After the war, Lincoln was active in politics in his native Massachusetts, running several times for lieutenant governor but only winning one term in that office.

In 1787, Lincoln led a militia army (privately funded by Massachusetts merchants) in the suppression of Shays' Rebellion, and was a strong supporter of the new United States Constitution.

[4] Lincoln's father, one of the wealthiest men in Suffolk County, served as a member of the governor's council from 1753 until 1770, and occupied many other civic posts before his death in 1771.

[5] Lincoln's maternal grandfather, Col. Samuel Thaxter, one of the most prominent and influential citizens in Hingham, became Colonel in a regiment and one of those commissioned to settle the boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1719.

[9] In 1770, in a list of resolutions passed by the inhabitants of Hingham, Lincoln outlined the measures urged by residents towards the non-importation of British goods, and he condemned the Boston Massacre.

Lincoln continued to win election to this body, and was placed on committees overseeing militia organization and supply, a position that came to be of utmost importance when the American Revolutionary War broke out with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

[16] While a Continental commission was not immediately forthcoming, Lincoln was placed in command of a brigade of militia the state sent to join General George Washington at New York Town in September 1776.

[18] The enlistment terms of his men expiring, Lincoln returned briefly to Massachusetts to take command of new recruits for the coming year's campaigns.

[20] Lincoln's first command was that of a forward outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey, only 3 miles (4.8 km) from British sentries outside New Brunswick.

In the Battle of Bound Brook he was defeated by a much larger force under the command of Lord Cornwallis, barely escaping capture.

By this time General Gates, who had taken command from Schuyler in August, had ordered Lincoln's force to join him near Stillwater, New York.

Lincoln arrived on September 22, three days after the strategically conclusive Battle of Freeman's Farm where Colonel Morgan's sharpshooters killed most of the officers and three quarters of the artillerymen, resulting in the capture of 6 of the 10 British cannons.

Washington sent Lincoln, Lafayette and Lee (Henry "Light Horse Harry") to the Southern Department to oppose the British army under Clinton and Cornwallis.

Lincoln participated in the unsuccessful French-led siege of Savannah, Georgia in October 1779, after which he retreated to Charleston, South Carolina.

Lincoln, desperate for more troops, had pleaded with the South Carolina legislature to arm 1,000 enslaved African Americans to ward off the approaching British.

He was denied the honors of war in surrendering, due to the British annoyance at his facilitating the escape of South Carolina militia units and some Continental forces, such as those with Lafayette and Lee, which deeply rankled Lincoln.

He led a large portion of the Army south from Head of Elk Maryland to Hampton, Virginia, to march to the west to Yorktown where the British were encamped.

Cornwallis plead illness, and so did not attend the surrender ceremony, choosing instead to send his second-in-command, the Irish General Charles O'Hara.

The next year, as a Suffolk County, Hingham delegate, Lincoln voted to support the United States Constitution at the Massachusetts Federal Convention, which ratified 187 to 168 on February 6, 1788.

[33] He stayed active in public life in various capacities, including a term as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and many years as the Collector of the Port of Boston.

Among the pallbearers at Lincoln's funeral were John Adams, Cotton Tufts, Robert Treat Paine, Richard Cranch and Thomas Melvill.

[35] He was one of the few men to have been involved in the three major surrenders of the American Revolutionary War: twice as a victor (at Yorktown and Saratoga), and once as the defeated party (at Charleston).