Robert Patterson (12 January 1792 – 7 August 1881) was a Union Army Major-General during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Robert Patterson was born in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland in 1792, and his family emigrated to the United States in 1799 due to their involvement in the failed United Irishmen uprising against Great Britain. Patterson volunteered in the US Army during the War of 1812, rising to the rank of colonel in the Pennsylvania militia. He later became a Democratic presidential elector, supporting Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. In 1838, he crushed anti-abolition riots in Philadelphia, and, in 1844, he put down nativist riots in the same city. During the Mexican-American War, he became a Major-General of volunteers, commanding a division at the Siege of Veracruz and the Battle of Cerro Gordo. Patterson then returned to Pennsylvania and became a wealthy mill-owner and a major figure in Philadelphia politics, and, when the American Civil War broke out in 1861, he returned to the army and commanded a division which defeated Stonewall Jackson' Confederate brigade at the Battle of Hoke's Run. However, he refused to push further to Winchester and instead retreated to Harpers Ferry, allowing for Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley to join P.G.T. Beauregard's army at the Manassas junction. Patterson was blamed for the defeat and mustered out of the army in late July, and he returned to his cotton milling business. From 1876 to 1881, he was President of the Board of Trustees of Lafayette College, and he died in 1881. He was the father of general Francis E. Patterson.