Admiral Anson of Charleston and Carshalton

Admiral George Anson is best known for commanding a British naval squadron on an epic circumnavigation of the world between 1740 and 1744. Britain was at war with Spain, the War of Jenkins' Ear, and his goal was to raid Spanish possessions. The voyage was in some ways a disaster. Of his six ships, only one completed the journey. Many of his men died of scurvy, then the scourge of long voyages. But he did capture a Spanish ship loaded with treasure near the Philippines. [Image: George Anson, by Thomas Hudson]

By the time he returned to Britain, the country was also at war with France. In 1747, Anson captured an entire French squadron at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre, which netted him an enormous treasure. The government rewarded him with a peerage, as First Baron Anson. In 1751 the government elevated him to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. In that capacity, he was responsible for reforms that greatly improved the efficiency of the Royal Navy during the Seven Years War (1756-63). He also commissioned an investigation into the causes and cure for scurvy. Anson died near the end of the war, in 1762, aged 65.

I have a "special connection" to Anson. No, we are not related, except maybe through Adam and Eve. It is this: he lived in two places I have lived in, in Charleston, South Carolina in America and Carshalton, Surrey, in England.

I first learned about Anson's Charleston connection while working as a history professor at the College of Charleston. One of the neighborhoods of the city is named after him, Ansonborough. So are Anson Street, the Anson Restaurant, Ansonborough House, and the Ansonborough Inn. George Street was also named for him. Several other streets were named for ships he commanded, but they have other names now.

In 1724, when he was only 26 but already a captain, the Royal Navy sent Anson to Charleston in command of a small squadron to defend the city and its region from pirate attacks. He remained in that capacity until 1735, long after pirates had ceased to be a major threat. 

In 1726, he purchased 64 acres of land on the Charleston peninsula. That land later became the town's first "suburb," Ansonborough. According to one story, perhaps apocryphal, Anson won the money he used to buy the land in a card game. True or not, gambling was a common pastime of the elite. 

Now for Carshalton. In 1749 Anson leased Carshalton House, a country house originally built around 1700 for a tobacco merchant, Edward Carlton. He went bankrupt and the house passed to several other owners before Anson leased it. Anson lived there until 1752, when he moved to a house he had built in Hertfordshire, Moor Park. [Two Images of Carshalton House, a mid-19th century lithograph and a modern photo.]

At the time of the lithograph Carshalton House was being used by the government as a preparatory school for cadets of the Royal Artillery and Engineers. In the late 19th century, an order of Catholic nuns purchased Carshalton House and grounds. They established a primary and high school for girls there, St. Philomena's. It is still in operation and is  only five minutes' walk from my house. 

Most people in Carshalton have probably never heard of Anson. Lots of Charlestonians will be familiar with his name at least because it is everywhere. How many know why is another matter. But be ye from Charleston or Carshalton, raise a glass for Admiral Anson! I'll raise two! We’ll meet at the Anson Arms pub, as soon as it’s built!

Interestingly, the online articles about Anson do not mention his connections to Charleston or Carshalton. If I hadn't lived in these places, I would never have known about them. 

 

  

  

Loyalist and Patriot: George Milligen

George Milligen was one of the staunchest supporters of the British government in South Carolina on the eve of the American Revolution. 

Milligen was born in or near Dumfries, Scotland, probably in the 1720s. After training as a surgeon he joined the British army on 1745. He came to South Carolina in 1753 with the title Surgeon to His Majesty’s Forces in South Carolina and Georgia. 

The title was grander in name than in reality. The number of British soldiers and sailors in the two provinces was usually quite small. He supplemented his government income by medicating civilians as well. Given the prevalence of malarial and other fevers, there was plenty of work for doctors in South Carolina, especially in the late summer and autumn. 

In 1759 Milligen accompanied Governor Lyttleton's disastrous punitive expedition to the Cherokee country. Lyttleton's bungled campaign precipitated the Second Cherokee War and the spread of smallpox across the province. 

