Early Life
Gaines was born in Culpeper County, Virginia on March 20, 1777. He was named after his greatuncle Edmund Pendleton, who was the political leader of Virginia during the Revolution. Edmund's father, James, had been captain of a company in the American forces during the Revolutionary War, and after the war his family moved to North Carolina where his father became a state representative. He enlisted in the army in 1799 and was a first lieutenant by 1807.
Read more about this topic: Edmund P. Gaines
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)