DANIEL

See also:

• MORGAN
• DANIEL MORGAN (1736-1802)
• MORGAN, EDWIN DENNISON (1811-1883)
• MORGAN, JOHN HUNT (1825-1864)
• MORGAN, JOHN PIERPONT (1837–1913)
• MORGAN, LEWIS HENRY (1818-1881)
• MORGAN, SYDNEY, LADY (c. 1783-1859)
• MORGAN, THOMAS (d. 1743)

MORGAN (1736-1802)  , American soldier, was born in Hunterdon county, New Jersey, in the winter of 1736, of Welsh ancestry . In 1753 he removed to Virginia . In June 1775, soon after the outbreak of the War of Independence, he was commissioned a captain of Virginia riflemen, and he marched his company to Boston in 21 days . In the winter of 1775 he accompanied General Benedict Arnold to Canada, and in the assault on Quebec (Dec . 31) he and his riflemen penetrated well into the city, where he was hemmed in and was forced to surrender . On the 7th of August 1776 he was discharged on parole; on the 12th of November he was commissioned colonel of the 11th Virginia; and soon afterwards he was released from his parole . In the summer of 1777 he was engaged in minor skirmishes in New Jersey, and early in September joined General Horatio Gates, then engaged in the campaign against General Burgoyne . At the first battle of Saratoga (Sept . 19) he was, until Arnold's arrival late in the day, the ranking officer on the field; and in the second battle (Oct . 7) also took a prominent part . Morgan rejoined Washington in November near Philadelphia . In March 1779 he was commissioned by Congress colonel of the 7th Virginia; but in July, suffering from poor health and dissatisfied because Congress did not advance him further in rank, he resigned from the army and retired to Virginia .

After the battle of

Camden, however, he joined Gates (then in command in the South) at Hillsborough, North Carolina, and on the 1st of October took command of a corps . On the 13th of the same month Congress tardily raised him to the rank of brigadier-general . In January 1781 Cornwallis and Tarleton attempted to entrap him, but at the Cowpens (Jan . 17) he defeated Tarleton and then escaped from Cornwallis into North Carolina . Apparently Morgan suggested to Greene (who had superseded Gates) that general's plan of battle at Guilford Court House on the 15th of March . In December ' 1793 he was commissioned major-general of Virginia militia, 'and in November 1794 commanded troops sent to suppress the Whisky Insurrection in western Pennsylvania . He was a Federalist representative in Congress in 1797-1799, and died in Winchester, Virginia, on the 6th of July 1802 . See James Graham, The Life of General Daniel Morgan of the Virginia Line (New York, 1856) ; and Rebecca McConkey, The Hero of Cowpens (rev. ed., New York, 1885) .