Wikipedia is the only website that have seen that refers to the class of 1886 as a class on whom the stars fell. Virtually every other website only refers to the class of 1915. Does the term itself though date to the antebellum? Civil War ? Reconstruction period and who else before the class of 1915 was given that epithet?
This won’t be any help, but Stars fell on Alabama is a saying referring to an 1833 Leonid meteor shower that was pretty spectacular.
The Wikipedia article itself provides two references to it in relation to the class of 1886, one dated to 1920, the other much later than most of the ones for the 1915/WW2 cohort.
It appears that the phrase if even used in that 1920 reference, only got traction with its WW2 usage.
Thanks JRDelirious. That solves that.
I don’t think it’s even used in the 1920 reference, as it appears to just be a register of graduates. It appears to support the sentence about how many graduates from 1886 became generals (the sentence immediately preceding the cite) but not the sentence before that (which is the one that claims the class of 1886 was known as the class the stars fell on, but offers no cite).
ETA: For those who are wondering WTH we’re even talking about, I believe it’s this wiki article:
In which case then the 1886 bit would be a recent “retroactive” applying of this phrase.
Another thing to think of, the amount of mutual West Point classmates leading 1861-65 forces on both sides is legendary, but the sheer volume of brevet and volunteer and state-based senior command appointments created by the Civil War meant it cut accross a wide swath of classes. Custer for instance was made a Brigadier General of Volunteers barely 2 years after graduating West Point.
Thanks JRDelirious. Apropos the Black nurses, were they confined to France in 1919 or also serving in the occupied Rhineland ?