Elder Byrch Stuart, born September 10, 1830 and raised in tiny Greenwich, New Jersey, had finally found a place that he could call home. After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1849, he served eight years in the US Army before resigning to become a teacher at the South Carolina Military Academy in Columbia. For him, it was a near perfect blend of academic pursuits in Engineering and the soldiering that he had come to love. Then, in 1860, he found himself in the middle of the secession movement that was sweeping the nation and he had to make a choice: Return to the North; or, Remain in the South, his adopted home. Stuart chooses to remain in the South, fully committed to Southern Independence and finds himself working within the highest echelons of the Confederate Government.