Walking the Berkshires

In Memoriam: What Henry Knox has to do with 9/11

In January, 1776, Henry Knox and his civilian teamsters  passed through Egremont, Massachusetts on their way through the Berkshires with a train of cannon and other war supplies destined for Boston.  In September, 2001, hijacked passenger airliners were deliberately crashed into the heart of New York's financial district, the Pentagon, and (after passenger intervention) a field in Pennsylvania.  As is evident from the photograph at left, these two separate events are now commemorated together in North Egremont.

The vertical marker is one of the 30 granite and bronze monuments placed in 1927 to commemorate the Knox expedition by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts during the Sesquicentennial of the American Revolution.  The route taken by Knox is poorly documented by primary sources, and in 1975 this marker was moved from its original location along Rte 23 in South Egremont to its present site in North Egremont to reflect a different theory of where Knox crossed the Taconics into the Berkshires.  The monument itself remains the property of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the small patch of open space on which it is situated is owned by the municipality.

The nearly horizontal plaque and its stone and cement base were physically integrated with the Knox memorial in 2002.  The North Egremont 9/11 memorial reads as follows:

"This monument is dedicated to the thousands of men, women and children killed by terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001.  They died for our country and our freedom.  We shall not forget.  Dedicated on September 11, 2002 North Egremont, Massachusetts"

As a war memorial with the fresh association of 9/11, these conjoined monuments have attracted both a small American flag and someone's personal offering of a conch shell.  Visually, as a piece of public art, the Knox memorial is now the headstone, casting its shadow on the graves of 9/11.

In many ways, these memorials seem more dissimilar than alike, reflecting a great deal both about the events they commemorate and the values and attitudes of those who erected them and how we remember today.  There is something very intentional about the union of these two monuments, with one the visible extension and successor to the other.  There is a very clear message that those died in the terrorist attacks were as patriotic as those who dragged the cannons to Boston.   The North Egremont memorial was an expression of fresh grief and resolve to give meaning to terrible losses.  Whereas the Knox commemoration was an expression of state pride in the accomplishments of a favorite son and role that Boston, and the cannons brought from Ticonderoga, played in our Nation's founding. 

People in 1927 could look to recent victory in Europe - "Lafayette, we are here! -  as the coming of age of that nation which their Revolutionary ancestors helped to establish.  These monuments, which along with their counterparts in New York represent one of the earliest "heritage trails" established in America, gave a local connection to larger events.  That connection is precisely what this September 11th memorial is all about.  There is a strong cultural connection in this part of western New England to New York City which is home to many of our part-time residents. Many of us lost love ones there, or are close to others who did.

Local commemorations, however, often reflect individual sensibilities and the need to make the personal very public.  I do not know who was behind the North Egremont memorial, or the decision to physically integrate it with the Knox monument. I can contrast it with a private effort by her friends to plant a native American Elm cultivar with a stone plaque in the memory of a Salisbury, Connecticut resident who died that day.  I can also compare it to the current controversy in Kent, Connecticut over a grieving father's insistence that the wording of a public 9/11 public memorial to his son include the phrase "murdered by Moslem extremists."  The complete wording as proposed is as follows:

James Gadiel
February 3, 1978
A gentleman and a gentle man
Lifelong resident of Kent
Murdered by Moslem extremists
September 11, 2001

In recent days, what previously had divided a small town is now a conservative cause celeb thanks to national exposure.  I will note, as an aside, that "Muslim" and "Moslem" are not interchangeable, with the latter word an older transliteration that less accurately reflects the Arabic pronunciation /mʊslɪm/.  Some Muslims, I understand, find the older word offensive, analogous, perhaps, to calling Beijing "Peking". I rather doubt that changing from one self referential word to the other would address the controversy, but thought it worth considering that "Moslem" is the word proposed for the memorial.

What is written in stone is meant to be gospel.  What we cast in bronze we intend to endure beyond our span of years.  What we chose to record, and how we record it, is what we want others to remember.  Yet time and the distance from living memory can make some public monuments lose their meaning, especially when demographics change and the old surnames on the war memorials are no longer represented in the community.  Three of the Knox monuments in New York have simply vanished, and others have been moved about in response to development.  "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!".

Imbuing the Knox memorial in North Egremont (which was moved to its current site just a few decades ago)  with the meaning of 9/11 may have rescued it from obscurity, even if for the benefit of modern interpretation of the more recent event.  As an historian I find the pairing troubling, but I also know that the object is not the event, but rather an artifact of its own time.  It is therefore subject to reinterpretation by subsequent generations, revealing much about what we remember, and how we recast the past to give meaning to the present.

Who Had Greater Need of Knox's Cannons at Boston: Washington or Howe?

It must have been a relief to General Howe when Washington's army occupied the oddly undefended Dorchester Heights, threatening the city of Boston and the shipping in the harbor with the guns from Ticonderoga.  British records show that Howe and his superiors had been advocating for the evacuation of Boston for many months in favor of more significant campaign operations elsewhere:  well before Knox's  "noble train of artillery" showed up on his doorstep, in fact.  It was not their intent to remain in Boston for the next season, as his correspondence with policy makers in London the previous Autumn clearly demonstrates. In fact, had Lord Dartmouth's September 5th, 1775 orders to General Howe  not been delayed in crossing the Atlantic, the British might well have gone into winter quarters in Halifax and been long gone from Boston, obviating the need to send Knox to Ticonderoga to dislodge them.

Needless to say, this is not the version of events that Americans remember.  We can thank the likes of Sam Adams and a long line of patriotic propagandists and historians for that.  The significance of Knox's achievement in bringing the ordinance overland is unquestioningly credited both by his contemporaries and by subsequent writers as the determining factor in forcing the British to abandon Boston.  To the degree that negotiations for withdrawal followed swiftly on the heels of the fortification of Dorchester Heights, this conclusion is, at first blush, quite reasonable.  General Howe's own account of his decision, written to his superior Lord Dartmouth (who himself had been superseded by Lord Germain in the meantime), appears to lend support to the guns of Dorchester as a causal factor compelling him either to expose the army to the greatest distress or withdraw from Boston.  One wonders, however, whether the General did not find in the guns a convenient means for justifying a move he long had contemplated.

