FitzGerald marries Charlotte Boyle Walsingham in London on August 3, 1791. Together they live at Boyle Farm, Thames Ditton. In 1806, his wife succeeds to the Baron de Ros, the premier baron in the Peerage of England, as 20th Baroness de Ros. The family then takes the surname FitzGerald-de Ros. The couple has 13 children in 21 years, of which nine survive to adulthood.
Moylan is born to a Catholic family in Cork, County Cork, in 1737. His father, John Moylan, is a well-to-do merchant in Shandon, County Cork. His older brother Francis becomes Bishop of Cork. His family sends him to be educated in Paris. He then works in Lisbon for three years in the family shipping firm. He settles in Philadelphia in 1768 to organize his own firm. He is one of the organizers of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, an Irish American fraternal organization, and serves as its first president.
Moylan joins the American Continental Army in 1775 and upon the recommendation of John Dickinson, is appointed Muster-Master General on August 11, 1775. His brother John acts as United States Clothier General during the war. His experience in the shipping industry affords the United States a well-qualified ship outfitter, who helps fit out the first ships of the Continental Navy. On March 5, 1776, he becomes secretary to General George Washington with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is appointed Quartermaster General in the American Continental Army on June 5, 1776, succeeding Thomas Mifflin. He resigns from this office on September 28, 1776. However, he continues to serve as a volunteer of General Washington’s staff through December 1776.
In January 1776, Moylan writes a letter using the term “United States of America,” the earliest known use of that phrase.
Moylan then raises a troop of light dragoons, the 4th Continental Light Dragoons, also known as Moylan’s Horse, on January 3, 1777, at Philadelphia, and is appointed colonel in the Continental Army on January 5. The regiment is be noted for taking the field in captured British red coats. However, they see action in green coats at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777, and end the year by protecting the Cantonment at Valley Forge. He succeeds General Casimir Pulaski as Commander of the Cavalry in March 1778. Moylan’s Horse sees action at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778.
In the campaign of 1779 Moylan and the 4th Dragoons are stationed at Pound Ridge, New York, and see action when the British raid Norwalk, Connecticut, on July 11, 1779. He and the 4th Dragoons take part in the Battle of Springfield in New Jersey, on June 23, 1780, and General Anthony Wayne‘s expedition at Bull’s Ferry, New Jersey, on July 20, 1780. He commands his Dragoons at the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781, after which he is to take the cavalry to the Southern Campaign. However, his failing health causes him to leave the field and return to Philadelphia, where he constantly appeals to the Continental Congress to man, equip and maintain the Continental Dragoon Regiments.
Moylan is married to Mary Ricketts Van Horne on September 12, 1778, and has two daughters, Elizabeth Catherine, and Maria. His two sons die as children. He dies in Philadelphia on April 11, 1811, and is buried there in the churchyard at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church.
Originally founded as a charitable organization with the intent of aiding migrants from Ireland, the organization has since developed a focus on encouraging “greater interest in ties of friendship between America and Ireland,” in addition to sponsoring scholarships, cultural events, charity activities, and educational endowments.
On March 17, 1784, a group of New York City‘s Irish officers who had served in the Continental Army form the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in the City of New York. Its founder and first president is Daniel McCormick, a merchant who is one of the first directors of the Bank of New York.
Branches of the Society have also been founded in cities such as Cincinnati, Detroit, Providence, San Diego and Spokane. The Cincinnati branch has an active glee club which has performed hundreds of benefit and goodwill performances for over 25 years.
Each branch operates independently. Originally all-male, the Philadelphia branch first admits women in 2016. The New York branch admits women to its annual pre-St. Patrick’s Day fundraising dinner for the first time in 2018, and votes to amend its by-laws on January 10, 2020, in order to permit women to apply for membership.
Dickson is born on December 25, 1744, the eldest son of John Dickson, a tenant farmer of Ballycraigy, in the parish of Carnmoney, County Antrim. His mother is Jane Steel and, on the death of his uncle, William Steel, on May 13, 1747, the family adds his mother’s maiden name to their own.
