Richard Delafield
Richard Delafield (born September 1, 1798 in Manhattan , New York City , † November 5, 1873 in Washington, DC ) was an American military engineer and during the Civil War brigadier general on the side of the Northern states .
Delafield began his training at the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1814 and graduated in 1818 as the best of his class. He was then assigned to the Corps of Engineers , where he was initially involved as a geodesist in establishing the northern border in accordance with the Peace of Ghent . From 1819 to 1824 he was an assistant engineer in the construction of fortifications on the Hampton Roads , from 1824 to 1832 he led survey work and the construction of fortifications in the Mississippi River Delta . He then led the renewal of Cumberland Road east of the Ohio River , where he designed and built the first box - girder arch bridge made of cast iron in the United States. In 1838 he was appointed superintendent of the United States Military Academy, where he designed new buildings (the old ones had been destroyed in a fire) and a new uniform for the cadets . From 1846 to 1855 he directed the construction of coastal fortifications in the New York harbor . From 1855 he was - appointed by the then Minister of War and later President of the Confederate States , Jefferson Davis - as a military observer and head of the Delafield Commission (with Alfred Mordecai and George B. McClellan ) in Europe, including during the siege of Sevastopol . From 1861 to 1864 Delafield was again chief at West Point, from April 1864 to August 1866 he was in the rank of brigadier general and as the successor to Joseph G. Totten Chief Engineer of the United States Army Corps of Engineers . In 1866 he retired with the rank of major general , but still served on the United States Lighthouse Board and the Smithsonian Institution .
In 1841 Delafield was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Delafield was married twice. His first wife, Helen Summers, died four months after they were married in 1824. Richard Delafield had eight children with his second wife, Harriet Baldwin Covington (married in 1833). On the occasion of Delafield's death, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had thirteen cannon shots fired in his honor at West Point. Delafield's grave is in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn , New York.
literature
- Matthew Moten: The Delafield Commission and the American Military Profession. Texas A&M University Press, 2000 ISBN 978-0-89096-925-0 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- Spencer C. Tucker : Delafield, Richard. In: Spencer C. Tucker: American Civil War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. ABC-CLIO, 2013 ISBN 978-1-85109-682-4 ( limited preview in Google book search)
- William B. Skelton: Delafield, Richard. In: American National Biography ( online )
Web links
- Richard Delafield, 1798-1873. In: Delafield Family Papers . Princeton University Library (princeton.edu)
- Richard Delafield at the Register of Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy (penelope.uchicago.edu)
- Richard Delafield in the database of Find a Grave (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Commanders of the Corps of Engineers. In: usace.army.mil. United States Army Corps of Engineers , accessed July 27, 2019 .
- ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter D. (PDF; 575 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Accessed July 27, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Delafield, Richard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American military engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 1, 1798 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Manhattan , New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 5, 1873 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |