American Commanders

American Commanders. . Major General Horatio Gates (1728-1806) Born in England, Gates served as a staff officer during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), but later resigned from the British army. He moved to Virginia in 1772. At the outbreak of the Revolution, he was commissioned a brigadier general and helped organize the American army at Boston. , In 1777 Gates commanded the American forces that defeated and captured General John Burgoyne’s British army at Saratoga, New York. Congress appointed him to replace Benjamin Lincoln as commander in the South after the surrender of Charleston in 1780. Gates’s attempt to force the British out of Camden resulted in a disastrous defeat on August 16, 1780, and he was removed from command. , Major General Baron Johann de Kalb (1721-1780) , De Kalb was the son of Bavarian peasants. He joined the French army and served with distinction in the War of the Austrian Succession (1744-1748) and Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), earning promotions and the title of “baron”. De Kalb came to America in 1777 with his friend the Marquis de Lafayette. Congress appointed him a major general, and he served under General George Washington at Valley Forge. He took command of reinforcements sent to the South in 1780, and fought heroically at the Battle of Camden, where he was mortally wounded. , Major General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) , A native of Rhode Island, Greene took command of his state’s troops in May 1775 during the siege of Boston. He subsequently became a general in the Continental Army. Greene served in the 1776 New York and New Jersey campaigns, and the Pennsylvania campaign of 1777. , In 1778 he was appointed quartermaster general of the northern army. After the American defeat at Camden in August 1780, General George Washington chose Greene to replace Horatio Gates as commander in the South. , Greene took charge in December, and after ten months of hard campaigning he drove the British from the interior of Georgia and the Carolinas. He then encircled Charleston and Savannah until British forces evacuated these towns in 1782.