Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the Revolution — John Shaqi
Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the RevolutionLeiter, Mary Theresa
History
Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the Revolution
Leiter, Mary Theresa
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Biography
In 1784, Lafayette paid a short visit to this country, being received
everywhere with marks of love and respect. In 1785, he returned to
Paris to find the finances of his country hopelessly involved, and
the people ripe for revolution. Throughout his subsequent life he
remained true to those high principles of honor, patriotism, and love
of humanity, that had led him so warmly to espouse the cause of liberty
and justice. Kept for years a prisoner in the most loathsome dungeons,
his property confiscated, his wife doomed to the guillotine and only
saved by the death of Robespierre, his son an exile but finding shelter
in the home of Washington, he was at length restored to liberty by the
power of Napoleon. In 1824, he was invited by Congress to revisit the
United States. Though most of his friends and companions-in-arms had
passed away, and a new generation had grown up, the whole nation united
to welcome and do him homage. He died in 1834, leaving behind him the
record of one who amid every temptation and allurement had remained the
stanch, unwavering advocate of constitutional liberty.
BARON DE KALB.
Johann, Baron de Kalb, born in Hüttendorf, Bavaria, on the 29th of
July, 1721, had gained in the armies of France the reputation of being
a brave and meritorious officer. At the close of the Seven Years
War, he married the daughter of a Holland millionnaire. In 1768, he
came to this country as a secret agent of the French Government, and
had already attained to the rank of brigadier-general in the French
army, when he entered into an agreement with Silas Deane and Benjamin
Franklin to join the Continental forces. Coming to this country with
Lafayette, De Kalb’s services were at once accepted by Congress, a
commission as major-general given him on the 15th of September, 1777,
and the command of the Maryland division of the Continental army.
Studious in his habits, exceedingly temperate in his diet, kindly and
courteous of manner, his many noble and lovable traits endeared him to
all with whom he was associated. For three years he served this country
gallantly and well, sealing his devotion to liberty and justice with
his life-blood. On the 16th of August, 1780, at Camden, South Carolina,
while fighting against vastly superior numbers, and rallying his men
by words of courage and deeds of valor, he fell, pierced with eleven
wounds. He died three days after, saying to one who was condoling with
him, “I thank you for your generous sympathy, but I die the death I
always prayed for,--the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of
man.”
Many years after, when Washington visited his grave, he exclaimed, “So
there lies the brave De Kalb,--the generous stranger who came from a
distant land to fight our battles and to water with his blood the tree
of our liberty. Would to God he had lived to share its fruits!”
PHILIPPE CHARLES JEAN BAPTISTE TRONSON DU COUDRAY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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