FURTHER HOSTILITIES ON THE DELAWARE—FORT MIFFLIN ATTACKED—BRAVELY
DEFENDED—REDUCED—MISSION OF HAMILTON TO GATES—VISITS THE CAMPS OF
GOVERNOR CLINTON AND PUTNAM ON THE HUDSON—PUTNAM ON HIS
HOBBY-HORSE—DIFFICULTIES IN PROCURING REINFORCEMENTS—INTRIGUES OF
THE CABAL—LETTERS OF LOVELL AND MIFFLIN TO GATES—THE WORKS AT RED
BANK DESTROYED—THE ENEMY IN POSSESSION OF THE DELAWARE.
The non-arrival of reinforcements from the Northern army continued to
embarrass Washington’s operations. The enemy were making preparations
for further attempts upon Forts Mercer and Mifflin. General Howe was
constructing redoubts and batteries on Province Island, on the west side
of the Delaware, within five hundred yards of Fort Mifflin, and mounting
them with heavy cannon. Washington consulted with his general officers
what was to be done. Had the army received the expected reinforcements
from the North, it might have detached sufficient force to the west side
of the Schuylkill to dislodge the enemy from Province Island; but at
present it would require almost the whole of the army for the purpose.
This would leave the public stores at Easton, Bethlehem and Allentown,
uncovered, as well as several of the hospitals. It would also leave the
post at Red Bank unsupported, through which Fort Mifflin was reinforced
and supplied. It was determined, therefore, to await the arrival of the
expected reinforcements from the North, before making any alteration in
the disposition of the army. In the mean time, the garrisons of Forts
Mercer and Mifflin were increased, and General Varnum was stationed at
Red Bank with his brigade, to be at hand to render reinforcements to
either of them as occasion might require.
On the 10th of November, General Howe commenced a heavy fire upon Fort
Mifflin from his batteries, which mounted eighteen, twenty-four, and
thirty-two pounders. Colonel Smith doubted the competency of his feeble
garrison to defend the works against a force so terribly effective, and
wrote to Washington accordingly. The latter in reply represented the
great importance of the works, and trusted they would be maintained to
the last extremity. General Varnum was instructed to send over fresh
troops occasionally to relieve those in the garrison, and to prevail
upon as many as possible of the militia to go over. The latter could be
employed at night upon the works to repair the damage sustained in the
day, and might, if they desired it, return to Red Bank in the morning.
Washington’s orders and instructions were faithfully obeyed. Major
Fleury, a brave French officer, already mentioned, acquitted himself
with intelligence and spirit as engineer; but an incessant cannonade and
bombardment for several days, defied all repairs. The block-houses were
demolished, the palisades beaten down, the guns dismounted, the barracks
reduced to ruins. Captain Treat, a young officer of great merit, who
commanded the artillery, was killed, as were several non-commissioned
officers and privates; and a number were wounded.
The survivors, who were not wounded, were exhausted by want of sleep,
hard duty, and constant exposure to the rain. Colonel Smith himself was
disabled by severe contusions, and obliged to retire to Red Bank.
The fort was in ruins; there was danger of its being carried by storm,
but the gallant Fleury thought it might yet be defended with the aid of
fresh troops. Such were furnished from Varnum’s brigade:
Lieutenant-colonel Russell, of the Connecticut line, replaced Colonel
Smith. He, in his turn, was obliged to relinquish the command through
fatigue and ill health, and was succeeded by Major Thayer of Rhode
Island, aided by Captain (afterwards commodore) Talbot, who had
distinguished himself in the preceding year by an attack on a
ship-of-war in the Hudson. The present was an occasion that required men
of desperate valor.
On the fourth day the enemy brought a large Indiaman, cut down to a
floating battery, to bear upon the works; but though it opened a
terrible fire, it was silenced before night. The next day several ships
of war got within gunshot. Two prepared to attack it in front; others
brought their guns to bear on Fort Mercer; while two made their way into
the narrow channel between Mud Island and the Pennsylvania shore, to
operate with the British batteries erected there.
At a concerted signal a cannonade was opened from all quarters. The
heroic little garrison stood the fire without flinching; the danger,
however, was growing imminent. The batteries on Province Island
enfiladed the works. The ships in the inner channel approached so near
as to throw hand-grenades into the fort, while marines stationed in the
round-tops stood ready to pick off any of the garrison that came in
sight.
