ALS, DLC:GW.

Edward Stevens (1745–1820) of Culpeper County, Va., served as lieutenant colonel of the Culpeper district battalion of minutemen from 1775 to 1776, and he commanded a detachment of that battalion at the Battle of Great Bridge on 9 Dec. 1775. In November 1776 Stevens was appointed colonel of the 10th Virginia Regiment, which GW assigned to Gen. George Weedon’s brigade on 22 May 1777 (see General Orders, that date). Stevens resigned his commission on 24 Jan. 1778 because of, he said, “the Situation of my Private Affairs” (see Stevens to GW, that date, PHi: Gratz Collection; see also John Fitzgerald to Stevens, 24 Jan. 1778, DLC:GW, and JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 10:105). In June 1778 Stevens was named lieutenant colonel of a Virginia volunteer battalion that was disbanded before it was raised fully. Made a brigadier general of the Virginia militia in 1779, Stevens commanded militia brigades in August 1780 at the Battle of Camden and in March 1781 at the Battle of Guilford Court House, where he was wounded in the leg. Stevens recovered sufficiently to lead a militia brigade during the Virginia campaign later in 1781. Stevens was a member of the state senate in 1776 and from 1779 to 1790.