Boyd, John Parker (21 December 1764–04 October 1830), army officer and soldier of fortune, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the son of James Boyd and Susanna (maiden name unknown). He developed military interests as a boy, and in 1786 he was appointed ensign in a Massachusetts infantry regiment suppressing Shays’s Rebellion (see ...
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Boyd, John Parker (1764-1830), army officer and soldier of fortune
William B. Skelton
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Bradburn, Juan Davis (1787-1842), military adventurer and officer of the Republic of Mexico
Margaret Swett Henson
Bradburn, Juan Davis (1787–20 April 1842), military adventurer and officer of the Republic of Mexico, was born John Davis Bradburn in Virginia. Bradburn was known as Juan from 1817 until his death. Details about his early life are few, and his only child became a priest, leaving no direct descendants....
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Carson, Kit (1809-1868)
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Kit Carson. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-107570).
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Carson, Kit (1809-1868), mountain man, army officer, and Indian agent
Richard H. Dillon
Carson, Kit (24 December 1809–23 May 1868), mountain man, army officer, and Indian agent, was born Christopher Houston Carson in Madison County, Kentucky, the son of Lindsey Carson, a farmer and revolutionary war veteran, and Rebecca Robinson. In 1811 Lindsey Carson moved his family to Howard County, Missouri, to find “elbow room.” He died in 1818, hit by a falling limb while clearing timber from his land. Christopher enjoyed no schooling and never learned to read or write, other than signing his name to documents. In 1825 his mother and stepfather apprenticed him to David Workman, a Franklin, Missouri, saddler whom Kit described as a kind and good man. Nevertheless, he ran away because he found saddlemaking tedious and distasteful work and yearned to travel. Following in the footsteps of a brother and a half-brother who were in the Santa Fe trade, Carson joined a caravan as a “cavvy boy” (an assistant to the wrangler in charge of the horse and mule herd). Though not unsympathetic, Workman was obliged by law to advertise for his runaway. But he misleadingly suggested to readers of the ...
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Croghan, George (1791-1849), inspector general of the U.S. Army
Samuel W. Thomas
Croghan, George (15 November 1791–08 January 1849), inspector general of the U.S. Army, was born at the family’s country seat, “Locust Grove,” on the Ohio River east of Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Major William Croghan, a surveyor and entrepreneur, and Lucy Clark. His mother was the sister of both the explorer ...
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Fagen, David (1875–01 December 1901?), captain in the Filipino nationalist army
Scot Ngozi-Brown
Fagen, David (1875–01 December 1901?), captain in the Filipino nationalist army, was born in Tampa, Florida. Little is known about either his parents or his early life. In the summer of 1899, just after the United States ended the war with Spain, Fagen was a corporal in the Twenty-fourth Infantry of Company I. He was among the black soldiers of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth infantries and the Ninth and Tenth cavalries dispatched to the Philippines in the U.S. effort to enforce territorial concessions granted by Spain in a peace treaty signed in February 1899. Emilio Aguinaldo, an ardent Filipino nationalist, led a guerrilla war resisting what he considered the United States replacing Spain as colonizer....
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Hardin, John (1753-1792), soldier and scout
Paul David Nelson
Hardin, John (01 October 1753– May 1792), soldier and scout, was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, the son of Martin Hardin, a tavern keeper and landowner, and Lydia (maiden name unknown). At about the age of twelve, Hardin moved with his parents to George’s Creek in the unbroken wilderness of southwestern Pennsylvania, where he learned woodcraft and Indian ways and became such a proficient marksman that he was greatly feared by hostile natives. When he reached maturity, he married Jane Daviesse (or Davies), with whom he had six children. After their marriage the couple moved to Virginia. In early 1774 he volunteered as an ensign in Dunmore’s War against the Indians. Although wounded in a battle with the Shawnee while campaigning with Captain Zachariah Morgan, he refused to be invalided out of the service....
