CHARLES SCOTT.
Charles Scott, born in Cumberland County, Virginia, in 1733, was in the colonial service as a non-commissioned officer at the time of Braddock’s defeat in 1755. At the beginning of our struggle for independence, he raised and commanded the first company south of the James River. In April, 1777, Congress promoted him from colonel to brigadier-general. At the retreat of Lee from Monmouth, Scott was the last to leave the field. Having been previously employed in the recruiting service in Virginia, that State was anxious he should be intrusted with the duty of her defence; Washington, however, ordered him to South Carolina, and he became a prisoner at the capture of Charleston, and was not exchanged until near the close of the war. In 1785, he removed to Woodford County, Kentucky, filling the gubernatorial chair of that State from 1808 to 1812, and dying there on the 22d of October, 1813.
EBENEZER LARNED.
Ebenezer Larned or Learned, born at Oxford, Massachusetts, on the 18th of April, 1728, served in the French and Indian War as the captain of a company of rangers. At the beginning of the Revolution, he marched to Cambridge at the head of a regiment of eight months’ militia. Arriving after the battle of Lexington, he took part in the conflict at Bunker Hill, and during the siege of Boston unbarred the gates with his own hands, when the British evacuated that city, March 17, 1776. Being wounded shortly after, he was compelled to retire from active service for nearly a year. The 2d of April, 1777, Congress appointed him a brigadier-general; but his health gradually failing, he sought permission to leave the army, and retired on the 24th of March, 1778. The following year he acted as chairman of the Constitutional Convention, and died in his native town on the 1st of April, 1801.
CHEVALIER PRUD’HOMME DE BORRE.
Chevalier Prud’homme de Borre, a French general of thirty-five years’ service in Europe, was appointed brigadier-general in the Continental army on the 11th of April, 1777. His commission was dated Dec. 1, 1776, in accordance with a compact made with him in France by the American commissioner. In July, De Borre captured a Tory under circumstances which warranted, in his judgment, the prisoner’s immediate trial and execution,—a summary proceeding, for which he was severely and justly reprehended by Washington. In August, he commanded a brigade in Sullivan’s attack on Staten Island, and in September took part in the battle of Brandywine. In this engagement De Borre claimed the post of honor, on the right wing of the army; Sullivan would not yield this to him, and when De Borre pertinaciously insisted on taking it, the former made a long and circuitous march for the purpose of outreaching him. This manœuvre did not succeed; and as a consequence, Sullivan’s brigade was not formed for action when the battle began. De Borre’s brigade was the first to give way before the British, and much of the ill fortune of that day was owing to this occurrence. His insubordination being made the subject of a Congressional inquiry, he took offence and resigned his commission on the 14th of September, 1777, and soon returned to France.