In 1763, Milligen published a short but useful book about the local diseases and other aspects of colonial life: A Short Description of the Province of South-Carolina: With an Account of the Air, Weather, and Diseases of Charles-Town. The American Philosophical Society elected Milligen to membership in 1772. 

Up to this point, he seems to have been an accepted member of the Charleston community, active in civic and philanthropic affairs. By the early 1770s, however, the political situation in South Carolina was becoming increasingly polarized, as colonial conflicts with the mother country intensified. 

In January 1775, matters came to a head. Advocates of resistance to British colonial policy, who called themselves Whigs, established a provisional government. The Whigs would later call themselves "Patriots" and those who disagreed with them, "Tories." 

In practical terms, the old Tory Party had ceased to exist in Britain, and the modern one had not yet emerged. Calling someone a Tory in the 1770s was much like calling them a communist. Those who remained loyal to Britain viewed themselves as patriots. They did not generally view themselves as Tories, but Loyalists.  

The Patriot Whigs established a Provincial Assembly and elected Henry Laurens president. They also created a council of safety and other executive committees. The council and committees became a de facto government, rendering the royal administration almost powerless.   

In early June, following the news that British soldiers had opened fire against the Massachusetts militia, delegates to the Provincial Assembly voted to raise two regiments of soldiers. They also approved a document called the Association. It declared that the people of South Carolina would use force if necessary to protect their liberties. 

Whig leaders called on all white inhabitants, including royal officials, to sign the Association. Anyone who refused to sign should be considered "inimical to the Liberty of the Colonies," in other words, as enemies. An amendment requiring that they be imprisoned failed. 

Many citizens refused to sign, including those who held jobs in the royal administration. The council of safety summoned the officials and pressed them to change their minds. They remained defiant. Milligen was one of the most outspoken.

Henry Laurens, the chair of the council, asked Milligen if he agreed that the colonists "possessed the rights and liberties of Englishmen?" It seems an odd question now for a former slave trader to pose, especially to a Scot. Milligen replied without hesitation, "I support the civil and religious rights of mankind." 

It was a riposte worthy of Rousseau. Laurens then asked Milligen if he considered himself a patriot. "I do," Milligen answered. "Then why can't you stand with us?" Laurens continued. Milligen had clearly prepared his answer: 

“For me, patriotism includes support for the king, protector of the rights and liberties of his subjects. For thirty years, I’ve served His Majesty as a soldier and a surgeon, and eaten his bread. Allegiance as a subject, gratitude as a man, honor as a gentleman, and my duty to the king all forbid my joining your Association." 

Laurens dismissed him and asked him to appear before the council again on August 15. Milligen's stance made him a special target of Charleston's radical "Liberty Boys." He had once been friendly with several of their leaders, who, like him, were Freemasons and had helped raise funds for charitable projects. 

The Liberty Boys was an organization modeled on one in Massachusetts. Its members, mostly artisans and shopkeepers, acted as "enforcers" of the policies of the provisional government. They harassed suspected Loyalists (or "Tories") in the streets and even invaded their houses. 

A few days before Milligen appeared before the council of safety, on June 2, the Liberty Boys had inflicted a violent punishment on two Irishmen accused of supporting British plans for subduing the colonists by force. 

James Dealey and Laughlin Martin were accused of publicly cheering news that the British government was shipping guns to the colony to arm blacks, Indians, and Roman Catholics. 

What the pair did not know was that the news, published in the South Carolina Gazette, was fake news. Its purpose was to anger and frighten people into supporting the resistance to the British government. It seems to have accomplished that aim, but also "outed" two treacherous "papists" who appeared ready to help the British. 

Dealey and Martin were both Roman Catholic, although their neighbors may not have known that before. The practise of their faith was not yet legal in South Carolina, and they likely kept it a secret. Most South Carolinians shared British prejudices against the "popish" religion. 

