John Buford was born in March 1826 in Woodford County, Kentucky, raised in Rock Island, Illinois, and graduated 16th of 38 from West Point, where his classmates included A.P. Hill and Henry Heth. Commissioned into the Dragoons, he spent the 1850s on the frontier in Texas, the Utah War and Bleeding Kansas, fought the Sioux at Ash Hollow alongside Heth, and adopted John Watts de Peyster’s ideas about dismounted skirmish lines. When war came, with a cousin who became a Confederate general and a half-brother who became a Union general, he turned down the Kentucky governor’s offer of any command he wanted.

Wounded in the knee at Second Bull Run and falsely reported dead, Buford rose to command the First Division after Brandy Station. On June 30, 1863 he reached Gettysburg, recognized the value of Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, and on July 1 held off Heth’s division with dismounted troopers firing breech-loading carbines until John F. Reynolds and the First Corps arrived. Five months later, likely ill with typhoid, he died in George Stoneman’s Washington home on December 16, 1863, the same day Lincoln approved his promotion to major general.

• One in four troopers led the horses to the rear while the other three fought from behind fences, stone walls and trees.
• Alfred Pleasonton sent Buford’s men to Emmitsburg to resupply after the first day, leaving the Union left flank exposed.
• In delirium Buford scolded his servant Edward, then called him back to apologize and thank him for his faithful service.
• He died in the arms of his aide Miles Keogh, who later fell with George Custer at the Little Bighorn.
• His horse Grey Eagle followed the casket, and he was buried at West Point next to Alonzo Cushing.