General Clinch

Duncan Lamont Clinch was born at “Art-Lamont,” a plantation in North Carolina, in 1787, joining the United States Army as a first lieutenant in 1808. In 1816, now lieutenant colonel, he was ordered by General Andrew Jackson to attack the Seminole positions at Negro Fort and to recover runaway slaves hiding in the area. Clinch’s gunboats fired on the fort from the Apalachicola River, using cannonballs that had been heated in a kiln. One of them struck the fort’s powder magazine, causing a huge explosion that instantly killed hundreds of the fort’s defenders. He fought during the Second Seminole War and was present at the council at Silver Springs, where tensions between Asin Yahola and Wiley Thompson broke out.

General Clinch had a reputation as a strict disciplinarian and was called The Spartan General for his plain living. He slept in a tent among his men, ate the same food they ate, and drank plain water.

Clinch retired from the Army in 1836, was elected to Congress as a Whig, the party opposed to Andrew Jackson’s Democrats, in 1844. He died of a staphylococcus infection in 1849.