Walking the Berkshires

Fighting with Two Arms Behind his Back: Knyphausen's Raid (Part 4)

The Royalists under Knyphausen had little more than a dozen miles to cover between their landing at Elizabethtown, New Jersey and Hobart's Gap which lead toward Washington's encampment and vulnerable supplies at Morristown.   The invading army that June night in 1780 included a strong force of cavalry that was utterly squandered on the campaign. 

The high mobility of the 17th Lancers, von Diemar's Black Hussars, the mounted Queens Rangers and the mounted German Jaegers could have been used to penetrate the countryside ahead of the marching columns and determine the enemy strength, and if they were not able - as was Buford at Gettysburg - to secure the high ground, at least they could screen the advance from attack by militia.  Washington, in fact, was so greatly alarmed by the presence of so many enemy horsemen that he ordered the recall of "Lighthorse Harry" Lee and his troopers, on their way South, to help counter a cavalry threat that ultimately never materialized. 

The Hessian commander was unable to get his horsemen across from Staten Island in time to be of any use on June 7th, when the head of the advancing column was blunted for hours at Connecticut Farms just a few miles northwest of Elizabethtown.  Nor were they used effectively during the battle two weeks later at Springfield just a bit further up the road.  Aside from a few ambuscades during the period when the British hunkered down between engagements at their beach-head below Elizabethtown, the mounted arm of Kyphausen's force contributed little to the outcome of the campaign.

Knyphausen also had a substantial advantage in artillery.  After Maxwell's depleted brigade of New Jersey Continentals and assorted militia stood in the path of the Royalist advance at Connecticut Farms without artillery of their own - and held them off for more than three hours of ferocious fighting - they withdrew toward Springfield and the protection of an "old iron four-pound field piece" manned by New Jersey militia.   Only two or three of the estimated 15-20 cannon Knyphausen brought over from Staten island were brought to bear at Connecticut Farms, and these were the "battalion guns" that traveled with the lead brigades rather than a concentrated force. 

Artillery played a much greater role at Springfield on June 23rd, but even here it took six of Knyphausen's guns to silence a single six pounder that held up the British advance.  The Continentals never managed to get a battery of guns in place and the militia actually lost some of theirs when the Royalists emerged from their defenses at Elizabethtown for their second drive inland.

Thus the bulk of the fighting fell to just a few battalions out of the entire Royalist force, and to a thin blue line of Continental regiments and swarming groups of militia.  Given the total number of troops available to Knyphausen (on paper, at least), it is remarkable that the casualties were not much greater on the patriot side.  But merely having the resources under his command did not assure that they could be effectively deployed, and Knyphausen in his only independent command did not prove to be an aggressive commander.  We'll see how these factors played out when we examine the fight at Connecticut Farms in detail in the next post in this series.

Book Review: The Forgotten Victory; The Battle for New Jersey - 1780 by Thomas Fleming (1973)

There is only one full length history of Knyphausen's Raid and the engagements at Connecticut Farms and Springfield, New Jersey, and it has long been out of print.  Time and again during my research of these events for this series of posts, it became clear that I needed to find this book, and yesterday Interlibrary Loan delivered a much anticipated copy of Thomas Fleming's 1973 account:  The Forgotten Victory; The Battle for New Jersey - 1780.  In 1975, Fleming condensed this book into a 33 page booklet - #8 in the New Jersey's Revolutionary Experience Series entitled The Battle of Springfield - and I'm sorry to say that this abridged work, also out of print, is the better history of the two, for in its brevity it makes fewer errors.

Fleming is an engaging writer, a novelist and author of historical fiction as well as several excellent histories.  He has gone particulalry deep in the American Revolutionary period, and for this early work he clearly did a great deal of research on an important and neglected campaign of the war. He benefited from access to a wide range of documentary sources and there is plenty of fresh information available in both The Forgotten Victory and The Battle of Springfield, much of which with appropriate citation to aid the historian. Nonetheless there are nagging errors that taken individually seem nit-picky but in aggregate make one start to question the veracity of more essential points in the narrative. 

Some of these errors are those only one with a vested interest in esoteric details might catch.  Such, however, is the nature of the interested genealogist, and this campaign involved many of my ancestral kin.

On pg. 99 and again on pg 155, Fleming identifies Ensign Moses Ogden as the nephew of Major Aaron Ogden, who happens to be my Gr-gr-gr-great grandfather.  According to The Ogden Family Elizabethtown Branch by William Ogden Wheeler (1907) pg. 85, Moses Ogden was in fact a 1st cousin.  Unfortunately, Fleming actually references this work as his source for Ogden's lineage, but ended up getting it wrong more than once in print.

On page 247, Fleming describes the spectacle of the Royalists on the march to Springfield on June 23rd, making reference to "the Foot Guards gleaming in white lace.  Even the sergeants wore epaulets on their right shoulders.  Their drummers and fifers were in white coats lined with blue, and they wore white fur caps."  While that is they way they would have looked in the garrison uniforms back in England, the Service Brigade of Guards that fought in America wore a stripped down campaign dress from the moment of their arrival in 1776 when their commander, Brigadier General Edward Mathew, made radical alterations to their uniforms, removing the lace and epaulets and cutting down their hat brims and coat lengths.  They were still elite soldiers, but not the bandbox battalions described by Fleming.  His source for this description was accurate for the Guards in general, but not as they appeared in America.

On page 239, Fleming notes that General Nathaniel Greene had a personal bond with Col. Israel Angell's 2nd Rhode Island Regiment but gives no further explanation for it.   In fact this it quite true, for the Rhode Islander Greene had fought with these men in the defense of Fort Mercer during the Philadelphia campaign two years before, an event described by Fleming as an example of the fighting quality of the 2nd Rhode Island Continentals without ever making the connection back to Greene.

