John Skey Eustace (born 10 August 1760 in Flushing, Queens, died 25 August 1805 in Newburgh, New York) was an officer and a veteran of both the American and French Revolutionary Wars. A mercurial figure, Eustace was a revolutionary soldier, colonel of the Continental Army (1781), and maréchal de camp in the French Revolutionary Army between 1792 and 1793. In 1794 he supported the Batavian revolution and was arrested for a short time. In February 1797 he was expelled from France, suspected of spying for the British. He was arrested in Dover for his advice to the Dutch revolutionaries and subsequently expelled from England, after which he traveled to America and retired in New York. Eustace regularly published his official and private correspondence. Eustace was close to and corresponded with several of the Founding Fathers, however he was also regarded as a political adventurer of doubtful purpose and character.
Life
John Skey Eustace was the grandson of Colonel Lauchlin Campbell, a Scottish immigrant living at Campbell Hall, Orange County, New York. From 1738 to 1740 Campbell brought 83 families from Scotland to New York at his own expense on the false promise of land grants from the New York colonial governor William Cosby. His daughter Margaret (1733-1809) was born on Islay (Inner Hebrides) and married at a young age to Dr. John Eustace (1720-1769), a colonial physician and justice of the peace who corresponded with Laurence Stern. Around 1764 his father left his family and moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. John's sister Kitty had become Lord Dunmore’s mistress when she was still a teenager and he was governor of New York. On gaining his post in Virginia in 1771, Dunmore arrived with Kitty’s mother and little brother in tow. Eustace grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, where his mother ran a boarding house. She was friendly with Thomas Burke. Dunmore arranged for young John’s education, first with a tutor and then at the College of William & Mary.
In late 1775, Dunmore sent Eustace to Boston with a letter to Gen. William Howe recommending him for a post in the British army. His travel companion, a British officer, was concealing Lord Dunmore's military plans. Somehow the fifteen-year-old ended up being marched to the headquarters of Gen. George Washington, the opposing commander-in-chief. He joined the Continental Army during the Siege of Boston. After the Continental Army was reorganized Eustace served successively as an aide-de-camp to Charles Lee, Joseph Reed, John Sullivan (1777) and Nathanael Greene (1779).
Eustace participated in the repulse of the first British attack on Charleston, Battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Germantown. In 1778 he was at the siege of Newport, during the military campaign of 1779 against the Iroquois and loyalists on the New York border, known as the "Sullivan Expedition". General Lee regarded him as his adopted son and declared him as his heir, but the handsome Eustace decided to desert the unpredictable Lee who lost the Battle of Monmouth. Lee was subsequently court-martialed and his military service was brought to an end. Lee was succeeded by Von Steuben.
Eustace was taught the essentials of military drills, tactics, and discipline based on Prussian techniques by Von Steuben who protected him. In 1779 Eustace proposed an interview with Col. Archibald Campbell, a respected and perhaps related governor of Georgia. In January 1780 he resigned from the army but not from war. He was involved in the Battle of the Chesapeake and appointed colonel on 29 August 1781 of the militia in State of Georgia by Nathan Brownson. In the same year he became adjutant general and assisted governor Stephen Heard. Living in Augusta, Georgia he contacted Governor Morris. In 1782 he lived in Ebenezer, Georgia; now a ghost town then the capital.
During the American Revolution, many Georgians and Carolinians moved to Florida along with their slaves. In December he was sent on a mission to Saint-Augustine, East Florida to deal with the council (Gen. Tonyn) on captured slaves. In March he returned to Charlestown.
On 6 May 1783, Carleton and George Washington met face to face for the first time after years of long-distance communication; Carleton made it clear to Washington that the ex-slaves would not be returned to their former masters.