John Pelham received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in

Courtesy of W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, University of Alabama Libraries

John Pelham

John Pelham received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1856, under an experimental five-year program instituted by U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis in 1954. Pelham left the academy to join the Confederate Army when Virginia seceded from the Union in April 1861.