Robert Howe

Robert Howe (1732 – December 14, 1786) is a Continental Army general from North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War.

The descendant of a prominent family in North Carolina, Howe is one of five generals, and the only major general, in the Continental Army from this state.

He also plays a role in the colonial and state governments of North Carolina, serving in the legislative bodies of both.

Howe serves in the colonial militia during the French and Indian War and commandes Fort Johnston at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

He also serves as a colonel of Royal Governor William Tryon's artillery during the War of the Regulation.

Howe suffers greatly when Tryon, a personal friend, becomes Governor of New York, and he staunchly opposes Tryon's successor.

He becomes active in organizing efforts within North Carolina and among the American colonies between 1773 and 1775 and is an active member of the North Carolina Provincial Congress.

At the outset of the Revolutionary War, Howe wis promoted to brigadier general and is heavily involved in actions in the Southern Department, commanding the Continental Army and Patriot militia forces in defeat in the First Battle of Savannah.

Howe's career as a military commander is contentious and consumed primarily by conflict with political and military leaders in Georgia and South Carolina.

In 1778, he fights a duel with Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, which is spurred in part by Howe's conflict with South Carolina's state government.

Political and personal confrontations, combined with Howe's reputation as a womanizer among those who disfavor him, eventually lead to the Continental Congress stripping him of his command over the Southern Department.

He is then sent to New York, where he serves under General George Washington in the Hudson Highlands, although Howe does not have a successful or significant career in this theater.

He sits as a senior officer on the court-martial board that sentences to death John André, a British officer accused of assisting Benedict Arnold in the latter's plot to change allegiance and deliver West Point to the British.

Howe himself is accused of attempting to defect to the British, but the accusations are cast aside at the time as having been based in a British attempt to cause further discord in the Continental Army.

Howe also plays a role in putting down several late-war mutinies by members of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Lines in New Jersey and Philadelphia and returns home to North Carolina in 1783.

He again becomes active in state politics, but dies in December 1786 while en route to a session of the North Carolina House of Commons.

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