by Hillary Copsey, Winchester Star

Despite four long and bloody years, despite a summer of burning fields, despite being en route to “whip” Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Rosser's cavalry brigades, Union Brig. Gen. George A. Custer doffed his hat to Rosser as he approached at Toms Brook.

The gesture was more than a chivalric pleasantry and carried better intent than a cruel salute to an outnumbered foe.

Custer genuinely was happy to see Rosser, his old West Point pal.

Heart and Soul

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., could be described as the heart, or perhaps the brain, of the Civil War.

The revered institute produced 400 commanders, serving both sides in the conflict.

Of the war's 60 major battles, West Point alumni led both sides in 55. Academy grads commanded one side in the remaining five battles.

Considering those figures, friends fighting friends was an inevitable conclusion.

But, considering the West Point culture in the years before the Civil War, battles such as the Toms Brook pairing of former roommates Custer and Rosser look more like a rarity.

Then again, the Valley seemed to be the place where old friends from “The Point” all well-trained soldiers, faced each other on opposite sides of the great national divide in 1864.

Classmates

Custer and Rosser, part of the Class of 1861, matriculated at West Point in 1856.

They went to classes with many future Civil War leaders, including Wesley Merritt, who helped Custer beat back the Southern cavalry at Toms Brook, and Union officer Henry du Pont, and Confederate Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur.

Run by Army engineers, the Academy was the premier science school in the United States. West Point admitted many students from all over the country, but culled the best through rigorous study.

Through the 1850s, the graduation rate was lower than 50 percent.
Southern students, according to numerous accounts, rarely excelled in classes. Their northern counterparts regularly out studied them.

But on the field, in the soldiering camps, Southern cadets shone. Natural leaders, their biggest worry was too many demerits because of an unwillingness to take orders.

Taking Sides

Students tended to flock to others from their region of the country.

Writing home from school, Ramseur wished fervently for Wade Hampton Gibbs to be his roommate because he was “a real Southerner, frank, warm-hearted and generous to a fault.”

Later, Ramseur would complain of homesickness in the “scheming, cold-hearted North.”

As war loomed, students' disputes began to reflect the turbulent political world outside West Point's gates. When John Brown raided Harper's Ferry in 1859, a major fight between Northern and Southern students erupted.

Generally, the school was divided. But sometimes, friendships bridged the gap.

Friendship

Rosser and Custer roomed together.

Custer, a Yankee, hosted a farewell party at a common gathering place, Benny Havens' pub, for Ramseur upon his 1860 graduation.

Later, many of those at the farewell party gathered again, this time in the Shenandoah Valley. The Battle of Cedar Creek armed many friends against each other.

When Ramseur was mortally wounded at Cedar Creek, it was Custer and Merritt, the Union leaders, not Rosser, a fellow Southerner, who attended his deathbed.

Sources: “Stephen Dodson Ramseur: Lee's Gallant General,” by Gary W. Gallagher and the Guns of Cedar Creek by Thomas A., Lewis.