Francis Nash

Background

Francis Nash was born about 1742 in Amelia, later Prince Edward County, Virginia, United States. In early manhood he settled at Childsburg, later Hillsboro, in the frontier North Carolina county of Orange.

Career

He rose to local prominence as merchant and attorney and, in 1763, to position as justice of the peace and clerk of the court of pleas and quarter sessions. He was representative to the House of Commons for Orange County in 1764, 1765, and 1771, and for the borough of Hillsboro from 1773 to 1775.

Holding the most lucrative county office, he was obnoxious to the Regulators and was charged by them with taking excessive fees. Station, temperament, and position fixed his sympathies with the established government, and he served as captain in Governor Tryon's army that crushed the Regulators in the battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771.

In 1774 and 1775 he was judge of the court of oyer and terminer in Hillsboro district.

In the contest with Great Britain he supported the patriot cause, representing Orange County in the second revolutionary Provincial Congress of April 1775 and the town of Halifax in the third Congress of August 1775. However, it was in the field of military affairs that he excelled. Brave and high-spirited, he had risen to the rank of colonel of militia; and at Alamance he acquired experience and a reputation for courage and ability.

On September 1, 1775, the Provincial Congress elected him lieutenant-colonel of the 16t North Carolina Regiment of Continental troops and promoted him to colonel seven months later, on April 10. He was with the expedition commanded by James Moore to aid Charleston in the winter of 1776-77.

The Continental Congress elected him brigadier-general on February 5, 1777, and ordered him to recruit soldiers in western North Carolina and to proceed northward in March with Moore and his Continental regiments.

At Moore's death he succeeded to command and after some delay led the North Carolina brigade northward to join Washington's army. Placed in the reserves commanded by Lord Stirling at Germantown on October 4, the brigade became involved in the confusion and disorder of that fog-obscured battlefield; and he, while leading his men bravely but ineffectually, was mortally wounded. Three days later he died and was buried at Kulpsville, Pennsylvania.

Achievements

• Nash County, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, were named in his honor, and, at the Guilford Battleground, a monument was erected to his memory by congressional appropriation.

Personality

He was handsome in person, affable, and industrious.

He was regarded by Washington as a brave man and a valuable officer and by Gov. Richard Caswell as the ablest North Carolina officer in the field at the time of his death.

Connections

He married Sarah, the daughter of Maurice Moore and the niece of James Moore. Two of their children survived him.

Spouse:

Sarah Moore

References

• Gen. Francis Nash: An Address (Classic Reprint)