Samuel Jordan Cabell

Samuel Jordan Cabell (December 15, 1756 – August 4, 1818) was an American Revolutionary war officer and Democratic-Republican United States Congressman from 1795 to 1803.

Biography

Cabell was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, the son of prominent planter William Cabell. He was educated at The College of William & Mary, but left with his brother William Cabell, Jr. to join the Revolutionary Army in 1775. The Cabell family recruited a company of riflemen, and the following year Samuel Cabell was elected Captain in the Amherst County Volunteers, and then assigned to the 6th Virginia Regiment. Cabell participated in the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 and was promoted to the rank of Major. He served in George Washington’s army in 1778–1779 and received a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Cabell was captured at the Siege of Charleston in 1780 and detained until the war's end.

After the war, Cabell served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1785 to 1792. In 1788 Amherst county voters elected Cabell and his father to represent them in the Virginia Ratification Convention, where both Cabells voted against the proposed United States Constitution, although the convention as a whole ratified it. Samuel Cabell then persuaded fellow Anti-Federalist and Continental Army veteran James Monroe to run against James Madison for the position of U.S. Representative for the extensive district that ran from Amherst County in southwest Virginia to Spotsylvania County in the Northeast.^[1]

Samuel Cabell died on his estate Soldier's Joy at Wingina, Nelson County, Virginia.

References

1. Richard Labunski, James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2006) p. 144

• United States Congress. "Samuel Jordan Cabell (id: C000005)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.