James Clinton (
August 9,1733 –
September 22 1812) was an
American Revolutionary War soldier who obtained the rank of
major general.
He was born in
Ulster County in the colony of
New York, in a location now part of
Orange County, New York. He was the brother of
George Clinton, who was
governor of New York from
1777 to
1795 and
U.S. Vice President from
1805 to
1812. James Clinton's wife was Mary DeWitt, daughter of an old Dutch family, and his second son was
DeWitt Clinton, later Governor of New York.
James Clinton served in the New York
militia during the
French and Indian War. In
1758 he participated (along with his father Lt. Colonel
Charles Clinton) in Lt. Col.
John Bradstreet’s capture of
Fort Frontenac (now
Kingston, Ontario).
During the
American Revolution, Clinton commanded the
3rd New York Regiment, which took part in Brig. Gen.
Richard Montgomery’s unsuccessful
expedition to Quebec in
1775. In March of
1776, Clinton was commissioned as a
colonel in the
2nd New York Regiment and was promoted to
brigadier general in the
Continental Army in August of that same year.
He served most of the war in the Northern Department, along the New York
frontier. During the
Saratoga Campaign in
1777, he commanded
Fort Montgomery in the Hudson Highlands. He participated in a successful effort to prevent British General Sir
Henry Clinton from rescuing General
John Burgoyne at Saratoga, but he and his troops were unable to hold Forts Clinton and Montgomery.
In
1779 Clinton led an expedition down the
Susquehanna River after making the upper portion navigable by damming up the river's source at
Otsego Lake, allowing the lake's level to rise, and then destroying the dam and flooding the river for miles downstream. This event is described by
James Fenimore Cooper in the introduction to his popular novel
The Pioneers. At
Tioga, New York, Clinton met up with General
John Sullivan's forces, who had marched from
Easton, Pennsylvania. Together on
August 29, they defeated the
Tories and
Indians at the
Battle of Newtown (near today's city of
Elmira, New York). This became known as the "Sullivan-Clinton Campaign" or the "
Sullivan Expedition."
In
1780, Clinton temporarily commanded the Northern Department. By October 1781, his brigade had joined
George Washington's army in the
siege of Yorktown.
After the war, as a civilian, he served on the commission defining the New York-Pennsylvania boundary and as a delegate to the New York state convention than approved the
U.S. Constitution. Clinton died in
Little Britain, New York, on
December 22, 1812, the same year as his brother George.