Aside from the nightmarish logistical challenges of evacuating the city and its loyal inhabitants, Howe was heavily constrained by the length of time it took to communicate with his superiors, and above all by personal and political considerations.  One could not abandoned the city with honor, no matter how prudent or compelling were other military concerns, without having endured (and preferably tried to counter) a proper siege. Until Knox arrived with the cannon, the British may have been on short rations in their winter quarters but they were hardly threatened with reduction, nor unable to leave the harbor so long as there were ships available. The occupation and fortification of Dorchester Heights was a bold stroke, but it also was the key to unlocking the British from a cage of their own making.

Howe did what was expected of him to counter this new threat.  He ordered his artillery to fire on the American position, but apparently the guns were unable to elevate sufficiently to hit the heights.  One does wonder whether there really were no mortars in the British arsenal capable of doing the job, or whether the attempt was just for form's sake. They evidently spiked and abandoned at least one 13" mortar that had been part of a bomb battery opposing Lechmere.  Maybe it was too much to ask to shift that gun to the other side of town, but the idea that the guns wouldn't elevate is clearly a poor excuse.

Michael Pearson's "Those Damned Rebels; The American Revolution as Seen Through British Eyes" describes a British council of war in the aftermath of the aborted night attack subsequently ordered by Howe against the heights:

"Lord Percy, according to engineer Archibald Robinson, advised strongly against persisting with an attack that was likely to be expensive in casualties  and could at best only result in controlling a position they were about to abandon.

'Those have been my own sentiments from the first,' said Howe with a sigh, 'but I thought the honour of the troops was concerned.'

It seemed a pretty poor reason for a possible replay of Bunker Hill, and so it evidently appeared to the men sitting at that conference table.  For the next morning the evacuation was ordered."

Pearson concludes that "Howe's heart was not in it."  This most enigmatic of British commanders during the American War of Independence has been the source of much speculation and second-guessing, and is greatly in need of a clear eyed biography.  I am not suggesting that Howe deliberately left the back door open to Boston, offering up his post to the rebels with the sort of perfidy that Arnold intended in betraying West Point.  But the honor of their commander was as much in play as the "honour of the troops."  Until the conditions for an honorable withdrawal were met, Howe tarried, filling his correspondence with complaints that the season was too advanced, or there were not enough ships to evacuate Boston as his superiors intended and he himself wished.

In this regard, Knox's accomplishment and the overnight fortification of Dorchester Heights are both worthy of American praise and of British relief, for without them, Howe would have waited until the massive reinforcements then being assembled across the Atlantic required his assistance in taking New York - as indeed they did during the coming campaign.  In saving face, General Howe gave a boost to patriot arms that they were not to enjoy again until he had swept them from New York and across the Delaware and the Hessians settled into their briefly occupied winter quarters at Trenton.

"Henry, Get Your Guns": Whose Idea Was it to Go to Ticonderoga?

Henry Knox is best remembered as the man who dragged a "noble train of artillery" through the frozen wilderness from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, compelling the British to evacuate the City.  It is one of the great epic stories of our nation's founding, ranking for sheer audacity alongside the capture of the Hessian garrison at Trenton (in which Knox and his cannons played a significant part) and Benedict Arnold's expedition through the wilds of Maine to assault Quebec. 

There is no question that coordinating the successful transport of all that heavy ordinance in the dead of winter was quite an accomplishment, and is testimony to Knox's considerable organizational skills and unflagging spirit.  Nevertheless, whatever evidence exists in the historic record does not always accord with the way the story has come down to us, and indeed I have come to question some of our long standing assumptions about Knox's expedition and its significance.

The idea to retrieve the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga is roundly regarded as a bold and brilliant stroke. Historians routinely credit Knox with making the suggestion to Washington, but there is contradictory evidence in Washington's own correspondence that shows he had previously dispatched an aide-de-camp with instructions to forward the much needed ordinance to Boston.  That gentleman was Col. Joseph Reed, later the Governor of Pennsylvania.  In a letter of November 16th, 1775, Washington writes to the New York Legislature:

Sir: It was determined at a Conference held here in the last Month, that such Military Stores as could be spared from New York, Crown Point, Ticonderoga &c., should be sent here for the use of the Continental Army. As it was not clear to me, whether I was to send for or that they were to be sent to me, I desired Mr. Reed on his way to Philadelphia, to enquire into this matter; as I have not heard from him on the subject, and the Season advancing fast, I have thought it necessary to send Hen: Knox Esqr who will deliver you this. After he forwards what he can get at your Place, he will proceed to Genl Schuyler, on this very important business.

    I request the favor of you Sir, and the Gentlemen of your Congress, to give Mr. Knox all the assistance in your power, by so doing you will render infinite service to your Country and vastly oblige Sir, etc.

From this it is clear that Washington had determined the need for supplies from both New York and the captured northern forts some time before he sent Knox to follow up.  What he meant by "military stores" is clear from a letter drafted the same day to Maj. General Philip Schuyler; stating: " I am in very great Want of Powder, Lead, Morters, Cannon, indeed of most Sorts of military Stores.  For Want of them we really cannot carry on any spirited Operation."  In fact, as yet another letter makes clear, Washington had been looking for supplies of this sort, particularly lead, from Albany as far back as that August.

The fact is, General Washington was leaving no stone unturned in his search for military supplies, and while no one in Cambridge knew precisely what ordinance and war material was to be had from Ticonderoga and Crown Point, they certainly had not been forgotten since their capture that Spring.

Joseph Reed left Cambridge October 29th, so Washington had not been waiting very long for word about the supplies he was so impatient to secure.  Nonetheless, it does not appear that Col. Reed had been able to give it much attention as he was passing through New York, nor that the New York authorities were overly motivated to make the effort to give up what they had on hand.  Sending Knox there for the express purpose of forwarding military stores was a sound decision and, as it turns out, an excellent choice by Washington. 

