THE EVENTFUL YEAR 1780.—NEW JERSEY ONCE MORE INVADED.
The first act of General Washington upon reaching Morristown was to
invoice his resources and balance his accounts. He “called the roll” of
his army, made record of all supplies, and framed estimates for
forthcoming necessities. It was a depressing exhibit. Excluding South
Carolina and Georgia troops, which were assigned to their own home
department, the entire Muster, including all independent organizations
as well as drummers, fifers, teamsters, and all _attachés_ of every
kind, and upon the impossible assumption that every man on the original
Roll was still living, and in the service, footed up only twenty-seven
thousand and ninety-nine men.
The army was in huts. The snow was an even two feet in depth. All
defiles were drifted full, and hard-packed, well-nigh impassable. But a
few days more of the year remained. On the thirty-first, within a few
days, two thousand and fifty enlistments would expire. In ninety days
more, March the thirty-first, six thousand four hundred and ninety-six
more would expire. By the last of April, when active operations might be
anticipated, the total reduction by expiration of term of service would
reach eight thousand one hundred and fifty; by the last of September,
ten thousand seven hundred and nine; and, during the year, twelve
thousand one hundred and fifty.
The total force enlisted “for the war” was but fourteen thousand nine
hundred and ninety-eight men; and from the numbers already given, were
to be detailed the necessary number of artificers, armorers, wagoners,
quartermasters’ employees, and all those subordinate detachments which
reduce the fighting force of an army, as well as all casualties since
their first muster. To this is to be added the fact, that the several
States furnished their respective quotas at different times, and for
different periods, so that there was a constant addition of raw levies.
The army, in fact, had no opportunity to be thoroughly drilled and
disciplined, in all its parts. Such was the condition of the Army of the
United States, when the second campaign in the Southern States began.
Some reader may very naturally inquire why Washington did not attack the
British garrison of New York, after Clinton’s departure for Charleston
with so many troops. Critics at the time made complaint, and some
writers have indorsed their criticisms through ignorance of the facts.
An examination of the original Returns of Clinton, still found in the
British archives, gives the following result. This estimate was taken at
the time when Washington was preparing to make an attempt on New York.
The British force of that post and its dependencies was twenty-six
thousand seven hundred and fifty-six effectives. There were in Georgia
three thousand nine hundred and thirty men; and in Florida, one thousand
seven hundred and eighty-seven effectives. At Penobscot, Me., and at
Halifax, subject to call, there was an additional force of three
thousand four hundred and sixty, making an aggregated force of nearly
thirty-eight thousand men.
When General Clinton sailed with his seven thousand five hundred men,
the British force in the Southern Department became thirteen thousand
two hundred and sixty-seven; but it left in New York an effective
strength of twenty-one thousand and six men. And yet this garrison was
not without apprehension of attack. The winter was one of unexampled
severity. New York harbor froze until teams could cross upon the ice.
The British army was almost in a starving condition. Country supplies of
wood were cut off, until vessels at the wharves were chopped up for
fuel. The American army was not wholly idle. Lord Stirling, with
twenty-five hundred men, crossed to Staten Island on the ice, in spite
of the extreme cold, to attack that British supply-post; but a sudden
opening in the ice restored British communication with the city, and his
expedition failed of valuable results. On the twenty-fifth of January,
General Knyphausen sent a small detachment across the ice at Paulus Hook
and captured a company at Newark; while Lieutenant-Colonel Buskirk
crossed from Staten Island, and at Elizabethtown captured the picket and
burned the Town House, as well as the church of the Rev. James Caldwell,
Chaplain of Colonel Elias Dayton’s Regiment. On the second of February,
Lieutenant-Colonel Norton rode in sleighs, to attack a small American
post near White Plains; but, otherwise, the British as well as the
American army had enough to do to prevent freezing to death.
During the extreme freeze of January, 1780, the suffering in the
American camp is reported as “baffling description. The paths were
marked by blood from the feet of barefooted soldiers.” Bancroft
and Irving have left nothing to add here. General Greene,
Quartermaster-General, reported on the eleventh of January: “Such
weather I never did feel. For six or eight days there has been no
living abroad. We drive over the tops of fences. We have been
alternately out of meat and bread for eight or nine days past, and
without either for three or four.” It was a time, also, when the
royalist element gained some hope; and Clinton’s Official Return
for December reports a force of four thousand and sixty-four
Provincials then in British pay. The women of New Jersey came to
the rescue of the suffering soldiers of Washington in a manner
that exhausts all possible forms of recognition. Clothing and
feeding the naked and hungry was their constant employment.
Washington says of New Jersey, that “his requisitions were
punctually complied with, and in many counties exceeded.”
