Daniel Morgan

I teach a seminar called “Revolutionary Lives,” focusing on the altered trajectories of individuals caught in that struggle, so, naturally, the title of Albert Louis Zambone's new book intrigued me. Daniel Morgan rose from humble beginnings to become a general in the Continental Army, and is best known for a small but critical victory at Hannah's Cowpens, South Carolina, in early 1781. Indeed, had it not been for that battle's outcome, Morgan's career most likely would not have attracted much historical attention. But it has, beginning with James Graham's 1856 hagiography, The Life of General Daniel Morgan, of the Virginia Line, and, more recently, Don Higginbotham's Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman (1979). Like his predecessors, Zambone traces Morgan's early career, from Virginia wagon driver to his misadventures in the French and Indian War (a near-fatal wound and 499 lashes for striking a British officer) to becoming a landowner in the lower Shenandoah Valley. In Zambone's narrative, Morgan is a blue-collar hero, a “good old boy” (a term he uses frequently), yet ambitious enough to be accepted by his social superiors as a gentleman (p. 12). To achieve such acceptance, Morgan overcame his illiteracy, married, sought local office, and, most importantly, developed connections with influential men who would aid his career

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