Alexander Macomb

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Portrait of Alexander Macomb by Thomas Sully (1783–1872)

Alexander Macomb, Jr. ( April 3, 1782 in Detroit , Michigan , † June 25, 1841 in Washington ) was an American officer in the war of 1812 with Great Britain and commanding general of the US Army from 1828 to 1841.

Life

Youth and first career steps

Macomb was born in Detroit (now Michigan ), which was still under British occupation at the time, as the son of the wealthy Irish merchant and land speculator Alexander Macomb Sen. He moved with his family to New York and received a classical education in an academy in Newark . He joined a militia unit at the age of 16 and was accepted into a cavalry unit of the regular US Army as a cornet on the recommendation of Alexander Hamilton in 1799 . In the same year he received the rank of Second Lieutenant , but was honorably discharged from the army the following year. In 1801 he received a post as second lieutenant in the 2nd Infantry Regiment and was used as secretary of a commission that negotiated with the Indians of the Southwest. In 1802 he was a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers of the US Army and was one of the earliest graduates, founded the same year military academy of West Point . In 1803 he married his cousin Catharine Macomb and rose to captain in 1805 , major in 1808 and lieutenant colonel in 1810 . From 1807 to 1812 he was responsible for the fortifications on the coasts of North Carolina , South Carolina and Georgia .

War of 1812

The next step in his career was the post of adjutant general of the army, which he held from April to June 1812. After the beginning of the war with Great Britain in 1812 , he was promoted to colonel of the 3rd Artillery Regiment . As a result, Macomb took part in the fighting in the northeast, u. a. on the capture of Fort George and Major General James Wilkinson's campaign on the Saint Lawrence River , which had to be broken off after a heavy defeat against a vastly outnumbered British contingent in the battle of Chrysler's Farm on November 11, 1813.

Macomb at the Battle of Plattsburgh

In January 1814, Macomb was promoted to brigadier general and was given command of a contingent of troops on Lake Champlain . After being considerably weakened by the transfer of troops to Sackets Harbor , he had to face a vastly superior British invasion force under the command of the Canadian Governor General Sir George Prevost with 1,500 regular soldiers and a few militia regiments . Macomb concentrated his troops around Plattsburgh , where he had field fortifications built; Before and during the Battle of Plattsburgh on November 11th, his troops repulsed a series of British attacks, while the US flotilla on Lake Champlain under Thomas Macdonough defeated a British naval force in a costly naval battle. Macomb proved himself to be a prudent and competent commander in these battles, but he also benefited from the fact that Prevost, which was fixated on defensive warfare, was only very reluctantly and half-heartedly attacked and failed to use his superior strength effectively. For his success in this war decisive battle Macomb received the rank of Brevet - Major General , a thanksgiving and a gold medal (ie an honorary rank..) Congress (a forerunner of the Congressional Medal of Honor , the highest military award of the United States).

Later career

Macomb's gravestone in Washington, DC

After the end of the war he was a member of a commission for the reorganization of the army, later commander of the third military district in New York and the fifth district in Detroit . In 1821 he became Commander in Chief of the Engineer Corps of the US Army with the rank of Colonel. In 1826 he married his second wife Harriet Balch Wilson. After the death of Major General Jacob Brown , the commanding general of the US Army , US President John Quincy Adams appointed Macomb as his successor and major general on May 29, 1828. Macomb owed this promotion to the highest military rank in the American Army to the dispute Winfield Scott and Edmund P. Gaines had publicly fought for months over this position, which is why Adams felt compelled to consider neither of them. Since the competencies of this rank were still unclear, their more precise definition and delimitation played an important role in Macomb's time in this office. He took the position that the commanding general should have active command of the entire army and should only be under the loose supervision of the Minister of War . Macomb-led US Army reforms included an increase in pay to prevent desertions , welfare for widows and orphans of officers who died or fell while on duty, and a system of officer exchange and retirement to prevent obsolescence and incompetence. In view of armed conflicts with the Indians , he advocated doubling the army. Measured against the administrative tasks, field commands largely took a back seat; only in 1835 did Macomb briefly hold one during the war with the Seminoles in Florida . He died in his Washington, DC office on June 25, 1841 and was buried in the Congress Cemetery. One of his children was naval officer William H. Macomb .

literature

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Commons : Alexander Macomb  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Macomb, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Macomb, Alexander Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American major general
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , Michigan, USA
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1841
Place of death Washington, DC