The Daily Blogster

Signatories:

The Daily Blogster has a fine post [UPDATE: Or not so fine; see Eric's comments] today on the fates of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. I would like to speak to one part of it: it is sadly incomplete in its account of the fate of Button Gwinnett.

The first part of the tale is told well by the Florida National Guard. You must understand, however, that Florida was on the other side in the Revolution -- and the ancestors of the Florida National Guard were fierce loyalists.

Now it was the turn of the Rebels to invade Florida. Lachlan McIntosh and Button Gwinnett (the latter a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence) organized an invasion force of several thousand soldiers and in the spring of 1777 set out for Florida. Browne’s Rangers and Indians worried about the flanks of the invading army while ships and boats of the Royal Navy denied them use of coastal waterways and rivers. Most of the invading army, once crossed into Florida, spent its time ravaging frontier homesteads and settlements. One portion of the Rebel army was dispatched to loot the British settlements on Amelia Island. Another detachment, 109 Georgia militiamen under Colonel John Baker, while waiting for the main army to catch up, advanced against what it thought to be a small band of disorganized East Florida Rangers. In fact, this was a "Judas Goat" detachment which lured the Rebels into an ambush. Three columns of 100 men each, containing British Regulars, Rangers, and Indians, converged on Baker’s small force. The Rebels were soundly defeated.

Button Gwinnett was the son of a minister who had chosen to make his way in politics instead of religion. A charming fellow, so we are told, he was a successful figure in early Revolutionary politics, which is why he was sent by Georgia's legislature to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Lachlan McIntosh was a relative of John Mohr (gael. "the Great") McIntosh, a hero of an earlier Jacobite uprising. John McIntosh was brought to Georgia by the founder of the colony, Sir James Edward Oglethorpe, a soldier, engineer, and philanthropist whose main design for the colony had been to provide a second chance for 'the worthy poor,' providing them with land and hope instead of the threat of debt prisons. Oglethorpe also had a kind spot in his heart for the Scots, who had fought valiantly for their ancestral king and were now being run off the land. He offered a place to the McIntosh clan, on the Altamaha river where they could serve as a buffer between Savannah and the Spanish settlements in Florida. Oglethorpe and John McIntosh, with their Coastal Rangers, fought and won the famous battle of Bloody Marsh, which defeated Spanish attempts to move against the British colonies from the south. They also established the Highland Mountain Rangers, which continues to exist today as part of the Georgia National Guard.

("Highland Mountain" sounds redundant to American ears, but it is proper in the British military system of the day. "Highland" denoted a force made up primarily of Scottish Highlanders; "Mountain," a force trained or intended primarily for mountain fighting. "Rangers" were a force of mounted infantry assigned to patrol a wilderness or frontier.)

Lachlan McIntosh came from this militant, "Scottish-American" tradition. His family had been brought to America to fight for Georgia, and he fought for her. On the other hand, his family had come to Georgia first because they'd fought against the German fellow occupying the British throne, and when the chance came to do so again, the McIntoshes were only too happy to become revolutionaries. Lachlan later served with George Washington at Valley Forge, and was so treasued by Washington in those difficult days that Washington personally saw to his promotion and, after Valley Forge, gave over command of an important part of the Western frontier to McIntosh. The mission was to open the Ohio river valley by negotiating from the local indians the right to open a string of forts. This mission was also a success, and it paved the way for the great expansion West that came after the Revolution.

Both he and Gwinnett were proud men, and their cooperation on the Florida invasion was sorely tested by the fact that each wished to be in charge. McIntosh was an officer of the Continental forces, but Gwinnett won overall control through his political popularity. Then, when the mission turned into a disaster, sought to blame McIntosh for the failure. McIntosh in turn detested Gwinnett's use of political charm instead of merit, and was sorely offended when he found himself being given the blame for failure when he had been denied the command. In truth, both men were to blame: Gwinnett most of all, for putting himself forward to command when he had no military experience, and McIntosh, for refusing to cooperate with him or even to bring his officers to attend Gwinnett's councils of war. It was this combined failure of leadership that led to the disaster in Florida.

The last part of the debacle came when McIntosh decided to move his forces deeper into Florida to strike at enemy bases, and Gwinnett refused to come. So, McIntosh took just the official Continental Army forces, leaving the Georgia militia under Gwinnett's command. But Gwinnett refused to turn over any of the supplies to which McIntosh's forces were entitled, meaning that the expedition had no food and little ammunition. Unable to carry on with no logistical support, McIntosh returned to Savannah with a heart full of wrath.

On the floor of the Georgia legislature, he testified as to what had happened, and called Button Gwinnett "a Scoundrel and a Lying Rascal."

Two weeks later, Gwinnett challenged McIntosh to a duel. They exchanged fire on the morning of 16 May 1777, not even a year after Gwinnett's signature was applied to the Declaration of Independence. McIntosh took a wound in the leg, and Gwinnett was also hit. Both men fell, but McIntosh got back up and offered to exchange another shot. Gwinnett could not rise: his hip was shattered by the bullet, and he died of his wound three days later.

As mentioned, McIntosh was later sent to serve with George Washington, in part because his shooting of a popular politician made it hard for him to remain effective in Georgia. After his success in the West, he returned to fight in the second battle of Savannah, at which he was wounded and captured by the British. He survived his captivity, however, and after the war was made the master of the port of Savannah. He and Washington met once again when Washington came to tour Savannah in 1791. The President brought new cannons as a gift to reinforce the port's defenses, and these "Washington Guns" are still on display on Bay Street, just by the Savannah government house.