Many of the generals during the War Of Northern Aggression went to West Point together. Longstreet and Grant were there at the same time and were close friends. Lee was somewhat older than most of the other better known ones but was the super. there when for instance, Hood was a student. Interesting about Lee's description of Hood, "very industrious on the battlefield, careless off of it." I believe that at that time all students at WP were trained as engineers. As pbfoot says, early on WP was not near what it later became. A fellow named Thayer reformed it. Incidently Lee was one of the few graduates of WP to never get a demerit. He was known as the Marble Man when he went there. Lee was in his 50s during the war, Jackson was 38 when he died. Hood was 28 and already a general. To show what dire straits our boys were in, when Jackson went down under "friendly fire" one reason they knew who had done it was that he was shot by smooth bore musket balls not Minie balls. This was the spring of 1863, two years after the war had begun and some of our units were still using relics from the War of 1812. Those confounded British were not sending us enough Enfields! Just kidding.