John Whistler

He ran away from home when a boy, enlisted in the British army, and served as a colour sergeant[dubious – discuss] under General John Burgoyne during the American Revolutionary War.

[2] Shortly afterward, John entered the United States Army, and was sent to the Western frontier.

[6] His ancestor Ralph Whistler was the chief tenant of the Salters' Company Plantation of Ulster grant centred of Magherafelt, County Londonderry, from 1627 to 1635.

[4] Three of their sons became United States Army officers: John, Colonel William Whistler (a commissioned officer from 1801 to 1861) and Lt. George Washington Whistler, a railroad designer in America and Russia.

[8] Another grandson, the future painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, attended West Point in 1851, but did not graduate.