Samuel Elbert (1740-1 November 1788) was a Brigadier-General of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and from 1785 to 1786 he served as Governor of Georgia, succeeding John Houstoun and preceding Edward Telfair.
Biography[]
Samuel Elbert was born in 1740 in Savannah, Georgia, the son of a Baptist minister. Elbert became a captain in a grenadier company in 1772 and, despite swearing an oath of loyalty to King George III of Britain in order to become a commissioned officer, Elbert joined the Provincial Congress of Georgia and joined the Georgia militia and Continental Army. Elbert became a Lieutenant-Colonel on 4 February 1776, and a 1777 invasion of Florida led by Elbert was defeated at the Battle of Brier Creek on 3 March 1779. He was promoted to Brigadier-General in the Continental Army after the siege of Charleston in 1780, and he befriended the Marquis de Lafayette during the Siege of Yorktown, having a lasting friendship with him and naming his own son after him. Elbert served as Governor of Georgia from 1785 to 1786, and he died in 1788 at the age of 48.