John Laurens and the American Revolution

By Gregory D. Massey

An “excellent biography” of General Washington’s aide-de-camp, a daring soldier who advocated freeing slaves who served in the Continental Army (Journal of Military History).

Winning a reputation for reckless bravery in a succession of major battles and sieges, John Laurens distinguished himself as one of the most zealous, self-sacrificing participants in the American Revolution. A native of South Carolina and son of Henry Laurens, president of the Continental Congress, John devoted his life to securing American independence. In this comprehensive biography, Gregory D. Massey recounts the young Laurens’s wartime record —a riveting tale in its own right —and finds that even more remarkable than his military escapades were his revolutionary ideas concerning the rights of African Americans.

Massey relates Laurens’s desperation to fight for his country once revolution had begun. A law student in England, he joined the war effort in 1777, leaving behind his English wife and an unborn child he would never see. Massey tells of the young officer’s devoted service as General George Washington’s aide-de-camp, interaction with prominent military and political figures, and conspicuous military efforts at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Newport, Charleston, Savannah, and Yorktown. Massey also recounts Laurens’s survival of four battle wounds and six months as a prisoner of war, his controversial diplomatic mission to France, and his close friendship with Alexander Hamilton. Laurens’s death in a minor battle in August 1782 was a tragic loss for the new state and nation.

Unlike other prominent southerners, Laurens believed blacks shared a similar nature with whites, and he formulated a plan to free slaves in return for their service in the Continental Army. Massey explores the personal, social, and cultural factors that prompted Laurens to diverge so radically from his peers and to raise vital questions about the role African Americans would play in the new republic.

“Insightful and balanced . . . an intriguing account, not only of the Laurens family in particular but, equally important, of the extraordinarily complex relationships generated by the colonial breach with the Mother Country.” —North Carolina Historical Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781611176131

Book preview

John     

Laurens  

and the      

American 

Revolution

Portrait of John Laurens

John      

Laurens   

and the       

American 

Revolution

Gregory D. Massey

The University of South Carolina Press

© 2000 University of South Carolina

Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2000

Paperback edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2015

Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2016

www.sc.edu/uscpress

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:

Massey, Gregory De Van.

John Laurens and the American Revolution / Gregory D. Massey.

   p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-57003-330-7 (alk. paper)

1. Laurens, John, 1754–1782. 2. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783. 3. Soldiers—United States—Biography. 4. United States. Continental Army—Biography. I. Title.

E207.L37 M38 2000

973.3'092—dc21 99-050753

ISBN 978-1-61117-612-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-61117-613-1 (ebook)

Front cover art & frontispiece: Portrait of John Laurens, a miniature painted by Charles Willson Peale in 1780, watercolor on ivory. Privately owned. On deposit at Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association, Charleston.

For Van S. Massey,

and in memory of

Helen P. Massey

Contents

Illustrations

Family Line of John Laurens

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Note on the Text

Introduction

Chapter 1    An ornament to his country: Early Life in Charleston

Chapter 2    The Voltaire of Carolina: Sojourn in Geneva, October 1771–November 1774

Chapter 3    I hate the Name of the King: Biding Time in England, November 1774–December 1776

Chapter 4    Standing on the verge of Eternity: The War in America, January–December 1777

Chapter 5    Those dear ragged Continentals: Winter at Valley Forge, December 1776–June 1778

Chapter 6    That bravery which becomes freemen: The 1778 Campaign, June–December 1778

Chapter 7    White Pride & Avarice: The Limits of Independence in the South Carolina Low Country, January–December 1779

Chapter 8    The greatest and most humiliating misfortune of my life: The Fall of Charleston, January–December 1780

Chapter 9    His inexperience in public affairs: Special Minister to France, December 1780–September 1781

Chapter 10  The single voice of reason: Military Triumph and Political Defeat, September 1781–February 1782

Chapter 11  The Campaign is become perfectly insipid: The South Carolina Low Country, February–August 1782

