Johann de Kalb Johann von Robais , Baron de Kalb ( June 19 , 1721 – August 19 , 1780 ) , born Johann Kalb , was a German - born French officer who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War . Early life . Kalb was born in Hüttendorf , a village of 600 people near Erlangen , Bavaria , the son of Johann Leonhard Kalb and Margarethe Seitz . He learned French , English , and the social skills to earn a substantial military commission in the Loewendal German Regiment of the French Army . He served with distinguished honor in the War of Austrian Succession in Flanders . During the Seven Years ' War , he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and made assistant quartermaster general in the Army of the Upper Rhine , a division created by the disbanding of the Loewendal Regiment . He won the Order of Military Merit in 1763 , and was elevated to the nobility with the title of baron . In 1764 , he resigned from the army and married Anna Elizabeth Emilie van Robais , an heiress to a fortune from cloth manufacturing . In 1768 , he traveled to America on a covert mission to determine the level of discontent among colonists by de Choiseul , on behalf of France . During the trip , he gained a respect for the colonists and their " spirit of independence " . American Revolutionary War . In 1777 , he returned again with his protégé , the Marquis de Lafayette , and joined the Continental Army . He was disappointed and angry to learn that he would not be made a major general , but with Lafayette ' s influence he was appointed to the rank on September 5 , 1777 , which he learned of as he was already on the road to return to France . He was at Valley Forge for most of the 1777 – 78 winter , and commanded a division of Patterson ' s and Learned ' s Brigades . He wrote letters of introduction for John Adams to the French court . De Kalb wrote : On the whole , I have annoyances to bear , of which you can hardly form a conception . One of them is the mutual jealousy of almost all the French officers , particularly against those of higher rank than the rest . These people think of nothing but their incessant intrigues and backbitings . They hate each other like the bitterest enemies , and endeavor to injure each other wherever an opportunity offers . I have given up their society , and very seldom see them . La Fayette is the sole exception ; I always meet him with the same cordiality and the same pleasure . He is an excellent young man , and we are good friends . . . La Fayette is much liked , he is on the best of terms with Washington . DeKalb was assigned to command a division of Maryland and Delaware troops , and he was ordered south as reinforcements . During the British southern campaign , he was disappointed to learn that Horatio Gates had been appointed to command instead of him . Gates led the army to a disastrous defeat at Battle of Camden on August 16 , 1780 . De Kalb ' s horse was shot from under him , causing him to tumble to the ground . Before he could get up , he was shot three times and bayonet ted repeatedly by British soldiers . His friend and aide , the Chevalier du Buysson , was seriously wounded blocking additional blows with his own body . It is reported that Cornwallis supervised as De Kalb ' s wounds were dressed by his own surgeons in Camden , South Carolina . De Kalb replied to a British officer , " I thank you sir for your generous sympathy , but I die the death I always prayed for : the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man . " He died three days later and was buried in Camden . Legacy . DeKalb was greatly revered by his contemporaries . Numerous towns and counties in the U . S . A . are named DeKalb after him , in Alabama , Georgia , Illinois , Indiana , New York , Tennessee and Texas . Streets include the DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn , New York City , Merrick , New York and others . His portrait was painted posthumously by Charles Willson Peale . In 1886 , a monument to Baron de Kalb was erected on the grounds of the Maryland state house to honor his contributions to the American Revolution . An American elementary school run by the U . S . Department of Defense in Nuremberg , Germany was named for him ; it closed in the 1990s .