[5] Alexander graduated number one in his high school class in Helena and soon moved to Carrollton, Mississippi, to take a position as a teacher.

The next year, he enrolled at Oberlin College and attended that institution until passing the entrance examination for West Point in 1883.

[6] Other accounts suggest he spent his early years at the academy in "social isolation", where he suffered from racial slurs and exclusion from extracurricular activities.

In 1888, he was transferred to Fort Washakie, Wyoming, where he performed the garrison duty typical of an officer with a western frontier posting.

While assigned to Fort Duchesne, Utah, in 1889, Alexander temporarily led the 9th Cavalry's B Troop, becoming the first black officer in the Army to hold a command position.