Chapter 12  The loss is remediless: The Family of John Laurens, 1782–1860

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Portraits

John Laurens frontispiece

Henry Laurens as President of the Continental Congress

Maps

South Carolina low country

The siege of Newport, July–August 1778

The siege of Savannah, September–October 1779

The siege of Charleston, February–May 1781

Family Line of John Laurens

Preface

History involves historians examining surviving sources and then selecting evidence and using it to write narratives that illuminate the past, describing it while never quite definitively capturing it. So much of the past remains unknowable, lost to us because of the lack of sources, lost to us also because we can not read the minds and discern the motives of those who left behind written traces of their lives. So it is with John Laurens. In his short, tempestuous, and exciting life, he left behind tangible evidence of his actions and motivations in his correspondence, and the historian has access also to the observations of his contemporaries, but our knowledge of him, as of any historical figure, will always remain provisional. When I was working on this book nearly two decades ago, I wanted to write a narrative that would engage the reader in Laurens’s exciting life. Thinking it would improve the book’s readability, I made a conscious decision to write decisively about this very decisive and impulsive historical figure, which meant that I often resisted using qualifiers such as maybe or perhaps, particularly in assessing his motivations, and in deciphering what factors influenced his repeated reckless behavior. In retrospect, I realize that the choice to make decisive statements sometimes drained the book of one of history’s most mysterious and enduring qualities: that so much of our knowledge of the past is provisional and ultimately unknowable. And I issue now a disclaimer that did not appear in the book’s first edition: My arguments about the factors that influenced Laurens to be impetuous in public and private life are more conjectural than my language makes them appear. I believe that I come close to capturing the tension between aspirations and achievements that so shaped Laurens’s choices, but ultimately he, like any figure of the past, will always remain slightly beyond the historian’s grasp.

Revision is an essential part of the historical process. Not surprisingly, historians sometimes revise their own views or wish they could revise things they have written. If I had the opportunity for a do-over, there are three areas of my biography of John Laurens that I would change. In chronological order they are the presentation of the John Laurens-Alexander Hamilton relationship, the account of the siege of Savannah, and the assessment of Laurens’s diplomatic mission to France. In retrospect, I should have been equivocal rather than decisive in asserting that the Laurens-Hamilton friendship was platonic. Whether or not their relationship was homosocial or homosexual is a matter of debate that can not be definitively resolved. I wish I had read in its entirety the Count d’Estaing’s journal of the siege of Savannah. It is reprinted in Benjamin Kennedy, Muskets, Cannon Balls, & Bombs: Nine Narratives of the Siege of Savannah (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1974), a book I discovered after my own work was published. Upon reading the full journal, including d’Estaing’s description of Laurens’s Continentals fleeing at the first musket volley fired by the British, I realized that accounts of Laurens’s self-destructive behavior on that day were more explicable, as his personal honor had been deeply wounded. Finally, the publication of volumes 34 and 35 of Barbara B. Oberg, et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999–2000), provides evidence that Laurens’s mission to France played a decisive, contingent role in French naval planning for the 1781 campaign. Laurens, in other words, deserves more credit for the French naval cooperation that led to the victory at Yorktown than I gave him in this book.

These points aside, I am pleased that the University of South Carolina Press is releasing a paperback edition of this book and hope it will introduce new readers to the Laurens family, one of the enduringly fascinating families of the era of the American Revolution, and to John Laurens, an exciting, flawed, but ultimately attractive and tragic figure.

Acknowledgments

Much of the historian’s craft involves long hours of individual labor. On occasion, fortunately, the moments of solitude are punctuated by collaboration with others. It is a pleasure to extend appreciation to the people who helped me bring this project to completion.

Robert M. Weir directed this study in its original form as a doctoral dissertation. His historical imagination and resourceful intellect focused my attention on questions I otherwise might have overlooked. It is a testimony to Professor Weir’s talents as a scholar that after extensive research, involving repeated efforts to find holes in his own essay on John Laurens—I wanted to avoid the appearance of merely parroting that work—that this book corroborates the principal conclusions in his exploratory essay. I would like to thank other scholars at the University of South Carolina: Owen Connelly, who commented on the dissertation; Ronald Maris, who provided insights into selfdestructive behavior; Kendrick Clements, who read the sections on revolutionary diplomacy; and Samuel Smith, who allowed me to cite his unpublished work on Henry Laurens’s religious views.

Without the assistance of the staff of the Papers of Henry Laurens, this study would not have been possible. I owe more than I can express to David Chesnutt, Jim Taylor, and Peggy Clark, who provided me access to their archives—and coffee room—and read an earlier draft of the manuscript and saved me from numerous errors. Two people I met at the Laurens Papers project deserve special mention. The late George C. Rogers Jr. allowed me to use his extensive research files and library; in addition, he read and commented on multiple drafts of the manuscript. George’s civility and generosity, his enthusiasm for history and zest for life, will ever inspire those who were fortunate enough to have known him. Martha King read more drafts of this study than anyone else. On several occasions she directed me to John Laurens documents that I had not previously uncovered. Martha’s editorial pen and historical sensitivity immeasurably improved the quality of this book and made me a better historian.

