Schuyler, PHILIP JOHN

Schuyler, PHILIP JOHN, a leader of the American Revolution, was born at Albany, 22d November 1733, raised a company and fought at Lake George in 1755, and rendered other services during the French and Indian War. He was a member of the colonial assembly from 1768, and was a delegate to the Continental congress of 1775, which appointed him one of the first four major-generals. Washington gave him the northern department of New York, and he was preparing to invade Canada when ill-health compelled him to hand the command over to General Montgomery. He still retained a general direction of affairs from Albany, but jealousies and complaints, especially from Gates, rendered his work both hard and disagreeable, and in 1779, after a congressional committee had acquitted him honourably of all charges, he resigned. He would not again accept a command, although he remained one of Washington's closest friends and advisers. Besides acting as commissioner for Indian affairs, and making treaties with the Six Nations, he sat in congress from 1777 to 1781, and was a state senator for thirteen years between 1780 and 1797, a United States senator in 1789-91 and 1797-98, and surveyor-general of the state from 1782. With Hamilton (who married a daughter) and John Jay he shared the leadership of the Federal party in New York; and he aided in preparing the state's code of laws. He died at Albany, 18th November 1804. See the Life by B. J. Lossing (enlarged ed. 2 vols. 1872), and G. W. Schuyler's Philip Schuyler and his Family (2 vols. New York, 1888).