"Whenever an appeal to force shall take place, I feel a perfect confidence that the energy and enterprise displayed by my fellow citizens in the pursuits of peace, will be equally eminent in those of war."

--Thomas Jefferson

 

From the beginning of the University's history, students and alumni have laid down their books and left their vocations to fight for their beliefs and the freedom of themselves and others. Ten years after the first students enrolled, alumnus Richard Stockton fell at the Alamo. He was followed by many, some famous, others forgotten: John S. Mosby, the Confederate "Gray Ghost"; Bernard Farrar, Union Colonel of an African-American regiment; Walter Reed, conqueror of yellow fever; Ella Katherine Fife, nursing in France in World War I; Samuel Rowland, parachuting behind German lines on D-Day; and "Pete" Gray, dead in Vietnam.