Liberty Boys assembled an illegal citizens' court to hear the "evidence" and pass judgment. They sentenced Dealey and Martin to be dressed in "An American Suit of Clothing." This was a euphemism for tarring and feathering. 

The enforcers came prepared with a barrel of hot tar and a bag of feathers. They removed the upper clothing of the guilty parties, poured hot tar over them, then dropped the feathers on the sticky tar. The procedure was humiliating, painful, and potentially dangerous. 

[Image: A Tarring and Feathering in Boston. Here, the Patriots are pouring tea into the mouth of the "transgressor."]

In early August the Charleston Liberty Boys tarred and feathered a British soldier. His accuser claimed that Sergeant Walker had refused a toast of "damnation to King George" and said he would "drink damnation to rebels instead." A hastily assembled crowd that included newly raised provincial soldiers demanded that Walker be tarred and feathered. 

After the enforcers had suitably "dressed" him, they put him in a donkey cart and dragged him around town. They pelted him with stones and filth along the way. Their route took them to the houses of several alleged Tories. At each house they forced Walker to drink damnation to the residents. 

At one house, Milligen sat on the porch with his mother-in-law. Some in the crowd charged towards him, shouting that he should join Walker in the cart. A melee ensued in which his wife, who had come out to see what the matter was, fainted. He carried her to safety and with the help of a "faithful" black servant, held off the attackers. 

The crowd dispersed soon after. They dumped the battered Walker in the harbor, where he might have drowned. A boat rowed by crew from a British ship rescued him, but he had sustained severe burns and damage to one eye. [Image: Charleston Harbor at the time of the Revolution. The Old Exchange is in center background, flanked by St. Michael's (left) and St. Philip's churches.]

Several of Milligen's friends, including one member of the council of safety, possibly Henry Laurens, urged him to flee the colony before worse happened. He agreed but refused to leave just yet. The council had summoned him for another interview. He told his friends that he felt honor bound to attend. 

Standing before the council in the State House, Milligen remained as defiant as ever. On this occasion Laurens was absent. Charles Pinckney was in the chair. The others present included Arthur Middleton, Thomas Heyward, and Thomas Bee. The first two would later be signatories to the Declaration of Independence. 

The council president, Henry Laurens. had excused himself, pleading indisposition. Perhaps he did not want to be part of what was planned for Milligen. The council asked Milligen sign an oath that he would not do anything to oppose or counteract the actions of the Provincial Congress and its committees. Milligen refused. 

Arthur Middleton asked him if he understood the possible consequences of his refusal. " I do," Milligen replied. "I have observed the justice meted out by liberty mobs," an obvious reference to the tarring and feathering incidents. Middleton protested that those were the justified actions of the people, not a mob. 

The council dismissed Milligen. As he left, Middleton advised him to "be careful of your attire" and remember to take his kilt along. It was a joke, perhaps, but also a threat and an insult. After Milligen left the council room, followed by laughter, Middleton added another joke. The "good doctor," he said, was sure to "gain a high place in Scotland after kissing some Tory behinds."

Milligen left the building and immediately jumped into a waiting carriage. It sped off to a nearby wharf, where a naval skiff waited to take him to safety aboard a British sloop in the harbor, HMS Tamar. His escape had been arranged by the Royal Governor, Lord William Campbell. Campbell himself would flee there a few weeks later. 

Milligen arrived in England around the end of September aboard a mail packet. During the trip he wrote a report on the situation in South Carolina which he delivered to the government. In it, he characterized the rebels as having used lies, threats, and violence to achieve their "wicked" ends. 

Many of the people who signed the Association, he claimed, did so under duress. They were faced with threats of economic ruin and/or physical intimidation. Others were frightened into signing by carefully spread but false rumors of British-inspired slave rebellions and Indian attacks. 

