“Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”—Hebrews 3:6

Profiles of 1776 | Arthur Middleton

outh Carolina produced many glittering names in the founding generation, but few embodied the colony’s contradictions as completely as Arthur Middleton. Heir to one of the richest rice plantations on the Ashley River, educated in the finest English schools, and the son of Henry Middleton—who had served as president of the First Continental Congress—Arthur might have been expected to follow his father’s more cautious path. Instead, he became one of the most ardent, even ruthless, of the Carolina patriots.

Born in 1742 at Middleton Place, Arthur was sent to England at the age of twelve, where he excelled in his studies at Westminster and Cambridge. Not relying upon his wealth for occupation, he was called to the bar and practiced law at the Middle Temple in London. He then married Miss Mary Izard in a love match, one that produced eight children.

Middle Temple Hall, London, England

The couple honeymooned in Europe, enjoying a shared love of history and classics, and took the occasion to be painted together by the great Sir Benjamin West. By that point the marriage had produced a child, and baby Middleton was included in the lavish portrait. This inclusion is touching, considering that West’s painting became the only contemporary portrait of Middleton remaining to us, and is symbolic of his remarked-upon devotion to family—a noble characteristic that was used quite cruelly against him in the future War for Independence.

Arthur Middleton, his wife Mary, and their infant son Henry, 1771

The young Middletons returned from their foreign sojourns in 1771, taking up residence at their vast rural plantation, Middleton Place, and seemingly destined for the placid life of the gentry. Yet soon, a sharper edge than his European upbringing had promised became apparent in young Arthur. He began to write periodicals under the pseudonym of Andrew Marvell—borrowed from the famous 17th-century English poet, satirist and assistant to Oliver Cromwell. These writings were ferociously antagonistic to British overreach and were set forth with the meticulousness of a scholar, thus bringing Arthur into the ranks of those defenders of English law who found commonality in past struggles against tyranny.

When the crisis with Britain deepened, Arthur emerged as a leader of the most extreme Whig faction in South Carolina. He supported the intimidation of crown officials with tar-and-featherings, and argued for the confiscation of Loyalist estates. He most wisely organized raids on royal armories, getting hold of the public store of arms before any of the royal appointees, including the governor, could do the same. All of this before 1776, and at the beginning of that year he sat on the Council of Safety that effectively governed the colony without royal approval. In this capacity he helped draft South Carolina’s first constitution and, when his father, Henry Middleton, declined to continue his appointment in the Continental Congress, Arthur took his place.

Henry Middleton (1717-1784), Arthur’s father

The Carolina delegates made an impact in Congress, marked for their flamboyance and vicious tempers more than anything else. What little record we have consists of John Adams marking Middleton to be more ferocious than his fellows, while John Hancock remarked admiringly upon his fine clothes.

Initially South Carolina refused to vote for separation, providing no end of grief for those delegates seeking unanimity. It seemed there was no lack of hatred for Britain in them, but they did not feel compelled to cast their lot in with the other twelve colonies. Indeed, while deliberations for declaring independence were underway in June of 1776, South Carolina’s militia had rebuffed a significant British invasion at Sullivan’s Island in the harbor of Charleston. This seemed to suggest her ability to handle her own affairs should it come to outright war.

Edward Rutledge, brother to the governor and leader of the South Carolina delegation in Congress, pressed further for a solidified confederation and an assurance of foreign alliances before committing to wholesale treason. But, after nine colonies voted for independence in the first vote held on July 1, Rutledge asked for another to be held the next day. Thus on July 2nd, South Carolina and Rhode Island tipped the scales, with New York’s abstention, and the die was cast.

Middleton’s signature

Three fellow South Carolinians affixed their names alongside Arthur’s, providing with their vote the crucial sway of America’s most prestigious colony. Of the four, three of these men would suffer imprisonment before the war was won. At age thirty-four, Arthur was the senior delegate.

He wrote exultingly (but in a poetic code) to his colleague William Henry Drayton from Philadelphia, “the plant which you have been nursing has thriven amazingly, its roots have reach’d this place & sprung up in full vigour…”

Middleton continued on as a member of Congress until the close of 1777, uprooting his young family so they might be with him in Philadelphia. He then returned to South Carolina to help manage his parents’ estates and defend his colony, as in the final years of the war the southern colonies took center stage.

