General Alexander Leslie - Light Foote Brigade
Alexander Leslie (1731–1794) was a British general from a prominent Scottish noble family, the second son of Alexander Leslie, 5th Earl of Leven. He entered the army in his early twenties and built a professional career before the war in America, serving as a regimental officer in places such as Boston and Halifax. In 1760 he married Rebecca Tullidelph, daughter of an Antiguan planter; she died a year later after the birth of their daughter, Mary Ann. Leslie first touched the coming Revolution directly in February 1775, when Thomas Gage sent him with about 250 men of the 64th Regiment to seize rebel military stores at Salem, Massachusetts. The mission failed in the famous “Leslie’s Retreat,” an early and tense confrontation that foreshadowed Lexington and Concord.
During the main fighting of the American Revolution, Leslie proved to be a capable if not spectacular field commander. Promoted to brigadier general in 1776, he took part in the New York campaign, including Long Island, Kip’s Bay, Harlem Heights, and White Plains; at Harlem Heights he was one of the British commanders in a sharp action that ended in an American victory. In 1777 he was caught off guard by Washington’s movement toward Princeton, where his nephew, Captain William Leslie, was mortally wounded. Leslie later commanded British troops on Staten Island, was promoted to major general in 1779, joined the successful siege of Charleston in 1780, and then led British forces in Virginia in raids aimed at disrupting American supplies and communications.
Leslie’s most important later service came in the South. Returning to the Carolinas in early 1781, he arrived too late to prevent the British setback at Cowpens, but he did command the British right wing at Guilford Courthouse during Cornwallis’s costly victory over Nathanael Greene. After Yorktown, Leslie became the senior British commander in the southern theater and was tasked by Sir Guy Carleton with managing the withdrawal of British forces from Savannah and Charleston. That was a difficult administrative and political job, because it involved feeding the Charleston garrison, negotiating with Greene, and arranging transport for thousands of Loyalist refugees as the British position collapsed. Leslie returned to Scotland in 1783, later serving as second in command of the British army there, and died in 1794. In the Revolution he is usually remembered less as a brilliant strategist than as a steady, experienced officer whose career touched several key campaigns from Massachusetts to the Carolinas.
General Alexander Leslie - Light Foote Brigade
Alexander Leslie (1731–1794) was a British general from a prominent Scottish noble family, the second son of Alexander Leslie, 5th Earl of Leven. He entered the army in his early twenties and built a professional career before the war in America, serving as a regimental officer in places such as Boston and Halifax. In 1760 he married Rebecca Tullidelph, daughter of an Antiguan planter; she died a year later after the birth of their daughter, Mary Ann. Leslie first touched the coming Revolution directly in February 1775, when Thomas Gage sent him with about 250 men of the 64th Regiment to seize rebel military stores at Salem, Massachusetts. The mission failed in the famous “Leslie’s Retreat,” an early and tense confrontation that foreshadowed Lexington and Concord.
During the main fighting of the American Revolution, Leslie proved to be a capable if not spectacular field commander. Promoted to brigadier general in 1776, he took part in the New York campaign, including Long Island, Kip’s Bay, Harlem Heights, and White Plains; at Harlem Heights he was one of the British commanders in a sharp action that ended in an American victory. In 1777 he was caught off guard by Washington’s movement toward Princeton, where his nephew, Captain William Leslie, was mortally wounded. Leslie later commanded British troops on Staten Island, was promoted to major general in 1779, joined the successful siege of Charleston in 1780, and then led British forces in Virginia in raids aimed at disrupting American supplies and communications.
Leslie’s most important later service came in the South. Returning to the Carolinas in early 1781, he arrived too late to prevent the British setback at Cowpens, but he did command the British right wing at Guilford Courthouse during Cornwallis’s costly victory over Nathanael Greene. After Yorktown, Leslie became the senior British commander in the southern theater and was tasked by Sir Guy Carleton with managing the withdrawal of British forces from Savannah and Charleston. That was a difficult administrative and political job, because it involved feeding the Charleston garrison, negotiating with Greene, and arranging transport for thousands of Loyalist refugees as the British position collapsed. Leslie returned to Scotland in 1783, later serving as second in command of the British army there, and died in 1794. In the Revolution he is usually remembered less as a brilliant strategist than as a steady, experienced officer whose career touched several key campaigns from Massachusetts to the Carolinas.