AFFAIRS IN CANADA—DISASTER AT THE CEDARS—HOSTILE DESIGNS OF THE
JOHNSONS—A BLOODY SUMMER EXPECTED—FORTS IN THE HIGHLANDS—COLONEL JAMES
CLINTON IN COMMAND—FORTIFICATIONS AT KING’S BRIDGE AND ON LONG ISLAND.
Despatches from Canada continued to be disastrous. General Arnold, who
was in command at Montreal, had established a post on the St. Lawrence,
about forty miles above that place, on a point of land called the
Cedars; where he had stationed Colonel Bedel, with about four hundred
men, to prevent goods being sent to the enemy, in the upper country, and
to guard against surprise from them, or their Indians.
In the latter part of May, Colonel Bedel received intelligence that a
large body of British, Canadians, and Indians, under the command of
Captain Forster, were coming down from Oswegatchie, to attack him.
Leaving Major Butterfield in command of the post, he hastened down to
Montreal to obtain reinforcements. Arnold immediately detached one
hundred men, under Major Shelburne, and prepared to follow in person,
with a much greater force. In the mean time, the post at the Cedars had
been besieged, and Major Butterfield intimidated into a surrender, by a
threat from Captain Forster, that resistance would provoke a massacre of
his whole garrison by the Indians. The reinforcements under Major
Shelburne were assailed within four miles of the Cedars, by a large
party of savages, and captured after a sharp skirmish, in which several
were killed on both sides.
Arnold received word of these disasters while on the march. He instantly
sent forward some Caughnawaga Indians, to overtake the savages, and
demand a surrender of the prisoners; with a threat that, in case of a
refusal, and that any of them were murdered, he would sacrifice every
Indian who fell into his hands, and would follow the offenders to their
towns, and destroy them by fire and sword. He now embarked four hundred
of his men in bateaux, and pushed on with the remainder by land.
Arriving at St. Ann’s, above the rapids of the St. Lawrence, he
discovered several of the enemy’s bateaux, taking the prisoners off from
an island, a league distant. It was a tormenting sight, as it was not in
his power to relieve them. His bateaux were a league behind, coming up
the rapids very slowly. He sent several expresses to hurry them. It was
sunset before they arrived and he could embark all his people; in the
mean time, his Caughnawaga messengers returned with an answer from the
savages. They had five hundred prisoners collected together, they said,
at Quinze Chiens, where they were posted; should he offer to land and
attack them, they would kill every prisoner, and give no quarter to any
who should fall into their hands thereafter.
“Words cannot express my feelings,” writes Arnold, “at the delivery of
this message. Torn by the conflicting passions of revenge and humanity;
a sufficient force to take ample revenge, raging for action, urged me on
one hand; and humanity for five hundred unhappy wretches, who were on
the point of being sacrificed, if our vengeance was not delayed, pleaded
equally strong on the other.” In this situation, he ordered the boats to
row immediately for the island, whither he had seen the enemy taking
their prisoners. Before he reached it, the savages had conveyed them all
away, excepting five, whom he found naked, and almost starved, and one
or two, whom, being unwell, they had butchered. Arnold now pushed for
Quinze Chiens, about four miles distant, on the mainland. Here was the
whole force of the enemy, civilized and savage, intrenched and
fortified. As Arnold approached, they opened a fire upon his boats, with
small arms, and two brass six-pounders. He rowed near the land, without
returning a shot. By this time it was too dark to distinguish any thing
on shore, and being unacquainted with the ground, he judged it prudent
to return to St. Johns.
Here he called a council of war, and it was determined to attack the
enemy early in the morning. In the course of the night, a flag was sent
by Captain Forster, with articles for an exchange of prisoners, which
had been entered into by him and Major Sherburne. As the terms were not
equal, they were objected to by Arnold, and a day passed before they
were adjusted. A cartel was then signed, by which the prisoners,
consisting of two majors, nine captains, twenty subalterns, and four
hundred and forty-three privates, were to be exchanged for an equal
number of British prisoners of the same rank, and were to be sent to the
south shore of the St. Lawrence, near Caughnawaga, whence to return to
their homes. Nine days were allowed for the delivery of the prisoners,
during which time hostilities should be suspended.
Arnold, in a letter to the commissioners of Congress then at Montreal,
giving an account of this arrangement, expressed his indignation at the
conduct of the king’s officers, in employing savages to screen their
butcheries, and suffering their prisoners to be killed in cold blood. “I
intend being with you this evening,” added he, “to consult on some
effectual measures to take with these savages, and still more savage
British troops, who are still at Quinze Chiens. As soon as our prisoners
are released, I hope it will be in our power to take ample vengeance, or
nobly fall in the attempt.”[70]
The accounts which reached Washington of these affairs were vague and
imperfect, and kept him for some days in painful suspense. The disasters
at the Cedars were attributed entirely to the base and cowardly conduct
of Bedel and Butterworth, and he wrote to Schuyler to have good courts
appointed, and bring them, and every other officer guilty of misconduct,
to trial.
“The situation of our affairs in Canada,” observes he, “is truly
alarming. I sincerely wish the next letters from the northward may not
contain the melancholy advices of General Arnold’s defeat, and the loss
of Montreal. The most vigorous exertions will be necessary to retrieve
our circumstances there, and I hope you will strain every nerve for that
purpose. Unless it can be done now, Canada will be lost to us for ever.”
