John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada under Great Britain from 1791 to 1796, preceding Peter Russell. Simcoe is most famous for his command of the Queen's Rangers during the American Revolutionary War, a posting that allowed him to entertain his inclination towards violence without many repercussions. Simcoe was known for his contempt for patriots and his efforts to root out rebel conspirators on Long Island, but he was just as distinguished for his field commands.
Biography[]
John Graves Simcoe was born on 25 February 1752 in Cotterstock, England to a Welsh family. Simcoe was educated at Eton College and joined the Union Lodge of the Freemasons in Exeter in 1773, but he decided to put his other dreams aside so that he could enlist in the British Army in 1770.
Service in Setauket[]
Captain Simcoe in 1776
Simcoe purchased a commission as Captain in the 40th Regiment of Foot after the murder of Captain Charles Joyce in 1776, and he was stationed in Setauket, New York. Simcoe was wounded and captured in the failed raid on Meigs Harbor in the autumn of 1776 by dragoons led by Benjamin Tallmadge, but he was later released in a prisoner exchange by General Charles Scott after being tortured under Tallmadge and saw action in the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, where he ordered his men not to shoot at fleeing American troops, ironically including George Washington. Later that year, after he returned home, his host Major John Andre had him return to Setauket after he killed a Continental Army spy disguised as a member of the Coldstream Guards after he got the guards' motto wrong; Andre was horrified, as he wanted to make the spy a double agent, and he grew angry with the violent Simcoe.
In August 1777, he engaged Setauket local Abraham Woodhull in a duel after beating him up due to his belief that he forced himself upon Anna Strong, the woman who had quartered him, and Simcoe and Strong met at a creek. Woodhull missed his shot despite having the chance to draw first blood, and the intervention of Judge Richard Woodhull and Anna Strong herself prevented Simcoe from returning fire. Shortly after, he attempted to provoke Major Edmund Hewlett to hang local patriots after organizing the poisoning of his horse and a failed attempt on Woodhull's life, which he blamed on the patriots. However, the case fell apart after Abraham intentionally sabotaged the case while presiding over it in place of his ailing father, and the alleged league of assassins were instead sent to the prison ship HMS Jersey. Simcoe decided to disobey orders and hang them all when news arrived of an impending raid by Benjamin Tallmadge and a 500-strong patriot force on 22 August 1777, but he only succeeded in hanging Moses Paine before the rebels forced the British to retreat to the church with the prisoners. During the ensuing siege, Simcoe was blatantly insubordinate, shouting at Hewlett and telling him to storm the town, and he decided to motivate the rebels to storm the church by taking Lucas Brewster out of the church and shooting him in front of the rebels before letting out a madman's shout. The rebels opened fire as Simcoe returned to the church, and a horrified Hewlett had Simcoe gagged and arrested after some resistance.
Queen's Rangers service[]
Simcoe on horseback
Simcoe became commander of the Queen's Rangers on 15 October 1777, some 330 light infantry soldiers that had seen action at the Battle of Crooked Billet during the Philadelphia campaign. Simcoe was opposed to being given command, as it would mean that he would no longer be a royal officer and would probably mean a cut in pay, but Major John Andre allowed for him to deploy his unit wherever he wanted to. Simcoe arrived in the woods of Pennsylvania and took command of the unit after killing the rebellious ranger Cager and scalping him, showing what happened to men who resisted his command. Simcoe was now in command of men like him, murderous monsters, and he ordered his men to fall in behind him. Simcoe led his men in an ambush of Captain McCarrey's 10th Connecticut Regiment in Connecticut, just across the Long Island Sound from Setauket, in December 1777 and left a note stating that it was Hewlett who was responsible for the murder of the commander. Hewlett would be kidnapped by Continentals in Setauket one day, and Simcoe was reluctant to take any action, as he was supposed to redeploy to Oyster Bay. However, Anna Strong convinced him to free Hewlett in exchange for a favor, and Simcoe had her give him a kiss before he left to "free" him. In the Bridgeport Raid of 1 January 1778, Simcoe's men massacred all of the 20-odd Continentals in the camp, and Simcoe attempted to kill Hewlett, who had been tortured and left in the cold by the rebels. However, Hewlett stabbed Simcoe in the chest with a knife and escaped in a Continental uniform, eventually making it back to Long Island. Simcoe believed that Hewlett was dead, informing Anna of this; however, Hewlett showed up with his men, and the rivalry began. A day later, Ensign Norwich (a regular) was found hanging from the gallows, apparently a suicide. However, it was an action taken by Simcoe and his green-suited Queen's Rangers against the rival redcoats under Hewlett. Simcoe and Hewlett held a secret parley in which Simcoe warned Hewlett that more of his men would be killed without the shedding of blood; this would prove inaccurate, as the Queen's Rangers and the regulars engaged in a brawl at DeJong Tavern (formerly Strong Tavern) after the regulars were suspected of killing Queen's Rangers MacInnis and Tanner, who were actually killed while tracking Abraham, Anna, and their Continental contact Caleb Brewster. Simcoe was told to leave Setauket by Hewlett, and Simcoe told him that he would have orders to return to Setauket after being sent to New Jersey on special assignment. He would attack Anthony Wayne's right flank in the ensuing battle of Monmouth, but George Washington's arrival at the battle and his replacement of Charles Lee as commander led to the British being turned and the battle being a draw.
Simcoe's ranger unit would raid the Continental Army several times from New York City, and in October 1779 he began Simcoe's Raid in New Jersey, burning rebel supplies until he was captured by Charles Armand Tuffin. In 1781, he was released by the patriots and returned to the fight in Virginia, fighting at Spencer's Ordinary and at the Siege of Yorktown.
Postwar life[]
In December 1781, he returned to England as a Lieutenant-Colonel and invalided, and he would serve as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from 1791 to 1796. When Simcoe returned to England, he became a member of Parliament and helped in the establishment of courts of law, trial by jury, common law, freehold land tenure, and the abolition of slavery. He died in 1806.