Nisbet Balfour

Major-General Nisbet Balfour (Dunbog, 1743 – 10 October 1823, Dunbog) was a British soldier in the American War of Independence and later a Scottish Member of Parliament (MP) in the British Parliament.

He was born in Dunbog, in the county of Fife, Scotland in 1743. Joining the 4th Regiment of Foot as ensign in 1761, he rose to become one of Cornwallis' most trusted officers during the American Revolution. He fought and was severely injured in the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill) and also participated in battles in Elizabethtown, Brandywine, and Germantown, and was made Lieutenant-Colonel (of the 23rd Regiment of Foot) in 1778. He accompanied Cornwallis to Charleston where he was sometimes commandant. He was promoted to Major General in 1793 and served in the war with France. He died in October 1823 in Dunbog, Scotland.

Family

Descendants and kin include the Stewarts of St Fort, Fife, Scotland, as well as John Stewart of Urrard, son of Robert Stewart of Fincastle and the Athol Stewarts. Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan. Reference is made in the 1842, 1853, and 1863 editions of Sir Bernard Burke's A Genalogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain, Volume 2. In the 1863 edition on page 1437 mentions one William Campbell and states that he assumed the additional surnames of Stewart and Balfour to conform with the terms of the will of his maternal uncle, Lieut. General Nisbet Balfour.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs }

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• Search current Google Books for Nisbet Balfour
• South Carolina and the American Revolution: a battlefield history - by John W. Gordon, pages 163 & 226