"Being a student at the Virginia Military Institute during the Civil War was both good and bad. The good part was knowing that General Lee and the leaders of the Confederacy were counting on you to help train troops for the fighting and to become an officer yourself once you finished your schooling. The bad part was that the wait to get out and fight was so terribly long and you couldn't help worrying that by the time you got old enough, the whole war would be over and you would have missed all the excitement."