Overview

Henry Martyn Lazelle (1832–1917) was the only cadet in the history of the US Military Academy to be suspended and sent back a year (for poor grades and bad behavior) and eventually return as Commandant of the Corps of Cadets. After graduating from West Point in 1855, he scouted with Kit Carson, was wounded by Apaches, and spent nearly a year as a “paroled” prisoner-of-war at the outbreak of the Civil War. Exchanged for a Confederate officer, he took command of a Union cavalry regiment, chasing Mosby’s Rangers throughout northern Virginia. Lazelle’s service was punctuated at times with contention and controversy. In charge of the official records of the Civil War in Washington, he was accused of falsifying records, exonerated, but dismissed short of tour. As Commandant of Cadets at West Point, he was a key figure during the infamous court martial of Johnson Whittaker, one of West Point’s first African American cadets. Again, he was relieved of duty after a bureaucratic battle with the Academy’s Superintendent.

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9781574416114

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Henry Lazelle was involved in two of the most significant controversies of late nineteenth-century American military history: the sensational court-martial of Johnson Whittaker, a black cadet at West Point; and the preparation and publication of the War of the Rebellion series, which has become a staple for scholars of the Civil War. This biography of Lazelle provides unique new insights into the multi-purpose army of the late nineteenth century. Robert Wooster, author of The Military and United States Indian Policy 1865-1903 Lazelle is a highly eccentric figure in military biography. His career intersected army duties or service that military historians rarely read about. Carson s discussion of Lazelle s command of the office charged with compiling, editing, and publishing the War of the Rebellion record is eye-opening, for most historians never think about how the Army compiled the OR and how officers and clerks assigned to it had to negotiate treacherous political currents in Washington, D.C., to publish the many volumes of Confederate and Union military documents. Indeed, a controversy over a published muster roll led to Lazelle s early dismissal from the office and his return to frontier duty in Texas with his regiment. Durwood Ball, author of Army Regulars on the Western Frontier

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James Carson has more than thirty years of experience as a military intelligence analyst, manager, and educator. He received his MA in International Studies from George Washington University, USA and is a graduate of the Army Command and Staff College, USA. He lives in Vienna, Virginia.

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