Mercer still in Charles Town SC
George Mercer is still a Captain. He's also still technically aide de camp to Colonel George Washington. And his company's men were some of the builders of Fort Loudoun Winchester VA.
But George Mercer is still in Charleston. So is Adam Stephen. He's the head of the other company.
These were 2 companies of the VA Regiment sent to South Carolina in the plan hatched in a conference held in Philadelphia in March of 1757 by some of the Governors and Lord Loudoun.
And for why?
South Carolina's leaders and soldiers went to the frontier, leaving Charles Town (now known as Charleston SC) unguarded.
Charles Town would be prey to what?
Prey to any revolt by the slaves or attack by the Indians or attack by the Spanish.
Some sources for these claims can be found here:
Who is George Mercer?
And just a brief segue to remind you who George Mercer is.
His Dad, John Mercer, had one of the largest libraries in Virginia.
George Mason University names their school library the Mercer library. His Dad helped raise George Mason noted for writing Virginia's Bill of Rights. George Mason's grandson, Senator James Murray Mason, who lived where Selma is across from Walgreen's on Amherst Street in Winchester later helped write the Fugitive Slave Act. George Mercer's Dad was also on the Ohio Company to attain promised western land. His Dad also provided Colonel George Washington his lawyer services.
George's brother Captain John Fenton Mercer was killed in the Battle of the Great Cacapon 18 April 1756..
Our George Mercer had a couple second acts of major notoriety.
His effigy is burned and hanged when he intended to be Stamp Collector. To his horror of this unanticipated rebellion he resigned. And last but not least our George Mercer could have been a major contender.
He was one of those touted to be Governor of a new colony called Vandalia, named so ironically after the wife of King George III, who is said to have been related to the Vandals who invaded Rome.
That's not even the half of George Mercer's story.
Your head spinning yet?
It's okay if you're not impressed.
Our George Mercer could have been . . . . but never was.
He could have been a contender . . .
And for that reason
we refer you
to Marlon Brando's
"I could have been a contender,"
on the movie,
On The Waterfront.
See snippet of that movie here:
Just like in that movie,
George Mercer feels that his
Colonel George Washington
held him back too.
He wrote his brother James
from England on 11 Mar. 1764:
“The Services I was of
to Colo. Washington [as his aide-12–camp]
the Country in some Measure rewarded me for—
though he might have afforded
to have done it himself
out of his Allowance & the Reputation he obtained by it—
but thank God,
I have done with him,
and if he will pay off this Account,
I am sure I never desire to deal with him for 6d. again
Source of that letter:
Back to his Charles Town time.
George Mercer
was actually finally
sent to Savannah GA
for some reason.
An anticipated
Spanish attack was stated as one of the reasons.
Spain had not officially joined this world wide war to ally with France yet.
Another reason was to have a guard in town to stop any slave insurrection.
When does Mercer come back?
Founders Online Footnote 5 to Mercer's letter to GW 2 Nov 1757 gives the dates of Mercer's movements.
Col. Henry Bouquet sent Mercer’s company to Savannah, Ga., on 27 Aug. 1757, but “Capt Mercer being sick” (Henry Bouquet to Henry Ellis, 26 Aug. 1757, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers, 1:177–78), Mercer remained in Charleston and his company was taken to Savannah by Lt. Walter Steuart.
On about 12 Nov. Bouquet sent Captain Mercer to Savannah with a letter to Gov. Henry Ellis telling him that Loudoun had instructed him to send the Virginia forces home.
Mercer returned to Charleston with his company on 9 Dec. 1757, but he and the rest of the Virginia forces did not leave South Carolina before March and they did not get back to Winchester in Virginia until 3 May 1758.
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The short answer?
3 May 1758.
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Colonel George Washington writes on 4 May 1758 to Sir John St Clair
The two Virga Companies from Carolina came to this place Yesterday. inclosd is a return of their Strength.3
"This place" means Fort Loudoun Winchester VA. That's where Colonel George Washington wrote his letter. Founders Online notes no returns were found. The two companies were captained by Lt Col Adam Stephen and Captain George Mercer.
