One of George Washington’s most dependable and capable officers during his command of the Virginia Regiment in the Seven Years’ War, Andrew Lewis was a military, civic, and economic leader of Virginia’s western frontier. When the Continental Congress promoted Lewis to the rank of Brigadier General in the Continental Army in 1776, General Washington approved of the appointment and commented in his usual reserved manner, “I always look’d upon him as a Man of Spirit and a good Officer."1
Early Life
Born on October 9, 1720, Andrew Lewis was the second son of John Lewis and Margaret Lynn of County Donegal, Ireland. The family immigrated to North America after John defended his family against an unprovoked attack by his landlord.2 By 1738, the Lewis Family had settled in the upper Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, near present-day Staunton.3 Through familial connections, John Lewis and his sons were employed as surveyors for the vast land holdings of William Beverley.4 Andrew also married and began a family, as well as continuing his pursuits in the speculation of western lands.5
Early Military Career
Andrew Lewis’ “uncommon” strength, stature, and grave demeanor made him a natural and daunting military commander.6 As early as 1742, his name appears as a Captain of Augusta County militia.7 When war between the British and the French in North America broke out, Lewis’ abilities and reputation as a soldier earned him a commission as a Captain in the fledgling Virginia Regiment on March 18, 1754. He commanded a company during the unit’s expedition to the Ohio Country in the summer of 1754 and was wounded during the fighting at Fort Necessity.8After this initial confrontation, the General Assembly of Virginia resolved to renew the Virginia Regiment and, in early September 1755, Lewis merited the rank of Major.9 He was immediately tasked with leading an expedition against the French-allied Shawnee in the winter of 1756.10 But inclement weather, difficult terrain, a lack of provisions, and dissension among the soldiery forced the task force to turn around.11Thereafter, Lewis assisted in the recruiting and training of the Virginia Regiment, as well as commanding patrols of the borderlands of Virginia and North Carolina.12
By 1758, the British ministry had formulated a new strategy to win the Seven Years’ War, a key part of which was to sweep the French out the Ohio Country. To that end, Brigadier General John Forbes was assigned to advance on Fort Duquesne with a military force that included Colonel George Washington’s unit. On the march to the forks of the Ohio River in mid-September, Major Lewis was part of a detachment to probe enemy defenses. Unbeknownst to the British and Americans, the French garrison had been recently reinforced and forcefully repelled the British-American force. Andrew Lewis was wounded and captured during the combat and would be sent as a prisoner of war to Canada.13
Exchanged at the end of 1759, Andrew Lewis returned to Virginia in time to see an uprising by the Overhill Cherokee in the early months of 1760.14 He returned to duty with the Virginia Regiment and served until the summer of 1761 when a peace was reached.15 Though the Seven Years’ War formally ended in early 1763, Andrew Lewis was yet called back into military service in reaction to Pontiac’s Rebellion.16
Entry into Colonial Politics
In 1768, Andrew Lewis was appointed as a representative of the Colony of Virginia to treat with the Six Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) at Fort Stanwix, New York.17 One of the outcomes of the treaty was the further opening of land in western Virginia to Euro-American settlement with the formation of Botetourt County in 1770. Lewis moved his family to the new county and established a sizeable plantation which would be worked by enslaved labor.18Lewis would serve his new community first in the capacity of County Lieutenant ,or chief militia officer, on March 2, 1770. Beginning in 1772, he would also serve as a representative of Botetourt County in the Virginia House of Burgesses.19He also resumed his perpetual interest in the acquisition of land.20
Sporadic violence by both American Indian tribes and Euro-Americans increased throughout the Ohio River Valley in the early 1770s. The situation had come to a head by the spring of 1774. When attempts at peace collapsed, Virginia Royal Governor John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore, mounted an expedition of about two thousand Virginians against the Shawnee and their allies.