When no uprisings occurred, some people had begun to question the rumors. The rebel leaders responded by arresting several blacks in late June and claiming they had found evidence that a revolt was planned. An illegal tribunal condemned one of them to death, a free black named Thomas Jeremiah. He was hanged and his body burned on August 18. Milligen wrote that the rebels had sacrificed Jeremiah to achieve their goal of frightening the public. 

After returning to Britain, Milligen settled in Dumfries, Scotland, his place of birth. His mother was the last of her family line. In her memory he added her maiden name, Johnston, to his own, becoming Milligen-Johnston. He died in Dumfries in 1799. 

Further Reading: 

George Milligen, A Short Description of the Province of South-Carolina, With an Account of the Air, Water, and Diseases at Charles-Town. [1763]

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. See Volumes dealing with the 1770s.

John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution 2 vols., Charleston, 1821. 

The Charleston Tar-and-Feathers Incident of 1775 | Charleston County Public Library (ccpl.org) This thoroughly researched article provides a detailed and insightful analysis of the tarring and feathering incident involving James Dealey and Laughlin Martin.

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)

Peter McCandless, Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011, 2014. 

Report by George Milligen, Surgeon to the Garrison for His Majesty's Forces in South Carolina, dated 15 September, 1775. National Archives, Kew CO_5_396_037.pdf

The Man Who Drew Alice: Sir John Tenniel

Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) was one of the most popular British cartoonists of the 19th century. Victorians regularly viewed and loved his illustrations. For decades he was the chief political cartoonist for the most successful satirical magazine of the day, Punch. 

Tenniel also illustrated two of the most popular and enduring books of the 19th century: Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). 

Tenniel created 42 images in the Alice books, fixing them forever in our minds. Here are just a few. In order: The Cheshire Cat, The Caterpillar, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty. 

Tenniel and Carroll did not get along, and Tenniel never agreed to work for Carroll again. Both were perfectionists with different ideas of perfection. But working together, they created works of endless fascination. 

Tenniel joined Punch in 1850 as joint cartoonist with John Leech, and became principal cartoonist after Leech died in 1864. Tenniel produced more than 2000 cartoons for the magazine. They often reflected public opinion, which in that day was generally liberal and reformist at home but tended towards imperialism and racism abroad. How far they reflected Tenniel's views is moot, but they certainly matched the outlook of his editors at Punch.

Tenniel often attacked Irish nationalists, who sometimes resorted to terrorist tactics, including bombings and assassinations.  His cartoons of Irish Fenians depicted them as knuckle-dragging ape-like creatures or monsters. Two examples:

In 1893, Queen Victoria knighted Tenniel. He was the first cartoonist to be so honoured. In 1878, another famous caricaturist, "Spy" drew the image of Tenniel below for the magazine Vanity Fair. He died aged 96 in 1914, just before the First World War. 

One wonders what he would made of that.

 

"The Glorious Fourth": A Poem on Independence Day by Hannah Griffits, 1785

Hannah Griffits was a Quaker poet who lived in the late colonial and early national period of American history. She witnessed a lot of changes: her life spanned 90 years (1727-1817).

Hannah decided to be a poet when just a child. At age 10, she promised God that she would not write poetry about "trifling themes." She kept her promise. 

Griffits came from a prominent Pennsylvania family. She supported colonial resistance to British rule. In addition, she was also a proto-feminist who wrote poems celebrating the efforts of the Daughters of Liberty to boycott British goods in response to the attempts of Parliament to tax colonial imports.  

But she was also a devout Quaker. She abhorred violence and advocated a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Once hostilities commenced she denounced the behavior of both sides and the suffering and divisions they created. The war divided Griffits' relatives into Patriots and Loyalists, a common outcome in many families.

She was appalled by the carnage of the first major battle after the Patriots had declared independence, the Battle of Long Island.  [Image: "The Battle of Long Island" by Alonzo Chappell, 19th century recreation.]

She was particularly harsh in condemning Thomas Paine (one of my heroes), calling him "a Snake beneath the grass" whose extreme rhetoric drowned out that of moderates. The British came in for a drubbing as well. They exhibited evidence of a "deep degeneracy of nature." 

