Adam J. Slemmer

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Adam J. Slemmer in an article in Harpers Weekly (Feb. 1861)

Adam Jacoby Slemmer (born January 24, 1828 in Montgomery County , Pennsylvania , † October 7, 1868 in Fort Laramie , Wyoming ) was a general in the US Army .

Life

Slemmer grew up in Norristown , Pennsylvania and successfully graduated from the Military Academy in West Point , New York . Promoted to lieutenant in 1850 and commanded to Florida , he briefly took part in the fighting against the Seminoles . He then served in various garrisons along the Gulf Coast. In 1855 he was reassigned to the military academy, where he was a teaching staff until 1858. Ordered back to the Gulf Coast, he was deputy commandant of Fort Barrancas on Pensacola Bay in Florida even before Florida left the Union . After the shipyard in Pensacola , Florida was handed over to the local commanders of the Florida militia, the situation in neighboring Fort Barrancas had become unsustainable. On January 8, 1861, Colonel William Henry Chase called on the fort to surrender and threatened the use of 500 militiamen each from Florida and Alabama. The commandant of the fort, the southern sympathizer Captain John Henry Winder , was no longer present at this point because he had defected to the Confederates.

Slemmer rejected the request, with one of the first shootings (possibly the first shootout ever) of the war taking place. He decided to use the unfinished, vacant Fort Pickens opposite , as this was easier to defend. The first Confederate attack attempts were rejected by the occupation under Slemmer.

After his promotion to major , he was transferred to Major General Buell's staff and participated in the Siege of Corinth and the relief of Nashville , Tennessee . The wound he suffered on December 31, 1862 in the Battle of the Stones River was so severe that he was no longer fit for military service and could initially only be used in the military administration in Ohio and New York. On April 4, 1863 he was promoted to Brigadier General of the Volunteers (effective November 29, 1862).

After the end of the war he served in his regular rank as a lieutenant colonel and became commander of the 4th US Infantry Regiment. He died as the commandant of Fort Laramie from the aftermath of typhoid fever that he contracted during the war.

Slemmer was buried in Montgomery Cemetery near his hometown of Norristown on October 21, 1868 .

swell

  • Gambone, AM: The Life of Adam Jacoby Slemmer . Page 165–166. Butternut & Blue, 2005
  • Harpers Weekly, February 23, 1861

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The fort is now a National Historic Site , administered by the National Park Service , and is located near the town of Fort Laramie
  2. ↑ History of the Florida National Guard. Department of Military Affairs, 2001, accessed August 8, 2012 (Florida's Army Contents - Civil War (from web archive)).
personal data
SURNAME Slemmer, Adam J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Slemmer, Adam Jacoby
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American general
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Montgomery County , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1868
Place of death Fort Laramie , Wyoming