Jesup, Thomas S.

Born: 1788-12-16 West Virginia

Died: 1860-06-10 Washington, D.C.

Thomas S. Jesup was a U.S. Army officer and quartermaster general of the army. He moved with his parents to the Kentucky frontier in 1792. His father died in 1796, leaving the family in poverty and debt. Jesup worked for a time as a clerk in a store in Maysville, Kentucky before securing a commission as a second lieutenant in the Seventh Infantry--one of the regiments authorized by Congress in 1808 in response to the possibility of war with Great Britain. In December 1809, Jesup gained promotion to first lieutenant. Early in the War of 1812, Jesup served on the staff of General William Hull, commander of American forces in the Northwest. The British captured Jesup when Hull surrendered Detroit in August 1812. Paroled soon thereafter, Jesup received promotion to captain in January 1813 and to major in April 1813. Transferred to the Twentieth-Fifth Infantry in April 1814, Jesup led a regiment in the Niagara Campaign in the summer of 1814. He distinguished himself as a combat officer at the battles of Chippewa and Lundy Lane, suffering a wound at the latter engagement. He was breveted lieutenant colonel for distinguished and meritorious service at Chippewa and colonel for his gallantry at Lundy Lane. Late in the war, the War Department ordered Jesup to Connecticut, ostensibly to recruit volunteers, but actually to keep President James Madison and his administration apprized of the deliberations of the Hartford Convention. He remained in the army after the war, gaining promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1817 and colonel in 1818. In May 1818, President James Monroe appointed Jesup quartermaster general of the army with the rank of brigadier general. Working in tandem with Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Jesup reformed and standardized military procurement and administrative procedures, introducing a system of regulations and pattern of accountability copied by other army departments. In May 1836, the War Department sent Jesup to the Alabama-Georgia border to take field command of an operation against the Creek Indians, who had launched a rebellion in opposition to the policy of Indian Removal. Jesup's success in quelling the Creek uprising prompted President Andrew Jackson to place him in command of regular and militia forces fighting the Seminole Indians in what became the Second Seminole War. Jesup enjoyed initial success, but the Seminoles proved a difficult and elusive foe, and the controversial conflict and Jesup's questionable tactics--seizing the Seminole leader Osceola and a band of his followers gathered for peace negotiations under a flag of truce--tainted Jesup's reputation and brought him criticism from abolitionists, Whigs, and other opponents of the war. Jesup became disillusioned with the war, and in 1838, President Martin Van Buren removed him from command. Resuming his quartermaster duties, Jesup worked to meet the logistical demands of the Seminole War. Postwar cuts in military spending made it difficult for Jesup and the Quartermaster Corps to support operations on several different fronts during the Mexican War. Despite the difficulties, Jesup's administrative system held up well under the crisis, and the logistical support offered by Jesup proved a key factor in the success of American forces. In 1846, Jesup traveled to Mexico to personally supervise supply operations for Winfield Scott's expedition against Veracruz, and he accompanied Scott's forces on the march to Mexico City. Jesup continued to oversee his department in the 1850s, as he struggled to supply and equip an army dispersed throughout the American West and in near constant conflict with Native Americans.

Gravestone, Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC; Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903), 1:573; William B. Skelton, "Jesup, Thomas Sidney," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 12:12-13.