Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the RevolutionLeiter, Mary Theresa
History
Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the Revolution
Leiter, Mary Theresa
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Biography
Jedediah Huntington, born in Norwich, Connecticut, on the 4th of
August, 1743, was educated at Harvard, and graduating there when he
was twenty, delivered the first English oration ever pronounced in
that university. He engaged in commercial pursuits with his father,
and at the beginning of the Revolution was an active member of the
Sons of Liberty, and first captain, then colonel, in one of the local
regiments. Joining the Continental army at Cambridge in April, 1775,
he aided in repulsing the British at Danbury the following year, and
on the 12th of May, 1777, was commissioned brigadier-general. In
September, he was ordered to Philadelphia, and in May, 1778, to the
Hudson. He served in the court-martial that tried Lee, and also in the
one that examined André. At the close of the war, by a resolution
in Congress he was brevetted major-general. He was State treasurer,
and delegate to the convention that adopted the Constitution of the
United States. He was appointed by Washington collector of customs at
New London, to which place he removed in 1789, and held the office
twenty-six years. A zealous supporter of charitable institutions,
he was a member of the first Board of Foreign Missions. On the 10th
of May, 1784, at a meeting of officers, he was appointed one of a
committee of four to draft a plan of organization, which resulted in
their reporting on the 13th of that month the Constitution of the
Society of the Cincinnati. His first wife, Faith Trumbull, daughter of
the war governor of Connecticut, died while Huntington was on his way
to join the army in 1775, and his second wife was the sister of Bishop
Moore of Virginia. General Huntington died in New London, Connecticut,
on the 25th of September, 1818.
JOSEPH REED.
Joseph Reed was born at Trenton, New Jersey, on the 27th of August,
1742. After a thorough and comprehensive education in the colonies, he
adopted the law as his profession; and his advantages were greatly
increased by special training at the Temple in London. Returning to
America, he settled in Philadelphia and began to practise, but was
keenly alive to all passing events, and gave the British ministry
timely warning of what he thought the end would be, should the growing
dissatisfaction with the coercive measures adopted by Great Britain
toward her American colonies lead to an open revolt and an armed
resistance. His acquaintance with Washington began when the latter came
to Philadelphia from Virginia as a delegate to the first Continental
Congress. This friendship resulted in Reed’s accepting in 1775 the
office of military secretary to the commander-in-chief. When a friend
remonstrated with him on the step he had taken, he replied,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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