A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION--THE STORY OF A PASQUOTANK BOY WHO FOLLOWED
WASHINGTON
It is a well known fact that the records of the services of the North
Carolina soldiers who took part in the Revolutionary War are very
meagre. Of the private, and other officers of leaser rank, this is
especially true. Therefore, it is not surprising that a search through
the Colonial Records for a statement of the services rendered his
country by John Koen, a brave soldier of the Revolution from Pasquotank
County, reveals only this fact: that he enlisted in Moore's Company,
Tenth Regiment, on May 30, 1777, and served for three years.
But in addition to the above information, the following incidents in the
life of John Koen have been furnished the writer of this history by Mrs.
Margaret Temple, formerly of Rosedale, now a resident of Elizabeth City.
Mrs. Temple is a granddaughter of Colonel Koen, the widow of William S.
Temple, a brave Confederate soldier from Pasquotank, and the mother of
two of our former townsmen, Hon. Oscar Temple, of Denver, Colorado, and
Robert Temple, of New Orleans.
Mrs. Temple was about twelve years old at the time of Colonel Koen's
death, and retains a very vivid recollection of the stirring stories of
the Revolution told by her grandfather during the long winter evenings,
when the family gathered around the big fire-place in the old Koen
homestead near Rosedale.
A record copied from the Koen family Bible states that John Koen, son of
Daniel Koen and Grace Koen, his wife, was born on the 27th day of
January, 1759; and years later this record was entered: "John Koen,
departed this life September 5th, 1840, aged 83 yrs."
At the age of eighteen he entered his country's service as a volunteer,
and served through the Revolution, participating in many of the greatest
victories won by the Americans, sharing the worst hardships of the war
with his fellow patriots, and laying down his arms only after Cornwallis
had surrendered his sword at Yorktown.
At the beginning of the winter of 1775-1776, North Carolina was
confronting the most perilous conditions which she had ever been called
to face. From the north, east and west, the foe was pressing, while
within her own borders the Tories were rising, and planning to join the
British in the subjection of this rebellious state.
The plan formulated by the enemy was this: Sir Henry Clinton, with
troops of British regulars, was to come down the coast to the mouth of
the Cape Fear River, where Lord Cornwallis, who with seven regiments
from England was hastening across the Atlantic, was to join him. Lord
Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, was to incite the slaves and
indentured servants in the Albemarle district to unite with the Tories
in the State; and the Indians in the western counties were to be induced
to take up arms against the whites.
If these plans had matured, North Carolina would have been overpowered,
but one by one they were frustrated. The battle of Great Bridge defeated
Dunmore in his purpose. The Snow Campaign quieted the Indian uprising.
The battle of Moore's Creek Bridge crashed the Tories, and the heavy
winter storms delayed Cornwallis and prevented him from joining Clinton
at the mouth of the Cape Fear.
When Lord Dunmore issued his proclamation offering freedom to the slaves
and indentured servants who should join his majesty's forces, and then
followed up this notice by burning and ravaging the plantations around
Norfolk, Virginia, called upon her sister State for help, and Long and
Sumner, from Halifax, and Warren, Skinner and Dauge from Perquimans and
Pasquotank counties, hastened with their minute men and volunteers to
Great Bridge, where Colonel Woodford in command of the Virginia troops,
had thrown up fortifications.
Among the volunteers who were hastening to the scene of action was John
Koen, of Pasquotank, a boy in years, but a man in purpose and
resolution.
On December 9, 1775, the British attacked the fortifications, and the
sound of heavy firing at Great Bridge, the first battle in which the men
of the Albemarle section had been called to participate, was heard by
the dwellers in the counties nearest Norfolk.
The story is still told by old residents of Rosedale, that John Koen's
mother, who was washing the breakfast dishes when the firing began,
hearing the first heavy reverberations from the cannon some thirty miles
away, dropped the dish she was wiping, and in her motherly anxiety for
the safety of her boy, cried out, "Dodge, John, dodge!"
Whether John dodged or not we do not know, but we do know that he bore
his part manfully in this, his first battle, and shared in the victory
which drove Dunmore from Virginia, and saved North Carolina from
invasion from that direction, and a threatened uprising of the slaves.
On February 26, 1776, the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge was fought,
which defeated the Tories in Carolina, and convinced the British that
further attempts at this time to conquer the State were useless. So,
toward the end of May, Clinton's fleet sailed from the mouth of Cape
Fear River to Charleston, South Carolina, where his intention was to
reduce that city.
