Alexander Dickson (British Army officer)
British Army general (1777-1840)
Major-General Sir Alexander Dickson (3 June 1777 – 22 April 1840) was a British Army officer who served in the artillery. He fought at many battles during the Napoleonic Wars. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington had the highest opinion of his abilities and made him the effective commander of his army's artillery during the latter part of the Peninsular War.
Military career
Dickson entered the Royal Military Academy in 1793, passing out as second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in the following year. As a subaltern he saw service in Menorca in 1798 and at Malta in 1800. As a captain he took part in the unfortunate Montevideo Expedition of 1806–07, and in 1809 he accompanied Brigadier General Edward Howorth to Portugal where he served as brigade-major of the artillery.
He soon obtained a command in the Portuguese artillery, and as a lieutenant colonel of the Portuguese service took part in the various battles of 1810–11. At the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, the Salamanca forts, and Burgos, he was entrusted by Wellington with most of the detailed artillery work. At the Battle of Salamanca he commanded the reserve artillery. In the end he became commander of the whole of the artillery of the allied army, and though still only a substantive captain in the British service, he had under his orders some 8000 men.
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