Several individuals helped turn an unwieldy dissertation into a book. My colleagues at the Naval Historical Center’s Early History Branch, where I spent ten months as a National Historical Publications and Records Commission fellow, read the dissertation and offered useful suggestions for revision. Special thanks is owed to Michael Crawford, who went beyond the call of duty and provided translations of French documents. More recently, Daphene Kennedy, professor emeritus at Freed-Hardeman University, has translated several French texts. A succession of librarians at Freed-Hardeman University—Jane Miller, Hope Shull, and Shirley Eaton—procured materials for me on interlibrary loan. Jeffrey Watt allowed me to read his unpublished work on Geneva and provided insights into John Laurens’s enigmatic reference to suicide. Joyce Chaplin and Don Higginbotham gave the manuscript a critical reading when it was most needed. Professor Chaplin, in particular, posed questions that led me in new, profitable directions. Dr. Charlton de Saussure Sr. and Mary de Saussure showed me the meaning of Charleston hospitality during a research trip to that loveliest of historical cities. Robert Calhoon has encouraged my work for nearly a decade. As the study neared completion, Loren Schweninger kindly sent me a copy of a petition from his edited microfilm collection of black petitions to state legislatures. At the University of South Carolina Press, Alex Moore has been unfailingly helpful.

Because the Laurens Papers project has amassed an extensive collection of photocopied manuscripts, I was able to conduct much of the research in South Carolina, though the bibliography appears to reflect extensive travel. Still, I had to obtain manuscripts from other sources, and would like to thank the following people and institutions: David Fowler of the David Library of the American Revolution; the late Richard Showman and Senior Associate Editor Roger Parks of the Papers of General Nathanael Greene; and staff members at the New York Public Library; the New-York Historical Society; and the Clements Library, University of Michigan.

I am grateful to the following institutions that granted me permission to quote from their collections: the Adams Manuscript Trust; American Philosophical Society; the Trustees of the Boston Public Library; the Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago Historical Society; Special Collections, Tutt Library, the Colorado College, Colorado Springs; the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford; the David Library of the American Revolution; Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; the Huntington Library, San Marino, California; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, Massachusetts; the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; Clements Library, University of Michigan; Morristown National Historical Park; the New-York Historical Society; the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Princeton University Library; the Controller of Her Britannic Majesty’s Stationery Office for permission to reproduce Crown copyright material in the Public Record Office; the Trustees of the Rt. Hon. Olive Countess Fitzwilliam’s Chattels Settlement, the City Librarian, Sheffield Libraries and Information; the South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston; the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina; and Yale University Library. I thank the editors of the Journal of Southern History for permission to use portions of my article, The Limits of Antislavery Thought in the Revolutionary Lower South: John Laurens and Henry Laurens, vol. 63 (August 1997): 495–530.

Rick and Elaine Massey provided computer access when I completed the first draft of the manuscript. Rick, more than he knows, inspired my love of learning. Danae Massey commented on the first page, which was revised accordingly; Vanessa Massey frowned at the book’s size, which prompted me to purge extraneous material.

The final debt is difficult to convey and impossible to repay. From the beginning, I thought of my parents as this book’s primary readers. I am pleased finally to present the finished product to my dad, but deeply saddened that my mom did not live to see it completed. Their grace and fortitude remain my example; their deep and abiding love is, and always will be, my inspiration.

Abbreviations

Persons

Repositories and Collections

Printed Sources

Note on the Text

Some matters of usage deserve mention. During the colonial and revolutionary period, South Carolina’s principal city was known as Charles Town. Upon incorporation in 1783, the city’s name was changed to Charleston, which is the form used in this book. The words of the historical characters are presented as written, including capitalizations and spellings, with two exceptions: the baseline dash, commonly used in the eighteenth century, is here rendered as either a comma or a period, depending on which form of punctuation appears more appropriate; superscript letters are brought down to the line.

John     

Laurens  

and the      

American 

Revolution

Introduction

In early 1782 the long war between Great Britain and the rebellious American colonies neared its end. The British held only the strategic seaports of New York, Charleston, and Savannah. In South Carolina the American army under the command of Major General Nathanael Greene warily watched the British garrison at Charleston. A vital part of Greene’s force was a celebrated legion of light horse and infantry that had been commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee. Physically and emotionally exhausted, Lee retired from the army and returned to his home in Virginia. Rather than promote one of Lee’s subordinates to command the Legion, Greene appointed Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, a native Carolinian. Though Laurens had served in many of the important engagements of the war as an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, he had never held a permanent command.

Laurens proved an unpopular choice. The Legion officers, who wanted one of their own to replace Lee, did not accept his leadership. The transition of authority was made even more difficult by Laurens’s impulsiveness, his tendency to confront the enemy without weighing the potential danger to his own men.¹

His recklessness was most conspicuous on one occasion. A sentry posted at Ashley River near Dorchester noticed a red coat moving in the underbrush on the opposite bank. Concluding that a British party was near, he promptly relayed the information to Laurens, who ordered troops to cross the river to investigate. Because the current was rapid, Captain Ferdinand O’Neal, commander of the detachment, requested a boat to convey the soldiers to the other side.

Learning of the delay, Laurens rode to the site and demanded an explanation: Why this halt, Captain? Were not orders given to cross?

When O’Neal pointed to the dangerous current, Laurens replied impatiently, This is no time for argument. You who are brave men, follow me!

