William Gilham

William Henry Gilham (January 13, 1818 – November 16, 1872) was an American soldier, teacher, chemist, and author. A member of the faculty at Virginia Military Institute, in 1860, he wrote a military manual which was still in modern use 145 years later. He served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and became president of Southern Fertilizing Company in Richmond after the War.

William Henry Gilham was born in Vincennes, Indiana on January 13, 1818. his father's family came from Virginia. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he graduated 5th in the Class of 1840.

He became a lieutenant in the 3rd Artillery in the United States Army and fought in the Seminole War in Florida. From September 1841 to August 1844, he was Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point). He served in the Mexican-American War in 1846. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1852.

In 1846, he became a professor at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), then a recently founded state military college in Lexington, Virginia. During the next five years, he developed VMI's departments of Chemistry and Agriculture, taught infantry tactics and served as the Commandant of Cadets. To lighten the load on Major Gilham, in 1851, VMI hired another professor, Major Thomas Jonathon Jackson, later better known as "Stonewall" Jackson, who was also a graduate of West Point, and a veteran of the conflicts in Florida and Mexico.

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