There are many heroes of the American Revolution, some of them near mythological figures, such as Molly Pitcher, Paul Revere, and Nathan Hale. Many others, whose sacrifices and services contributed immeasurably to American independence are overlooked by the historical record, at least by most Americans. For every Lafayette, steeped in fame and remembrance, there are others whom history has, by and large, consigned to near oblivion. They shouldn’t be.
Without the ten men listed here, the Revolution would likely not have been won. Each willingly put their lives or fortunes on the line in the interest of establishing American independence from the British Empire. Yet their efforts, and their sacrifices, are overlooked by most Americans. Here are ten forgotten heroes of the American Revolution who earned the recognition and gratitude of succeeding generations.
10. Abraham Whipple
Abraham Whipple, despite possessing a meager formal education, taught himself advanced mathematics and the principles of navigation. As a seafarer in colonial Rhode Island he developed the reputation of an honest tradesman and highly capable mariner. He achieved personal wealth as both a merchant seaman and a privateer during the French and Indian War. Siding with the patriots early during the troubles with Great Britain in the 1770s, it was Whipple who captured the British revenue cutter Gaspee, one of the earliest acts of American defiance against the Crown.
When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775 Whipple commanded two ships under the authority of rebel leaders in Rhode Island. After transporting badly needed gunpowder from Bermuda to Philadelphia the Continental Congress confiscated his ships, assigned them to the newly formed Continental Navy, and commissioned Whipple as the Navy’s first Captain. He served for the next five years in several ships, capturing or destroying more British vessels than any other officer of the Continental Navy, including the far more famous John Paul Jones. In 1780 the British captured Whipple ashore when the city of Charleston fell.
Whipple turned to farming after the war, becoming one of the founders of Marietta, Ohio. Except for in that region, and in his ancestral Rhode Island, he is a forgotten man, though his contributions to the success of the patriotic cause were substantial.
9. John Stark
John Stark served in the celebrated Rogers’ Rangers during the French and Indian War, where he developed a life-long contempt for the “gentlemen” officers of the British Army. He farmed in New Hampshire after that conflict, and on April 23, 1775, following word of the fighting at Lexington and Concord, Stark rejoined the militia as a Colonel, commanding the First New Hampshire Regiment. By early June Stark and his regiment were with the Continental Army surrounding Boston.
Stark led his men with distinction at Bunker Hill, where his regiment provided the rear-guard action when the Americans were forced to retreat. He then served in the siege of Boston, the ill-fated invasion of Canada, and the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. Following the latter he returned to New Hampshire to recruit more troops for Washington’s army. There he encountered political machinations over promotion and resigned his commission. His service was not yet finished however.
When Burgoyne and his Indian allies swept down upstate New York from Canada, Stark returned to service, commanding New Hampshire and other Continental troops during the Saratoga Campaign. Stark commanded the American troops during the crucial victory at the Battle of Bennington. The victory over Burgoyne’s Hessian troops forced the British to stop their advance while deep in the New York woods. Stark remained active with the American Northern Army for the remainder of the war, when he returned to his New Hampshire farm, and the relative obscurity he retains today.
8. Thomas Sumter
In the 2000 film The Patriot, Mel Gibson portrays an American planter and guerrilla fighter named Benjamin Martin, said to be loosely based on Francis Marion, South Carolina’s famed Swamp Fox. The character also follows the exploits of another, lesser known South Carolina guerrilla fighter named Thomas Sumter, known to his men and enemies as the Carolina Gamecock. Like the fictional Martin, Sumter had a plantation in the High Santee which the British burned, commanded irregulars in a campaign against the British, and had his command nearly wiped out.
Sumter earned his nickname after fighting British Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s detachment at the Battle of Blackstock’s Farm. Tarleton reported to his superior, Lord Cornwallis, that the American fought like a gamecock. The battle itself was a small affair, one of several harassing actions conducted by the Americans to disrupt British communications and supply lines in the Carolinas. Sumter’s continuous harassment of Cornwallis led the British commander to identify the Gamecock as his “greatest plague”.
Following the war Sumter entered politics, serving in the US House of Representatives and in the Senate until he resigned in 1810. He was one of those men who possessed a personality enabling him to alienate even his friends, perhaps one reason his fame, considerable during his lifetime, did not last long following his death. He outlived all other generals of the American Revolution, dying in 1832. Fort Sumter, site of the first shots of the American Civil War, was named for him.
