West Point and The Officer Corps
William Whiting was born on March 22, 1824, in the coastal community of Biloxi in southern Mississippi. At the age of twelve, he was an outstanding student and graduate of English High School of Boston in Boston, Massachusetts. At sixteen, he graduated from Georgetown College (now University) in Washington, D.C.. The son of Levi Whiting, a respected artillery officer, and Mary A. Whiting, he continued to impress his instructors at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from which he graduated first in the class of 1845.
Appointed second lieutenant of engineers, Whiting was involved in constructing seacoast defenses in Maryland and Florida and surveying military routes and frontier forts in west Texas. Whiting served at Fort Davis, Texas. He was the first to survey the Big Bend area for the U.S. Army. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1853, Whiting was sent west, erecting harbor fortifications in San Francisco, California, and serving on the board of engineers for Pacific coast defenses until 1856. Lt. Whiting spent the five years before the Civil War improving rivers, canals, and harbors in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He was promoted to captain, corps of engineers, in 1858.
Read more about this topic: William H.C. Whiting
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