Generals Charles Lee and Robert Howe, of the Continental army, hastened
immediately to the defense of that city, and among the soldiers who
followed them was John Koen. Here again the British were defeated,
Colonel Moultrie's Palmetto fortifications proving an effective defense
to the city by the sea, and Thompson's South Carolinians and North
Carolinians bravely repelling the British land troops. Here Koen fought
by the side of the soldiers of North Carolina, and here, possibly, he
was an eye witness of the brave deed by which Sergeant Jasper won
undying fame.
The British fleet, repulsed in the attempt to capture Charleston, sailed
northward, the danger of invasion that for six months threatened the
South was over, and we find many of the soldiers in North Carolina
released from duty and returning to their homes.
But John Koen's heart was filled with boyish love and admiration for the
commander-in-chief of the American army, and his one desire now was to
follow Washington; so, shouldering his musket, the hardy young soldier
marched away to offer his services to the great general.
We do not know whether or not John Koen was with Washington in the
battle at Long Island and at White Plains, but from his own account as
related by him to his family, he did have the glorious honor of sharing
in the victory at Trenton on December 26, 1776.
Most of us are familiar with the picture of "Washington Crossing the
Delaware," wherein he is represented standing erect in a small boat that
seems about to be dashed to pieces by the heavy waves and the cakes of
ice, but according to Colonel Koen, who was with Washington on that
momentous night, no boats were used. The river was frozen over, and the
soldiers, in order to keep their footing on the slippery ice, laid their
muskets down on the frozen river and walked across on them to the Jersey
shore. At times the ice bent so beneath the tread of the men that they
momentarily expected to be submerged in the dark waters, but the
dangerous crossing was safely made, the British and Hessian troops,
spending the holiday hours in feasting and carousing at Trenton, were
captured, and a great victory won for the American army.
Some time in the spring of 1777, John Koen must have returned to his
home in Pasquotank County, for we find in the Colonial Records that in
the month of May, 1777, he enlisted in Moore's Company, Tenth Regiment,
from North Carolina, and that in June he was promoted to the rank of
corporal.
According to the fireside tales told by Colonel Koen to the household in
the old Koen homestead, this young soldier, then only twenty years old,
was with Gates' army, that, under the valiant leadership of Morgan and
Arnold, won for the newly born nation the great victory of Saratoga; and
the winter of that same year--'77--we find him sharing with Washington's
army the trials and privations of the days of suffering at Valley Forge.
"I have seen the tears trickling down my grandfather's face when he told
of the sufferings of that awful winter," said his granddaughter, Mrs.
Temple to the writer, "and I used to wonder at seeing a grown man cry,
and often I said in my childish way that war should never bring a tear
in my eyes. Little did I know then that the bitterest tears I should
ever shed would be caused by war, and for eighteen months during the
terrible struggle between the North and the South I should mourn as dead
my soldier husband, whom God in His mercy restored to me after all hope
of seeing him alive again was over."
Although the Colonial Records state that Koen enlisted for only three
years in May, 1777, he must have re-enlisted in 1780, for he has left
with his family a graphic description of General Lincoln's surrender of
Charleston in that year, and of the horrible treatment to which the
Continental troops were subjected, who found themselves prisoners of the
victorious British army.
The hot climate, the wretched condition of the prison ships, the
unwholesome and insufficient food, made these days of imprisonment at
Charleston equal in horror to the worst days at Valley Forge. Of the
1,800 prisoners who were taken captive on May 12, 1780, only 700
survived when they were paroled, and of these our hero was one.
In what other battles or experiences Colonel Koen shared we have no
record, historical or traditional, but according to his granddaughter's
account, learned from his own lips, he served his country until the
victory of Yorktown was won and peace was declared. And it is easy to
believe that this gallant soldier who was one of the first to volunteer
at Great Bridge, and who fought so bravely in many of the sharpest
struggles of the great conflict, would not have been willing to lay
down his arms until his country was freed from the power that had so
long held it in thrall.
So we can imagine him following Greene in his retreat across the State,
taking part in the battle of Guilford Courthouse, and possibly present
when the proud Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Yorktown.
When the struggle at last had ended, John Koen returned to his home.
During the years of his absence his plantation was managed by William
Temple, whose pretty young daughter, Susannah, soon won the heart of the
brave soldier, and consented to become his bride. After some years of
happy married life, the young wife died, and a few years later we find
John Koen making a second marriage, his bride being Christian Hollowell,
of Perquimans County.
Owing to his gallant conduct in the Revolutionary War, John Koen, a few
years after the war was over, was appointed Colonel of the militia in
Pasquotank County, and the government awarded him a pension, which was
paid until his death in 1840.