Henry Dearborn letters and documents

1801-1823

Henry Dearborn (1751-1829) of New Hampshire was an an American army officer and statesman. He fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, attaining the rank of senior Major General in the U.S. Army. Dearborn was U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts, 1793-1797; U.S. Secretary of War, 1801-1809; and U.S. minister to Portugal, 1822-1824.

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Henry Dearborn was a practicing physician and captain of a New Hampshire militia company. He fought with the First and Third New Hampshire Regiments of the Continental Army, rising from captain to lieutenant colonel. In July 1781 he was appointed Deputy Quartermaster General and served on Washington’s staff in Virginia. Notable events in his military service included the battle of Bunker Hill with the First New Hampshire Regiment, 1775; the expedition to Quebec, 1775, resulting in his capture, imprisonment and exchange; the battles of Saratoga, 1777, and Monmouth, 1778; and Major General John Sullivan's campaign against the Six Nations, 1779. He was with the main army in New York and New Jersey in 1780 and participated in the Yorktown Campaign in 1781. Upon his exchange in 1777, Dearborn served as major and then lieutenant colonel in the Third New Hampshire Regiment, transferring to the First New Hampshire Regiment in early 1781. He commanded the regiment upon the death of Colonel Alexander Scammell at Yorktown in October. Dearborn served at the garrison at Saratoga in the summer and fall of 1782, and received his discharge in June 1783.

In 1784 Dearborn moved to the District of Maine, then part of Massachusetts, settling in Pittston, now Gardiner, in Kennebec County. He became Major General of the Maine militia, was appointed U.S. Marshal for Maine in 1789, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from the District, 1793 to 1797. After serving as Secretary of War during the Jefferson administration, he held the federal appointment of Collector of Customs for the port of Boston from 1809 until he was appointed senior Major General of the U.S. Army in January 1812. Although Dearborn’s forces captured York (Toronto) and Fort George in the spring of 1813 during operations against Upper Canada, Dearborn’s weakness as a strategic commander and severe illness led to his recall by Secretary of War John Armstrong in July of that year. Dearborn was re-assigned to command the military district of New York City and was honorably discharged in 1815. In 1817 he ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic-Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts, and in 1818 his work An account of the battle of Bunker Hill was published. His final public office was U.S. minister to Portugal, 1822-1824.

Henry Dearborn was married three times: to Mary Bartlett in 1771, to Dorcas Osgood Marble in 1780, and to Sarah Bowdoin in 1813. Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn (1783-1851) was his son by his second wife. Henry Dearborn died in Roxbury, Massachusetts.