Edmund Pendleton Gaines (1777 - 1849)

Born 20 Mar 1777 in Culpeper County, Virginia, USA

Ancestors

Husband of Frances Tremlett (Toulmin) Gaines — married 1806 (to 1811) in Mississippi Territory

Husband of Barbara Grainger (Blount) Gaines — married 1815 (to 1836) in Knoxville, Tennessee

Husband of Myra (Clark) Gaines — married 2 May 1839 (to 1849) in New York City, New York, New York

Died 6 Jun 1849 at age 72 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA

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Biography

Edmund Gaines is Notable.

Maj. Gen Edmund Gaines served in the 8th Regiment, United States Infantry in the War of 1812
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Edmund Gaines was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in the War of 1812.

For defeating the British Army at Ft. Erie during a battle of the War of 1812 he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Edmund Pendleton Gaines, United States soldier, was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, on March 20, 1777, the son of James and Elizabeth (Strother) Gaines. The family moved to North Carolina at the end of the American Revolution and soon thereafter to Tennessee.

Gaines was married 3 times. His first marriage was to Frances Toulmin (1788–1811), daughter of Harry Toulmin, who died while giving birth to their only child. His second marriage was to Barbara Blount (1792–1836), daughter of Tennessee statesman William Blount.[2] His last marriage was to Myra Clark (1806–1885), daughter of Louisiana politician Daniel Clark.

After service as a lieutenant in a local militia company, Gaines was commissioned as an ensign in the Sixth United States Infantry (Tennessee) on January 10, 1799. In March of that year he was promoted to second lieutenant; he was honorably discharged on June 15, 1800.

He rejoined the army as a second lieutenant in the Fourth United States Infantry on February 16, 1801, and transferred to the Second Infantry in April 1802. He was promoted to first lieutenant that month and to captain on February 28, 1807.

During this period he surveyed a road from Nashville to Natchez, served as military collector of Mobile, and commanded the garrison at Fort Stoddert.

He was involved in the arrest of Aaron Burr and presented testimony for the prosecution at his trial.

Gaines took an extended leave of absence and began practicing law in Mississippi Territory but returned to the army at the beginning of the War of 1812.

On March 24, 1812, he was appointed major of the Eighth Infantry and on July 6, 1812, lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-fourth Infantry. From March 1813 until March 1814 he was colonel of the Twenty-fifth Infantry. His regiment especially distinguished itself at the battle of Chrysler's Field in 1813.

He served as adjutant general of the army from September 1, 1813, through March 9, 1814, and at the same time was commander of Fort Erie, Upper Canada. For his successful defense of the post on November 3, 1814, he was promoted to brigadier general.

On August 15, 1815, he was brevetted to the rank of major general for his "gallantry and good conduct in defeating the enemy" at Fort Erie, and he received the thanks of Congress and a gold medal "for repelling with great slaughter the attack of the British veteran army superior in numbers" during the American victory at Erie. He was seriously wounded in the fighting and took no further part in the war.

He was given command of Military District Number Six, which comprised Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. He maintained this assignment until May 17, 1815.

Gaines was promoted to Major General in 1816.

In 1817 he was placed in command of the Southern Dept of the Army. This was a very difficult assignment since the principal requirement was to restrain the Indians and at the same time avoid hostilities with Great Britain and Spain.

He was sent south to treat with the Creek Indians and when diplomacy failed joined Andrew Jackson's campaign against them and the Seminoles. He was in command in Florida in 1817 when the Seminole War broke out.

It was while these activities were occurring and while General Gaines, as a citizen of Tennessee, distinguished himself as a General that the town of Gainesboro (formerly Gainsborough), Tennessee, was founded and named after Gaines.

General Gaines continued in command of the Southern Department of the United States Army at New Orleans during the Mexican War.

From 1821 until May 1823 Gaines commanded the Western Department of the United States Army, with headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, and from December 1823 until December 1825 he commanded the Eastern Department.

He was reassigned to the command of the Western Department on December 9, 1825, and served until January 31, 1826. He fought in the Black Hawk War of 1832 and commanded an expedition against the Florida Seminoles, in which he was wounded in the mouth.

