Part 33

[Oct. 29.] General Washington gave the following state of his army,—“Our whole force by the last returns is 8313 continental troops; and 2717 militia rank and file, fit for duty; beside the garrison of Mud-Island amounting to 300 continentals, of Red-bank 350, and a detachment of militia (on the 26th to reinforce it) 300; and the troops on the other side of Schuylkill 500, making together 1450.” Thus it appears that his whole strength was 12480 men. Sir W. Howe’s probably amounted to more than 10000 rank and file present fit for duty. It had received no increase worth mentioning from among the inhabitants of Pennsylvania or the neighboring states, though large promises had been made (by some sanguine gentlemen who had joined him) that thousands of loyal subjects would repair to the royal standard as soon as it should make its appearance in Pennsylvania. The American commander in chief certainly supposed that gen. Howe’s force exceeded his own in number, for, on the 13th of November, he wrote,—“The army which I have under my immediate command has not, at any one time since gen. Howe’s landing at the head of Elk, been equal in point of numbers to his. In ascertaining this, I do not confine myself to continental troops but comprehend militia. I was left to fight two battles, in order if possible to save Philadelphia, with less numbers than composed the army of my antagonist, whilst the world has given us at least double. This though mortifying in some points of view I have been obliged to encourage; because next to being strong it is best to be thought so by the enemy, and to this cause principally, I think is to be attributed the slow movement of Howe.” The cause was different in the northern department. There the states of New-York and New-England resolving to crush Burgoyne, continued pouring in their troops till the surrender of his army. Had the same spirit prevaded the people of Pennsylvania and the neighboring states. Washington might, before the date of his letter, had Howe nearly in the same situation with Burgoyne. The Pennsylvania militia were said to be 30,000, but about 3000 was the highest number brought into the field. In the estimation of some New-England gentlemen, “the peasants of that country are extremely ignorant and brutish. They are a mixture of high and low Dutch, and so exceeding illiterate, that few of them can read and scarce any can write. They have no other ideas of liberty or slavery, than as it effects their property; and it is immaterial to them, whether Great-Britain or America prevail, so that they may be exempted from paying their proportion of the expences of the war.” Ignorance is the high road to slavery.

While the British were entirely occupied in possessing the city of Philadelphia, gen. Washington sent off lieut. col. Samuel Smith of the Maryland line, with 200 men, who were to proceed and possess themselves of Mud-Island. By quick marches he arrived with his party at the lower ferry, and with difficulty threw himself into the fort, which he found in a wretched condition without ammunition, provision or stores, garrisoned by about thirty militia. He had with him two exellent officers of artillery, to whom he assigned fifty of his best men, who were trained to the guns. The colonel, with commodore Hazlewood and captain Robinson, a brave naval officer, visited Province-island, principally under water, the banks having been cut by order The colonel pointed out two dry places, where the enemy might erect works, the nearest about 4 or 500 yards from that side of the American works where the defences were only palisades, one gun and two weak block-houses. With great labor he undertook to erect a two gun battery without the fort, so as to make a cross fire on the spot. He had not finished, before the enemy took possession of the ground he most dreaded; but by a well directed fire from the block-house batteries and gallies, ere they had a gun ready, the Americans wounded the commander, and the party delivered themselves up prisoners. While these were removing another party came down from the heights, and deceiving major Billard with offers of submission, till too near to be prevented, repossessed themselves of the battery, from whence they annoyed the garrison very much. Many of the men and officers having sickened through the unhealthiness of the place, the colonel was reinforced by the first Virginia regiment of about 120 men. The enemy having got up part of the chevaux-de-Frieze, brough in their shipping, and made an attack as above related. One American squadron of four gallies behaved well, the others kept aloof, the commodore being at the distance of more than a mile. The British, after that unsuccessful attack, applied themselves to the strengthening of their batteries on shore, and nightly sent up their boats with provision to the city, by the passage between Mud and Province islands, while the commodore absolutely refused attempting to prevent them, upon the plea that a single bomb from the enemy would destroy any of his gallies. There came three or four days of uncommon high tides, which drowned some of the British, and hindered their working any of their guns except one howitzer. This opportunity of annoying them considerably, was not duly improved by the gallies. On the decrease of the tides, the British renewed their fire with double vigor, and soon destroyed the American two gun battery, blew up the north-west block-house and laboratory, and compelled the garrison to seek cover in the fort. Colonel Smith, after having defended it from the latter end of September, till the 11th of Nov. a few days excepted, was wounded by a spent cannon-shot, and greatly bruised by the bricks it threw on him, which occasioned his removal to the main. His fatigues and dangers had been extreme; and he supported them with uncommon patience and fortitude. Upon his removal the command devolved on lieut. col. Russel, of the Connecticut line, but he being exhausted with fatigue, and totally destitute of health, requested to be recalled. Upon the 12th, the commander in chief signified his orders to the commanding general on the Jersey side, who directed all the military operations below Philadelphia, “to defend Mud-Island as long as possible, without sacrificing the garrison.” The commanding general, for insuperable reasons, could not detach an officer in rotation. Major Thayer, of the Rhode-Island line, presented himself a volunteer, and was appointed.

