ANDREW

See also:

• ANDREW PICKENS (1739- 1817)
• PICKENS, FRANCIS WILKINSON (1805-1869)

PICKENS (1739- 1817)  , American soldier in the War of Independence, was born in Paxton, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 19th of September 1739 . His family settled at the Waxhaws (in what is now Lancaster county), South Carolina, in 1752 . He fought against the Cherokees in 1761 as a lieutenant . In the War of Independence he rose to brigadier-general (after Cowpens) in the South Carolina militia . He was a captain among the American troops which surrendered at Ninety Six in November 1775 . On the 14th of February 1779, with 300-40o men, he surprised and defeated about 700 Loyalists under Colonel Boyd on Kettle Creek, Wilkes county, Georgia; on the loth of June he fought at Stono Ferry; and later in the same year at Tomassee defeated the Cherokees, who were allied with the British . Upon the surrender of Charleston (May 178o) he became a prisoner on parole, which he observed rigidly until, contrary to the promises made to him, Major James Dunlap plundered his plantation; he then returned to active service_ His command (about 15o men) joined General Daniel Morgan immediately before the battle of Cowpens, in which Pickens commanded an advance guard (270-350 men from Georgia and North Carolina) and twice rallied the broken American militia; for his services Congress gave him a sword . With Colonel Henry Lee he harassed Lieut.-Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who was attempting to gather a Loyalist force just before the battle of Guilford Court House; and with Lee and others, he captured Augusta (June 5, 1781) after a siege . At Eutaw Springs (Sept . 8, 1781) he commanded the left wing and was wounded . In 1782 he defeated the Cherokees again and forced them to surrender all lands south of the Savannah and east of the Chattahoochee . After the war he was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives for a number of years, of the state Constitutional Convention in 1790, and of the National House of Representatives in 1793-1795 .

He died in

Pendleton district, South Carolina, on the 17th of August 1817 . He had married in 1765 Rebecca Calhoun, an aunt of John C . Calhoun . Their son, ANDREW PICKENS (1779-1838), served as a lieutenant-colonel in the War of 1812, and was governor of South Carolina in 1816-1818 .