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Park on Winter Schedule
The American Camp Visitor Center is closed Thanksgiving Day, re-opening Friday. Winter hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday-Sunday. The English Camp Visitor Center is closed for the winter. Grounds at both units are open from dawn to 11 p.m. daily. More »
James Forsyth
James Forsyth as a young company grade officer at the start of the Civil War. National Archives James W. Forsyth was born August 8, 1835 in Maumee, Ohio. Second, then first lieutenant of Company D, 9th Infantry from December 1856 to July 1861. Witnesses reported that the two men did not agree on issues that fueled the growing sectional dispute, but it not interfer with their duties. During the war, Forsyth served on the staffs of George B. McClellan and Philip H. Sheridan, where he became closely acquainted with a brash young officer named George A. Custer.
Younger officers whose nascent antebellum service had shown promise saw their fortunes rapidly accelerate in a war that employed (and consumed) vast citizen armies that required professional leadership. U.S. Army Capt. James W. Forsyth, seated far left in this 1862 photo, had already demonstrated his skill as an acting company commander on San Juan Island. Who could guess then that the self-confident fellow staff officer reclining at right would become the youngest brigadier general of the war?
Library of Congress
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Did You Know?
George E. Pickett, a West Pointer and Mexican War veteran, was the first U.S. commander on San Juan Island. He would resign his commission on San Juan and go on to lead his Confederate division in the climatic charge that bears his name at the Battle of Gettysburg.