War in the Carolinas became typified by a special sort of savagery not previously indulged in by either side. There were many factors for that, including the protracted nature of the war and the growing desperation for a decisive action. Added to that was the threat of slave revolts, the hampering of a weak government, and the change of tactics to those of guerrilla warfare and brutal reprisal. The Carolinas had far greater divided loyalties than any other region, creating a civil war inside the war. Those loyalists whom Arthur Middleton had in the early days eyed with suspicion, and whose disenfranchisement he had advocated, proved lethal in their support of the crown. Neighbors betrayed neighbors, entire congregations were decimated, plantations ransacked and the horrors of war brought fully to the doorstep of ordinary citizens.

Charleston was put under siege by the British in 1780 and Arthur Middleton, as a member of the militia, went there to serve in its defense. The forces arrayed against the patriots overwhelmed them, and finally on May 12, 1780, the American defenders of Charleston surrendered.

It was a devastating loss both strategically and for morale; the British took over 5,500 able-bodied American men as prisoners, including the highly targeted signers of the Declaration of Independence: Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge, and Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Edward Rutledge (1749-1800)

Thomas Heyward Jr. (1746-1809)

Middleton and the other captives were sent by sea to St. Augustine, Florida, still under British control, where he was kept in the Castillo de San Marcos under cruel and harsh confinement for fourteen long months. While he languished there, the British paid his defenseless family a visit.

Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida

Arthur Middleton’s family barely escaped with their lives by fleeing to the countryside during repeated raids on their plantation. When they returned, it was to find all portable valuables carried off. Those priceless effects too heavy to move were vandalized. Bureaus had axes taken to them, every painting not looted had its canvas slashed through with knives, and in typical fashion, the crops had been burned. Worse than all that, the British carried off over 200 of Middleton’s slaves, which they then sold in the British West Indies.

The surviving south wing of Middleton Place, Dorchester County, South Carolina—the main house once stood in the gap in the treeline

Due to this intentional impoverishment, being left no means to feed her children and remaining slaves, Mary Middleton was forced to ask for help from the British authorities. According to her account, they behaved decently enough when she name-dropped her loyalist relations, but it was a humiliation that Arthur Middleton would never forgive them for.

Upon his release, Arthur returned to Congress, elected in the certainty he would promote a newly independent South Carolina’s interests. There, with characteristic intensity, Arthur argued that Lord Cornwallis should be executed and not paroled, citing the war crimes he had allowed. Cornwallis would eventually be exchanged in a prisoner swap for fellow South Carolinian—Middleton’s friend and mentor, President Henry Laurens.

Middleton would later serve in the state legislature and as a trustee of the College of Charleston, but his priority in the postwar years became his family and the rebuilding of his estates. He became famous for his generous hospitality and, in an act of a much-tempered man, advocated for his loyalist neighbors to be able to retain their property in the new nation.

Arthur Middleton did not live long to enjoy the peace and civil liberty he had sacrificed so much to ensure: weakened by imprisonment, he died of fever on New Year’s Day 1787, only six years after being released from captivity. He was just forty-four years old, and left behind his wife Mary and their eight children; two sons, and six daughters.

Tomb of Arthur Middleton at Middleton Place, Dorchester County, South Carolina

He was buried in the family tomb in the Gardens at Middleton Place. The South-Carolina Gazette remembered him as “A complete philanthropist, but the firmest of patriots; cool, steady, and unmoved, at the general wreck of property and fortune, as far as he was personally concerned, but with a heart melting for the sufferings and woes of others. Accomplished in letters, in the sciences, and fine arts; a model of private worth and public virtue; a good citizen. A good father, and an exemplary husband.”

Arthur Middleton had inherited a great name and a great estate, risked both, endured imprisonment, and left behind a signature that still binds his state to the glorious cause of 1776. His children, being his most lasting legacy, would all hold honored positions in their newly free country and contribute to South Carolina’s luster.

