Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. John Stephen "Jack" Casement was a general and brigade commander in the Union Army during the American Civil War and a noted railroad contractor. He directed the constructional phase of the Transcontinental Railroad, which linked the Western United States with the East. John S. Casement was born in Geneva, New York. He worked as a railroad contractor before marrying Frances Jennings in 1857. Just a few years later, as the Civil War was beginning in 1861, he was appointed as a major in an Ohio volunteer infantry regiment and served in the Shenandoah Valley against Confederates under Stonewall Jackson.