Schaffner, George

SCHAFFNER, GEORGE. Continental officer. Pennsylvania. Little is known of Schaffner's early life. He enrolled as a private in Abraham de Huff's company of Atlee's Pennsylvania musket battalion of militia in March 1776. Promoted to sergeant, he went with his unit to Philadelphia and reached Amboy on 21 July and New York City on 11 August. Eight days later he was promoted to ensign, and on 25 August he fought in General Alexander's right wing at Long Island. Remnants of his unit were incorporated into Samuel Miles's regiment for the march to Fort Lee and then to the Delaware. As part of Hand's brigade, Schaffner fought at Trenton and Princeton. On 4 February 1777 he became a second lieutenant in John Paul Schott's company of Ottendorf's battalion, which was soon incorporated into the First Battalion, Continental Partisan Legion, commanded by Colonel Armand-Tuffin. Schaffner fought at Short Hills, Brandywine, and Germantown. On 8 February 1778 he was promoted to captain, and to major on 1 December. He was honorably discharged on 25 November 1783.

Having become an intimate friend of the remarkable Armand-Tuffin, he accompanied the latter to France. He supported Tuffin in the Brittany uprising and was arrested on 24 August 1792 but released a few days later. From December 1792 to January 1793 he visited London as Tuffin's liaison officer to the émigrés. Learning that friends of his were being executed, Schaffner returned to France, joined the Vendée counterrevolutionaries, and disappeared. According to Lenôtre, he was captured in an action on the Loire and died in the noyades (judicial drownings).

SEE ALSO Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouerie Armand-Charles.

                          revised by Michael Bellesiles