Image Credits: 1 Middle Temple (wikipedia.org) 2 Family Portrait (wikipedia.org) 3 Henry Middleton (wikipedia.org) 4 Signature (wikipedia.org) 5 Edward Rutledge (wikipedia.org) 6 Thomas Heyward (wikipedia.org) 7 Castillo de San Marcos (wikipedia.org) 8 Middleton Place (wikipedia.org) 9 Tomb (wikipedia.org)

Profiles of 1776 | William Moultrie

outh Carolina—that most glamorous, contradictory, diverse of American colonies—was considered to be the emotional leader of the southern colonies during the founding years. Not even grand old Virginia could fully persuade the southern bloc to break away from England without South Carolina’s influence, and for years she remained the most fickle of compatriots.

“All our misfortunes arise from a single source, the reluctance of the Southern Colonies to republican government,” John Adams bemoaned in the spring of 1776, as he strove in vain to get a confirmation from their delegates of their commitment to independence. South Carolina was not afraid of a fight—she’d been having heated altercations of her own with the British for the past decade—but her own interests remained paramount and aloof from all the others.

And then, in June of 1776, Providence intervened, sending a much-needed initiative under the cloak of calamity. Less than a whole month before the Declaration of Independence needed a unanimous vote of ratification, British warships sailed into Charleston harbor, bringing the conflict home. Suddenly the war, the military occupation, the brutalities they had been hearing about from afar and protesting valiantly with remonstrances and resolves, were at their front door. The effect on the legislature and delegates to Congress was irreversible and all to the benefit of total separation. This was all very well and good, yet the matter of defending Charleston from the British remained.

William Moultrie (1730-1805)

One South Carolinian came to the forefront then, Colonel William Moultrie. A veteran of the Cherokee Wars, owner of a rice plantation, deputy to both the First and Second South Carolina Provincial Congresses, he was also a member of the First South Carolina General Assembly after the adoption of the state constitution. In each capacity he proved himself an early and ardent supporter of the cause of independence.

Knowing that the British would try to send their fleet to seize Charleston, the largest and most important port in the South, and aware that upon their arrival they would incite the local loyalists and slaves to rise up against the patriots, William Moultrie took it upon himself to oversee the building of a fortification. He chose to build it on Sullivan’s Island, which guarded the main ship channel into Charleston Harbor and afforded an excellent strategic advantage.

A British engineer’s map showing the location of Sullivan’s Island in relationship to the mainland, with a closeup of the fort design, circa 1776

At the same time, the loyalist population of the Carolinas rose up against their patriot neighbors without British backup, but were summarily defeated, the news of which gave great pause to the incoming British fleet. Commodore Peter Parker and General Henry Clinton debated whether they should continue their attempt at all, but having heard reports that the fort on Sullivan’s Island was incomplete, they dared an attack.

General Charles Lee, second-in-command of the Continental Army after Washington, arrived in Charleston to take command of the defense around the same time as the British. After observing the incomplete defenses made on Sullivan’s Island by the local militia, General Lee pronounced it no better than a “slaughter pen,” and ordered it abandoned. This would leave Charleston’s harbor largely defenseless, a choice that Governor Rutledge and Colonel Moultrie profoundly objected to.

Rutledge privately wrote to Moultrie: “General Lee wishes you to evacuate the fort. You will not without an order from me. And I will sooner cut off my hand than write one.” And so, Colonel Moultrie went against his superior officer’s wishes and with his 2nd South Carolina regiment took up position at the mouth of Charleston harbor, in the ramshackle fort that they had built.

The fort was a square structure capable of accommodating about a thousand men. It was made of local palmetto logs, two rows joined sixteen feet apart, with the space between them filled with sand, and it rose ten feet in height. Large bastions protruded from each corner and the walls bristled with thirty-one cannon, ranging from nine to twenty-six pounders.

Charleston and Sullivan’s Island from the perspective of the British flotilla

When Lee suggested to Moultrie that the British fleet would “knock the fort about your ears in half an hour,” Moultrie replied with great coolness, “Then we will fight them behind the ruins, and still prevent their landing.” Moultrie’s men were, of course, not the only defenders. Defending the northern end of Sullivan’s Island against possible British attack were another eight hundred men, including thirty allied Catawba men, dug in with two cannons under Colonel William “Old Danger” Thomson.

