Hand, Edward, 1744-1802

Physician and army officer.

Continental Army officer, delegate to Continental Congress, and physician from Pennsylvania.

Edward Hand (1744-1802) was a physician and Army officer.

Edward Hand served as a Major-General during the Revolutionary War.

Edward Hand served as a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army in command of the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment from March 7-December 31, 1776.

General Edward Hand was born in Ireland in 1744. He emigrated to America with the British Army. He joined the Continental Army in 1775 and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. Hand was in command of the Western Division of the Continental Armuy from 1777-1778, with his headquarters at Fort Pitt. He left Fort Pitt in 1778 and fought with General Washington until the end of the war. He died at his home in Lancaster, Pa in 1802, amidst finiancial troubles. Captain John Irwin was born in Ireland in 1752. He emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia. Irwin joined the Continental Army and took part in many campaigns. He was seriously wounded at the Paoli massacre in 1777. He rejoined the Continental and took a position on General Washington's staff. After the war, he returned to Ireland, and them moved back to Philadelphia and them on to Pittsburgh in 1786 where he died in 1808.

Hand was a physician and a military officer.

He was the military surgeon of the garrison at Fort Pitt (Pa.) and, with Alexander Ross and William Thompson, bought Fort Pitt from British Major Charles Edmondstone (1772) for the sum of fifty pounds (New York currency). Though the fort was partially dismantled to build homes, the Continental Congress later sent now Brigadier General Hand to occupy the fort and end Virginia's control of Western Pennsylvania (June, 1777). Hand attempted to keep the British out of Western Pennsylvania while at the same time improving relations with the Delaware Indians. Unfortunately, a successful raid which destroyed British stores at Cyahoga (near Cleveland) also resulted in the needless deaths of Delaware women, which gave the entire campaign the derisive title "the Squaw Campaign." Indian reprisals continued and in the spring of 1778 Hand resigned, believing that the western side of the mountains be abandoned. One of Hand's accomplishments was to build a military hospital on Chartiers Creek not far from where the Stubenville Pike crosses it today.