On page 244, Fleming describes Springfield's "thirty-odd houses" at the time of the battle and states; "The present-day town of Springfield is only a fraction of the colonial town's size."  This would be news indeed to the present-day residents of Springfield, New Jersey, population 14,429 in the 2000 census, which may have grown in the past 35 years since Fleming wrote his book but not from a mere handful of houses in the 1970s as would have had to have been the case for Fleming's statement to be accurate. He probably meant to say the 1780-era village of Springfield was only a fraction of the present town's size: better editing should have caught this transposition.

The documentation of this campaign is full of confusing and misleading primary and secondary source material, and it is very difficult to sort out precise troop movements, let alone casualties.  As often as he provides footnotes in his account, Fleming's narrative reads more like one of his novels, and I found myself wanting more documented details and less dramatization.  In one of the most griping episodes in the story, the brave, forlorn stand of a lone cannon served by a doomed handful of continental artillerymen, Fleming introduces a 13-year-old boy who remains unidentified and is part of Springfield legend.  He volunteers to bring water to those manning the gun who are cut down one by one.  In the end, he joins Angell's men and fires on the converging British, wounding one "to his ecstatic delight."  Whether this character actually was ecstatic or not is a matter of conjecture, as he was reported killed very soon thereafter by a cannonball.  In a novel, ascribing emotions to characters is an appropriate devise.  In a work of history it is laden with assumption, and this is not the only case when Fleming falls back on the novelist's art.

There are further details that might clutter up the narrative but would have been very useful if included in an appendix.  Often Fleming describes unnamed regiments when it would have been a simple matter to identify them.  He says that five were left behind in Elizabethtown before the second advance on Springfield but nowhere in his book offers an order of battle.  Given that he was well aware that his was to be the first comprehensive historical treatment of the campaign, it is regrettable that Fleming did not provide the details of particular interest to historians.  It is still a fine popular account and a good read if you are looking to get the flavor of the events.  It has two excellent maps and plenty of engaging anecdotes, but as history it falls short as the first and last word on the subject.

"Who's on First?": Kyphausen's Raid (Part 3)

[Map: George Buchel, from Thomas Fleming (1975) The Battle of Springfield. Click to enlarge]

At the core, even the set piece battles of the American Revolution were often a matter of limited engagements.  Only a portion of Gates' and Burgoyne's men, for instance, clashed at Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights during the climax of the Saratoga campaign.  Neither side could afford to lose their armies in pitched battles. 

Just as significantly, the organization of these armies, especially on the Royalist side, worked against unit cohesion.  Brigades were created and reshuffled as needed, and battalions routinely broken up for detached service.  A force of the size that Knyphausen brought over against New Jersey from New York in June of 1780 was really a small army, yet in neither of the principal engagements of the brief campaign was he able to concentrate his forces, the initial grouping and command structure went by the boards early on, and the brunt of the fighting was borne by just a few units.

Knyphausen used all but three of the infantry regiments he had available in New York on his invasion of New Jersey.  There are some inconsistencies among the various sources as to the precise strength and composition of his army.  Contemporary reports estimated between 5000 and 6000 men.  The most complete order of battle I have been able to discover in any of the histories of the campaign is presented in Winter at Morristown, 1779-1780: The Darkest Hour by Samuel Steele Smith (1979), which is both out of print and incredibly hard to locate.  It is possible to get snippet views of the text through Google Books, however, and from what I could tease out and compare with other sources I believe I have a complete picture.

Knyphausen initially organized his force into 5 "divisions" of  2 - 4 infantry regiments each.  2 divisions included cavalry, and all but the 3rd included artillery.  Each was commanded, at least on paper, by a Brigadier or Major General, but forces were detached and moved about almost from the start. 

The 1st Division was lead by Brigadier General Thomas Stirling, the subject of an earlier post.  This was the vanguard and made the first crossing in the evening of June 6th from Staten Island to Elizabethtown Point.  Stirling established the beachhead with the light companies of the 37th and 38th regiments of foot, veterans of hard service (the 38th had been at Bunker Hill).  The rest of these two regiments soon crossed over, along with the Hessian Leib ("du Corps") and Landgraf musketeer regiments.  Stirling's division also had 2 six pounders.

The problem with having Stirling lead the van was that he only had these two light companies for skirmishers and no screen of cavalry.  Soon after leading the advance up the darkened road to Elizabethtown he was felled by a picket guard lead by Ensign Moses Ogden of Spenser's (4th) New Jersey Regiment.  During the delay that followed the Hessian and Anspach (dismounted) Jaegers were moved to the head of the column.  They had been assigned to the Third Division under Major General William Tryon, the former Royal governor of New York and an old hand at leading raids into Connecticut. The Jaegers were not at full strength, with 280 of their number on detached service in the South and another on mounted service elsewhere in the column.  The remaining 300 riflemen would be the tip of the spear in the actions to come and in the end suffered more than 1/3 casualties. 

Tryon also seems to have had 40 loyalist pioneers under his command (possibly from the "Black Pioneers" comprised of escaped slaves).  The core of his command was the elite Service Brigade of the British Foot Guards, made up of officers and men selected by draft from each of the 3 Guard Regiments in England.  The Guards on American service were organized into two battalions of 5 companies each, including Grenadier and Light Companies.  Only the 1st Grenadier Company was comprised of men who came from pre-existing flank companies of the Guards.  Their commander had been Brigadier General Edward Mathew of the 2nd "Coldstream" Guards, but on this expedition for reasons I have not been able to determine he was apparently assigned the command of the 2nd Division which did not include the guards.  Perhaps he was still suffering from the illness that compelled him to give up his command of Fort Knyphausen that April.  One biography says he participated in the expedition as a volunteer which would indicate that he was a supernumerary. 