On June 8, 1776, the British regulars landed on nearby Long Island (today’s Isle of Palms) with a plan to wade across Breach Inlet at low tide and attack the fort from the rear, while the warships bombarded it from the harbor side. Delays caused by weather, the difficulty of getting heavy ships over the Charleston Bar, and faulty intelligence about the depths of the channels postponed the attack.

It was on the morning of June 28, a day that would become famous in Carolina history, that the British finally launched the combined assault of naval forces under Parker and land forces under Clinton that would become the Battle of Fort Sullivan. The massive British fleet, consisting of nine heavily armed ships, bombarded Fort Sullivan for a total of ten hours, disproving General Lee’s contemptuous prediction that the British would pay the defenders no mind and go straight for the city. General Lee had deprived the little fort of much-needed supplies, including ammunition, but this only made Moultrie’s artillery aim more carefully and deliberately. Moultrie cautioned them: “Do not make too free with your cannon. Stay cool and do mischief.”

The attack of June 28, 1776, as seen from inside the fort

The patriots had one great advantage: the palmetto logs with which they had constructed the fort were naturally pliable, and along with their sandy filling, they absorbed the cannon balls like sponges, thwarting much of the intended effects of the bombardment.

As a result, the British fleet endured tremendous losses while the patriots’ greatest liability was their depleted ammunition stores. It was Francis Marion—later known as the famed “Swamp Fox”—who fixed this, managing to slip in with additional supplies borrowed from the city’s defenses. With this the defenders were able to renew their attack on the fleet and the new ground invasion coming their way.

Francis Marion (c. 1732-1795)

The ferocious battle would last until nine o’clock in the evening, and the new supplies of ammunition only added greater fervor to the engagement. A Charleston loyalist who had joined the British and served in the flotilla said that “it was impossible for any set of men to sustain so destructive a fire as the Americans poured in.”

It is recorded that during this battle the blue and silver crescent flag of Carolina—originally designed and flown by Moultrie himself ten years prior during an altercation with the crown—was shot down, and a Sergeant William Jasper immediately leapt upon the beach, and during the hottest fire from the fight, recovered it. He reascended the bulwark and deliberately restored it to its place. Even the British foe let loose an eruption of applause for this display of astounding bravery.

Sergeant William Jasper retrieving the standard, to the applause of all on-lookers

After ten hours of this vicious firefight, the Carolinians defending Fort Sullivan succeeded in thwarting Clinton’s land attack and repelling Parker’s flotilla, causing them to retreat and cut their anchor lines to get away. The British suffered over 200 casualties (killed and wounded) and multiple damaged ships, while American losses were very light at 12 killed and 25 wounded.

This battle was the first outright victory of the war, not the running skirmish as at Concord nor bloodbath of Bunker Hill. Instead, the defense of Fort Sullivan was exactly the sort of unequivocal triumph the hesitant Continental Congress had been yearning for. Six days after this battle the Congress declared the United Colonies to be free and independent states. The signers for South Carolina were Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Thomas Lynch, and Arthur Middleton.

Moultrie’s brave stand kept Charleston out of British hands until it finally fell in late 1780, which would result in the capture and cruel imprisonment of three of the Carolina signers and Colonel Moultrie himself. From the prison ship which held him he would write with typical fortitude, “The hardships I have gone through, I look back upon with the greatest pleasure and honor to myself. I shall continue to go on as I have begun, that my example may encourage the youths of America to stand forth in the defense of their rights and liberties.”

Grave of Moultrie, at the fort on Sullivan’s Island that now bears his name

Fort Moultrie in 1861

Image Credits: 1 William Moultrie (wikipedia.org) 2 Map (wikipedia.org) 3 Flotilla (wikipedia.org) 4 Battle (wikipedia.org) 5 Francis Marion (wikipedia.org) 6 Jasper retrieving the standard (wikipedia.org) 7 Moultrie’s grave (wikipedia.org) 8 Ft. Moultrie in 1861 (wikipedia.org)

Profiles of 1776 | Thomas Paine

consummate “atrocity propagandist,” no single individual influenced American perceptions to a greater degree in the year 1776 than English-born essayist Thomas Paine. In January of that revolutionary year he put forth his polarizing pamphlet Common Sense, and he closed out December with the succinct The American Crisis—both of which would go down in history as integral expressions of the spirit of resistance.