Sources

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10656863
• https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fga03
• Wikipedia:Edmund_P._Gaines
• Maxwell, William, ed. The Virginia Historical Register (Macfarlane & Fergusson, Richmond, Virginia, 1846) Vol. 2, Page 172-3: "The Death of Gen. Gaines"
• Tayes, Molden Jenkins. "Jackson County Tennessee," 1989, 4th printing 1992, self-published, pp 37, 38.

Jeffersonian Republican Publication: East Stroudsburg, Monroe, Pennsylvania, USA Date: June 14 1849 Text: "...will be hushed, and the Fredericks Major General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, of will promptly proceed to imprison and shoot the the United States Army, He died on the Gth inpatriots whom in their weakness and terror ... ;FKOM lliUUOPE" 15 UUUII1 Ol SUlflling . KT We were informed yesterday that Mr. David Morehouse, Post Master at Livingston, Essex 'county, !N. J., died of the Cholera, on the the 5th instant. . The -1th of July ... letters passing through the office in which he was clerk. In Philadelphia, onuhe7th?inst? the Board, of import.-f'-The Northern Autocrat; ostentatiously Health Reported . two cases of Cholera-rboth fatal ... , and on that of Bishop Polk, in the same ing darkness resume her dreary and dismal reign State, 23 slayes had been swept away by the epiNo..." About this sourceStroudsburg lies in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, at the confluence of three creeks that powered the mills of settler Jacob Stroud in the 1770s. Stroudsburg was laid out in 1810 and became the Monroe County seat in 1837. Its 19th-century economy thrived on lumbering, spring water in locally made bottles, and vacationers from New York and Philadelphia arriving by stagecoach and railroad.The Jeffersonian Republican and the Jeffersonian newspapers of Stroudsburg are interesting not because of their content (local advertising but little news, much fiction, state and national political pieces, and reprinted items from far-flung newspapers), but because of their origin and, especially, their durable editor/ publisher, Theodore Schoch. Alfred Mathews’ History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties, Pennsylvania (1886) relates how Cornelius W. DeWitt, Whig Party leader in adjoining Pike County, organized fellow Whigs to start a newspaper. Richard Nugent, a transplanted Nova Scotian working on a Wayne County newspaper, was recruited to launch the Jeffersonian Republican in Milford on January 15, 1840. The weekly newspaper alternated between Milford and Stroudsburg until Theodore Schoch took over on February 24, 1841, when it settled permanently in Stroudsburg.The Jeffersonian Republican was an act of faith as well as a newspaper, a Whig voice crying in a wilderness of Democrats. Northampton, Carbon, Monroe, Wayne, and Lehigh counties were known as the “Tenth Legion of Pennsylvania,” with Democrats outvoting Whigs ten to one. In Monroe, the odds were slightly better --five Democrats for every Whig--yet Schoch rallied enough votes for Benjamin Harrison to win the county and give traction to his presidential campaign. Schoch was born a Northampton County farm boy in 1814 but apprenticed with an Easton newspaper at age six, beginning a newspaper career spanning seven decades. When the Whigs dissolved, Schoch became a Republican and was the first Monroe County Republican to be appointed an associate judge.The transition from the Jeffersonian Republican to the Jeffersonian on May 5, 1853, was seamless (the paper maintained consecutive numbering) and unexplained (Schoch rarely editorialized about anything). Except for a new typeface for the nameplate, the newspaper was remarkably consistent in appearance over time, primarily because Schoch never stopped using the Smith hand press acquired secondhand in 1847 to replace the newspaper’s original Ramage hand press. In a widely published interview with the old editor in July 1897, Schoch said that “One might scour the country from ocean to ocean today and not find another Smith press in use.” However, Schoch continued to set his own metal type (some dating to 1840) and pulled the Smith’s lever for every issue, never missing a deadline in his tenure.When a Republican congressman was elected from Monroe in fall 1896, Schoch commented, “If I should live to be a hundred, I couldn’t have more glory to think of than this.” He didn’t make it that far, dying at age 86 on January 21, 1900, about a month short of 59 years of service. Schoch’s obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer speculated that he was the oldest active editor in the country in continuous service with the same newspaper. The Jeffersonian remained in operation until 1911