^Alexandre Dumas was made brigadier general (the entry-level rank for generals in the French military hierarchy) of the French Army of the West on 30 July 1793, general of division one month later, and general-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees. Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), 145 and 147. The next black people to make brigadier general in the French military were Toussaint Louverture, André Rigaud, and Louis-Jacques Beauvais, all promoted to that rank on 23 July 1795. Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 119. Note: Alexandre Dumas was the first French general of African descent, and was of mixed race; Louverture was the first French general of purely African descent. The assertion that Louverture was "the first black general in French history" is true if mixed-race men are not considered in this category, or if Dumas is overlooked. The claim has been made by Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture: Un révolutionnaire d'Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 554, quoted in Daniel Desormeaux, Deborah Jenson and Molly Krueger Enz, "The First of the (Black) Memorialists: Toussaint Louverture", Yale French Studies no: 107 (2005), 138.
^Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 144.