INDIAN WARFARE—DESOLATION OF THE VALLEY OF WYOMING—MOVEMENTS IN NEW
YORK—COUNTER MOVEMENTS OF WASHINGTON—FORAGING PARTIES OF THE
ENEMY—BAYLOR’S DRAGOONS MASSACRED AT OLD TAPPAN—BRITISH EXPEDITION
AGAINST LITTLE EGG HARBOR—MASSACRE OF PULASKI’S INFANTRY—RETALIATION
ON DONOP’S RANGERS—ARRIVAL OF ADMIRAL BYRON—ENDEAVORS TO ENTRAP
D’ESTAING, BUT IS DISAPPOINTED—EXPEDITION AGAINST ST.
LUCIA—EXPEDITION AGAINST GEORGIA—CAPTURE OF SAVANNAH—GEORGIA
SUBDUED—GENERAL LINCOLN SENT TO COMMAND IN THE SOUTH.
While hostilities were carried on in the customary form along the
Atlantic borders, Indian warfare, with all its atrocity, was going on in
the interior. The British post at Niagara was its cradle. It was the
common rallying place of tories, refugees, savage warriors, and other
desperadoes of the frontiers. Hither Brant, the noted Indian chief, had
retired after the repulse of St. Leger at Fort Schuyler, to plan further
mischief; and here was concerted the memorable incursion into the Valley
of Wyoming, suggested by tory refugees, who had until recently inhabited
it.
The Valley of Wyoming is a beautiful region lying along the Susquehanna.
Peaceful as was its aspect, it had been the scene of sanguinary feuds
prior to the Revolution, between the people of Pennsylvania and
Connecticut, who both laid claim to it. Seven rural forts or
block-houses, situated on various parts of the valley, had been
strongholds during these territorial contests, and remained as places of
refuge for women and children in times of Indian ravage.
The expedition now set on foot against it, in June, was composed of
Butler’s rangers, Johnson’s royal greens, and Brant with his Indian
braves. Their united force, about eleven hundred strong, was conducted
by Colonel John Butler, renowned in Indian warfare. Passing down the
Chemung and Susquehanna in canoes, they landed at a place called Three
Islands, struck through the wilderness to a gap or a “notch” of the
mountains, by which they entered the Valley of Wyoming. Butler made his
head-quarters at one of the strongholds already mentioned, called
Wintermoot’s Fort, from a tory family of the same name. Hence he sent
out his marauding parties to plunder and lay waste the country.
Rumors of this intended invasion had reached the valley some time before
the appearance of the enemy, and had spread great consternation. Most of
the sturdy yeomanry were absent in the army. A company of sixty men,
enlisted under an act of Congress, and hastily and imperfectly
organized, yet styling themselves regulars, took post at one of the
strongholds called Forty Fort; where they were joined by about three
hundred of the most efficient of the yeomanry, armed and equipped in
rude rustic style. In this emergency old men and boys volunteered to
meet the common danger, posting themselves in the smaller forts in which
women and children had taken refuge. Colonel Zebulon Butler, an officer
of the continental army, took the general command. Several officers
arrived from the army, having obtained leave to repair home for the
protection of their families. They brought word that a reinforcement,
sent by Washington, was on its way.
In the mean time the marauding parties sent out by Butler and Brant were
spreading desolation through the valley; farm houses were wrapped in
flames; husbandmen were murdered while at work in the fields; all who
had not taken refuge in the fort were threatened with destruction. What
was to be done? Wait for the arrival of the promised reinforcement, or
attempt to check the ravage? The latter was rashly determined on.
Leaving the women and children in Forty Fort, Colonel Zebulon Butler
with his men sallied forth on the 3d of July, and made a rapid move upon
Wintermoot Fort, hoping to come upon it by surprise. They found the
enemy drawn up in front of it, in a line extending from the river to a
marsh; Colonel John Butler and his rangers, with Johnson’s royal greens,
on the left; Indians and tories on the right.
The Americans formed a line of the same extent; the regulars under
Colonel Butler on the right flank, resting on the river, the militia
under Colonel Denison on the left wing, on the marsh. A sharp fire was
opened from right to left; after a few volleys the enemy in front of
Colonel Butler began to give way. The Indians, however, throwing
themselves into the marsh, turned the left flank of the Americans, and
attacked the militia in the rear. Denison, finding himself exposed to a
cross fire, sought to change his position, and gave the word to fall
back. It was mistaken for an order to retreat. In an instant the left
wing turned and fled; all attempts to rally it were vain; the panic
extended to the right wing. The savages, throwing down their rifles,
rushed on with tomahawk and scalping-knife, and a horrible massacre
ensued. Some of the Americans escaped to Forty Fort, some swam the
river; others broke their way across the swamp, and climbed the
mountain; some few were taken prisoners; but the greater number were
slaughtered.