The scene now became awful; incessant firing from ships, forts, gondolas
and floating batteries, with clouds of sulphurous smoke, and the
deafening thunder of cannon. Before night there was hardly a
fortification to defend; palisades were shivered, guns dismounted, the
whole parapet levelled. There was terrible slaughter; most of the
company of artillery were destroyed. Fleury himself was wounded. Captain
Talbot received a wound in the wrist, but continued bravely fighting
until disabled by another wound in the hip.[100]
To hold out longer was impossible. Colonel Thayer made preparations to
evacuate the fort in the night. Every thing was removed in the evening,
that could be conveyed away without too much exposure to the murderous
fire from the round-tops. The wounded were taken over to Red Bank
accompanied by part of the garrison. Thayer remained with forty men
until eleven o’clock, when they set fire to what was combustible of the
fort they had so nobly defended, and crossed to Red Bank by the light of
its flames.
The loss of this fort was deeply regretted by Washington, though he gave
high praise to the officers and men of the garrison. Colonel Smith was
voted a sword by Congress, and Fleury received the commission of
lieutenant-colonel.
Washington still hoped to keep possession of Red Bank, and thereby
prevent the enemy from weighing the chevaux-de-frise before the frost
obliged their ships to quit the river. “I am anxiously waiting the
arrival of the troops from the northward,” writes he, “who ought, from
the time they have had my orders, to have been here before this. Colonel
Hamilton, one of my aides, is up the North River, doing all he can to
push them forward, but he writes me word, that he finds many
unaccountable delays thrown in his way. The want of these troops has
embarrassed all my measures exceedingly.”
The delays in question will best be explained by a few particulars
concerning the mission of Colonel Hamilton. On his way to the
head-quarters of Gates, at Albany, he found Governor Clinton and General
Putnam encamped on the opposite sides of the Hudson, just above the
Highlands; the governor at New Windsor, Putnam at Fishkill. About a mile
from New Windsor, Hamilton met Morgan and his riflemen, early in the
morning of the 2d of November, on the march for Washington’s camp,
having been thus tardily detached by Gates. Hamilton urged him to hasten
on with all possible despatch, which he promised to do. The colonel had
expected to find matters in such a train, that he would have little to
do but hurry on ample reinforcements already on the march; whereas, he
found that a large part of the Northern army was to remain in and about
Albany, about four thousand men to be spared to the commander-in-chief;
the rest were to be stationed on the east side of the Hudson with
Putnam, who had held a council of war how to dispose of them. The old
general, in fact, had for some time past been haunted by a project of an
attack upon New York, in which he had twice been thwarted, and for which
the time seemed propitious, now that most of the British troops were
reported to have gone from New York to reinforce General Howe. Hamilton
rather disconcerted his project by directing him, in Washington’s name,
to hurry forward two Continental brigades to the latter, together with
Warner’s militia brigade; also, to order to Red Bank a body of Jersey
militia about to cross to Peekskill.
Having given these directions, Hamilton hastened on to Albany. He found
still less disposition on the part of Gates to furnish the troops
required. There was no certainty, he said, that Sir Henry Clinton had
gone to join General Howe. There was a possibility of his returning up
the river, which would expose the arsenal at Albany to destruction,
should that city be left bare of troops. The New England States, too,
would be left open to the ravages and depredations of the enemy; beside,
it would put it out of his power to attempt any thing against
Ticonderoga, an undertaking of great importance, in which he might
engage in the winter. In a word, Gates had schemes of his own, to which
those of the commander-in-chief must give way.
Hamilton felt, he says, how embarrassing a task it was for one so young
as himself to oppose the opinions and plans of a veteran, whose
successes had elevated him to the highest importance; though he
considered his reasonings unsubstantial, and merely calculated to “catch
the Eastern people.” It was with the greatest difficulty he prevailed on
Gates to detach the brigades of Poor and Patterson to the aid of the
commander-in-chief; and, finding reinforcements fall thus short from
this quarter, he wrote to Putnam to forward an additional thousand of
Continental troops from his camp. “I doubt,” writes he subsequently to
Washington, “whether you would have had a man from the Northern army, if
the whole could have been kept at Albany with any decency.”
