Early Life and Military Career
Crook was born to Thomas and Elizabeth Matthews Crook on a farm near Taylorsville, Ohio (near Dayton). Nominated to the United States Military Academy by Congressman Robert Schenck, he graduated in 1852, ranking near the bottom of his class.
He was assigned to the 4th U.S. infantry as brevet second lieutenant, serving in California, 1852–61. He served in Oregon and northern California, fighting against several Native American tribes. He commanded the Pitt River Expedition of 1857 and, in one of the several engagements, was severely wounded by an Indian arrow. He established Fort Ter-Waw in what is now Klamath, California.
Crook was promoted to first lieutenant in 1856, and to captain in 1860. He was ordered east and in 1861, with the beginning of the American Civil War, was made colonel of the 36th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
He married Mary Tapscott Dailey, from Virginia.
Read more about this topic: George Crook
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, military and/or career:
“Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans—which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Not lived; for life doth her great actions spell,
By what was done and wrought
In season, and so brought
To light: her measures are, how well
Each syllab’e answered, and was formed how fair;
These make the lines of life, and that’s her air.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring ‘em all up to Latin and Greek or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifry.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)