US Army

Always a bit of a Rebel ...

Virginia Military Institute.

A serious-looking young George S. Patton III ("Junior"), future WW1 armour enthusiast and WW2 US General, poses at the family home in the uniform of a Cadet of the Virginia Military Institute, about 1904. Patton was brought up in California, where his father practiced successfully as an attorney-at-law. However, the family background was strongly military, and with a distinctly "Virginia Grey" tinge at that. In attending the VMI (he was there for a year, prior to admission to West Point), Patton was following in the footsteps of his father, who had attended the college before taking up the law. In the previous generation again, four (from seven) Patton brothers had attended the VMI. All four had served in the American Civil War - in the Confederate Army, naturally. Of the four, two had been killed in that war - Waller T. Patton as a result of wounds suffered while taking part in Pickett's Charge, and George S. Patton I ("Junior's" grandfather) while serving under Jubal Early at the Third Battle of Winchester. In addition, the Patton family had many broader connections in the Old Virginian military gentry. While at West Point, Patton was credited with the design of a particularly nasty double-edged cavalry sabre, reminiscent of a similar weapon customised for himself by Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, a major exponent and practitioner of mobile warfare in the Civil War generation. It is, perhaps, difficult to visualise "Ike" or "Brad" riding out with Bedford Forrest; less difficult to do so with Patton. Best regards, JR.