Having concluded his mission to General Gates, Hamilton returned to the
camp of Governor Clinton. The worthy governor seemed the general officer
best disposed in this quarter to promote the public weal, independent of
personal considerations. He had recently expressed his opinion to
General Gates, that the army under Washington ought at present to be the
chief object of attention, “for on its success every thing worth
regarding depended.”
The only need of troops in this quarter at present, was to protect the
country from little plundering parties, and to carry on the works
necessary for the defence of the river. The latter was the governor’s
main thought. He was eager to reconstruct the fortresses out of which he
had been so forcibly ejected; or rather to construct new ones in a
better place, about West Point, where obstructions were again to be
extended across the river.[101]
Putnam, on the contrary, wished to keep as much force as possible under
his control. The old general was once more astride of what Hamilton
termed his “hobby-horse,” an expedition against New York. He had
neglected to forward the troops which had been ordered to the South: not
the least attention had been paid by him to Hamilton’s order from
Albany, in Washington’s name, for the detachment of an additional
thousand of troops. Some, which had come down from Albany, had been
marched by him to Tarrytown: he himself had reconnoitred the country
almost down to King’s Bridge, and was now advanced to the neighborhood
of White Plains. “Every thing,” writes Hamilton, “is sacrificed to the
whim of taking New York.” The young colonel was perplexed how to proceed
with the brave-hearted, but somewhat wrong-headed old general; who was
in as bellicose a mood, now that he was mounted on his hobby, as when at
the siege of Boston he mounted the prize mortar “Congress,” and prayed
for gunpowder.
Hamilton, in his perplexity, consulted Governor Clinton. The latter
agreed with him that an attempt against New York would be a mere
“suicidal parade,” wasting time and men. The city at present was no
object, even if it could be taken, and to take it would require men that
could ill be spared from more substantial purposes. The governor,
however, understood the character and humors of his old coadjutor, and
in his downright way; advised Hamilton to send an order in the most
emphatical terms to General Putnam, to despatch all the Continental
troops under him to Washington’s assistance, and to detain the militia
instead of them.
A little of the governor’s own hobby, by the way, showed itself in his
councils. “He thinks,” writes Hamilton, “that there is no need of more
Continental troops here than a few, to give a spur to the militia in
working upon the fortifications.”
The “emphatical” letter of Hamilton had the effect the governor
intended. It unhorsed the belligerent veteran when in full career. The
project against New York was again given up, and the reinforcements
reluctantly ordered to the South. “I am sorry to say,” writes Hamilton,
“the disposition for marching in the officers, and men in general, of
these troops, does not keep pace with my wishes, or the exigency of the
occasion. They have unfortunately imbibed an idea that they have done
their part of the business of the campaign, and are now entitled to
repose. This, and the want of pay, make them adverse to a long march at
this advanced season.”
Governor Clinton borrowed six thousand dollars for Hamilton, to enable
him to put some of the troops in motion; indeed, writes the colonel, he
has been the only man who has done any thing to remove these
difficulties. Hamilton advised that the command of the post should be
given to the governor, if he would accept of it, and Putnam should be
recalled; “whose blunders and caprices,” said he, “are endless.”
Washington, however, knew too well the innate worth and sterling
patriotism of the old general, to adopt a measure that might deeply
mortify him. The enterprise, too, on which the veteran had been bent,
was one which he himself had approved of when suggested under other
circumstances. He contented himself, therefore, with giving him a
reprimand in the course of a letter, for his present dilatoriness in
obeying the orders of his commander-in-chief. “I cannot but say,” writes
he, “there has been more delay in the march of the troops than I think
necessary; and I could wish, that in future my orders may be immediately
complied with, without arguing upon the propriety of them. If any
accident ensues from obeying them, the fault will be upon me, not upon
you.”
