Five primary documents from the South Carolina signer who paid the highest personal price of the three men captured at Charleston. The refusal of the governorship. The siege. The prisoner exchange. The return to Congress. The early death.
Arthur Middleton was born at Middleton Place on the Ashley River in South Carolina on June 26, 1742, the eldest son of Henry Middleton, president of the First Continental Congress. He was sent to England for his education, Harrow, Westminster, and Trinity Hall at Cambridge, and traveled extensively in Europe before returning to South Carolina in 1763. He entered the colonial legislature, served on the Council of Safety, and helped draft South Carolina's first state constitution in 1776.
When his father Henry became ill, Arthur took his place in the Continental Congress, where contemporaries noted he spoke forcefully and frequently. He signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.
Benjamin Rush described Middleton as "a man of cynical temper but upright intentions toward his country." The State Gazette of South Carolina eulogized him as a "tender husband and parent... steady unshaken patriot, the gentleman, and the scholar."
In March 1778, the South Carolina General Assembly elected Middleton governor under the state's new constitution. He refused. His objections were specific: he found the democratic trends of the 1778 charter excessive, and he believed Congress was not giving adequate attention to southern military needs. He set out his position in correspondence with the Assembly. His papers from this period are at the South Carolina Historical Society.
The refusal was not a retreat from public life, he remained active in the General Assembly and continued corresponding with Continental Congress colleagues about the war in the South.
British forces under General Henry Clinton laid siege to Charleston beginning in April 1780. American and French forces failed to break the siege. On May 12, 1780, General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city, the largest surrender of American forces in the Revolution. Middleton was captured along with fellow signers Edward Rutledge and Thomas Heyward Jr.
The three South Carolina signers were transported to St. Augustine, Florida, held as prisoners of war aboard ship and in the fort. Middleton Place, his estate on the Ashley River, was ransacked by British forces, everything of value removed or destroyed.
When British forces arrived at Middleton Place in 1780, the estate was ransacked. His family had fled to Charleston ahead of the British advance. After Charleston fell on May 12, Middleton was captured and transported to St. Augustine. His papers documenting this period are at the South Carolina Historical Society.
In July 1781, Middleton was freed in a prisoner exchange and traveled directly to Philadelphia to resume his seat in the Confederation Congress. A letter from Edward Rutledge to Middleton, April 14, 1782, discussing South Carolina politics and the men who "live as easy under one government as another," is at the LOC House Archives. Middleton served in Congress through 1782, then retired to South Carolina.
He died on January 1, 1787, of fever, at the age of forty-four. He was one of the youngest deaths among the signers. His papers, covering 1767 to 1783, are at the South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston, with microfiche copies at the LOC House Archives.
In his letter of October 16, 1781, Aedanus Burke wrote to Middleton describing the British surrender at Yorktown — one of the last acts of the war Middleton would witness before his early death in 1787.