In his boyhood, Dickson is educated by Robert White, a Presbyterian minister from Templepatrick and enters University of Glasgow in November 1761. Following graduation, he is apparently employed for a time in teaching, and in 1771 he is ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he occupies himself mainly with parochial and domestic duties. His political career begins in 1776, when he speaks and preaches against the “unnatural, impolitic and unprincipled” war with the American colonies, denouncing it as a “mad crusade.” On two government fast-days his sermons on “the advantages of national repentance” (December 13, 1776), and on “the ruinous effects of civil war” (February 27, 1778) create considerable excitement when published. Government loyalists denounce Dickson as a traitor.
Political differences are probably at the root of a secession from his congregation in 1777. The seceders form a new congregation at Kircubbin, County Down, in defiance of the authority of the general synod.
In 1771 Dickson marries Isabella Gamble, a woman of some means, who dies on July 15, 1819. They have at least eight children, but he outlives them all. One of his sons is in the Royal Navy and dies in 1798.
Dickson enters with zest into the volunteer movement of 1778, being warmly in favour of the admission of Roman Catholics to the ranks. This is resisted “through the greater part of Ulster, if not the whole.” In a sermon to the Echlinville volunteers on March 28, 1779, he advocates the enrolment of Catholics and though induced to modify his language in printing the discourse, he offends “all the Protestant and Presbyterian bigots in the country.” He is accused of being a papist at heart, “for the very substantial reason, among others, that the maiden name of the parish priest’s mother was Dickson.”
Though the contrary has been stated, Dickson is not a member of the Volunteer conventions at Dungannon in 1782 and 1783. He throws himself heart and soul into the famous election for County Down in August 1783, when the families of Hill and Stewart, compete for the county seat in Parliament. He, with his forty-shilling freeholders, fails to secure the election of Robert Stewart. But in 1790 he successfully campaigns for the election of Stewart’s son, better known as Lord Castlereagh. Castlereagh proves his gratitude by referring at a later date to Dickson’s popularity in 1790, as proof that he was “a very dangerous person to leave at liberty.”
In December 1791, Dickson joins Robert White’s son, John Campbell White, taking the “test” of the first Society of United Irishmen, organised in October in Belfast following a meeting held with Theobald Wolfe Tone, Protestant secretary of the Catholic Committee in Dublin. According to Dickson himself, he attends no further meetings of the Society but devotes himself to spreading its principles among the volunteer associations, in opposition to the “demi-patriotic” views of the Whig Club.
At a great volunteer meeting in Belfast on July 14, 1792, Dickson opposes a resolution for the gradual removal of Catholic disabilities and assists in obtaining a unanimous pledge in favour of total and immediate emancipation. Parish and county meetings are held throughout Ulster, culminating in a provincial convention at Dungannon on February 15, 1793. He is a leading spirit at many of the preliminary meetings, and, as a delegate from the Barony of Ards, he has a chief hand in the preparation of the Dungannon resolutions. Their avowed object is to strengthen the throne and give vitality to the constitution by “a complete and radical reform.” He is nominated on a committee of thirty to summon a national convention. The Irish parliament goes no further in the direction of emancipation than the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, which receives the royal assent on April 9, and remains unextended until 1829. While the passing of Lord Clare‘s Convention Act, still in force, makes illegal all future assemblies of delegates “purporting to represent the people, or any description of the people.”
In March and April 1798, Dickson is in Scotland arranging some family affairs. During his absence plans are made for an insurrection in Ulster, and soon after his return he agrees to take the place of Thomas Russell, who had been arrested, as adjutant-general of the United Irish forces for County Down. A few days before the county is to rise, he is himself arrested at Ballynahinch.
Dickson is conveyed to Belfast and lodged in the “black hole” and other prisons until August 12 when he is removed to a prison ship with William Tennant, Robert Hunter, Robert Simms, David Bailie Warden and Thomas Ledlie Birch, and detained there amid considerable discomfort. On March 25, 1799, Dickson, Tennant, Hunter, and Simms join the United Irish “State Prisoners” on a ship bound for Fort George, Highland prison in Scotland. This group, which includes Samuel Neilson, Arthur O’Connor, Thomas Russell, William James MacNeven, and Thomas Addis Emmet, arrives in Scotland on April 9, 1799. He spends two years there.
Unlike the more high-profile prisoners like O’Connor and MacNeven who are not released until June 1802, Tennant, Dickson, and Simms are permitted to return to Belfast in January 1802.
