Gentlemen, when I give the word you may turn and fire when you are ready. Gentlemen, now!”
At the signal Lachlan Mcintosh and Button Gwinnett turned to face one another. Separated by 20 yards, the traditional “pistol shot” of dueling lore, each man sighted down the barrel of his pistol, and then each squeezed the trigger. An instant later both fell to the ground. Mcintosh was only lightly wounded, but Gwinnett had been struck in the body. Three days later, on May 19, 1777, Button Gwinnett died, having survived placing his name on the Declaration of Independence by less than one year.
What had caused these two men, both active patriots, to meet each other in murderous combat when their services were needed on the larger scene?
Button Gwinnett was born in Gloucester, England, in April 1735. The son of a Welsh clergyman, he married Ann Bourne in 1752, at which time he was a junior member of a firm trading with the American colonies. Hoping to improve their financial situation, Button and Ann came to the colonies. Settling first in Charleston, South Carolina, the couple soon moved to Savannah, Georgia, hoping for the financial success that always seemed to elude them.
In 1768 Gwinnett purchased 36 square miles of land on St. Catherine’s Island off the Georgia coast and tried to become a successful planter. The plantation produced more frustration and debts than anything else, and financial ruin was always only a small step away.
THE FIRST PATRIOT GENERALS are today virtually unknown. They were Jedediah Preble, Artemas Ward, Seth Pomeroy, John Thomas, and William Heath.
Already feelings between the colonies and Britain were beginning to run high as the British Parliament tried to impose taxes on the colonies. Men who were in debt, such as Gwinnett, especially resented these added expenses. Not surprisingly, Gwinnett soon became a leading member of the Sons of Liberty. This group had been organized in 1765 to enforce a boycott of British goods in protest of the Stamp Act. Their actions were sometimes violent, but they proved effective in keeping British goods off the market. Although the organization in the South was not as radical as it was around Boston, the Sons of Liberty successfully blocked the importation of tea into Savannah when the British attempted to put a heavy tax on tea.
It was just at this time, however, that Gwinnett had severe financial troubles. He sold most of his property in an attempt to pay his debts and disappeared from public life.
The beginning of the war called Gwinnett back into the fray, and his neighbors elected him to command the Georgia troops serving in the Continental Army, which was beginning to assemble at Boston. Unfortunately, Gwinnett had made numerous enemies around the state in his financial dealings, and he had to resign in order for the state to raise a sufficient number of men for the Continental unit. As a compromise he was made the Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress, and Lachlan Mcintosh got the military post.
Gwinnett arrived in Philadelphia on May 20, 1776. There is no record of his making speeches, but he served on various committees, and when the vote was taken to separate from Britain, he voted “Aye.” Two days later, on July 4, he signed the Declaration of Independence.
Like many of the other delegates, including Thomas Jefferson, Gwinnett was anxious to get back to his home state where the real political action was taking place. By early autumn Gwinnett was back in Georgia and became Speaker of the Assembly. In this office he was a key figure in writing the original state constitution for Georgia.
When the state legislature adjourned, Gwinnett was named chairman of the Council of Safety, a position that made him commander of the state militia. At last the military command he desired was his. Perhaps he could win martial glory and that, in turn, would bring financial success.
Not far from Savannah was the Spanish territory of Florida. Although there was no quarrel between the fledgling United States and Spain, the British had already moved into West Florida, and it was feared that all Florida would fall into the hands of Britain. This feeling became especially strong after Britain and Spain went to war, although Spain did not become an ally of the United States. It was thought to be a good idea for Georgia forces to take control of Florida before Britain could move. As commander of the Georgia militia, Gwinnett prepared to march south.
From the first there were problems. Lachlan Mcintosh, commander of the Continental troops in Georgia, refused to cooperate in what he labeled an ill-considered, poorly planned scheme. Convinced there was more than personal ill will behind Mcintosh’s refusal to help, Gwinnett went looking for traitors. Gwinnett decided he had found one in Mcintosh’s brother, and soon the young man was in prison. Clearly, Mcintosh and Gwinnett were moving toward a confrontation which, in those days, legally allowed them to use deadly force.
The expedition into Florida was a predictable failure. Public opinion in Georgia turned against Gwinnett so strongly that he lost the election for governor, held under the new constitution that he had helped write. The Georgia legislature investigated the Florida invasion and ruled Gwinnett had done no wrong in his conduct of the affair.
Mcintosh took the legislative finding as an implied criticism of his actions. If Gwinnett had done no wrong, then the implication was that Mcintosh had. At a gathering of the social and political elite, General Mcintosh publicly said Gwinnett was “a Scroundrell and lying Rascal,” words he knew would bring both men to the dueling ground.
By the time the duel took place, Gwinnett was completely destitute. His St. Catherine’s property had been raided by the Royal Navy, and everything he owned had been destroyed. When he died three days after the duel, the people who buried him had so little concern for him that they failed to mark his grave or even to leave a record of its location. There is no reliable portrait of him, and no modern biography of the man has been written.
The men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.” Button Gwinnett lost two of the three within a year of putting his signature on the document. Little known, he still lies in an unmarked grave.
Author’s note: Button Gwinnett was not the only member of the Continental Congress to suffer loss as a result of signing the Declaration. Francis Hopkinson had his home looted by the Hessians within a year of the signing. Richard Stockton’s house became the headquarters for the Royal Army during the Battle of Princeton in January 1777. One of his own relatives told the British where Stockton was hiding, and he was arrested. Imprisoned under extremely harsh conditions, Stockton eventually agreed to sign a pledge to “remain in peaceful obedience to his Majesty.” John Witherspoon had his house looted and his personal library burned. John Hart was, by the standards of the day, an old man of sixty-five when he signed. Within the next year there was such a fierce manhunt for Hart that he did not dare spend more than a single night in the same place.