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Among the members of the fourth class who reported to West Point on 28 August 1887, for admission to the Military Academy, was a handsome young man whose courtly manners, attractive personality, and general air of savior faire marked him at once as a prominent candidate for social leadership in the Class of 1891.</p>
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<em>William Jefferson Glasgow </em>was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 18 May 1866, the son of Edward James Glasgow who, dating from before our war with Mexico (1845-47), had been in the business of trading and transporting supplies in covered wagons across the plains and to Chihuahua over the old Santa Fe Trail. He was a partner of Dr. Henry Connelly who later became Governor of New Mexico.</p>
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Young Glasgow, whom we promptly dubbed “Billy,” attended Washington University in his native city from primary through freshman grades, inclusive, and then engaged in business until he obtained his appointment to West Point. At the Academy he proved to be a good student, graduating just above the middle of the Class, thus showing that he did not allow his academic standing to overshadow too seriously those extracurricular activities for which his social talents so generously qualified him. He was popular with the ladies and wore chevrons throughout his three years of eligibility, attaining, in his first class year, the resplendent ones of cadet lieutenant and quartermaster of the battalion.</p>
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Came June 1891 and graduation, and Billy joined a group of like-minded classmates to enjoy a portion of the summer in European travel.</p>
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At the conclusion of graduation leave, Glasgow joined his regiment in the far Southwest and began learning the job of a Cavalry second lieutenant. A frontier post was a fine place to start. When things grew too quiet there the Apache “Kid” could be depended on to afford relief from the monotony by going off the reservation; it became the task then of the Army to chase him over the wastes of New Mexico until he decided to be good.</p>
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Glasgow had his share of this duty until one day he found himself on detached service at San Antonio, as aide to General Zenas R. Bliss, Commanding General of the Department of Texas. Such a detail offers valuable experience for a young officer, and Billy profited from his opportunities. As his time was not completely in demand by the General, Lieutenant Glasgow was assigned, “in addition to his other duties,” as Department Engineer, and in that capacity he engaged in a tug-of-war with the Rio Grande. That fickle and tortuous stream was endeavoring to seek a new channel by cutting a northeasterly course near its mouth. This would have transferred to Mexico a sizable piece of Texas, including the town of Brownsville and the adjacent post of Fort Brown. This disaster averted, Hilly, by order of the War Department, took on another task, namely the preparation of a progressive military map of Texas, based on the polyconic projection. He vaguely recalled the polyconic projection as one of the horrors encountered in graphics at West Point and was appalled at the hours of midnight study before him in renewing his acquaintance with the forgotten subject. However, in due time, a map was produced by the surveying parties sent out from Lieutenant Glasgow’s engineering office.</p>
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The Spanish-American War found Glasgow in Florida with his regiment, the 1st Cavalry, anticipating service in Cuba, but owing to lack of adequate animal transport, the regiment was dismounted. Billy was left behind at Tampa with the duty of looking out for the horses and training replacements to fill the skeletonized units of the regiment. In January 1899 he was ordered to Cuba for duty. Shortly after arrival he was appointed aide to General James H. Wilson who was in command of Matanzas and Santa Clara. He was aide for one year and was acting judge advocate of the department for one more year. When General Wilson was ordered to China in 1900 he wished to take Glasgow with him, but the War Department disapproved his request.</p>
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With the reorganization and increase in the Army in the winter of 1901, Captain Glasgow was assigned to a new regiment, the 13th Cavalry, and ordered to Fort Meade, South Dakota. Here he found two classmates, Captains Whitman and Corcoran, assigned to the same regiment. It was congenial duty for them to serve in the three regimental staff positions. Broncos from the Montana ranges were being purchased with only a few cowboys to care for them, and it became the duty of the officers to make a cavalry regiment out of the raw material: men who had never seen a horse and horses which had never seen a man. When the cowboys turned the first contingent of 100 horses into the small corral available and removed their halters, it was two hours by the clock before the last horse was in his stall.</p>
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Glasgow accompanied the 13th Cavalry to the Philippines in 1903, but shortly after its arrival there Billy was ordered to Manila as assistant to the adjutant general and soon became aide to Major General James F. Wade. Two years of this duty at Manila and two at Governor’s Island, New York, brought that agreeable association to an end with the retirement of General Wade. Captain Glasgow rejoined his regiment at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. There followed a second tour in the Philippines, following which the regiment took station at Fort Riley, Kansas, where an order awaited Glasgow directing him to Fort Leavenworth and other places in connection with a board consisting of: Major Munson, Medical Corps; Captain Glasgow, Cavalry; and Lieutenant Miller, Infantry-‘The Munson SHOE Board.”</p>
