Good ole' Private James Grant (Capt Abraham Kirkpatrick's
Company, Col. Thomas Gaskins's Battalion, 1781).

We reenact that company...Grant was court marshalled for
shooting Capt. Kirkpatrick the eye near Bottom's Bridge,
Virginia during a dispute involving Grant's wife.

This is from a regimental history by Dr. Richard C. Bush:
"That evening, violence erupted in the officers' area of the Virginia
regiment. Between 9 and 10 p.m., Pvt. James Grant of the Virginia line
walked into the tent of Capt. Abraham Kirkpatrick and shot him in the area
of his left eye and temple because he believed that Kirkpatrick had been
having an affair with his wife. Kirkpatrick screamed, and a Sergeant
Bradshaw hurried to the scene. He came upon Grant and asked him who had
fired the shot. Grant acknowledged that it was he, and that he wished he had
shot his wife as well. Bradshaw led Grant toward Kirkpatrick's tent, and
they ran into the captain between his tent and "Col. Gaskins's Marquee."
Grant acknowledged to Kirkpatrick that he had fired the shot and why.
Kirkpatrick claimed that "he and his Wife had parted that morning." Grant
was taken to the guardhouse and court-martialed the next day. He pleaded
guilty to the shooting, but was found not guilty of mutiny. On August 12, "a
wet day," Grant was hanged. In the view of at least one Pennsylvania
officer, however, Grant was "certainly justified" in the shooting."

Record of Grant's court-martial, 8/9/81, Lafayette Papers 4:310

Can't be the same Private James Grant, though, as we show that
he was hanged (or was he?)...A mystery, perhaps.

Scott Smith
Gaskins' Virga. Battalion of 1781
www.virginiacampaign.org/gaskins

> James Grant was born in Virginia in 1755 and moved to South
> Carolina around
> 1790. He was a Soldier of the Revolution and served in  Captain Francis
> Kirkpatric's (sp) Company of volunteer horsemen.

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