Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/701

Rh appointed a brigadier-general in command of the 8th, 31st, 51st, and 61st North Carolina infantry. He served through the war, surrendering with Gen. J. E. Johnston in April, 1865. He was a delegate to the National democratic convention held in 1868. In 1855 he measured and made known through the Smithsonian institution the highest point of the Black mountain, since designated as '• Clingman's peak," and in 1858 he determined the highest point of the Smoky mountain, designated on the maps of the coast survey as " Clingman's dome." He also made known the existence in North Carolina of the diamond, ruby, platinum, corundum, and many other rare miner?.ls, and the important mica-mines in Mitchell and Yancey coun- ties were first opened by him. Since the close of the war Gen. Clingman has devoted his attention to mining and to scientific and literary pursuits. He has published a volume of his speeches (1878) and minor works, including *' Follies of the Posi- tive Philosophers " (Raleigh. 1878).

CLINTON, Charles, ancestor of the Clintons in the United States, b. in the county Longford, Ireland, in 1690; d. in what is now Orange county, N. Y., 19 Nov., 1773. His grandfather, William Clinton, was an adherent of Charles I., and fled to Ireland for refuge after the defeat of the royalists. His maternal grandfather was a captain in Crom- well's army, Charles, with a party of relatives and friends, chartered a ship and sailed for Philadel- phia, 20 May, 1729. The captain formed a plan to starve the passengers, either with a view to obtain- ing their property, or to deter emigration ; and, after the death of many, among whom were a son and daughter of Mr. Clinton, they were finally al- lowed to land on Cape Cod, on 4 Oct., having paid a large sum for their lives. A proposition to wrest the command from the captain had previous- ly failed, owing to want of energy among his vic- tims. In the spring of 1731 the party settled in Ulster county, six miles west of the Hudson and sixty miles north of New York, where Mr. Clinton pursued his occupation of farmer and land-sur- veyor. He was afterward justice of the peace, county judge, and lieutenant-colonel of the Ulster county militia. He was made a lieutenant-colonel in Oliver DeLancy's regiment on 24 March, 1758, and served under Col. Bradstreet at the siege and capture of Fort Frontenac. — His son, Alexander, was graduated at Princeton in 1750, and became a physician. — A second son, Charles, d. in April, 1791, was a surgeon in the army that took Havana in 1762. — A third son, James, soldier, b. in Ulster county, N. Y., 9 Aug., 1736; d. in Little Britain, Orange co., N. Y., 22 Dec, 1812, was provided by his father with an excellent education, but his ruling inclination was for military life. He was appointed an ensign in the 2d regiment of Ulster county militia, and became its lieutenant-colonel before the beginning of the revolution. During the war of 1756, between the English and French, he particularly distinguished himself at the cap- ture of Fort Frontenac, where he was a captain imder Bradstreet, rendering essential service by capturing a French sloop-of-war on Lake Ontario. The confidence reposed in his character may be es- timated by his appointment as captain-comman- dant of four regiments levied for the protection of the western frontiers of Ulster and Orange coun- ties. He was appointed colonel of the 3d New York regiment on 30 June, 1775, and in the same year accompanied Montgomery to Quebec. He was made brigadier-general, 9 Aug., 1776, and com- manded Fort Clinton when it was attacked, in Oc- tober, 1777, by Sir Henry Clinton. After a gallant defence by about 600 militia against 3,000 British troops, Fort Clinton, as well as Fort Montgomery, of which his brother. Gen. George Clinton, was commander-in-chief, was carried by storm. Gen. Clinton was the last man to leave the works, re- ceiving a severe bayonet-wound, but escaping from the enemy by riding a short distance and then sliding down a precipice 100 feet, to the creek, whence he made his way to the mountain. In 1779 he joined with 1,600 men the expedition of Gen. Sullivan against the Indians, proceeding up the Mohawk to the head of Otsego lake, where he suc- ceeded in floating his bateaux on the shallow out- let by damming up the lake and then letting out the water suddenly. After an engagement, in which the Indians were defeated with great loss at Newtown (now Elmira), all resistance upon their part ceased ; their settlements were destroyed, and they fled to the British fortress of Niagara. Gen. Clinton commanded at Albany during a great part of the war, but was present at the siege of Yorktown and at the evacuation of New York by the British. He was a commissioner to adjust the boundary- line between New York and Pennsylvania, and was a member of the legislature and of the convention that adopted the constitution of the United States. — A fourth son, Georg'e, statesman, b. in Little Britain, Ulster co., N. Y.. 26 July, 1739; d. in Washington, D. C, 20 April, 1812. On his return from a priva- teering cruise in 1758, he accom- panied his fa- ther and brother James in the ex- pedition against Fort Frontenac as a lieutenant, and, on the dis- banding of the colonial forces, he studied in the law-office of William Smith, and settled in his birthplace, receiving short- ly afterward a clerkship from the colonial gov- ernor. Admiral George Clinton, a connection of the family. He was elected in 1768 to the New York assembly, where he so resolutely maintained the cause of the colonies against the crown that, on 22 April, 1775, he was elected by the New York provincial convention one of the delegates to the second continental congress, taking his seat on 15 May. He did not vote on the question of independence, as the members of the New York provincial congress, which he represented, did not consider themselves authorized to instruct their delegates to act on that question. They purposely left it to the new provincial congress, which met at White Plains, 8 July, 1776, and which, on the next day, passed unanimously a resolution approving of the declaration. Clinton was likewise prevented from signing the declaration with the New York delegation on 15 July, by receiving, on the 7th of that month, an imperative call from Washington to take post in the Highlands, with rank as general of militia. In the spring of 1777 he was a deputy to the New York