Adna Chaffee
Adna Romanza Chaffee (April 14, 1842 - November 1, 1914) was a US Army General. He took part in the Indian Wars, played a key role in the Spanish-American War and was instrumental at crushing the Boxer rebellion in China. He was the Army Chief of Staff from 1904 to 1906, overseeing far-reaching organizational and doctrinal transformation.
Chaffe was born in Orwell, Ohio . With the outbreak of the American Civil War he enlisted with the Union Army in July 1861 and was assigned to the 6th Cavalry as a Private. In 1862 he was promoted to Sergeant and took part in the Peninsular Campaign and the Battle of Antietam, in September of that year he was made the First Sergeant of Company K. He rose to the commissioned rank of Second Lieutenant in May 1963, he served with the 6th Cavalry for the remainder of the war, being twice wounded. For his "gallant and meritorious" actions during the Battle of Dinwiddie Court House he was brevetted into a Captain, he was promoted into a First Lieutenant in February 1865.
Chaffe decided to remain with the army after the war, he was posted in the west, obtaining the rank of Captain in October 1867. For the next thirty years he took part in the Indian Wars, fighting off the Central Plains and Southwestern tribes. In 1868 he was brevetted into a major following his actions at Paint Creek, Texas, in the following years he engaged the Indians many times, most notably at Red River, Texas in 1874 and Big Dry Wash, Arizona in 1882, for whom he was brevetted into a Lieutenant Colonel. In July 1888 he was promoted into a Major and transferred to the 9th Cavalry. From 1894 until 1896, he was an instructor of tactics at Army’s Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, in June 1897 he was promoted to Colonel and transferred to 3rd Cavalry where he served as the commandant of the Cavalry School at Fort Riley until 1898.
With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 he was assigned a brigade and was promoted into a Brigadier General of volunteers in May of that year, and in July after his victory at El Caney, into a Major General of volunteers. From late 1898 until May 1900 he served as the chief of staff to the military governor of Cuba, General Leonard Wood, being promoted into a full army Colonel in May 1899. In July 1900 he was sent co china as the commander of U.S. Army’s China Relief Expedition assigned with the crushing of the Boxer rebellion. Chaffe successfully crushed the resistance and rapidly advanced to the imperial capital of Beijing which he entered on August 14, 1900.