While his mind was agitated by these concerns, letters from Schuyler
showed that mischief was brewing in another quarter.
Colonel Guy Johnson, accompanied by the Sachem Brant and the Butlers,
had been holding councils with the Indians, and designed, it was said,
to come back to the Mohawk country, at the head of a British and savage
force. A correspondence was carried on between him and his cousin, Sir
John Johnson, who was said to be preparing to co-operate with his Scotch
dependants and Indian allies.
Considering this a breach of Sir John’s parole, Schuyler had sent
Colonel Elias Dayton with a force to apprehend him. Sir John, with a
number of his armed tenants, retreated for refuge among the Indians, on
the borders of the lakes. Dayton took temporary possession of Johnson
Hall, placed guards about it, seized upon Sir John’s papers, and read
them in presence of Lady Johnson, and subsequently conveyed her ladyship
as a kind of hostage to Albany.
Shortly afterwards came further intelligence of the designs of the
Johnsons. Sir John, with his Scotch warriors and Indian allies, was said
to be actually coming down the valley of the Mohawk, bent on revenge,
and prepared to lay every thing waste; and Schuyler collecting a force
at Albany to oppose him. Washington instantly wrote to Schuyler, to
detach Colonel Dayton with his regiment on that service, with
instructions to secure a post where Fort Stanwix formerly stood, in the
time of the French war. As to Schuyler himself, Washington, on his own
responsibility, directed him to hold a conference with the Six Nations,
and with any others whom he and his brother commissioners on Indian
affairs might think necessary, and secure their active services, without
waiting further directions from Congress; that body having recently
resolved to employ Indian allies in the war, the enemy having set the
example.
“We expect a bloody summer in New York and Canada,” writes Washington to
his brother Augustine, “and I am sorry to say that we are not, either in
men or arms, prepared for it. However, it is to be hoped, that, if our
cause is just, as I most religiously believe it, the same Providence
which has in many instances appeared for us, will still go on to afford
its aid.”
Lord Stirling, who, by Washington’s orders, had visited and inspected
the defences in the Highlands, rendered a report of their condition, of
which we give the purport. Fort Montgomery, at the lower part of the
Highlands, was on the west bank of the river, north of Dunderberg (or
Thunder Hill). It was situated on a bank one hundred feet high. The
river at that place was about half a mile wide. Opposite the fort was
the promontory of Anthony’s Nose, many hundred feet high, accessible
only to goats, or men expert in climbing. A body of riflemen stationed
here, might command the decks of vessels. Fort Montgomery appeared to
Lord Stirling the proper place for a guard post.
Fort Constitution was about six miles higher up the river, on a rocky
island of the same name, at a narrow strait where the Hudson, shouldered
by precipices, makes a sudden bend round West Point. A redoubt, in the
opinion of Lord Stirling, would be needed on the point, not only for the
preservation of Fort Constitution, but for its own importance.
The garrison of that fort consisted of two companies of Colonel James
Clinton’s regiment, and Captain Wisner’s company of minute men, in all
one hundred and sixty rank and file. Fort Montgomery was garrisoned by
three companies of the same regiment, about two hundred rank and file.
Both garrisons were miserably armed. The direction of the works of both
forts was in the hands of commissioners appointed by the Provincial
Congress of New York. The general command of the posts required to be
adjusted. Several persons accused of being “notorious tories,” had
recently been sent into Fort Montgomery by the district committees of
the counties of Albany, Dutchess and Westchester, with directions to the
commanding officers, to keep them at hard labor until their further
order. They were employed upon the fortifications.
In view of all these circumstances, Washington, on the 14th of June,
ordered Colonel James Clinton to take command of both posts, and of all
the troops stationed at them. He seemed a fit custodian for them, having
been a soldier from his youth; brought up on a frontier subject to
Indian alarms and incursions, and acquainted with the strong points and
fastnesses of the Highlands.
King’s Bridge, and the heights adjacent, considered by General Lee of
the utmost importance to the communication between New York and the
mainland, and to the security of the Hudson, were reconnoitred by
Washington on horseback, about the middle of the month; ordering where
works should be laid out. Breastworks were to be thrown up for the
defence of the bridge, and an advanced work (subsequently called Fort
Independence) was to be built beyond it, on a hill commanding Spyt den
Duivel Creek, as that inlet of the Hudson is called, which links it with
the Harlaem River.
A strong work, intended as a kind of citadel, was to crown a rocky
height between two and three miles south of the bridge, commanding the
channel of the Hudson; and below it were to be redoubts on the banks of
the river at Jeffrey’s Point. In honor of the general, the citadel
received the name of Fort Washington.
Colonel Rufus Putnam was the principal engineer, who had the direction
of the works. General Mifflin encamped in their vicinity, with part of
the two battalions from Pennsylvania, to be employed in their
construction, aided by the militia.
While these preparations were made for the protection of the Hudson, the
works about Brooklyn on Long Island were carried on with great activity,
under the superintendence of General Greene. In a word, the utmost
exertions were made at every point, to put the city, its environs, and
the Hudson River, in a state of defence, before the arrival of another
hostile armament.