Emory Upton

Biography

Emory Upton was a West Point graduate whose skill as a tactician brought him recognition during the Civil War, especially when he commanded infantry brigades in the Overland Campaign and won praise for leading from the front. His aggressive thinking gave rise to new methods of organizing troops that emphasized discipline, speed, and coordinated fire, earning him the admiration of men who served under his command.

In the years after the war he became a leading voice for professionalizing the Army, publishing studies on infantry tactics and national defense that shaped the service's reforms; his untimely death in 1881 cut short a career that had already begun to influence generations of officers.