Thomas Paine, c. 1785-95

Common Sense was forty pages long and sold 100,000 copies in three months to the roughly two million residents of the thirteen colonies. By July 1776 it was in nearly everyone’s pocket, and even General Washington had given it his stamp of approval. Titled so as to appeal to those whose sentiments it aligned with—and terribly galling to those who found it unpersuasive—many would later say it catalyzed the public calls for independence that reached their fruition six months later in the Declaration.

It began thus:

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

The title page of a 1776 copy of Paine’s Common Sense

Thomas Paine himself came from a most unexpected quarter. He had immigrated to the colonies from the mother country just two years before the Revolution at the behest of Benjamin Franklin. He had failed at multiple trades in England, been repeatedly dismissed for neglecting his post as a tax collector, and nearly gone to debtors’ prison. In such a low state he came to America and there found his talents better suited as the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine.

Before Paine’s arrival in America, sixteen magazines had been founded in the colonies and all of them had failed, each depending upon content and reprints from England. But in late 1774, Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken announced his plan to create what he called an “American Magazine” with content derived solely from the colonies. For its inaugural edition in January 1775, Paine jumped at the chance to contribute two articles. Aitken was so impressed that he hired him as editor right away.

Although Aitken had initially conceived of the magazine as apolitical, Paine’s ability to produce compelling and well-received content without relying on England convinced him to give his new editor free rein. Paine, ever attuned to popular sentiment, had tasted the brewing resistance right away and was soon rejoicing quite verbosely that “every heart and hand seem to be engaged in the interesting struggle for American Liberty.”

Robert Aitken (1734–1802)

Paine used this platform to rail not only against British overreach but also against slavery, workers’ rights, and early issues of what would now be called social justice. He wrote of his hopes that the Pennsylvania Magazine would, under his guidance, become a “nursery of genius.” It certainly gained him many new friends prominent in the liberty movement, including future signer of the Declaration Dr. Benjamin Rush, who helped him come up with the title of his most influential work, Common Sense.

About the impact of Common Sense, historian Paul Johnson observed:

“The first year of hostilities in America had furnished many actual instances, and many more myths, of brutal conduct by British or mercenary soldiers. Entire towns, like Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) and Norfolk, had been burned by the British. Women, even children, had been killed in the inevitable bloody chaos of conflict. Paine preyed on these incidents: his argument was that any true-blooded American who was not revolted by them, and prepared to fight in consequence, had ‘the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.’ Crude though this approach was, it went home. Paine cut right through the half-and-half arguments in favor of negotiations and a settlement under British sovereignty. He wanted complete independence as the only possible outcome. Nor did he try to make a distinction, as Congress still did, between a wicked parliament and a benign sovereign. He called George III ‘the royal brute.’”

Not all Americans were so inspired by this piece, and not all would eulogize it as the founding document it is now remembered as. For his part, founding father John Adams initially described it as “a crapulous mass” and took exception to the type of radical democracy it promoted, but then begrudgingly admitted, “Without the pen of the author of ‘Common Sense,’ the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” Meanwhile, George Washington himself praised it, writing that “I find Common Sense is working a powerful change in the minds of many men” in favor of independence.

An inscription on the reverse of a Sherman Copy of a Declaration of Independence draft reads: “A beginning perhaps—original with Jefferson—Copied from original with T.P.’s permission”

A powerful change that none relied upon so heavily as General Washington himself, whose militia army was entirely composed of volunteers with expiring terms of enlistment. For its effect alone in stirring the placid businessmen of Pennsylvania and the far-removed planters of Virginia to exert themselves in the struggle—to enlist, to persevere, to find commonality—Common Sense and its controversial author were unquestionably used by Providence in a very specific way and at a crucial time.

Paine was not merely content to remain a commentator on such events, however. In November of 1776 he joined in the sufferings of the army he had helped to raise by volunteering his services as a civilian aide on General Greene’s staff. Enduring with them in the harrowing retreat through New Jersey, Paine gained an intimate perspective on the human cost of the American cause. Sick at heart over the suffering he witnessed in the demoralized Continental Army, he began to craft an essay of a very different nature from his first incendiary piece.

