Maj. Richard Vanderhorst Bonneau

Notes:

Attended West Point and made the Army his career. (White and Toole, p 81).

Richard Vanderhorst Bonneau was the son of William Henry Bonneau and his wife, Anna Maria Swinton. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina on 26 April 1827. His family moved to Mobile, Alabama when he was young, and he was educated in the private schools of Mobile. Richard was appointed to the Military Academy at West Point in 1847 from the state of Alabama. He graduated in June, 1852 and was assigned to the Third Infantry and became Second Lieutenant of Company "H" of that regiment, serving nearly three years with his company on the frontiers of Utah and New Mexico. On 10 January 1859 he was married, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Marie Louise Kiehl, only daughter of John Kiehl and his wife, Jane Pickering. He returned to New Mexico to his company which was later ordered to Fort Clarke, Texas. Before the Civil War, Lt. Bonneau resigned his commission in the US Army. Soon after his resignation he tendered his services to the Confederate government, and was commissioned Captain and Commissary of Subsistence and after wards promoted to Major and Chief Commissary. He was stationed in Mobile and then Selma, Alabama. When Selma, Alabama was captured by the Union army Major Bonneau managed to escape, leaving everything behind. After the close of the war Maj. Bonneau and his wife came to Philadelphia where he entered into the mercantile business with his father-in-law, John Kiehl. In his later life, Maj. Bonneau became a teacher and speaker in the Church of Christ. He died from influenza on 27 January 1899 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and his wife, died about 2 years later.

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