He also surveyed the environs that would become Central Park in New York City and submitted a design proposal.

A competition was held which was awarded to the Greensward Plan from Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

Viele was a captain in the Engineer Corps of the 7th New York Militia in 1860, and was given a Commission as Brigadier General, U.S.

He commanded forces on the Savannah River during the Siege of Fort Pulaski and was appointed Military Governor of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1862.

He and his second wife are entombed in a pyramid-shaped mausoleum, guarded by a pair of sphinxes, in the Post Cemetery at West Point, New York.

According to an official video about West Point, Viele had a buzzer installed in his coffin wired to the house of the Superintendent of West Point so as to provide rescue if Viele had been accidentally buried alive.