During this entire period there was one supervision exercised by the
American Commander-in-Chief which knew no interruption, whatever the
inclemency of the weather. Every pass to his strongly intrenched camp,
and every bold promontory, or distinct summit, that observed or
commanded approach, was guarded, and watch-fires were instituted for
signals of danger, or warning to the militia. The perpetuation of his
strongholds in New Jersey saved the Republic.
During this well-nigh desperate condition of his army, and the
increasing peril to the Southern Department, he made one more Report of
his condition to Congress, and it belongs to this narrative as a signal
exhibit of his wisdom and courage, as well as his discernment of the
increasing lethargy of sections not in immediate danger from British
aggression. It reads as follows: “Certain I am, unless Congress are
vested with powers by the separate States competent to the great
purposes of the war, or assume them as a matter of right, and they and
the States act with more energy than they have done, our cause is lost.
We can no longer drudge along in the old way. By ill-timing in the
adoption of measures, by delays in the execution of them, or by
unwarranted jealousies, we incur enormous expenses and derive no benefit
from them. One State will comply with a requisition of Congress; another
neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and they differ in the
manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always
working up hill. While such a system as the present one, or rather, the
want of one, prevails, we shall be ever unable to apply our strongest
resources to any advantage.... I see one head gradually organizing into
thirteen. I see one army branching into thirteen, which instead of
looking up to Congress as the supreme controlling power of the United
States, are considering themselves dependent upon their respective
States.”
On the third of April, Washington again wrote in such plain terms of
“the mutinous spirit, intense disgust, and absolute desperation of his
small, famished, ragged, and depleted command,” that after hot debate, a
committee of three was reluctantly sent to advise with him as to
measures of relief.
That the reader may more fully appreciate the temper of some
narrow-minded men of that period, and at so fearful a crisis, the
following extract from a letter to the Count de Vergennes is cited. In
referring to the simple question of appointing a committee to visit
their Commander-in-Chief, this American writes: “It was said that the
appointment of a committee would be putting too much power in a few
hands, and especially in those of the Commander-in-Chief; that his
influence already was too great; that even his virtues afforded motives
for alarm; that the enthusiasm of his army, joined to the kind of
dictatorship already confided to him, put Congress and the United States
at his mercy; that it was not expedient to expose a man of the highest
virtues to such temptations.”
General Schuyler, then in Congress, John Matthews and Nathaniel Peabody
served on this committee, and as the result, Congress resolved to
equalize the pay of the army, and make more systematic efforts to
recruit and maintain it.
On the twelfth of February, Congress affirmed the sentence of a
court-martial which sentenced Arnold, then commanding at Philadelphia,
to a reprimand for giving passes to disaffected citizens and using
public transportation for private use. The reprimand was mildly
administered: but it made Arnold very angry. His life of ostentatious
display, his extravagant habits, and his loose views of moral
obligation, aroused public indignation; and the mere matter of the
charges upon which he was sentenced would not have appeared so grave,
except that he was universally suspected of using his official position
for private emolument.
During all these struggles to keep his army together and prevent British
operations out from New York, Washington was watchful of the operations
then in progress at the South. General Clinton cleared the ice without
difficulty, and left New York on the twenty-ninth of December, as
already stated, expecting to reach his destination within ten days; but
a storm dispersed his fleet, and one vessel foundered. Nearly all of his
cavalry, and all of his artillery horses, perished. Although they
reached Tybee Island, their first rendezvous, within the month, they did
not leave for St. John Island, thirty miles below Charleston, until the
tenth of February; and did not take up their position before Charleston,
between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, until the twelfth of March. It
appears from documentary data that the retention of Charleston,
garrisoned by only two thousand two hundred regulars and a thousand
militia, was largely induced by the inhabitants of the city. It is true
that Commodore Whipple of the American navy regarded it as defensible;
but Washington did not concur in that opinion. He held that the same
force which would be required to hold the city, could do far greater and
better service by remaining without the city, besides being more
independent in securing supplies and coöperating with militia and other
forces seeking their support. Besides this, the defences had been
prepared to resist approach by sea, and not by land. An extract from
Tarleton’s history of the campaigns of 1780–’81, is as follows,
indicating the purpose of the movement itself: “The richness of the
country, its vicinity to Georgia, and _its distance from Washington_,
pointed out the advantages and facility of its conquest.”
The British forces broke ground on the first of April; on the nineteenth
established their second, and on the sixth of May, their third,
parallel. On the twelfth, the British took possession of the city. The
schedule of prisoners prepared by Major André, of General Clinton’s
staff, included all citizens, as prisoners of war. The Continental
troops, including five hundred in hospital, did not exceed two thousand.