Dickson returns to liberty and misfortune. His wife has long been a helpless invalid, his eldest son is dead, his prospects are ruined. His congregation at Portaferry had been declared vacant on November 28, 1799. William Moreland, who had been ordained as his successor on June 16, 1800, at once offers to resign, but Dickson will not hear of this. He has thoughts of emigration but decides to stand his ground. At length, he is chosen by a seceding minority from the congregation of Keady, County Armagh, and installed minister on March 4, 1803.
Dickson’s political engagement ends with his attendance on September 9, 1811, of a Catholic meeting in Armagh, on returning from which he is cruelly beaten by Orangemen. In 1815 he resigns his charge in broken health and henceforth subsists on charity. Joseph Wright, an Episcopalian lawyer, gives him a cottage rent-free in the suburbs of Belfast, and some of his old friends make him a weekly allowance. His last appearance in the pulpit is early in 1824. He dies on December 27, 1824, having just passed his eightieth year, and is buried “in a pauper’s grave” at Clifton Street Cemetery, Belfast.
Cunningham is born in 1728 or 1729 at Ballymacilhoyle in the parish of Killead, County Antrim, the youngest son in the large family of John Cunningham and his wife, Jane, daughter of James Waddell of Islandderry, a townland in the parish of Dromore, County Down. The extended families of Cunningham and Waddell have interests in farming, linen, provisioning, and overseas trade. By 1752, no doubt with support from his family, Cunningham is in New York City trading near the meal market. Just as the Seven Years’ War is beginning in May 1757, he becomes the local partner of a Belfast merchant, Thomas Greg. While carrying on a wide range of commercial activities, the firm of Greg & Cunningham specialises in the flaxseed trade with Ireland and becomes “the most successful Irish American transatlantic trading partnership of the colonial period.” He amasses a large fortune from trade, some of it illicit, during the war, and becomes one of the largest shipowners in the American port. This enables the partners to purchase a 150-acre estate, which they rename “Belfast,” on the West Indies island of Dominica, just as it is passing, by the Treaty of Paris (1763), from French to British rule. It is possible that the estate is managed by Greg’s brother, John.
Sometime after suffering imprisonment for assaulting a fellow merchant (July–August 1763), Cunningham returns to Ireland, leaving the firm in the charge of junior partners until its dissolution in 1775. In Belfast he enters into a second partnership with Greg in May 1765 comprising all their business activities other than those in New York. In November 1765, he also marries Greg’s sister-in-law Margaret, second daughter of a Belfast merchant, Samuel Hyde. He lives in a large house in Hercules Street, later renamed Royal Avenue, which serves also as the premises for his many business interests, commercial, financial, industrial, and agricultural. In 1767, he and Greg start the manufacture of vitriol at a factory by the River Lagan at Lisburn, 12 km from Belfast. They open up fisheries in Donegal and Sligo, exporting herring to the West Indies as food for slaves. They also trade Irish horses and mules for West Indian sugar and American tobacco, the sugar being processed by them at the New Sugar House in Waring Street, Belfast. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), he illegally ships linen uniforms to the insurgent colonists. He becomes a middleman on the estate of Arthur Chichester, 5th Earl of Donegall, by obtaining leases of land in the Templepatrick district of County Antrim, a venture that involves him in disputes with tenant farmers resulting in an attack by the Hearts of Steel on Belfast and the destruction by fire of his home on December 23, 1771.
Despite this setback, Cunningham becomes the foremost Belfast merchant. As well as those mentioned, he has interests in shipping, brewing, glass manufacture and flour milling. When a chamber of commerce is set up in 1783, he is elected president, a position he holds until 1790. In the 1780s, in partnership with William Brown, John Campbell and Charles Ranken, he opens a bank. Known as Cunningham’s Bank, it closes on December 31, 1793, likely as a result of the recession brought on by the outbreak of war between England and France.
A prominent Volunteer, Cunningham joins the movement as a lieutenant in 1778 and is captain of the 1st Belfast company from 1780 until the dissolution of the Volunteers in 1793. Entering politics, he fails to be nominated as a parliamentary candidate for Belfast by its patron, Lord Donegall, at the general election of 1783, but stands for Carrickfergus at a February 1784 by-election on a platform of parliamentary reform and is returned – a rare distinction for a Presbyterian – by 474 votes to 289. A petition against his return is lodged successfully, but he remains an MP until March 1785, when he is defeated in a new election. It is during this period that he, probably the wealthiest, most enterprising merchant in Belfast and having, as he does, Caribbean interests, proposes in December 1784 fitting out a ship to engage in the Atlantic slave trade. The proposal comes to nothing but is the subject of intense debate in the 1920s between two rival Belfast local historians, Francis Joseph Bigger and Samuel Shannon Millin.
