This episode explores the dramatic life and legacy of Button Gwinnett, one of Georgia’s signers of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most polarizing figures of the Revolutionary era. Historian Stan Deaton and author Colin Gwinnett Sharp unpack Gwinnett’s ambition, financial failures, political maneuvering, and his bitter rivalry with Lachlan McIntosh that ended in a fatal duel outside Savannah.
From colonial politics and military tensions to questions of ego, reputation, and opportunity, this episode reveals how Gwinnett’s rise and fall shaped early Georgia history and why his famous signature remains one of the rarest in America.