Benjamin Lincoln, born Jan. 24, 1733, at Hingham, Massachusetts, led the life of a farmer; but warmly espousing the cause of the colonists when troubles began with Great Britain, was intrusted with various military offices, and after two years of active service with the Massachusetts troops, was commissioned major-general in the Continental army on the 19th of February, 1777. In the following October, he received a severe wound which lamed him for life, and prevented his rejoining the army until August, 1778. In September, Congress gave him the chief command of the Southern army, but upon repairing to Charleston, South Carolina, he found the entire State of Georgia in the hands of the British, and the American army in the South almost destroyed. Setting about his task with courage and resolution, he busied himself in collecting the necessary supplies and recruits, and making all needful preparations for driving the enemy from their various strongholds. In each engagement, however, he was unsuccessful, and was at last taken prisoner at the surrender of Charleston, on the 12th of May, 1780. He was exchanged in November, and rejoined the army in June, 1781. Again he was despatched to the South, but this time with far different results.

When the siege of Yorktown ended in the surrender of Cornwallis, that general feigned illness; to escape the mortification of surrendering his sword personally, he sent it by General O’Hara. Washington, with a fine delicacy of feeling, ordered the sword to be delivered to General Lincoln, who, eighteen months before, had been compelled to surrender to Sir Henry Clinton at Charleston, Cornwallis being one of the principal officers. This campaign closed Lincoln’s active service in the field, as he was soon after appointed Secretary of War, and held that responsible position until the disbanding of the army in October, 1783. Shays’ Rebellion, in 1786, again called him into the field, and after quelling it, he served as Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts in 1788, and collector of the port of Boston from 1789 to 1806, when the infirmities of old age necessitated his withdrawal. He died on the 9th of May, 1810, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Harvard College conferred upon him the degree of M.A. in 1780.