At that point Laurens plunged into the river. Forced by the swift waters to dismount, he barely made his way to the other side. Watching his commander fight the rapids, O’Neal called out, You shall see, sir, that there are men here as brave as yourself. He led the remainder of the troops into the river.

The chaotic mass of struggling men and frightened horses made their way across the river with great difficulty. Amazingly, no one drowned, though they were exhausted by the ordeal. The infantry, using a plank and doors removed from a nearby warehouse, crossed with less trouble.

Upon reaching shore, Laurens, accompanied by his aides, searched for the red coat. To their surprise and chagrin, they discovered that the coat had been hung in a tree by a British soldier who had been drummed out of his regiment for drunkenness. Having endured a flogging, his lacerated back would admit of no covering. There was no party of redcoats. Because Laurens hastened to cross the river without waiting to obtain more accurate intelligence, he endangered his men unnecessarily.²

This account, perhaps apocryphal, appeared in Alexander Garden’s Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War, which was published in 1822, a period when South Carolinians began to perceive that their cultural system, based on slave labor, was threatened by actions of the federal government. Garden’s avowed purpose was to honor Revolutionary heroes and to encourage their descendants—the current generation of Carolinians—to imitate their ancestors’s example of virtue. Like their Revolutionary forebears who resisted British tyranny, Carolinians would stand united against external threats to their social order. Thus, although Garden deplored Laurens’s recklessness, he extolled the hero’s chivalric gallantry. Had Laurens not been killed in August 1782 at the age of twenty-seven, Garden concluded, he would have proved a model, both of civil and military virtue, ‘a mirror by which our youth might dress themselves.’³

It is an irony of history that Laurens became a model for Carolina youths to emulate as they endeavored to defend their slaveholding way of life, for he had opposed slavery and formulated a plan to free slaves in return for their service in the Continental Army, an aspect of his career Garden conveniently omitted from the book. Yet whatever Garden thought of these views on slavery, he correctly recognized in Laurens a heroic life, one devoted to virtuous self-sacrifice for the public good.

In the 170 years since Garden published his work, other authors and historians have examined the life of John Laurens with varying success.⁴ To date, however, Laurens has not received the comprehensive study his exciting and diverse career merits. Because Laurens played a secondary role in many important events of the American war for independence, historians have largely overlooked him. They may quote him to make a particular argument or mention his convictions on slavery in the broader context of antislavery thought, but otherwise they reserve their focus for the major players in the Revolution. This biography aims to fill the gap. Laurens plays the leading role, but his status as an ancillary participant in larger events necessitates a life-and-times approach that illuminates the period in which he lived as well as explains the meaning of his life. For example, this study will examine in detail the character of the person to whom John was closest, his father, Henry. To understand the son one must also know the father. So, on occasion John will assume a place on the sidelines, but more frequently he will occupy center stage, for his life illustrates a central facet of the Revolutionary period, one that still informs public life today: the divergence between image and reality.

John Laurens packed a great deal into twenty-seven years. His life contains elements of triumph and tragedy that will interest general readers: his privileged adolescence as the son of one of South Carolina’s most respected public figures; his mother’s death when he was sixteen years old; more than two years of schooling in Geneva, Switzerland, followed by legal studies at the Inns of Court in London; the death of his youngest brother in an accident while under his care; a relationship with a young English woman that led to her pregnancy and a precipitate marriage; his hasty departure from England to enlist in the American war for independence; service as Washington’s aide-de-camp, which brought him in contact with the prominent political and military figures of the Revolution; conspicuous conduct in a succession of major battles and sieges—Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Newport, Charleston, Savannah, and Yorktown—resulting in four wounds and six months spent as a British prisoner of war; a diplomatic mission to France in 1781 that procured needed money and supplies for the American war effort but left a triangular trail of controversy stretching from Europe to the West Indies and then to the United States; and finally his appointment as commander of Lee’s celebrated Legion.

On one hand, therefore, this biography is written for the general reader, a person interested in the drama of the past, how other people have shaped historical events by making choices that often produced unexpected results. The scholarly apparatus one associates with books authored by historians—disagreements with other scholars, lengthy historiographical commentaries—has been kept to a minimum and does not encroach on the narrative. On the other hand, Laurens’s life touches on subjects of interest to scholars: the construction of identity and masculinity in the Anglo-American world; the meaning and importance of virtue in Revolutionary America; and the future of slavery and the distribution of wealth in the American republic. So this biography is constructed as a chronological narrative designed to appeal to a wider audience, but organized along analytical themes that invite the attention of historians as well.

