Lachlan McIntosh suffered setbacks to his military strategies and smears to his reputation throughout the American Revolution, all the while worried about the welfare of his wife, children, brothers and sister. Yet he persevered.
At the beginning of the war McIntosh was given command of Georgia's continental troops, but he could never recruit enough soldiers to bring the battalion to full strength. He established a string of forts to protect Georgia's southern border, but British, loyalist and Indian opponents overran the forts and raided into Georgia. In one of the border battles, a bullet struck McIntosh in the heel and the wound festered for weeks. Plantations in South Georgia belonging to Lachlan, his brothers and his sister were trampled by both British and American troops and left in ruins.
Lachlan's younger brother George was arrested for treason, thrown in jail briefly, and had his plantations confiscated by political enemies of the McIntosh family. In response, Lachlan called Button Gwinnett a scoundrel and lying rascal, was challenged by Gwinnett to a duel, and not only inflicted a wound that led to Gwinnett's death but also suffered a wound to his thigh. Gwinnett's supporters called for Lachlan to be removed from command, and he transferred to George Washington's army. While with Washington, he endured the terrible winter at Valley Forge.
Washington assigned McIntosh command of the Western Department, where McIntosh once again envisioned a string of forts along the frontier. Indians allied with the British besieged the outermost fort and McIntosh personally led a relief column at breakneck speed through rugged snow-covered terrain. Once again his ability as a military commander was subjected to criticism and once again he transferred to another department; this time back to the South.
McIntosh wanted to return to the South to protect his family. He had moved his wife and children from Darien in vulnerable South Georgia to Savannah, a place that seemed safe from British intrusions. But the British sent a force by sea that captured Savannah and trapped the McIntosh family behind British lines. Then the Americans and their French allies besieged Savannah. McIntosh begged the British commander to release his family without success. Sarah McIntosh and her children, like the other civilians in Savannah, huddled in basements while artillery from her husband's army bombarded the town. The siege concluded with an assault on Savannah that ended disastrously for the Americans and their allies. When the allies withdrew, the McIntosh family remained confined inside British lines.
When the family was eventually released, Lachlan took Sarah and the children to Camden, South Carolina, where he thought they would be safe. He then participated in the defense of Charleston. While there, he received word that his political enemies in Georgia had once again smeared his reputation and that Congress had suspended him from command of Continental troops, and so he accepted command of militia units. He was taken prisoner when Charleston fell to British besiegers. McIntosh had witnessed two of the most disastrous defeats of the Revolution, the assault on Savannah and the capture of Charleston.
When the British moved toward Camden, the McIntosh family fled once again. The family wandered across North Carolina before finding refuge in Virginia. While McIntosh endured imprisonment for more than a year, he asked his son Lackie to protect Sarah and the children. As warfare slowly subsided, Lachlan returned to Georgia alone while Sarah and the children found refuge once again in Camden, where Lackie became ill and died.
Yet Lachlan McIntosh persevered.
Daniel McDonald Johnson is a writer and photographer in Allendale, South Carolina. Please visit his website at www.danielmcdonaldjohnson.com He has worked at newspapers in Charleston, Walterboro, Ridgeland, Barnwell and Allendale, South Carolina, and Sylvania, Georgia. He won awards from the South Carolina and Georgia press associations for writing, photography and page design. His stories and photos have been published in numerous newspapers and magazines, including Sandlapper: The Magazine of South Carolina. His poetry has been published in Lowcountry Weekly and Charleston Poetic Review. His photography has been used on the 1990 South Carolina Coastal Council tide chart poster and the 1989 Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative directory cover. Selections of his photographs are displayed at the Colleton Museum in Walterboro, South Carolina, and the Salkehatchie Arts Center in Allendale, South Carolina. He wrote entries on Allendale County, the town of Allendale and the town of Fairfax for The South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina Press, 2006. Since 2009 he has served as Head Librarian at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie in Allendale and Walterboro.
