Adair, John (09 January 1757–19 May 1840), soldier, politician, and governor of Kentucky, was born in Chester County, South Carolina, the son of Baron William Adair and Mary Moore. Little is known about his childhood. As a young man, he fought in the revolutionary war and was captured by the British. During his imprisonment he suffered many cruelties, which apparently did little to deter him from becoming a career soldier. After the war Adair traveled west, eventually settling in Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1786. In 1784 he had married Katherine Palmer; they had twelve children....
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Adair, John (1757-1840), soldier, politician, and governor of Kentucky
Donna Grear Parker
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Ainsworth, Fred Crayton (1852-1934), military surgeon and adjutant general
Timothy K. Nenninger
Ainsworth, Fred Crayton (11 September 1852–05 June 1934), military surgeon and adjutant general, was born in Woodstock, Vermont, the son of Crayton Ainsworth, a modestly prosperous businessman and machinist, and Harriet Carroll, a seamstress and Woman’s Christian Temperance Union activist.
During 1869 and 1870 Ainsworth attended but did not graduate from Dartmouth College. Upon returning to Woodstock, he studied medicine for three years, then enrolled in the medical school of the City University of New York. He graduated with honors in 1874, served a brief residency on the Bellevue Hospital medical staff, and then won an appointment as an assistant surgeon in the Medical Department of the U.S. Army. In November 1874 he reported to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for his first army assignment as a surgeon....
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Armistead, George (1780-1818), soldier
Gene A. Smith
Armistead, George (10 April 1780–25 April 1818), soldier, was born on the Baylor estate of “Newmarket” in Caroline County, Virginia, the son of John Armistead and Lucy Baylor, farmers. Details of his early life remain vague. Commissioned an ensign in the Seventh Infantry Regiment in January 1799, by May 1800 he had been promoted to first lieutenant. He was given an honorable discharge on 15 June 1800, however, because of reductions in the military establishment....
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Armstrong, John (1717-1795), soldier, surveyor, and member of the Continental Congress
Robert Grant Crist and Patrick G. Williams
Armstrong, John (13 October 1717–09 March 1795), soldier, surveyor, and member of the Continental Congress, was born in County Fermanagh, Ulster, Ireland. The identities of his Scotch-Irish parents and circumstances of his youth are unclear, but his father may have been named James. A trained surveyor, John Armstrong evidently received some education fairly early in life. Sometime in the mid-1740s Armstrong immigrated to America, settling initially in Delaware and then in Pennsylvania, where he worked as a surveyor. It was probably at some point after his arrival in America that he married Rebeckah Armstrong. The couple had two sons (the younger, ...
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Armstrong, John (1755-1816), soldier
James H. O’Donnell III
Armstrong, John (20 April 1755–04 February 1816), soldier, was born in New Jersey, the son of Thomas Armstrong and Jane Hamilton. Little is known about his early life and education. He joined the Continental army on 11 September 1777 and served as an officer in the twelfth and third Pennsylvania regiments....
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Armstrong, John, Jr. (1758-1843), soldier and politician
C. Edward Skeen
Armstrong, John, Jr. (25 November 1758–01 April 1843), soldier and politician, was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the son of John Armstrong and Rebecca Lyon. His father, a surveyor and a prominent figure on the Pennsylvania frontier, achieved fame as the “Hero of Kittanning” during the Seven Years’ War when he destroyed a particularly troublesome Indian village; he later served as an officer in the revolutionary war. Armstrong attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) for two years but left in 1776 to join the Continental army. He served successively as aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Hugh Mercer and Major General ...
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Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant (1818-1893)
In
P. G. T. Beauregard. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-34418).
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Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant (1818-1893), soldier
Arthur W. Bergeron
Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant (28 May 1818–20 February 1893), soldier, was born at “Contreras,” his family’s plantation in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, the son of Jacques Toutant-Beauregard, a planter, and Helene Judith de Reggio. At age eight he was sent to a private school in New Orleans for three years, and for four years after that he attended the French School, a private institution in New York City. Beauregard entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1834 and graduated second in the class of 1838. Commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers, he worked on various fortifications in Florida and in his native state during the years prior to the Mexican War. In 1841 Beauregard married Marie Laure Villere; they had two sons. Laure died in March 1850, giving birth to a daughter....
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Bedinger, George Michael (1756-1843), soldier, legislator, and businessman
Ellen T. Eslinger
Bedinger, George Michael (10 December 1756–08 December 1843), soldier, legislator, and businessman, was born in York County, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Bedinger and Magdalene von Schlegel, innkeepers. In 1737 his grandfather had moved to Pennsylvania from the vicinity of Strasbourg in Alsace-Lorraine. At the time of George Michael’s birth, the family name was spelled Biedinger and German was the language spoken at home. Late in life Bedinger was described by a contemporary as a “full blooded Virginia Dutchman.”...
