James Henry Morgan, President of Dickinson College, James Henry Morgan was born on a farm near Concord in southern Delaware on January 21, 1857.  He prepared at Rugby Academy and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1874 as one of a freshman class of sixteen students.  He elected to take the Scientific Course, became a leading debater with the Union Philosophical Society,  and sat on the editorial board of the Dickinsonian. He won the Pierson Gold Medal for Oratory as a junior and gave the Latin Salutory at his commencement in 1878.

In 1856 Blair became the counsel for the plaintiff Dred Scott, and though he lost this case before the proslavery Roger B. Taney Supreme Court, Blair argued the important principle that the slave Scott was entitled to his freedom by virtue of his residence in free territory. Blair also held that the Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in the territories and that Congress had the authority to prohibit slavery there, a position that put him at odds with southern Democrats and that had been undermined in the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Though much maligned by his contemporaries, who thought him a "cold calculating owl," incapable of cultivating cordial relations, Halleck was nonetheless recognized as a man of great intellect. Nicknamed "Old Brains," he brought professionalism and organization to an army saddled with political appointments and militia mentality. He correctly placed priority on the war in the West, and made every effort to initiate and sustain simultaneous advances across a broad front.

In 1855 the U.S. Congress called a secret meeting of a navy board to assess naval efficiency. Surprisingly, the board assigned Maury to a leave of absence, though he was to continue his duties as head of the Naval Observatory. He protested and, assisted by friends, newspapers, and resolutions passed by the legislative bodies of several states, was restored to active service in 1858 and promoted, retroactively, to commander. In the meantime, Maury had written The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), in which he laid the foundations of the modern science of oceanography.