The British having every thing in readiness, the Isis and Somerset men of war pass up the east channel to attack the works on Mud-Island in front; several frigates draw up against an American fort, newly erected on the Jersey side, situated so as to flank the men of war in their station; and two armed vessels, the Vigilant, an East-Indiaman cut down to a battery of 20 twenty-four pounders on one side, and a hulk with 3 twenty-four pounders, successfully make their way through a narrow channel on the western side, a matter of the greatest importance, as these two vessels, in concert with the batteries on Province-Island, enfilade the principal works on Mud-Island. On the morning of the 15th of Nov. the whole British fire is displayed from their land batteries and their snipping in the river. The small garrison of 300 men, sustain and repel the shock with astonishing intrepidity for several hours, assisted by the American gallies and the batteries on the Jersey shore. By the middle of the day their defences are levelled with the common mud, and the officers and men expect each other’s fate in the midst of carnage. During the day more than 1030 discharges of cannon, from thirty-two to twelve-pounders, are made in twenty minutes, from the batteries and shipping of both sides. Early in the evening, major Thayer sends all his garrison ashore, excepting forty, with whom he remains, braving all danger. At twelve at night, many of the military stores having been previously sent away, the barracks are fired, when the major and his few brave companions quit, and cross to Red-Bank.[80]

In this affair there were near two hundred and fifty of the garrison killed and wounded. Three councils of war had been called upon the subject of relieving fort Mifflin; and in the last, it was concluded to attempt it, though it was believed that a general engagement would be the consequence; this, however, the Americans did not regard, the ground being such as they wished, if called to fight the enemy. The night before the attempt could be made, the fort was of necessity evacuated. The congress, before this event, had voted lieut. col. Smith an elegant sword for the defence he had made on the 22d of October; but as they had voted at the same time, the like to commodore Hazlewood, commander of the naval force in the Delaware, he did not think himself much honored by it, and declined the present. Men of courage and judgment pronounce the commodore a poltron, and say that if all the officers in the marine department had behaved with equal bravery to what the land officers did, the fort would not have been taken. Several of them are reckoned to have acted a dastardly part. It was observed of Hazlewood, that he was fond of long shot, and was shy of coming to close quarters. The reduction of the fort secured to the British the safe opportunity of sending up their small craft, at the back of the island, to the Schuylkill with provisions and stores, by day as well as by night.

On the 18th, at night, lord Cornwallis marched with a considerable force, and the next day crossed the Delaware, in his way to Red-Bank, which the Americans abandoned, leaving behind them their artillery, and a considerable quantity of cannon-ball. Some continental generals were appointed to give their opinion upon the spot to col. Greene. They favored an evacuation, and wished that he would join them. He answered, “I shall follow your direction, either to evacuate or defend the fort. I know what we have done when the works were not half completed. Now they are finished, and I am not afraid.” But the direction was to evacuate, which was complied with, though with manifest reluctance. The marquis de la Fayette accompanied gen. Greene into Jersey, though his wound was not yet healed; and on the 25th of Nov. with only a handful of riflemen and militia, attacked a party of Hessians and British grenadiers, which he obliged to retreat. After this congress resolved that he should take the command of a division in the army.

The American shipping having now lost all protection, several of the gallies and other armed vessels, took the advantage of a favorable night, kept close in with the Jersey shore, passed the batteries of Philadelphia, and escaped to places of security higher up. The remaining seventeen finding an escape impracticable, were abandoned by the crews and fired. The British however confessed, that the long and unexpected opposition which they received from Red-bank and Mud-island, broke in upon their plans for the remainder of the campaign.