People who have heard of John Laurens at all know him primarily for his views on slavery. John and his more famous father, who served as president of the Continental Congress, were the only prominent native South Carolinians who consistently expressed misgivings about the institution of slavery. Their dialogue on slavery has been cited by numerous historians, and some scholars have briefly surveyed John’s attempt to form a black regiment.⁵ In general these studies have allotted the Laurenses a small part in a larger framework. What is missing is an examination of individual motive and context. This biography will explore the personal, social, and cultural factors that prompted father and son to pursue a divergent course on the slavery issue. Their separate paths and ultimate fates suggest the limits of antislavery thought in the Revolutionary lower South.⁶

Laurens’s life illuminates several aspects of the aristocratic experience in eighteenth-century Anglo-America. The richest inhabitants in the North American colonies possessed wealth that was comparable to that of members of the middle-class in England. But the colonial elite, or gentry, tried to imitate the English aristocracy, often failing in the attempt. John Laurens exemplified the tension many American gentlemen encountered as they attempted to establish their place in a peculiar world, where their models of behavior were inherited from England but the provincial arena in which they operated failed to approximate the English paradigm.⁷ In his career choices—forsaking his first love, medicine, to study law, and then abandoning his education for military service—he demonstrated the difficulties young men experienced in constructing a public identity. In his personal credo—devoting his life to assisting oppressed people in society—he embodied the man of feeling, a symbol of eighteenth-century Britain’s celebration of sensibility. In his relationships with other men, particularly with his closest friend, Alexander Hamilton, he illustrated how the man of feeling constructed sentimental attachments that tended to restrict women to the marginal role of spectators exhorting their men to virtuous accomplishments in the public realm.

Thus far the different studies of Laurens have shared a common focus: their recognition of his reckless behavior. Though in many respects Laurens’s behavior resembled that of other Continental Army officers, his contemporaries believed that his daring went beyond socially acceptable limits. To explain Laurens’s conduct, this book will examine closely the tension he encountered in constructing his identity,⁸ a process that compelled him to confront eighteenth-century notions of private and public virtue, and on occasion supplement that approach by utilizing the empirical findings of psychological and sociological investigations of self-destructive behavior.⁹ There are dangers inherent in such an approach. Several historians have criticized biographers who explore their subject’s psyche in order to uncover the unconscious motivations behind his or her actions. Indeed, some scholars question whether conclusions derived from the social scientists of the twentieth century can be used to explain the actions of eighteenth-century Americans. John Laurens was decidedly an eighteenth-century man. Imperatives that seem remote today—virtue and honor, fame and sensibility—informed his conduct his entire adult life. Despite the cultural and societal differences between his time and today, one can still presume that fundamental human behavior maintains consistent patterns.¹⁰

More often than not, Laurens’s self-fashioning involved personal decisions that produced costly, unintentional consequences. He ultimately bore responsibility for his own choices, but specific cultural and historical contingencies delineated his range of options.¹¹ The political culture of his native South Carolina placed great demands on members of its patrician class, who were expected to be virtuous, actively involved in promoting the common good. And the American Revolution, the historical contingency that most affected his life, provided opportunities for virtuous self-sacrifice on the grandest possible scale.

John Laurens devoted almost his entire adult life to winning his country’s freedom from Great Britain. He and his father pledged their lives and fortunes to secure American independence. American revolutionaries like the Laurenses fought to establish a republican form of government. They realized the historic import of the moment, that their labors, if successful, would win the acclaim of posterity. In a real sense their efforts dangled on a thread. For they considered republics inherently fragile, dependent on the virtue of the people, both in terms of moral purity and the willingness to sacrifice private gain for the public good. Yet theology and experience told them that man’s nature was more corrupt than virtuous, more avaricious than sacrificing. It was a revolution, therefore, fraught with tension, a conflict between dreams and realities.¹²

For John Laurens this tension proved arduous and enduring. He accomplished much in a short time, yet he sensed a dichotomy between his private ambitions and his public achievements. As the son of a prominent leader in South Carolina society, he was expected to be a model of moral virtue and to make a positive contribution to the community at large. His father put pressure on him, and he put pressure on himself. From his perspective, he literally lived on stage, observed by a demanding father and an audience of contemporaries who expected his performance to meet their high expectations. His life starkly demonstrates a crisis of confidence many Americans of his generation faced: the contrast between their aspirations as republican citizens and their accomplishments as individuals. How John Laurens responded to this dilemma will be observed in the story that follows.

Chapter 1

An ornament to his country

Early Life in Charleston

Less than a century before the American Revolution, the Laurens family migrated to the New World. Arriving first in New York before moving to Charleston, South Carolina, the Laurenses, over the course of three generations, achieved a prominent place in provincial society. André Laurens, his son Jean, and grandson Henry adhered to the Huguenot tradition of industriousness and enterprise that had produced so many important businessmen in their native, Catholic France. John Laurens’s hardworking and public-spirited ancestors laid the groundwork for him to play a conspicuous role in the Revolution.

