The brigadier–general was free to mentally confess that, of all the eccentric persons he had ever met, none was comparable to this product of the exact sciences.
Promotions came slowly; still, by 1844, he was a brevet brigadier general and commanding officer of the First Department, United States Army, at Fort Jesup, Louisiana.
Commissioned a brigadier general during the Mexican War, he was among the conquering Americans who followed Winfield Scott's trail from Veracruz to Mexico City in 1847.