Mercer becomes a Lt Colonel:
When George Mercer comes back, he comes back as a Lt Colonel to Colonel William Byrd III of the newly created 2nd Virginia Regiment (created on 12 April 1758) in time to join the Forbes Expedition to reduce the French and their Indian allies in Fort DuQuesne.
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This blog compiled and authored by Jim Moyer 11/20/2021, updated 11/27-28, 2021
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Here's the Letter:
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To George Washington from George Mercer,
2 November 1757
From George Mercer Charles Town [S.C.] Novr 2d 1757
Dear Colonel,
Tho. I have not been favored with an Answer to one of the many Letters I have wrote you since I came here, yet I will not let any Opportunity slip, agreeable to my Promise; as I shall attribute this, to your Letters miscarrying, for I woud not suppose but you have wrote.1
Notwithstanding every Precaution which the Governor pretended he had taken, to have Us regularly paid,
No Pay
We have already been
three Months without Pay, &
so far advanced in a fourth
that I doubt it will not be the last—
Colo. Stephen sends an Express to inform the Governor of this,
and of the Impossibility
of keeping the Men without Pay2—
They have yet behaved extremely well, & tis Pity the Country shoud lose so many good Men after becoming serviceable;
and I dont much doubt but they may with one Consent refuse to serve Us, & inlist with the Regulars;
some of Them have attempted it already, & been Severely punished,
but I am certain shoud it come to that, as they all know We cant oblige Them to continue without their Pay, they woud give Them any Encouragement to enlist with Them, Tho. to do the Gentlemen Justice they have yet done all in their Power to prevent it, but it woud be for the Interest of the common Cause to have Them enlisted in another Regiment rather than suffer Them wholly to quit the Service—what must add greatly to promote Uneasiness & Discontent in Them, is that they see every Soldier here except Themselves paid Weekly.
Highlanders We have lately had a Reinforcement here from Britain of 1000 Highlanders
under the Command of Lieut. Colonel Montgomerie3—
I assure you they are a Set of fine Fellows, but quite undisciplined yet—
They take great Pains with Them, tho., & they improve daily.
A drummer I coud but think my Friends had forgot Me,
when the Drummer
who came from you
never brought Me a line from any Body; I
have interrogated him often in Regard to the Dispositions & Strength of our Regt he coud give Me no very satisfactory Account of either, as I imagine, tho. he seems positive in his Assertions—what made me give the less Credit to his Reports was that he says Bell—who I remember when I left Virga was struck off the List, is sent to the Cherokee Fort, with 200 Men, surely they woud scarce reinstate him, & after trust him with such a Command I can’t think it possible, the most unfit Person that ever was in the service for such a Charge.
Captain Paul Demere
Capt. Paul Demere is sent from this Place,
to the So. Carolina Fort built there, really two very proper Men to manage Indians.4
Leaving SC? We have still hoped to see Virginia this Fall, till the Arrival of a Man of War from Lord Loudoun—Colo. Bouquet says perhaps we may get Home in the Spring if theres nothing material to do—but if there is—says he, by way of Hum Bug, we cant do without you.5
Lousy living in Charleston SC I find my long Stay in this Place has only encreased the very bad opinion I at first conceived of it.
To say no more of it tis the most extravagant & uncomfortable Place I ever was in—upon my Honor tis with some Degree of Oconomy that I can Live here upon my Pay—The Towns People dont desire to cultivate an Acquaintance or maintain a Society with Us, so that were it not for the Harmony that subsists between Ourselves (the Officers) it woud be intolerable.
Other News I am not a little surprized that We have no late News with Us—
A Vessel from Britain in seven Weeks has given Us very little fresh Intelligence;
Save only there being a very Strong Fleet of at least 30 Men of War,
400 Transports &
10,000 Troops
among which is about 4 or 500 Light Horse
being ready at Plymouth
when they left it
to undertake a secret Expedition
which Sr John Mordaunt conducts, &
has two other Generals with him.