A detachment from the northern army, of some of the New-England brigades, was ordered down to join the American commander in chief. When arrived at Fish-kill, a number of the New-Hampshire troops, to the amount of near 200, mutinied at the barracks on the evening of November the 4th, paraded with their arms, and began to march off in order. The exertions of the officers suppressed them, but capt. Beal was shot and mortally wounded; he killed however the soldier that shot him. The cry was, “We have no money, nor breeches, and will not cross the river till we have received these articles.” It was feared that some officers were at the bottom of the mutiny. As it was soon quelled without infecting the other troops, the whole marched on, till they joined gen. Washington; who being thus reinforced, advanced to White Marsh, within 14 miles of Philadelphia, and encamped in a strong position. Sir W. Howe, hoping that he meant to hazard a battle for the recovery of Philadelphia, or that some part of his camp was vulnerable, and would admit of a successful impression, marched the army from the city on the night of the 4th of December. The day before, gen. Greene gave this distressing picture of the American army to the commander in chief——“One half of our troops are without breeches, shoes and stockings; and some thousands without blankets. Last winter’s campaign will confirm this truth, that unless men are well clothed, they must fall a sacrifice to the severity of the weather, when exposed to the hardships of a winter’s campaign.” Howe’s further proceedings take in Washington’s words, written on the 10th—“I had reason to expect Howe was preparing to give us a general action. On Friday morning his troops appeared on Chesnut-hill; at night they changed their ground. On Sunday from every appearance there was reason to apprehend an action. About sun-set, after various marches and counter-marches, they halted, and still supposed they would attack us in the night, or early the next morning, but in this I was mistaken. On Monday afternoon they filed off, and marched toward Philadelphia. Their loss in skirmishing was not inconsiderable. I sincerely wish they had made an attack, the issue would in all probability have been happy for us. Policy forbad our quitting our posts to attack them.”

[Dec. 11.] The American army marched from White Marsh to Sweed’s-ford. The want of clothing was so extreme that gen. Washington was under the absolute necessity of granting warrants to different officers to impress what the holders would not willingly part with, agreeable to the powers with which congress had invested him. He removed with the troops, on the 19th, to Valley-forge where they hutted about sixteen miles from Philadelphia. When the mode of hutting was first proposed, some treated the idea as ridiculous, few thought it practicable, and all were surprised at the facility with which it was executed. It was certainly a considerable exertion for the remnant of an army, exhausted and worn down, by the severity of a long and rather unsuccessful campaign, to sit down in a wood, and in the latter end of December to begin to build them huts. Through the want of shoes and stockings, and the hard frozen ground, you might have tracked the army from White Marsh to Valley-forge by the blood of their feet.[81] The taking of this position was highly requisite. Had the army retired to the towns in the interior parts of the state, a large tract of fertile country would have been exposed to ravage and ruin; and they must have distressed in a peculiar manner the virtuous citizens from Philadelphia, who had fled thither for refuge.

Sir W. Howe has plainly the advantage of the American general, but nothing to boast of; for all the fruits derived from his various manœuvrings and engagements, from the beginning to the close of the campaign, amount to little beside good winter quarters for his army in Philadelphia, while the troops possess no more of the adjacent country than what their arms immediately command. Certain persons indeed are permitted to carry provisions into the city; that so upon their return they may supply the Americans with intelligence. These must submit to spare a little for such purposes, though in the utmost want themselves. At one time the army remained quiet for four days together without bread; on the fifth two regiments refused to do duty upon the account; but the prudence and pursuasion of the commander in chief restored order. To a similar event there was probably an allusion, in the following extract from his letter of the 23d—“This brought fourth the only commissary in the purchasing line in this camp, and with him this melancholy alarming truth, that he had not a single hoof of any kind to slaughter, and not more than twenty-five barrels of flour, and could not tell when to expect any. The present commissaries are by no means equal to the execution of the office, or the disaffection of the people is past all belief. The change in that department took place contrary to my judgment, and the consequences thereof were predicted. No man ever had his measures more impeded than I have, by every department of the army. Since the month of July we have had no assistance from the quarter-master-general, and to want of assistance from this department the commissary-general charges geat part of his deficiency. We have by a field return this day, no less than 2898 men in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and otherwise naked. Our whole strength in continental troops (including the eastern brigades, which have joined us since the surrender of Burgoyne) exclusive of the Maryland troops sent to Wilmington, is no more than 8200 in camp fit for duty. Since the fourth our number fit through hardships, particularly on account of blankets (numbers have been, and still are obliged to sit up all night by fires, instead of taking comfortable rest in a common way) have decreased near two thousand men.—Upon the ground of safety and policy, I am obliged to conceal the true state of the army from public view, and thereby expose myself to detraction and calumny.—There is as much to be done in preparing for a campaign, as in the active part of it.” Gen. Mifflin in a letter of October the eighth, had represented to congress, that his health was so much impaired, and the probability of a recovery so distant, that he thought it his duty to return to them their commissions to him of major general and quarter-master-general. While the army was suffering as above related for want of shoes, &c. hogsheads of shoes, stockings and clothing, were at different places, upon the road and in the woods, lying and perishing, for want of teams, and proper management, and money to pay the teamsters.

