David Forman was an American Revolutionary soldier.
Background
David Forman was born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, the son of Joseph Forman, a wealthy New York shipping merchant, and Elizabeth (Lee) Forman. He was descended from Robert Forman, a dissenter, who emigrated from Buckinghamshire, England, to Holland and thence to America, where he became one of the eighteen patentees of Flushing, on Long Island (1645), and died at Oyster Bay in 1671.
Education
David Forman is said to have attended the College of New Jersey, but did not graduate.
Career
He was commissioned brigadier-general by the New Jersey legislature in the spring of 1777 and commanded the Jersey militia at the battle of Germantown (October 1777). Shortly thereafter Washington permitted Forman to withdraw his uneasy militia from the main army, Major-General Philemon Dickinson having expressed concern for the safety of the Jerseys.
Forman resigned his commission in November 1777 because of differences with the legislature. He was later attached to Major-General Charles Lee’s staff by Washington’s order, presumably because of his knowledge of the region.
Lee petulantly refused his aid, and following the battle of Monmouth (June 1778), Forman joined the other officers in testifying against Lee at the court martial. Throughout the remainder of the war he busied himself with the suppression of the pine robbers and armed Loyalist refugees of the Jersey coast. His harsh treatment of the disaffected, characterized by inhumanity, earned for him a reputation for brutality in a vicious partisan warfare. He also kept Washington informed of the movements of British vessels off the adjacent coast (1780 - 82).
In the spring of 1782 the “Honorable Board of Associated Loyalists” in New York sent an expedition against a Continental post on Toms River commanded by Capt. Joshua Huddy. Huddy was captured, taken to New York, and hanged.
Forman repaired to Washington’s headquarters to demand retaliation. Washington wrote to the British commander-in-chief demanding that those guilty be delivered to the Americans. Sir Henry Clinton ordered a court martial for their trial, but complained of American cruelty in New Jersey, especially in Monmouth County, where Forman, called by the Loyalists “Devil David, ” had been actively persecuting the King’s loyal subjects “with all the vindictiveness of his strong nature. ”
Washington warned Governor William Livingston (May 6, 1782) that he would yield to the British all Jersey militia committing acts contrary to the laws of war. After the war Forman was judge of the court of common pleas for Monmouth County.
In 1794 he moved to Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland, and later visited Natchez, where he owned a large estate. Attacked by apoplexy while there, he recovered somewhat, and sailed from New Orleans for New York.
The vessel was captured by a British privateer in the Gulf and taken to the Bahamas, during which voyage Forman died.
Achievements
Connections
On February 28, t767, he married Ann Marsh, by whom he had eleven children.