In any event he was a senior officer and was given command of one of the largest Divisions with nearly 1,700 men.  It included the 22nd and 57th regiments of foot, and also the 1st and 4th battalions of the New Jersey Loyalist volunteers under Brigadier General Cortland Skinner.  According to Steele he had "some cavalry" and 2 six pounders, and he also had the single company of the 17th regiment of foot - 79 men - that had been formed from those of the battalion who had not been captured at Stony Point the previous winter by Anthony Wayne.

The 4th and 5th Divisions were lead by Hessian Generals Carl von Hackenberg and Friedrich von Lossberg.  Von Hackenberg had the British 43rd regiment of foot, the Hessian Regiment Böse and the 1st Anspach Regiment (some sources say also the 2nd Bayreuth regiment but this unit appears to have remained in New York at the outset of the campaign).  He also had 2 three-pounders.  Von Lossberg had the Hessian Donop regiment, and I believe also the Garrison regiment von Bünau.  The bulk of the cannons, from both the Royal an Hessian Artillery, was with the 5 Division, possibly including 2 six-pounders, 6 three-pounders, and 2 howitzers.  It also had the bulk of the cavalry - elements of the 17th light dragoons, and the mounted Queen's Rangers, which included Captain Friederick de Diemar's "Black Hussars".  This last unit was comprised of Germans - largely Brunswickers - who had escaped after the surrender of Burgoyne's army. Diemar has a Hanoveran and held a commission in the 60th Royal Americans.

If by now you are thoroughly confused as to who goes with whom, imagine the state of affairs on the ground, with multiple crossings made from Staten Island to the marshy Jersey Shore at night toward an enemy whose disposition was unclear and who got the ball rolling by shooting the Brigadier General leading the advance.  There were delays while a swamp was bridged.  There were delays while units were shifted position from command to command.  In the end only two divisions marched through Elizabethtown on the road to Connecticut Farms on the morning of the 7th, with considerable gaps between them. We'll pick up the narrative of the fight that took place that day in a future post.

"Theirs Not To Reason Why"; Knyphausen's Raid (Part 2)

From the Patriot point of view, the way General Knyphausen conducted his invasion and subsequent withdrawal from New Jersey in June of 1780 made no sense.   The Royalists had a force of nearly 6,000 that far outnumbered the local militia and the handful of depleted Continental regiments that opposed them.  Knyphausen twice marched inland from his beachhead to fight two sharp engagements, only to withdraw his entire force each time - as the commander of the New Jersey Continentals, General William Maxwell, would later put it - "with their backsides to the Sound near Elizabethtown."  Washington's letters throughout the crisis show that he struggled to find meaning in the retrograde movements of the enemy, writing to General Anthony Wayne after the enemy's second withdrawal that "It is certainly difficult if not impossible, to ascertain their views."

Participants on the Royalist side has questions of their own.  Lt. Colonel Ludwig Johann Adolph von Wurmb, who commanded the Hessian and Anspach Jaeger Corps, later wrote;

"I regret from the depths of my heart that the great loss of the Jaegers took place to no greater purpose."

Indeed, if the objective of the campaign were merely a raid in force, its costs do not justify the result.  A campaign of more than two weeks to burn two insignificant villages, followed by a retreat back to Staten Island, should not have taken the deployment of 16 British, German and Loyalist infantry battalions, not to mention a considerable cavalry force and artillery.  It was only much later, when historians were able to study British and German accounts of these events, that Knyphausen's behavior, if not his leadership, becomes understandable.  Far from being the result of a coherent strategy, Knyphausen's objective changed in the midst of battle, and the reason for it was more than just a remarkable intelligence failure that underestimated Patriot resolve and the capacity of the militia to put up an effective resistance.  Factional intrigue within the Royalist High Command doomed the venture from the start.

When Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander in Chief in North America, sailed south with nearly half the New York garrison in the end of 1779, the focus of the war effort shifted to the southern colonies.  As mention in the first post in this series, those Royalist leaders who remained in New York bridled at the thought that Clinton was keeping them inactive and in the dark while he was off winning laurels in the south.  For his part, Clinton was notoriously silent about his intentions and overall strategy, confiding in a few close staff officers but not his commanders, let alone the Loyalist elite in New York who indeed wished to have him replaced, potentially by one of their own. 

Lt. General Knyphausen was the senior officer left in New York and so by default was commander in Clinton's absence.  Speaking no English, he was unwilling to launch a major campaign without orders from Clinton, much to the dismay of the New York Royalists, who even as late as May 28th were asking themselves if it were certain that Knyphausen "has a mind."

In fact, Clinton did have a plan for Knyphausen that resembled the course of action the reluctant Hessian general ultimately took in New Jersey, but it was to bring his Carolina Army north after reducing Charleston and to break the back of the Continental army in a two pronged advance on the patriot encampment in Morristown. 

It was an excellent strategy.  The continental battalions had suffered through the worst winter of the war and new recruits were lacking to fill their depleted ranks.  The stores and artillery at Morristown were as vulnerable as Washington's army, which could not fight both Knyphausen and Clinton simultaneously.  New Jersey might well be returned to royalist control. 

But Clinton failed to let anyone in New York know his intentions.  Knyphausen, too, was tired of garrison duty.  When two regiments of the Connecticut line mutinied that May, it seemed to the Royalists in New York that Washington's army was on the verge of collapse.   A plan finally took shape that would send a major force into New Jersey at Elizabethtown and march toward Hobart's Gap, the gateway through the Watchung Range to the Continental encampment and the supplies at Morristown.  This, of course, was what Clinton had in mind for Knyphausen, but it was premature for Clinton's force was still in Charleston.

