John Laurens: an unsung hero of the Revolutionary War

After watching Hamilton (2015) on Disney+, I was introduced to many people involved in the Revolutionary War that I did not know about before. One man, in particular, was John Laurens. In the musical, Laurens in played by the incredibly talented Anthony Ramos. The real John Laurens was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina. He is best known for his criticisms of slavery and his efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for their freedom as U.S. soldiers. Laurens was an idealist who believed that the republican principles the Americans were fighting for were hypocritical if they continued to utilize slave labor and encouraged those around him to consider freeing their enslaved workers (Fitzgerald).

John Laurens was both in Charleston, South Carolina on October 28, 1754 to Henry and Eleanor (nee Ball) Laurens. Both families were owners of prosperous rice plantations. By the 1750s, Henry and his business partner, George Austin, were wealthy owners of one of the largest slave trading houses in North America. John was the eldest of five surviving children. He and his younger brothers, Henry Jr and James, were tutored at home then in England following the death of their mother in 1770.  As a youth, John expressed interest in science and medicine but persuaded law at his father’s urging. On October 26, 1776, he married Martha Manning, the daughter of a mentor and family friend. His only child, a daughter, Frances Eleanor, was born January 1777. Given the dates of his marriage and his daughter’s birth, it is safe to assume he was forced to marry for appearances sake. He was determined to join the Continental Army and fight for his country. He left law school as well as his, then, pregnant wife in December 1776.

General George Washington hired Laurens as his Aide de Camp. There he would meet and became close friends with Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette. He would gain a reputation for reckless courage in the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777 and again at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. On October 6, 1777, he was commissioned and given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. On December 23, 1778, Laurens would engage in a duel with General Charles Lee after Laurens took offense to Lee’s slander of Washington, an event which is featured in the musical. In March 1781, Laurens and Thomas Paine were sent to France to assist Benjamin Franklin, who was serving as American minister in Paris. Together, there were able to secure support, including naval support, which would prove vital at the Siege of Yorktown. Laurens returned to join the fight at Yorktown and serve under Colonel Alexander Hamilton. When the British troops surrendered on October 17, 1781, Washington appointed Laurens as the American commissioner for drafting the formal terms of surrender.

As British operations increased in the South, Laurens promoted the idea of arming slaves and granting their freedom in return. Laurens was set apart from other leaders in Revolutionary-era South Carolina by his belief that black and white people shared a similar nature and could aspire to freedom in a republican society” (Massey, 2003), he would write, “We Americans at least in the Southern Colonies, cannot contend with a good Grace, for Liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our Slaves." The Congress approved the concept in March 1779, but it was opposed. After winning a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives, Laurens reintroduced his black regiment plan in 1779, 1780 and 1782, each time being overwhelming rejected. According to Gregory D. Massey, Laurens speaks more clearly to us today than other men of the American Revolution whose names are far more familiar. Unlike all other southern political leaders of the time, he believed that blacks shared a similar nature with whites, which included a natural right to liberty and believed that liberty from the sweat of slaves was not truly liberty (2003).

On August 27, 1782, at the age of 27, John Laurens was shot and killed at the skirmish at Combahee River. He would be one of the last casualties of the Revolutionary War. Prior to the battle, Laurens was confined to bed with a high fever, probably malaria. When he learned that British troops were on the move, he left his sickbed. The forces would meet as Laurens led the charge. John Laurens was a man ahead of his time. To that extent, at least, his beliefs make him our contemporary, a man worthy of more attention than the footnote he has been in most accounts of the American Revolution (Massey 2003). Thanks to Hamilton, he isn’t a footnote anymore.

References

Fitzpatrick, Siobhan (no date). John Laurens. Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/john-laurens/. Retrieved July 10, 2020.

Massey, Gregory D. (Winter–Spring 2003). "Slavery and Liberty in the American Revolution: John Laurenss Black Regiment Proposal". The Early America Review. IV (3). https://web.archive.org/web/20150216222608/http://www.earlyamerica.com/early-america-review/volume-1/slavery-liberty-american-revolution/. Retrieved July 10, 2020.