Governor Dunmore divided his army, sending a force of one thousand Virginians under Andrew Lewis, along the Kanawha River, while he personally led an equal force south from Pittsburgh. The two armies were to meet at the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers, but Dunmore exceeded this rendezvous and requested Lewis meet him further west. Before Lewis could comply, his division was surprised by a large force of Shawnee and Mingo warriors on October 10, 1774. After a hard-fought day, the Virginians emerged as the victors of the Battle of Point Pleasant.21
Service in the Continental Army
On the eve of the War for Independence, the Second Virginia Convention assigned George Washington, Andrew Lewis, and others to a committee “to prepare a Plan for embodying, arming and disciplining such a Number of Men as may be sufficient” for the colony’s defense on March 23, 1775.22 Less than a year later, the Continental Congress recognized Lewis’ extensive military experience and appointed him a Brigadier General in the Continental Army on March 1, 1776.23He assumed administrative command of military forces in Virginia, balancing the needs of the main effort under Washington’s command in the northern states with the defense of the Old Dominion. Lewis’ greatest triumph in this role was in driving the brazen Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, out of his encampment on Gwynn’s Island in July of 1776.24
Hard feelings over the promotion of junior officers, however, drove Andrew Lewis to resign his commission the following spring. George Washington sought to placate his old comrade-in-arms: “I was much disappointed at not perceiving your name in the list of Major Generals… and most sincerely wish that the neglect may not induce You to abandon the service… The Cause requires your Aid - No one more sincerely wishes it than I do.”25
Later Life
Lewis returned to his home but would continue to serve his state. He was appointed a commissioner to treat with Native American tribes in 1778 and appointed to the Executive Council of Governor Thomas Jefferson in 1780.26Between sessions of the legislature in September of 1781, Andrew Lewis died from a sudden illness while returning to his Botetourt County home, where he was buried on his “own Land in presence of his Family and a Number of Friends.”27
Samuel K. Fore
Notes:
1. “From George Washington to John Augustine Washington, 31 March 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives.
2. Lewis, Lunsford L. A Brief Narrative Written for His Children. (Richmond: Richmond Press, Inc., 1915), pp. 2-3.
3. (Owing to the lack of records and the subsequent confusion of dates, the author selected the data that Augusta County was legally formed - 1738.) Salmon, Emily J. & Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr. The Hornbook of Virginia History. 4th Edition. (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1994), p. 161.
4. McIlwaine, Hall & Hillman, eds. Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, V, 172-73 & John Stuart “Memoir of Indians Wars and Other Occurrences,” Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society Collections, I (Richmond, 1833), 38.
5. Johnson, Patricia Givens. General Andrew Lewis of Roanoke and Greenbrier. (Blacksburg: Southern Printing Co., [1980]), pp. 14-16.
6. Stuart, Charles A. Memoirs of the Indian Wars, and Other Occurrences, by the Late Colonel Charles Stuart of Greenbrier… With an introduction by Otis K. Rice. (Parsons, W.V.: McClain Printing Co, 1971), p. 20.
7. 1QQ18 “Record of a Court-Martial, September 15, 1742”. Draper Manuscripts: William Preston Papers, 1731-1791. Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison & Waddell, Jos. A “Militia Companies in Augusta County, in 1742” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jan. 1901), pp. 278-283.
8. “To George Washington from Robert Dinwiddie, 11 September 1754,” Founders Online, National Archives.
9. “From George Washington to Andrew Lewis, 6 September 1755,” Founders Online, National Archives.
10. “To George Washington from Robert Dinwiddie, 14 December 1755,” Founders Online, National Archives.
11. “Preston’s Journal of the Sandy Creek Expedition” in Cometti, Elizabeth & Festus P. Summers, eds. The Thirty-Fifth State: A Documentary History of West Virginia. (Morgantown, W.Va.: West Virginia University Library, 1966), pp. 41-47.
12. See, for example: “From George Washington to Andrew Lewis, 1 July 1757,” Founders Online, National Archives and “From George Washington to Andrew Lewis, 21 April 1758,” Founders Online, National Archives.
13. “From George Washington to George William Fairfax, 25 September 1758,” Founders Online, National Archives; “From George Washington to George William Fairfax, 25 September 1758,” Founders Online, National Archives and “To George Washington from Andrew Lewis, 31 October 1758,” Founders Online, National Archives. Henry Bouquet to John Stanwix, 20 December 1759 in Waddell, Louis M., et al, eds. The Papers of Henry Bouquet. Vol. IV, September 1, 1759 – August 31, 1760. (Harrisburg: The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1978), pp. 373-374.
