PLAN TO ENTRAP ARNOLD.--PROJECTS AGAINST NEW YORK.
At this time a plan was formed at Washington's suggestion to get
possession of the person of Arnold. The agent pitched upon by Lee for
the purpose, was the sergeant-major of cavalry in his legion, John
Champe by name, a young Virginian about twenty-four years of age. By
many promises and much persuasion, Lee brought him to engage in the
attempt. Champe was to make a pretended desertion to the enemy at New
York. There he was to enlist in a corps which Arnold was raising,
insinuate himself into some menial or military situation about his
person, and watching for a favorable moment, was, with the aid of a
confederate from Newark, to seize him in the night, gag him, and bring
him across the Hudson into Bergen woods, in the Jerseys. Washington,
in approving the plan, enjoined and stipulated that Arnold should be
brought to him alive.
The pretended desertion of the sergeant took place on the night of
October 20th, and was attended with difficulties. He had to evade
patrols of horse and foot, beside stationary guards and irregular
scouting parties. Major Lee could render him no assistance other than
to delay pursuit, should his departure be discovered. About eleven
o'clock the sergeant took his cloak, valise, and orderly book, drew
his horse from the picket, and mounting, set out on his hazardous
course, while the major retired to rest. He had not been in bed half
an hour, when Captain Carnes, officer of the day, hurrying into his
quarters, gave word that one of the patrols had fallen in with a
dragoon, who, on being challenged, put spurs to his horse, and
escaped. Lee pretended to be annoyed by the intrusion, and to believe
that the pretended dragoon was some countryman of the neighborhood.
The captain was piqued; made a muster of the dragoons, and returned
with word that the sergeant-major was missing, who had gone off with
horse, baggage, arms, and orderly book.
Lee was now compelled to order out a party in pursuit under Cornet
Middleton, but in so doing, he contrived so many delays, that, by the
time they were in the saddle, Champe had an hour's start. His
pursuers, too, were obliged in the course of the night, to halt
occasionally, dismount and examine the road, to guide themselves by
the horse's tracks. At daybreak they pressed forward more rapidly, and
from the summit of a hill descried Champe not more than half a mile in
front. The sergeant at the same moment caught sight of his pursuers,
and now the chase became desperate. Champe had originally intended to
make for Paulus Hook but changed his course, threw his pursuers at
fault, and succeeded in getting abreast of two British galleys at
anchor near the shore beyond Bergen. He had no time to lose. Cornet
Middleton was but two or three hundred yards behind him. Throwing
himself off his horse, and running through a marsh, he plunged into
the river, and called to the galleys for help. A boat was sent to his
assistance, and he was conveyed on board of one of those vessels.
For a time the whole plan promised to be successful. Champe enlisted
in Arnold's corps; was employed about his person; and every
arrangement was made to surprise him at night in a garden in the rear
of his quarters, convey him to a boat, and ferry him across the
Hudson. On the appointed night, Lee, with three dragoons and three led
horses, was in the woods of Hoboken, on the Jersey shore, waiting to
receive the captive. Hour after hour passed away--no boat
approached--day broke; and the major with his dragoons and his led
horses, returned perplexed and disappointed to the camp. It
subsequently proved that on the day preceding the night fixed on for
the capture, Arnold had removed his quarters to another part of the
town, and that the American legion, consisting chiefly of American
deserters, had been transferred from their barracks to one of the
transports. Among the troops thus transferred was John Champe: nor was
he able for a long time to effect his escape, and resume his real
character of a loyal and patriotic soldier. He was rewarded when he
did so, by the munificence of the commander-in-chief, and the
admiration of his old comrades in arms.
We have here to note the altered fortunes of the once prosperous
General Gates. The sudden annihilation of an army from which so much
had been expected, and the retreat of the general before the field was
absolutely lost, appeared to demand a strict investigation. Congress
therefore passed a resolution (October 5th), requiring Washington to
order a court of inquiry into the conduct of Gates as commander of the
Southern army, and to appoint some other officer to the command until
the inquiry should be made. Washington at once selected Greene for the
important trust. His choice was in concurrence with the expressed
wishes of the delegates of the three Southern States, conveyed to him
by one of their number.
With regard to the court of inquiry, Baron Steuben, who was to
accompany Greene to the South was to preside, and the members of the
court were to be such general and field-officers of the Continental
troops as were not present at the battle of Camden, or having been
present, were not wanted as witnesses, or were persons to whom General
Gates had no objection. The affair was to be conducted with the
greatest impartiality, and with as much despatch as circumstances
would permit.
