Charles Coteworth Pinckey

Background

Charles Pinckney was born in Charleston on Februart 25, 1746. He was the son of Charles and Eliza (Lucas) Pinckney.

Education

The young Pinckney was educated in England at the Westminster School, Christ Church College, Oxford, and the Middle Temple where he studied law.

He also studied military science at the royal academy in Caen, France.

Career

In 1769 Pinckney returned to Charleston where he was admitted to the bar and set up an immediately successful law practice.

Captured by the British in the fall of Charleston in 1780, Pinckney was kept prisoner until exchanged in 1782.

In the state convention held in 1788, he helped secure South Carolina's ratification of the Constitution.

Pres. George Washington offered him several high posts, among them the secretaryships of state and war, which he declined.

In the following year he was appointed to a commission with John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to negotiate with the French over outstanding grievances.

The mission collapsed, Pres. John Adams published the commissioner's correspondence, substituting the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of the French agents, and an undeclared naval war with France followed.

In July 1798 Pinckney was commissioned a major general but in 1800, after the end of the naval war with France, was discharged from the army.

In 1804 and 1808 Pinckney was the Federalist candidate for president.

An imposing and genial figure, Pinckney was a man of cultivated tastes, broad interests, and of penetrating but not brilliant judgment.

Achievements

• In 1805 Charles Pinckney became third president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War officers and their male descendants, an office he held until his death.

Connections

Charles Pinckney married twice: Sarah Middleton and then Mary Stead.

Father:

Charles Pinckney

Mother:

Eliza Lucas

Spouse:

Mary Stead

Spouse:

Sarah Middleton