Hugh Waddell (general)

General Hugh Waddell
Portrait of Hugh Waddell, from Alfred Waddell's A Colonial Officer and His Times
Born	c. 1734 Lisburn, County Down, Ireland
Died	April 9, 1773 (aged 38–39) Castle Hayne, North Carolina
Buried at	Castle Hayne, North Carolina
Allegiance	Province of North Carolina, Kingdom of Great Britain
Service/branch	Provincial Militia
Years of service	1754–1773
Rank	General
Battles/wars	French and Indian War Forbes Expedition Fort Duquesne Anglo-Cherokee War: Fort Dobbs War of the Regulation
Relations	James Iredell Waddell, great-grandson Alfred Moore Waddell, third-great-grandson

Hugh Waddell (c. 1734 – April 9, 1773) was a prominent military figure in the Province of North Carolina during its control by the Kingdom of Great Britain. Waddell formed and led a provincial militia unit in Rowan County, North Carolina and the Ohio River Valley during the French and Indian War and the Anglo-Cherokee War, and supervised the construction of Fort Dobbs near the settlement of the Fourth Creek Congregation. His career was well-served by close connections to several provincial governors of North Carolina.

Waddell was born around 1734 in Lisburn, County Down, Ireland, to Hugh and Isabella Brown Waddell who were of Scotch-Irish origin, although the exact date of his birth is unknown. As a family friend to the aristocrat Arthur Dobbs of County Antrim, who had just been appointed as Governor of North Carolina, Waddell was sent to the colonies in 1753 or 1754, and enlisted in the service of the acting Governor, Matthew Rowan, as a lieutenant.

In 1754, Waddell was sent to Virginia under the command of Colonel James Innes, who was commander-in-chief of all colonial forces then in Virginia under the authority of the governor of that state, Robert Dinwiddie. After seeing no action, but having been promoted to captain, Waddell returned to North Carolina in late 1754, where he then spent a substantial portion of the early phase of the war that would go on to define his career as a commander supervising the construction, maintenance, and staffing of Fort Dobbs, near what is now Statesville, North Carolina. In 1756, Waddell was recruited by Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie to serve as a "Commissioner of Peace" to the Cherokee and Catawba tribes. Waddell was the sole representative of North Carolina in these negotiations, which secured the temporary cooperation of those tribes against the French and their native allies.