Knox was still a civilian volunteer at this time - "a Gentleman of Worcester" - although he had been recommended by Washington for a Colonelcy (and his commission was waiting for him when he returned to Boston).  He had impressed Washington with his well laid siege works at Roxbury, and the Boston bookseller's considerable knowledge of artillery and engineering which he had gained largely from reading books. 

But was the idea to gain the cannon from Ticonderoga his as well, or should he instead be remembered for his execution of the plan rather than its instigation?

The answer to that may lie in Washington's allusion in his letter to the New York Legislature to a "Conference held here last month".   Washington did indeed hold a conference with his general officers on October 8th, at which time he put a number of questions to them regarding the organization and supply of the Continental Army.   Henry Knox, as a civilian volunteer, would not have been obligated to attend, nor is it clear that he would have been at liberty to do so.  A subsequent commission which met in Cambridge from Oct 18th-22nd included members of Congress and notables from several states, but not Knox. A unanimous decision of the Generals at the October 8th conference, however, was to replace the current commander of the Artillery, and on November 8th Washington would "recommend Henry Knox, Esqr, to the consideration of Congress" for that position.  Whether or not Knox ventured the idea unofficially is interesting to speculate, but Washington's correspondence makes no mention of it and it may well be an assumption of his later biographers who took it on faith that the volunteer Mr. Henry Knox "volunteered".

Washington's orders to Knox on November 16th make it clear that his great contribution to this effort would be to do for the authorities in New York what they were unable to do for themselves in forwarding ordinance, and scarce war supplies such as gun flints, to Cambridge:

INSTRUCTIONS TO HENRY KNOX Head Quarters, Cambridge,

November 16, 1775.

    You are immediately to examine into the State of the Artillery of this Army, and take an account of the Cannon, Motors, Shells, Lead and Ammunition, that are wanting. When you have done that, you are to proceed in the most expeditious Manner to New York; there apply to the President of the provisional Congress, and learn of him whether Colonel Reed did any Thing, or left any Orders respecting these Articles, and get him to procure such of them as can possibly be had there. The President, if he can, will have them immediately sent hither: If he cannot you must put them in a proper Channel for being transported to this Camp with Dispatch, before you leave New York. After you have procured as many of these Necessaries as you can there, you must go to Major General Schuyler, and get the Remainder from Ticonderoga, Crown Point, or St John's. If it should be necessary, from Quebec; if in our Hands. The Want of them is so great, that no Trouble or Expence must be spared to obtain them. I have wrote to General Schuyler, he will give every necessary assistance that they may be had and forwarded to this Place, with the utmost Dispatch. I have given you a Warrant to the Pay-Master General of the Continental Army, for a Thousand Dollars to defray the Expence attending your Journey, and procuring these Articles; an Account of which you are to keep and render upon your Return. Endeavour to procure what Flints you can.

There can be no doubt that Henry Knox possessed "an enterprising and fertile mind", as one biographer puts it who had access to the vast bulk of Knox's surviving papers.  I have yet to find first hand evidence, however, that he deserves the credit for conceiving as well as successfully executing the task of retrieving the guns, and regrettably that same biographer offers no citation for the assertion that he did.

So, as is often the case with historical inquiry, I do not know for certain whether Henry Knox had this bold and brilliant idea, but I have reason to be skeptical.  Although I lack many of the resources of those professional historians and biographers whose work precedes my impertinent question, the ability to tap online databases such as Washington's papers and even Google Books opens new lines of inquiry.  And this is not the only question I have about the Knox Expedition and its place in history.  I'll lob another little mortar shell in a subsequent post.

Locally Grown History Weekend

Lightning struck twice for me in October, as Facebook's personal marketing profile proved to be well calibrated to my interests, at least where local events are concerned.  Facebook's sidebar suggestion that I experience the new Walkway Over the Hudson sent me and my children on a grand adventure a week ago.  Then last Friday it picked up on my Revolutionary War interest and clued me in to a pair of terrific events in Torrington, not to mention a whole local history initiative in Western CT about which I had previously been unaware.  Score one for social media: it is still a long way from a decent batting average, but a nice example of what is possible.

Locally Grown History is aspparently in its second year, and an effort to showcase the extraordinary opportunities in our region to experience its history and cultural heritage and integrate these resources with what our children learn in schools, as well as what the public in general knows about our past.  Sponsored by the University of Connecticut in collaboration numerous groups and agencies, including the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Corridor, it is a wonderful local resource.  It seems to be doing for our heritage of regional history the same sort of thing that the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative that I direct is striving to achieve for regional conservation by aggregating the resources and talents of local conservation groups in the service of important land protection efforts.  I would commend any effort out of hand that tackled this objective for our history, but in addition to that the organizers of last weeks events produced a high quality forum on the Revolutionary History of Connecticut that was most welcome and very well received.

It began on Friday evening at UNCONN's Torrington campus (immediately after a Civil War Sesquicentennial event at the site of John Brown's birthplace) with a screening of Mary Silliman's War.  The movie was presented by historian Richard Buel, who produced the film and was the co-author of the book The Way of Duty on which it is based.  The opportunity to see this film was very timely for me, as that very day I noted that J.L. Bell at Boston 1775 discussed the paucity of historically accurate, watchable films about the American Revolution.  I can now confidently add Mary Silliman's War to that impoverished list.

This movie was not a big budget Hollywood film - and regrettably it will set you back $75 to purchase a DVD from the distributor - but they did wonders with the resources they had.   The acting, particularly by Nancy Palk in the title role, is quite compelling.  From an historiographical perspective it belongs in the a progressive tradition, viewing the war as a socially disruptive civil conflict on a human scale, more in keeping with My Brother Sam is Dead than Johnny Tremain.  Professor Buel shared his thoughts on the compromises that are made translating a book to film and conveying complex events and ideas in visually compelling ways. In one interesting aside, he mentioned that the officer leading the reenactors who represented the royalist forces who burned Fairfield objected to one scene of sexual violence saying; "The British did not rape", demonstrating a blind spot that is not borne out by any serious study of the subject and the historic record.  I've been reading Sharon Block's Rape & Sexual Power in Early America, so I feel fairly current in this regard.