Astoundingly, there was still an eleventh hour opportunity to for Knyphausen to pull his punch, for by remarkable coincidence Clinton's A.D.C. Major William Crosbie, who was privy to his commander's plans, arrived from the South just as the invasion fleet was being readied.  Thomas Fleming, whose research into the Springfield raid stands as the most authoritative to date, describes how Major Crosbie failed to stop the unauthorized invasion:

"Major Crosbie was nonplussed.  He was on the stickiest wicket that any aide-de-camp ever encountered in the history of warfare.  Sir henry had told him his real plans, but he had enjoined him to strictest secrecy.  All Crosbie could do was give "hints" to those "to whom he should judge proper.  This left Major Crosbie in an impossible position.  He could not hope to screen out "proper" from "improper" hearers without making a host of powerful enemies.  Since Sir Henry had a tendency to be jealous of almost everyone in the army above the rank of Colonel, its was easy for Crosbie to construe all of these assembled generals as improper.  He has obviously intended to say nothing about Sir Henry's plan.  Now he floundered and flapped and blurted out something vague.  They had no reason to expect Sir Henry very soon, he said - or at least that is what everyone concluded from what he said.  After more circumlocutions, everyone had the impression that Sir Henry was going to raid in the Chesapeake.

In that case, Knyphausen growled to [his aid] Beckwith, who was frantically translating all this, their invasion of New Jersey was strategically sound.  It would pin down Washington's main army, leaving Sir Henry free to chew up what parts of Maryland and Virginia he chose.  With elaborate courtesy, General von Knyphausen suggested that Major Crosbie join the invasion as a member of his staff.  The agitated aide-de-camp mumbled his acceptance and before the night was over, found himself slogging through the marshes of Staten Island shore to board a New Jersey-bound flatboat."

                                    -  Thomas Fleming (1975) The Battle of Springfield, pgs 11,12

Crosbie, whose old battalion the 38th Regiment of foot was in the lead division of the Royalist force, would  not find the courage to inform Knyphausen of the real state of affairs until well after battle had been joined the following day at Connecticut Farms.  This changed everything, for with confirmation that Clinton was even now bringing his force back from the south, Knyphausen knew better than to proceed any further.  Instead, he brought his force back to their beach head and hunkered down to wait for Clinton.   No wonder the Patriots, let alone many of the Royalists, could make neither heads nor tails of it all!

Crosbie, incidently, was subsequently promoted to Lt. Col. of the 22nd Regiment of foot, which also took part in Knyphausen's Springfield Raid, and was a Major General by 1793.

1780 British Sloop of War Found Intact (Except for the Zebra Mussels)

This is a great story.  HMS Ontario, a revolutionary war era ship, has has been found intact at the bottom of its namesake lake.  She went down with all hands in a fearsome gale on October 31, 1780.

The 80ft sloop of war sank with more than 120 men, women, children and prisoners on board during the American revolutionary war in October 1780. Bad weather rather than cannon fire put paid to her. As she was crossing the lake from Fort Niagara a gale swamped her decks and sent her to the bottom.

The following day some of her boats and hatch covers drifted ashore, along with a few hats. A few days later her sails were found adrift. It was a further nine months before six bodies were washed up 20 miles away.

The ship is in deep water, in such an extraordinary state of preservation that two of its windows are still in place and its masts still stand 70 feet above the deck.  It would be in even better shape were it not for the invasive zebra mussels that infest the great lakes, Lake Champlain and ever more US waterways and encrust the wreck.  Canadian author and historian Arthur Britton Smith said;

“If it wasn’t for the zebra mussels, she looks like she only sunk last week.”

And Jim Kennard, who with his partner Dan Scoville found the wreck, said;

"Eight of the 22 guns were on the deck. Some are still in place. You can't see the others because the gun ports are closed. It's hard even to see the ports because the hull has a lot of mussels on it. The most prominent parts of the ship are the quarter galleries, a sort of windowed balcony, one at each side of the stern. That was the captain's quarters."

Nasty things, those mussels.

HMS Ontario, a 22 gun brig sloop, is the oldest confirmed shipwreck ever found in the lakes, and its discovery is an incredible achievement.  It is considered a war grave and though it lies in US territorial waters somewhere between Rochester New York and Niagara, it is still British property.  And the mussels.

Stirring the Hornet's Nest: Knyphausen's Raid (Part I)

The 1780 campaign season had arrived and the Royalists in occupied New York were restless and impatient.  The Commander in Chief, General Sir Henry Clinton, had shifted the main theater of the war to the southern colonies the previous winter and laid siege to Charleston, South Carolina which surrendered on May 12th, 1780.  In contrast, the main body of the continental army remained with Washington encamped in Morristown, New Jersey, from which it could shift to counter threats to the Hudson Highlands or New Jersey and Philadelphia.   

Clinton had left Hessian Lieutenant General Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen in command in New York in his absence.  Despite orders from Clinton to remain in place - though significantly without sharing with his subordinate his strategic reasons for doing so - Knyphausen was under increasing pressure from Clinton's detractors to use the garrison of 8,000 men offensively.  Among these loyalist and crown leaders were Benjamin Franklin's son William, the exiled Tory governor of New Jersey; the Royal Chief Justice of New York William Smith; the Royal governor of New York General James Robinson and former royal governor General William Tryon.

