Editing J. E. B. Stuart (section)

==Early life and background==
[[File:Jeb Stuart Birthplace.jpg|thumb|250px|Laurel Hill Farm overview, 2017]]
Stuart was born at [[Laurel Hill Farm]], a plantation in [[Patrick County, Virginia]], near the border with [[North Carolina]]. He was the eighth of eleven children and the youngest of the five sons to survive past early age.<ref>Wert, pp. 5–6, lists the children as Nancy Anne Dabney, born in 1818, Bethenia Pannill in 1819, Mary Tucker in 1821, David Pannill in 1823, William Alexander in 1826, John Dabney in 1828, Columbia Lafayette in 1830, James in 1833, an unnamed son who died at the age of three months in 1834, Virginia Josephine in 1836, and Victoria Augusta in 1838. Thomas, p. 7, claims that James was the youngest son of ten [unnamed] children.</ref>  His father, [[Archibald Stuart]], was a [[War of 1812]] veteran, slaveholder, attorney, and [[History of the Democratic Party (United States)#Jacksonian ascendancy: 1829–1840|Democratic]] politician who represented Patrick County in both houses of the [[Virginia General Assembly]], and also served one term in the [[United States House of Representatives]].<ref>Wert, p. 5.</ref> His mother Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart ran the family farm, and was known as a strict religious woman with a good sense for business.<ref name=Thomas5/>

He was of [[Scottish American|Scottish]] descent (including some [[Scots-Irish American|Scots-Irish]]).<ref>Life of Jeb Stuart by Mary Williamson. Christian Liberty Press, January 1, 1997, page 1</ref>  His great-grandfather, Major Alexander Stuart, commanded a regiment at the [[Battle of Guilford Court House]] during the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]].<ref name=Thomas5>Thomas, p. 5.</ref> His father Archibald was a cousin of attorney [[Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart]].<ref name=Thomas5/>

===Education===
Stuart was educated at home by his mother and tutors until the age of twelve, when he left Laurel Hill to be educated by various teachers in [[Wytheville, Virginia]], and at the home of his aunt Anne (Archibald's sister) and her husband Judge James Ewell Brown (Stuart's namesake) at [[Danville, Virginia|Danville]].<ref>Thomas, pp. 11–12; Wert, p. 8.</ref> He entered [[Emory and Henry College]] when he was fifteen, and attended from 1848 to 1850.<ref>Wert, p. 10.</ref>

During the summer of 1848, Stuart attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army, but was rejected as underaged. He obtained an appointment in 1850 to the [[United States Military Academy]] at [[West Point, New York]], from [[United States House of Representatives|Representative]] [[Thomas H. Averett|Thomas Hamlet Averett]], the man who had defeated his father in the [[1848 United States House of Representatives elections|1848 election]].<ref>Wert, p. 11; Davis, p. 19.</ref> Stuart was a popular student and was happy at the Academy. Although he was not handsome in his teen years, his classmates called him by the nickname "Beauty", which they described as his "personal comeliness in inverse ratio to the term employed."<ref>Thomas, p. 18.</ref> He quickly grew a beard after graduation and a fellow officer remarked that he was "the only man he ever saw that [a] beard improved."{{efn|He possessed a chin "so short and retiring as positively to disfigure his otherwise fine countenance."<ref>Davis, p. 33; Wert, p. 15.</ref>}}

Robert E. Lee was appointed superintendent of the academy in 1852, and Stuart became a friend of the family, seeing them socially on frequent occasions. Lee's nephew, [[Fitzhugh Lee]], also arrived at the academy in 1852. In Stuart's final year, in addition to achieving the cadet rank of second captain of the corps, he was one of eight cadets designated as honorary "cavalry officers" for his skills in horsemanship.<ref>Wert, p. 18.</ref> Stuart graduated 13th in his class of 46 in 1854. He ranked tenth in his class in [[cavalry tactics]]. Although he enjoyed the civil engineering curriculum at the academy and did well in mathematics, his poor drawing skills hampered his engineering studies, and he finished 29th in that discipline.{{efn|A Stuart family tradition says he deliberately degraded his academic performance in his final year to avoid service in the elite, but dull, [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|Corps of Engineers]].<ref>Thomas, pp. 18–32; Davis, p. 27.</ref>}}