I found it particularly well done regarding the values, attitudes and expectations (changing and immutable) that the characters had of themselves and for each other.  The film displays the Silliman household, with its children, servants and slaves, in a way that does not trivialize or over exploit power relationship and the effects on the family of the loss of the patriarch.  As an aside, my ancestor Ebenezer Olmsted of Ridgefield, CT fought in Silliman's regiment From June-December, 1776, and both of them were present at the Battle of Ridgefield during Tryon's Danbury Raid the following year.

It was a terrific set up for Sunday afternoon's Revolutionary War forum.  The keynote address was by Professor Robert Gross, author of The Minutemen and their World.  He spoke of  his experience of the marvelous diorama at Minuteman National Park of the fight at Concord Bridge that prompted his book.  As he gazed at the little figures, frozen under glass, he was struck at how this depiction of a highly symbolic moment in time placed both the event itself and the people of Concord out of context.  His subsequent research revealed that militant patriotism only took hold in Concord in 1774 with the revocation of the colonial charter, and it was this event, rather than taxes and tea, that threatened the local institutions that were already fraying in Concord.

There were a number of workshops offered following this address.  I participated in two: 

• Revolutionary Archaeology in Connecticut:  Dr. Nicolas Bellantoni, Connecticut State Archaeologist

• Children and the Revolution through Literature: Prof. Christopher Collier, University of Connecticut, former Connecticut State Historian and co-author of the Newberry award-winning My Brother Sam is Dead and other historical novels for young adults.

Each presenter had a unique style - Bellantoni's clear enthusiasm for his subject and Collier's thoughtful pedagogical engagement with each of the participants - and I learned new things from each.  I will be sure to follow the Rochambeau Trail through Connecticut and revisit Collier's novels at my earliest opportunity.  As I myself am writing a novel based in the Revolutionary era - albeit a counterfactual one - I was keenly interested in Collier's thoughts on how to stay true to the values and attitudes of his characters and their time while making them empathetic and approachable to modern readers.  He very kindly provided us with a number of free copies of the teaching aid he wrote for his historical novels for young adults entitled My Brother Sam and All That and there is much there about writing historical fiction as well as using it in the classroom that I am enjoying thinking about.

The last session was a round table of the topic of Religion and the Republic: Approaching a Central Theme in Connecticut History.  In keeping with the spirit of Locally Grown History, this was a collaborative effort, expertly woven together by Professor Andrew Walsh of Trinity College.  I have come to believe that the first Great Awakening, as much as any other causal factor of the Revolution, played a pervasive and dominant role in determining loyalties within communities and the direction of social, and therefore political life.  In an increasingly secular society, where we are either too partisan, polite, or politically constrained to thoughtfully discuss the history of religion in America and its influence on the growth and development of our Republic.  This is an area of study to which I need to give more thought.

I felt the afternoon, despite the dreary wintry mix outside, was a grand success, and look forward to becoming moire involved in future  Locally Grown History events.  This collaboration is a true regional asset.

Civil War Memorial in Stanford, NY

If you have occasion to travel through the Town of Stanford, NY on County Route 82, as I did yesterday, you might notice that in company with many northern towns and villages, it has its own Civil War memorial.  The monument does not dominate the Town square, nor preside over the community from atop a noble granite column. In fact, is is unique for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that despite the verdigris of its oxidized bronze, the memorial is not of great antiquity but a far more recent creation.  It certainly was not there when I grew up within the township.

In 1996, in fact, the Stanford Historical Society erected a statue commissioned from local artist Peter Wing to commemorate all of the Town's Civil War soldiers. The sculpture is quite unusual in that it depicts an actual person rather than a homogeneous representative soldier as was the practice with such monuments erected in the decades after the war.  The bronze statue depicts one native son in particular: Maj. Cornelius Nase Campell, one-time Town Moderator of Stanford and then 1st Surgeon in the 150th N.Y.S. Volunteer Infantry ("The Dutchess County Regiment").

This three year's regiment saw service in both theaters of the war, fighting with the 12th Corps at Gettysburg and then with the Army of the Cumberland in the redesignated 20th corps.  The sculpture of Maj. Campell wears the distinctive 5 pointed star of the 20th corps as a cap badge.  The 150th fought in the Atlanta campaign and marched as part of Sherman's Army through Georgia and the Carolina's, participating in the Grand Review in Washington before heading home in June of 1865, having lost 132 to deaths during its three years in service.

Peter Wing - himself a Viet Nam veteran - was able to consult this wartime image of Maj. Campell from the collection of the U.S. Army Military History Institute when sculpting his likeness.  His name is often recorded as "Campbell", with the notable exception of the dedication plaque on the Standford monument.

Maj. Campell is an intriguing choice for the subject of a late 20th century Civil War Memorial.  I would be very curious to know what was the impetus for the modern day residents of the Town of Stanford, only a small proportion of whom are likely to be descended from those veterans they chose to commemorate, to commission and erect this monument generally to those who served and specifically to Maj. Campell.  It may have been a happy chance that there was local talent available to create the bronze statue, for most 20th century memorials tend to emphasize names on plaques rather than images of soldiers.  In that sense, this memorial is a deliberate look back at an earlier aesthetic, yet it reflects the sensibilities of our era by depicting an actual person to stand for the whole.

In fact, most modern Civil War memorials are commissioned not for hometowns but for battlefields - those that will still accept them.  The motivations for erecting them may be genealogical, as with two monuments I observed at Perryville Kentucky paid for by the descendant of a particular confederate NCO who died on the field, or cultural, such as the relatively recent monument to the Irish Brigade at the Bloody Lane in Antietam.  When such monuments appear in our time, when no one's living memory encompasses the individuals and events they commemorate, it is worth considering what motivated these remembrances even as we acknowledge those they seek to honor.  

The Stanford memorial was dedicated even before the sculpture was created.  Freedom Square Park lies below the public school on the other side of a rail fence near Rte 82, and this memorial is its principal monument.  The quotation on the plaque at the base of the pedestal is from another native son of Stanford - Talmadge Wood, who died of wounds received at Gettysburg.  Clearly the Historical Society had access to material like this that enabled the Town to personalize its memorial and make direct links between our time and second hand memory of the past.

