Andrew Lewis was born on October 9, 1720 in County Donegal, Ireland, to Col. John Lewis and Margaret Lynn. In 1732 John Lewis, having killed his landlord in an altercation, fled to Virginia with his sons Andrew and Thomas. They became among the first settlers in western Augusta County.
Andrew Lewis received a basic education and learned the skills of a surveyor.
Andrew became a pioneer settler in Virginia's Roanoke River frontier. There he served as justice of the peace, county lieutenant, and member of the House of Burgesses. However, he decided on a military career. His Army service started badly with a succession of defeats. He was with George Washington when their forces surrendered at Ft. Necessity in 1754. He was also with Gen. Braddock's defeated army but apparently was not present at the disastrous ambush of 1755. Three years later Lewis was captured during the Ft. Duquesne reconnaissance of Maj. James Grant and taken to Montreal as a prisoner.
Lewis's luck finally began to turn when he was appointed a Virginia commissioner to the Indian treaty concluded with the Six Nations at Ft. Stanwix in New York in 1768. In 1774 Lord Dunmore, British governor of Virginia, chose him to lead a force against Native Americans who were raiding the border. Determined not to disappoint the governor, Lewis led his men in a skillful 160-mile march across the Allegheny Mountains to Point Pleasant (now in West Virginia). There he was attacked by a Shawnee force led by the famed chief Cornstalk. Lewis then rallied his men. In the bloody battle that followed, he lost 81 men, and 140 others were wounded. However, Lewis's force killed 200 Indians and so demoralized the remainder that he won an uneasy peace from them on the exposed frontier.
Lewis's victory nullified the Quebec Act of 1774, which had blocked American expansion westward by extending the Canadian border down to the Ohio River. It also set the stage for George Rogers Clark's successful campaign in Illinois during 1778 and 1779 and, most important, opened the way for westward settlement by the new United States of America after the Revolution.
During the American Revolution, Lewis served as a brigadier general. He resigned his Army commission in 1777 because of ill health but continued to serve the state of Virginia, especially as a member of Governor Thomas Jefferson's executive council.
He died on September 26, 1781. He was buried in the family plot at his home.
Andrew Lewis won an important victory over Native Americans that stabilized the frontier during the American Revolution and prepared the way for westward expansion.
Lewisburg, West Virginia, is named after Andrew Lewis.
A statue of Lewis is among those honoring Virginia patriots (including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason, Thomas Nelson, and John Marshall) on Richmond's Washington Monument in Capitol Square.
A memorial at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Virginia, features a statue of Lewis next to a cannon. *Andrew Lewis High School, now Andrew Lewis Middle School, opened in 1931 in Salem. Some residents petitioned unsuccessfully for the new high school in Salem to bear Andrew Lewis' name, but it opened in 1977 as Salem High School.
On March 13, 2001, the General Assembly of Virginia designated the portion of Interstate 81 that traverses Rockbridge, Botetourt, and Roanoke Counties, and the city of Salem as the "Andrew Lewis Memorial Highway. "
The Tri-State Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America named its reservation in Ona, West Virginia (near Huntington) after the general.
Early in the 1740s Andrew Lewis married Elizabeth Givens, daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Cathey) Givens, formerly of County Antrim, Ireland. They established their own home, called Richfield, in what later became Roanoke County near Salem. Their children: Samuel (c. 1748-1763), John (1750–1788), Thomas (1752–1800), Andrew Jr. (1759–1844), Anne (1760), William (1764–1812), Charles (c. 1768-1781); Agatha Strother (1779-1852), married to Elijah McClanahan.
She was a daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Cathey) Givens, formerly of County Antrim, Ireland.
(April 27, 1718 – January 31, 1790)
(1779-1852)
(1760)
(1764–1812)
(1759–1844)
(1750–1788)
(c.1748-1763)
(c.1768-1781)
(1752–1800)
