John Pitcairn
British military officer (1722–1775)
Major John Pitcairn was a British military officer. Born in Dysart, Fife, he enlisted in a marine regiment of the British Army in 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession and joined His Majesty's Marine Forces when it was raised in 1755. Pitcairn served in North America during the French and Indian War before being sent to Boston in 1774 at the rank of major. He fought in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord which sparked the American War of Independence. Two months later in June, Pitcairn was killed in action during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Respected by both his men and his American opponents, he was buried at Boston's Old North Church. At the time of his death Pitcairn was serving alongside his son Thomas, also a marine officer in the same division, who helped to carry his mortally wounded father from the battlefield.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Pitcairn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.