Emory Upton (1839-1881) was an Army General and military strategist,
prominent for his role in leading infantry to attack entrenched
positions successfully at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
during the Civil War, but he also excelled at artillery and cavalry assignments. His work, The Military Policy of the United States,
which analyzed American military policies and practices and presented
the first systematic examination of the nation's military history, had
a tremendous effect on the U.S. Army when it was published posthumously
in 1904.

Upton was born on a farm near Batavia NY, the tenth child and sixth son
of Daniel and Electra Randall Upton. He would become the brother-in-law
of Andrew J. Alexander and of Frank P. Blair, Jr. He studied under
famous evangelist Charles G. Finney at Oberlin College for two years
before being admitted to the Academy at West Point in 1856. While at
West Point Upton fought a duel with fellow Cadet Wade Hampton Gibbes
of South Carolina over some offensive remarks about Upton's alleged relationships with African-American girls at Oberlin College. The two men fought with swords in a darkened room of the cadet barracks. Upton suffered
a cut on his face. He graduated eighth in his class of 45 cadets on
May 6, 1861, just in time for the outbreak of the Civil War.

Upton is considered one of the most influential young reformers of the
U.S. Army in the 19th century, arguably in U.S. history. He has been
called the U.S. Army's counterpart to United States Navy reformer and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. Although his books on tactics and on
Asian and European armies were considered influential, his greatest
impact was a work he called The Military Policy of the United States
from 1775. He worked for years on the paper, but it was incomplete at
the time of his death in 1881.

Military Policy was a controversial work in which Upton outlined U.S.
military history and argued that the armed forces were imprudent and
weak and "that all the defects of the American military system rested
upon a fundamental, underlying flaw, excessive civilian control of the military." He denigrated the influence of the Secretary of War and
promoted the idea that all military decisions in the field should be
made by professional officers, although the president should retain the
role of commander-in-chief. He argued for a strong, standing regular
army that would be supplemented by volunteers or conscripts in time of
war, a general staff system based on the Prussian model, examinations
to determine promotions, compulsory retirement of officers who reach a
certain age, advanced military education, and combat maneuvering by
groups of four three-battalion infantry regiments. Upton's work had a
profound influence on discussions of military and civilian strategy for
years. All of Upton's proposed reforms would be implemented in the 1890s
and early 1900s and laid the foundation for the high level of efficiency
the U.S. Army demonstrated in WWI.

After Upton's death, Henry A. DuPont, Upton's West Point classmate and a
close friend, acquired a copy of the uncompleted manuscript. It circulated widely throughout the Army's officer corps and helped to foment much discussion. After the Spanish–American War, Secretary of War Elihu Root
read the manuscript and ordered that the War Department publish it under
the title The Military Policy of the United States. Many of the Army's so-called Root Reforms of the early 20th century were inspired by Upton
and his works.

Upton was commemorated at a site in central Suffolk County, NY, presently occupied by Brookhaven National Laboratory. The U.S. Army's Camp Upton was active from 1917-1920, and again from 1940-1946. During WWII, the camp was rebuilt primarily as an induction center for draftees. The Army later used
the site as a convalescent and rehabilitation hospital for returning wounded.

A statue of Upton stands before the Genesee County Courthouse in his native Batavia.

Reflecting a pattern of naming many Washington, D.C., streets in newly developed areas in the capital after Civil War generals, an east-west
street in the Northwest quadrant is named Upton St., NW.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_Upton

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