Morgan, Daniel
Morgan, Daniel (c. 1735–1802), Revolutionary War general and Federalist Party leader.The son of Welsh farmers, Morgan grew up along the Pennsylvania–New Jersey border before settling in the Virginia backcountry in the 1750s. A teamster with the Braddock expedition, he then became a provincial ranger. Later he fought the Shawnee in Lord Dunmore's War. Given to brawling and drinking, he settled down, taking a common‐law wife and fathering two daughters.
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Morgan received command of a rifle company raised by the Continental Congress and performed heroically in Benedict Arnold's ill‐fated Québec expedition. An authority on guerrilla tactics, Morgan commanded a ranger regiment that helped defeat Gen. John Burgoyne in the Battles of Saratoga (1777). After serving under George Washington in the Middle States in 1778–79, Morgan transferred to the American Southern Army. In January 1781, at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina, his forces destroyed Banastre Tarleton's Tory Legion; Morgan's double envelopment was the tactical masterpiece of the war. Becoming ill, he returned home, but not before providing Gen. Nathanael Greene with a useful battle plan against Cornwallis at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (1781).
After the war, Morgan headed part of the militia army that put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794–95; he served a single term (1797–99) as a Federalist in the House of Representatives.
[See also Braddock's Defeat; Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Morgan received command of a rifle company raised by the Continental Congress and performed heroically in Benedict Arnold's ill‐fated Québec expedition. An authority on guerrilla tactics, Morgan commanded a ranger regiment that helped defeat Gen. John Burgoyne in the Battles of Saratoga (1777). After serving under George Washington in the Middle States in 1778–79, Morgan transferred to the American Southern Army. In January 1781, at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina, his forces destroyed Banastre Tarleton's Tory Legion; Morgan's double envelopment was the tactical masterpiece of the war. Becoming ill, he returned home, but not before providing Gen. Nathanael Greene with a useful battle plan against Cornwallis at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (1781).
After the war, Morgan headed part of the militia army that put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794–95; he served a single term (1797–99) as a Federalist in the House of Representatives.
[See also Braddock's Defeat; Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]
Bibliography
Don Higginbotham , Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman, 1961.
Don Higginbotham
More From encyclopedia.com
NEARBY TERMS
Morgan, Daniel