CLASS OF 1808
Sylvanus Thayer - Preeminent educator, "Father of the Military Academy"; originated technical education in America and established the educational philosophy and discipline still followed at the Military Academy.

CLASS OF 1815
Benjamin L.E. Bonneville - explored and mapped the Great Salt Lake and the Green, Snake, Salmon and Yellowstone Rivers, venturing into the unknown American West. His explorations were memorialized.

CLASS OF 1818
Horace Webster - founder of Hobart College, 1822; founder and president of City College of New York 1848-69.

CLASS OF 1819
George Washington Whistler - eminent civil engineer; chosen by the Czar of Russia to build a railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

CLASS OF 1824
Dennis Hart Mahan - distinguished educator and writer; world renowned scholar taught the science of war to numerous Army officers.

CLASS OF 1827
Leonidas Polk - Episcopal bishop of Louisana; served as lieutenant general of the Confederate States of America; honorary degree of Sacred Theology from Columbia University; founded the University of the South at Sewanee in 1857.

CLASS OF 1828
Jefferson Davis - member of Congress from Mississippi 1845-461; senator from Mississippi 1847-51, 1857-61; Secretary of War from 1853-57; President of the Confederate States of America.

CLASS OF 1829
Robert E. Lee - superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy 1852-55; General in Chief, Confederate Armies; president of Washington & Lee University 1865-70.

CLASS OF 1832
Benjamin S. Ewell - president of the College of William & Mary 1854-88.

CLASS OF 1835
George G. Meade - commander of the Army of the Potomac; victorious in the Battle of Gettysburg

CLASS OF 1837
John Sedgwick - commander of Union VI Corps, killed at Spotsylvania.

CLASS OF 1840
George Henry Thomas - the "Rock of Chickamauga."

William Tecumseh Sherman - president of Louisiana State University; "March to the Sea" Civil War campaign; commander of the Armies of the United States.

CLASS OF 1843
Ulysses S. Grant - General in Chief, Armies of the United States; President of the United States, 1869-77.

CLASS OF 1846
Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson - lieutenant general and a corps commander of the Confederate Army; killed at Chancellorsville

NOTE: Of 60 battles fought in the Civil War, 55 saw West Point graduates on both sides of the conflict. In the remaining battles, a West Point graduate commanded on one of the two sides.

CLASS OF 1854
Oliver O. Howard - founder and president of Howard University.

CLASS OF 1877
Henry O. Flipper - civil and mining engineer in Southwest U.S. and Mexico; first African-American graduate of the Military Academy.

CLASS OF 1880
George Washington Goethals - architect and builder of the Panama Canal.

CLASS OF 1886
John J. Pershing - commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War I; General of the Armies 1919.

CLASS OF 1903
Douglas MacArthur - superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy 1919-22; Army Chief of Staff 1930-35; Supreme Commander of the Pacific 1941-45; Supreme Commander, UN Forces Korea 1950-51.

CLASS OF 1907
Henry H. "Hap" Arnold - pioneer of Army Aviation; General of the Air Force 1949.

CLASS OF 1909
George S. Patton, Jr. - member of the 1912 U.S. Olympic Team; commanding general of the 7th Army 1942-44, commander of the 3rd Army European Theater 1944-45.

CLASS OF 1915
Omar N. Bradley - commanding general, lst Army, 12th Army Group European Theater in World War II; Army Chief of Staff 1948-49; first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1949-53; chairman of the board of Bulova Watch Company 1958.

Dwight D. Eisenhower - Supreme Commander Allied Forces Europe 1943-45; Army Chief of Staff 1945-48; president of Columbia University 1948; President of the United States 1953-61.

NOTE: Of the 164 graduates of the Class of 1915, 59 achieved the rank of brigadier general or higher, the most ever in a class.

CLASS OF 1941
William T. Seawell - commandant of cadets, U.S. Air Force Academy 1961-63; former chairman of the board and chief executive officer, Pan Am World Airways.

CLASS OF 1946

Wesley W. Posvar - Rhodes Scholar; chancellor, University of Pittsburgh.

Reuben Pomerantz - former president, Holiday Inns of America.

CLASS OF 1947
Alexander M. Haig, Jr. - chief of staff to the president 1973-74; Supreme Allied Commander in Europe 1974-79; president, United Technologies Corporation 1980-81; Secretary of State 1981-82.

Brent Scowcroft - military assistant to the President, 1972; National Security Advisor, Bush Administration.

CLASS OF 1949
John G. Hayes - former president, Coca-Cola Bottling Co.

CLASS OF 1950
Frank Borman - astronaut 1962-70; commander of the first circumlunar flight; president of Eastern Airlines.

CLASS OF 1951

Roscoe Robinson, Jr. - commanding general, 82nd Airborne Division 1976-78; commanding general, U.S. Army Japan 1980-82; U.S. Representative to NATO Military Committee, 1982-85; first African American four-star general in the Army, 1982.

Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin - astronaut 1963-72; participated in the first manned lunar landing. (Read NASA's bio)