Background
William Douglas was born on January 17/27, 1742/43 in Plainfield, Connecticut, United States. He was the fourth son of John and Olive (Spaulding) Douglas, of a family long prominent in the eastern part of the colony.
William Douglas was born on January 17/27, 1742/43 in Plainfield, Connecticut, United States. He was the fourth son of John and Olive (Spaulding) Douglas, of a family long prominent in the eastern part of the colony.
In 1759, although only sixteen years of age, Douglas enrolled as a clerk in a regiment led by Eleazer Fitch and Israel Putnam in the campaign against Quebec.
In early manhood Douglas removed to New Haven, from which port he engaged successfully in the West-Indian trade, building up thereby a modest fortune. He retired from active commercial enterprise about 1774 and established a new home in Northford, about eight miles from New Haven.
From the outbreak of the Revolution he was an active supporter of the colonial cause.
In April 1775 the Assembly appointed him a major in the militia, but a month later he accepted a captaincy in David Wooster’s regiment, raised for service in the Canadian expedition. With this regiment he took part in General Richard Montgomery’s advance along Lake Champlain.
Because of his nautical experience, Montgomery assigned Douglas to boat service on the lake.
He returned to Connecticut in the early winter with his regiment which did not accompany Montgomery down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. During the first three months of 1776 he served as major in a volunteer regiment commanded by Andrew Ward which assisted in preparing the defenses of New York and Brooklyn.
At this time the Continental Congress appointed him commodore of the vessels on Lake Champlain in view of his excellent service during the previous year. Douglas declined this command, however, as he preferred to organize and lead a battalion in General James Wadsworth’s brigade of Connecticut troops in the New York campaign.
Douglas’s men were stationed on the extreme right of the American line at the battle of Brooklyn, and he had the mortification of seeing the British in occupation of Fort Sterling, which he had himself helped to erect “in cold, tedious weather. ”
At Kip’s Bay, on the Manhattan side of the East River, he commanded a brigade of Connecticut militia on September 15.
Under heavy fire from the British war-ships, his raw troops gave way in confusion in spite of strenuous efforts to rally them by Douglas and later by Washington himself.
This retreat enabled the British to land on Manhattan, but the incident increased rather than diminished Douglas’s reputation for gallantry and coolness under fire.
With his battalion he took an active part in the remainder of the autumn campaign, although the necessary hardships and exposure seriously aggravated in him symptoms of tuberculosis which were already well developed.
Upon the expiration of the battalion’s term of enlistment in December, Douglas at once set about the raising of a new regiment to serve in the Continental Army for the duration of the war, but he was destined never again to take the field.
He was elected to the Connecticut Assembly which met on May 12, 1777, but probably was unable to attend since he died at Northford before the month was out.
His loss was unfortunate for the Continental Army; he had been unselfishly devoted to the cause and had displayed soldierly qualities of a high order.
As lieutenant-colonel and later colonel of Connecticut troops, he took a not very conspicuous part in the siege of Boston and the campaign around New York.
From 1777 until the end of the war he held the rank of brigadier-general of militia, in command of the 5th Brigade, but participated personally only in one minor expedition into Rhode Island in the autumn of 1777.
Douglas' portrait shows him to have been tall and slender with an erect carriage and strong features.
On July 5, 1767 Douglas married Hannah Mansfield of New Haven, who bore him four children.