7. Haym Salomon
Born in Poland in 1740 to a Sephardic Jewish family, Salomon became well-versed in European finance and learned to speak and write several languages, including German and French, before moving to England. In 1775 Salomon left for New York, where he entered the mercantile trade as a financial broker. In New York he found his sympathies lay with the Sons of Liberty. During the war he commanded no troops, fought in no battles, and wrote no stirring documents in support of the cause. His heroism was more subtle.
Salomon conducted espionage activities along with others of Washington’s spy rings, leading to his arrest in New York. The British could not convict him, though they held him captive, forcing him to serve as an interpreter for their Hessian mercenaries. Salomon used the position to encourage the German troops to desert. He was again arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. He escaped, fled to Philadelphia, and established an office as a broker, helping to raise funds for the Continental Army. Salomon succeeded to the point he eventually raised the equivalent of $16 million in today’s money for the Revolutionary effort.
Without his efforts the final major campaign leading to the British surrender at Yorktown could not have been undertaken. During the war Salomon purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars using his personal fortune. After the war the debt was worth less than ten cents on the dollar, and he died, age 44, in Philadelphia in 1785, penniless for all intents and purposes.
6. Seth Warner
During the late colonial period, the region which is today’s Vermont was known as the Hampshire Grants. Claimed by both New York and New Hampshire, the residents of the area found the idea of independence from either colony more appealing. The Green Mountain Boys formed to counter the authorities, particularly those of New York, under the leadership of Ethan Allen and Seth Warner. Both were oversized men for the day, towering over six feet, and both were locally famous (or infamous, depending on one’s point of view).
Allen became nationally famous for seizing Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775, a feat for which he remains notable today. Warner is less known, though his contributions to the success of the American Revolution dwarf those of his contemporary. After serving in the invasion of Canada Warner fought throughout the Saratoga Campaign, working closely with both John Stark and Benedict Arnold, and was instrumental in the patriot victory at Bennington. Warner served the patriotic cause in New York, despite being officially outlawed there for his earlier actions with the Green Mountain Boys.
Warner felt his influence in Vermont falter after the war, as Allen entered politics and came to dominate affairs in the region. His health destroyed by his many campaigns, he died in 1784 at the age of just 41. Since his death, Ethan Allen has overshadowed Warner’s contributions to the American Revolution, and, except in Vermont, Seth Warner is largely unknown.
5. John Barry
Like Abraham Whipple, John Barry’s services to the patriot’s cause during the American Revolution are overshadowed by the more well-known John Paul Jones (who served under Barry). But those services were such that the US Navy recognizes Barry, along with John Adams, as the “Father of the United States Navy.” Barry was an Ireland born Philadelphia shipmaster, 21 years of age, when the Revolutionary War began. His sympathies were entirely anti-British (being Irish), and he offered his services to the Continental Congress, which commissioned him as a Captain and assigned him to command the brig Lexington.
Over the course of the war he commanded several ships of the Continental Navy, and between commissions put to sea in a privateer. He captured several prizes, suppressed at least three mutinies, and trained several young officers who went on to distinguished careers in the American service. Barry commanded USS Alliance when that ship took part in the last battle of the American Revolutionary War on March 10, 1783. Barry drove off two British ships, leading the Captain of one, HMS Sybil, to comment he had, “never seen a ship so ably fought as the Alliance.”
After the war, when the United States Navy was authorized by Congress, Barry received the first commission ever offered by that service, Commission 1, signed by President George Washington. The US Navy recognizes him as its first commissioned officer, as well as its first Flag Officer, with the rank of Commodore. Yet he is barely remembered elsewhere.
4. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Beaumarchais was a French playwright and philosopher who wrote The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, and The Guilty Mother, all featuring the character Figaro. The son of a humble watchmaker, he invented a new mechanism which made clocks and watches considerably more accurate. When another watchmaker claimed Beaumarchais’s invention as his own, he defended his invention, won public acclaim, and became a favorite in the French court.
By the time of the American Revolution, Beaumarchais had extensive business interests in Spain and France. He used these connections to create a fictional company, Hortalez et Cie, to provide arms, clothing, and money to the rebellious Americans. At the same time he used his connections within the French court to lobby for overt assistance for the Americans against the British, France’s ancient enemy.
