Christopher Gadsden, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1724, was
sent to England at an early age to receive his education. Returning to
America in 1741, he was placed in a Philadelphia counting-house, where
he acquired methodical and strict business habits. Upon attaining his
majority, he revisited England. Returning in a man-of-war, and the
purser dying suddenly, the position was offered to him. He accepted the
appointment, remained in the navy two years, and resigned to engage
in commercial life on his own account in Philadelphia. Such was his
success that he was soon able to buy back the estate in South Carolina
which his father had lost in 1733 at play with Admiral Lord Anson.
Leaving the North, he took up his residence in the South as a planter,
and finally became a factor.
In 1759, when the outrages perpetrated by the Cherokee Indians called
for vigorous measures, Gadsden joined the expedition under Governor
Lyttleton, organized an artillery company, and introduced the first
piece of field ordnance into the colony. Thoroughly republican in
his political views, and with a mind capable of looking far ahead for
the results of present measures, he was the first to anticipate the
struggle that would surely be the outcome of Great Britain’s oppressive
policy toward her American colonies. In 1765, when the project of
the general Congress in this country was conceived, he was one of
the first and most active members. In 1775, he resigned his seat to
accept the appointment of colonel in the First South Carolina Regiment.
On the 16th of September, 1776, Congress raised him to the rank of
brigadier-general. The brilliant victory at Fort Moultrie secured to
his native State for several years an immunity from the perils and
hardships of war, and he resigned his commission on the 2d of October,
1777.
With the cessation of military duties, Gadsden resumed his legislative
cares; and being Lieutenant-Governor of South Carolina at the time
of General Lincoln’s surrender of Charleston, he was seized with
twenty-eight others and taken in a prison-ship to St. Augustine,
Florida. Here he was kept in the castle dungeon for ten months; but
beguiling the time by the study of Hebrew, he emerged from captivity a
much more learned man than when he entered it. The success of Greene in
the South brought him release in 1781. Upon returning to South Carolina
he was at once elected to the Assembly, and soon after chosen governor.
The latter honor he declined, declaring the “State needed a man in the
vigor and prime of life.” At the close of the war he retired to private
life; but from time to time and on more than one occasion he continued
to take part in public affairs. He died in his native city on the 28th
of August, 1805, from the results of a fall.
LACHLAN McINTOSH.
Lachlan McIntosh, born near Inverness, Scotland, on the 17th of
March, 1727, emigrated with his family to America in 1736 and settled
in Georgia. His early education was but limited, and at the age of
seventeen, being thrown upon his own resources by the death of his
father, he removed to Charleston, South Carolina, and entered a
counting-house as clerk. After several years, however, he adopted the
calling of land surveyor, married, and returned to Georgia, employing
his spare time in the study of civil engineering and military tactics.
Having gained the confidence and esteem of his fellow-citizens, when
hostilities began with Great Britain he was made colonel-commander
of the Georgia troops, and on the 16th of September, 1776, promoted
by Congress to be brigadier-general. In 1777, he was employed for
a considerable time in watching the motions of General Howe in
Philadelphia. In 1778, he headed an expedition against the Indian
tribes along the Ohio, and succeeded in giving repose to all western
Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1779, he joined General Lincoln in
the invasion of Georgia, which proving unsuccessful, the Americans
retreated to Charleston, South Carolina, where they were besieged and
obliged to surrender on the 12th of May, 1780.
General McIntosh was held a prisoner for a long period, and when he
was released, the war was practically over. On the 30th of September,
1783, he became major-general by brevet, and retired to his home in
Georgia. In 1784, he served as member of Congress, and the next year as
a commissioner to treat with the Southern Indians. The war, however,
depreciated the value of his real estate, so that his latter years were
passed in comparative poverty and retirement. He died in Savannah on
the 20th of February, 1806, in the seventy-ninth year of his age.