Johann Kalb
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An engraving showing the wounded Baron de Kalb

DeKalb bust in Decatur, Georgia

Johann von Robaii, Baron de Kalb (born Johann Kalb) (June 19, 1721 – August 19, 1780) was a German soldier and volunteer who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Kalb was born in Hüttendorf near Erlangen, in present-day Bavaria, the son of peasants Johann Leonhard Kalb and Margarethe Seitz. He later learned French, English, and enough social skills to get a substantial military commission in the Loewendal German Regiment of the French Army (where he served as Jean de Kalb). He served with distinguished honor throughout the War of Austrian Succession in Flanders. During the Seven Years' War, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and made assistant quartermaster general in the Army of the Upper Rhine, a division created by the disbanding of the Loewendal Regiment. He won the Order of Military Merit in 1763, giving him his baronic title.

In 1764 he resigned from the Army and married Anna Elizabeth Emilie van Robais, an heiress to a fortune from cloth manufacturing.

In 1768, he traveled to America on a covert mission to determine the level of discontent amongst colonists on behalf of France. During the trip, he gained a respect for the colonists and their "spirit of independence."

American Revolutionary War

In 1777 he returned again with his protégé, the Marquis de Lafayette, and joined the Continental Army. He was disappointed and angry^{citation needed} to learn at first that he would not be made a major general, but was so in fact on September 5, 1777, just before the time he had decided on for leaving for France.

He was at Valley Forge for most of the 1777–78 winter, and commanded a division of Patterson's and Learned's Brigades. During the British southern campaign, he was disappointed to learn that Horatio Gates had been appointed to command instead of him. At the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780, de Kalb's horse was killed under him, and he tumbled to the ground, where he was shot three times and bayonetted repeatedly by attacking British. His friend and aide Le Chevalier du Buysson blocked additional blows with his own body that might have killed the Baron sooner. However, he died three days later while being held as a prisoner of war in Camden, South Carolina. He is buried in Camden.^[1] His portrait was painted posthumously by Charles Willson Peale.^[2]

He died devoted to American independence and was greatly honored by his contemporaries. Several towns and counties in the U.S. are named DeKalb after him.

It has been reported, that at Camden Lord Cornwallis superintended while De Kalb's wounds were dressed by his own surgeons. De Kalb, in reply to a British officer's remarks as to his misfortune said, "I thank you sir for your generous sympathy; but I die the death I always prayed for; the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man."

Legacy

In 1886 a monument to Baron de Kalb was erected on the grounds of the Maryland state house to honor his contributions to the revolution.^[3]

Dekalb County, Georgia is named after him.

Footnotes

1. ^ Burial site at Find-a-Grave
2. ^ National Park Service
3. ^ Maryland State Archives

References

• Brig. General P. Horry, "The Life of General Francis Marion"; page 107, Publisher Joseph Allen, Philadelphia 1829