Knyphausen was a widely respected division commander and studied the situation carefully.  After the coldest winter of the century, New York was no longer under threat of invasion over ice and thought could therefore be given to offensive operations.  Washington's force at Morristown was thought to be on the verge of mutiny after enduring intense hardship in its winter encampment, and many Royalist leaders still held out hope that New Jersey loyalists would take up arms and help win back the colony.  A 1794 British report on The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War reveals how misplaced these assumptions about the coming campaign would prove to be:

"If the inhabitants were disposed to throw off the yoke of congress, the force sent to their assistance would enable them to do it: And if a mutinous disposition still prevailed amongst the soldiers of the American army, some advantage might probably be gained over general Washington. It soon however appeared that part of this intelligence was false, and the rest greatly magnified.  Although the Inhabitants of the Jerseys had murmured in consequence of the depredations committed on them by the American soldiers in the time of their distress from want of provisions, they had never thought of deserting the American cause:  On the contrary, they made the greatest exertions to relieve the necessities of those very men to whose depredations they were exposed; and it was principally owing to these exertions that the American army had not been actually disbanded.  A mutinous disposition had also certainly discovered itself amongst the soldiers of the American army:  But it arose from distress, and not disaffection...Under such circumstances the British commanders experienced a grievous disappointment:  Instead of being received in the Jerseys as friends, the militia very generally turned out to oppose them."

From time to time over the coming weeks, we will examine this last major land campaign of the American Revolution in the northern colonies, including the engagements at Connecticut Farms and nearby Springfield New Jersey that took place in June 228 years ago.  I'd roll this series out over several days, but experience has shown that except for hardcore history buffs it is best to leaven my offerings with other fare.  I'm also waiting to see if the local inter-library loan will come through with a couple of key sources not available on line and currently out of print.  I'll likely archive them together for those who wish to get the full, sequential effect.

As with Sullivan's Expedition against the Iroquois the previous year, my Ogden and Dayton ancestors played prominent parts in this story, and their leadership and actions on this occasion were particularly decisive in resisting the Royalist advances literally on the thresholds of their own homes.   A third cousin of Matthias and Aaron Ogden's became a celebrated female martyr for the cause, as galvanizing for the patriots at this stage of the war as had been the death of Jane McCrea in 1777 at the hands of Burgoyne's native allies.  Knyphausen's Springfield Raid is passed over in many histories of this period, and the details of its two principal battles are often jumbled together.  We will untangle this tale and explore its significance in subsequent posts. 

"Should Old Aquaintance Be Forgot": Who Ever Heard of Thomas Stirling?

Perhaps we Americans have a natural disdain for keeping track of our former British adversaries from the colonial era, or maybe there is less interest today in the United Kingdom in preserving the memory of those old defeats.  I am otherwise at a loss as to why it is so difficult to find accurate information about a soldier of long service (1747-1801) who fought during the French and Indian War as a Captain in the Black Watch, was severely wounded at the head of his brigade during the American War of Independence, and left the British Army a full general.  He doesn't rate a mention in Boatner's (1966) Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, and unless I decide to create an entry you won't find him in Wikipedia.

My interest in General Thomas Stirling came about during my research into two battles that took place in New Jersey in June of 1780.  He was wounded at the very outset of this campaign - what is often referred to as Knyphausen's Springfield Raid - but there was evidently very little awareness of his ultimate fate on the part of contemporary Americans and subsequent historians.  Some sources said the wound was mortal.  Others that he died from complications a year later.  Given that the Dictionary of National Biography. 63 vols. London, 1885-1901. Vol. LIV, pp. 383-384 declares that Sterling lived another 28 years after his injury, it seems high time that someone set the record straight.

Thomas Stirling (1733-1808) was the younger brother of Sir William Stirling, Fourth Knight Baronet of Ardoch, and succeeded to his brother's title as the Fifth (and last) Knight Baronet in 1799.  Most available sources agree he was born in 1733.  His most complete service record available on line states that Thomas Stirling began his military career with a commission from the Prince or Orange dated October 11, 1747 and spent the next decade with the Scottish Brigade in the service of the Dutch, participating in the final stages of the War of Austrian Succession. 

On March 24, 1757 (another source says July 24th) he was commissioned a Captain in the 42nd Highland Regiment.  One of Stirling's biographical references claims in 1755 he was a captain and lieutenant in the 48th Regiment of Foot and wounded with Braddock at Monongahela, which conflicts with his Dutch service and is not borne out by other available records, including a list of the officers of the 48th.  He appears to have been at the Battle of Carillon under Abercrombie and the capture of Ticonderoga the following year with Amherst. He was at the surrender of Montreal in 1760, and wrote to his brother at home that he was "heartily tired of this country, as was every officer in it" and expressing his hope that "Long may Peace reign here...as surely god never intended any war should be carried on by any other besides the natives."  It would be a very long time indeed before he would return to his home in Scotland.

It gets tricky to follow his movements during this period, as the 42nd had two battalions and the 2nd of these was sent to Martinique in 1759. Captain Stirling and the 42nd (now Royal) Highland regiment was actually sent to the Caribbean in 1762, and he was wounded at Martinique during this campaign and not in 1759 as others assume.

The two battalions were combined after the fall of Havana and remained in New York as part of the force selected to protect the colonies.  Captain Stirling took part in the relief of Fort Pitt in the summer of 1763 during Pontiac's Rebellion and served against the Ohio Indians in 1764.  He is specifically credited with leading a 100 man detachment down the Ohio to take possession of Fort Chartres in southern Illinois.  It was an odyssey worthy of the likes of Robert Rogers or Benedict Arnold and I'd love to someday read the journals of the expedition, which reportedly describe such encounters as a "prodigious number" of pelicans that were initially mistaken for a regiment of the white-uniformed French, a personal battle that Captain Stirling had with a "monstrous" bear, and makeshift sails made from the regimental plaids.  After overwintering at the Fort, they traveled downriver to New Orleans and sailed via Pensacola to New York and then marched to rejoin their regiment in Philadelphia.

