James Lingan James McCubbin Lingan was an officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and subsequently a senior officer in the Maryland State Militia . He was taken prisoner at Fort Washington early in the war and spent several years aboard a prison hulk . After independence , Lingan served as a government official in Georgetown . At the outbreak of the War of 1812 , Lingan was an outspoken advocate of freedom of the press and was murdered by a mob while defending the offices of an anti - war newspaper in Baltimore . Military service . Lingan enlisted in the Continental Army on July 13 , 1776 , only nine days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence . He became a lieutenant in the Rawlings Additional Regiment , but was captured at Fort Washington on November 16 , 1776 . Imprisoned in the hulk HMS " Jersey " , Lingan was initially kept in a cell in which he could neither lie down nor stand up . Approached by distant cousin Samuel Hood and offered £10 , 000 and a commission in the British Army if he agreed to switch sides in the conflict , Lingan was reported to have replied " I ' ll rot first " . Later in his captivity , Lingan gained the reputation as a defender of prisoners ' rights . On one occasion , Lingan defended the body of a recently deceased prisoner from guards who wanted to behead the corpse to make it fit into a small coffin . Government service and death . Following his release at the end of the war , Lingan was made Collector of the Port of Georgetown by George Washington personally and became a Brigadier - General in the Maryland State Militia . He was also a founding member of the Society of the Cincinnati . He built Prospect House , in Georgetown . Throughout his life , Lingan was a strong advocate of the freedom of the press , and at the outbreak of the War of 1812 spoke out in opposition to those who favoured censorship . When the offices of the " Baltimore Federal Republican " were besieged and burnt by a mob angry at anti - war editorials run by the newspaper , Lingan protested at the act and sheltered the newspaper editor , Alexander Contee Hanson in Georgetown . On July 17 , 1812 , Hanson resumed printing the newspaper at new offices in Baltimore and another mob formed within hours , again storming the building and destroying the presses . Hanson , with Lingan , Henry Lee III and others who had hastened from Washington to try to calm the crowd , were arrested by local militia and taken to Baltimore jail in an attempt to calm the situation , but the crowd followed them to the prison and stormed the building . Lingan attempted to stop the mob by displaying a bayonet wound he had received in the Revolutionary War , but this only inflamed the crowd and Hanson , Lingan and Lee were severely beaten and left for dead . Hanson and Lee survived , although the latter was left partially blinded after hot wax was poured into his eyes . Lingan however died from his serious injuries . Lingan was buried at St . John ' s Church in Georgetown , at a funeral attended by thousands of mourners . George Washington Custis read the eulogy , praising Lingan ' s defence of free press and crying " Oh Maryland ! Would that the waters of the Chesapeake could wash this foul stain from thy character ! " 96 years later , Lingan ' s remains were removed from the burial ground in Georgetown and transferred to Arlington National Cemetery . In an odd bit of irony , Arlington Cemetery had been established in 1864 on the grounds of the Arlington Plantation , the home of George Washington Parke Custis .