General John Buford

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Beuford died shortly after, from cholera, and his father John Beuford Sr. moved the family to Rock Island, Illinois where John Sr. was a prominent democratic politician and was actually a political opponent of Abraham Lincoln. Beuford came from a family with a long military tradition. His grand father, Simeon Beuford, was in the cavalry during the American Revolution. His uncle, cousin and half-brother all served and fought during the Civil War. By the time he was fifteen Beuford had proven himself to be a skilled rider and great marksman and in 1842 was nominated for an appointment to West Point but was denied because his half brother, Napoleon Beuford, had gone to the academy. Beuford then applied to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois for the1842-1843 school year. Napoleon, believing that his brother "has all the qualities for making a good soldier, and was well prepared to enter the course of studies at the Academy" began writing letters on John's behalf. Finally in 1844, ...

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and several of his own family would fight for the South it would only seem likely that he would join the Confederacy. On the other hand, Buford was educated in the North and was a military man in the Army and because of this, he rejected an offer to join the Confederate Army saying, "I'll live and die under the Union!" The following is a memoir by John Gibbon about the night that Buford made is mind up about which side he was going to fight for:
One night after the arrival of the mail we were in his (Buford's) room, when Buford said in his slow and deliberate way " I got a letter from the Governor of Kentucky. He sent me word to come to Kentucky at once and I shall have anything that ...

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