Forgotten Americans: John Laurens

For Patriots Day

He was a 27 year old Lieutenant-Colonel who died in a meaningless skirmish along the Combahee River in South Carolina in September 1782 just a few weeks before British troops evacuated the state.
 (John Laurens painted by Charles Willson Peale, 1780) 
John Laurens came from a prominent family in South Carolina and his father, Henry, was President of the Continental Congress at the time it adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1777.

Sent by his father to Europe for his education, he studied in Geneva and London before returning to America in early 1777, promptly joining the Continental Army commanded by George Washington.  He quickly made the acquaintance of Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette and all three became friends and Laurens and Hamilton became particularly close.  Lafayette became a General while Hamilton and Laurens were appointed Lieutenant-Colonels and aide-de-camps to General Washington.  They were all so young, Laurens 23, Hamilton 22 and LaFayette 19, and all became close to Washington, most of all Lafayette who became in the view of many, the son he never had (for more on their relationship see Adopted Son by David Clary).

Laurens quickly obtained a reputation for reckless bravery, a recklessness which ultimately cost him his life in 1782.  After his first battle, Brandywine, in September 1777, Lafayette observed (from National Park Service: Valley Forge):

It was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded . . . he did every thing that was necessary to procure one or t'other 

A month later he received two minor wounds at Germantown and was wounded yet again at Monmouth in June 1778. 

In December 1780 he was sent as a Special Minister to France where, despite offending by his tactlessness, he received commitment for naval support in 1781 and then obtained a desperately needed loan from the Dutch.  You can read a fascinating and candid letter Washington wrote Laurens while on his mission:

be assured, my dear Laurens, day does not follow night more certainly, than it brings with it some additional proof of the impracticability of carrying on the war without the aids you were directed to solicit. As an honest and candid man, as a man whose all depends on the final and happy termination of the present contest, I assert this, while I give it decisively as my opinion, that, without a foreign loan, our present force, which is but the remnant of an army, cannot be kept together this campaign, much less will it be increased and in readiness for another. 

Laurens returned to the U.S. in time for the Yorktown campaign, where he led an assault on one of the British redoubts and was one of the two American negotiators for Cornwallis' surrender.

But what is most notable about young Laurens is his attitude about slavery which triggered a little-known episode during the Revolution.

The Laurens family were large slaveholders in South Carolina but the family had always had some ambivalence about it.  As he studied in Europe, while a revolution for liberty was going on in his native country, he began to openly question the morality of slavery and started a correspondence with his father on the subject.

In a letter of Oct. 26, 1776 he wrote that brutality towards slaves had:

almost render'd them incapable of that Blessing which equal Heaven bestow'd upon us all (quote from American National Biography Online)

Even before that, his father, responding to one of John's letters, laid out his views in a letter of August 14, 1776:

You know, my dear son, I abhor slavery . . .  In former days there was no combating the prejudices of man supported by interest.  The day I hope is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the golden rule.  Not less than twenty thousand pounds sterling would all my negroes produce if sold at auction tomorrow  . . . nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and cutting off the entail of slavery.  Great powers oppose me - the laws and customs of my country, my own, and the avarice of my countrymen.  What will my children say if I deprive them of so much estate?  These are difficulties, but not insuperable.  I will do as much as I can in my time, and leave the rest to a better hand.

Returning to America strengthened those views as Laurens saw African American soldiers serving in the ranks of the Continental Army and was also subject to the persuasive argument of Lafayette who constantly confronted Americans with the logical inconsistency of fighting for freedom while enslaving others.  Lafayette also influenced Washington's change in views about slavery. [UPDATE:  Upon further reading it appears the influence was the other way around and that Laurens' impassioned denuciation of slavery changed the views of Lafayette who did become a committed and vociferous supporter of abolition.]

This ultimately led John Laurens to propose raising a regiment of slaves who would be given their freedom in return for volunteering.  He knew how daring a proposal this was, writing to his father in 1778:

I had barely hinted to you, my dearest Father, my desire to augment the Continental Forces from an untried Source … [The raising of black battalions would] … advance those who are unjustly deprived of the Rights of Mankind [and] … reinforce the Defenders of Liberty with a number of gallant soldiers.

Although his father warned him of the difficulties, Laurens petitioned the Continental Congress in the spring of 1779 on behalf of his scheme and received its approval:

That it be recommended to the states of South Carolina and Georgia, if they shall think the same expedient, to take measures immediately for raising three thousand able bodied negroes.

Returning to South Carolina, Laurens was elected to the state House of Representatives and presented his proposal which was overwhelmingly rejected.  Undaunted he tried again in 1780 and 1782, each time failing and causing outrage among many.

Laurens lost his life in a brave, but unnecessary, charge against the British, depriving the new country of his leadership and ideas when peace came shortly thereafter.

Upon receiving word of his death, Washington said:

In a word, he had not a fault that I ever could discover, unless intrepidity bordering upon rashness could come under that denomination; and to this he was excited by the purest motives

When peace came the following year, Henry Laurens manumitted all of his 260 slaves. 

[UPDATE:  I've since tried to find a primary source confirming that Henry Laurens freed his slaves.  While mentioned in several secondary sources, I cannot find confirmation, and have come across other secondary sources stating the elder Laurens did not free his slaves.  The matter is unresolved, but weighing the totality of the existing evidence I've seen, my personal belief at this point is that I doubt Henry Laurens freed his slaves.]