Major John Pitcairn (28 December 1722 – 17 June 1775) was a British military officer. Born in Dysart, Fife, he enlisted in the Chatham Dockyard Marine Division of the British Naval Service at the age of 23. He served in North America during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. Arriving in Boston in 1774 with the rank of major, he fought in the 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord during the outbreak of the American War of Independence. Two months later in June, Pitcairn was killed in action during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Respected by both his men and his American opponents, he was buried at Boston's Old North Church. At the time of his death Pitcairn was serving alongside his son Thomas, also a marine officer in the same division, who helped to carry his mortally wounded father from the battlefield.
Early life and education
Pitcairn was born in 1722 in Dysart, a port town in
Fife,
Scotland. His parents were
the Reverend David Pitcairn and Katherine (Hamilton) Pitcairn.
An older brother,
William Pitcairn, later became a famed botanist and served as president of the Royal College of Physicians.
John Pitcairn entered the Marines when he was twenty-three,
Career
John Pitcairn was respected by the citizens in Boston as one of the more reasonable officers in the occupying force. He was in command of the advance party that marched on Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, which began the American War of Independence. His horse was shot from under him, and he lost a pair of matched pistols when the column's baggage train was abandoned. Patriot leader
Major General Israel Putnam would carry them through the rest of the war.
Death
At the Battle of Bunker Hill two months later, Major Pitcairn commanded a reserve force of about 300 Marines. They landed at the south end of the Charlestown peninsula. When the first assaults failed, Pitcairn led his men up the hill toward the American position. Although already being wounded by two gunshots, he led his men through the rebel trenches. When he entered the trenches, he was shot four times.
He toppled into the arms of his son, Thomas, also a Marine officer, who cried out, "I have lost my father!" Some Marines tried to console the son, while others, overcome with emotion, openly wept. Pitcairn was carried back to Boston, where he died of his wound within hours. He is buried at the Old North Church in Boston. After the battle, several marines said they "had all lost a father".
John Trumbull's painting of the Battle of Bunker Hill depicts Pitcairn's death, though with several errors and anachronisms. Since no portrait of him is known to exist, Pitcairn's son David Pitcairn was used as a model by Trumbull. The uniform Pitcairn is dressed in was not actually adopted by the Marines until the 1780s. Pitcairn is shown falling at the crest during its capture from the American force, while he was actually shot starting to climb the hill. Major Pitcairn is also depicted in Trumbull's painting of the Battle of Lexington in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.
Family
John Pitcairn married Elizabeth Dalrymple. Together they had five sons and four daughters. One son, Robert, was a
midshipman in the
Royal Navy, who on 3 July 1767 was aboard the sloop HMS
Swallow. He was the first person to sight an unknown island in the south Pacific, and the captain named the island
Pitcairn Islands in the boy's honour. Later, in 1770, Robert Pitcairn was aboard an East India Company ship that vanished without trace en route to the
Comoro Islands. Another daughter, Catherine Pitcairn, married Charles Cochrane, son of the 8th Earl of Dundonald and a first cousin of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald.
In popular culture
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Pitcairn appears in April Morning, a 1961 novel by Howard Fast depicting the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
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Pitcairn is a secondary antagonist in the video game Assassin's Creed III.
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]
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Pitcairn is a supporting character in the History Channel's three-part miniseries Sons of Liberty which aired in 2015.
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Pitcairn's tomb can be found in the video game Fallout 4, in the Railroad's headquarters, found under the Old North Church's ruins, in Boston. This corresponds with where Pitcairn actually was laid to rest.
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