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Danville Leadbetter

Confederate Army general (1811-1866)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ5221370 ↗
Source-derived summary

Danville Leadbetter (August 26, 1811 – September 26, 1866) was a career U.S. Army officer and later he served as a Confederate general during the American Civil War.

A trained engineer, Leadbetter supervised the construction of forts before and during the war, and is noted for his controversial involvement in the November 1863 Battle of Fort Sanders in eastern Tennessee. After the conflict he left the United States and lived out the remainder of his life on foreign soil.

Early life and career

Danville Leadbetter was born in Leeds, Maine. He attended the United States Military Academy in West Point in July 1832, and graduated four years later, standing third out of 49 cadets. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery on July 1, 1836. Leadbetter transferred to the Army Engineers on November 1, but as a brevet second lieutenant to rank from July 1. He then returned to the 1st Artillery on December 31, and went back and forth between the two regiments and ranks throughout 1837. Leadbetter was promoted to first lieutenant on July 7, 1838, then assigned to a joint commission of army and navy officers to identify defense sites along the Pacific Coast. Leadbetter was promoted to captain on October 16, 1852 and spent 1853–57 at Mobile, Alabama, working on the construction and/or repair of the city's harbor forts.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Danville Leadbetter” as confederate Army general (1811-1866). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Danville, Leadbetter and Confederate.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1811, 1866, 1863, 1832—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1811-08-26. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Danville, Leadbetter and Confederate providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Danville Leadbetter”, the useful work is to connect “confederate Army general (1811-1866)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5221370. VIAF identifies the subject as 36074222. The Library of Congress control number is n90639466. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1811, 1866, 1863 and 1832.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Danville Leadbetter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.