Colomb, Pierre

COLOMB, PIERRE. (1754–?). French volunteer. Born at Nîmes, the son of a silk merchant, he entered the gendarmes de la garde on 8 December 1766 and served until 15 December 1775. He traveled from Cádiz, Spain, to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1777. He then moved to Georgia, where he was appointed a lieutenant in the Continental Dragoons in 1778. He served in the expedition against Florida and was later promoted to captain. His father sought Henry Laurens's intervention to encourage him to return to France or become a merchant in America. Colomb was captured on 29 December 1778 in the defense of Savannah and mistreated both by his captor, Colonel Archibald Campbell, and during his imprisonment aboard the Whitby on the Georgia coast. In March 1779 Prevost ordered his parole. Though he was authorized to return to France to be exchanged, this did not occur immediately. Instead he applied to the Congress's Board of War for promotion to the rank of major, which Congress rejected on 7 August 1779. He returned to France in the autumn of 1779 and began a series of failed appeals to Franklin for preferment, claiming to have been promoted to major the last day of his American service.

Serving in the French army during the French Revolution as colonel of the Second Dragoons (July 1792), Colomb was named brigadier general for the Army of the North in April 1793. He ceased his functions in April 1794 and retired in 1795. In 1817 he was still alive at Lyon. Colomb is often confused with Lafayette's aide-de-camp, Louis Saint Ange, Chevalier Morel La Colombe.

SEE ALSO Prevost, Augustine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Campbell, Archibald. Journal of an Expedition against the Rebels of Georgia in North America. Edited by Colin Campbell. Darien, Ga.: Ashantilly Press, 1981.

Colomb, Pierre. "Memoirs of a Revolutionary Soldier." Translated and edited by Mary Benjamin. The Collector 63 (October 1950): 198-201; 63 (November 1950): 223-225; 63 (December 1950): 247-249; and 64 (January 1951): 2-5.

Contenson, Ludovic de. La Société des Cincinnati de France et la Guerre d'Amérique. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1934.

Ford, Worthington C. et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904–1937.

Franceschini, E. "Pierre Colomb." In Dictionnaire de biographie française. Edited by J. Balteau et al. 19 vols. to date. Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1933–.

Franklin, Benjamin. Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Leonard W. Labaree et al. 37 vols. to date. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959–.

Laurens, Henry. The Papers of Henry Laurens. Edited by Philip M. Hamer et al. 16 vols. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968–2003.

Lawrence, Alexander A. "General Robert Howe and the British Capture of Savannah in 1778." Georgia Historical Quarterly 36 (1952): 303-327.

Smith, Paul H., et al., eds. Letters of Delegates of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976–2000.

                        revised by Robert Rhodes Crout