I grew up in an isolated corner of the Town of Stanford, although I was in both a different school district and a different postal district than the rest of the Township.  I remember celebrating the Bicentennial in Stanford, though, right where the monument now stands and still have the souvenir wooden nickel from the festivities.  I wish I had still been around in the mid 1990s when this statue was commissioned and the memorial was dedicated.  Now that my curiosity has been peaked, I will have to pay a visit to the Historical Society and see what else i can learn about this role of Civil War Memory in my old hometown.

"The Exersize of our Whole Stock of Philosophy and Religion": The Knox's and the Deaths of their Children

Henry Knox wrote a letter in 1797 to President Washington, in which he makes reference to the kind of personal tragedy which was then part of 18th century life - even for those of his wealth and potion - but which seems almost inconceivable today.

"The loss of two lovely children, on which you condoled in that letter [of last summer], has been recently revived and increased by the death of our son, of seven years of age, bearing your name. His health has always been delicate, having been born prematurely. We flattered ourselves that his constitution would mend with his years, but we have been disappointed. Unfortunate, indeed, have we been in the death of eight of our children, requiring the exercise of our whole stock of philosophy and religion. We find ourselves afflicted by an irresistible, but invisible power, to whom we must submit. But the conflict is almost too great for the inconsolable mother, who will go mourning to her grave".

Henry and Lucy (Flucker) Knox were married in 1774 against the wishes of her loyalist father, at that time the Royal Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.   Lucy Knox was traveling with Knox toward New York in 1776 when she had to be left behind in Fairfield, Connecticut to deliver their first born. She was with him at Valley Forge and for most of the remainder of the war, and her pregnancies came in quick succession, eventually giving birth thirteen times.  Only three of their children survived to adulthood.

By the time the war ended, both she and her husband had become very fat - he tipping the scales at 290 pounds, she at 250.  They eventually retired to her family estates in Maine, which she alone could inherit since they had been Tories.  Whenever our family makes the turn out of Thomaston toward Port Clyde en route to Monhegan Island, we pass their grandiose "Montpelier" which is now a museum.   Writing about "Lady Knox" in American Heritage, Diana Forbes-Robinson notes:

"Here William Bingham Knox, aged eleven, and Augusta, aged nine, died on the same day, probably of diphtheria, and within a year, Julia Wasdworth, an enchanting girl of fifteen, died of rapid consumption. Lucy’s final pregnancy brought her a stillborn child. A bedroom in Montpelier became known as the “dead room,” where each victim in turn was laid out. In the end only three children were spared her of the thirteen she bore—the eldest, Lucy; Henry Jackson, who caused endless heartache by his instability; and the youngest girl, Caroline."

Having endured the stillbirth of our first child, I cannot conceive of the grief attendant to the loss of ten, especially living children cut short before adulthood.  Mrs. Knox is described as "high-strung, demanding and stubborn", but who can say whether these character traits ossified around the hard lump of such losses?  And after the deaths of so many of his children, even as Henry Knox puts on a brave face for his old commander, he allows that the inscrutable ways of God had become a faith straining affliction. 

In this age of modern miracles, we expect our children to grow and prosper.  We set aside the "what if" chapters of the guides for expectant parents little thinking that a time will come when we will have recourse to their sober contents.  Once that happens, though, we discover a larger fellowship of grief than we suspected still exists in our society.  The scale of the tragedy is different in an age of smaller families, but no less painful and perhaps even more unexpected than in the Knox's day.  It still requires "our whole stock of philosophy and religion" to come to terms with our grief.

Counterfactual Founder

John Dickinson had this to say to his colleagues in the 2nd Continental Congress as they debated Independence on the first of June, 1776:

"...Suppose on this Event Great Britain should offer Canada to France & Florida to Spain with an Extension of the old Limits. Would not France & Spain accept them? Gentlemen say the Trade of all America is more valuable to France than Canada. I grant it; but suppose She may get both? If she is politick, & none doubts that, I aver She has the easiest Game to play for attaining both, that ever presented itself to a Nation.

When We have bound ourselves to a stern Quarrel with Great Britain by a Declaration of Independence, France has nothing to do but to hold back & intimidate Great Britain till Canada is put into her Hands, then to intimidate Us into a most disadvantageous Grant of our Trade. It is my firm Opinion these Events will take Place, & arise naturally from our declaring Independence...

...Suppose we shall ruin [Great Britain]. France must rise on her Ruins. Her Ambition. Her Religion. Our Dangers from thence.  We shall weep at our misfortune brought on by our rashness...

...The War will be carried on with more Severity. The Burning of Towns, the Setting Loose of Indians on our Frontiers, has Not yet been done. Boston might have been burnt though it was not...

...A PARTITION of these Colonies will take Place if Great Britain cant conquer Us. To escape from the protection we have in British rule by declaring independence would be like Destroying a House before We have got another, In Winter, with a small Family; Then asking a Neighbour to take Us in and finding He is unprepared..."

Dickinson, once among the most vocal champions of American rights, fell from the pantheon of the Founders when he argued against declaring Independence and predicted the outcomes described above as its likely result.  Though history ultimately took a different course, Dickinson was not so far off base in his predictions as hindsight makes him seem.  My manuscript counterfactual novel of the Revolution reaches some of the same conclusions, which I fear vindicates my assumptions rather than his own.  But then, that is the advantage of being the one who rewrites history.

Dickinson, unable in good conscience to sign the Declaration, later served as a private soldier at Brandywine and was back in Congress and supportive of the Independence struggle the following year.  Aside from his namesake college, when he is remembered today is is generally as a foil for John Adams and those who ultimately persuaded the delegations from each of the colonies not to block Independence.

"We are Avenging the Cause of Virgin Innocence" (Knyphausen's Raid Part VIII)

Photo credit: Portrait of Hannah Caldwell from the museum of the 1st Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, NJ.

