|
One of the last casualties, Laurens died near the end of the American Revolution during the Battle of the Combahee River. He was only 27 years old.
"It was in August 1782, when Lieutenant Colonel Laurens was put in command of a detachment of troops organized to stop a British foraging party along the Combahee River, south of Charleston. As usual, Laurens ignored his orders to maintain a defensive position, and instead sought out the British. Loyalists had notified the British of Laurens’s plans, and they prepared an ambush . . . 140 British soldiers hiding in the grass rose and fired a murderous volley into the Americans. Laurens was not hit, but he refused to retreat or surrender, so he instead decided to charge the enemy. On the next British volley, Laurens was struck by several musket balls and fell from his horse, mortally wounded . . . He was buried the next day at a nearby plantation." |
Many were devastated by Laurens's death. One obituary reads:
"[Laurens's] untimely death we all have reason to lament; and while I join the publick [sic] opinion in admiring his . . . zeal for the rights of mankind, his great and unwearied services to his country, his gallantry in the field, and his ability and address in negociation [sic], together with those more domestick [sic] virtues which distinguish him in the characters of the companion, the husband, and the son, and endear him to the bosom of private life." |
"In a word, he had not a fault that I ever could discover, unless intrepidity bordering upon rashness could come under that denomination; and to this he was excited by the purest motives.” |
"The world will feel the loss of a man who has left few like him behind, and America of a citizen whose heart realized that patriotism of which others only talk." |
"When we contemplate the character of this young gentleman [Laurens], we have only to lament his great error on his outset in life, in espousing a public cause which was to be sustained by taking up arms against his Sovereign. Setting aside this single deviation from the path of rectitude, we know no one trait of his history which can tarnish his reputation as a man of honor, or affect his character as a gentleman. |