Lachlan McIntosh was a Scottish American military and political leader.
Background
Lachlan McIntosh born on March 17, 1725 at Raits in Badenoch, Scotland. He was the son of John Mohr and Marjory (Fraser) McIntosh, who came to Georgia with other Highlanders in 1736 and settled at Inverness (later Darien). In 1748, Lachlan moved from bankrupt Georgia to Charleston, S. C. , where he is said to have worked as a clerk in a counting-house and to have lived with Henry Laurens. Little is known of his life before July 1775, when he appeared at Savannah as a member for the Parish of St. Andrew of the Provincial Congress.
Career
On January 7, 1776, McIntosh was appointed colonel of a battalion of Georgia troops. This force was later increased and incorporated in the Continental Army, and McIntosh was appointed brigadier-general as of September 16, 1776. The efforts of Button Gwinnett to bring the Continental troops under local control, and an investigation of the failure of a military expedition into Florida in 1777 which vindicated the civil authority at the expense of the military, together with personal differences and the bitter factional disputes of the Georgia patriots, led to a duel, between the two men in which both were wounded, Gwinnett mortally. Though acquitted when brought to trial, McIntosh suffered from the hostility of Gwinnett's friends. Alleging this as his reason, George Walton, Georgia delegate in Congress, obtained McIntosh's transfer to Washington's headquarters. After a winter at Valley Forge, he was appointed in May 1778 to command the Western department, with headquarters at Fort Pitt. His plans for an expedition to Detroit and an attack on the Northern Indians were not carried out; his subordinates, Daniel Brodhead and George Morgan, complained of his conduct; Gouverneur Morris described him to Washington as "one of those who excel in the Regularity of still Life from the Possession of an indolent uniformity of soul"; and on March 5, 1779, Washington directed him to turn over the command to Brodhead. On May 18, he was ordered south again by Congress, and commanded the 16t and 5th South Carolina regiments in the disastrous attack on Savannah (October 1779). Taken prisoner by the British at the capture of Charleston (May 12, 1780), he was exchanged for General O'Hara under an agreement dated February 9, 1782. In the meantime, his enemies in Georgia, led by George Walton, had induced Congress to suspend him from active service by a resolve of February 15, 1780. The resolve was repealed on July 16, 1781, and he was brevetted major-general September 30, 1783; but his final vindication was delayed until February 24, 1784, when a committee of Congress, of which James Monroe was a member, quoted with approval a resolution of the Georgia Assembly charging Walton with forgery, and praised McIntosh for his Revolutionary services. When he returned to Georgia in 1783 he was, according to his own statement, "incredibly poor. " He took little part in public life thereafter, devoting much of his time to the management of his deceased brother George's estate. He was a charter member of the Society of the Cincinnati of Georgia (1784); was elected a delegate to Congress on February 23, 1784, but apparently never attended its sessions; was twice appointed a commissioner to adjust the boundary dispute between Georgia and South Carolina; and was one of the four commissioners of Congress to treat with the Southern Indians (1785 - 86). In 1791, he was a member of the committee that welcomed President Washington at Savannah. His death occurred in Savannah and he was buried in the Colonial Cemetery there.
Achievements
Religion
McIntosh was a charter member of the Society of the Cincinnati of Georgia (1784); was elected a delegate to Congress on February 23, 1784, but apparently never attended its sessions; was twice appointed a commissioner to adjust the boundary dispute between Georgia and South Carolina; and was one of the four commissioners of Congress to treat with the Southern Indians (1785 - 86).