Hogun, James

HOGUN, JAMES. (?–1781). Continental general. Ireland and North Carolina. In about 1751, James Hogun came from Ireland and settled in Halifax County, North Carolina. In 1774 he was in the Halifax Committee of Safety, and he represented his county in the provincial congresses of 1775 and 1776. On 22 April 1776 the Provincial Congress elected him the first major of the Halifax militia, and on 26 November he became colonel of the Seventh North Carolina Continentals. Joining General George Washington's army in July 1777, he fought at Brandywine and Germantown (11 September and 4 October 1777). When Congress called for new Continental regiments, he was ordered home to help raise and organize the four from North Carolina. In August 1778 he reached White Plains, New York, with the first of these regiments. During the last two months of the year, he was involved with fortification work at West Point. Congress appointed Hogun brigadier general on 9 January 1779. After briefly commanding the North Carolina Brigade of Washington's army, on 19 March, Hogun succeeded Benedict Arnold as commander in Philadelphia and retained that position until 22 November 1779. He then led his brigade to the defense of Charleston, arriving 3 March with 700 men after an arduous march of nearly three months through snow and extreme cold. Taken prisoner when General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city on 12 May 1780, Hogun later refused parole in order to stay with his men, who were suffering the hardships of the prison at Haddrel's Point on Sullivan's Island. He died there on 4 January 1781.

SEE ALSO Charleston Siege of 1780; Haddrel's Point.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rankin, Hugh F. The North Carolina Continentals. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1971.

                              revised by Michael Bellesiles