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George Mathews ( – ) was a Continental Army officer during the American Revolution and rose to the rank of brevet brigadier general; he was 20th and 21st governor of Georgia, and a U.S. Congressman. He was the leading participant in the Patriot War of East Florida, an 1810-1812 filibuster expedition to capture Spanish Florida for the United States. Born in Augusta County, Virginia, Mathews was in early life a merchant and planter. He quickly became a senior officer in the colonial forces, and was credited along with Colonel Andrew Lewis for the victory of the Virginia provincial militia against the Shawnee and Mingo Indian tribes in the Battle of Point Pleasant of Dunmore's War. He was afterward a member of the House of Burgesses from Augusta County. He attended the First Virginia Convention when the Virginia General Assembly was dissolved by royal governor Lord Dunmore. On the outbreak of the American Revolution Mathews led the 9th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army to the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. He and his entire regiment were captured in the Battle of Germantown the following month. He spent the next four years as a prisoner of war, including two years on the British prison ship HMS ''Jersey''. He was exchanged on December 5, 1781. He was breveted to the rank of brigadier general on September 30, 1783. He was an original member of the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati. After the war, he moved to the state of Georgia and was quickly elected to the Georgia General Assembly. The same year he was elected 20th governor of the state. He served two terms as governor, and one intermittent term in Congress, during which he voted to ratify the United States Constitution. During his second administration he quietly allowed the creation of the rogue state of the Trans-Oconee Republic, headed by General Elijah Clarke. He oversaw the removal of the state when public opinion, coupled with pressure from the Federal government, shifted. His administration was later tainted by the Yazoo Land Fraud, which ultimately led to his retirement from politics. Mathews relocated to the Mississippi Territory and in 1810 was assigned a filibuster operation by President James Madison to incite an insurrection in East Florida and capture the territory for the United States. This initiative is now referred to as the Patriot War of East Florida. Mathews had launched the insurrection, capturing Ferninanda Beach and Amelia Island, before the secret mission was recalled and disowned by President Madison, fearing war with Spain and its allies. On learning of the recall, Mathews set out to Washington to confront Madison on the decision. He died in Augusta, Georgia on his way to the capital. He is buried at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. == Early life == George Mathews was born on August 30, 1739 in Augusta County, Virginia to Anne (née Archer) and John Mathews. His parents immigrated to America during the early years of the Scotch-Irish on 1717-1775.〔"...summer of 1717...", Fischer, David Hackett, ''Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America'', Oxford University Press, USA (March 14, 1989), pg. 606; "...early immigration was small,...but it began to surge in 1717.", Blethen, H.T. & Wood, C.W., ''From Ulster to Carolina'', North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 2005, pg. 22; "Between 1718 and 1775", Griffin, Patrick, ''The People with No Name'', Princeton University Press, 2001, pg 1; etc.〕 His father was a successful member of the early Augusta County community and sent George and his siblings to the Augusta Academy, a local classical school founded in 1749.〔Patrick, Rembert W. (2010). Florida Fiasco: Rampant Rebels on the Georgia-Florida Border, 1810-1815. University of Georgia Press, 2010. ISBN 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「George Mathews (Georgia)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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