In the wake of the war, she wrote a poem expressing disillusion with the costs and results of independence. It is short and simple, but immensely powerful in my opinion. It sums up, I think, the feelings many of us have today about the current situation of the United States. It deserves wide dissemination at this perilous time. 

"The glorious fourth --  again appears,

A day of days -- and year of years,

The sum of sad disasters,

Where all the mighty gains we see,

With all their boasted liberty,

Is only change of masters." (1785)

The literary establishments of the day in Britain and America were hostile to women authors. Griffits never tried to publish her poetry. A few did get published but not through her own efforts. Many others survived in commonplace books kept by relatives and friends. 

Further Reading: 

Hannah Griffitts - Wikipedia

Hannah Griffitts | History of American Women (womenhistoryblog.com) by Maggie Maclean

Reluctant Loyalist: Dr. Alexander Garden of Charleston

People who supported the British government during the American Revolution were a varied lot. Loyalists were rich and poor, white and black, men and women. They included recent immigrants and members of established colonial families. Above all, they were caught in a web of circumstances beyond their control. 

Each had their reasons for choosing the British side, reasons often much more complicated than rooting for a football team or trying to profit in some way. Loyalists usually had friends and family on the other side. 

William Franklin, illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, remained staunchly loyal to the British Crown, which had appointed him Royal Governor of New Jersey. Dr. Alexander Garden of Charlestown (Charleston after 1783) was less staunch in his loyalty, but in the end the victors branded him as a Loyalist. 

Most writing about Garden focuses on his contributions to natural history. My focus here is on Garden's attempts to negotiate the treacherous waters of revolutionary America, a subject that has received much less attention. [Image: Portrait of Alexander Garden.]

Garden was born in Birse, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1730. His father was minister of the village church. In his teens, Alexander studied medicine at Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities and received an MD from Edinburgh. 

He served as a surgeon in the British navy for several years, but resigned, he said, because he was always ill at sea. A lung complaint, perhaps tuberculosis, may also have played a part in his decision. The air below decks in the ships of the day was always foul. In later life, he always dreaded ocean voyages.

Garden emigrated to South Carolina in 1752 in hopes of improving his health and his income. In the latter goal, certainly, he succeeded. South Carolina was not only the wealthiest British North American colony, it was also the unhealthiest. He suffered from the local fevers as all newcomers did, but survived what people called "The Seasoning." 

A few years after arriving, he wooed and married a wealthy heiress, Elizabeth Peronneau, whom he called Toby. Three of their children survived to adulthood, a son, Alex, and daughters Harriette and Juliette. He soon developed a flourishing practice, aided by his adoption of inoculation for smallpox, one of the most dreaded scourges of colonial America.

By the early 1770s Garden was one of the richest physician in town. He established a network of close friends among the planter and merchant elite, many of whom used his medical services. Garden developed an especially close friendship with Henry Laurens, former slave trader and merchant/planter. Garden tutored Laurens' eldest son John to prepare him for education in England. 

In his spare time -- he never had enough, he complained -- he pursued his life's passion, natural history. He corresponded with and sent botanical and zoological specimens to leading natural historians in Europe. Among them was Sweden's Linnaeus, who developed the modern system of biological classification. Linnaeus named the gardenia for Garden. 

In 1773, the prestigious Royal Society of London elected Garden to membership for his contributions to science. Benjamin Franklin, then working in London as a colonial agent, nominated him. 

In the same year, Garden bought a plantation in Goose Creek from fellow physician John Moultrie, Jr., who had  been appointed Lt. Governor of British East Florida. Garden renamed it Otranto, perhaps after Horace Walpole's recently published novella, The Castle of Otranto. Garden was also amassing other properties in and near Charleston.

In the early 1770s, all seemed to be going well for Garden. Then history took one of those turns that forces people to make difficult, often agonizing, choices. For some years, tension between Britain and its colonies in North America had been growing. 