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Humbert, Jean Joseph Amable (1767-1823), French general and military adventurer
John C. Fredriksen
Humbert, Jean Joseph Amable (22 August 1767–02 January 1823), French general and military adventurer, was born in Saint-Nabord, Vosges, France, the son of Jean Joseph Humbert and Catherine Rivat, occupations unknown. Older sources list his birthdate as 22 November 1755. Orphaned at an early age, Humbert enlisted as a sergeant in the National Guards when the French Revolution erupted in 1789. Three years later he had risen to lieutenant colonel, Thirteenth Battalion, Vosages Volunteers, and distinguished himself in suppressing peasant rebellions in the Vendée region of western France. A man of indefatigable action, Humbert also campaigned on the Rhine under Jean Charles Pichegru, Jean Victor Moreau, and Charles Dumouriez, and he became brigadier general on 9 April 1794 at the age of twenty-seven. In 1795 he accompanied the famous general Louis Lazare Hoche on a campaign against Royalists on the Quiberon peninsula, Brittany. A British-backed beachhead was crushed on 16 July, and Hoche thereafter accepted Humbert as a personal confidant. Hoche died in 1797, but he was undoubtedly instrumental in having his aide promoted to lieutenant general and entrusted to command an expeditionary force sent to support an Irish insurrection....
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Kalb, Johann (1721-1780), soldier of fortune and revolutionary general
Max R. Williams
Kalb, Johann (19 June 1721–19 August 1780), soldier of fortune and revolutionary general, was born in Hüttendorf, Bavaria, the son of Johann Leonhard Kalb and Margarethe Seitz, peasants. Covetous of adventure and glory, he left home at age sixteen with only a modest education. Little is known of Kalb in the next few years, but in 1743 he surfaced as Jean de Kalb, an officer in the Loewendal Regiment, a German contingent of the French army. Apparently he realized that a title was essential for military advancement and simply assumed one. Even more curious is the question as to how he learned English and French and took on the manners of the nobility. He must have had an ear for languages and natural graces. During the war of the Austrian succession, he participated in several sieges in Flanders while serving his regiment as a captain and ...
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Loring, William Wing (1818-1886), soldier
E. C. Bearss
Loring, William Wing (07 December 1818–30 December 1886), soldier, was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the son of Reuben Loring, a planter and native of Hingham, Massachusetts, and Hannah Kenan of North Carolina. The family moved to Florida when Loring was a child. The Second Seminole War erupted in December 1835, and William, age seventeen, enlisted in the Florida Volunteers and participated in the battles of Black Point (18 Dec. 1835) and Wahoo Swamp (21 Nov. 1836). By age nineteen he was a second lieutenant in the Second Florida Volunteers. Returning to civil life, Loring attended Episcopal Academy in Alexandria, Virginia, and Georgetown College. He graduated from Georgetown in 1842 with a law degree, was admitted to the Florida bar, and was elected to the territorial legislature, where he served three years....
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Mason, Richard Barnes (1797-1850), army officer and military governor of California
William B. Skelton
Mason, Richard Barnes (16 January 1797–27 July 1850), army officer and military governor of California, was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, the son of George Mason (1753–1796) and Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe, planters. Although his family was prominent—his grandfather, George Mason (1725–1792), had been a member of the Constitutional Convention—young Mason’s father died before he was born, and an elder brother inherited the family estate. In 1817 Mason received a commission as second lieutenant of infantry in the U.S. Army and embarked on a lifelong military career. Promoted to captain in 1819, he served at garrisons in the Old Northwest and earned a reputation as a stern disciplinarian. At Fort Howard in 1821 he was nearly killed when a soldier, whom he had struck for making an impertinent remark, shot him in the chest with a load of pigeon shot....
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Reynolds, Charles Alexander (1842-1876), soldier and scout
John D. McDermott
Reynolds, Charles Alexander (20 March 1842–25 June 1876), soldier and scout, was born in Warren County, Illinois, the son of Joseph Boyer Reynolds, a physician, and Phebe Bush, both of pioneering Virginia families. Reynolds received schooling at the preparatory division of Abingdon College, Abingdon, Illinois. In 1859 the family moved to Kansas, where the boy worked on his father’s farm, gaining a knowledge of animals and other frontier skills....
