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biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1728–1806)
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| biography:
| US soldier, born in Maldon, Essex, SE England, UK. He entered the British army as a boy, and saw action in America during the French and Indian War. After 10 years back in England, he settled in W Virginia in 1772. Appointed brigadier-general in the Continental Army (1775), he proved himself a capable administrator and played a major role in the American victory at Saratoga (1777). He had a tendency to quarrel with his fellow officers, including General Schuyler at Ticonderoga and Benedict Arnold after Saratoga, and in 1778 he permitted his name to be associated with the ‘Conway Cabal’, a plot to have Gates supplant Washington as commander-in-chief. Although not formally implicated, Gates never truly regained Washington's friendship or trust, and for two years he had little role in the action. Finally restored to command in the South (1780), he commanded the militia at Camden, SC that was routed by the British, and although Congress demanded an investigation, no court of inquiry ever convened. He played little role in the final actions of the war, and retired to his Virginia plantation (1783). Ever the outsider, he freed his slaves (1790) and passed his last years as a gentleman farmer on Manhattan Island, New York City. |
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