"After much consideration upon the subject, I have appointed General McIntosh to command at Fort Pitt, and in the western country, for which he will set out as soon as he can accommodate his affairs. I part with this gentleman with much reluctance, as I esteem him an officer of great worth and merit, and as I know his services here are and will be materially wanted. His firm disposition and equal justice, his assiduity and good understanding, added to his being a stranger to all parties in that quarter, pointed him out as a proper person."[182]
With a reinforcement of five hundred men General McIntosh marched to Fort Pitt, of which he assumed the command, and in a short time he gave repose to all western Pennsylvania and Virginia. In the spring of 1779, he completed arrangements for an expedition against Detroit, but in April was recalled by Washington to take part in the operations proposed for the south, where his knowledge of the country, added to his stirling qualities, promised him a useful field. He joined General Lincoln in Charleston, and every preparation in their power was made for the invasion of Georgia, then in possession of the British, as soon as the French fleet under count D'Estaing should arrive on the coast. General McIntosh marched to Augusta, took command of the advance of the troops, and proceeding down to Savannah, drove in all the British outposts. Expecting to be joined by the French, he marched to Beauly, where count D'Estaing effected a landing on September 12th, 13th, and 14th, and on the 15th was joined by General Lincoln. General McIntosh pressed for an immediate attack, but the French admiral refused. In the very midst of the siege the French fleet put to sea, leaving Generals Lincoln and McIntosh to retreat to Charleston, where they were besieged by an overwhelming force under Sir Henry Clinton, to whom the city was surrendered on May 12, 1780. With this event the military life of General McIntosh closed. He was long detained a prisoner of war, and when finally released, retired with his family to Virginia, where he remained until the British troops were driven from Savannah. Upon his return to Georgia, he found his personal property wasted and his real estate much diminished in value. From that time to the close of his life, in a great measure, he lived in retirement and comparative poverty until his death, which took place at Savannah, February 20, 1806.
GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.
General Arthur St. Clair.
The life of Major General Arthur St. Clair was a stormy one, full of disappointments, shattered hopes, and yet honored and revered for the distinguished and disinterested services he performed. He was a near relative of the then earl of Roslin, and was born in 1734, in the town of Thurso, Caithness in Scotland. He inherited the fine personal appearance and manly traits of the St. Clairs. After graduating at the University of Edinburgh, he entered upon the study of medicine under the celebrated Doctor William Hunter of London; but receiving a large sum of money from his mother's estate in 1757, he changed his purpose and sought adventures in a military life, and the same year entered the service of the king of Great Britain, as ensign in the 60th or Royal American Regiment of Foot. In May of the succeeding year he was with General Amherst before Louisburg. Gathered there were men soon to become famous among whom were Wolfe, Montcalm, Murray and Lawrence. For gallant conduct Arthur St. Clair received a lieutenant's commission, April 17, 1759, and was with General Wolfe in that brilliant struggle before Quebec, in September of the same year, and soon after was made a captain. In 1760 he married at Boston, Miss Phœbe Bayard, with a fortune of £40,000, which added to his own made him a man of wealth. On April 16. 1762 he resigned his commission in the army, and soon after led a colony of Scotch settlers to the Ligonier Valley, in Pennsylvania, where he purchased for himself one thousand acres of land. Improvements everywhere sprang up under his guiding genius. He held various offices, among which was member of the Proprietory Council of Pennsylvania, and colonel of militia. The mutterings which preceded the American Revolution were early heard in the beautiful valley of the Ligonier. Colonel St. Clair was not slow to take action, and espoused the cause of the patriots with all the intensity of his character, and never, even for a moment, swerved in the cause. He was destined to receive the enduring friendship of Washington, La Fayette, Hamilton, Schuyler, Wilson, Reed, and others of the most distinguished patriots of the Revolution. Early in the year 1776, he resigned his civil offices, and led the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment in the invasion of Canada, and on account of the remarkable skill there displayed in saving from capture the army of General Sullivan, he received the rank of brigadier-general, August 6, 1776. He claimed to have pointed out the Quaker road to Washington on the night before the battle of Princeton. On account of his meritorious services in that battle, he was made a major-general, February 19, 1777. On the advance of General Burgoyne, who now threatened the great avenue from the north, General St. Clair was placed in command of Ticonderoga. Discovering that he could not hold the position, with great reluctance he ordered the fort evacuated. A great clamor was raised against him, especially in the New England States, and on account of this he was suspended, and a court-martial ordered. Retaining the confidence of Washington he was a volunteer aid to that commander at the battle of Brandywine. In September 1778, the court-martial acquitted him of all the charges. He was on the court-martial that condemned Major John Andre, adjutant-general of the British army, as a spy, who had been actively implicated in the treason of Benedict Arnold, and soon after was placed in command of West Point. He assisted in quelling the mutiny of the Pennsylvania line, and shared in the crowning glory of the Revolution, the capture of the British army under lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. Soon afterwards General St. Clair retired to private life, but his fellow-citizens soon determined otherwise. In 1783 he was on the board of censors for Pennsylvania, and afterwards chosen vendue-master of Philadelphia; in 1786 was elected a member of Congress, and in 1787 was president of that body, which at that time, was the highest office in America. In 1788 he was elected governor of the North West Territory, which imposed upon him the duty of governing, organizing, and bringing order out of chaos, over that region of country. In 1791, Washington made him commander-in-chief of the army, and in the autumn, with an ill-appointed force, set out, under the direct orders from Henry Knox, then Secretary of War, on an expedition against the Indians, but met with an overwhelming defeat on November 4th. The disaster was investigated by Congress, and the general was justly exonerated from all blame. He resigned his commission as general in 1792, but continued in office as governor until 1802, when he was summarily dismissed by Thomas Jefferson, then president. In poverty he retired to a log-house which overlooked the valley he had once owned. In vain he pressed his claims against the government for the expenditures he had made during the Revolution, in aid of the cause. In 1812 he published his "Narrative." In 1813 the legislature of Pennsylvania granted him an annuity of $400, and finally the general government gave him a pension of $60 per month. He died at Laural Hill, Pennsylvania, August 31, 1818, from injuries received by being thrown from a wagon.
Years afterwards Judge Burnet wrote, declaring him to have been "unquestionably a man of superior talents, of extensive information, and of great uprightness of purpose, as well as suavity of manners. * * * He had been accustomed from infancy to mingle in the circles of taste and refinement, and had acquired a polish of manners, and a habitual respect for the feelings of others, which might be cited as a specimen of genuine politeness."[183]
In 1870 the State of Ohio purchased the papers of General St. Clair, and in 1882 these were published in two volumes, containing twelve hundred and seventy pages.
SERGEANT DONALD M'DONALD