Daniel Morgan

Daniel Morgan (July 6, 1736 – July 6, 1802) was an American pioneer, soldier, and United States Representative from Virginia. One of the most gifted battlefield tacticians of the American Revolutionary War, he won one of the most pivotal victories of that war at the Battle of Cowpens in 1781, and later commanded troops during the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Letter to a Quaker (1798)



 * Letter to Miles Fisher (11 January 1798), as published in The Historical Magazine Vol. II, No. 6 (June 1858), p. 165


 * I recollect about 20 years since that a number of Quaker friends were sent to Winchester by Government, for some cause which I never understood so well, not being in the Legislature, but in a Department, the employment of which afforded little time to enquire into the propriety or impropriety of your Banishment — but I well recolect you among others of the unfortunate — am sorry to observe that such misfortunes Generally take place on revolutions, and often very unjustly.


 * I believe in one God, the first and great cause of all goodness. I also believe in Jesus Christ the redeemer of the world. I also believe in the Holy gost the comforter— here perhaps we may Differ a little as I believe Jesus Christ was from eternity and a part of the godhead — was Detached by the Father to Do a certain piece of service whioh was to take on Human Nature, which Human Nature was to suffer Death for the redemption of Mankind and when that service was compleatly fulfilled that he returned to and was consolidated with the Godhead. I further believe that all that are saved must be saved through the merits of Christ. I believe the Holy gost to be a part of the Divinity of the Father & son coequal with both is left here to comfort all that Hunger & thirst after righteousness a spark of which inhabit the breast of mankind as a monitor. These are apart of my ideas on the subject of religion.

An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man's property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything that is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.
 * As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life, and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived — a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life &amp; property &amp; that of my family, in my own opinion, is right &amp; justifiable in the sight of God.

Quotes about Morgan

 * This untutored son of the frontier was the only general in the American Revolution, on either side, to produce a significant original tactical thought.
 * John Buchanan, in The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas (1997), p. 316


 * Seldom has a battle, in which greater numbers were not engaged, been so important in its consequences as that of Cowpens.
 * John Marshall, in The Life of George Washington : Commander in Chief of the American Forces, During the War Which Established the Independence of his Country, and First President of the United States. Second Edition, Revised and Corrected by the Author (1832), Vol. I, p. 401