Early Life
Barnes was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended the Boston Latin School and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1829, in the same class as Robert E. Lee. However, at age 28 he was older than most West Point cadets upon completion, and placed fifth out of 46 cadets. He was then commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Artillery, but spent most of his army service as an instructor of tactics and French at the Academy.
Barnes resigned his commission on July 31, 1836, to become a railroad civil engineer and by 1839 he was superintendent of the Western Railroad, a job he would hold for 22 years.
Read more about this topic: James Barnes (general)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We have been told over and over about the importance of bonding to our children. Rarely do we hear about the skill of letting go, or, as one parent said, “that we raise our children to leave us.” Early childhood, as our kids gain skills and eagerly want some distance from us, is a time to build a kind of adult-child balance which permits both of us room.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion (20th century)
“The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)