Golden Thread Generals At A Younger Age

We also have the picture in better quality as posted in the Armed & Bespectacled thread by @Mike Serpa :

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We have another (pinterest) special case in Arthur MacArthur Jr., as he got his stars just at end of the century.

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MacArthur (1845-1912), son of a governor and father of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, spent the civil war as an officer in the 24th Wisconsin Infantry, becoming Colonel when it was mustered out. He later was awarded the Medal of Honor for his services at Missionary Ridge. MacArthur stayed in the army and participated in the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American and the Philippine-American Wars. He finally retired as Lieutenant General in 1909.
 
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A few rarely seen photographs of ACW generals at a younger age.

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First Lieutenant Abner Doubleday of future Civil War and mistakenly baseball fame posing with Mexican civilians during the Mexican-American War, near Saltillo, c. 1847. One of the few photographs from the Mexican-American War that features an identifiable person.

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The man in the photo above is believed to be 2nd Lt. Thomas J. Jackson in Mexico City or Vera Cruz while serving with the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment, circa 1847.

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Another photograph of 2nd Lt. Jackson.

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Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant (left) and his friend Alexander Hays at Camp Salubrity, Louisiana, 1845.

Those younger ones of Jackson--even then his eyes were piercing! Old Blue Light!
 
1857 was a West Point class that had pictures of about everyone; and George C. Strong kept them all for us. So among those, beside the already covered E. Porter Alexander, we have e.g.

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George C. Strong (1832-1863) himself, who was mortally wounded at Fort Wagner and posthumously became a Major General. The anonymously authored book Cadet life at West Point is attributed to him.

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Robert H. Anderson (1835-1888); a Confederate Brigadier General who first raised sharpshooters and then a cavalry regiment and finally commanded a brigade (and temporarily a division) under Wheeler.
 
One that I´ve never seen before had been lurking on the German wikipedia. It displays an interesting uniform variant sporting both epaulettes and, apparently above them, shoulder straps.

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2nd Lieutenant Joseph Wheeler, West Point Class of 1859, between 1859 and 1861. The man with the most confusing non-brevet rank history ever. First a regular Lieutenant, then became a Major General in the CSA, with Lieutenant General being hinted but not proven; decades later Major General of U.S. Volunteers and then Brigadier General with the regulars.
 
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Two more from the archived but still awesome generalsandbrevets.

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A much younger Samuel Cooper (1798-1876). The former U.S. Colonel and West Pointer (Class of 1815) served as Adjutant- and Inspector-General of the CSA and was its senior officer until Lee was made General-in-Chief.

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And Nathan G. "Shanks" Evans (1824-1868) as a pre-war officer. The 1848 West Pointer was a Confederate officer whose service was instrumental, though shamefully forgotten, at 1st Bull Run. He had to win at Ball's Bluff before receiving a promotion to Brigadier General, but was mostly sidelined because his cantankerous nature and a drinking habit.
 
I am sure you are right but I always thought that was P. G. T. Beauregard

Beauregard was a good deal older than these men who all graduated in the 1850's; Beauregard was a veteran of the Mexican War and served in the engineers along with R.E. Lee. In 1861 he was briefly Superintendent of West Point before resigning to go join the Confederacy.
 
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