Thomas Stirling remained with the 42nd Highlanders after they were posted to the Irish garrison, rising to Major and Lt. Colonel, which in the British army at that time served as the tactical commander of the regiment, with the Colonelcy going to a General officer. In 1776, he lead the 42nd back to America, arriving in August before New York.  The battalion companies of the 42nd and two other highland regiments were organized into two temporary battalions under the overall command of Lt. Col. Stirling, who set about preparing his men for the realities of an American campaign and training them to fight in open order as light infantry, as this 1825 history recounts:

"From the moment of their landing, Colonel Stirling was indefatigable in drilling the men to the manner of fighting practiced in the former war with the Indians and French bushmen, which is so well calculated for a close, woody country.  Colonel Stirling was well versed in this mode of warfare, and imparted it to the troops, first by training the non-commissioned officers himself, and then superintending the instruction of the soldiers.  The highlanders made rapid progress n this discipline, being, in general, excellent marksmen, and requiring only to have their natural impetuosity restrained, which often lead them to disdain fighting in ambush."

Thomas Stirling lead his men at Long Island.  Coincidentally, the American General William Alexander (1726-1786) of New Jersey, who also happened to be a claimant for the earldom of Stirling, was captured during this battle.  Alexander was known to American contemporaries as Lord Stirling even though he was unable to secure the title and should not be confused with the subject of this essay.

Lt. Col. Thomas Stirling also took part in the attack and capture of Fort Washington later that fall and served in New Jersey that winter.    The battalion companies of the 42nd were in reserve during the Battle of Brandywine and Stirling later led the 42nd and a detachment of the 10th to drive the enemy from Billingspoint ,and so was not present at the Battle of Germantown.  He was often sent on foraging expeditions and raids with more than just his regiment under his command.  In February 1779 he led a raid from Staten Island to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and reoccupied Stoney Point when it was abandoned by Anthony Wayne.

Clearly, this was a highly competent officer, well suited to service in America.  In February of 1779 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the King and.  In June, 1780, now a Brigadier General, he lead the first brigade in Knyphausen's invading force that crossed once again from Staten Island to Elizabethtown.  At the very outset, it was his misfortune to be shot from his horse in the single volley fired at the British vanguard by a picket of twelve men under Ensign Moses Ogden of Spenser's New Jersey regiment, who had been posted in Elizabethtown by my ancestor Colonel Elias Dayton.  Stirling's injury was considered severe and Knyphausen himself took command of the vanguard.

But how severe?  Thayer's As We Were; The Story of Old Elizabethtown published by the New Jersey Historical Society in 1964 mistakenly states that the wound was mortal.  Hatfield's History of Elizabeth, New Jersey (1868) to which Thayer's work owes a substantial debt, reports that the General was unhorsed, and his thigh fractured by the shot, and erroniously claims "he died of his wound, a year later".   His injury, while serious, did not prevent him from seeing further service, however.  One source states he was at Yorktown with Cornwallis, though it should be pointed out that this source also claims he was with Clinton during his 1780 Charleston, S.C. campaign, which was contemporaneous with his wounding in New Jersey.  His old regiment the 42nd Highlanders did go south with Clinton, however.  In May of 1782 he was made "colonel" of the 71st Highlanders, succeeded the deceased General Frasier.  In 1801 he was a full general.

Here then, was the commander of a famous regiment, who saw hard service in the American War of Independence and left North America a Major General, and yet his story is little known and much remains to be clarified. It may be that his loss at the beginning of the 1780 invasion of New Jersey had significant implications for the way that the campaign would develop, and it is a shame his record is not better understood or documented. I was unable to find even a portrait of Thomas Stirling to use in this piece.

Physignominy

Founding Fathers found again!

Eerie, ain't it?                                                       

'Course, if you age them, there are other possibilities.  Vice President Burr, meet Senator Byrd.                      

For some reason, it is easier to find Democrats who are dead ringers for these revolutionaries.  I tried to make Dick Cheney look like Martha Washington, but couldn't find any photos of him without glasses. This may be why he doesn't wear contacts...

The Battle of Egremont?

The Sons of the American Revolution maintain a list of every action of any size that occurred in the New England colonies during our war of Independence.  Aside from places, dates, and color codes to distinguish who came out on top, there is not additional data provided, which is going to cause me to do some digging because I find that something  of a military nature took place on 5/1/1777 in Egremont, Massachusetts, just up the road a piece from where I write in the Southern Berkshires.  Around here we remember the final act of Shay's Rebellion which played out in nearby Sheffield on the Egremont Road, but no one mentions a skirmish, raid or other standoff in Egremont during the Revolution. 

So naturally I had to do some sleuthing.  It turns out that the fight was probably not in Egremont but actually a raid launched from there in April, 1777 on Tories over in New York.  The Albany / Hartford Turnpike - now Rte 23 - passed over the Taconics between New York and Massachusetts in Egremont, and there was a longstanding feud over rival claims to the southern Berkshires between the Livingstons and Massachusetts patent holders.  According to the pension record of Egremont militia soldier Andrew Loomis:

"... in April 1777 I was called out with the militia of Egremont aforesaid under the command of Capt. Ephraim Fitch, & marched under his command to Livingston's Manor in the state of New York to subdue & disperse a party of British & Tories assembled there — we were out two or three weeks — the commander of the British, called Capt. Hooper (I think) was killed, several wounded, some taken prisoners & the rest effectually dispersed."