Like other Huguenots, the Laurenses left France in the wake of Louis XIV’s efforts to stamp out Protestantism. André Laurens first moved to England, before deciding to try his fortunes in America. He and his wife Marie emigrated to New York, where many Huguenots had already settled. On 30 March 1697 Marie gave birth to the third of their five children, Jean Samuel. While in New York, the Laurenses befriended another family of Huguenot refugees, the Grassets. Jean Laurens married Esther Grasset shortly before André Laurens decided to uproot his family again. In 1715 the Laurenses, for a second time following in the footsteps of other Huguenots, sailed to Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston served both as provincial capital and center of economic life in the low country, the swampy coastal region of tall oaks, scrub pines, and rice plantations. The South Carolina low country’s economy stood on the verge of an expansion, fueled by the demand for rice and, in later years, indigo, that eventually made some of its white residents among the wealthiest people in the British North American colonies. Industrious and enterprising individuals could prosper in this setting.¹

Portrait of Henry Laurens as president of the Continental Congress.

Painted by John Singleton Copley in 1782. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

André Laurens died soon after arriving in Charleston. He had Saved So much Money as enabled him to provide his five children with Such portions as put them above low dependance. As Henry Laurens, the son of Jean Laurens, later recalled, Some of them retained the French pride of Family, & were content to die poor. My Father was of different Sentiments, he learned a Trade, & by great Industry acquired an Estate with a good Character & Reestablished the Name of his Family.²

Jean Laurens, or John, as he was called, became a saddler. Over time he prospered in his trade and invested in real estate. Like most Huguenots, he quickly assimilated into Charleston society, the Anglicization of his name being one step in the process. He also joined the colony’s established Anglican church, where he served as warden of St. Philip’s Parish, and he owned at least five slaves. Yet he remained ambivalent toward the institution that formed the basis of South Carolina’s prosperity. On one occasion, he made a cryptic prediction that slavery would eventually collapse.³

John and Esther Laurens had five children who lived to maturity: Mary, Martha, Henry, Lydia, and James. Their eldest son, Henry, was born on 6 March 1724. Little is known of Henry’s early years. His closest friend was Christopher Gadsden, who was eight days older. The two companions encourage[d] each other in every virtuous pursuit, to shun every path of vice and folly, to leave company whenever it tended to licentiousness…. By an honorable observance of a few concerted rules, they mutually strengthened virtuous habits.⁴ Their behavior was a model of moral virtue; Henry Laurens adhered to these rules his entire life.

On 3 April 1742, less than a month after Henry’s eighteenth birthday, his mother died. Three months later his father married Elizabeth Wicking, a native of England. Henry’s reaction to his father’s precipitate remarriage was not documented. Shortly before the wedding, John announced his retirement.⁵

John Laurens gave his Children the best Education available in Charleston. Like other parents throughout history, John hoped his children would advance beyond the foundation he established for them. He decided that Henry, who was destined to be a merchant, should journey overseas to receive further training. About 1744 John sent Henry to London to work in the counting house of the respected merchant James Crokatt. In 1747 Henry finished his apprenticeship and returned to South Carolina.⁶

When Henry landed at Charleston on 3 June 1747, he learned that three days earlier his father had died. In language typical of the dutiful oldest son whose closest tie was to the family patriarch, he lamented the death of my best friend my dear Father…. As he was a tender & affectionate Parent I am under great concern for my Loss. Named coexecutor of the will along with his stepmother, Henry spent the next three months settling his father’s estate. Both Henry and James received property, while their three married sisters were each granted fifty pounds in current money.⁷

Henry decided to settle in Charleston and in 1748 he formed a partnership with George Austin, a native of Shropshire, England. Austin & Laurens, joined in 1759 by Austin’s nephew George Appleby, became one of the leading merchant firms in Charleston and brought extensive wealth to the partners. They traded in rice, indigo, and deerskins, the primary commodities in South Carolina, and profited greatly from their involvement in the slave trade. The firm also invested in ships that operated in the West Indies. Laurens’s methodical work habits proved a major factor in the firm’s success. Requiring less sleep than most people, he often wrote letters by candlelight during the early hours of the morning. Indeed, he frequently had the business of the day not only arranged, but done, when others were beginning to deliberate on the expediency of leaving their beds. In his business dealings, he was punctual, diligent, and fair; he expected the same from other men. A deeply religious man, his strict moral code and great capacity for work made him intolerant of others less endowed with these qualities, both in business and in politics.⁸

