Henry Clinton

Sir Henry Clinton

Sir Henry Clinton, born about 1738, d. Dec. 23, 1795, the son of Admiral George Clinton, later governor of New York, and was a British general in the American Revolution. He began his military service in the New York militia because his father was governor of that colony. He served in Germany during the Seven Years' War and rose to the rank of major general in 1772. Commissioned as a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards when he was only 13 years old, Clinton rose to the rank of Major General in 1772. He served in Parliament in 1772 and 1774.

When the American Revolutionary War broke out, Clinton was sent to Boston and distinguished himself in the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), and was subsequently named second in command to Gen. William Howe, the British commander in chief. For his part in the Battle of Long Island (1776) he was made a Lieutenant General and was knighted.

In 1776 Clinton unsuccessfully assaulted Sullivans Island at Charleston, S.C., shared in the British victory in the Battle of Long Island, and captured Newport, R.I. When General Howe resigned his command in 1778 Clinton was named to succeed him.

Clinton's first step as commander in chief was to move his headquarters from Philadelphia to New York. In 1779 he shifted his theater of operations to the south, joined Charles Cornwallis and captured Charleston in 1780. On Clinton's return to New York, hostility arose between the two generals (he quarreled constantly with Cornwallis) which may have contributed to Cornwallis's surrender. Clinton resigned in 1781 and returned to England.

In England Clinton sought to vindicate his conduct of the war by publishing his Narrative. In 1790 he reentered the House of Commons and in 1794 was appointed governor of Gibraltar. Clinton died in Cornwall on Dec. 23, 1795, before taking up his post as governor.

(See Bibliography below)

| Back to Timeline | or click on your browser's "back to previous page" button

Author: Paul C. Bowers, Jr., Ohio State University
Picture Credit:: National Army Museum, London
Bibliography: Willcox, William B., Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence (1964).