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CLASS OF 1811
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Abert’s name is almost synonymous with the army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers that he headed for 32 years.
He left the army upon graduation from West Point and the next year married Ellen Matlack Stretch, who often accompanied
him in his later travels. One of their six children followed his father to West Point, James William (Class of 1842).
The War of 1812 brought Abert back to the army in 1814 as a topographical engineer, and fifteen years later he headed the
corps. Under his leadership, the corps’ 36 officers, most of them also West Pointers, furthered American science with
data from their western expeditions. They also helped turn a relatively unknown wilderness west of the Mississippi into an
extensively surveyed, well-mapped, built-up, interconnected, and increasingly settled landscape. Abert retired in 1861 and
the corps was abolished in 1863, mission accomplished.
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G. K. Warren
1830–1882
Class of 1850
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John James Abert
1788–1863
Class of 1811
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