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About 1912 Billy was ordered to Washington as a member of the General Staff, but the Manchu Law soon returned him to duty with troops. A short tour as quartermaster at Fort Myer ended in May 1914, by his promotion to major, and in this new grade he attended Field Officers Classes at the Mounted Service Schools at Fort Riley and the Army Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth, adding to his archives diplomas from both classes.</p>
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Soon followed eleven months duty with the Punitive Expedition into Mexico in the pursuit of the bandit Villa (1916-17). Villa proved to be elusive, and friction developed between our troops and the Mexican forces, resulting in some losses to ours, among which were Captain Boyd and men of the 10th Cavalry. Back from Mexico early in 1917, Glasgow’s next duty was at El Paso, Texas, for two months.</p>
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With our entry into World War 1, Glasgow, now a lieutenant colonel, was ordered to Fort Myer, Virginia, as director of an officers training camp designed to transform candidates from civilians into junior Army officers through a three-month intensive course in the fundamentals of the lieutenant’s trade. Two successive classes, totalling some 4,000 trainees, were graduated under Colonel Glasgow’s direction.</p>
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In December 1917, he was assigned as Commander of Trains to a new division then being organized at Charlotte, North Carolina. Any hopes of immediate service overseas were dispelled by a telegram sending Glasgow to the Army War College to prepare a curriculum for brigade and field officers of the National Guard and, upon its completion, to proceed to San Antonio as senior instructor in the three-month course based upon said curriculum.</p>
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No sooner was this pedagogic duty completed than he was ordered by the Department of Texas as a special inspector to report on certain border incidents involving American and Mexican troops along the frontier between the Big Bend of the Rio Grande and Nogales, Arizona.</p>
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Hope revived with his assignment later as Colonel of the 14th Cavalry, the next Cavalry regiment to go to France. While engaged in the hurried and intensive training of that regiment, he was given the additional and distracting duty of defense counsel for a German spy who was being tried by court-martial. The spy was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead, and Glasgow was permitted to devote his full time to the training of his regiment. The next blow to his hopes of leading his cavalry command overseas to combat came in the shape of telegraphic orders from France: “Send only Infantry."</p>
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In September 1918 Colonel (temporary) Glasgow was promoted to brigadier general, AUS, and to the command of the 20th Infantry Brigade at Camp Funston, Kansas. However, the armistice on 11 November 1918 spelled the end of hopes for fame upon the battlefield, and with the mustering-out of the depot-brigade in May 1919, Brigadier General Glasgow reverted to his permanent grade of lieutenant colonel.</p>
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Later highlights of General Glasgow’s service include: Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth; the Army War College, Washington, 1921; Chief of Staff, 1st Division, at Forts Dix and Hamilton, 1923; three years in the office of the Chief of Cavalry; command of Fort Myer, Virginia; promotion to brigadier general, U. S. Army, in March 1927; and retirement for physical disability in May of the same year.</p>
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Upon retirement General Glasgow decided to make his home in El Paso, Texas. This was a logical choice, for soon after graduation he had married Miss Magoffin, the granddaughter of James Wiley Magoffin, prominent trader of the Southwest whose business, like that of General Glasgow’s father, was transporting supplies in covered wagons across the plains to Chihuahua over the old Santa Fe Trail. Mr. Magoffin erected a home in Magoffinsville, now a part of El Paso. His son Joseph Magoffin built the adobe home (in which the Glasgows are still living) in 1875. This comfortable home extends, room after room, around three sides of a large interior court. The one-story adobe structure is of historical interest as the oldest house in El Paso.</p>
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After retirement, General Glasgow devoted himself to personal business for some thirteen years. However, much of his time during and after that period was devoted to research into the history of the southwest part of our country. He became an authority on that subject and was able to furnish valuable data to the committee handling the 1948 centennial celebration of the founding of Fort Bliss, adjacent to the city of El Paso.</p>
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This story of the military career of William J. Glasgow may seem to recount an undue portion of service away from troops, but it must be remembered that in the administration of the Army, we have a multitude of duties which may be called "housekeeping" chores, such as staff, supply, exploration, inspections, teaching, and going to school. When an officer demonstrates personal and professional aptitudes which make him valueable for such activities, he is apt to be in demand for detached duty, often without regard for his personal wishes. Thus it was that Glasgow, the handsome, talented, efficient, reliable, found himself frequently utilized by superiors who wanted a job well done.</p>
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Before his death, General Glasgow was the oldest living graduate of West Point.</p>
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<em>-L. S. S.</em><br />
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