• General Notes

  Elizabeth Randolph [RA.5.6] (- Jan. 1774 ) married Col. Richard Kidder Meade (14 July 1746 - 9 Feb. 1805), a son of David Meade and Susanna Everard. Their children died young and Mead married second Mary Randolph, the widow of William Randolph 10 December 1780. 
  Meade attended school at Harrow, England, and joined the Continental Army soon after his return, becoming aid-de-camp to General Washington,  and was an original member of Society of the Cincinnati.  He died in Frederick County. 
  aide to Gen'l Washington, in the Revolution.
  
  
  R. K. Meade, after the death of his wife, and having no children, being
  actuated by the most virtuous motives that ever actuated the mind of man,
  engaged first as a volunteer in the service of his country and raised a
  company, or rather was placed at the head of a company of Virginia ordered the
  raising of two regiments, he was appointed captain in the Second Regiment
  under Colonel Woodford, and in a very short time raised his company in the
  winter of 1776-7.  The Second Regiment was ordered to join the army, then on
  the Delaware, in Jersey, under the command of the commander-in-chief.   Before
  it left Virginia, he received his appointment of aide-de-camp to General
  Washington, and thereon without delay he repaired to headquarters.  In his
  station of aide he preformed all the active duties of it better, perhaps, than
  any other of the General’s family.  He was a handsome man, of athletic form
  and constitution—from his early years was fond of manly and hardy sports; was
  a good horseman, and was the best mounted aid-de-camp in the army.  At the
  battle of Monmouth he escaped being made prisoner by the fleetness of the
  horse he rode, as he related to it himself.  Being sent with orders to Major
  General Lee, when either going or returning, he fell in with a general officer
  and his suite, and was so near to them as to be in gunshot.  He was sensible
  of the danger he was in, but confiding in the powers of his horse, he soon
  found himself out of their reach; but having a swamp to cross, his horse got
  so immersed in it as not to be able to extricate himself from captivity; he
  found himself under the necessity of dismounting, and abandoning the horse,
  which relieved from so great a load, with great exertion plunged out and
  fortunately recovered, was instantly remounted. Audbury, a British officer of
  the Saratoga Convention troops, in a history of some campaigns of that war,
  printed in two volumes octavo, narrated the above adventure to this effect:
  That the General and suite which R. K. Meade was so near being taken by, was
  no less a person than Sir Harry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief and
  his suite; that an officer in it desired the General to permit him to shoot at
  the American, which, to Sir Harry’s immortal credit, was generously, nobly and
  gloriously refused.  The events of the Revolutionary War of North America are
  well recorded by different historians.  From these histories, it does not
  appear that the aide-de-camp, Captain Meade, was in any way distinguished from
  his associate aides.  It will not be to his discredit to have it remembered
  that he was particularly intimate with and had a friendship for General
  Alexander Hamilton, who, as a member of General Washington’s military family,
  in the quality of aide-de-camp, entering the service when he was scarcely out
  of his majority, continued tha that station until just before the siege of
  Little York, in Virginia.  He there performed not only the humble duties of
  his office of aide-de-camp, but the more important one of counselor.  His
  fame, however, was founded more, and no doubt properly, upon the share he had
  in the administration of the civil government of the United States after its
  independence was acknowledged by the peace of Paris.  More credit was due to
  him probably for the share he had in the conduct of the war than was known to
  the American public or the word in general.  It was been said that Hamilton
  had withdrawn from the General’s family before the capture of Earl Cornwallis,
  at York.  It was presumed, upon some authority not to be despised, the he
  joined the French and American armies before the siege of that place not in
  the best of humor with the General.  He nevertheless was there appointed to
  some honorable command, and it is a well-known historical fact that he was at
  the head of the American party which stormed and carried one of the British
  redoubts, while a French party, with more difficulty and some loss, carried
  another.  If any inference was at this time drawn from the circumstance of
  Hamilton’s going to York without any commission and rather a malcontent, and
  his appointment to a position of importance in any manner unfavorable to the
  General, it was, no doubt by the very disaffected, who were not disposed to
  join the grateful multitude in its enthusiastic admiration and almost
  adoration of General Washington who became almost unaccountably popular, with
  little of that affability, address, or art which is generally considered
  essential to make one a popular hero.  He was brave and prudent and active of
  body, but without one great essential in an accomplished commander, namely,
  decision; nor was he recommended by much experience.  He was an honest
  statesman, though as chief magistrate, deficient in personal suavity and
  address. He had sound judgment, and was scarcely rivaled by any one in his
  conduct of private affairs.  Without ambition, and probably actuated by a
  sincere desire to promote the public weal, his powers of mind were not doubt
  ever at their utmost stretch to attain his end.  He seems to have been
  ordained by heaven to achieve great things in arms without great military
  talents, without great native genius, without classical learning, and with but
  little knowledge of the sciences.  He sustained the State he had freed, by his
  civil administration.  Without impertinently and maliciously prying into every
  recess to detect some venial frailty incident to human nature, as the
  slanderous adversaries of Mr. Jefferson have, to their shame, done it may be
  said of General Washington that his life and manners were correct and his
  morals irreproachable, to judge ordinarily form his general deportment.  He
  was distinguished among the gentry of Virginia for punctuality in all his
  pecuniary engagements; was of acknowledged probity and honor, to which may be
  added that he was pre-eminently discreet in the management of his private
  affairs, at all seasons, not only in times of calm, but when his own as well
  as the public interests were in jeopardy.  Of a saturnine temperament, he was
  reserved and austere, and better endowed by nature and habit for an Eastern
  monarch, than a republican general. 
  