General Clinton followed up this success by an absurd proclamation to
the people, and wrote a more absurd letter to Lord Germaine, which is
valuable to the reader, for the interest which attaches to its terms in
connection with subsequent operations of Clinton, upon his return
northward. It is as follows: “The inhabitants from every quarter declare
their allegiance to the king, and offer their services in arms. There
are few men in South Carolina who are not either our prisoners, or in
arms with us.” On the fifth of June, General Clinton returned to New
York, leaving Lord Cornwallis in command.
During the absence of Clinton from New York, and with the opening of
spring, Washington’s position became more offensive to the garrison of
New York. Amid all his gloom on account of the condition of his army, a
bright episode gladdened his heart and nerved him for action. He had a
visitor. The Marquis de Lafayette, who reached Boston on the 28th of
April, by the frigate _Hermione_, entered Washington’s headquarters on
the morning of May 10th. He announced, that the Count de Rochambeau was
on the seas with the first division of an army, coming to support the
American Republic. This French army was not directed to report to the
American Congress, nor to take orders from that body. Washington opened
the communication which Lafayette was intrusted to deliver, in advance
of the arrival of Count de Rochambeau, and the following is a copy of
the instructions to that officer: “The French troops are to obey
Washington; to admit the precedence of American officers of equal rank;
on all formal occasions to yield the right to the American army; and
bear in mind that the whole purpose is, heartily and efficiently, to
execute the will of the American Commander-in-Chief.”
On the fourteenth, after four days of confidential conference,
Lafayette, bearing a letter from Washington, reported to the President
of Congress for duty, preserving, for the time, the secret that the
troops of France were already on their way to America.
But what a condition of affairs awaited the arrival of these gallant
allies! The American army had already lost more in numbers than was
anticipated by Washington in the official Report, already noticed. On
the second of April, his entire force on both sides of the Hudson River
consisted of only ten thousand four hundred, rank and file; and of these
two thousand eight hundred had only two weeks to serve. Lord Rawdon had,
indeed, taken from the New York garrison two thousand five hundred men
as a reënforcement to General Clinton; but nearly twelve thousand
remained behind. Although this increase of Clinton’s command afforded
Washington small ground for hope of success in the Southern Department,
he realized that it was impossible for him to abandon his present
position. But he immediately despatched southward the Maryland and
Delaware troops, which had fought in nearly every battle with the skill
of veterans, and the First Artillery, all under the command of the Baron
De Kalb.
While sparing these well disciplined troops, Washington’s position
involved vastly increased responsibility. On the twenty-fifth day of
May, two Connecticut regiments mutinied, declaring that they would
“march home,” or at least secure subsistence at the point of the
bayonet. Handbills were printed in New York and distributed, urging the
soldiers to desert. “This mutiny,” says Washington, most impressively,
“has given infinite concern.” There was no money except the Continental,
and of this he says: “It is evidently impracticable, from the immense
quantity it would require, to pay them as much as to make up the
depreciation.” He further adds: “This is a decisive moment, one of the
most. I will go further, and say, the _most_ important America has ever
seen. The Court of France has made a glorious effort for our
deliverance, and if we disappoint its intentions by our supineness, we
must become contemptible in the eyes of all mankind; nor can we, after,
venture to confide that our allies will persist in an attempt to
establish what we want ability, or inclination, to assist them in.”
General Greene thus addressed the Colonel of the Morristown militia:
“There are no more provisions than to serve one regiment, in the
magazine. The late terrible storm, the depth of the snow, and the drifts
in the roads, prevent the little stock from coming forward which is in
distant magazines. The roads must be kept open by the inhabitants, or
the army cannot be subsisted. Unless the good people lend their
assistance to forward supplies, the army must disband. The army is
stripped naked of teams, as possible, to lessen the consumption of
forage. Call to your aid the overseers of the highways, and every other
order of men who can give despatch to this business. P.S.—Give no copies
of this order, for fear it should get to the enemy.”
There was indeed reason for this considerate postscript. The mutinous
spirit which had been evoked by sheer starvation, had been
misinterpreted by the British officers in New York; and General
Knyphausen must have been very proud of an opportunity to distinguish
himself, in the absence of General Clinton, when he conceived of the
poor American soldier as an unfortunate hireling waiting for a
deliverer. He would become their Moses and conduct them back to the
royal father’s embrace. He organized his missionary venture carefully.
