Silliman, Gold Selleck

SILLIMAN, GOLD SELLECK. (1732–1790). Militia general. Connecticut. Born at Fairfield, Gold Selleck Silliman was the son of Ebenezer Silliman (1707–1775), who was a member of the governor's council from 1739 to 1765 and a judge of the superior court from 1743 to 1765. Gold Selleck was graduated from Yale College in 1752, and eventually became an attorney. Captain of a militia troop of horse in May 1769, he was appointed major of the local militia regiment in January 1774, lieutenant colonel in November, and colonel in May 1775. Silliman led his militia regiment to New York on temporary duty in March 1776, and returned in early July as colonel of the newly-raised First Connecticut Battalion, one of seven the General Assembly had created to reinforce Commander in Chief George Washington's army. During the New York campaign he commanded his regiment at Long Island (it had rotated to the rear on the day of the battle, 27 August), in the evacuation of New York City on 15 September, and at White Plains on 28 October, where he distinguished himself. He returned home by 25 December. The Assembly had already appointed him brigadier general of the Fourth Militia Brigade, in southwestern Connecticut closest to the British at New York City. In addition to dealing with a constant stream of raids and counter-raids across the no-man's land on land and sea that separated the antagonists, Silliman saw action in the Danbury Raid of 24-26 April 1777 and led 1,800 militiamen to the Hudson Highlands in October 1777 in response to Sir Henry Clinton's attack. Captured by Loyalists on 1 May 1779, he was paroled on Long Island and exchanged a year later for a Yale contemporary, the Loyalist judge Thomas Jones, taken on 9 November 1779 to force Silliman's release. The exchange took place in the middle of Long Island Sound on 27 April 1780. He returned home broken in health and impoverished. He resumed his legal career, but resigned his commission at the end of 1781. He died at his home in Fairfield. His sons and grandsons became famous as scientists and lawyers.

SEE ALSO Danbury Raid, Connecticut; Jones, Thomas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buel, Joy Day, and Richard V. Buel, Jr. The Way of Duty. New York: Norton, 1984.

                             revised by Harold E. Selesky