He began what he would title The American Crisis with these immortal lines:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Paine, c. 1791

Despite his personal reservations about the Christian faith that later devolved into deism, Paine expressed in this essay the popular and profound insistence that Divine Providence would sustain the Patriots. Before the harrowing crossing of the Delaware, General Washington ordered his officers to read Paine’s The Crisisaloud to the Continental Army, in the same manner that orders and sermons were read to them. Bolstered by its soaring predictions of success and its commendations of their valor, the patriots won their first victory in over six months at the Battle of Trenton.

The army that had been on the verge of dissolving was invigorated, and the thirteen colonies survived to fight another day. In the darkest hour of 1776, in a year already marked by extraordinary turns of fortune, Providence had used an unlikely instrument—an English-born failure turned American firebrand—to inflame the cause of liberty when it hung by a thread.

A cartoon criticizing Paine’s The Age of Reason—It is titled ‘The Age of Reason or The World Turned Topsyturvy exemplified in Tom Paine’s Works!!’

After the American Revolution, Thomas Paine’s path took a sharp and ultimately isolating turn. Embracing a more radical deism, he published The Age of Reason, a fierce critique of organized Christianity that scandalized many of his former admirers and cost him the goodwill of large segments of the American public. He threw himself fully into the defense of the French Revolution, only to be imprisoned during the Terror; after his release he accepted the hospitality of the American minister James Monroe, remaining in Monroe’s household for more than a year and a half while recovering his health. From that refuge he turned bitterly on his old ally George Washington, publishing a scathing open letter that accused the president of personal treachery and political hypocrisy for failing to secure his earlier release. Returning at last to America, Paine found himself largely alienated from the very patriots he had once inspired. When he died in 1809, only a handful of people—by most accounts six or seven—attended his funeral.

Statue of Thomas Paine in his hometown of Thetford, Norfolk, England

Image Credits: 1 Paine (wikipedia.org) 2 Robert Aitken (wikipedia.org) 3 Declaration draft (wikipedia.org) 4 Paine (wikipedia.org) 5 Cartoon (wikipedia.org) 6 Death mask (wikipedia.org) 7 Statue (wikipedia.org)

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”—2 Timothy 1:8

Profiles of 1776 | Elizabeth Annesley Lewis

n the course of Providence, when Elizabeth Lewis’ husband, Francis, put his name to the Declaration of Independence, he signed away not only his own life but—most tangibly—hers as well. He was the oldest delegate from New York—pulled from a comfortable retirement at the time—and he approved of Independence all while knowing that his home was directly in line for the next British invasion.

Little is known of this couple before the war. Francis grew up an orphan in Wales before becoming a self made man by dealing in trade. He enjoyed prosperity in America and found himself seated at John Hancock’s lavish table by 1776. Elizabeth was the youngest sister of Francis’s partner in the mercantile trade. They were blessed with seven children, three of whom survived infancy. Francis Lewis was intrepid in his business, traveling as far as Russia to promote his trade, and Elizabeth ran the business at home in concert with her brother. In the words of her granddaughter:

Francis Lewis (1713-1802)

“To Francis Lewis she was Heaven’s best gift. When his adventurous spirit led him to embark on long and perilous voyages, he knew that he left his children to the care of an able as well as tender mother, who could train their characters as well as protect their interests.”

Morgan Lewis (1754-1844), son of Francis & Elizabeth Lewis, continued the legacy of his parents by serving his country in many ways, including in both the War for Independence and the War of 1812, the New York State Assembly (1789, 1792), the New York State Senate (1811–1814), as New York State Attorney General (1791–1801), and the third governor of New York (1804–1807).

About 1765, Lewis moved his family to Whitestone, Long Island, where he acquired a handsome estate. Francis retired from business in 1771 except for the purpose of establishing his son, Francis Lewis, Jr., in the trade. Mrs. Lewis resided permanently on Long Island, even as her husband and sons were away more and more as tensions escalated. Francis Lewis devoted his attention entirely to public affairs after his election to the First Continental Congress.