Ephraim Fitch, incidentally, would later vote against ratification of the Federal Constitution and though a justice of the peace was yet a strong supporter of Shay's Rebellion. 

This will take some digging into.  I'll let you know what I uncover.

Tryon's Danbury Raid (Part 4)

The Saugatuck River rises in the Danbury Hills and runs for not much more than 20 miles before it reaches Long Island Sound.  At its mouth, in present day Westport it is a wide river, but in colonial times there was a bridge a couple miles just upstream where the Old King's Highway crossed the Saugatuck.  On the morning of April 28th, 1777, Benedict Arnold and the force which had opposed the British the previous afternoon at Ridgefield raced to hold this crossing and, they supposed, get between Tryon's raiders and their waiting ships and trap them on the wrong side of the river.  In this belief Arnold was mistaken, as subsequent events would prove.

Tryon's force marched south on the Ridgefield Road into Wilton, where they took prisoners and looted several houses.  Some of the Wilton militia under Lt. Seth Abbott (no relation) were with Arnold and had taken losses at Ridgefield, but others were gathering and more American militia were on the march to intercept the British including Col. Jedediah Huntington and the men who had relinquished Danbury to the invader and were now looking for vengeance. 

Word came from area loyalists of a possible ambush being prepared at Wilton Center, so Tryon changed the direction of march and detoured down Old Mill Road and over to Old Danbury Rd.  An online article of Wilton history reports;

"At the bridge over Comstock Brook, they found and destroyed 100 barrels of rum, several chests of arms, many cartridges (bullets and powder wrapped in paper), 300 tents, and the forge and bellows of Captain Clapp Raymond, a blacksmith. All of this had been hidden there for safekeeping, as the Americans did not expect the British to take this route. At Captain Raymond’s house (249 Danbury Road, moved to 224 Danbury Road in 2001), they attempted to set fire to his barn, but a Tory neighbor and her Indian slave put out the fire. Raymond later claimed damages of £34 3s. 10d.

Tryon then marched his troops up Dudley Road (Westport Road did not exist at the time), pausing to loot the home of Lieutenant Seth Abbott, to the extent of £55 7s. 3d. in damages."

These were not random acts of looting, but appear to have been targeted against local patriot militia leaders.  It is clear that the British benefited from intelligence provided by area Tories, and perhaps from some of the 300 who served in the expedition in the loyalist Prince of Wales American Regiment.  Such intelligence would be invaluable to Tryon as his column approached the Saugatuck.

One source claims Colonel Huntington attacked the British column at this point near the ridge of Chestnut Hill, which offered clear views toward the Sound.  It also revealed that Arnold's force held the Old Kings Bridge over the river.  With enemies gathering behind and the river between them and safety, Tryon was in a tight spot, but again he was served by those with local knowledge who knew of a nearby ford two miles upstream- though crucially, Arnold did not - where today it is even possible to bicycle across the stream.  The British detoured again on what is now called RedCoat Rd. and crossed the river unopposed at the modern intersection of Ford and Clinton Rd.  Arnold failed to shift his front to intercept and Tryon's column reached the beachhead at Compo Hill, but not for want of trying.

Colonel Hugh Hughes, Deputy Quartermaster of the Continental Army, was present with Arnold at the bridge and left a record of what he saw, quoted in  Robert McDevitt's Connecticut Attacked: A British Viewpoint, Tryon's Raid on Danbury (1975):

"As soon as they were within reach of a six-pounder - he [Arnold] ordered a shot to be thrown among them which halted the whole first division, and the second [shot] put them into some disorder as it overset some of them.  On which when, the second division came up, it was determined by them to take a left hand road which led over a fording place..."

McDevitt states that General Erskine made a show of force before the bridge, pushing two regiments forward while the rest wheeled to the left and made for the ford.  Arnold could not shift to defend the ford without exposing his own flank.  The British observed that Arnold attempted to cross the bridge but was not followed by his men.  The 4th (King's Own) were left to hold the north side of the bridge while the rest of the British made for the shore, and were pressed so hard by the rebel troops that they were nearly cut off, but in the end they gained the shore.

There was still the challenge of reembarking, and the Americans had been reinforced and now possessed  artillery of their own.  In addition to a militia company from Fairfield with one cannon, there were four more under Lt. Colonel Eleazer Oswald - Arnold's former aide in his March to Quebec who was captured in the doomed assault of the lower City in December 1775 - now leading two companies of the 2nd Continental (Lamb's) Artillery.  Colonel Lamb was also on hand, having ridden 60 miles from Southington when the alarm reached him.  Certain DAR Lineage books place my ancestor Thadeus Thompson at Compo Hill with Lamb's Artillery, but I have come to believe this is wishful thinking.  Young Thompson (and he was young, born in 1762) did indeed serve under Lamb from Valley Forge to Yorktown where he was maimed by a shell that struck the facines he was carrying, but his enlistment was not until 1778. 

The American reinforcements now included 60 horsemen from the 1st Troop of the 3rd Connecticut Cavalry, Colonel Huntington's Danbury force, 3 additional companies from New Haven, and at least one tired rider from Sharon, CT - the previously mentioned and ill-fated Lt. Samuel Lawrence.  With these troops and the defenders of Ridgefield, there were perhaps 1,200 Americans to contest the British evacuation at Compo Hill.  Anticipating the need for assistance of his own, Tryon send his redoubtable second in command Sir William Erskine ahead of his column to secure the beachhead and some sources (but notably, not McDevitt) claim he brought cannon, sailors and marines from the ships to augment his force on land.  McDevitt makes the case that the British held the shore with the force at hand.