  He was as exempt from the great vices and minor merit as a majority of the
  frail descendants of our first parents; but, at the same time, it must be
  admitted that he was a man of sterling virtues.  It may be objected, perhaps,
  that the person who guides the registry pen of this family record, writes
  under the influence of prejudice, or some base passion, a suspicion to which
  all those who dare to attempt to stem any popular torrent of error and
  credulity will be subjected; but it is to be noted that these pages are not
  intended and never will be exposed to public inspection, and intended only for
  the amusement and, peradventure, the edification of the house of Meade (which
  has no pretension to celebrity, but so far from it has been sunk into
  obscurity), but more particularly the progeny of the subject of this brief
  biography.  The writer indignantly disclaims any affinity to the spirit of
  detraction, but he dares to record what he believes upon sufficient grounds to
  be the truth, although it should, by gaining credit within a very limited
  circle, and there, in opinion, tarnish the romantic luster with which a name
  has been varnished by popular belief.  He can have no motive whatever for
  detracting from the good qualities and accomplishments which have been
  attributed to General Washington.  He surely has not in the foregoing pages
  betrayed any disposition to conceal them.  He could not possibly envy his high
  fame, for he was conscious that his own powers of mind and very humble
  acquirements were of so mean a grade as to render emulation folly in the
  extreme.  He was moreover personally acquainted with him at least a dozen
  years before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, and not less so with
  the greater part of the worthies who representing Virginia associated with him
  in the first and subsequent sessions of Congress, of which number were the
  venerable Col. Richard Bland, Mr. P. Randolph, then Attorney General, and
  first president of Congress, Mr. Wythe, and Mr. Jefferson; with these,
  although much the junior, except of the last, and may others of distinction,
  he had lived many years in a reciprocation of fellowship and equality, except
  in years, talents and in some cases, of  fortune, and in some, of virtue.  He
  is so much of a republican and philosopher, as to claim no political or
  physical superiority, or to acknowledge his inferiority on account of power or
  pageantry.  He detests envy and detraction, but loves truth.  He rejects the
  policy of encouraging false estimates of character and events, by giving them
  coloring and varnish, not, perhaps, out of nature, but contrary to fact, and
  altogether inapplicable to the subject.  Such a course is useless, improper,
  and calculated to generate doubt, and absolutely to destroy the confidence
  which we ought to have in the verity of history and biography, which is
  necessary to render it greatly useful to posterity, by mending their manners
  and morals, and rendering mankind happier through the experience of past
  times.  Yet it was thought necessary during the progress of the Revolutionary
  War, to the success of it, as indeed there was some reason for believing it
  was, that men should appear to have embraced the popular and romantic
  sentiment that Heaven had given Washington as a precious, inestimable boon to
  America, a man endowed with all the attributes of the hero, preordaining him
  for the savior of his country.  Surely no true patriot would, during the
  continuance of the war, whatever might have been his real creed, have been so
  imprudent as publicly to have controverted the popular sentiment then, but
  since the great object of the war has been fully attained, and the whole
  generation by which it was achieved nearly passed away, very few individuals
  who were agents in the stupendous undertaking now surviving, the obligation
  has long ceased to restrain a full expression of sentiment upon the character
  of the chief of those agents.  It is, perhaps, a duty we owe to posterity, to
  contribute our mite toward elucidating facts which have occurred in our own
  time and the observed traits in the characters of famous contemporaries;
  private memoirs are generally more faithful records than history and
  biographies sanctioned by printing presses and public approbation.  But,
  returning to R. K. Meade, a subject more interesting to the writer.  The
  history of R. K. Meade’s participation in the Revolutionary War involved an
  historical fact, which is probably not to be found in any of the histories of
  that war, and exhibits the character of Sir H. Clinton in colors variant from
  those in which he was painted by H. Lee, in his memoirs, and in which he was
  generally viewed by the public.  During the suspension of Major Andre’s fate,
  in the interval between his capture and execution, frequent letters were
  exchanged between the two commanders- in-chief , upon the subject of that
  accomplished officer’s case.
  
