Andrew Williamson (soldier)

Brigadier-General Andrew Williamson (c. 1730–1786) was a Scottish-born trader, planter, and military officer. Serving in the South Carolina Militia, rising to be commissioned as brigadier general in the Continental Army in the American War of Independence. He led numerous campaigns against Loyalists and Cherokee, who in 1776 had launched an attack against frontier settlements across a front from Tennessee to central South Carolina. Williamson was particularly effective in suppressing the Cherokee, killing an unknown number of Cherokees and destroying 31 of their towns.^[1] As a result of his Indian campaign, the Cherokee ceded more than a million acres in the Carolinas.

Following the fall of Charleston to the British in 1780 after a month-long siege, and the capture of thousands of American troops, the Patriot resistance was effectively subdued in South Carolina and Georgia. Williamson, like some other officers and troops, appeared to sue for peace. While the circumstances were not clear, he appeared to be aiding the British. He was captured by Americans and gained release, moving from White Hall close to Charleston. There he was taken captive in a second American raid, but freed by British forces. After the war, Patriot General Nathanael Greene testified that Williamson had acted in Charleston to collect intelligence and pass it to the Americans; he was the "first major double agent" in America.^[2]