The desolation of the valley was now completed; fields were laid waste,
houses burnt, and their inhabitants murdered. According to the British
accounts, upwards of four hundred of the yeomanry of Wyoming were slain,
but the women and children were spared, “and desired to retire to their
rebel friends.”[146]
Upwards of five thousand persons, says the same account, fled in the
utmost distress and consternation, seeking refuge in the settlements on
the Lehigh and the Delaware. After completing this horrible work of
devastation, the enemy retired before the arrival of the troops detached
by Washington.
We might have swelled our narrative of this affair by many individual
acts of atrocity committed by royalists on their old friends and
neighbors, and even their near relatives; but we forbear to darken our
page by such stigmas on human nature. Suffice it to say, it was one of
the most atrocious outrages perpetrated throughout the war; and, as
usual, the tories concerned in it were the most vindictive and merciless
of the savage crew. Of the measures taken in consequence we shall speak
hereafter.
For a great part of the summer, Washington had remained encamped at
White Plains, watching the movements of the enemy at New York. Early in
September he observed a great stir of preparation; cannon and military
stores were embarked, and a fleet of one hundred and forty transports
were ready to make sail. What was their destination? Washington deplored
the facility possessed by the enemy of transporting their troops from
point to point by sea. “Their rapid movements,” said he, “enable them to
give us solicitude for the safety of remote points, to succor which we
should have to make ruinous marches, and after all, perhaps, find
ourselves the dupes of a feint.”
There were but two capital objects which they could have in view, beside
the defeat and dispersion of his army. One was to get possession of the
forts and passes of the Highlands; the other, by a junction of their
land and naval forces, to attempt the destruction of the French fleet at
Boston, and regain possession of that town. These points were so far
asunder, that it was difficult to protect the one, without leaving the
other exposed. To do the best that the nature of the case would admit,
Washington strengthened the works and reinforced the garrison in the
Highlands, stationing Putnam with two brigades in the neighborhood of
West Point. General Gates was sent with three brigades to Danbury in
Connecticut, where he was joined by two brigades under General McDougal,
while Washington moved his camp to a rear position at Fredericksburg on
the borders of Connecticut, and about thirty miles from West Point, so
as to be ready for a movement to the eastward or a speedy junction for
the defence of the Hudson. To facilitate an eastern movement he took
measures to have all the roads leading to Boston repaired.
Scarce had Washington moved from White Plains, when Sir Henry Clinton
threw a detachment of five thousand men under Lord Cornwallis into the
Jerseys, between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, and another of three
thousand under Knyphausen into Westchester County, between the Hudson
and the Bronx. These detachments held communication with each other, and
by the aid of flat-bottomed boats could unite their forces, in
twenty-four hours, on either side of the Hudson.
Washington considered these mere foraging expeditions, though on a large
scale, and detached troops into the Jerseys to co-operate with the
militia in checking them; but, as something more might be intended, he
ordered General Putnam to cross the river to West Point, for its
immediate security: while he himself moved with a division of his army
to Fishkill.
Wayne, who was with the detachment in the Jerseys, took post with a body
of militia and a regiment of light-horse in front of the division of
Lord Cornwallis. The militia were quartered at the village of New
Tappan; but Lieutenant-colonel Baylor, who commanded the light-horse,
chose to encamp apart, to be free, as is supposed, from the control of
Wayne. He took up his quarters, therefore, in Old Tappan, where his men
lay very negligently and unguardedly in barns. Cornwallis had
intelligence of their exposed situation, and laid a plan to cut off the
whole detachment. A body of troops from Knyphausen’s division was to
cross the Hudson in the night, and come by surprise upon the militia in
New Tappan: at the same time, Major-general Grey, of marauding renown,
was to advance on the left, and attack Baylor and his dragoons in their
careless quarters in Old Tappan.
Fortunately Knyphausen’s troops, led by Lieutenant-colonel Campbell,
were slow in crossing the river, and the militia were apprised by
deserters of their danger in time to escape. Not so with Baylor’s party.
General Grey, having cut off a sergeant’s patrol, advanced in silence,
and surrounded with his troops three barns in which the dragoons were
sleeping. We have seen, in his surprise of Wayne’s detachment in the
preceding year, how stealthy and effective he was in the work of
destruction. To prevent noise he had caused his men to draw the charges
and take the flints from their guns, and fix their bayonets. The bayonet
was his favorite weapon. With this his men rushed forward, and, deaf for
a time to all cries for mercy, made a savage slaughter of naked and
defenceless men. Eleven were killed on the spot, and twenty-five mangled
with repeated thrusts, some receiving ten, twelve, and even sixteen
wounds. Among the wounded were Colonel Baylor and Major Clough, the last
of whom soon died. About forty were taken prisoners, mostly through the
humane interposition of one of Grey’s captains, whose feelings revolted
at the orders of his sanguinary commander.