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Benner, Philip (1762-1832), soldier, pioneer ironmaster, and entrepreneur
John W. Malsberger
Benner, Philip (19 May 1762–27 July 1832), soldier, pioneer ironmaster, and entrepreneur, was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Benner and Dinah Thomas, farmers. For Philip Benner as for many of his generation, the American Revolution was the defining experience of his early life. When his father, a vocal patriot, was imprisoned by the British, Philip went to war in the Continental army wearing a vest in which his mother had quilted guineas in case of emergency. Benner fought as a private under the command of his relative General ...
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Bissell, Daniel (1769-1833), army officer
John C. Fredriksen
Bissell, Daniel (15 August 1769–14 December 1833), army officer, was born in Windsor, Connecticut, the son of Ozias Bissell and Mable Roberts. His father served in the American Revolution, and in 1781 Bissell, aged twelve years, joined the Connecticut militia as a drummer boy. Military life appealed to the young man, and on 19 May 1788 he enlisted as a private in the First Infantry. Bissell served throughout the western frontier and distinguished himself during several harrowing assignments as messenger. In 1791 he became sergeant, was present at General ...
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Bloomfield, Joseph (1753-1823), lawyer, soldier, and politician
Hermann K. Platt
Bloomfield, Joseph (18 October 1753–08 October 1823), lawyer, soldier, and politician, was born in Woodbridge, New Jersey, the son of Moses Bloomfield, a physician, and Sarah Ogden. The family was one of the most prominent in colonial New Jersey. His father had received a first-rate medical education in Edinburgh, Scotland, and had a thriving practice in Middlesex County by the time Joseph was born. Joseph’s mother was a member of a wealthy and influential family of Elizabethtown, which further assured Joseph’s upper-class pedigree. His education and choice of occupation were in line with his social standing. While in his early teens, he attended the Reverend Enoch Green’s classical academy in Deerfield, Cumberland County, at the opposite end of the province from Woodbridge. Upon graduation, Bloomfield returned to East Jersey, determined to be a lawyer. He entered the profession at the top, studying in Perth Amboy with Cortlandt Skinner, attorney general of New Jersey, and was admitted to the bar in November 1774. Setting up practice in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, he soon became known and respected in all of New Jersey’s southern counties. The future seemed secure, had not the American Revolution intervened....
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Bomford, George (1780-1848), soldier
John K. Mahon
Bomford, George (1780–25 March 1848), soldier, was born in New York City. Little information about his parents is known other than that his father was a military officer during the American Revolution, though it is not clear on which side. George officially became a cadet of the U.S. Military Academy on 24 October 1804, one of a class of three. He graduated only eight months later, on 1 July 1805, and was appointed second lieutenant of engineers. He received promotion to first lieutenant on 30 October 1806 and to captain 23 February 1808....
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Bonneville, Benjamin Louis Eulalie de (1796-1878), explorer and army officer
Donald L. Parman
Bonneville, Benjamin Louis Eulalie de (14 April 1796–12 June 1878), explorer and army officer, was born in or near Paris, France, the son of Nicolas de Bonneville, a writer-editor, and Margaret Brazier. During the French Revolution Bonneville’s father was prominent in the Cercle Social...
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Boyd, John Parker (1764-1830), army officer and soldier of fortune
William B. Skelton
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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Brown, Jacob Jennings (1775-1828), army officer
William B. Skelton
Brown, Jacob Jennings (09 May 1775–24 February 1828), army officer, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel Brown and Abi White, farmers. Brown was raised a Quaker. Perhaps because of his family’s declining financial circumstances, Brown took up school teaching, first at Crosswicks, New Jersey, and, after a stint as a government surveyor on the Ohio frontier, in New York City. There, he wrote political articles for the press and may have served briefly as a military secretary to Major General ...
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Campbell, Arthur (1743-1811), frontiersman, soldier, and politician
Hartwell L. Quinn
Campbell, Arthur (03 November 1743–08 August 1811), frontiersman, soldier, and politician, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, the son of David Campbell and Mary Hamilton, immigrant Scotch-Irish Presbyterian farmers. He was not quite fifteen when, during the French and Indian War, he joined a company of Virginia rangers stationed in western Augusta County. At Fort Young on the Jackson River in September 1758, Campbell was captured by Wyandot Indians and spent two years in captivity in the vicinity of Detroit before escaping....
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Carroll, William (1788-1844), soldier, businessman and governor of Tennessee
Robert E. Corlew
Carroll, William (03 March 1788–22 March 1844), soldier, businessman and governor of Tennessee, was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas Carroll, a farmer and businessman, and Mary Montgomery. Although his formal education was meager, his letters, papers, and public documents exhibit an unusual clarity of thought and facility of expression. His father formed a partnership with ...
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Carson, Kit (1809-1868)
In
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 ...