Cunningham plays a prominent role on several Belfast boards – those of White Linen Hall, the harbour, poorhouse, and dispensary. He gives money to the first Catholic chapel, St. Mary’s, opened in the town in 1784, and to the First Belfast Presbyterian congregation, as well as providing a site for a meeting house for his own congregation, Second Belfast, in 1767. Staunch in his advocacy of the reform of parliament, he becomes a member of the Northern Whig Club in 1790. He is cautious, however, about Catholic relief, for he fears its possible consequences. On July 14, 1792, an organiser of a Volunteer display to mark the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, he balks even at a very moderately worded resolution in favour of the Catholics. Thereafter he becomes increasingly ill-disposed toward reform and when the Belfast yeoman infantry is formed in 1797, he becomes captain of the 4th company.
Cunningham dies on December 15, 1797, at his restored house in Hercules Street. He and his wife have no children. His property in Ireland (worth £60,000) passes to James Douglas, youngest son of his sister Jane, who had married their first cousin, Cunningham’s personal clerk Robert Douglas. His name had already passed to Thomas Greg’s son, Cunningham Greg, who takes over Greg’s business after his death. Cunningham’s portrait is painted by Robert Home. A mausoleum is built over the Cunningham vault at Knockbreda Church cemetery overlooking Belfast.
(From: “Cunningham, Waddell” by C. J. Woods, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
He serves in the American Revolutionary War (1775–81), first seeing action at the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. He is rewarded with an English peerage in 1783. He succeeds his father as Earl of Moira in 1793. When the Whigs come to power in 1806, he is appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, a post he resigns on the fall of his party in 1807. Taking an active part in the business of the House of Lords, he belongs to the circle of the Prince of Wales (later George IV), through whose influence he is appointed Governor-General of India, on November 11, 1812. He lands at Calcutta (Kolkata) and assumes office in October 1813. Facing an empty treasury, he raises a loan in Lucknow from the nawab-vizier there and defeats the Gurkhas of Nepal in 1816. They abandon disputed districts, cede some territory to the British, and agree to receive a British resident (administrator). For this success, in 1817 he is raised to the rank of Marquess of Hastings together with the subsidiary titles Viscount Loudoun and Earl of Rawdon.
He then has to deal with a combination of Maratha powers in western India whose Pindaris, bands of horsemen attached to the Maratha chiefs, are ravaging British territory in the Northern Sarkars, in east-central India. In 1817, he offers the Marathas the choice of cooperation with the British against the Pindaris or war. The Peshwa, the Prime Minister of the Maratha Confederacy, the raja of Nagpur, and the army under Holkar II, ruler of Indore, chose war and are defeated. The Pindari bands are broken up, and, in a settlement, the Peshwa’s territories are annexed, and the Rajput princes accept British supremacy. By 1818 these developments establish British sovereignty over the whole of India east of the Sutlej River and Sindh. Rawdon-Hastings also suppresses pirate activities off the west coast of India and in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles, under his authority, obtains the cession by purchase of the strategic island of Singapore.
In internal affairs, Rawdon-Hastings begins the repair of the Mughal canal system and brings the pure water of the Yamuna River (Jumna) into Delhi, encourages education in Bengal, begins a process of Indianization by raising the status and powers of subordinate Indian judges, and takes the first measures for the revenue settlement of the extensive “conquered and ceded” provinces of the northwest.
Rawdon-Hastings’s competent administration, however, ends under a cloud because of his indulgence to a banking house. Though he is cleared of any corrupt motive, the home authorities censure him. He resigns and returns to England in 1823, receiving the comparatively minor post of Governor of Malta in 1824. He dies at sea off Naples on November 28, 1826, aboard HMS Revenge, while attempting to return home with his wife. She returns his body to Malta, and following his earlier directions, cuts off his right hand and preserves it, to be buried with her when she dies. His body is then laid to rest in a large marble sarcophagus in Hastings Gardens, Valletta. His hand is eventually interred, clasped with hers, in the family vault at Loudoun Kirk.
