Major General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)
General Nathanael Greene
Major General Nathanael Greene - Quartermaster General 1778-1780
The Patriot Resource: Nathanael Greene

Lord Rawdon
During his service in the Revolutionary War, the Honourable George Augustus Francis Rawdon was known by the courtesy title of "Lord Rawdon." His name and titles would change several times over the course of his life, but for simplicity, I'll refer to him that way throughout the course of this article. On the topic of his name, please note that Rawdon was not "Lord Francis Rawdon" even though many modern writers refer to him that way. He was "Francis, Lord Rawdon." The two forms do not mean the same thing, and cannot be interchanged.

Rawdon was born on Dec. 9, 1754, and he came into the world with the proverbial silver spoon his mouth. His father was the first Earl of Moira (Irish Peerage), and his mother, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, was the daughter of the Earl of Huntington.

Rawdon was educated at Harrow, and became an ensign in the 15th Foot in Aug. 7, 1771. He enrolled in University College, Oxford, but like his classmate Banastre Tarleton, he failed to finish his degree. Instead, he purchased a lieutenancy in the 5th Foot (Oct. 20, 1773), sailed for America in May, 1774, and arrived in Boston two months later.

At the battle of Bunker/Breed's Hill (June 17, 1775), he achieved his first taste of military glory, taking command of his company after his captain was hit, and leading it with conspicuous courage through the rest of the action. In a letter to England, John Burgoyne commented that "Lord Rawdon has this day stamped his fame for life." In consequence, he was promoted Captain (July 12, 1775) and given a company in the 63d Regiment of Foot.

The winter garrison at Boston (1775-76) saw the first season of "Howe's Strolling Players," an amateur theatrical group composed primarily of British army and navy officers. Rawdon made his stage debut with them, delivering a prologue for Aaron Hill's tragedy, Zara, which had been written by John Burgoyne. He had joined the group in an effort to improve his public speaking. "I am conscious of my timidity on that point," he wrote to his uncle, "and feel that nothing but habit will conquer it." (It was a sound decision, given that he had years of politics and statecraft waiting for him when he returned to England after the way, though one that seems to have met with indifferent success. Years later, The Times would damn-with-faint-praise one of his Parliamentary speeches with the comments, "although not blessed with very uncommon powers of oratory, and possessing a voice but indifferently calculated to make any great impression on his hearers, he went through this...talk, with a regularity that proved he understood his subject[.]")

On Jan 15, 1776, Captain Lord Rawdon of the 63d Regiment was appointed supernumerary aide-de-camp to General Henry Clinton. Later in the year, he accompanied Clinton in that capacity on the first expedition against Charleston.

Clinton had a natural inclination to mentor young officers, and Rawdon was one of his most talented pupils. In a letter to his uncle, he reported, "[Clinton] gives me lessons on the art of war, and I am truly happy at receiving instructions from one whom I regard as a thorough master of his profession." Whether the credit goes to Sir Henry's teaching or his own innate abilities, the young lord was destined to rise to the rank of colonel before the close of the war. He found his military training ground in the battles around New York, seeing action at Brooklyn, White Plains, and Fort Washington.

In early 1777, he accompanied Clinton home to England in his capacity as aide-de-camp. (Apparently he made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Lafayette while they were in London.) They returned in time for a late-summer campaign which opened up the Hudson River. After the capture of Forts Clinton and Montgomery, Clinton dispatched Rawdon to Philadelphia to carry the news to General Howe. He reached that city on Oct. 18, 1777, and stayed for the winter.

When Sir Henry assumed the position of Commander-in-Chief following Howe's resignation, he was quick to put his aide and pupil to work. In his diary entry for May 1-2, 1778, Stephen Kemble noted that Rawdon would be receiving an appointment to raise an Irish Provincial Battalion. Kemble, who wanted the position for himself, also noted miserably that "in case his [i.e. Rawdon's] Company in the Guards does not succeed, the temporary Rank of Colonel may give him a plea to be appointed Adjutant General if Colonel Paterson should decline, which I think will be the case."

Kemble's pessimism over his own situation was justified. On May 25, 1780 Gen. Clinton appointed Lord Rawdon to command the Volunteers of Ireland with the provincial rank of colonel. Captain Welbore Ellis Doyle of the 55th Regiment was named his lieutenant-colonel.

There's an amusing side note to the appointment of Captain -- now Lieutenant-Colonel -- Doyle. Rawdon and Doyle were friends, but there's a possibility he was even closer to Doyle's wife, Frances. Contemporary gossip whispered that she was Rawdon's mistress and accompanied him (and her husband) throughout the campaigning in the south. Her first child, born in 1783, was named Frances Hastings Doyle, but if his parentage was at all in question, the fact does not seem to have troubled the "easy going" lieutenant-colonel.

On May 30, Clinton's orders reaffirmed Rawdon's appointment as one of his aides-de-camp, and on June 19, he was "appointed Adjutant-General, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, in the Army, in the room of Col. Patterson, who has obtained leave to return to Europe upon his private affairs."

In command of his newly formed regiment, Rawdon served during the retreat from Philadelphia to New York and saw action at the battle of Monmouth Court House (Jun. 20, 1778).

For the next year, he continued to serve as adjutant general, and to enjoy the quiet life in New York while the war essentially went on hiatus. The love for lavish hospitality which would in later life cause him dire financial distress was well developed during this period -- Commodore Hotham mentions that Rawdon employed an Italian chef to serve his mess table.

Like many officers before and after him, Lord Rawdon eventually fell out with his prickly Commander-in-Chief. A little more than a year after he had accepted the post of adjutant general, he resigned it again in anger, informing Clinton he had "no longer the honour of being upon those terms of mutual confidence in a station whose duties are most irksome to me." The roots of their argument were trivial. Rawdon was overly proud of his Volunteers of Ireland, and took it personally whenever Clinton criticized them. Clinton, in turn, was offended when Rawdon defended another officer to whom he had taken a dislike. Rawdon also supported a protest raised by the regular army field officers against how seniority ranking was being handled between establishment and provincial officers which "exasperated the General and widened the breach." According to Charles Stuart, who was friends with both men, the rift might have been mended had not Rawdon written a letter to the Secretary of War in which he "mentioned his having resigned his office on account of bad health, begged to keep his Rank, and, unluckily at the bottom, made use of an expression wherein he insinuated that no fault of his had occasioned his resignation." This, for Sir Henry Clinton, meant that all hopes of a reconciliation were at an end. (After the war, when Rawdon was more mature and Clinton under less stress, they worked through the rift and became friends again. They remained close until Clinton's death.)

Lord Rawdon's resignation caused concern in the army. In a letter to his father, the Earl of Bute, Charles Stuart commented that, "I was well acquainted with Lord Rawdon's talents; I loved him as a friend, and knew that he was the only man of integrity in the General's [Clinton's] family; besides, in the propriety of his conduct in that Office, he had so effectually established himself in the esteem of the Army that the few who retained a respect for the General were owing to his means."

Still at outs with Sir Henry Clinton, Lord Rawdon was not part of the expedition that sailed south to Charleston, but he joined the army during the latter part of the siege, bringing with him a reinforcement of some 2500 troops, including the Volunteers of Ireland. On April 24, he led the expedition which captured the works on Haddrell's Point.