Adam Ludvig Lewenhaupt

Lewenhaupt, Adam Ludvig 

Born April 1659; died Feb. 12, 1719, in Moscow. Count; Swedish military commander; lieutenant general (1706).

Lewenhaupt served in the armies of several European states and then in the Swedish Army. A regimental commander at the beginning of the Northern War of 1700–21, he was governor-general of Lyfland and Courland in 1706. In 1708, King Charles XII ordered him to prepare an army in the Baltic region and to set out to make contact with the main Swedish forces near Mogilev. As Lewenhaupt moved toward Lesnaia, he was defeated by the Russian troops on Sept. 28 (Oct. 9), 1708. In the battle of Poltava of 1709 he commanded the infantry and organized the retreat of the remnants of the Swedes toward Perevolochna, where Charles XII placed him in command. Convinced that the situation of the Swedes was hopeless, Lewenhaupt capitulated on June 30 (July 11), 1709. A captive from 1709 to 1719, he was head of the Swedish prisoners-of-war administration. After Charles XII’s death, Queen Ulrika Eleonora appointed Lewenhaupt a minister, but he died on his way to Sweden. He left behind his memoirs.