Accompanied by Generals Tryon, Matthews, and Sterling, he crossed from
Staten Island to Elizabethtown Point. (See map.) He had a twofold plan
in mind. He would demonstrate to the people of New Jersey that their
half-frozen, hungry, and ragged countrymen with Washington, could not
protect their homes from hostile incursions out from New York; and also
supposed, in case he were very prompt and expeditious, that he might
pounce, like a hawk, upon the coop of the arch-rebel himself. General
Sterling led the advance, starting before daybreak. The column was
hardly distinguishable, company from company, so heavy were the sea-mist
and darkness. Suddenly, one shot, and then another, came from an
invisible American outpost. General Sterling received the first, which
ultimately proved fatal, and was removed to the rear. Knyphausen took
his place at the front. The rising sun dispelled the fog, but disclosed
the assembling of Colonel Elias Dayton’s Regiment, from various
quarters. The anticipated surprise, and a corresponding welcome from the
American soldiers, did not occur. The militia retired after a few
scattering shots, and Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers dashed forward, followed
by the British and Hessian Infantry. As by magic, the militia
multiplied. Fences, thickets, orchards, and single trees were made
available for as many single riflemen; and at every step of advance, one
and then another of his majesty’s troops were picked off. During the
march to Connecticut Farms, a distance of only seven miles, no friendly
tokens of welcome appeared in sight. Puffs of smoke, and the rifle’s
sharp crack, could hardly be located before similar warnings succeeded,
and details to take care of the wounded soon began to thin out and sag
the beautiful lines of the British front. Still, the column advanced
toward Springfield, and directly on the line of travel which led
immediately to Washington’s encampment.
At this point, Dayton’s Regiment, which had been so troublesome as
skirmishers, hastened step, came into regimental order, and quickly
crossed the Rahway bridge. But, to the surprise of the advancing enemy,
the division of General Maxwell was in battle array, silently inviting
battle. General Knyphausen halted to bring up artillery and his full
force of five thousand men. He stopped also, to burn Connecticut Farms,
because, “shots from its windows picked off his officers and guides.”
Among the victims to his responsive fire, was the wife of Chaplain
Chapman of Dayton’s Regiment. The news of her death spread, as a spark
over pine or prairie regions. When within a half mile of Springfield,
the Hessian general again halted for consultation as to his next order.
Cannon sounds began to be heard from various directions, answering
signal for signal. The ascending smoke of beacon-fires crowned every
summit. The whole country seemed to have been upheaved as if by some
volcanic force. Maxwell’s Brigade was just across the Rahway, and less
than one-third the strength of the Hessian’s command. But General
Knyphausen was too good a soldier not to peer through Maxwell’s thin
line, and recognize, in solid formation, the entire army of Washington,
waiting in silence to give him a hearty soldier’s reception. The day
passed; and for once, both armies were at full halt. Knyphausen, for the
time, was Commander-in-Chief of both, for it devolved upon him alone to
order battle. He was filling the part of Pharaoh, and not that of Moses.
One monotonous sound echoed from a summit near Morristown. It was the
“minute-gun,” which had been designated by the American
Commander-in-Chief as a continuous signal whenever he wanted every man
within hearing, who had a gun, to come at once to his demand. Night came
on, and with it, rain; but still the minute-gun boomed on, with solemn
cadence, and instead of smoking hill-tops, the blaze of quickened
beacons illumined the dull sky as if New Jersey were all on fire. The
night covered the Hessians from view, and when morning came they
attempted to regain Staten Island; but the tide retired, leaving boats
stranded and the mud so deep that even cavalry could not cross in
safety. Having heard on the first of June that Clinton was _en route_
for New York, Knyphausen simply strengthened the New York defences and
awaited the arrival of his superior officer.
On the tenth, Washington wrote: “Their movements are mysterious, and the
design of this movement not easily penetrated.” As a matter of fact,
there were few operations of the war which bore so directly upon the
safety of the American army and the American cause, as the operations
before Springfield during June, 1779; and the conduct of both armies
indicated an appreciation of their importance.
On the thirteenth of June, Congress, without consulting Washington,
appointed General Gates to the command of the Southern Department. Gates
had spent the winter at his home in Virginia, but eagerly accepted this
command, although he had lacked the physical vigor to engage in the
Indian campaign in New York. His most intimate friend and companion,
both in arms and in antagonism to Washington, Charles Lee, sent him one
more letter. It was a wiser letter than earlier correspondence had been,
and decidedly prophetic. It closed with something like pathetic
interest: “Take care that you do not exchange your Northern laurels for
Southern willows.”
At this time, it did seem as if the bitter cup would never be withdrawn
from the lips of the American Commander-in-Chief; for he had neither
provisions for his army, nor the means of making welcome and comfortable
his expected allies and guests from over the sea.