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Riley, Bennet (1787-1853), army officer and military governor of California
John C. Fredriksen
Riley, Bennet (27 November 1787–09 June 1853), army officer and military governor of California, was born probably in St. Marys County, Maryland. Although little is known of his parentage, his birthplace is also ascribed to Alexandria, Virginia. Riley was commissioned ensign in the elite Regiment of Riflemen on 19 January 1813 and assigned to the company of Captain Benjamin Forsyth. Forsyth was the most notorious partisan officer of the War of 1812, and Riley distinguished himself in several engagements. He rose to third lieutenant on 12 March 1813, became a second lieutenant on 15 April 1814, and was present at the 28 June skirmish at Odelltown, Lower Canada, in which Forsyth was killed. Riley subsequently commanded a detachment of riflemen who, on August 10, avenged their fallen commander by ambushing and fatally wounding Captain Joseph St. Valier Mallioux, a noted Canadian officer. One month later he fought in the 11 September 1814 defense of Plattsburgh, New York, and won commendation from General ...
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Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von (1730-1794), inspector general of the Continental army
Philander D. Chase
Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von (17 September 1730–28 November 1794), inspector general of the Continental army, was born in Magdeburg, Germany, the son of Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben, a Prussian army officer, and Maria Justina Dorothea von Jagow. Baptized as Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben, he usually called himself Frederick William von Steuben in America and signed his letters “Steuben.” He spent most of his early childhood in Russia, where his father was a military engineer. In 1742 the family settled in Breslau, Silesia, where Steuben was tutored in mathematics by Jesuits. In 1746 Steuben became a lance corporal in the Lestwitz Infantry Regiment at Breslau and in 1749 was commissioned an ensign in that regiment. He was promoted to second lieutenant in 1752....
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Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von (1730-1794)
Maker: Ralph Earl
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Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. Reproduction of a painting by Ralph Earl. Courtesy of the National Archives (NWDNS-148-GW-76A).
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Washington, John Macrae (1797-1853), army officer and military governor of New Mexico
William B. Skelton
Washington, John Macrae ( October 1797–24 December 1853), army officer and military governor of New Mexico, was born in Stafford County, Virginia, the son of Baily Washington, a planter, and Euphan Wallace. Influenced by financial problems caused by his father’s death, young Washington entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1814, and he graduated in 1817. Commissioned a third lieutenant in the Corps of Artillery, he spent the next few years in garrison duty at Charleston, South Carolina, and in Florida. As the result of the reduction and reorganization of the army in 1821, he was arranged to the Fourth Artillery Regiment, the unit in which he would serve for most of his career. During 1824–1826 he was stationed at the Artillery School of Practice at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and he was on staff duty in the ordnance service from 1827 to 1833. Promoted to captain in 1832, Washington participated in the government’s controversial policy of American Indian removal. He saw action in the brief Creek campaign of 1836 and for the next three years engaged in the army’s frustrating guerrilla war against the elusive Seminoles in Florida. During the war scare with Great Britain of 1839–1842, caused by the filibustering “Patriots” and the Maine–New Brunswick boundary controversy, his company was stationed on the Canadian border, first at Detroit and later Buffalo, New York. As a young officer, he married Fanny Macrae, with whom he had three children....
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Wood, Leonard (1860-1927), army officer and colonial administrator
Jack C. Lane
Wood, Leonard (09 October 1860–07 August 1927), army officer and colonial administrator, was born in Winchester, New Hampshire, the son of Charles J. Wood, a physician, and Caroline Hagar. Following in his father’s profession, Wood entered Harvard Medical School in 1880, finished his training there in 1883, receiving an M.D. in 1884, and assumed a position as intern at Boston City Hospital. Wood’s persistent violation of a hospital rule prohibiting intern surgery led to his dismissal, revealing an early attitude toward authority and regulations that would later plague his military career....
