At age 24, George Bomford was among the oldest cadets at West Point when he received his commission in the Corps of Engineers (Nancy Simons Peterson, “Guarded Pasts: The Lives and Offspring of Colonel George and Clara [Baldwin] Bomford,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 86 [1998], 284; Heitman, Dictionary description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1903, 2 vols. description ends , 1:228-9).