Custer, Sherman papers among West Point web docs

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - More than 115,000 U.S. Military Academy application documents dating to West Point's early years are being posted online for the first time by Ancestry.com

Officials at the Provo, Utah-based genealogy website said Tuesday the information can be viewed for free starting Thursday - Veterans Day - and continuing through Sunday. After Sunday, users must pay a subscription for unlimited access to the West Point records.

The documents from the 19th century include application letters and other papers from such future West Point graduates and Civil War heroes as George Armstrong Custer, William Tecumseh Sherman and Thomas Jackson. Letters written on Custer and Sherman's behalf describe Custer as being accurate in math, while Sherman is praised as a "good" scholar.

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Online:

http://www.ancestry.com