by Scott B. Thompson, Sr., County Historian, Laurens County, Georgia.
Among the remarkable young men who gathered around General George Washington during the struggle for American independence, few burned with greater intensity—or left the stage of history so soon—than Colonel John Laurens. Brilliant, fearless, and driven by an unwavering devotion to liberty, Laurens seemed destined for greatness. Instead, he died before reaching his twenty-eighth birthday, his name gradually overshadowed by the towering figures who survived him. Yet few officers of the Revolution rendered greater service to the American cause in so brief a life.
John Laurens was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on October 28, 1755, into one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the colonies. His ancestors were French Huguenots who had fled religious persecution nearly half a century earlier and prospered in South Carolina. His father, Henry Laurens, was a successful merchant, planter, diplomat, and later President of the Continental Congress. His mother, Eleanor De Lamere Ball, was of French descent. His grandparents, John Samuel Laurens and Esther Grasset, were descendants of French Huguenots, who fled France and immigrated to America, primarily to, New York, Virginia, and South Carolina after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Huguenots were stripped of all religious rights.
Like many sons of prominent colonial families, John was educated in England. He attended schools in London and entered the Middle Temple to study law. His father envisioned a distinguished legal career for him. But as tensions between Britain and her American colonies deepened into open rebellion, John's ambitions changed. The study of law no longer held his interest. His heart belonged to America.
Repeatedly, he begged permission to abandon his studies and return home. Henry Laurens refused. Yet the younger Laurens could no longer remain an observer while his country fought for its independence. Defying both distance and danger, he crossed Europe, traveled through France, and sailed aboard neutral vessels until he finally reached America, determined to join the Continental Army.
His siblings who reached adulthood were:
- Martha "Patsy" Laurens (1759–1811): Married Dr. David Ramsay, a prominent South Carolina physician and historian.
- Henry Laurens Jr. (1763–1821): Married Elizabeth Rutledge, daughter of John Rutledge.
- Mary Eleanor "Polly" Laurens (1770–1794): Married Charles Pinckney, later a Governor of South Carolina and a United States Senator.
His baptism under fire came at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. Only weeks later, at Germantown, Washington launched a daring attack against British forces outside Philadelphia. During the desperate fighting, Laurens displayed the fearless recklessness that would become his trademark. When repeated assaults failed to dislodge British troops occupying the massive Chew House, Laurens personally carried burning straw to the front entrance in an attempt to set the building ablaze. Under a withering hail of musket fire, he forced open the door, fought with his sword in one hand while carrying the flaming torch in the other, and escaped with only a musket ball through his right shoulder.
The wound forced him into recovery during the terrible winter encampment at Valley Forge. Even while healing, Laurens remained deeply concerned for the army and questioned whether Washington's men should endure such hardship while the British freely occupied the surrounding countryside. Like thousands of others at Valley Forge, he witnessed firsthand the extraordinary endurance that transformed an ill-equipped army into a disciplined fighting force.
By June 1778, he was back in the saddle for the Battle of Monmouth. During the fierce summer engagement, his horse was shot from beneath him while he conducted reconnaissance for Baron von Steuben. The battle marked a turning point for the Continental Army, proving that Washington's soldiers could stand toe-to-toe with Britain's finest regulars.
Monmouth also set the stage for one of the Revolution's most famous personal confrontations. General Charles Lee's controversial conduct during the battle led Laurens to recommend that he be brought before a court-martial. Lee responded with bitter public insults aimed at both Washington and Laurens's closest friend, Alexander Hamilton. Laurens demanded satisfaction. On December 23, 1778, he met Lee in a duel outside Philadelphia. Laurens's first shot struck Lee in the side. Although the wound was slight, Laurens immediately offered assistance to his fallen opponent—a reflection of the peculiar code of honor that governed gentlemen of the eighteenth century. The duel ended there, preserving the honor of both Laurens and Hamilton. More than twenty-five years later, Hamilton himself would die in his tragic duel with Aaron Burr.
Throughout the war, Laurens developed close friendships with two extraordinary young officers who, like himself, had crossed oceans in pursuit of liberty—Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette. Together they formed a remarkable trio whose courage and idealism became legendary within Washington's headquarters.
In August 1778, Laurens commanded troops during the Rhode Island Campaign. Leading an attack against advancing British forces, he displayed his customary aggressiveness despite overwhelming odds. Though forced to withdraw, his performance earned high praise from General Nathanael Greene, who admired Laurens's daring leadership and described him as possessing all the qualities of both soldier and partisan commander.
By the end of 1778, the war shifted decisively southward. British commanders believed the Southern colonies contained stronger Loyalist support and could be conquered more easily than the North. Savannah fell on December 29, 1778, opening the Southern Campaign.
For Laurens, the struggle had become deeply personal. South Carolina was his home.
Receiving permission to leave Washington's headquarters, he hurried south to aid in its defense. During General Augustine Prevost's advance toward Charleston in the spring of 1779, Laurens again distinguished himself, though not always by strict obedience. At the Battle of Coosawhatchie, he exceeded his orders by crossing a river to engage superior British forces. His horse was shot, and he received another wound, but his courage inspired those around him.