"Let us remember...in order to add vigour to our genius, and force to our descending swords, that we are avenging the cause of virgin innocence" said a student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).  The death of Mrs. Caldwell, wife of Rev. James Caldwell, reportedly at the hands of the Royalist army during Knyphausen's Raid, sparked outrage throughout Revolutionary America.  As discussed in the previous post, the circumstances of her death may never be precisely known, but the accusation that it was a deliberate murder did more to harm the British cause than even the muskets of the patriot forces.

In the weeks and months that followed her killing, a barrage of outrage and charges of the most unforgivable behavior were leveled against the Royalists in connection with the death of Hannah Caldwell. Her grieving widower, no stranger to the power of the pulpit, wrote a letter for publication in which he dismissed British claims that her killing was no assassination, calling it "a violation of tender feeling, without provocation, deliberately committed in open day, nor was it ever frowned on by the commander."  

It was the custom in those times to publish letters anonymously or with a pseudonym, but there was one loyalist who wrote an account of Mrs. Caldwell's death for newspaper publication under his own name.  Ebenezer Foster was a former Justice of the peace from Woodbridge, New Jersey and among the Tory 'refugees" who crossed over from Staten Island in the wake of Knyphausen's invasion force.  Approaching the parsonage in Connecticut Farms, he writes:

"I soon saw a group of soldiers in and about said House, and on my nearer approach, heard some of them mention, (rather piteously), a woman's being shot in the house, as soon as the crowd dispersed, I entered the house and not without difficulty , found her laying on her back on a bed that stood in a small, dark, back bedroom, (for I don't recollect that it had any window) tho' it had two doors that opened into other apartments.  She was to appearance death, and had a cloth carelessly thrown over her face, which I did not remove but left her, expecting the troops would soon march, when her friends might take care of her..

...[I] did not return in less than three hours, when some person who was near Mr. Caldwell's house, told me the woman was stripped, and thrown off the bed, but that a British officer's coming in, had prevented the soldiers from carrying off her cloaths: On entering the house I found her laying on her face on the floor beside the bed, and most of what cloaths had been pulled off by her side.  I concluded that she had been taken off the bed that the bedding might be taken from under her..."

Foster's account is intriguing as much for what he confirms in the patriot claims about her death as what he contradicts. Regardless of how she died, there is no doubt that her corpse was mistreated and her personal effects plundered along with the house.  Foster is scrupulous not to identify any specific unit with this shabby looting, implying that it happened sometime between when the British advanced beyond Connecticut Farms and when they returned.  He claimed that he and another loyalist made a close inspection to determine the cause of Mrs. Caldwell's death:

"We found that on account of a pantry that was building on the back side of the house, a small spot of covering had been pulled off opposite to the bed whereon the Lady sat, the only ball we could discover that had touched the house was the one that killed her: It appeared to have come from a northern direction (in the course of the Rebel fire) and passed between the joints of the plastered wall, it seemed to have passed so far above the bed as to have hit her above the girdle and its passing through her left breast, I account for by supposing her to have been in a stooping posture..."

There is no mention of broken glass such as reportedly cut the face of young Abigail Lennington as she watched the soldier shoot through the window: no confirmation that there was even a window at all.  Mr. Foster's reputation as "a Gentleman of great integrity" as well as a very loyal subject was cited in the newspaper account to give weight to his evidence, but whether or not it is factual reporting on his part the court of public opinion was already convinced that the killing had been deliberate.  Furthermore, the outrages perpetrated in the burning of the village and looting of its houses were there for all to see, right down to the roads strewn with he stuffing of feather beds.

And what of the claim that the shot came from the American lines to the north?  That is an odd direction.  Maxwell's men were initially arrayed along a ravine running roughly southwest to northeast and facing a royalist advance from the southeast.  The patriots then withdrew to the northwest  along a road toward Springfield as their left flank was turned by another royalist column that advanced from the east or northeast of their position.  Shots "from the north" could therefore have come from either side.

Samuel Steele Smith's out of print Winter at Morristown 1779-1780: The Darkest Hour (1979) includes several surprises for students of Knyphausen's Raid in the form of material not generally encountered elsewhere.  Sometimes, as with the complete order of battle that appears in the Appendices, the information is indispensable.  At least once, Smith confuses the actions of one unit with another (but we will address that matter in due course).  Smith dispenses with the killing of Mrs Caldwell in a single line as he describes the melee at Connecticut Farms, but later returns to it when addressing how news of her death spread throughout the countryside.  He then includes this startling paragraph:

"Some years later, there was an admission.  A New Jersey militiaman, Private Frazee Craig, of Captain Amos Morse's Company, of Colonel Jaques Essex County Regiments, testified that he was 'at the Farms [Connecticut Farms] when Mrs. Caldwell was shot by one of Capt. [John] Craig's men', also of Col. Jaques regiment. The shooting by an American, if indeed, he did it, surely was accidental."

Smith's source is supposedly testimony given by Craig while applying for a veteran's pension in the early 1830s before Judge Lewis Condit. I have read a subsequent publication of the Condit testimony that includes an account from Craig, but while discussing Connecticut Farms it makes no mention of Mrs. Caldwell.  Assuming he did make such a statement, what are we to make of it?  It was certainly not a welcome revision to the conventional narrative.  When Elizabeth native Capt. William C. deHart, an aide to Winfield Scott who returned from Mexico sick and dying, attempted to make an impartial investigation into the evidence surrounding Mrs. Caldwell's death, he was pilloried for his efforts by his fellow townsmen.

In the end, whatever the cause of her homicide, Mrs. Caldwell's death became a symbol of what was at stake in America's fight for independence.  A year later, her husband was shot by a sentry, and their nine children - "baptised in blood" - were fostered out, including their eldest son whose education in France was sponsored by Lafayette. 

Rev Caldwell's statue, at right, may be seen on Walnut St. in Philadelphia.

Who Killed Mrs. Caldwell? (Knyphausen's Raid Part VII)

This is the latest installment in a series of posts I began more than a year ago on Knyphausen's Raid into New Jersey in 1780. 