Beaumarchais and his business partners spent their personal fortunes providing aid to the Americans before France formally entered the Revolutionary War. Not until 1837 was any of the money repaid to his heirs, and then only partially. Without his efforts the Continental Congress could not have supplied Washington’s army during the first three years of the war. Today, he is chiefly remembered as the creator of Figaro, his services to the United States a mere footnote of history.
3. Daniel Bissell
In late summer of 1781, George Washington’s Continental Army camped around New York City, occupied by the main British army in North America. Following Benedict Arnold’s treachery, Washington was obsessed with obtaining information regarding British plans and espionage activities. He recruited Daniel Bissell, a soldier of the Connecticut line, to pose as a deserter and enter the British lines in New York. Bissell faced certain death by hanging if his ruse was unveiled.
Bissell went to New York, enlisted in the British army regiment commanded by the traitorous Benedict Arnold, and observed all he could of British activities, committing his observations to memory. In September, 1782, a year after the British surrender at Yorktown, Bissell deserted the British army and returned to the American encampments around New York. There he provided Washington with information regarding the British defensive works, as well as that the British had no intentions of venturing out of their positions.
Bissell was awarded the Badge of Military Merit for his services as both a soldier and spy. The Badge of Military Merit was the only award authorized for troops during the American Revolution, the forerunner of today’s Purple Heart. Designed personally by George Washington, it is the second oldest military award in existence. Bissell died in 1824. His tombstone noted his service, inscribed “He had the confidence of Washington and served under him.”
2. Henry Dearborn
Henry Dearborn’s Revolutionary War service began as a captain, commanding a company of New Hampshire militia in John Stark’s regiment. He fought at Bunker Hill, and then participated in Benedict Arnold’s invasion of Canada via the Maine backwoods. That invasion included one of the epic military marches of all history. Much of what is known of it today is thanks to the journals recording the men’s struggles kept by Dearborn. He was captured by the British during Arnold’s assault on Quebec on New Year’s Eve, 1775 and held prisoner until paroled in May of the following year.
After he was formally exchanged in 1777 he returned to the Continental Army and served during the Saratoga campaign. He then joined the main Continental Army under Washington, and was present during the winter at Valley Forge. Dearborn fought at Monmouth Court House, in John Sullivan’s punitive expedition against the Iroquois, and in the Yorktown Campaign. He thus witnessed the two major surrenders of British armies during the Revolution, Saratoga and Yorktown.
His fame was such that Fort Dearborn (Detroit) was named for him, as well as Dearborn County in Indiana, and Fort Dearborn in Illinois. Following his service in the War of 1812, which was less than stellar though honorable, his fame subsided. He served in several government posts, including as Minister to Portugal in the 1820s, but his exploits during the American Revolution faded from history books, and by the mid-19th century he was largely forgotten.
1. William Alexander, Lord Stirling
Though he was born in New York, the son of a successful lawyer and businessman, William Alexander claimed the extinct title of the Earldom of Stirling, a Scottish peerage. His father had not claimed the title. William’s claim was upheld in Scottish courts, ignored by the British House of Lords, and his styling of Lord Stirling was accepted by Americans. His lavish lifestyle, which he felt befitting for a peer, drove him into debt, and when the Revolutionary War began he formed and equipped a regiment, the First New Jersey Regiment, at his own expense, indebting him even further.
At the American defeat in the Battle of Long Island, his regiment proved one of the few American units to stand against the British regulars. It suffered heavy casualties, and Lord Stirling was captured by the British when his men were finally overrun. Exchanged, he was promoted to Major General and played prominent roles in the battles of Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and others. He was held in such high regard by Washington that he was assigned to command the troops surrounding New York, left behind when the main army departed for Virginia and Yorktown in 1781.
Lord Stirling died in Albany in January, 1783, before the Revolutionary War ended. He had proved himself one of Washington’s most capable commanders in battle, and his participation in nearly all of the major battles fought by the main Continental Army should have made him famous. History has treated him diffidently. Outside of New Jersey, where he maintained his baronial estate, he is all but unknown. His claim to the Scottish Earldom of Stirling died with him, and the title returned to extinction.