Juan Mackenna

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Brigadier Juan MacKenna (October 1771 - November 21, 1814) was an Irishman, Chilean military officer and hero of the Chilean War of Independence. He is considered to have been the creator of the Corps of Military Engineers of the Chilean Army.

He was born John MacKenna (or Seán Mac Cionath in Gaelic) in Clogher, Co. Tyrone, Ireland, the son of William MacKenna and Eleanor O'Reilly and, on his mother side, a nephew to Count Alejandro O'Reilly. The Count took an interest and sent him to Spain where he trained in the Royal Military Academy as a Military Engineer between 1785 and 1791. After taking part in the campaigns against the French in 1793, he moved to the Spanish America, where he contacted Ambrose O'Higgins, another Irishman, at that time Viceroy of Perú, who named him Governor of Osorno and put him in charge of the reconstruction works for this southern Chilean town.

In 1809 he married Josefa Vicuña Larraín, with whom he had three children: María del Carmen Dolores, Juan Francisco María del Tránsito and Félix.

After the Declaration of Chilean Independence in 1810, he adhered to the Patriot side and was commissioned by the first Chilean government to prepare a plan for the defense of the country and oversee the equipment of the new Chilean Army. At this juncture he trained the first military engineers for the new army.

He was a firm ally of Bernardo O'Higgins, and because of that he was exiled to Argentina by José Miguel Carrera in 1814, when Carrera took over power. He died in Buenos Aires in later 1814, after a duel with Luis Carrera.

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