William Pierce (politician)

William Pierce (ca. 1740 – December 10, 1789) was an army officer during the American Revolutionary War and a member of the U.S. Constituional Convention of 1787.

William Pierce, who simply signed himself "William Pierce, Jr.", iidenitified himself as a Virginian, although some historians contend that he was born in Georgia. At the outset of the War for American Independence, he was commissiomed a Captain in the 1st Continental Artillery Regiment on November 30, 1776. Later, He became as an aide-de-camp to General John Sullivan in the expedition against the Iriquois in Upper New York in 1779. The following year he was back in Virginia, where he briefly attended the College of William & Mary. In December of that year, he accepted an invitation from General Nathanael Greene to become one of his adies. Serving throughout the tumultuous southern campaigns, he was recognized by Congress for his bravery at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781.

Having received brevet promotion to Major, Pierce retired from the Continental Army in 1782 and sought to establish himslef as a merchant in the Carribean. He eventually settled in Savannah, Georgia and partnered with fellow officers Richard Call and Anthony Walton White. He also married Charlotte Fenwick, the daughter of a wealthy South Carolina planter in 1783. They would have two sons, one of which died in childhood and the other, William Leigh Pierce, became a noted author.

Pierce represented Chatham County in the Georgia State Legislature and, in 1786, that body elected him to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention the following year. Here, he kept notes on the proceedings and, more importantly, character sketches of hias fellow delegates. Pierce left the Convention in July to attend business matters and did not sign. Additionally, he was an original member and vice president of the Society of the Cincinnati in Georgia and served as a trustee of the Chatham County Academy until his unimely death in 1789.

External links

*William Pierce at the National Archives