[2] James McIntosh received an appointment in 1845 to the United States Military Academy on the Hudson River at West Point, New York, but proved to be a poor student and graduated last in his Class of 1849.

He first saw combat action in the August 1861 at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, further east near the state's third largest town of Springfield, Missouri, the first major conflict in the far-western Trans-Mississippi Theater of the War.

Although he was courageous and daring, young Colonel McIntosh was also impulsive and reckless, preferring to lead his men from the front instead of concentrating on the duties of a brigade commander.

[1] In the late autumn of 1861, Confederate troops undertook a campaign to subdue the Native American Union sympathizers in adjacent to the west of the Indian Territory and consolidate Southern control.

A memorial to Unknown Confederate Dead, made of marble, commemorates McIntosh, as well as Brigadier General Alexander E. Steen, a Missourian who was killed at the Battle of Prairie Grove.