10 Facts

As a boy, Pinckney witnessed firsthand the close relationship between the colonial elite and the British. His father was the colony’s chief justice and also served as a member of its Royal Council. In 1753 the family moved to London where the elder Pinckney served as the colony’s agent. Young Pinckney received private tutoring before entering the prestigious Westminster preparatory school. Three years later he matriculated at both Christ Church College, Oxford, and at the Middle Temple in London to study law. He continued his education for another year after becoming a lawyer in 1769. He studied botany and chemistry in France and briefly attended the famous French military academy at Caen.

Pinckney stood with the Patriots when war between the colonies and the mother country finally erupted in 1775. He served in the Provincial Congresses and in the Council of Safety that supervised affairs when the legislature was not in session. During this period Pinckney played an especially important role in those legislative committees that organized the state’s military defenses.

In 1776, Colonel Pinckney volunteered for military service as a full-time regular officer in the Continental Army. Pinckney set out to join Washington near Philadelphia. He arrived in 1777, just in time to participate in the important military operations centered around Brandywine and Germantown. Pinckney’s sojourn on Washington’s staff was especially significant to his development as a national leader after the war. It allowed him to associate with key officers of the Continental Army, men like Alexander Hamilton and James McHenry, who, beginning as military comrades, would become important political allies in the later fight for a strong national government.

In 1778 Pinckney returned to South Carolina to resume command of his own regiment just as the state experienced a new threat from the British. Major General Benjamin Lincoln, commander of the Southern Department, placed Pinckney in command of one of his Continental brigades. Pinckney participated in the unsuccessful assault on Savannah by the Americans and their French allies in October 1779, and then in a gallant but equally unsuccessful defense of Charleston in 1780.

Pinckney turned his attention to his law practice and plantations, seeking to recover from serious financial losses suffered while on active service. He returned to the lower house of the South Carolina legislature and became an advocate of the landed elite of the South Carolina Lowcountry, who dominated the state’s government during this period. Though close friends with fellow legislator Edward Rutledge, Pinckney opposed Rutledge’s attempts to end the importation of slaves, arguing that South Carolina’s economy required the continual infusion of new slaves.

Once again he became active in the state militia, rising to the rank of major general. During these years he also endured personal tragedy: his wife Sarah died in 1784, and he was wounded the following year in a duel with Daniel Huger, an event that would later lead him to advocate laws against dueling.

Pinckney also commented on the irony and duality of American freedom and American slavery when he said, “Bills of rights generally begin with declaring that all men are by nature born free. Now, we should make that declaration with a very bad grace, when a large part of our property consists in men who are actually born slaves.”

In 1801, Pinckney owned about 250 slaves. When his daughter Eliza married, Pinckney gave her fifty slaves. On his death, he bequeathed his remaining slaves to his daughters and nephews.

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In 1800, Pinckney intended to retire. However, he once again became deeply involved in national and state politics. He ran unsuccessfully for Vice President on the Federalist ticket in 1800. In 1804 and 1808, he was the Federalist candidate for president. He defeated in presidential races won by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He also served for two terms in the South Carolina senate.

For the rest of his life, Pinckney engaged in legal practice, served at times in the legislature, and engaged in civic and philanthropic activities in Charleston. From 1805 until his death in 1825, Pinckney was president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former officers of the War for Independence. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789 and a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1813. Pinckney died on August 16, 1825, and was buried in St. Michael’s churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina.

His tomb bears an inscription that captures the essence of his loyalty to the highest national aspirations and standards of his period: “One of the founders of the American Republic. In war he was a companion in arms and friend of Washington. In peace he enjoyed his unchanging confidence.