Fanciful depiction of Button Gwinnett’s duel with Gen. Lachlan McIntosh in 1777 that resulted in the former’s death.
Gwinnett’s land, slaves, and other possessions were soon gobbled up by creditors. Finally, in 1773, they took over the island, but allowed Gwinnett to maintain his home there. He did so for the rest of his life. During the war, however, the approach of British vessels, who replenished their food supplies from the livestock on the exposed island, sometimes forced him and his family to scurry over in their boat to Sunbury for temporary refuge.
Meantime, Gwinnett had long since entered politics. In 1768–69 he had been designated as one of His Majesty’s justices of the peace and as a local pilotage commissioner. In the years 1769–71 the voters of St. John’s Parish elected him to the colonial assembly at Savannah, but he attended only spasmodically because of his financial woes. When they worsened, he left public office for 5 years.
Gwinnett returned on the national level. Unlike the other two Georgia signers, Lyman Hall and George Walton, he belatedly joined the patriot side—apparently held back for some time by his English birth and close family connections in England. His friend Hall, a Sunbury resident and fellow member of the Midway Congregational Church, swung him over, probably beginning in the summer of 1775. The next February, the provincial congress named Gwinnett to the Continental Congress, though he did not arrive in Philadelphia until May. He attended for only about 10 weeks. Right after he signed the Declaration on August 2, he trekked back to Georgia, where he hoped but failed to win at least an Army colonelcy in one of the units the State was forming.
In October Gwinnett was reelected to the Continental Congress, but chose not to attend. Instead, during the next 5 months, he played a key role in drafting the State’s first constitution, in the course of which he helped thwart a proposed union of South Carolina and Georgia. Upon the death of the Governor, or president of the Executive Council, in March 1777 the council commissioned Gwinnett as Acting Governor for 2 months, but he failed to achieve reelection. Before leaving office, he had clashed with controversial Gen. Lachlan McIntosh, an old rival. The result was a pistol duel in May just outside Savannah. Both men suffered wounds, but Gwinnett died a few days later of a gangrenous infection in his leg. Colonial Park Cemetery in Savannah contains a grave reputed to be his.
Lyman Hall
GEORGIA