Like his fellow New York signers—Floyd, Livingston, and Robert Morris—Francis Lewis was declared an outlaw by the British authorities and a price set upon his head. The enemy did not stop there. General Washington and the patriot army were soon driven from New York in the summer of 1776, and the king’s troops took possession of Long Island. They were singularly rapacious, having endured a harsh winter in Nova Scotia and been dealt a bitter defeat by the rebels in Boston the previous year. They took out this aggression on the citizenry of the idyllic little community, with violence, pillaging, and rape becoming commonplace. “The troops hold the rebels very cheap,” wrote Ambrose Serle, secretary to General Lord Howe, “and long for an opportunity of revenging the cause of their countrymen who fell at Bunker Hill.”

Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence,
National Mall, Washington, DC

So empowered, a certain Colonel Birteh promptly led a troop of light horse to go give the aged New York signer “the hanging he deserved.” Finding Mr. Lewis not at home, Birteh changed course “to seize the lady and destroy the property.” As the soldiers advanced on one side of the Lewis home, a ship of war from the other fired upon the house. A shot from the vessel struck a board on which Elizabeth stood.

When one of her servants urged her to run, Mrs. Lewis pluckily replied: “Another shot is not likely to strike the same spot,” and did not change her place. The soldiers entered the house and began their work of plunder and devastation. One of them threw himself at her very feet and tore the glittering buckles from her shoes, only to be disappointed that they were dupes. “Not all that glitters is gold,” Elizabeth reportedly tutted.

The soldiers destroyed books, papers, pictures, and ruthlessly broke up the furniture with hatchets, making the lady of the estate watch her domain being systematically laid to waste. And then, after this pillage, they seized Mrs. Lewis herself and took her off with them on horseback. She was carried to New York and there thrown into prison. She was not allowed a bed or a change of clothing and was only given the coarse and scanty food that was doled out each day to the other prisoners; she was also not permitted to communicate with anyone outside.

Originally commissioned in 1974 by the Daughters of the American Revolution and issued by the Franklin Mint, a series of pewter medallions—Famous Women of the American Revolution—was produced. Elizabeth Annesley Lewis is commemorated here.

Elizabeth Annesley Lewis medallion, back

This went on for months. It became obvious the British were bent on making an example of her by imprisonment and by denying her the bare necessities of life. Elizabeth Lewis was sixty years old.

In retaliation for this outrage of war being waged on the weaker sex, General Washington put the wives of two prominent Philadelphia Tories under a far more benign house arrest. At last a prisoner exchange was arranged—these two ladies for Elizabeth’s freedom. She was released in broken health and initially disallowed from leaving New York to join her rebel husband. Her faithful servant who had followed her was gravely ill himself, and despite her own dire circumstances she cared for him until he passed away from the illness.

Elizabeth eventually reunited with her husband, lived to see a daughter elope with a British sea captain and a son marry the daughter of another signer, Robert Livingston. When Francis was reelected to Congress in 1779, he asked a leave of absence so he might attend to his invalid wife, whose broken health had only worsened in the past two years. She died that year, having never recovered from the deprivations inflicted on her.

Elizabeth Lewis’s tale is one of many such stories, showcasing the grave sacrifices that the citizenry endured in the cause of liberty, and the animosity they faced from those who invaded their homes and destroyed their lives in retribution for daring to break away from the motherland. Hers is a story quintessential of the spirit of 1776, and quintessential of that sturdy virtue which animated the women of the Revolution.

In the words of eminent historian David McCullough:

“The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country. The war was a longer, far more arduous, and more painful struggle than later generations would understand or sufficiently appreciate. By the time it ended, it had taken the lives of an estimated 25,000 Americans, or roughly 1 percent of the population. In percentage of lives lost, it was the most costly war in American history, except for the Civil War.”

Elizabeth Lewis was one such life; may we never forget.

Image Credits: 1 Francis Lewis (wikipedia.org) 2 Morgan Lewis (wikipedia.org) 3 56 Signers Memorial (wikipedia.org) 4 Pewter Medallion front (ebay.com) 5 Pewter Medallion back (ebay.com)