Major General Daniel Morgan

Daniel Morgan, born in 1736 to Welsh parents in Hunterdon, New Jersey, settled near Winchester, Virginia, in 1753 and worked as a farmer, sawmill superintendent, and freight wagoner supplying western frontier settlements. He served as a wagoner for the British Army in General Braddock's expedition during the French and Indian War, became a private in Captain Ashby's Frederick County Militia in 1756, and was commissioned an ensign in George Washington's Virginia Regiment in 1757, when he was shot in the face by Indians at Hanging Rock, Virginia, now West Virginia. Commissioned a captain in the Virginia Militia in 1774, he served in Lord Dunmore's War in Ohio, and in 1775 Congress commissioned him a captain in the Continental Army. That year his ninety-six riflemen marched from Winchester to Boston in twenty-one days to answer General George Washington's call, and his rifle company was one of the first ten companies in the U.S. Army. He led the vanguard of Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec in 1775 and was a hero of the December 31 Battle of Quebec, was commissioned colonel of the 11th Virginia Regiment, Morgan's Rifle Corps, in 1776, and was a hero of the first and second Battles of Saratoga, New York, in 1777. Congress promoted him to brigadier general on October 13, 1780, and he led and distinguished himself at the Battle of Cowpens, South Carolina, on January 17, 1781, for which he and his unit received the Congressional Gold Medal on March 9, 1781. After the war he was a successful businessman, miller, farmer, and prominent citizen of Frederick and Clarke Counties, Virginia, was appointed major general in command of the Virginia Militia, subdued the Whiskey Rebellion in the Pittsburgh area in 1796, and was elected that year to serve one term in the United States House of Representatives. Morgan died on July 6, 1802, in the sixty-seventh year of his age and was buried at Old Stone Church, of which he was a member; in 1868 his remains were moved to Mount Hebron Cemetery in Winchester on June 13.

Winchester, Virginia · United States