Lachlan McIntosh

Lachlan McIntosh (1725-1806) An American military and political leader during the American Revolution and the early republic.

McIntosh was born near Raits, Badenoch, Scotland on March 17, 1725. McIntosh’s father, John Mohr McIntosh, moved the family to Georgia in 1736 with a group of Scottish settlers founding the town of Inverness (now Darien, Georgia). Georgia was a highly militarized colony and clashes with neighboring Spanish Florida and its fortress city of St. Augustine were common. It one of these clashes in 1740, Lachlan’s father was captured by the Spanish and held prisoner for two years. The elder McIntosh was eventually released, but his heath had deteriorated during his captivity and he died a few years later.

Lachlan was sent to the Bethesda orphanage in Savannah under the care of famous evangelist George Whitefield. He spent two years at the orphanage before traveling to Fort Frederica to serve as a military cadet. During this time, the Jacobite Rebellion broke out in Scotland. Lachlan and his brother William planned to travel to Scotland and join the rebellion, but General James Oglethorpe, who had become a friend and mentor to the young Lachlan, convinced them not to become involved in the doomed uprising.

In 1748, Lachlan moved to Charlestown (Charleston, South Carolina) and took a position as a clerk for Henry Laurens, a wealthy merchant, who would become a lifelong friend and mentor. In 1756 he married Sarah Threadcraft. He soon returned to Georgia where he studied surveying and acquired land in the Altamaha River delta and became a prosperous rice planter.

By 1770, McIntosh had become a leader in the independence movement in Georgia. In January 1775 he helped organize delegates to the Provincial Congress from the Darien District of St. Andrew Parish. On January 7, 1776, McIntosh was commissioned a colonel in the Georgia Militia. He organized the defense of Savannah and repelled a British assault at the Battle of the Rice Boats in the Savannah River. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Continental army, charged with defense of Georgia's southern flank from British incursions from Florida, by then a British possession. On October 22, 1776, McIntosh ordered his brother William to construct a fort on the Satilla River to protect Georgia from Florida. The fort was the first to be named Fort McIntosh.

During the period of 1776 to 1777, McIntosh became embroiled in a bitter political dispute with Button Gwinnett, the Speaker of the Georgia Provisional Congress and a radical Whig leader. Their bitter personal rivalry began when the more moderate McIntosh succeeded Gwinnett as commander of Georgia’s Continental Battalion in early 1776. Gwinnett had been forced to step aside after his election had been called into question by opposing forces within the independence movement. Gwinnett, thwarted in his military ambitions, became a delegate to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He returned to Georgia after his allied gained control of the Provisional Congress and succeeded in electing him speaker. Shortly afterward, he was elected president and commander-in-chief of the Committee of Safety.

Gwinnett began purging the government and military of his political rivals. One of the early targets of Gwinnett’s wrath was Lachlan’s brother George, who had opposed Gwinnett’s election. George was arrested and charged with treason against the revolution. In addition, Gwinnett had ordered McIntosh to lead a poorly supported military expedition into British Florida. The operation was a disaster and Gwinnett blamed McIntosh for the failure. McIntosh publicly criticized the expedition as ill planned and politically motivated.

On May 1, 1777, Laughlan McIntosh addressed the Georgia assembly denouncing Gwinnett in the harshest terms calling him a "scoundrel and lying rascal." Gwinnett called on McIntosh and demanded an apology or satisfaction. McIntosh refused to apologize and Gwinnett challenged him to a duel.

On May 16, 1777, in a field owned by James Wright a few miles east of Savannah, Gwinnett and McIntosh met to duel with pistols. At a distance of 12 paces, the two men leveled and fired. Gwinnett received a ball to the hip and McIntosh was struck in the leg. McIntosh would recover from his wounds, but Gwinnett’s wound was mortal and he died three days later.

Gwinnett’s allies had McIntosh charged with murder, but he was acquitted in the ensuing trial. George Washington, fearing Gwinnett’s allies would take revenge on McIntosh, ordered him to report to Continental Army headquarters on October 10, 1777. He spent the winter of 1777-1778 with the Continental Army at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where he commanded several regiments of North Carolina troops.

On May 26, 1778, McIntosh was given command of the Western Department of the Continental army, headquartered at Fort Pitt (present Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) on the Pennsylvania frontier. He restored order along the Pennsylvania frontier and conceded of a plan to attach the British stronghold of Fort Detroit. He established several new forts including Fort Laurens, named for his friend and mentor Henry Laurens, who had become President of the Continental Congress, and Fort McIntosh (Beaver, Pennsylvania). The expedition against Fort Detroit was doomed however, and the troops were forced to turn back before reaching the fort.

McIntosh was replaced as commander of the Western Department by Colonel Daniel Brodhead on March 5, 1779. Washington ordered McIntosh to return to the south to join General Benjamin Lincoln in Charleston, South Carolina. He marched to Augusta in command of the Georgia troops, and then proceeded to Savannah, where he commanded the 1st and 5th South Carolina regiments during the siege of Savannah.

After the battle, He retired his troops to Charleston where he remained to defend the city from the British Army. On May 12, 1780 General Lincoln was forced to surrender the city to British General Sir Henry Clinton. McIntosh was taken prisoner and remained in captivity until he was exchanged on February 9, 1782.

McIntosh returned to his plantation to find it ruined by the occupying British. McIntosh tried to restore his property and business interest, but he would spend the rest of his life in relative poverty. He was elected to Congress in 1784 and in 1785, he was appointed a commissioner to treat with the southern American Indian tribes. In 1787, he was asked to help settle a boundary dispute between Georgia and South Carolina. In 1791, he was part of the delegation that officially greeted President George Washington to Georgia.

McIntosh died in Savannah on February 20, 1806. The state of Georgia named McIntosh County in his honor.