This whole movement of troops, on both sides of the Hudson, was designed
to cover an expedition against Little Egg Harbor, on the east coast of
New Jersey, a noted rendezvous of American privateers. It was conducted
in much the same spirit with that of General Grey to the eastward. Three
hundred regular troops, and a body of royalist volunteers from the
Jerseys, headed by Captain Patrick Ferguson, embarked at New York on
board galleys and transports, and made for Little Egg Harbor under
convoy of vessels of war. They were long at sea. The country heard of
their coming; four privateers put to sea and escaped; others took refuge
up the river. The wind prevented the transports from entering. The
troops embarked in row galleys and small craft, and pushed twenty miles
up the river to the village of Chestnut Neck. Here were batteries
without guns, prize ships which had been hastily scuttled, and
storehouses for the reception of prize goods. The batteries and
storehouses were demolished, the prize ships burnt, saltworks destroyed
and private dwellings sacked and laid in ashes; all, it was pretended,
being the property of persons concerned in privateering, or “whose
activity in the cause of America and unrelenting persecution of the
loyalists, marked them out as the proper objects of vengeance.” As those
persons were pointed out by the tory volunteers of New Jersey who
accompanied the expedition, we may suppose how far private pique and
neighborly feud entered into these proscriptions.
The vessels which brought this detachment being wind-bound for several
days, Capt. Ferguson had time for another enterprise. Among the forces
detached by Washington into the Jerseys to check these ravages, was the
Count Pulaski’s legionary corps, composed of three companies of foot,
and a troop of horse, officered principally by foreigners. A deserter
from the corps brought word to the British commander that the legion was
cantoned about twelve miles up the river; the infantry in three houses
by themselves; Count Pulaski with the cavalry at some distance apart.
Informed of these circumstances, Captain Ferguson embarked in boats with
two hundred and fifty men, ascended the river in the night, landed at
four in the morning, and surrounded the houses in which the infantry
were sleeping. “It being a night attack,” says the captain in his
official report, “little quarter of course could be given, _so there
were only five prisoners_.” It was indeed a massacre similar to those of
the bayonet-loving General Grey. Fifty of the infantry were butchered on
the spot; among whom were two of the foreign officers, the Baron de Bose
and Lieutenant de la Broderie.
The clattering of hoofs gave note of the approach of Pulaski and his
horse, whereupon the British made a rapid retreat to their boats and
pulled down the river, and thus ended the marauding expedition of
Captain Ferguson, worthy of the times of the buccaneers. He attempted
afterwards to excuse his wanton butchery of unarmed men, by alleging
that the deserter from Pulaski’s legion told him the count, in his
general orders, forbade all granting of quarters; information which
proved to be false, and which, had he been a gentleman of honorable
spirit, he never would have believed, especially on the word of a
deserter.
The detachment on the east side of the Hudson likewise made a predatory
and disgraceful foray from their lines at King’s Bridge, towards the
American encampment at White Plains, plundering the inhabitants without
discrimination, not only of their provisions and forage, but of the very
clothes on their backs. None were more efficient in this ravage than a
party of about one hundred of Captain Donop’s Hessian yagers, and they
were in full maraud between Tarrytown and Dobbs’ Ferry, when a
detachment of infantry under Colonel Richard Butler, and of cavalry
under Major Henry Lee, came upon them by surprise, killed ten of them on
the spot, captured a lieutenant and eighteen privates, and would have
taken or destroyed the whole, had not the extreme roughness of the
country impeded the action of the cavalry, and enabled the yagers to
escape by scrambling up hill-sides or plunging into ravines. This
occurred but three days after the massacre of Colonel Baylor’s party, on
the opposite side of the Hudson.
The British detachments having accomplished the main objects of their
movements, returned to New York; leaving those parts of the country they
had harassed still more determined in their hostility, having achieved
nothing but what is least honorable and most detestable in warfare. We
need no better comment on these measures than one furnished by a British
writer of the day. “Upon the whole,” observes he, “even if the treaty
between France and America had not rendered all hope of success from the
present conciliatory system hopeless, these predatory and irritating
expeditions would have appeared peculiarly ill-timed and unlucky. Though
strongly and warmly recommended by many here as the most effectual mode
of war, we scarcely remember an instance in which they have not been
more mischievous than useful to the grand objects of either reducing or
reconciling the provinces.”[147]
We may add here that General Grey, who had most signalized himself in
these sanguinary exploits, and who from his stealthy precaution to
insure the use of the bayonet, had acquired the surname of “no flint,”
was rewarded for a long career of military services by being raised to
the peerage as Lord Grey of Howick, ultimately Earl Grey. He was father
of the celebrated prime minister of that name.