Nothing great has happened in the neighbourhood of New-York, since the return of the troops under general Vaughan from their expedition up the North-River; but it may not displease you to read the following particulars. On the 18th of November, gen. Tryon sent about one hundred men under capt. Emmerick to burn some houses, on Philip’s manor, within about four miles of gen. Parsons’ guards. They effected it with circumstances of barbarity, stripping the clothing off the women and children and turning them almost naked into the streets in a most severely cold night. The men were made prisoners, and led with halters about their necks, with no other clothes than their shirts and breeches in triumph to the British lines. A few days after Parsons wrote to Tryon upon the occasion, expostulating with him upon the business, and told him, That he could destroy the houses and buildings of col. Philips and those belonging to the Delancey family, each as near their lines as the building destroyed were to his guards; that notwithstanding all their vigilence, the destruction could not be prevented and that it was not fear or want of opportunity, but a sense of the injustice and savageness of such a line of conduct, that had hitherto saved the buildings. Tryon answered from Kingsbridge on the 23d, and said among other things, “Sir, could I possibly conceive myself accountable to any revolted subjects of the king of Great-Britain, I might answer your letter of yesterday respecting the conduct of capt. Emmerick’s party upon the taking of Peter and Cornelius Vantassel. As much as I abhor every principle of inhumanity or ungenerous conduct, I should, were I in more authority, burn every committee-man’s house within my reach, as I deem them the wicked instruments of the continued calamities of this country; and in order the sooner to purge the colony of them, I am willing to give twenty silver dollars for every acting committee-man who shall be delivered up to the king’s troops.” The stinging repartee made to this letter was contained in an expedition undertaken immediately after to Greenwich, about three miles from New-York, where a small party arrived in the evening, advanced to Mr. Oliver Delancy’s house secured the sentry, dismissed a few ladies in peace, though rather hastily, made a few men prisoners, burnt the house, occasioned the firing of the alarm guns in New-York, then crossed the river and got safe off.

New-York reminds me of the American prisoners confined in that city, and Philadelphia. In the course of letters that passed between generals Howe and Washington, the former alluded to the cases of royal prisoners of war being injuriously and unjustifiably loaded with irons. The latter, in one of November the 14th, says—“If there is a single instance of a prisoner of war being in irons, I am ignorant of it, nor can I find on the most minute inquiry, that there is the least foundation for the charge. I wish you to particularize the cases you allude to, that relief may be had, if the complaints are well-founded. Now we are upon the subject of grievances, I am constrained to observe that I have a variety of accounts, not only from prisoners who have made their escape, but from persons who have left Philadelphia, that our private soldiers in your hands, are treated in a manner shocking to humanity, and that many of them must have perished through hunger had it not been for the charitable contributions of the inhabitants. It is added in aggravation, that this treatment is to oblige them to inlist in the corps you are raising. I must also remonstrate against the cruel treatment and confinement of our officers. This I am informed is not only the case of those in Philadelphia but of many in New-York. Many of the cruelties exercised toward prisoners are said to proceed from inhumanity of Mr. Cunningham, provost marshall, without your knowledge or approbation. I transmit the depositions of two persons of reputation who are come from Philadelphia, respecting the treatment they received. I will not comment upon the subject. It is too painful.” Howe particularized by saying—“Major Stockdon, and other officers of the New-Jersey volunteers, were put in irons at Princeton. The major and captain of that regiment were marched out of that place, under guard and hand-cuffed together.” Washington rejoined—“When major Stockdon was first captured, I believe that he and one or two officers taken with him, suffered the treatment which you mention. This was without my privity or consent; as soon as I was apprised of it, relief was ordered.—But surely this event, which happened so long ago, will not authorise the charges in your letter of the 6th.”

On the 10th of December, all the American officers were removed from the ships back to Long-Island, from whence they had been taken and carried on board. The inhabitants received them in again, upon Mr. Lewis Pintard’s engaging to pay for them at the rate of two hard dollars per week. There was 250 of them. He acted for Mr. Boudinot. Had he not engaged, their former board not having been paid for, they would have been returned to the ships. All the privates there have been clothed by him. He observed, when informing his principal of these particulars—“The privates should have a little fresh beef, especially the convalescents, who on leaving the hospitals are put to salt meat, and relapse immediately; the consequence of which is, they are dying very fast. I advise sending in weekly a quantity of fresh provision for their consumption.”