Many Charlestonians have at least a passing knowledge of Gen. William Moultrie, hero of the American Revolution, commander of a miraculous victory in the 1776 Battle of Sullivan’s Island. They renamed the fort there in his honor.
Gen. William Moultrie
Moultrie was the originator of our state flag, and after a brilliant military career, went on to become a two-term governor. Streets, schools, playgrounds, a 60,000-acre lake, even a city in Georgia and county in Illinois are named in honor of Moultrie’s accomplishments and contributions to our city, state and nation.
Yet few know the heavy personal toll the American Revolution took on Moultrie’s family. For behind the general’s public persona, not all was going well among him and his brothers. Not well at all.
Scottish immigrant and physician Dr. John Moultrie served in the British Navy before moving to Charles Town c. 1728, the year he married Lucretia Cooper of Goose Creek. He became one of America’s first male physicians to focus on obstetrics, as well as a successful planter managing his wife’s inheritance. Though genealogical sources differ, the couple had at least two daughters and four surviving sons: John Jr., William, Thomas and James.
A year after Lucretia’s death in 1747, John Moultrie married Elizabeth Mathewes, and they had a son named Alexander. John Moultrie died in 1771, leaving his boys to find their own way through the dramatic tensions then rising between the colonies and England.
John Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps, obtaining his medical degree from Edinburgh in 1749. He practiced with his father, served as an officer in the S.C. militia during the Cherokee Wars (1759-1761), passionately pursued and scandalously eloped with Eleanor Austin in 1762, and purchased land in East Florida when the region was annexed by the British in 1763.
He moved to St. Augustine in 1767, becoming East Florida’s royal lieutenant governor, then royal acting governor from 1771-1774. John Jr. vehemently opposed the colonies’ rebellion for independence, accusing Patriots in a 1775 letter of “raving madness.”
The middle brother James, a lawyer, followed John and was appointed East Florida’s royal chief justice. James died in 1765 at age 30, before the Revolution began.
The two youngest Moultrie brothers, Thomas and Alexander, joined William in declaring for the Patriots. Like James, Alexander studied law. He served as a colonel in the local militia, then became South Carolina’s first state attorney general.
Thomas was elected to the state’s Provincial Congress, then to the first S.C. House of Representatives. He also served on the Council of Safety, a shadow government that transitioned power within colonies’ local governments from British authority to independent bodies.
Thomas became a captain in South Carolina’s 2nd Regiment, defending the city during the 1780 Siege of Charleston. As the sun dawned on the morning of April 24, he was mortally wounded. His brothers’ letters, which can be found at the S.C. Historical Society, attest to a family that was heartbroken, ripped apart by conflicting allegiances.
Letters from William and John Jr. show the deep political divisions between them, each steadfastly committed to his cause. The brothers’ letters express fears for one another’s safety, their efforts to understand and reconcile their different loyalties and, finally, the blame and anger each experienced over Thomas’ death.
One letter, dated July 8, 1780, from John Jr. to Alexander expressed remorse that they hadn’t spoken in five years: “You are my brother, altho’ … for five long years (brother) has been a term of reproach and real sorrow. … Alas, poor Tom, I loved him. … Had he died fighting in any other cause or against any other enemy I … shou’d have had some consolation in his fall; ‘twould have then been honourable. I would have … remember’d him with honor: Now I can only remember him with concern and affection …”
John Jr. went on to say Thomas had written to him, saying he had joined the Patriots only because his friends had all joined, though it seems probable Tom was being less than honest with him, trying to minimize their personal differences. John expressed thanks that their parents had not lived to see three of their sons rebel against their country “which we have spoil’d.”
John ends his letter to Alexander saying “Tho’ I blamed you (for Thomas’ death), I yet should rejoice to see you right & happy … I would not say or do anything that would give any man or living creature, much less you, unnecessary pain … I am your affectionate but distressed brother, John Moultrie.”
After the war, John Jr. and his family moved to England, as did many Loyalists. He never saw his brothers again. The split within the Moultrie family was never reconciled, one of many fractured families resulting from the Revolutionary War.
–postandcourier.com