The real issue, as so often, was about power. Who should have the preponderance of it, the British government or the colonial legislatures? Interestingly, Garden realized the heart of the issue as early as 1765, during Stamp Act Crisis. The conflict, he wrote to a friend in England, was really about sovereignty. 

In the northern colonies, resistance took the form of a rejection of taxes imposed by the British Parliament. In the southern colonies, that was an issue as well, but another concern drove many wealthy southerners to cooperate with their northern neighbors. 

In 1772, the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench in London, Lord Mansfield, ruled that slavery was illegal in England; that it had no basis in common law. The Somerset Ruling, as Mansfield's decision is known, aroused panic among many southern slaveholders. They concluded, wrongly,  that the ruling would soon be extended to the colonies. The best way to prevent that possibility, they decided, was to renounce British claims to legislate for the colonies. 

In the spring of 1775, tension gave way to violence and war. Talk of independence was in the air. The issue of armed resistance and independence immediately divided Americans into Whigs or Patriots and Loyalists or Tories.

In South Carolina, the Whigs took control and formed an extra legal Provincial Government. It took over the functions of the royal administration and the old assembly. The new Provincial Congress voted funds to raise an army. and demanded that all (white, male) citizens swear allegiance to the new regime. Holdouts were to be labeled "obnoxious persons". Some legislators demanded they be imprisoned. 

Garden faced a terrible dilemma. Before coming to South Carolina, he had served for several years as a naval surgeon. He had taken an oath to the Crown. As a youth in Scotland, he witnessed the terrible costs of joining a rebellion against the British Crown, in 1745-46. 

His father had remained loyal to the Hanoverian king, George II, but some of his relatives joined the Jacobites, led by the overly romanticized "Bonnie Prince Charlie." A crushing Hanoverian victory, at Culloden in 1746, ended the Jacobite threat. Scots families who had supported the Stuart cause often lost their land, their freedom, and sometimes their lives. They were labeled traitors. 

Similarly, Garden had friends on both sides of the American divide. Like many people in the colonies, perhaps as many as a third, he wanted to remain neutral. Events made that choice increasingly difficult to sustain. Some of the more extreme Patriots harassed him, trying to get him to join them. More moderate Whig friends, including Henry Laurens, tried to protect him but urged him to take the various oaths of allegiance to the new regime. 

Garden eventually found ways to satisfy the oaths without, in his view, compromising his neutrality. With help from Laurens and other Whig friends, he was able to remain free and continue his medical practice for five turbulent years. His doctoring skills protected him as well. People on both sides respected his ability and employed him to treat their diseases and wounds.

The British capture of  Charleston in May 1780 changed everything. Garden refused to take the Oath of Loyalty to the British Crown, which many so-called Patriots rushed to do. He seems to have reasoned that he had already taken such an oath when he joined the Royal Navy, and had done nothing to violate it. He also refused to take a position in the new British administration. It seems he still desired to remain neutral, but felt safer under British rule.

A few months later, Garden made what in retrospect seems a major mistake. In August 1780, General Lord Cornwallis won a crushing victory over a Patriot Army at Camden. It seemed that the American rebellion was doomed, at least in the Lower South. Garden, perhaps thinking that British rule was secure, agreed to sign a memorial of congratulations to Cornwallis. Whether he did so voluntarily or under pressure is not clear.

The congratulations proved premature. Fevers, partisan attacks, and the arrival of another Patriot army under General Nathanael Greene undermined the British control of the Carolinas within a few months. In the Spring of 1781, Cornwallis decided to march his army north to Virginia. He wrote his superiors that he could not subject his men to another deadly summer in feverish South Carolina. His decision led directly to Yorktown and surrender. 

