Revolutionary War Continental Army Major General. Known as Lord Stirling due to a claim to a Scottish peerage that was disputed by other claimants, he was a man of many of varied interests pre-war, endeavoring with farming and mining, and educating himself in the sciences. During the French and Indian War he served in the New York Militia and as an aide-de-camp to Massachusetts Royal Governor William Shirley after Govenor Shirley became commander of all British forces in North American following the death of Major General Edward Braddock at the July 13, 1855 Battle of the Monongahela. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War he used his wealth to arm and outfit New Jersey Militia troops, and was commissioned a Colonel by the state. Soon after he was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Continental Army, and fought in the August 1776 Battle of Long Island, where he was captured after directing his brigade in a series of attacks on British forces that far outnumbered his troops. His actions allowed the Army under General George Washington to retreat to Brooklyn Heights and the safety of defensive positions there. His performance on Long Island won praise for him by General Washington as well as his British opponents. Exchanged, he was promoted to Major General, he became a valued member of Washington’s officer corps, and was given command of the Continental Army when Washington was absent. He would command his troops in the Battles of Trenton (where he was detailed to officially accept the surrender of the Hessian forces who were defeated there), Brandywine, Germantown, Short Hills and Monmouth. When General Washington moved his combined Continental and French Army forces south in 1781 (which eventually resulted in the vinal victory at Yorktown, Virginia), General Alexander was given command of the Continental Army in the North to ensure that Washington’s march would not be attacked from the rear. Stationed in Albany, New York for the last years of the war, he died there a few months before the ratification of the Treaty of Paris that ended the war in 1783. Two of his descendants would go on to further his family military acclaim – great-grandson Stephen Watts Kearny, who fought in the Mexican War and on the American Western Frontier, and great-great-grandson Civil War Union Major General Philip Watts Kearny.