He received his early education in Charlestown, Massachusetts and then entered the United States Military Academy and graduated in 1829, still only 19 years old. He had been a classmate of Robert E Lee. Commissioned as a brevet-second lieutenant, he served on frontier duty, in recruiting services, and in improving Sabine River and Lake. The Sabine River flows through Louisiana and Texas, serving as the border between the two. He resigned as a first lieutenant in 1840 and went into the mercantile business in Louisiana and serving as director of public schools. On the 15th of May in 1846 he again entered military service as captain of the Louisiana volunteers. Serving with distinction in the Mexican War at the battle of Monterey and the siege of Vera Cruz, he was commissioned as a major in the regular army in the 12th Infantry. After the war, he returned to New Orleans and became a teacher in public schools until 1850. After working a few years as a surveyor, he went to work as secretary and treasurer for two local railroad companies. When the Civil War began, he accepted the cause of his adopted state and entered the Confederate Army as a colonel of the First Louisiana infantry. His regiment was sent to Norfolk, Virginia and in May of 1861 he was in charge of two divisions of Major General Benjamin Huger's forces. With a promotion to brigadier-general he commanded a brigade at Portsmouth, Va., consisting of the Third, Fourth and Twenty-second Georgia regiments of infantry, the Third Alabama infantry, the Third Louisiana infantry, Colonel Williams' North Carolina battalion of infantry, Girardey's Louisiana Guard artillery, and the Sussex cavalry. In June of 1862, his command was given to General A R Wright because of his advancing age. He remained in the army, but not in combat command. After the war, he returned to New Orleans and surveying until his death in 1891.