Washington found it more necessary than usual, at this moment, to assert
his superior command, from the attempts which were being made to weaken
his stand in the public estimation. Still he was not aware of the extent
of the intrigues that were in progress around him, in which we believe
honest Putnam had no share. There was evidently a similar game going on
with that which had displaced the worthy Schuyler. The surrender of
Burgoyne, though mainly the result of Washington’s far-seeing plans, had
suddenly trumped up Gates into a quasi rival. A letter written to Gates
at the time, and still existing among his papers, lays open the spirit
of the cabal. It is without signature, but in the handwriting of James
Lovell, member of Congress from Massachusetts; the same who had
supported Gates in opposition to Schuyler. The following are extracts:
“You have saved our Northern Hemisphere; and in spite of consummate and
repeated blundering, you have changed the condition of the Southern
campaign, on the part of the enemy, from offensive to defensive. * * *
The campaign here must soon close; if our troops are obliged to retire
to Lancaster, Reading, Bethlehem, &c. for winter-quarters, and the
country below is laid open to the enemy’s flying parties, great and very
general will be the murmur—so great, so general, that nothing inferior
to a commander-in-chief will be able to resist the mighty torrent of
public clamor and public vengeance.
“We have had a noble army melted down by ill-judged marches—marches that
disgrace the authors and directors, and which have occasioned the
severest and most just sarcasm and contempt of our enemies.
“How much are you to be envied, my dear general! How different your
conduct and your fortune!
“A letter from Colonel Mifflin, received at the writing of the last
paragraph, gives me the disagreeable intelligence of the loss of our
fort on the Delaware. You must know the consequences—loss of the river
boats, galleys, ships of war, &c.; good winter-quarters to the enemy,
and a general retreat, or ill-judged, blind attempt on our part to save
a gone character.
“Conway, Spotswood, Conner, Ross, and Mifflin resigned, and many other
brave and good officers are preparing their letters to Congress on the
same subject. In short, this army will be totally lost, unless you come
down and collect the virtuous band who wish to fight under your banner,
and with their aid save the Southern Hemisphere. Prepare yourself for a
jaunt to this place—Congress must send for you.”[102]
Under such baleful supervision, of which, as we have observed, he was
partly conscious, but not to its full extent, Washington was obliged to
carry on a losing game, in which the very elements seemed to conspire
against him.
In the mean time, Sir William Howe was following up the reduction of
Fort Mifflin by an expedition against Fort Mercer, which still impeded
the navigation of the Delaware. On the 17th of November, Lord Cornwallis
was detached with two thousand men to cross from Chester into the
Jerseys, where he would be joined by a force advancing from New York.
Apprised of this movement, Washington detached General Huntington, with
a brigade, to join Varnum at Red Bank. General Greene was also ordered
to repair thither with his division, and an express was sent off to
General Glover, who was on his way through the Jerseys with his brigade,
directing him to file off to the left towards the same point. These
troops, with such militia as could be collected, Washington hoped would
be sufficient to save the fort. Before they could form a junction,
however, and reach their destination, Cornwallis appeared before it. A
defence against such superior force was hopeless. The works were
abandoned; they were taken possession of by the enemy, who proceeded to
destroy them. After the destruction had been accomplished, the
reinforcements from the North, so long and so anxiously expected, and so
shamefully delayed, made their appearance. “Had they arrived but ten
days sooner,” writes Washington to his brother, “it would, I think, have
put it in my power to save Fort Mifflin, which defended the
chevaux-de-frise, and consequently have rendered Philadelphia a very
ineligible situation for the enemy this winter.”
The troops arrived in ragged plight, owing to the derangement of the
commissariat. A part of Morgan’s rifle corps was absolutely unable to
take the field for want of shoes, and such was the prevalent want in
this particular, that ten dollars reward was offered in general orders
for a model of the best substitute for shoes that could be made out of
raw hides.
The evil which Washington had so anxiously striven to prevent had now
been effected. The American vessels stationed in the river had lost all
protection. Some of the galleys escaped past the batteries of
Philadelphia in a fog, and took refuge in the upper part of the
Delaware; the rest were set on fire by their crews and abandoned.
The enemy were now in possession of the river, but it was too late in
the season to clear away the obstructions, and open a passage for the
large ships. All that could be effected at present, was to open a
sufficient channel for transports and vessels of easy burden, to bring
provisions and supplies for the army.
Washington advised the navy board, now that the enemy had the command of
the river, to have all the American frigates scuttled and sunk
immediately. The board objected to sinking them, but said they should be
ballasted and plugged, ready to be sunk in case of attack. Washington
warned them that an attack would be sudden, so as to get possession of
them before they could be sunk or destroyed;—his advice and warning were
unheeded; the consequence will hereafter be shown.