In October came the disastrous Siege of Savannah. Supported by French troops and the cavalry of the gallant Count Casimir Pulaski, General Benjamin Lincoln launched a desperate attempt to retake the city. Laurens commanded the American light infantry during the assault upon the formidable Spring Hill Redoubt.
Spring Hill Redoubt - Savannah, Georgia.
Leading from the very front, he advanced into the deadly ditch beneath the British fortifications and planted his colors upon the earthen berm. British musket fire poured mercilessly into the crowded Americans below. Men fell by the hundreds. Pulaski received the wound that would soon claim his life. Realizing the position could not be carried, Laurens reluctantly ordered a retreat. Savannah remained in British hands until long after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.
Charleston soon became Britain's next objective. Throughout the winter of 1779–1780, Laurens urged Washington to send reinforcements, even suggesting that the commander in chief personally lead the defense. But geography and British naval superiority sealed Charleston's fate. The city surrendered in May 1780 in one of the greatest American defeats of the war. Laurens was captured and became a prisoner of war, though he was soon exchanged for a British officer.
Congress understood that victory would require greater French assistance. Washington selected Laurens for perhaps the most important mission of his life.
Few Americans were better suited for diplomacy. Handsome, polished, fluent in French, and possessed of remarkable self-confidence, Laurens won immediate respect at the court of King Louis XVI. Lafayette warmly recommended him to the French government, describing him as a man of complete integrity whose patriotism could not be questioned.
COL. JOHN LAURENS
The mission succeeded beyond expectations.
Laurens secured millions of lives in desperately needed funds, military supplies, and assurances of additional naval support. That French fleet, commanded by Admiral de Grasse, would soon trap Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown and make the decisive victory possible.
Returning to America in time for the climactic campaign of 1781, Laurens resumed his place beside Gen. Washington. During the Siege of Yorktown, he commanded a battalion of light infantry under Colonel Alexander Hamilton in the famous and critical nighttime assault upon Redoubt No. 10. The successful attack shattered one of the Briths defensive positions and hastened Cornwallis's surrender. Washington selected Laurens as one of the American commissioners to negotiate the Articles of Capitulation. On October 19, 1781, he entered the British lines to help arrange the formal surrender of the army that had struggled for six long years to crush the American rebellion.
For Laurens, it represented the crowning achievement of his career.
Don Troiani's depiction of Colonels Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, and Walter Stewart at the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Yet the war was not over.
British forces still occupied Charleston and Savannah. Laurens returned once more to South Carolina to serve under General Nathanael Greene, organizing intelligence operations and directing a network of spies around British-held Charleston.
Late in August 1782, although confined to bed with a raging fever, Laurens learned that British troops were foraging along the Combahee River. Ignoring orders to remain behind, he mounted his horse and rode toward the fighting.
On the morning of August 27, 1782, leading barely fifty Delaware infantrymen, Laurens encountered a concealed British force lying in ambush amid tall grass. True to character, he ordered an immediate charge. Moments later, a musket ball struck him as he rode at the head of his men. He fell from his horse, mortally wounded.
General Greene mournfully described the engagement as "a paltry little skirmish." Yet in that seemingly insignificant encounter, America lost one of its brightest young leaders.
John Laurens was only twenty-seven years old, perhaps the last major casualty of the Revolutionary War. He died for South Carolina, for the United States, and most importantly, for freedom.
His death came scarcely six weeks before the preliminary peace agreement that effectively ended the Revolutionary War.
History has often remembered Laurens chiefly as Alexander Hamilton's closest friend or as one of Washington's youthful aides. Yet his contributions reached far beyond the battlefield. His diplomatic triumph in France supplied the money, matériel, and naval cooperation that proved indispensable to the victory at Yorktown. Two hundred and thirty-something years later, Laurens was cast in the role of the closest friend of John Laurens in the
Laurens became the closest of friends with Alexander Hamilton and Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, known to history as “ The Marquis de Lafayette.”
Perhaps even more remarkable were the convictions that placed him decades ahead of his time. Although born into one of South Carolina's great slaveholding families, Laurens became an outspoken opponent of slavery. He urged Congress and his own state to authorize the enlistment of 3,000 enslaved African Americans, promising freedom in exchange for military service. "We Americans," he wrote, "cannot contend with a good grace for liberty until we have enfranchised our slaves."
His proposal was rejected repeatedly by South Carolina and Georgia.
It would require another eighty years, another devastating war, and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment before the nation embraced the principle Laurens had championed during the Revolution.
On December 10, 1807, the State of Georgia paid lasting tribute to his sacrifice by creating Laurens County in his honor. It remains a fitting memorial to a young officer whose courage never faltered, whose devotion to liberty never wavered, and whose promise was cut tragically short. Laurens County, Georgia, was the first county in America to be named for a man who truly believed the words of Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence:
John Laurens lived only twenty-seven years. Yet in those few years, he helped secure the independence of a nation and pointed America toward ideals it would spend generations striving to fulfill.
Laurens left no lineal descendants. His only grandchild, Francis Henderson, Jr., died without issue. It is up to us, the citizens of Laurens County, to pick up his banner and fulfill his ideals of gallantry, loyalty, and freedom for all persons.
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