William Pierce (politician)
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William Pierce (ca. 1740 – December 10, 1789) was an army officer during the American Revolutionary War and a member of the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787.
William Pierce, who simply signed himself "William Pierce, Jr.", identified himself as a Virginian, although some historians contend that he was born in Georgia. At the outset of the War for American Independence, he was commissioned a Captain in the 1st Continental Artillery Regiment on November 30, 1776. Later, He became as an aide-de-camp to General John Sullivan in the expedition against the Iroquois in Upper New York in 1779. The following year he was back in Virginia, where he briefly attended the College of William & Mary. In December of that year, he accepted an invitation from General Nathanael Greene to become one of his aides. Serving throughout the tumultuous southern campaigns, he was recognized by Congress for his bravery at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781.
Having received brevet promotion to Major, Pierce retired from the Continental Army in 1782 and sought to establish himself as a merchant in the Caribbean. He eventually settled in Savannah, Georgia and partnered with fellow officers Richard Call and Anthony Walton White. In 1783, he married Charlotte Fenwick, the daughter of a wealthy South Carolina planter, with whom he had two sons: noted author William Leigh Pierce, and another who died in childhood.
Pierce represented Chatham County in the Georgia State Legislature and, in 1786, that body elected him to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention the following year. Here, he kept notes on the proceedings and, more importantly, character sketches of his fellow delegates. Pierce left the Convention in July to attend business matters and did not sign. Additionally, he was an original member and vice president of the Society of the Cincinnati in Georgia and served as a trustee of the Chatham County Academy until his untimely death in 1789.
