Biography

General John H. Martindale graduated from West Point in 1835. He was admitted to the bar in 1838, after he decided that he no longer wanted to stay in the army and practiced law and was District Attorney of Genesee County, NY. He was commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers in command of the defense of Washington, D.C. at the start of the Civil War. Captain Parker (Edward Griffin Parker) tends to be mentioned in the same letters as him, who was the "assistant adjutant-general on the staff of General Martindale."