James Buchanan Aleshire

United States Army General. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1880, and was posted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st United States Cavalry regiment. He fought in actions against the Apache and Sioux Indians, where he frequently filled various staff roles in addition to being in command of troops. Transferring to the Quartermaster's Department from the Cavalry in 1894, he would rise to Lieutenant Colonel, US Volunteers in the Spanish-American War, serving first as the United States Army's 1st Corps quartermaster, then as Chief Quartermaster for the American Forces in Cuba. He would then serve in the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine Insurrection before being assigned to the Quartermasters Office in Washington, DC. In 1907 he was appointed Brigadier General and 23rd Chief Quartermaster of the United States Army by President William H. Taft. He proceeded to re-organize the Department, and did away with many outmoded procurement methods, some of which dated back to the Civil War. When he produced itemized estimations of Quartermaster budget needs (now a vital common practice in business) he was the first War Department head to do so. When the Quartermaster's Department and the United States Army Commissary of Subsistence Departments were consolidated into the Quartermasters Corps in 1912, he was advanced to Major General and placed in command of the newly established corps. He served until 1916, when the arduous nature of his efforts forced him into retirement due to disability. During World War I he served as the Chairman of the Priority Committee for the Council of National Defense. He died in 1925 in Sheridan, Wyoming, amongst the Midwestern Plains he came to love during his early Cavalry service.