Johann, Baron de Kalb, born in Hüttendorf, Bavaria, on the 29th of
July, 1721, had gained in the armies of France the reputation of being
a brave and meritorious officer. At the close of the Seven Years
War, he married the daughter of a Holland millionnaire. In 1768, he
came to this country as a secret agent of the French Government, and
had already attained to the rank of brigadier-general in the French
army, when he entered into an agreement with Silas Deane and Benjamin
Franklin to join the Continental forces. Coming to this country with
Lafayette, De Kalb’s services were at once accepted by Congress, a
commission as major-general given him on the 15th of September, 1777,
and the command of the Maryland division of the Continental army.
Studious in his habits, exceedingly temperate in his diet, kindly and
courteous of manner, his many noble and lovable traits endeared him to
all with whom he was associated. For three years he served this country
gallantly and well, sealing his devotion to liberty and justice with
his life-blood. On the 16th of August, 1780, at Camden, South Carolina,
while fighting against vastly superior numbers, and rallying his men
by words of courage and deeds of valor, he fell, pierced with eleven
wounds. He died three days after, saying to one who was condoling with
him, “I thank you for your generous sympathy, but I die the death I
always prayed for,--the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of
man.”
Many years after, when Washington visited his grave, he exclaimed, “So
there lies the brave De Kalb,--the generous stranger who came from a
distant land to fight our battles and to water with his blood the tree
of our liberty. Would to God he had lived to share its fruits!”