Gold Selleck Silliman

Gold Selleck Silliman (born May 7, 1732 in Fairfield , Colony of Connecticut ; died July 21, 1790 there ) was an American lawyer and general in the Connecticut militia in the American Revolutionary War .

Life

He was the son of the judge Ebenezer Silliman (1707-1775) and his wife Abigail Gold Selleck, studied at Yale College (AB 1752) and then pursued a legal career. In 1769 he was appointed King's attorney of Fairfield County , in 1769 the captain of a cavalry unit in the Connecticut Militia and in 1774 the rank of lieutenant colonel . After the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he was in May 1775 to Colonel (Colonel) promoted the 4th Regiment of the Militia of Connecticut and was entrusted March to June 1776 strengthening the fortifications of New York. In August he took part in the unsuccessful defense of New York against the British troops and was almost surrounded in the course of the fighting, but saved from capture by the intervention of Aaron Burr . After retreating to Connecticut, he took command of the state's light cavalry; in December of that year he was raised to the rank of brigadier general.

As the commander of his cavalry regiment, Silliman was primarily entrusted for years with securing the Connecticut border against British-occupied New York. On the night of May 1, 1779, however, he and his eldest son were kidnapped by a loyalist commando from their home in Connecticut and taken by boat to the opposite, British-controlled coast of Long Island. He was held in Flatbush as a prisoner of war until April 1780, when he was exchanged for the loyalist judge Thomas Jones, who had been taken hostage by the revolutionary forces. In 1780 and 1781 he represented his hometown Fairfield in the House of Representatives and in 1782 also resumed his work as the district attorney for his county.

literature

• Franklin Bowditch Dexter: Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History. Vol. II. Henry Holt & Co., New York 1885. ( digitized ). Pp. 294/295.