In 1828, two years after Rawdon-Hastings’s death, members of the India House, to make some amends for their vote of censure, give £20,000 to trustees for the benefit of Hastings’s son.
(Pictured: “Portrait of Francis Rawdon, 2nd Earl of Moira, later 1st Marquess of Hastings (1754 – 1826)” possibly by Martin Archer Shee, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland)
Needham then holds a staff appointment in Ireland, and during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 commands the crown forces at the Battle of Arklow on June 9, 1798. He places his approximately 1,600 troops in strong positions at the eastern and western ends of the town, where they can sweep the Arklow Rock Road and the Coolgreany Road with fire if the rebels approach along them. Ultimately, this is what the United Irish force, estimated at 5,000–9,000 strong, does, repeatedly attacking Needham’s right flank, which is in fact his strongest position. Estimates of the United Irish dead range from 200 to 1,000, and the failure of the attack ensures that the rebels lose the military initiative. He is also present at the Battle of Vinegar Hill on June 21, 1798, but his force arrives late, leaving a gap in the British line through which many rebels escape. This is later christened “Needham’s gap,” earning him the nickname of “the late General Needham” among his fellow officers.
Promoted to lieutenant-general in 1802, Needham is made colonel of the 5th Royal Veteran Battalion in 1804, entering House of Commons as MP for Newry in 1806. He is made full general in 1812, and, following the death of his two older brothers, succeeds as 12th Viscount Kilmorey in November 1818, resigning his parliamentary seat. On January 12, 1822, he is created 1st Earl of Kilmorey (Queen’s County) and Viscount Newry and Mourne. He dies on November 21, 1832, at the family seat, Shavington Hall, Shropshire, and is buried in St. Peter’s Church, Adderley.
Needham marries Anne Fisher, daughter of Thomas Fisher of Acton, Middlesex, on February 20, 1787. They have two sons, Francis Jack Needham, who succeeds as 2nd Earl, and the Hon. Francis Henry William Needham, lieutenant-colonel in the Grenadier Guards, and seven daughters. There are Needham letters in the Public Record Office (PRO), Kew, and in the Rebellion Papers in the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin.
Nathanael Greene‘s keel is laid down on May 21, 1962, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. The construction of the ship is supervised by Commander Lawrence Dennis Ballou. She is launched on May 12, 1964, sponsored by Mrs. Neander W. Wade, a descendant of Nathanael Greene, and commissioned on December 19, 1964, with Commander Robert E. Crispin in command of the Blue Crew and Commander William M. Cossaboom in command of the Gold Crew.
Nathanael Greene departs Portsmouth for shakedown on December 30, 1964, with her Gold Crew embarked. It is relieved on February 1, 1965, by the Blue Crew. Her shakedown period is followed by repairs and alterations at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, after which the submarine, with her Blue Crew embarked, departs the shipyard for ballistic missile loading and her initial Polaris missile deterrent patrol.
In 1970-71 Nathanael Greene is refueled and receives its conversion to launch Poseidon missiles at Newport News Shipbuilding. Following Yard period and shakedown, she proceeds to Cape Canaveral for a test missile launch. In March 1972, she departs for her first deterrent patrol following conversion ending up in Holy Loch, Scotland.
On January 29, 1970, while making a surface run into port in thick fog, Nathanael Greene runs aground in about sixteen feet of water. She is refloated after about seven hours.
On August 11, 1984, Nathanael Greene loses her propeller in the Irish Sea. While proceeding back to Holy Loch at about 3 knots using her secondary propulsion motor, a transit of about 5 or 6 days, she is redirected to Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde at Faslane as the U.S. dry dock in Holy Loch is fully committed and unavailable, while Admiralty Floating Dock No. 60 at Faslane is available. While in the Faslane dry dock, a fire occurs in one of the dock’s enclosed machinery spaces on August 18, 1984. The fire is quickly extinguished and does not affect the Nathanael Greene. While in dry dock, it is established that the main shaft had broken with the loss of about a third of its length along with the propeller. Repairs are completed in about twelve days and the Nathanael Green is undocked on September 3, 1984.