Ravaging incursions from Canada had harassed the northern parts of the
State of New York of late, and laid desolate some parts of the country
from which Washington had hoped to receive great supplies of flour for
the armies. Major Carleton, a nephew of Sir Guy, at the head of a
motley force, European, Tory, and Indian, had captured Forts Anne and
George. Sir John Johnson also, with Joseph Brant, and a mongrel
half-savage crew, had laid waste the fertile region of the Mohawk
River, and burned the villages of Schoharie and Caughnawaga. The
greatest alarm prevailed throughout the neighboring country. Governor
Clinton himself took the field at the head of the militia, but before
he arrived at the scene of mischief, the marauders had been
encountered and driven back by General Van Rensselaer and the militia
of those parts; not, however, until they had nearly destroyed the
settlements on the Mohawk. Washington now put Brigadier-general James
Clinton (the governor's brother) in command of the Northern
department.
The state of the army was growing more and more a subject of
solicitude to the commander-in-chief. He felt weary of struggling on
with such scanty means, and such vast responsibility. The campaign,
which at its commencement had seemed pregnant with favorable events,
had proved sterile and inactive, and was drawing to a close. The short
terms for which most of the troops were enlisted must soon expire, and
then the present army would be reduced to a mere shadow. "To suppose,"
writes he, "that this great Revolution can be accomplished by a
temporary army, that this army will be subsisted by State supplies,
and that taxation alone is adequate to our wants, is in my opinion
absurd, and as unreasonable as to expect an inversion in the order of
nature to accommodate itself to our views. If it was necessary, it
could be proved to any person of a moderate understanding, that an
annual army, raised on the spur of the occasion, besides being
unqualified for the end designed, is, in various ways which could be
enumerated, ten times more expensive than a permanent body of men
under good organization and military discipline, which never was nor
ever will be the case with new troops."
We will here add that the repeated and elaborate reasonings of
Washington, backed by dear bought experience, slowly brought Congress
to adopt a system suggested by him for the organization and support of
the army, according to which, troops were to be enlisted to serve
throughout the war, and all officers who continued in service until
the return of peace were to receive half pay during life.
The Marquis Lafayette at this time commanded the advance guard of
Washington's army, composed of six battalions of light infantry. They
were better clad than the other soldiery; in trim uniforms, leathern
helmets, with crests of horse-hair. The officers were armed with
spontoons, the non-commissioned officers with fusees; both with short
sabres which the marquis had brought from France, and presented to
them. He was proud of his troops, and had a young man's ardor for
active service. The inactivity which had prevailed for some time past
was intolerable to him. The marquis saw with repining the campaign
drawing to a close, and nothing done that would rouse the people in
America, and be spoken of at the Court of Versailles. He was urgent
with Washington that the campaign should be terminated by some
brilliant stroke. Complaints, he hinted, had been made in France of
the prevailing inactivity. The brilliant stroke, suggested with some
detail by the marquis, was a general attack upon Fort Washington, and
the other posts at the north end of the island of New York, and, under
certain circumstances, which he specified, _make a push for the city_.
Washington regarded the project of his young and ardent friend with a
more sober and cautious eye. "It is impossible, my dear marquis,"
replies he, "to desire more ardently than I do to terminate the
campaign by some happy stroke; but we must consult our means rather
than our wishes, and not endeavor to better our affairs by attempting
things, which for want of success may make them worse.... It would, in
my opinion, be imprudent to throw an army of ten thousand men upon an
island, against nine thousand, exclusive of seamen and militia. This,
from the accounts we have, appears to be the enemy's force. All we can
do at present, therefore, is to endeavor to gain a more certain
knowledge of their situation, and act accordingly."
The British posts in question were accordingly reconnoitred from the
opposite banks of the Hudson, by Colonel Gouvion, an able French
engineer. Preparations were made to carry the scheme into effect,
should it be determined upon, when news was received of the unexpected
and accidental appearance of several British armed vessels in the
Hudson; the effect was to disconcert the plan and finally to cause it
to be abandoned.
Some parts of the scheme were attended with success. The veteran
Stark, with a detachment of twenty-five hundred men, made an extensive
forage in Westchester County, and Major Tallmadge with eighty men,
chiefly dismounted dragoons of Sheldon's regiment, crossed in boats
from the Connecticut shore to Long Island, where the Sound was twenty
miles wide; traversed the island on the night of the 22d of November,
surprised Fort George at Coram, captured the garrison of fifty-two
men, demolished the fort, set fire to magazines of forage, and
recrossed the Sound to Fairfield, without the loss of a man: an
achievement which drew forth a high eulogium from Congress.
At the end of November the army went into winter-quarters; the
Pennsylvania line in the neighborhood of Morristown, the Jersey line
about Pompton, the New England troops at West Point, and the other
posts of the Highlands; and the New York line was stationed at Albany,
to guard against any invasion from Canada. The French army remained
stationed at Newport, excepting the Duke of Lauzun's legion, which was
cantoned at Lebanon in Connecticut. Washington's head-quarters were
established at New Windsor, on the Hudson.
We will now turn to the South to note the course of affairs in that
quarter during the last few months.