There are three Admirals too with the Fleet—Hawke Knowles, & Boscowen.6
A French Prize was sent in here last Week, computed to be worth £40,000 Sterl.
Wishing he was back in Virginia I assure you I long much to see you again were I safe at Home
So. Carolina woud be the last Place I ever woud come to.
Be pleased the first Opportunity to present my Compliments to your Mother & all your Family.
I am Dr Sr Your much obliged Friend & humble Servt
Go: Mercer ALS, DLC:GW.
Founders Online Footnotes
Capt. George Mercer, GW’s aide-de-camp, and Lt. Col. Adam Stephen, GW’s second in command, took a contingent of the Virginia Regiment to Charleston, S.C., in late May 1757 to strengthen its defenses against a feared attack by the French. See particularly Dinwiddie to GW, 5 April 1757, n.2.
1. The only other letter found from George Mercer at Charleston is that of 17 Aug. 1757.
2. Dinwiddie arranged with Benjamin Stead of Charleston to serve as the agent to pay for the provisions for the two companies of the Virginia Regiment at that place and to give the soldiers their pay. For the difficulties that arose in getting the men’s money to them, see especially Dinwiddie to Stead, 22 July, 26 Aug., 24 Sept., and 23 Nov. 1757, all in Brock, Dinwiddie Papers, 2:675–76, 689, 705, 716–17; Dinwiddie to Adam Stephen, 24 Sept. 1757, ibid., 705; Dinwiddie to Henry Bouquet, 24 Nov. 1757, ibid., 717–18; and Bouquet to Dinwiddie, 18 Oct., 16 Dec. 1757, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers, 1:220–21, 261.
3. Lt. Col. Archibald Montgomery (1726–1796) arrived in Charleston with his 1st Highland Battalion on 3 Sept. 1757.
4. The report of the unidentified drummer that David Bell, recently a captain in the Virginia Regiment, had returned to duty at the unmanned fort in the Cherokee country was mistaken. The Virginia fort there was evidently never occupied. This fort has sometimes been referred to as Fort Loudoun, but it seems to have never been named. It is often mistaken for the Fort Loudoun in the same general area built a year later by South Carolina. For GW’s noncommittal appraisal of Bell when Bell applied for command of one of the proposed additional companies of the Virginia Regiment, see GW to Dinwiddie, 10 June 1757. Paul Demeré, the brother of Capt. Raymond Demeré, was commander of one of the three independent companies stationed in South Carolina.
5. Col. Henry Bouquet sent Mercer’s company to Savannah, Ga., on 27 Aug. 1757, but “Capt Mercer being sick” (Henry Bouquet to Henry Ellis, 26 Aug. 1757, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers, 1:177–78), Mercer remained in Charleston and his company was taken to Savannah by Lt. Walter Steuart.
On about 12 Nov. Bouquet sent Captain Mercer to Savannah with a letter to Gov. Henry Ellis telling him that Loudoun had instructed him to send the Virginia forces home.
Mercer returned to Charleston with his company on 9 Dec. 1757, but he and the rest of the Virginia forces did not leave South Carolina before March and they did not get back to Winchester in Virginia until 3 May 1758.
6. A powerful expedition under generals Sir John Mordaunt and H. S. Conway and admirals Sir Edward Hawke, Sir Charles Knowles, and Thomas Brodrick (not Edward Boscawen) sailed from Plymouth on 8 Sept. 1757 to attack the French naval base at Rochefort up the Charante River from the Bay of Biscay. After some preliminary skirmishing, the commander of the expedition called it off in late September.
Source:
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By the way there was a statue
memorializing the Virginia Regiment
in Richmond VA.
It was pulled down he night of 19–20 June 2020.
It was the fifth statue toppled in Richmond during a series of civil rights protests.
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The First Virginia Regiment statue in the Fan’s Meadow Park was found toppled over on Saturday morning.
Located about a block away from Monument Avenue the statue was part of a monument for the First Virginia Regiment’s fallen soldiers. The regiment was formed in 1754, 21 years before the Revolutionary War.