On March 13, 1986, Nathanael Greene runs aground in the Irish Sea, suffering severe damage to her rudder and ballast tanks. Her grounding is a serious accident involving a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. She is deactivated while still in commission in May 1987. Her early deactivation is decided both as a result of the damage sustained in the accident as well as in accordance with the limitations set by the SALT II Treaty.
Nathanael Greene is decommissioned on December 15, 1986, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) on January 31, 1987. Her removal from service allows the United States to comply easily with the ballistic missile limits of the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty.
Nathanael Greene‘s sail has been restored and is now on display in Port Canaveral, Florida, as a memorial to the original 41 for Freedom fleet ballistic missile submarines.
(Pictured: USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN-636), probably during her sea trials off New England in the mid-1960s.)
Armstrong is born on October 13, 1717, in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, parents not determined, who married in 1704. He is one of approximately fifteen children born to his parents that included: Margaret Armstrong (1737–1817), who marries Rev. George Duffield (1732–90), and Rebecca Armstrong (1738–1828), who marries James Turner (1737–1803).
Armstrong is educated in Ireland and becomes a civil engineer before emigrating to Pennsylvania, with his brother-in-law, John Lyon, around 1740. He comes to Pennsylvania as a surveyor for the Penn family, the proprietary owners of the colony. In 1750, he lays out the first plat or plan for the town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and is one of its first settlers. He is later appointed surveyor for the newly established Cumberland County.
James Smith writes that in the fall of 1763, “I went on the Susquehannah campaign, against the Indians, under the command of General Armstrong. In this route we burnt the Delaware and Monsey towns, on the West Branch of the Susquehannah, and destroyed all their corn.”
In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), Armstrong is a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania militia. On March 1, 1776, the Continental Congress appoints him to that same rank in the Continental Army. He is sent south to begin preparations for the defense of Charleston, South Carolina. He contributes his engineering talents to the construction of defenses that enable them to withstand the Battle of Sullivan’s Island later that year. When General Charles Lee arrives to take command, Armstrong returns to his duties with the main army and with the Pennsylvania militia. Pennsylvania names him major general in charge of the state militia. This ends his service in the Continental Army, but not the war or his cooperation with General George Washington.
At the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, Armstrong’s militia holds the far left of the American line. They also guard the army’s supplies. After a hard day’s fighting, the Americans are forced to withdraw, or face being surrounded. He brings the supplies and his militia out from Pyle’s Ford after dark.
In the Battle of Germantown on October 4, Armstrong leads the American right. His mission is to skirt the British left flank and attack there and in their rear. Despite delays and the troubles some units have in moving, the overall attack is going well, until the center is held up at the Benjamin Chew House. The attack then collapses after a friendly fire incident in the fog in which General Adam Stephen‘s men fire on Anthony Wayne‘s troops causing their withdrawal. Armstrong, whose men have advanced nearly to the center of Germantown but are not greatly involved in the fight later complains that it was “…. a glorious victory fought for, and eight tenths won, …. mysteriously lost, for to this moment no one man can …. give any good reason for the flight.”
After Germantown, Armstrong is granted permission to give up active command. At aged sixty, his health is declining, and old wounds are troubling him. He serves until April 4, 1778.
After his service in the War ends, Armstrong returns home to Carlisle, where he is elected to the Continental Congress by the Pennsylvania Assembly. As a delegate from 1779 to 1780, he is a strong supporter of Washington and the army. He is firm in his support for a new United States Constitution and is returned to the Congress of the Confederation during its final days in 1787 and 1788.
Throughout his life Armstrong serves in a number of local or civic offices. One of these, the Carlisle school board, leads him to originally oppose Dr. Benjamin Rush‘s proposal to start a college in the town. He later relents and becomes a member of the first Board of Trustees for Dickinson College from 1783 to 1794.
In 1747, Armstrong marries Rebecca Lyon Armstrong (1719–97), daughter of Archibald Lyon and Ann Lyon. Together, they are the parents of:
James Armstrong (1748–1828), who marries Mary Stevenson (1766–1813), daughter of George Stevenson, Esq.
Armstrong dies at his home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on March 9, 1795, and is buried in the Old Carlisle Cemetery. In 1800, when Pennsylvania creates a new county with its seat at Kittanning, it is named Armstrong County in his honor.
