#DYK that General Benjamin Lincoln was narcoleptic?Lincoln rode south to take up as difficult an ass
#DYK that General Benjamin Lincoln was narcoleptic?Lincoln rode south to take up as difficult an assignment as given to any American general during the war. He was a man “about five feet nine inches in stature, and of so uncommonly a broad person, as to seem of less stature than he was”, for he weighed 224 pounds “and it sagged”. Fat, lumpy, lame to boot*, yet “with a countenance exceedingly kind and amiable” he also had an unfortunate affliction. “In the midst of a conversation, at table, and when driving himself in a chaise, he would fall into a sound sleep. While he command troops against the Massachusetts insurgents** he dictated dispatches and slept between the sentences. His sleep did not appear to disturb his perception of circumstances that were passing around him. He considered this an infirmity and his friends never considered to speak to him of it.* Lame from being wounded in the Saratoga campaign. A musket ball shattered an ankle leaving him two inches shorter in that leg.** These insurgents would be Western Massachusetts residents who were protesting in what would later be known as the Shays Rebellion -- source link
#revolutionary war#american revolution#benjamin lincoln#18th century#military history#narcolepsy