GATES SENT TO PHILADELPHIA WITH THE CANADA DESPATCHES—PROMOTED TO THE
RANK OF MAJOR-GENERAL—WASHINGTON SUMMONED TO PHILADELPHIA—PUTNAM LEFT IN
COMMAND—CONFERENCE WITH CONGRESS—ARMY ARRANGEMENTS—A BOARD OF WAR
INSTITUTED—THE CLINTONS OF NEW YORK—MRS. WASHINGTON INOCULATED—REED MADE
ADJUTANT-GENERAL.
As the reverses in Canada would affect the fortunes of the Revolution
elsewhere, Washington sent General Gates to lay the despatches
concerning them, before Congress. “His military experience,” said he,
“and intimate acquaintance with the situation of our affairs, will
enable him to give Congress the fullest satisfaction about the measures
necessary to be adopted at this alarming crisis; and, with his zeal and
attachment to the cause of America, he will have a claim to their notice
and favors.”
Scarce had Gates departed on his mission (May 19th), when Washington
himself received a summons to Philadelphia, to advise with Congress
concerning the opening campaign. He was informed also that Gates, on the
16th of May, had been promoted to the rank of major-general, and Mifflin
to that of brigadier-general, and a wish was intimated that they might
take the command of Boston.
Washington prepared to proceed to Philadelphia. His general orders
issued on the 19th of May, show the anxious situation of affairs at New
York. In case of an alarm the respective regiments were to draw up
opposite to their encampments or quarters, until ordered to repair to
the alarm posts. The alarm signals for regulars, militia, and the
inhabitants of the city, were, in the daytime—two cannon fired from the
rampart at Fort George, and a flag hoisted on the top of Washington’s
head-quarters. In the night—two cannon fired as above, and two lighted
lanterns hoisted on the top of head-quarters.[69]
In his parting instructions to Putnam, who, as the oldest major-general
in the city, would have the command during his absence, Washington
informed him of the intention of the Provincial Congress of New York to
seize the principal tories, and disaffected persons in the city, and the
surrounding country, especially on Long Island, and authorized him to
afford military aid, if required, to carry the same into execution. He
was also to send Lord Stirling, Colonel Putnam the engineer, and Colonel
Knox, if he could be spared, up to the Highlands, to examine the state
of the forts and garrisons, and report what was necessary to put them in
a posture of defence. Their garrisons were chiefly composed of parts of
a regiment of New York troops, commanded by Colonel James Clinton, of
Ulster County, and were said to be sufficient.
The general, accompanied by Mrs. Washington, departed from New York on
the 21st of May, and they were invited by Mr. Hancock, the President of
Congress, to be his guests during their sojourn at Philadelphia.
Lee, when he heard of Washington’s visit there, augured good effects
from it. “I am extremely glad, dear general,” writes he, “that you are
in Philadelphia, for their councils sometimes lack a little of military
electricity.”
Washington, in his conferences with Congress, appears to have furnished
this electricity. He roundly expressed his conviction, that no
accommodation could be effected with Great Britain, on acceptable terms.
Ministerialists had declared in Parliament, that, the sword being drawn,
the most coercive measures would be persevered in, until there was
complete submission. The recent subsidizing of foreign troops was a part
of this policy, and indicated unsparing hostility. A protracted war,
therefore, was inevitable; but it would be impossible to carry it on
successfully, with the scanty force actually embodied, and with
transient enlistments of militia.
In consequence of his representations, resolutions were passed in
Congress that soldiers should be enlisted for three years, with a bounty
of ten dollars for each recruit; that the army at New York should be
reinforced until the 1st of December, with thirteen thousand eight
hundred militia; that gondolas and fire rafts should be built, to
prevent the men-of-war and enemy’s ships from coming into New York Bay,
or the Narrows; and that a flying camp of ten thousand militia,
furnished by Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and likewise engaged
until the 1st December, should be stationed in the Jerseys for the
defence of the Middle colonies. Washington was, moreover, empowered, in
case of emergency, to call on the neighboring colonies for temporary aid
with their militia.
Another important result of his conferences with Congress was the
establishment of a war office. Military affairs had hitherto been
referred in Congress to committees casually appointed, and had
consequently been subject to great irregularity and neglect. Henceforth
a permanent committee, entitled the Board of War and Ordnance, was to
take cognizance of them. The first board was composed of five members;
John Adams, Colonel Benjamin Harrison, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, and
Edward Rutledge; with Richard Peters as secretary. It went into
operation on the 12th of June.
While at Philadelphia, Washington had frequent consultations with George
Clinton, one of the delegates from New York, concerning the interior
defences of that province, especially those connected with the security
of the Highlands of the Hudson, where part of the regiment of Colonel
James Clinton, the brother of the delegate, was stationed. The important
part which these brothers were soon to act in the military affairs of
that province, and ultimately in its political history, entitles them to
a special notice.
They were of the old Clinton stock of England; being descended from
General James Clinton, an adherent of royalty in the time of the civil
wars, but who passed over to Ireland, after the death of Charles I.
Their father, Charles Clinton, grandson of the general, emigrated to
America in 1729, and settled in Ulster, now Orange County, just above
the Highlands of the Hudson. Though not more than fifty miles from the
city of New York, it was at that time on the borders of a wilderness,
where every house had at times to be a fortress. Charles Clinton, like
most men on our savage frontier in those days, was a warrior by
necessity, if not by choice. He took an active part in Indian and French
wars, commanded a provincial regiment stationed at Fort Herkimer, joined
in the expedition under General Bradstreet, when it passed up the valley
of the Mohawk, and was present at the capture of Fort Frontenac. His
sons, James and George, one twenty, the other seventeen years of age,
served in the same campaign, the one as captain, the other as
lieutenant; thus taking an early lesson in that school of American
soldiers, the French war.
James, whose propensities were always military, continued in the
provincial army until the close of that war; and afterwards, when
settled on an estate in Ulster County, was able and active in organizing
its militia. George applied himself to the law, and became successful at
the bar, in the same county. Their father, having laid aside the sword,
occupied for many years, with discernment and integrity, the honorable
station of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died in Ulster County,
in 1773, in the eighty-third year of his age, “in full view of that
revolution in which his sons were to act distinguished parts.” With his
latest breath he charged them “to stand by the liberties of their
country.”
They needed no such admonition. From the very first, they had been heart
and hand in the cause. George had championed it for years in the New
York legislature, signalizing himself by his zeal as one of an intrepid
minority in opposing ministerial oppression. He had but recently taken
his seat as delegate to the Continental Congress.
James Clinton, appointed colonel on the 30th of June, 1775, had served
with his regiment of New York troops under Montgomery at the siege of
St. Johns, and the capture of Montreal, after which he had returned
home. He had subsequently been appointed to the command of a regiment in
one of the four battalions raised for the defence of New York. We shall
soon have occasion to speak further of these patriot brothers.
The prevalence of the smallpox had frequently rendered Washington uneasy
on Mrs. Washington’s account during her visits to the army; he was
relieved, therefore, by her submitting to inoculation during their
sojourn in Philadelphia, and having a very favorable time.
He was gratified, also, by procuring the appointment of his late
secretary, Joseph Reed, to the post of adjutant-general, vacated by the
promotion of General Gates, thus placing him once more by his side.