Charles Henri Hector, Count of Estaing, begins landing troops below the city on September 12, and begins moving in by September 16. Confident of victory and believing that British Lieutenant Colonel John Maitland‘s reinforcements will be prevented from reaching Savannah by Major GeneralBenjamin Lincoln, he offers Major General Augustine Prévost the opportunity to surrender. Prevost delays, asking for a 24-hour truce. Owing to miscommunication about who is responsible for preventing Maitland’s movements, the waterways separating South Carolina‘s Hilton Head Island from the mainland are left unguarded, and Maitland is able to reach Savannah hours before the truce ends. Prevost’s response to d’Estaing’s offer is a polite refusal, despite the arrival.
On September 19, as Charles-Marie de Trolong du Rumain moves his squadron up the river, he exchanges fire with Comet, Thunder, Savannah, and Venus. The next day the British scuttleRose, which is leaking badly, just below the town to impede the French vessels from progressing further. They also burn Savannah and Venus. By scuttling Rose in a narrow part of the channel, the British effectively block it. Consequently, the French fleet is unable to assist the American assault.
Germaine takes up a position to protect the north side of Savannah’s defenses. Comet and Thunder have the mission of opposing any attempt by the South Carolinian galleys to bombard the town. Over the next few days, British shore batteries assist Comet and Thunder in engagements with the two South Carolinian galleys. During one of these, they severely damage Revenge.
The French commander, rejecting the idea of assaulting the British defenses, unloads cannons from his ships and begins a bombardment of the city. The city, rather than the entrenched defenses, bear the brunt of this bombardment, which lasts from October 3 to 8. “The appearance of the town afforded a melancholy prospect, for there was hardly a house that had not been shot through,” writes one British observer.
When the bombardment fails to have the desired effect, d’Estaing changes his mind and decides it is time to try an assault. He is motivated in part by the desire to finish the operation quickly, as scurvy and dysentery are becoming problems on his ships, and some of his supplies are running low. While a traditional siege operation would likely have succeeded eventually, it would take longer than d’Estaing is prepared to stay.
Against the advice of many of his officers, d’Estaing launches the assault against the British position on the morning of October 9. The success depends in part on the secrecy of some of its aspects, which are betrayed to Prévost well before the operations are supposed to begin around 4:00 a.m. Dillon’s regiment is sent to the right of the main assault, but their guides prove to be unreliable, and the column goes down the wrong path into a swamp. The British have already learned of the assault and the bagpipes of a Highland regiment begin playing at daybreak, unnerving the allies since it signals that surprise is lost. It is nearly daylight when the attack finally gets underway.
The redoubt on the right side of the British works had been chosen by the French admiral in part because he believed it to be defended only by militia. In fact, it is defended by a combination of militia and Scotsmen from John Maitland’s 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders, who had distinguished themselves at Stono Ferry. The militia includes riflemen, who easily pick off the white-clad French troops when the assault is underway. Admiral d’Estaing is twice wounded, and Polishcavalry officer Casimir Pulaski, fighting with the Americans, is mortally wounded. By the time the second wave arrives near the redoubt, the first wave is in complete disarray, and the trenches below the redoubt are filled with bodies. Attacks intended as feints against other redoubts of the British position are easily taken.
The second assault column is commanded by the Swedish Count Curt von Stedingk, who manages to reach the last trench. He later writes in his journal, “I had the pleasure of planting the American flag on the last trench, but the enemy renewed its attack, and our people were annihilated by crossfire.” He is forced back by overwhelming numbers of British troops, left with some 20 men, all being wounded, including von Stedingk. He later writes, “The moment of retreat with the cries of our dying comrades piercing my heart was the bitterest of my life,”
After an hour of carnage, d’Estaing orders a retreat. On October 17, Lincoln and d’Estaing abandon the siege.
The Irish Brigade of France suffers more than 40 killed and close to 150 wounded. Among the dead is Captain Bernard O’Neill, a 5th generation officer in Dillon’s regiment. Dillon’s regiment is the only one of the Brigade units to remain in command of one family for its entire service. Count Arthur Dillon, commander at Savannah, is the grandson of Colonel Arthur Dillon, who brought the regiment into French service in 1690. The Count later becomes a victim of the French Revolution. He is condemned for alleged participation in a prison conspiracy and executed by guillotine on April 13, 1794.
seamus dubhghaill 