[1] Roebling eventually attended the Trenton Academy and acquired higher education in engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, from 1854 to 1857.

Seeking more than garrison duty, he resigned after two months and re-enlisted in a New York artillery battery: Company K, 83rd NY Volunteers.

Soon after Chancellorsville, he was perhaps the first to note the movement of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army toward the northwest while conducting air balloon reconnaissance.

Roebling helped haul artillery up the hill, while Warren sent two of his aides, including Lt. Ranald S. Mackenzie, to search for infantry support.

Commanded by Col. Strong Vincent, the brigade immediately occupied the hill and defended the left flank of the Army of the Potomac against repeated Confederate attacks.

Roebling sent the 140th New York Volunteers to the hill, not knowing that Vincent's brigade was already engaging with advance Confederate troops.

While traveling in Europe to research wire mills, bridges and caisson foundations, his only son, John A. Roebling II, was born.

[6] Working in compressed air in these caissons under the river caused him to get decompression sickness ("the bends") shattering his health and rendering him unable to visit the site, yet he continued to oversee the Brooklyn project to successful completion in 1883.

[6] His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who had taught herself bridge construction, took over much of the chief engineer's duties including day-to-day supervision and project management.

Although the couple jointly planned the bridge's continued construction, Emily successfully lobbied for formal retention of Washington as chief engineer.

McCullough remarked that "nowhere in the history of great undertakings is there anything comparable" to Roebling conducting the largest and most difficult engineering project ever "in absentia.

Many of his manuscripts, photographs, and publications can be found in the Roebling collections at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.