Antoine Digonet
| Antoine Digonet | |
|---|---|
| Born |
23 January 1763 Crest, Drôme, France |
| Died |
17 March 1811 (aged 48) Modena, Italy |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of France France
|
| Service/branch | Infantry |
| Years of service | 1779–1811 |
| Rank | General of Brigade |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | Légion d'Honneur, CC, 1804 |
Antoine Digonet (23 January 1763 – 17 March 1811) commanded a French brigade during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. He joined the French Royal Army and fought in the American Revolutionary War as a foot soldier. In 1792 he was appointed officer of a volunteer battalion. He fought the Spanish in the War of the Pyrenees and was promoted to general officer. Later he was transferred to fight French royalists in the War in the Vendée. In 1800 he was assigned to the Army of the Rhine and led a brigade at , Messkirch and Biberach. Shortly after, he was transferred to Italy. In 1805 he fought under André Masséna at Caldiero. He participated in the 1806 Invasion of Naples and led his troops against the British at Maida where his brigade put up a sturdy resistance. After briefly serving in the 1809 war, he took command of Modena and died there of illness in 1811. He never married.
On 23 January 1763 Digonet was born at Crest, a town in what later became the Drôme department in southeastern France. Son of surgeon Joseph Digonet, he was sent to study medicine at Montpellier. He soon quit school, enlisted in the Île-de-France Regiment when he was 16 years old and was shipped off to America in the army of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau. He was wounded in the leg during the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. Continuing in the service, he advanced in rank to corporal in January 1787, sergeant in October 1789 and finally to sergeant major in 1792.
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