The American Revolution was fought as often with the pen as with the sword.  Sometimes what was written was quite literally worth battalions to the Patriot cause.  Thomas Paine's American Crisis stiffened revolutionary resolve in the face of a series of military reverses in 1776.  The murder of Jenny McCrea by two of Burgoyne's native allies the following year brought out the militia in unprecedented numbers to confront the British at Saratoga.  It did not matter that the unfortunate Miss McRea was the fiancee of a loyalist officer;  what was done to her could have been done to any American woman and that was good enough for the patriot press and its readership.

Another incident occurred in 1780 that became as notorious in patriot memory as the death of McCrea.  This tragedy, occurring on June 7th at Connecticut Farms (now Union), New Jersey during Knyphausen's Raid, was kept alive for many months afterward in the press as a symbol of royalist barbarity, Once again, an American woman was killed, but this time she was not only a staunch patriot but also the minister's wife.  Her name was Hannah (Ogden) Caldwell - a very distant relative of mine - and responsibility for her death was laid squarely on the British.  It is not altogether clear that this was the case, but there was little doubt in the minds of the revolutionaries at the time - or indeed of their descendants and subsequent chroniclers - that she was deliberately and foully murdered by the royalist invaders.

The seal of Union County, New Jersey depicts the traditional version of her death at the hands of a red-coated soldier.   It is notoriously difficult to separate fact from fiction in the fog of war, and especially complicated with this conflict, when what was recorded - and by whom - may be just as significant as the gaps in the historic record (and there are many).

Hannah (Ogden) Caldwell was third cousin to my ancestor Aaron Ogden and his brother Matthias, both of whom fought at Connecticut Farms on the day she was killed.  She was the wife of James Caldwell, the Presbyterian minister in Elizabeth Town. Reverend Caldwell was chaplain in my ancestor Elias Dayton's Third New Jersey Continental Regiment in its 1st establishment,  and subsequently served as a Deputy Quartermaster General. 

We tend to overlook that the Revolution was in many ways a religious war as well as a civil one. The evangelical "Great Awakening" of the previous generation challenged traditional church hierarchies and helped establish the underpinning of many of the democratic principles of the Revolution.  The Congregationalists of New England, the Presbyterians of the Middle Colonies and the Methodists and Baptists of the Tidewater and back county were particularly affected by this revival and many of their congregations strongly supported the patriot cause.  George III, on the other hand, was the "Defender of the Faith" for the Episcopal church, while the Dutch Reformed church split into factions in reaction to the Great Awakening that foreshadowed where the loyalties of their parishioners would lie in the Revolution.

The foremost patriots in Elizabeth Town, and hence in New Jersey, were members of Reverend Caldwell's Congregation.  His parish house was burned by Tory raiders.  In January, 1780, the church was burned as well by a raiding party from loyalist Staten Island guided by fellow townsman Cornelius Hatfield, whose own father was a noted parishoner.Caldwell subsequently moved his family to Connecticut Farms, a settlement 4 miles outside the town center, and continued his ministry while also helping to acquire supplies for Washington's encampment in the Highlands at Morristown. There are accounts that he preached with loaded pistols before him, and with good reason.  One of the loyalists who burned the church in Elizabeth Town later expressed his regret that "the black-coated rebel, Caldwell, was not then in his pulpit."

As a prominent patriot, Reverend Caldwell was certainly a ripe target for kidnapping, if not worse, by loyalist 'refugees".  But even he considered his family safe from deliberate attack.  As it turned out, they were in great peril at Connecticut Farms, but whether from a stray bullet or intentional murder is an open question.

On the morning of Knyphausen's initial advance on Connecticut Farms, Hannah Caldwell was at home with several of her youngest children, an unrelated girl named Abigail Lennington who may have been a housemaid, and a nurse named Constance Benward.  Her other children had been bundled off in a commissary wagon and her husband had encouraged her to follow, but she insisted that she would stay to protect their property.  It was her misfortune that the battle developed near her home and the patriot defenders held off the royalists for several hours before they were pushed back through the little village.  She had lowered some of her valuables down the well and filled her pockets with other precious items, then sat on her bed near the window to wait out the battle, saying "Don't worry, baby will be our protection.  They will respect a mother."

At some time during the ebb and flow of the battle that day, someone shot Mrs. Caldwell.   Abigail Lennington and one of the servants subsequently gave testimony before a magistrate as to what occurred.  Numerous histories have referenced that testimony, although I have not yet had the opportunity to go to the source.  According to these accounts, Lennington was near the window when she saw a soldier come toward the house, raise his rifle, and fire through the window.  Two balls struck Mrs. Caldwell in the breast, killing her instantly, while broken glass cut Abigail's face.  Sometimes in these histories the soldier is described as "a shot squatty soldier in a red coat."  

Reportedly the British entered the house and rifled the clothes of the dead woman to get at her valuables.  The body was removed while the house was plundered and then most of the buildings in Connecticut Farms were burned (the parsonage among them, despite this account to the contrary).  It is difficult to know precisely what happened from contemporary writing filled with hyperbole.  There was such outrage, in fact, that the royalists in New York felt obliged to file their own accounts in rebuttal.  Rivington's Royal Gazette ran one such refutation by an anonymous British officer:

"Whilst the troops were advancing to Connecticut Farms, the rebels fired out of the houses, agreeable to their usual practice, from which circumstance, Mrs. Caldwell had the misfortune to be shot my a random ball.  What heightened the singularity of this unhappy Lady's fate, is, that upon Enquiry it appears, beyond a Doubt, that the shot was fired by the rebels themselves, as it entered the side of the House from their direction, and lodged in the Wall nearest the Troops then advancing."

This source is hardly less biased than the patriot press, and one wonders whether there was time enough between the killing and the burning of the Town upon the British withdrawal to go inspecting the wall for errant musketballs that may or may not have passed through the breast of Mrs. Caldwell.  Some accounts claim her body was left half exposed in the streets for several hours, while others claim a British officer covered it with his cloak and had it removed to another house.

The argument over what happened to Mrs Caldwell raged long after the smoke had cleared from the burning village. More than anything else, her death inflamed the revolutionary arbor of the defenders of New Jersey, who readily believed her killing was intentional.

Ebenezer Foster, a loyalist and former colonial Justice of the Peace, wrote his own account of the Caldwell murder for publication. We will discuss its merits in a subsequent post.

