Benjamin Lincoln

Benjamin Lincoln (January 24, 1733 (O.S. January 13, 1733) – May 9, 1810) was an American army officer. He served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Lincoln was involved in three major surrenders during the war: his participation in the Battles of Saratoga (sustaining a wound shortly afterward) contributed to the surrender of a British army under John Burgoyne, he oversaw the largest American surrender of the war at the 1780 siege of Charleston, and, as George Washington's second in command, he formally accepted the British surrender at Yorktown. Lincoln served from 1781 to 1783 as the first United States secretary of war. While Secretary of War, Lincoln became an original member of The Society of the Cincinnati of the state of Massachusetts and was elected as the first president of the Massachusetts Society on June 9, 1783. After the war, Lincoln was active in politics in his native Massachusetts, running several times for lieutenant governor but only winning one term in that office. In 1787, Lincoln led a militia army (privately funded by Massachusetts merchants) in the suppression of Shays's Rebellion, and was a strong supporter of the new United States Constitution. He was for many of his later years the politically influential customs collector of the Port of Boston.