. Be interested in your fellow men."