Thomas Jesup
United States general
Thomas Sidney Jesup (December 16, 1788 – June 10, 1860) was a United States Army officer known as the "Father of the Modern Quartermaster Corps". His 52-year (1808–1860) military career was one of the longest in the history of the United States Army. Jesup is infamous for his direct role in the duplicitous capture of Osceola and Micanopy, two Seminole Nation chiefs.
Biography
Thomas Jesup was born in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia). He began his military career in 1808, and served in the War of 1812, seeing action in the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane in 1814, where he was wounded. He was aligned with the aggressive expansionism of Andrew Jackson, who became his immediate superior that year, and he was broadly dismissive of civilian control over the military. As of 1816 he was plotting to capture Cuba for the sake of American security.
He was appointed Quartermaster General on May 8, 1818, by President James Monroe.
Seminole War and controversy
In 1836, while Jesup was still officially Quartermaster General, President Andrew Jackson detached him first to deal with the Creek tribe in Georgia and Alabama, and then to assume command of all U.S. troops in Florida during the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). His capture of Seminole leaders Osceola and Micanopy under a false flag of truce provoked controversy in the United States and abroad.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Jesup” 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.