Jacob Brown Jacob Jennings Brown ( 9 May 1775 – 24 February 1828 ) was an American army officer in the War of 1812 . His successes on the northern border during that war made him a hero . In 1821 , he was appointed commanding general of the U . S . Army and held that post until his death . Early life . Born in Bucks County , Pennsylvania , Jacob Jennings Brown was the son of Samuel and Abi ( White ) Brown . His middle name was given to him in honor of his paternal grandmother who was a descendant of Samuel Jennings , the latter having been a deputy governor of West Jersey and later receiver general of Pennsylvania in the early 18th century . Raised a Quaker , Brown graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1790 . He taught school and , in 1798 , moved to upstate New York . There he was a pioneer settler and landowner in the Black River country and helped open the area up for further settlement . He and his extended family established mills and a store , laid out roads and improved navigation on the lower Black River . Military service . One biographer claimed that Brown received his earliest military training when he was a military secretary to Alexander Hamilton during the winter of 1798 - 99 , while Hamilton was organizing the U . S . Army for possible war with France . However , Hamilton ' s biographies state he did not have a secretary . Biographical sketches of Brown published in 1815 do not mention a connection between him and Hamilton . In 1807 , as one of the leading citizens of his county , Brown was commissioned as a captain in the 108th regiment of the New York Militia . Two years later , he was promoted to colonel . His initial commission was the result of regional political connections . However , his promotion to higher rank appears to have resulted from his aversion to frequent and expensive military parades in times of peace . On the frontier , it was time - consuming and expensive for scattered members of the militia to assemble for drill or other activities when they had farming and other occupations that demanded their time . When the War of 1812 began , Brown was a brigadier general in the New York militia , having been appointed to that rank in 1811 . Though he opposed the war , he organized the defenses in the Great Lakes region . on 29 May 1813 , troops led by Brown defeated the British at the Battle of Sackett ' s Harbor . As a result of his actions there , he was given a commission as a brigadier general in the regular army . The next year his army captured Fort Erie in Ontario . After , his army defeated a British army at the Battle of Chippawa . He was wounded twice at the Battle of Lundy ' s Lane , one of the bloodiest engagements of the war for both sides . His last battle of the war was the Siege of Fort Erie in 1814 , which resulted in an American victory . His successes , in what was the northwest U . S . at that time , made him a national hero . To express its appreciation , Congress authorized the award to Brown of a Congressional Gold Medal on 3 November 1814 . General Brown was the 24th American to receive the Congressional Gold Medal . In 1818 , Brown was admitted as an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati . After the war , the U . S . Army was reduced in size . By 1821 , he was the only major general in the service and President James Monroe made him commanding general . Despite a stroke he suffered in 1821 , he functioned well in his new post . He reorganized the army staff into the form it retained for the rest of the century . He advised the secretaries of war and the presidents on military policy . He also pushed for the establishment of two post - graduate schools for the military , the precursors of present day staff and command colleges . Another first was his creation in 1822 of the General Recruiting Service as the first organization responsible for providing manpower for the Army . On 24 February 1828 , General Brown died and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington , D . C . General Brown was so well respected that when he died , and his casket was carried down Pennsylvania Avenue on the shoulders of a detachment of U . S . Marines , the entire government shut down for the funeral . His mile - long funeral procession was composed of family , military detachments and government officials . Then President John Quincy Adams said of him : General Brown was one of the eminent men of this age and nation . Through bred a Quaker , he was a man of lofty and martial spirit , and in the late war contributed perhaps more than any man to redeem and establish the military character of his country . Family . In December 1802 , he married Pamela Williams , then seventeen . They eventually had four sons ( Gouverneur , Jacob , William and Nathan ) and five daughters ( Mary , Eliza , Pamela , Margaret and Katherine ) . Brown ' s first - born son , Gouverneur , drowned in an ice - skating accident at the age of twelve . Two of General Brown ' s sons , Jacob ( class of 1832 ) and William Spencer ( class of 1835 ) , graduated from West Point . Jacob resigned after four years service in the army , and William resigned after only six months , both of them dying young . Brown ' s fourth son , Nathan William , did not attend the academy but had a successful military career . In 1849 , at age thirty - one , Nathan was appointed a major . In 1864 , during the Civil War , he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and served as deputy paymaster general . He became a brigadier general and paymaster general in 1880 and retired in 1882 after 33 years in the army . Katherine married Larkin Smith , a West Point classmate of her brother William . In 1861 , Smith resigned his army commission to serve as assistant quartermaster general of the Confederate army . Pamela ' s husband , David Hammond Vinton , served in the same post during the Civil War , but on the Union side . Eliza married Edmund Kirby , a colonel in the Mexican - American War , and a U . S . Army Paymaster . Their son Edmund also attended West Point , graduated in 1861 and was commissioned as an artillery officer . He served with the Army of the Potomac from First Bull Run through Chancellorsville , where he was severely wounded . Nominated for brigadier general by President Lincoln , he died before the Senate could confirm the promotion . He was only 23 years of age . Place names . The following counties , towns and institutions are named after Jacob Jennings Brown :