The next move for the rising young merchant was marriage. According to tradition, Laurens met his future wife, Eleanor Ball, at her brother’s wedding, and fell in love with her immediately. On 25 June 1750 they married. The union proved both propitious and happy: as the Balls were an established and prestigious low-country family, Henry secured his position among the colony’s elite; and his business acumen and industriousness were matched by Eleanor’s abilities in the domestic sphere. The available evidence suggests that theirs was a companionate marriage, one that juxtaposed Henry’s patriarchal control with genuine love and friendship. Henry’s occasional mention of Eleanor in letters reveals a loving and attentive spouse and mother who enjoyed gardening and excelled in the duties expected of a wife, such as cooking and sewing. These references aside, she remains a veiled figure; a full picture of her never emerges.⁹

The couple had twelve children, of whom only four reached adulthood. Their first son, Henry, was born in 1753. On 28 October 1754 Eleanor gave birth to a second son, named John in honor of his grandfather. Known as Jack, the boy displayed early evidence of talent. At the age of three he began of his own Accord to draw, and proceeded to copy everything he saw. Jack found the world around him fascinating, both the dust and dash of mercantile Charleston and the flora and fauna of the Carolina coastal plain.¹⁰

In 1755 the first daughter to survive infancy, Eleanor, whom the family called Nelly, was born. Near in age, the three siblings formed a close-knit team of playmates. It was a happy childhood, supervised by loving and attentive parents, marred only by the specter of death. In August 1758 the younger Henry died. His death was Jack’s first encounter with the transitory nature of life, where a loved one’s existence seemingly vanished like a mist. Yet life continued and the family grew in size, though death would remain an ever-present reality. A year later Eleanor gave birth to another daughter, Martha, whom the family called Patsy.¹¹

Following the steps of other prosperous merchants, Henry Laurens diversified his economic investments. In 1756 he purchased a half interest in Wambaw, a 1,250–acre rice plantation on the Santee River. His brother-in-law, John Coming Ball, managed the plantation, allowing Henry to devote his primary attention to business in Charleston. Ownership of land qualified him for a position in the Commons House of Assembly, and he took a seat in that body on 6 October 1757.¹²

Unlike socially stratified European countries such as Britain and France, the American colonies lacked a genuine nobility. In the colonies wealth was more widely dispersed and a large percentage of white men owned property, which was the criterion that defined autonomous individuals. The richest men in the provinces did not accumulate property to match that held by the English aristocracy; rather, their resources paralleled the prosperity of the English upper middle class. The colonies did, however, possess a natural aristocracy, the men of ability whose property provided them the leisure to live as gentlemen and function as political and social leaders. In South Carolina these gentlemen served in the Commons House of Assembly. Henry’s rise to prominence as a merchant, his marriage to Eleanor and ties to the Ball family, his ownership of land, and his election to the Commons House all confirmed him as a Carolina gentleman, a member of the province’s patrician class.¹³

Laurens quickly rose to prominence in the Commons House, where he served at intervals for the next fourteen years. Just as the colony’s gentlemen modeled their behavior and lifestyle after the English aristocracy, their assembly took for its model the House of Commons in the British Parliament. In what most British subjects considered a balanced government, the Commons protected the rights of Englishmen of property against encroachments by the crown and the House of Lords, which represented the nobility. The Commons House of Assembly viewed itself in a similar light. Throughout the eighteenth century, the assembly gradually increased its power at the expense of the royal governor and the upper house, the council. A seat in the assembly brought both prestige and training in the art of governing. The recurring struggle for power with various governors and the council provided lower house members with valuable political experience.¹⁴

Despite some personal differences, the political leaders who sat in the assembly maintained a surprisingly united front on most issues of public import. The colony’s prosperity made harmony both possible and necessary. Shared wealth precluded the clash of economic interests among the low-country elite. Yet they owed that wealth to the labor of an overwhelming slave majority. In Charleston, the center of political authority, the ratio of blacks to whites was about even, but in the surrounding low-country parishes dotted by rice plantations, slaves outnumbered whites as much as 7 to 1. The fear of slave insurrections required that whites remain unified and vigilant. At the same time, slaves served as a constant reminder to whites of the consequences of losing one’s freedom. Above all else, whites valued their personal independence, which was based on economic independence, their ownership of land and slaves.¹⁵

As Henry Laurens gained experience in politics, he continued to expand his landholdings. On 5 June 1762 he purchased Mepkin plantation on the Cooper River, about thirty miles from Charleston. Three months later, on 7 September, he bought land in Ansonborough, a neighborhood just outside Charleston. At both places, Henry constructed houses and laid out gardens that he intended to use as his town and country residences. At Ansonborough, he built a wharf that enabled schooners to travel from there to his country plantations. Next to him lived Christopher Gadsden, formerly his close friend but now a political adversary. Gadsden laid out streets in Ansonborough, connecting the neighborhood with Charleston proper.¹⁶