Other statues that have been pulled down include the Jefferson Davis statue on Monument Avenue, the Christopher Columbus statue in Byrd Park and the Williams Carter Wickham statue in Monroe Park.
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Conference with Lord Loudoun
and The Governors
in Philadelphia
Below is an excerpt about the Governors in Philadelphia.
Our Colonel George Washington attended also.
More on the whole story of that Philadelphia Conference in March 1757 can be found here:
This was not as complete a "Grandest Conference," like the one Braddock conducted at Carlyle's House, two years ago. Only some of the Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies attended.
Lt Gov Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia
was there. He was the acting governor. The actual governor of Virginia was Lord Loudoun himself, but often the Lt Gov was the real one to do the work of the Governor, while the titled Governor was most often absent. And in this case, really absent -- because Lord Loudoun never ended up going to Virginia. Before GW wrote his plea to Lord Loudoun to gain a better establishment with the British Army, GW first wrote Dinwiddie of that plea.
It was decided at Philadelphia that the reinforcements to be sent to South Carolina would include 400 men from the Virginia Regiment. See GW to Dinwiddie, 2 April 1757, n.2. On 26 May 1757 Dinwiddie wrote Lt. Col. Adam Stephen that he was ordering “two Companies of 100 Men each under your Command to proceed directly from this [Williamsburg] to Hampton, where two Sloops are provided & ready to take on board yr Men to be transported to So. Carolina; and you are to be under the Command and Direction of Lieutt Colo. Bouquet, who is Commander of the Forces in the Southern Collonies on this Continent.” On the same day Dinwiddie wrote Gov. William H. Lyttelton that he was sending him “a Detachmt from our provincial Regimt 200 Men under the Command of Lieut. Colo. Stevens, which are one third of our Regimt, our Quota was to be 400, but at present I cd not possibly send the whole having only 400 Men to protect our extensive frontiers” (ViHi: Dinwiddie Papers). Thomas Waggener, Joshua Lewis, Peter Steenbergen, and John Hall were not among the officers of the Virginia Regiment who sailed for South Carolina at the end of May.
Source:
5 April 1757 Dinwiddie letter
Dinwiddie's movements after the conference:
Founders Online notes: Dinwiddie returned from Philadelphia on 31 Mar. or 1 April and immediately summoned the assembly to meet in Williamsburg on 14 April. See William Fairfax to GW, 31 Mar. 1757. Founders Online notes: On 29 Mar. in Dinwiddie’s absence Fairfax as president of the council met in Williamsburg with “King Blunt and thirty three Tuscaroroes, seven Meherrins, two Saponies and thirteen Nottoways” before sending them up to GW in Baker’s charge (Exec. Journals of Virginia Council, 6:38). Founders Online reports: The southern governors’ conference with Loudoun in Philadelphia broke up on 23 Mar., and GW was in Annapolis on his way to Alexandria on 30 March. The council met on 4 April to receive Dinwiddie’s report on the meeting in Philadelphia with Loudoun. Although Philip Ludwell Lee’s commission as a member of the council was read at the meeting of 22 Mar. 1757, he first attended the council on 14 April. John Tayloe’s commission was read on 11 April and he made his first appearance on 14 April.
Horatio Sharpe, Governor of Maryland,
was there. This colony was a proprietorship. Douglas Southall Freeman in his Young Washington Volume 2, page 235, states GW often met Horatio Sharpe while in Philadelphia. Both built a substantial fort at the same time. Horatio Sharpe's Fort Frederick still stands. As a Park Ranger at the fort today will tell a Winchester VA resident: "We might have a fort, but you have George Washington."
Governor of of the Royal Colony of North Carolina, was there. He quite the interesting fellow who "discovered" the Venus Flytrap and was interested in pursuing the Northwest Passage between the Arctic and Canada. In here is a summary of when both North and South Carolina was one colony. Some incidental background: Capt. Edward Brice Dobbs, son of North Carolina governor Arthur Dobbs, arrived at Fort Cumberland on 30 May 1755 to help on the Braddock Expedition leading a company of 80 North Carolina men. And after that from 1755 to Spring of 1756, "Majr Dobbs is Posted at the German Flatts in the Way to Oswego where I beleive he is like to Continue & has Little prospect of Joyning the Regulars this Camphain"
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South Carolina representation was not there.
