[2] In 1779, Laurens gained approval from the Continental Congress for his plan to recruit a brigade of 3,000 slaves by promising them freedom in return for fighting.

By the 1750s, the elder Laurens and his business partner George Austin had become wealthy as owners of one of the largest slave trading houses in North America.

[7] As a youth, Laurens had expressed considerable interest in science and medicine, and later in life, he would be elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.

"[10] Laurens behaved with similar recklessness at the Battle of Germantown, in which he was wounded on October 4, 1777: Washington's forces surprise-attacked the British north of Philadelphia.

[10]Two days after the Battle of Germantown, on October 6, 1777, he was given his official appointment as one of General Washington's aides-de-camp, and was commissioned with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

After spending the remainder of the winter of 1777–1778 encamped at Valley Forge, Laurens marched to New Jersey around June 1778, to fight in the Battle of Monmouth.

The men's seconds, Alexander Hamilton and Evan Edwards, opposed this idea and had the duel end there, despite Lee's protests to fire again and Laurens's agreement.

[14] As the British stepped up operations in the South, Laurens promoted the idea of arming slaves and granting them freedom in return for their service.

Laurens was set apart from other leaders in Revolutionary-era South Carolina by his belief that black and white people shared a similar nature and could aspire to freedom in a republican society.

[2] In early 1778, Laurens advised his father, who was then the President of the Continental Congress,[5] to use forty slaves he stood to inherit as part of a brigade.

On May 3, 1779, Colonel William Moultrie's troops, outnumbered two to one, faced 2,400 British regulars under General Augustine Prévost, who had crossed the Savannah River.

Laurens himself was wounded, and his second in command fell back to the main force at the Tullifinny, where Moultrie was compelled to retreat towards Charleston.

[16]Due to Laurens's connections, his activities could not escape notice; for example, in a May 5 letter to the governor of Virginia, South Carolina's lieutenant governor Thomas Bee added a postscript: "Col. John Laurens received a slight wound in the arm in a skirmish with the enemy's advanced party yesterday, & his horse was shot also – he is in a good way – pray let his father know this.

Determined to return to South Carolina, and in the expectation of being freed by a prisoner exchange in November 1780, Laurens wrote to George Washington and requested a leave of absence from his service as aide-de-camp: My dear General.

Riveted to headquarters by my attachment to Your Excellency and the patronage with which you have been pleased to honor me, nothing but the approaching critical junction of southern affairs and the expectation of my countrymen could induce me to sollicit a farther leave of absence in case of my exchange...

He wrote again to advise Washington that "unfortunately for America, Col. Hamilton was not sufficiently known to Congress to unite their suffrages in his favor and I was assured there remained no other alternative to my acceptance than the total failure of the business.

"[22] In March 1781, Laurens and Thomas Paine arrived in France to assist Benjamin Franklin, who had been serving as the American minister in Paris since 1777.

[25] At Moore House on October 18, 1781, Laurens and the French commissioner negotiated terms with two British representatives, and the articles of capitulation were signed by General Cornwallis the following day.

Laurens died in what General Greene described sadly as "a paltry little skirmish" with a foraging party,[6] only a few weeks before the British finally withdrew from Charleston.

Gist had learned that 300 British troops under Major William Brereton had already captured a ferry and crossed the river, in search of rice to feed their garrison.

Laurens was given orders, at his own request, to take a small force further downriver to man a redoubt at Chehaw Point, where they could fire on the British as they retreated.

[26] Laurens got little or no sleep, instead "spending the evening in a delightful company of ladies... [and] turned from this happy scene only two hours before he was to march down the river".

[29] Gist's larger force arrived in time to cover a retreat, but was unable to prevent costly losses, including three American dead.

[32] Laurens wrote to an uncle, "Pity has obliged me to marry", an unplanned marriage being necessary to preserve his honor, the reputation of the six-month pregnant Martha, and the legitimacy of their child.

Laurens' father-in-law wrote to him that the infant had "undergone much pain, & misery by a swelling in her hip, & thigh, I believe from a hurt by the carelessness of the nurse".

[36] Laurens had one grandson, Francis Henderson Jr. (1797–1847), a South Carolina lawyer who died young after struggling with alcoholism, and who did not marry or have children.

"[37] According to Laurens's biographer Gregory D. Massey, this period "marked the beginning of a pattern; he continually centered his life around homosocial attachments to other men.

[43] Based on Laurens's correspondence with his father, the first film dramatized the young man's decision to leave England, and the second outlined his battles in the Continental Army and his death.

Anthony Ramos originated the role of Laurens in the off-Broadway and Broadway casts, including the 2020 film of the stage production.

Nathanael Greene, in general orders announcing the death of Laurens, wrote "The army has lost a brave officer and the public a worthy citizen.