John McAllister Schofield was born September 29, 1831, in Gerry, Chautauqua County, New York, son of Rev. James Schofield (1801-1888) and his first wife, the former Caroline (McAllister) Schofield (1810-1857). His father, a Baptist minister in Sinclairville became a domestic missionary and moved his family (which then included six children and would include 10 who survived infancy) to Bristol, Illinois. When John was 12, they finally settled in Freeport, Illinois, where Rev. Schofield became the town's first Baptist minister in 1845, and where he would ultimately be buried in 1888. As a young man John Schofield was educated in the public schools, helped his family farm and build their home, and then surveyed land in northern Wisconsin before spending a year teaching school in Oneco, Illinois not far from Freeport.

John Schofield married Harriet Whitehorn Bartlett, daughter of W.F.C. Bartlett (Chairman of West Point's Department of Philosophy) and they would have two daughters and four sons. Two sons, John (1858-1868) and Henry (1862-1863), died before reaching adulthood. William Bartlett Schofield, 1860-1906) survived to and began a U.S. Army career, rising to Major, as did Richmond McAlister Schofield (1867-1941). After Harriet died in 1888, she was buried with her father and son John in the United States Military Academy Post cemetery. At age 60, in Keokuk, Iowa in June 1891, Schofield remarried, to 27 year old Georgia Wells Kilbourne, with whom he had a daughter, Georgiana.  Georgia Wells Kilbourne was a native of Keokuk, Iowa. She was the daughter of George Kilbourne, and was named Georgia for her father. She attended school in New York, and afterwards studied abroad. General Schofield and Kilbourne were married in 1891. Her mother, Mrs. Kilbourne, and her younger sister, Miss Emma Kilbourne, spent a part of the year at her Washington home. Emma Kilbourne had a literary predilection, devoting much of her time to reading and study.  During his military career, perhaps because of his reformer image, Schofield would be dogged by accusations of favoritism toward family members. His brother George Wheeler Schofield (1833-1882) would also become a brevet Brigadier General of U.S. Volunteers during the American Civil War, originally volunteering with the 1st Missouri Volunteer Infantry in November 1861 and promoted to Captain in the 1st Missouri Light Artillery after the Siege of Vicksburg, and rising to command the 2nd Regiment Missouri Volunteer Light artillery and ultimately being commissioned as a Major in the Regular Army after the Civil War and serving in the 10th Cavalry and later the 6th Cavalry on the Western Frontier, and for whom the .45 caliber Smith and Wesson Schofield revolver was named. Another brother Charles Brewster Schofield (1849-1901) would graduate from West Point in 1870. C.B. Schofield would later serve as his Gen. J.M. Schofield's aide during the Indian Wars from 1878-1885. After rising to the rank of Captain during the Spanish-American War, he died of a heart attack in Matanzas, Cuba in 1901 and was also buried at Arlington National Cemetery. While Gen. John Schofield was in charge of Military District No. 1 in Virginia, his brother Elisha McAllister Schofield (1835-1882) was the assessor for the City of Richmond, Virginia and was among many killed on April 26, 1870 as a result of the collapse of the balcony during a session of the Virginia Court of Appeals. His son in law, Brig. Gen. Avery Delano Andrews and his wife Mary Campbell Schofield Andrews are also buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

How did she die?