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Data Description:Bio - Andrew Pickens
Submitter: John C Grier
Date Posted:16 July 2001
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PICKENS, ANDREW (Sept. 19, I773 - Aug. 11, 1817) Revolutionary soldier,
was born near Paxtang, Pa., the son of Nancy and Andrew Pickens, who,
having emigrated from Ireland, drifted south with the Scotch-Irish,
sojourned eight miles west of Staunton, Va., obtained 800 acres in Anson
County, N. C., and in 1752 were on Waxhaw Creek, S. C. He volunteered in
James Grant's expedition in 1761 against the Cherokee under Oconostota
[q.v.]. Two years later he and his brother sold their Waxhaw inheritance
and obtained lands on Long Cane Creek in South Carolina. There he
married, on Mar. 19, 1765, Rebecca, daughter of Ezekiel Calhoun who was
a brother of John C. Calhoun's father; at the opening of the Revolution,
with a wife and four small children, he was a farmer and a justice of
the peace. 

As captain of militia in the first fight at Ninety Six fort
in November 1775, he helped to negotiate the treaty with the Loyalists
that followed. During the next two years his services on the frontier
brought promotion, and, when Williamson became brigadier-general,
Pickens became colonel. His defeat of Colonel Boyd at Kettle Creek, he
himself considered the severest check the Loyalists ever received in
South Carolina or in Georgia. After the capitulation of Charleston in
1780, he surrendered a fort in Ninety Six District and with 300 of his
men returned home on parole. When his plantation was plundered, however,
he regarded himself as released from his parole, gave notice to that
effect, and rejoined the patriots. His part in the victory at Cowpens
brought him a sword from Congress and a brigadier's commission from the
state. 

In April 1781 he raised a regiment, in which the men were
enlisted as state regulars for ten months' duty and were paid in Negroes
and plunder taken from the Loyalists. Active in the capture of Augusta,
he cooperated with the Continentals in Gen. Nathaniel Greene's
unsuccessful siege of Ninety Six and in the drawn battle of Eutaw
Springs, in which he was wounded. Thereafter he was occupied mainly with
Indian warfare.

Elected to represent Ninety Six in the Jacksonboro Assembly in 1782,
he continued in the legislature until sent to Congress for the session
of I793-95. The South Carolina legislature voted him thanks and a gold
medal in 1783 for his services in the Revolution and later elected him
major-general of the militia. In I785 he was chosen by Congress to treat
with Southern Indian tribes that had been at war with the United States,
and, until he declined further service in 1801, he was repeatedly
appointed to  deal with Indian relations. 

His most laborious service was in 1797, when for six months he was engaged 
in marking treaty boundaries. In I792 he declined a command in the western 
army. For a number of years he lived at "Hopewell," his plantation in Oconee, 
here he had a store. He also carried on business in Charleston under the firm
name of Andrew Pickens & Co. Later he settled at Tomassee in Pendleton
District, where he lived in retirement except during a brief interval in
the war of 1812. There he died suddenly and was buried at the Old Stone
Church, of which he was an elder and a founder.

Strict in family devotions and church observances, he was reputed so
Presbyterian that he would have suffered martyrdom before he would have
sung one of Watts's hymns. Of medium height, lean and healthy, with
strongly marked features, he seldom smiled and never laughed, and
conversed so guardedly that "he would first take the words out of his
mouth, between his fingers, and examine them before he uttered them."

(From the Dictionary of American Biography)