John Laurens (October 28, 1754 – August 27, 1782) was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, best known for his efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for their freedom as U.S. soldiers.
In 1779, Laurens gained approval from the Continental Congress for his plan to recruit a brigade of 3,000 slaves by promising them freedom in return for fighting. The plan was defeated by political opposition in South Carolina. Laurens was killed in the Battle of the Combahee River in August 1782.
John Laurens was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on October 28, 1754, to Henry Laurens and Eleanor Ball Laurens, both of whose families were prosperous as planters cultivating rice. He had French heritage and spoke the language fluently.
John was the eldest of the five children who survived infancy. John and his two younger brothers, Henry Jr. and James, were tutored at home, but after the death of their mother, their father took them to England for their education. His two sisters, Martha and Mary Eleanor, remained with their paternal uncle James in Charleston.
By the 1750s, the elder Laurens and his business partner George Austin had become wealthy as owners of one of the largest slave trading houses in North America.
In May 1770, Laurens's mother died a month after giving birth to his last sibling, Mary Eleanor Laurens, who was one of the five to survive to maturity.
In October 1771, Laurens's father moved with his sons to London, and Laurens was educated in Europe from the ages of 16 to 22. For two years beginning in June 1772, he and one brother attended school in Geneva, Switzerland, where they lived with a family friend.
As a youth, Laurens had expressed considerable interest in science and medicine, and later in life, he would be elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. However, upon returning to London in August 1774, he yielded to his father's wish that he study law. In November 1774, Laurens began his legal studies at the Middle Temple. Laurens's father returned to Charleston, leaving Laurens as guardian to his brothers, both enrolled in British schools.
Military and diplomatic career
Service as Washington's aide-de-camp
Laurens arrived at Charleston in April 1777. That summer he accompanied his father from Charleston to Philadelphia, where his father was to serve in the Continental Congress. Henry Laurens, finding himself unable to prevent his son from joining the Continental Army, was able to obtain a position of honor for his 23-year-old son.
General George Washington invited Laurens to join his staff in early August, as a volunteer aide-de-camp. Washington wrote: I mean to delay the actual Appointment of my fourth Aide de Camp a while longer; but if you will do me the honour to become a member of my Family, you will make me very happy, by your Company and assistance in that Line as an Extra Aid and I shall be glad to receive you in that capacity whenever it is convenient to you.
Laurens became close friends with two of his fellow aides-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette. He quickly became known for his reckless courage upon first seeing combat on September 11, 1777, at the Battle of Brandywine during the Philadelphia campaign. Lafayette observed, "It was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded [at Brandywine,] he did everything that was necessary to procure one or t'other." Laurens behaved with similar recklessness at the Battle of Germantown, in which he was wounded on October 4, 1777:
Washington's forces surprise-attacked the British north of Philadelphia. At one point, the Americans were stymied by a large stone mansion occupied by the enemy. After several attempts to take the building failed, Laurens and a French volunteer, the chevalier Duplessis-Mauduit, came up with their own daring plan. They gathered some straw to set on fire and place at the front door of the house. According to another officer's account of Laurens's actions that day, "He rushed up to the door of Chew's House, which he forced partly open, and fighting with his sword with one hand, with the other he applied the wood work a flaming brand, and what is very remarkable, retired from under the tremendous fire of the house, with but a very slight wound." Laurens was struck by a musket ball that went through part of his right shoulder, and he made a sling for his arm from his uniform sash.
Two days after the Battle of Germantown, on October 6, 1777, he was given his official appointment as one of General Washington's aides-de-camp, and was commissioned with the rank of lieutenant colonel. From November 2 to December 11, 1777, Washington and several aides, including Laurens, were quartered at the Emlen House, north of Philadelphia in Camp Hill, which served as Washington's headquarters through the Battle of White Marsh.
After spending the remainder of the winter of 1777–1778 encamped at Valley Forge, Laurens marched to New Jersey around June 1778, to fight in the Battle of Monmouth. Near the start of battle, Laurens had his horse shot out from under him while he did reconnaissance for Baron von Steuben.
On December 23, 1778, Laurens engaged in a duel with General Charles Lee just outside Philadelphia, after Laurens took offense to Lee's slander of Washington's character. Lee was wounded in the side by Laurens's first shot, and Laurens, believing the wound was more serious than it seemed, went to help the general. However, Lee said it was fine and proposed to shoot a second time. The men's seconds, Alexander Hamilton and Evan Edwards, opposed this idea and had the duel end there, despite Lee's protests to fire again and Laurens's agreement.
Anti-slavery statements and recruitment of black soldiers