“The moral effect of result upon troops must never be overlooked.”

Major General J.M. Schofield (1831 to 1906), from the Inaugural Address to the Journal of the Military Service Institute of the United States, 11 January 1879

Lieutenant General John McAllister Schofield was an US Army officer who held multiple major commands during the course of the Civil War.

He served as military governor of Virginia during the Reconstruction, Secretary of War (June 1868 to March 1869). In 1873, he was given a secret task (by then Secretary of War William Belknap) to investigate the strategic potential of an American presence in the Hawaiian Islands. In Schofield’s report, he recommended that the United States establish a naval port at Pearl Harbour. In 1876, he was appointed Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.