14. Webster, J. Clarence, ed. The Journal of Jeffery Amherst: Recording the Military Career of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763. (Toronto & Chicago: The Ryerson Press & University of Chicago Press, 1931), 273. & footnote 6 in “To George Washington from Robert Stewart, 2 October 1760,” Founders Online, National Archives.
15. Webster, J. Clarence, ed. The Journal of Jeffery Amherst: Recording the Military Career of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763. (Toronto & Chicago: The Ryerson Press & University of Chicago Press, 1931), p. 273 & Waddell, Louis M., et al, eds. The Papers of Henry Bouquet. Vol. IV, September 1, 1759 – August 31, 1760. (Harrisburg: The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1978), pp. 373-374.
16. “To George Washington from Robert Stewart, 14 April 1760,” Founders Online, National Archives. “Francis Fauquier to Jeffrey Amherst, August 2, 1763” in Reese, George, ed. The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 1758-1768. Vol. II. (Charlottesville: Published for the Virginia Historical Society [by] the University Press of Virginia, 1981), 1001.
17. Thomas Walker & Andrew Lewis to Lord Botetourt, December 20,1768 in Kennedy, John Pendleton, ed. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1766-1769. (Richmond: [The Colonial Press, E. Waddey Co.], 1906), pp. xxx-xxxi.
18. “To George Washington from Andrew Lewis, 9 March 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives. Laidley. W. S., ed. “Will of General Andrew Lewis” The West Virginia Historical Magazine Quarterly Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1904), 86-90.
19. Hall, Wilmer L & Benjamin J. Hillman, eds. Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia: Vol. VI, June 20, 1754-May 3, 1775. Richmond, Va: Published by the Virginia State Library, 1966), p. 341; Kennedy, John Pendleton, ed. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1770-1772. (Richmond: [The Colonial Press, E. Waddey Co.], 1906), p. 143. “To George Washington from Andrew Lewis, 1 March 1770,” Founders Online, National Archives.
20. See, for instance, “From George Washington to Botetourt, 8 December 1769,” Founders Online, National Archives and “To George Washington from Andrew Lewis, 1 March 1770,” Founders Online, National Archives.
21. “To George Washington from William Crawford, 14 November 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives.
22. Van Schreeven, William J. & Robert L. Scribner., comps. Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence: Vol. II, The Committees and the Second Convention, 1773-1775. ([Charlottesville, Va.,]: University Press of Virginia, 1975), pp. 336 & 367.
23. Ford, Worthington C., ed. Journals of the Continental Congress: Vol. IV, 1 January – 4 June 1776. (Washington, D.C: U.S.G.P.O., 1906), p. 179.
24. “Extract from an Officer’s Journal, who was at the late cannonade at Gwyn’s Island” Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Hunter) July 20, 1776 & Andrew Lewis, July 15th 1776, to Richard Henry Lee in Thompson, John R., ed. The Southern Literary Messenger Vol. XXVII / New Series, Vol VI (July-Dec. 1858) pp. 28-29.
25. “From George Washington to Brigadier General Andrew Lewis, 3 March 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives.
26. McIlwaine, H. R., ed. Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia. Vol. II: October 6, 1777-November 30, 1781. (Richmond: Division of Purchase & Printing, 1932), p. 150; “To George Washington from Andrew Lewis, 8 August 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives. Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia; Begun and Held at the Town of Richmond… on Monday the First Day of May in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty. (Richmond: Printed by Thomas W. White, 1827), p. 21.
27. William Preston letter to Thomas Lewis, Sep. 29, 1781 (Mss2 P9265b), Virginia Historical Society.
Bibliography:
Johnson, Patricia Givens. General Andrew Lewis of Roanoke and Greenbrier. Blacksburg: Southern Printing Co., 1980.
Stuart, John. Memoir of Indian Wars, and Other Occurrences. Presented to the Virginia Historical & Philosophical Society, by Chas. A. Stuart. With an Introduction by Otis K. Rice. Parsons, W. V.: Reprinted by McClain Print. Co., 1971.
Tillson, Albert H., Jr. Gentry and Common Folk: Political Culture on a Virginia Frontier, 1740-1789. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1991.
Wrike, Peter Jennings. The Governor’s Island: Gwynn’s Island, Virginia, during the Revolution. Gwynn, Va.: The Gwynn’s Island Museum, 1993.