On Compo Hill, the British placed four cannon to secure their right flank and defended themselves behind stone walls.  It was a strong defensive position and Tryon now outnumbered his attackers three to one, but this did not stop the Americans from attempting to dislodge them.  Colonel Lamb rallied those nearest the beach to assault the guns.  He rode his horse up to the stone fence in a hail of grape shot and was struck down - it was thought mortally - as he mounted the wall.  Lt. Colonel Oswald served his guns admirably in support of this assault and those that followed.  Arnold's men kept up a heavy fire and the General had yet another hose shot from under him but emerged without a scratch.  Others were not so fortunate.  Lt. Elnathan Nichols of the 3rd Connecticut Horse was struck by cannister in the elbow  Ebenezer How, Jr. and Benjamen Weed 3rd, both of the Stamford Militia, are listed in the surgeon's records with wounds to the hip and right side respectively after the fight at Compo Hill.  Another man, Amos Gray, survived musket balls to the arm and breast, but many others did not.  Among the slain was Lt. Elmore of Sharon, who it is reported:

"seeing that his men were disposed to retreat, leaped upon a stone wall and shouted ' for God's sake, men, don't retreat, don't run, let's march up the hill and drive them off.' At that instant he fell shot through the body saying to George Pardee who was near him ' Uncle George I am a dead man' and immediately expired."

Out of ammunition, the British counterattacked with the bayonet. Elements of the 4th, 15th, 23rd and 27th regiments took part in the charge, with Major Stewart and a dozen men reportedly leaping the wall and initiating a general charge by the rest.  Whoever initiated it, the charge proved effective and compelled the patriots to withdraw.  The embarkation then proceeded without further impediment,, again despite Arnold's efforts to rally the militia to oppose it.

The British losses among those who made the raid were about 150 casualties.  The loyalist Prince of Wales American Regiment lost 1 drummer and 6 rank & file killed; 3 officers, 3 sergeants and 11 rank & file wounded; plus 3 rank & file missing.  Its commander Montfort Browne was slightly wounded, though Captain Daniel Lyman of the regiment's Light Infantry Company was shot through the body and never fully recovered.  The 64th Regiment of Foot had Captain Carter, Ensign Mercer, and eleven men of the 64th wounded. 

American casualties are much harder to determine, though estimates range between 100-125 (plus more than 40 captured) and General Wooster and Lt. Colonel Gold slain.  The American loss in personal property and war materiel was much greater, culminating in houses burned near the beach as they embarked and including the stores at Danbury, which amounted to 1,700 tents, 4,000 barrels of beef and pork, 1,000 barrels of flour, rice, hospital stores, engineering tools, 5,000 pairs of shoes and stockings, a printing press, rum, molasses, sugar, wheat, and Indian corn.

From a propaganda standpoint, both sides were quick to put their own spin on the affair, but in the beginning the American commander and Congress perceived the British raid as a mistake that they took steps not to repeat by moving depots much further inland.  Washington himself did not learn of the raid until the evening of April 30 when he wrote the President of Congress;

"Sir: I have been waiting with much anxiety to hear the result of the expedition against Danbury, which I never was informed of 'till this minute. The inclosed Copy of a Letter from General MacDougall and of Several Others, which he transmitted, will give Congress all the intelligence, I have upon the Subject. I have only to add and to lament, that this Enterprize has been attended but with too much success on the part of the Enemy."

As news of Arnold's heroics reached Congress, it acted to promote him to Major General, prompting Washington to write;

"General Arnolds promotion gives me much pleasure; he has certainly discovered, in every instance where he has had an opportunity, much bravery, activity and enterprize. But what will be done about his Rank? he will not act, most probably, under those he commanded but a few weeks ago."

Indeed, though they also awarded him a horse with all necessary equipment to replace the one lost at Ridgefield, Congress only dated Arnold's commission to that February when he was initially passed over for promotion, the resentment of which festered and contributed to his eventually turning traitor.

The martyred General Wooster was lauded in death as was not always the case in life - his handling of   the  invading forces in Canada was decried by Congressional observers.  The Wooster School in Danbury where I spent the first two years of my life was named for him, and even Phillis Wheatley penned an unpublished poem in his honor:

From this the Muse rich consolation draws
He nobly perish'd in his Country's cause
His Country's Cause that ever fir'd his mind
Where martial flames, and Christian virtues join'd.
How shall my pen his warlike deeds proclaim
Or paint them fairer on the list of Fame—
Enough, great Chief-now wrapt in shades around,
Thy grateful Country shall thy praise resound—
Tho not with mortals' empty praise elate
That vainest vapour to the immortal State
Inly serene the expiring hero lies.
And thus (while heav'nward roll his swimming eyes):

Accolades and propotions were also forthcoming for Colonel Jedediah Huntington, who later that year commanded a brigade of Connecticut Continentals under Washington, and for Lt. Colonel Oswald, praised for his handling of the guns at Compo and lauded once again in 1778 for his service at Monmouth.  As for the militia, their defense of Connecticut during Tryon's Danbury Raid would assume the proportions of myth - their own Lexington and Concord, giving the redcoats "ball for ball."  The truth is that the milita and those continental units on hand fought well and were well lead.  Not all of them arrived in time to fire on the British but all (save Arnold, who had reason to resent their conduct) had the sense that they had done what was required to see them off.  The raid also showed that forces from neighboring states would rally to defend the other.  While the British never again penetrated deep into the state, their subsequent coastal raids were probably more a reflection of the lack of suitable inland targets than the need for a quick getaway.  Nonetheless, as long as the militia were willing to rise and swarm, though it took the British several more years to fully realize this, the royalists could raid but they could not hold the territory through which they marched.