Morgan, Daniel (1736–1802)

US soldier. Having served with the British forces in the French and Indian War and against Pontiac's rebellion (1763–64), he joined the Revolutionary forces on the outbreak of war and fought at Québec in December 1775, where he was captured. Exchanged in 1776, he led a crack regiment of sharpshooters that played an important role in the victory at Saratoga (1777). He then served under George Washington in Pennsylvania. After briefly resigning (1779–80) in dissatisfaction over his lack of promotion, he rejoined the army to command troops in western North Carolina; on January 17, 1781, a force under his command defeated the British at Cowpens, South Carolina, in one of the war's decisive battles. In 1794, commanding Virginia militia, Morgan helped suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. He served in the US House of Representatives (Federalist, Virginia; 1797–99). Probably born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, Morgan was the son of an ironmaster who had settled in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.