The force Cornwallis left behind was unable to maintain control of the Carolina backcountry. By the early autumn of 1781, partisan forces and Greene's army had occupied most of the state outside of Charleston. The British held on in that enclave for another year. In December 1782, they withdrew, knowing peace would soon be declared. When the British fleet left Charleston, Garden and most of his family were aboard one of the ships. The decision to leave was not his choice. [Image: The Evacuation of Charleston by the British, by Howard Pyle, 1898, Delaware Art Museum]

At the beginning of that year, the South Carolina State Assembly met at Jacksonville, about 30 miles south of Charleston. It was the first legislative session since the British occupation. A major item on the agenda was how to punish Loyalists. Some were merely amerced (fined) but the assembly banished many of them from the state and confiscated their property. 

Garden was among those banished. His sin was to have signed the memorial congratulating Lord Cornwallis. A few delegates, including John Laurens, tried to commute his punishment to an amercement, or fine, but in vain. Vengeance was the order of the day. Henry Laurens was far away in England and unable to help his friend. 

The War for Independence proved disastrous for Garden, not only financially. It also divided his family. During the British occupation of Charleston his daughter Harriette fell in love with and married a British officer, Major George Benson. Benson was particularly disliked by the Patriots as he was in charge of the arrest of a group of active revolutionaries, who included Christopher Gadsden, Arthur Middleton, and Garden's medical friend and colleague, David Ramsay. 

In the summer of 1781, Garden's son Alex returned from education in Britain -- in defiance of his father's wishes. Soon after his arrival, he ran off and joined the Continental Army of General Greene. He became an aide de camp to Greene and rose to the rank of Major. 

Because he had joined the Patriot side, Alex was allowed to keep the Garden plantation at Otranto, despite the suspicions of some Patriots that he had joined the Patriot side to save the family estate. That possibility cannot be ignored. During the Jacobite rebellions in Scotland, many Scottish families had done exactly that. 

Dr. Garden always denied any collusion with Alex. He denounced his son's decision to join Greene's army and never reconciled with him. The South Carolina government later restored some of Dr. Garden's property and rescinded his banishment, but he never returned to Charleston or benefited from the change. One of the reasons seems to have been his fear of another long ocean voyage.

After the war, Alex married Mary Anna Gibbes, daughter of one of his father's old friends. He wrote two books about the Revolution. Alex was not good at managing his affairs, however, and fell into debt. His wife and children predeceased him (as so often happened in the deadly lowcountry). Otranto passed to an adopted nephew, Alester Gibbes, after Alex's death in 1829. [Image: Major Alexander Garden, artist unknown]

In 1783, Dr. Garden, his wife Elizabeth, and younger daughter Juliette settled in London, at a house on Cecil Street, off the Strand. Soon after he settled in, he activated his membership in the Royal Society, and a few years later was elected its vice-president. 

He spent years trying to obtain compensation from the British government for his losses in the war. He finally received some, but it was a fraction of his losses. Shortly after the government awarded it, he died, probably of a lung disorder, in 1791. 

Garden's wife Elizabeth (Toby) survived until 1805. His eldest daughter Harriette prospered. Her husband, George Benson, became a general. She died a wealthy widow in 1847. His younger daughter, Juliette, did not fare as well. She married a British soldier as well, Captain Alexander Fotheringham. They had five children. All five died within one week in an epidemic. She and her husband died within days of one another in 1820.

Further reading:

 

Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, Alexander Garden of Charles Town (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969)

Peter McCandless, Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011, 2014. 

James Edward Smith, A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus and Other Naturalists (2 vols., London, 1821)

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. Volumes dealing with the 1760s and 1770s.)

John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution 2 vols., Charleston, 1821. Based on documents John's father William Henry Drayton had collected prior to his death.

Alexander Garden (Major Garden), Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America (Charleston, 1822) and Anecdotes of the American Revolution (Charleston, 1828)

Alfred W. Blumrosen and Ruth G. Blumrosen, Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the American Revolution (Naperville, Illinois: Source Books, 2005)

Alexander Garden - History of Early American Landscape Design (nga.gov)