  At this time the American army was occupying different encampments in Jersey,
  not remote from the city of New York, where were the chief British forces
  under the commander-in-chief.  The American General, watching with more than
  ordinary solicitude the movements at New York, as an expedition was
  apprehended from thence up the North River against West Point, and it was of
  the highest importance that General Washington should receive correct
  information of the destination oof the armament then preparing in New York,
  also the moment it should sail.  In this state of things at the American camp,
  the unfortunate Andre then had his trial and condemnation as a spy, and R. K.
  Meade was sent with a flag and a letter directed to Sir Henry Clinton,
  commander-in-chief of the British army in New York.   A blunt, ingenuous,
  honest-hearted lieutenant of the navy was sent to receive the flag and the
  letter.  The lieutenant, upon receiving the letter and looking at the
  superscription, pronounced without hesitation or reflection that it was not
  directed properly for General Ralston, not Clinton, commanded in New York, by
  which he disclosed a secret which General Washington considered of the utmost
  importance to him.  General Washington moved with the army, or a considerable
  detachment, first up the North River, immediately after the return of the
  conference of the British lieutenant of the navy and R. K. Meade.  The honest
  lieutenant, with much appearance of feeling, several times repeated his
  inquiries of R. K. Meade, whether he thought they would hang Major Andre.
  “And will they?” says he, repeating the question for the second or third time,
  “hang that d---d fine fellow Andre?”  And being reluctantly answered in the
  affirmative, after a pause and as sigh:  “Well then,” says he, “if you do hang
  Andre, the world will know what a d—d blockhead Sir Harry Clinton is.” 
  
  R. K Meade left the army before the peace of Paris in 1783, and settled
  permanently in Frederick County, State of Virginia, where he spent and
  agricultural and very retired life, beloved by all who were acquainted with
  him, esteemed and respected by his neighbors and every one that had ever heard
  of his worth.  The gout had been long his principal complaint, but had been
  confined to his extremities; at length it assaulted his vitals, and on the---
  day---of 1781, his decease deprived his family of the best husband, parent and
  master that was ever born in this world.  Three sons and four daughters were
  the fruit of his second marriage with the widow of Wm. Randolph.  Her maiden
  name was Mary Grymes, the daughter of Benjamin Grymes.  His first wife was
  Elizabeth Randolph, daughter of the first Richard Randolph of Curles, in
  Henrico County, and aunt to John Randolph, who has much distinguished himself
  in public life.  

Details of Roland Richard Kidder's family with Mary Grymes Randolph

Details of Roland Richard Kidder's family with Elizabeth Randolph++