About the middle of September Admiral Byron arrived at New York with the
residue of the scattered armament, which had sailed from England in June
to counteract the designs of the Count D’Estaing. Finding that the count
was still repairing his shattered fleet in the harbor of Boston, he put
to sea again as soon as his ships were refitted, and set sail for that
port to entrap him. Success seemed likely to crown his schemes: he
arrived off Boston on the 1st of November: his rival was still in port.
Scarce had the admiral entered the bay, however, when another violent
storm drove him out to sea, disabled his ships, and compelled him to put
into Rhode Island to refit. Meanwhile the count having his ships in good
order, and finding the coast clear, put to sea, and made the best of his
way for the West Indies. Previous to his departure he issued a
proclamation dated the 28th of October, addressed to the French
inhabitants of Canada, inviting them to resume allegiance to their
former sovereign. This was a measure in which he was not authorized by
instructions from his government, and which was calculated to awaken a
jealousy in the American mind as to the ultimate views of France in
taking a part in this contest. It added to the chagrin occasioned by the
failure of the expedition against Rhode Island, and the complete
abandonment by the French of the coasts of the United States.
The force at New York, which had been an object of watchful solicitude,
was gradually dispersed in different directions. Immediately after the
departure of Admiral Byron for Boston, another naval expedition had been
set on foot by Sir Henry Clinton. All being ready, a fleet of transports
with five thousand men, under General Grant, convoyed by Commodore
Hotham with a squadron of six ships of war, set sail on the third of
November, with the secret design of an attack on St. Lucia.
Towards the end of the same month, another body of troops, under
Lieutenant-colonel Campbell, sailed for Georgia in the squadron of
Commodore Hyde Parker; the British cabinet having determined to carry
the war into the Southern States. At the same time General Prevost, who
commanded in Florida, was ordered by Sir Henry Clinton to march to the
banks of the Savannah River, and attack Georgia in flank, while the
expedition under Campbell should attack it in front on the seaboard. We
will briefly note the issue of these enterprises, so far beyond
Washington’s control.
The squadron of Commodore Hyde Parker anchored in the Savannah River
towards the end of December. An American force of about six hundred
regulars, and a few militia under General Robert Howe, were encamped
near the town, being the remnant of an army with which that officer had
invaded Florida in the preceding summer, but had been obliged to
evacuate it by a mortal malady which desolated his camp.
Lieutenant-colonel Campbell landed his troops on the 29th of December,
about three miles below the town. The whole country bordering the river
is a deep morass, cut up by creeks, and only to be traversed by
causeways. Over one of these, six hundred yards in length, with a ditch
on each side, Colonel Campbell advanced, putting to flight a small party
stationed to guard it. General Howe had posted his little army on the
main road with the river on his left and a morass in front. A negro gave
Campbell information of a path leading through the morass, by which
troops might get unobserved to the rear of the Americans. Sir James
Baird was detached with the light-infantry by this path, while Colonel
Campbell advanced in front. The Americans, thus suddenly attacked in
front and rear, were completely routed; upwards of one hundred were
either killed on the spot, or perished in the morass; thirty-eight
officers and four hundred and fifteen privates were taken prisoners, the
rest retreated up the Savannah River and crossed into South Carolina.
Savannah, the capital of Georgia, was taken possession of by the
victors, with cannon, military stores and provisions; their loss was
only seven killed and nineteen wounded.
Colonel Campbell conducted himself with great moderation; protecting the
persons and property of the inhabitants, and proclaiming security and
favor to all that should return to their allegiance. Numbers in
consequence flocked to the British standard: the lower part of Georgia
was considered as subdued, and posts were established by the British to
maintain possession.
While Colonel Campbell had thus invaded Georgia in front, General
Prevost, who commanded the British forces in Florida, had received
orders from Sir Henry Clinton to take it in flank. He accordingly
traversed deserts to its southern frontier, took Sunbury, the only
remaining fort of importance, and marched to Savannah, where he assumed
the general command, detaching Colonel Campbell against Augusta. By the
middle of January (1779) all Georgia was reduced to submission.
A more experienced American general than Howe had by this time arrived
to take command of the Southern Department, Major-general Lincoln, who
had gained such reputation in the campaign against Burgoyne, and whose
appointment to this station had been solicited by the delegates from
South Carolina and Georgia. He had received his orders from Washington
in the beginning of October. Of his operations at the South we shall
have occasion to speak hereafter.