William Henry Lyttelton, the designated Governor of this Royal Colony in 1755 but was captured by the French. He was detained in Brest as a prisoner of war. He finally was released and arrived at Charleston on June 1, 1756, and held office until he left the colony on April 4, 1760. We do not know for sure why he did not attend this Philadelphia conference with Lord Loudoun but his colony did receive a decision at that conference to send Virginia troops to guard Charleston SC while South Carolina provincials went west to encounter a perceived French and Indian threat. Founders Online notes: Dinwiddie wrote William H. Lyttelton from Williamsburg in a letter dated 2 April that he had arrived the day before. Arthur Dobbs became governor of North Carolina in 1754.
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William Denny,
Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, a proprietorship, was there. He was staying at the Shippen House, according to Douglas Southall Freeman in his Young George Washington Vol 2, page 235 footnote. Founders Online has an interesting description of his issues: ". . . His polite attempt to submerge party disputes in a concentration on the war effort, laudable enough in itself, left the fatuous Denny isolated and despised. Richard Peters found him “a triffler, weak of body, peevish and averse to business”; his predecessor, Morris, reported that his object “seems to be money”; a prominent Quaker moaned “he is a wavering, weak, unstable gentleman, and under his administration, Lord have mercy upon us”; and the Indians at one time wondered whether he was man or woman. Although bf in the Council’s presence called him a Bashaw, Denny seems to have been complaisant enough for bf to recall later that “Between us personally no Enmity arose.” By the end of his administration he had disgusted everyone, having among other things beaten and virtually imprisoned his wife, sold flags of truce to smugglers, and disobeyed his instructions in exchange for salary payments from the Assembly. Recalled in 1759, he spent the rest of his life in ease and idleness . . ."
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Sir Charles Hardy,
Governor of New York , was not there. But that Governor Sir Charles Hardy was busy in the search for the writer of letters sending privileged information to France. And those letters seemed to describe George Washington.
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From Douglas Southall Freeman's Young George Washington, Volume 2, Pages 239, published 1948, Charles Scribner's Sons:
. . . Lord Loudoun undertook to sift suspects. They found nobody who seemed to have the position the anonymous writer asserted to be his.
At length, on Jan 1, 1757, Samuel Vanhorne, a New York merchant, residing on Wall Street, came to Sir Charles Hardy, Governor of New York, and explained that business often took him to Philadelphia where friends frequently asked him to inquire if there were letters for them in the New York Post Office and, if so, to forward the communications.
During a visit from which he had just returned, said Vanhorne, a man dressed like an officer had accosted him and had asked if there was m the New York office a letter for Pierre Fidel.
Doubtless having been informed of the decoy, Vanhorne answered that such a letter was awaiting its addressee The man in military dress replied that he wished he had it, as “the man for whom it was intended was on the frontier ”
Sir Charles immediately notified Lord Loudoun, who went that same evening with Colonel Stanwix to the Governor’s quarters to interview
Vanhorne.
The merchant repeated his story With some difficulty and
much persuasion, Loudoun won Vanhorne’s promise to go back to Philadelphia with Colonel Stanwix The Colonel was ordered to arrest
the suspect, if Vanhorne pointed him out, and to secure all his papers 44 When does GW leave Philly?
While Colonel George Washington is still in Philadelphia, Indian allies are coming up from the south. Founders Online notes this timeline: "The southern governors’ conference with Loudoun in Philadelphia broke up on 23 Mar., and GW was in Annapolis on his way to Alexandria on 30 March."
To George Washington
from John Blair,
5 February 1758
Did Dinwiddie slip on his duties to get this done?
Or was some one blocking Dinwiddie from obtaining the ships to get the 2 companies of the VA Regiment back?
