[1] He was appointed U.S. Secretary of War (1868–1869) under President Andrew Johnson and later served as Commanding General of the United States Army (1888–1895).

Then U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Turner secured John Schofield an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

[6] In his final year at the Academy, while a teaching assistant in the mathematics section, cadet Schofield was accused of allowing others in his classroom to make offensive jokes and drawings on the blackboard.

Senator Stephen A. Douglas, appealed the decision to the Secretary of War, who referred the matter back to a Board of Inquiry at the Academy.

He then served at various places in Florida during the armed truce with the Seminole Nation, but contracted fevers and dysentery and was ultimately evacuated (with the assistance of future Confederate General A. P. Hill) and recovered at Culpeper, Virginia.

Upon regaining his health, First Lieutenant Schofield returned to West Point as assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy from 1855 to 1860.

Both James G. Blunt and Schofield rushed to Newtonia, Missouri, with reinforcements and sent the Confederate force fleeing south into Arkansas.

[12] Blunt's division soon moved west into Indian Territory where it won the Battle of Old Fort Wayne on 22 October.

[14] Schofield's troops clashed with forces led by Thomas C. Hindman, and the Confederates retreated south on 29 October.

Pro-Union Missourians sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., in October to plead with President Lincoln to dismiss Schofield for sympathizing with pro-Confederate Bushwhacker para-military marauders who were attacking loyal Union citizens.

[17] In 1864, as commander of the Army of the Ohio, Schofield participated in the Atlanta Campaign under Major General William T. Sherman.

Schofield became embroiled in another controversy with the commander of the US XIV Corps (Volunteer), Major General John Palmer, who resigned rather than serve under Schofield, whom he considered to be of lower rank, but whom Gen. Sherman backed, at Utoy Creek (becoming the only resignation during a major operation in U.S. history, although Palmer was ultimately reassigned to Kentucky and helped maintain federal control over that border state).

On December 15–16, Schofield took part in Thomas's crowning victory at the Battle of Nashville where Hood's Army of Tennessee was decisively defeated, and effectively destroyed as a fighting force for the remainder of the war.

However, during the buildup towards the battle Schofield intrigued against Thomas, feeding Grant false information, in order to try to succeed his senior in command.

[8] Ordered to operate with Sherman in North Carolina, Schofield moved his corps by rail and sea to Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in 17 days, occupied Wilmington on February 22, 1865, fought the action at Kinston on March 10, and on March 23, joined Sherman at Goldsboro.

[19] After the war, President Andrew Johnson sent Schofield on a special diplomatic mission to France, urging withdrawal of French troops in Mexico.

When Radicals took over that convention and proposed to disenfranchise former Confederates Schofield voiced concerns about corruption to Congress as well as his commander, General Ulysses Grant.

Schofield's position was of high importance and sensitivity, due to the region's proximity to Washington as well as Confederate President Jefferson Davis's incarceration in Norfolk and awaiting trial under Judge John Curtiss Underwood, who chaired the Constitutional Convention and had close links with Congressional Republicans.

Following General George Thomas' death, Schofield succeeded him in commanding the Military Division of the Pacific, the country's largest.

In 1873, Schofield was given a secret task by Secretary of War William Belknap to investigate the strategic potential of a United States presence in the Hawaiian Islands.

In 1878, Schofield drew the ire of Radical Republicans when President Rutherford B. Hayes asked him to reopen the case of Major General Fitz John Porter, who had been convicted by a court-martial for cowardice and disobedience at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Schofield's review board used new evidence from Confederate generals who had participated in the battle, and then found that Porter had been wrongly convicted and that his actions might have saved the entire Union army from complete defeat caused by the ineptitude of Maj. Gens.

On April 5, 1880, an African American cadet at West Point, Johnson Chesnut Whittaker, was found bruised and beaten in his cot.

After Harriet died in 1888, she was buried with her father and son John in the United States Military Academy Post cemetery.

After rising to the rank of Captain during the Spanish–American War, he died of a heart attack in Matanzas, Cuba in 1901 and was also buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

It is an excerpt from his graduation address to the class of 1879 at West Point: The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment.

While he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect towards others, especially his subordinates, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself.Rank and organization: Citation: The medal was recommended by Schofield himself when he was interim U.S. Secretary of War (1868–69).