George Washington Catfight Cover Up; "Your Memory Must Be Very Perfidious."

"I will not be so impolite as to charge you with telling fals[e]hoods" wrote Caty Greene to her one-time friend Deborah Olney, "but your memory must be very perfidious." The incident referred to in this delicious 18th-century putdown took place at a dinner in which George Washington was guest of honor and was at the center of an imbroglio that began with a bit of larking about after too much drink and ended in a spoiled evening and the whiff of scandal.

Early biographies of George Washington tend toward hagiography, and the general's "family" or inner circle of staff officers zealously guarded his reputation against critics and conspirators during the darkest days of the Revolution.  And scandals there were, though as far as can be determined from the historic record these contretemps were mild by modern standards and his conduct was by no means ungentlemanly.

Washington was exceedingly fond of dancing, and there were numerous balls hosted during winter encampments for his officers, their wives and even a number of young ladies from further afield.  Nothing worse can be said of these affairs then they went on at great length, and at one in particular the General danced for three straight hours with a single partner: the vivacious Caty Greene, wife of General Greene.

Catherine "Caty" Littleton Greene was one of the most intriguing women of the Revolutionary era.  It was she who, later in life, hosted Eli Whitney at her Georgia plantation, during which he came up with his design for the Cotton Gin.  General and Mrs. Greene, though, were Rhode Islanders, and Caty Greene accompanied her husband on many of his campaigns and was known for her lively mind and temperament.

During the winter encampment at Morristown in 1779-1780 - the most extreme winter of the century and one of greater hardship for the Continental Army than even Valley Forge -  the Greenes and a number of other officers including their commander in chief were dinner guests of Colonel Clement Biddle,  a deputy quartermaster general serving under Greene. Also in attendance were George and Deborah Olney: fellow, well-connected Rhode Islanders and related to Nathaniel Greene.  George Olney, a civilian auditor hired by Greene's quartermaster department, is described rather uncharitably in one history as a "frail, susceptible youngster who could not hold his liquor well."  Whether or not he was a teetotaler, he apparently was not willing to drink the many droughts that customarily were downed in the officers mess, and when the ladies excused themselves after dinner and the men we preparing to drink in earnest, Olney joined his wife and the others.

Accounts of the incident differ at this point.  At the very least, the remaining men were in high spirits and considered his desertion of their revels something that must be rectified by a sortie which Washington himself agreed to lead.  According to a letter written at the request of Mr. Olney in defense of his wife's subsequent conduct, Washington's aide Tench Tilghman described the affair as nothing more than a light-hearted joke, in which it was "resolved that a party should be sent to demand him, and if the ladies refused to give him up, he should be brought by force."  Tilghman's letter, excerpted in Irving's life of Washington, went on to describe how an "attempt was made to rescue him.  The ladies came to the rescue.  There was a melee; in the course of which his Excellency seems to have had a passage of arms with Mrs. Olney.  The ladies were victorious, as they always ought to be..."  He assured Mr. Olney that his wife had made use of no expressions unbecoming of a lady of her breeding, nor had she given the slightest offense to the General.

The reason this letter needed to be written at all is that something altogether less amusing seems to have developed as this grand joke devolved into an unseemly altercation featuring first Deborah Olney and then Caty Greene.  Caty Greene's version of the events was rather injudiciously committed to paper in a letter to a mutual acquaintance of hers and Deborah Olneys.  Mrs. Greene stated that the General placed his hand on Deborah Olney's hand during the attempt to return her husband to the bosom of masculine company, and she responded in a rage, screaming that if he did not unhand her she would tear every hair from his head, and "though he was a general, he was but a man."

This is hardly conduct becoming a lady and rather marred the evening.  Caty Greene by her own admission rose to Washington's defense with an unbecoming temper, while her husband escorted the Olney's from the room and gave some pointed advice to his kinsman and subordinate regarding a situation that appeared needlessly to have gotten out of hand because he did not employ a more diplomatic means of refusing to drink with the General. 

This might have been the end of it, but word got out that something scandalous had happened and that Mrs. Olney had been the cause of it.  Whether or not she had intended her letter recounting Deborah Olney's outburst at the General to be kept in confidence, she must have known that their common friend would relay her words to Mrs. Olney, as indeed they were.  The Olneys found themselves snubbed by Providence society, and in March of 1781 each responded to repair their damaged reputations.  George Greene solicited the letter in their defense from Washington's aide Tench Tilghman, and right on its heels Deborah wrote a letter to Mrs. Greene that the latter characterized in her reply "as unbecoming as my temper was at Col. Biddle's."  She continued;

"I thought for some time the letter had been forged as I could have no idea of such a one from a lady of such good breeding.  Surely it is not the same Mrs. Olney that I used to know and love...As to your tearing out the Genls Eyes I heard nor said nothing...but you did say you would tear our his [hair] -and I can bring sworn evidence to the truth of it."

It is a classic example of the Hell that hath no fury like an 18th century gentlewoman with her back up, and closes with the conventional yet oddly out of place wishes for the felicity of the recipient of this scathing rebuke from her self professed "sincear (sp) friend and very Humble servant."  There follows, however, this coda, which caused no little alarm among the Olneys:

"I understand that Mr. Olney has said something of me which I am sure he would not have said had Genl Greene been at home and which I shall not mention to him until I hear again from Providence."  Deborah Olney's reply included her assertion on behalf of her husband that as Mrs. Greene "must have heard something he never did say he wishes to know what you have been told, and pawns his honor, if true, to own it."  Caty Greene never did give her adversaries the satisfaction of further details.

George Washington remained a friend and ally of Caty Greene for the rest of his life, while the George and Deborah Olney were never again in his orbit.  It seemed that whatever the cause of their affronts, they were out of their depth and outclassed by Washington's partizans, be they suble in the niceties of downplaying scandal like Tilghman, or a spitfire of sharp worded indigation like the fiesty wife of General Greene.  In any even, the official version made its way into the history books, but another take on the evenings misadventures resides in the correspondence between Deborah Olney and Caty Greene.