The son of a minister; Henry Robert graduated from the United States Military Academy at age 20.

He served as a Union soldier during the Civil War, attaining the rank of brigadier general.

After the war, he returned to the Academy as an instructor, and headed up the department of military engineering. It was there that he began work on a manual of parliamentary procedure.

"Where there is no law, bat each man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of liberty," Robert wrote in his book.

Robert's Rules of Order quickly became the authority on procedure for clubs, corporate boards, and lawmaking bodies.