biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1736–96)
|
| biography:
| American soldier and judge, born in Bedford Co, Virginia, USA. A well-to-do landowner, he became a justice of the peace (1766) and later served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he campaigned for independence. He commanded volunteers under Nathanael Greene during the American Revolution. He gained a reputation for high-handedness and extralegality in dealing with Tories, especially during the early years of the Revolution, but a legislative investigation concluded (1782) that he acted out of military necessity. The claim that the word ‘lynch’ (to punish an alleged criminal without due process of law) comes from his name is dubious. |
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