Benjamin Church (August 24, 1734 – 1778) was effectively the first Surgeon General of the United States Army, serving as the "Chief Physician & Director General" of the Medical Service of the Continental Army from July 27, 1775, to October 17, 1775. He was also active in Boston's Sons of Liberty movement in the years before the war. However, early in the American Revolution, Church was also sending secret information to General Thomas Gage, the British commander, and when one of his letters into Boston was intercepted, he was tried and convicted of "communicating with the enemy". He was jailed but eventually released, likely dying somewhere in the Caribbean Sea in 1778. Biography Family and education Church was born in Newport, Colony of Rhode Island, the son of Benjamin Church, a merchant of Boston and deacon of the Hollis Street Church conducted by the Rev. Mather Byles. His great-grandfather, Colonel Benjamin Church, took a prominent part in the war with the Narragansett Indians and led the force which hunted King Philip to his death on August 12, 1676. Church (the third Benjamin Church) was a Mayflower descendant through his great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Warren Church who was the daughter of Richard Warren, one of the Mayflower passengers. Benjamin's sister Alice married Boston printer John Fleeming. The third Benjamin attended the Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard College in 1754. He studied medicine with Joseph Pynchon, later continuing his studies in London. While there, he married Hannah Hill of Ross, Herefordshire. Returning to Boston he built up a reputation as a talented physician and a skillful surgeon. Church performed cataract surgery, and is also remembered for treating the eye ailments of John Adams. Political ambiguities With growing friction between the colonies and Great Britain, Church supported the Whig cause vigorously with his pen. There is evidence that during this period he was variously considered as an ardent Patriot and as a secret Tory sympathizer. He examined the body of Crispus Attucks and treated some of the wounded in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In 1773, he delivered the annual Massacre Day oration, To Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770, which marked him as an orator of high order. In 1774, Church was elected a delegate to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and later made a member of its Committee of Safety, which was in charge of preparing