Angus McDonald (Virginia militiaman)
McDonald moved west into Virginia's interior and entered the military service of the colonial government under Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, receiving the rank of captain.[1][3] McDonald was a lineal descendant of a long line of military heroes of the Clan MacDonell of Glengarry and of Somerled, Lord of the Isles.[3][11] McDonald moved west into Virginia's interior and entered the military service of the colonial government under Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, receiving the rank of captain.[3][4][11] In return for his "meritorious service" in conflicts against Native Americans, McDonald received 400 acres (1.6 km2) of land from the colonial government of Virginia in 1754.[2][12] Upon his retirement, Governor John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore granted McDonald an additional 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) of land, which were surveyed by Hancock Taylor.McDonald's accounts along with those of other settlers resulted in Lord Dunmore's decision to wage a war against the Native Americans to pacify the frontier lands of western Virginia for continued settlement.[18] McDonald completed the expedition, which met its goal of temporarily relieving western Virginia frontier settlements from Native American attack.[23] In a letter dated January 8, 1775, following his return to Winchester from Williamsburg, McDonald recounted of the war, "all the Country is well pleased with the Governours Expeditions.[2][7] In March 1777, McDonald received a personal letter from General George Washington appointing him a lieutenant colonel in a battalion of Thruston's Additional Continental Regiment under the command of Colonel Charles Mynn Thruston, a former rector of Cunningham Chapel in present-day Clarke County, Virginia, and a former associate magistrate of the Frederick County court, where he served alongside McDonald.[3][25][27] An article published in the Winchester Star in 1967 said of McDonald, "fearsome or not, he founded in the Shenandoah Valley a dynasty of military men as distinguished as their forebears had been in the Scottish Highlands."[28] In its documentation of Dunmore's War, the Wisconsin Historical Society stated, "McDonald was a man of commanding figure and strong personality and a rigid disciplinarian with his troops.