Young John Laurens spent his formative years at Ansonborough and Mepkin. His father spared no expense in creating an idyllic setting at both locations. Located on a high bluff overlooking Cooper River, Mepkin provided an escape from Charleston, particularly during the warm months, when tropical diseases threatened. Mepkin’s tranquil beauty was accentuated by a long avenue of tall live oaks that led to the plantation house. Henry and Eleanor worked together to construct a beautiful house and garden at their town residence. After giving birth on 25 August 1763 to a son, Henry, who was always called Harry by the family, Eleanor devoted personal attention to the four-acre garden, which contained exotic plants and fruit trees. In March 1764 the Laurenses finally occupied their new home. Henry described his dwelling as a large elegant brick House of 60 feet by 38. The garden was pleasantly situated upon the River, he wrote. All this land about Ansonburgh is covered with fine Houses.¹⁷

As members of the provincial elite, the Laurenses wanted their home to reflect a genteel lifestyle. Their house and garden served as a performance piece, a public exhibit of their refinement. On entering the mansion, a guest beheld several examples of gentility: fine china for display and for formal dinners; a harpsichord on which the girls practiced and performed; a bookcase with volumes that illustrated Henry’s breadth of knowledge. Most distinctive of all was the garden. Surrounded by a brick wall, the garden measured 200 yards in length, 150 yards in width. Henry and Eleanor planted an assortment of exotic flora, including a grape vine and banana, fig, olive, and orange trees. The diversity of plants and trees served a dual function: as supplements to the family diet and as conversation pieces when the Laurenses took guests on garden tours.¹⁸

For John Laurens, the home at Ansonborough served as a quiet haven that contrasted with the commotion of his bustling hometown. The Charleston of John’s youth contained over eleven thousand inhabitants. Situated on a peninsula bounded by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, the city had been planned well. Its wide, unpaved streets, which intersected at right angles, allowed breezes to circulate, thus making life more bearable during the sultry summer months. As the provincial capital and principal port, the city served as the hub of political and economic life. The wealthiest, most influential members of Carolina society resided there for at least part of each year. Their lifestyle befitted their affluence. No other American city can compare with Charleston in the beauty of its houses and the splendor and taste displayed therein, commented one visitor.¹⁹

With wealth gleaned from the labor of slaves, the low-country elite lived in comfortable leisure. It seemed, at least to puritanical observers, that the affluent residents of Charleston had sunk to new depths of slothfulness. They spent much time playing cards, gambling, and attending horse races. Doctor Alexander Garden, a prominent physician and naturalist who became a mentor to John Laurens, described these self-styled aristocrats as absolutely above every occupation but eating, drinking, lolling, smoking, and sleeping, which five modes of action constitute the essence of their life and existence. While growing up, John thus encountered the tension between the luxury and dissipation displayed by many prominent Carolinians and the inflexible standards of a father who viewed wasting time as tantamount to a grievous sin.²⁰

Life in Charleston was not without its dangers. High rates of disease and mortality—caused mainly by malaria, yellow fever, and the dreaded smallpox—threatened all South Carolina low-country residents. Our little spot is a paradise, Henry said, but we the inhabitants are Mortals.²¹ In April 1764 the eldest daughter, Nelly, died. For several days Henry could not conduct any business because of his own grief and his efforts to console Eleanor. He coped with the death of a loved one by submission to the will of God and adherence to his philosophy of life: Optimum quod evenit, Whatever happens, happens for the best, a motto that paraphrased Alexander Pope’s line from An Essay on Man, Whatever is, is right. Eleanor took bereavement even harder. When the Laurenses lost an infant, as happened on four occasions, she endured the dual trial of physical suffering and mental anguish.²²

Henry and Eleanor could not grieve long because there remained three children to mold into useful citizens. Whereas some Carolinians placed great value on personal autonomy and were overly permissive parents who raised unruly children, the Laurenses occupied a middle ground between the extremes of indulgence and authoritarianism. They doted on their offspring, but they also took a keen interest in their children’s mental and physical development. Like other parents, as their children grew older, Henry assumed more responsibility for instructing the boys while Eleanor taught the girls domestic duties. Nor was the spiritual realm neglected. Henry read the Bible to the entire family and enjoined his children to study it regularly. Sexual temptation, in particular, concerned him. With some relief, he observed when John was twelve years old that Master Jack is too closely wedded to his studies to think about any of the Miss Nanny’s I would not have such a sound in his Ear, for a Crown; why drive the poor Dog, to what Nature will irresistably prompt him to be plagued within all probability much too soon. Yielding to carnal desires, in Henry’s mind, signaled that an individual lacked the moral virtue essential to merit and maintain public respect. Indeed, his ultimate goal was for each child to become an useful Member of Community. This is the Summit of my desire when I meditate upon the future well being of my own Children in this Life.²³

An additional concern was Eleanor’s health, which grew increasingly fragile. She was sick for several months in the latter part of 1764. Henry described 1764 as a Year of affliction—a Dead eldest daughter, a sick Summer, a Sick & dying Wife. Eleanor’s condition eventually improved,