7. Loudoun wrote Col. Henry Bouquet of the Royal Americans in Charleston, S.C., on 12 Oct. 1757 with instructions to send back to Virginia from Carolina the companies of the Virginia Regiment commanded by Adam Stephen and George Mercer (see Bouquet to Dinwiddie, 16 Dec. 1757, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers, 1:261).
Dinwiddie reportedly had not sent the transports for the troops in Carolina when he left Virginia on 12 Jan. 1758, but on the day of his departure the minutes of the Virginia Council noted that “Transports had been order’d to bring [the troops] back” from Carolina (Exec. Journals of Virginia Council, 6:78–79). Adam Stephen arrived with his detachment in Fredericksburg on 22 April, and GW wrote John St. Clair on 4 May 1758 that Mercer’s and Stephen’s companies had arrived at Fort Loudoun on 3 May 1758.
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Sources:
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From George Washington
to John St. Clair,
4 May 1758
To John St. Clair Fort Loudoun May 4th 1758.
Dear Sir I have now had an oppertunity of Examining Ucahula, an Indian Warrior that brought in the Scalps mentiond in my last. His acct is nearly the following.
That about the first of last Month Lieutt Gist with 6 Soldiers and 30 Indians left the South Branch of Potomack River, and after a tedious March (occasiond by deep Snows on the Mountains) they got upon the Waters of Monongahela, where Mr Gist by a fall from a steep Bank got lamd & was renderd incapable of Marching. that the white Men and some Indians stayd with him and the remainder of the Indians divided into three small parties and proceeded whin He Ucahula with two others went down the Monongahela in a bark Canoe and landed on the No. Side not far from Fort Duquesne—That they lay there conceald two days to make discoveries and if possible to get a prisoner, but no favourable oppertunity offering to accomplish the latter they attack’d a Canoe in which two Frenchmen were Fishing, both of whom they killd & Scalpd in sight of some other Frenchmen also a fishing.1
This Indian’s Acct of Fort Du-quesne corrisponds with most others I have heard, vizt that it is strong on the Land side, but stockado’d only where it Faces the Ohio. It does not appear from his information, that there are many Men there; nor that they have thrown up any New Works. He saw a Party on the other side the River which he supposd to be newly come, because, there were several Canoes near them and they seemd to be busied in putting up bark Huts which however were not many & only two Tents pitch’d.
When he got about 15 Miles this side Fort Duquesne he came upon a large Indian Incampment, & Tracts steerg towards Virginia; and after the Parties had Joind & were Marching in Lieutt Gist came upon the Tract of another large Party pursuing the same course—these parties have since fallen upon the back Inhabitants of Augusta County and destroyd near 50 persons besides an Officer & 18 Men of Captn Hogs Rangg Company who we suppose (for I have no advice from him) we sent to the Country People’s Assistance.2
So soon as I got notice of this I orderd a Detachment from the Regimt and some Indians that were equipd for War to March & endeavour to intercept their retreat if they are not too numerous. I have also engagd Ucahula with a small party of brisk Men to go immediately to Fort Duquesne and try to get a Prisoner. He seems confident of Success; and promises to be back in 20 days at farthest.
The two Virga Companies from Carolina came to this place Yesterday. inclosd is a return of their Strength.3
I am Sir Yr most Obedt & Most Hble Servt Go: Washington
ALS, Scottish Record Office; LB, DLC:GW.
Founders Online Footnotes:
1. On this day GW wrote to Blair a little less detailed account of the exploits of Ucahula and Lt. Nathaniel Gist. See GW to Blair, 4–10 May, and notes. Robert Stewart’s account written for General Forbes on the same day is more detailed but told in much the same words (Stewart to Forbes, 4 May 1758, Scottish Record Office: Dalhousie Muniments).
2. See GW to Blair, 4–10 May, n.1. Peter Hog, former captain of the 1st company of the Virginia Regiment, was at this time captain of a company of rangers in Augusta County.
3. The returns of the two companies brought back from South Carolina by Adam Stephen have not been found.
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