James Clinton

Major General James Clinton (August 9, 1736 – September 22, 1812) was a Continental Army officer and politician who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

During the war he, along with John Sullivan, led the 1779 Sullivan Expedition against the British-allied Iroquois. The Americans destroyed 40 villages as well as their winter stores of wheat and other produce. This forced 5,000 Iroquois to flee to British controlled Fort Niagara and caused the deaths of several hundred Iroquois during the harsh winter of 1779–1780. He subsequently obtained the rank of brevet major general.

After leaving the army, Clinton was a founding member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati and served as an assemblyman in the New York State legislature and later as a New York State Senator from 1788 to 1792.

Early life

Clinton was born in Ulster County in the colony of New York, at Little Britain in the town of New Windsor, now part of Orange County, New York. He was the third son of Col. Charles Clinton, an Anglo-Irish colonist and a colonel in the French and Indian War who immigrated to New Ulster in 1729, and his wife Elizabeth Denniston.

He was the brother of George Clinton, who was elected and served as Governor of New York from 1777 to 1795 and as U.S. Vice President from 1805 to 1812, and the father of DeWitt Clinton, who would also serve as Governor of New York. He was the grandson of James Clinton (d. 1718), and the great-grandson of William Clinton (1614–1684), a Royalist officer in the army of Charles I of England.

Career French and Indian War Monument at the site of Gen. Clinton's dam at the source of the Susquehanna River on Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, New York James Clinton's military experience began in the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War), where he served in the provincial troops of New York in the British cause. He was commissioned an ensign in 1757 and achieved the rank of captain in the New York Regiment in 1759. Commanding a company in 1758, he participated, along with his father (Colonel) and brother George (Lieutenant), in General John Bradstreet’s capture of Fort Frontenac (now Kingston, Ontario). He and his brother played a key role in capturing a French vessel.

Clinton remained in the army, and was stationed at various frontier posts. In 1763 he raised and commanded a corps of two hundred men, who were designated as "Guards of the Frontier". After the war, he retired and married Mary De Witt. During the Saratoga Campaign in 1777, he commanded Fort Clinton in the Hudson Highlands. He participated in a successful effort to prevent British General Sir Henry Clinton from rescuing General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, but he and his troops were unable to hold Forts Clinton and Montgomery. Clinton sustained a bayonet wound in the leg during the assault. In 1778 he was stationed in Albany to oppose Indian and Tory forces.

In 1779, Clinton led an expedition down the Susquehanna River after making the upper portion navigable by damming up the river's source at Otsego Lake, allowing the lake's level to rise, and then destroying the dam and flooding the river for miles downstream. This event is described by James Fenimore Cooper in the introduction to his popular novel The Pioneers (1823). It is commemorated by an annual Memorial Day canoe race.

At Tioga, New York, Clinton met up with General John Sullivan's forces, who had marched from Easton, Pennsylvania. Together, on August 29, they defeated the Tories and British-allied Iroquois at the Battle of Newtown (near today's city of Elmira, New York). This became known as the "Sullivan-Clinton Campaign" or the "Sullivan Expedition." They also attacked Iroquois villages throughout western New York, destroying 40 as well as the winter stores of the people. Around 5,000 Iroquois fled to British controlled Niagara and mortality was high that winter because of starvation with several hundred deaths.

Personal life On February 18, 1765, James Clinton married Mary DeWitt (1737–1795), the only daughter of Egbert DeWitt, members of a colonial Dutch family. They had seven children, including:

Alexander Clinton (1765–1787), who served in Colonel Lamb's regiment during the Revolution and drowned in the Hudson River Charles Clinton (1767–1829), who married Elizabeth Mulliner (1770–1865) DeWitt Clinton (1769–1828), a politician and later governor of New York George Clinton, Jr. (1771–1809), politician who served as a U.S. representative in Congress Mary Clinton (1773–1808), who married Robert Burrage Norton. After his death, she married Judge Ambrose Spencer (1765–1848). Elizabeth Clinton (1776–1832), who married William Stuart Katharine Clinton (1778–1837), who married Samuel Lake Norton, brother to her sister Mary's husband. After his death, she married Ambrose Spencer, her sister's widower.

His second wife was Mary (née Little) Gray (1768–1835), the widow of Alexander Gray (1762–1795), who was born in Ireland. Together, James and Mary were the parents of six children: Letitia Clinton (1806–1842), who married Dr. Francis Bolton (1804–1849). Anna Clinton (1809–1833), who married Lt. Edward Ross.

Clinton died in Little Britain, New York, on September 22, 1812, the same year as his brother George.