"Sharp, quirky, and occasionally nettlesome", Walking the Berkshires is my personal blog, an eclectic weaving of human narrative, natural history, and other personal passions with the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills as both its backdrop and point of departure. I am interested in how land and people, past and present manifest in the broader landscape and social fabric of our communities. The opinions I express here are mine alone. Never had ads, never will.
Today is the 235th anniversary of the Battle of Germantown during the Philadelphia Campaign. The family and I will take part in a reenactment of one of its central actions, the fight around the Chew House or "Cliveden", in which the 1st and 3rd NJ regiments commanded by my ancestors Matthias Ogden and Elias Dayton suffered their heaviest casualties of the war (with Brandywine several weeks before a close second).
"The evening of the third we marched off with the whole army, with the design to attach the enemy, who lay near Germantown; about fifteen miles distant from us; unfortunately for us the night proved very dark, which so retarded our march that we did not reach the enemy's advanced post until sunrise, whereas our design was to attack them at first dawn of day. At sunrise the fire began: their advanced party soon gave way, our people pursued them closely to the main body, which they immediately attacked likewise, and they soon gave way, and were pursued from field to field with great loss on their side.
We suffered considerable in advancing, by a party of the enemy had thrown into a large stone house, said to belong to Benj. Chew. At this place fell Capt. McMyer and Ensign Hurley of Col. Ogden's regiment; Capt. Conway, Capt. Morrison, Capt. Baldwin and Lt. Robinson wounded, of the same regiment, together with about 20 men; Of my regiment Lt. Clark and Ensign Bloomfield were wounded and 18 men killed and wounded; my horse was shot under me at the same place, within about three yards of the corner of the house.
About this time came on perhaps the thickest fog known in the memory of man, which, together with the smoke, brought on almost midnight darkness, it was not possible at one time (I believe for the space of near half an hour) to distinguish friend from foe five yards distance. This obliged all our parties to give over the pursuit, as they were in danger of firing upon their friends, and probably did several times before the fire ceased. At this instant the enemy rallied their scattered forces and advanced upon us, when we retreated in turn, though with very little loss. I believe every man we had either killed or wounded met his fate full in front as he was advancing. We had one Brigadier General who was shot in the thigh with a cannon ball, of which wound he died three days afterwards. Our good Major Witherspoon was shot dead by a cannon shot in the head as we were advancing through the streets of Germantown."
A return of the 3rd NJ on October 6th, 1777 shows 26 officers, 16 NCOs, 9 musicians and 150 Rank and File present fit for duty, and lists casualties from Germantown as 1 NCO and 5 Rank and file killed, 2 officers, 1 NCO and 12 Rank and File wounded, and 1 NCO and 4 men missing.
The breakdown of casualties in the 1st NJ were likely as great or perhaps even higher given the high toll of officers killed and wounded. Ensign Martin Hurely was wounded but did not die in battle, but rather was captured and executed by the British afterward as a deserter from the 44th Regiment of foot back in 1775 in Boston. He later served in the 1st NJ beginning in its 1st establishment, rising from private to sergeant and then to Ensign.
It is a good day in my book when my professional life and my living history hobby intersect. Talya and I enjoyed a fine Saturday morning in our 18th century garb as part of my employer The Housatonic Valley Associations "Free Family Fun" event celebrating the history of the river. The rain stopped in the early morning hours and the weather was not oppressively hot, so we did not wilt in our heavy wool and linen.
We set up our tent by the riverside across from the hydropower station at Falls Village. The old iron bridge between that community and the Amesville section of Salisbury is now closed and badly needs repairs, and we were able to tell those who attended the event that the first bridge on that site was owned and managed by Charles Burrill, who at the time of the revolution was a militia Colonel. I turned out in my civilian attire representing one of Burrill's 14th CT militiamen, and Talya did her Quaker apothecary impression to the delight of one little girl in particular who had a grand time holding her woven egg basket.
I got to share a few original artifacts as well, including this 1773 Connecticut made fowler flintlock with a 60" barrel, and to read a letter written by my 5th great-aunt Hannah Ogden in 1779 containing all sorts of juicy gossip of the goings on in Elizabethtown NJ with the British just across the water at Staten Island.
There were 20-30 people who turned out for the three hour event, which featured a walk with local historian and expert on the colonial ironworks of our region Ed Kirby and a presentation on the native American cultures of our region. There was actually a spectator there who is Lakota Sioux and was in the area visiting family. He told us about attending a ceremony in Goshen, CT a few weeks ago for the naming ceremony of a rare white buffalo calf that was just born there, an event of great sacred significance to many native American people.
There is but one verified veteran of WWI left alive out of the millions who served in the Great War. She is Florence Green, 110 years old, who in 1918 was an officer's mess steward in the Women's Royal Air Corps. She was recently "rediscovered" as a veteran of the Great War in January, 2010. She is also one of an estimated 300-400 supercentenarians worldwide who are >110 years old. 81 of these have been verified.
Extreme longevity is a rare curiosity. From what I can tell, those who achieve it and are able to articulate their thoughts on the subject tend to be quite astonished that they alone of their generation have survived. The last combat veterans of the War to End all Wars also routinely expressed their frustration that war is still a core human activity. In twenty years when the soldiers of "The Greatest Generation" are winnowed down to the last individuals, I wonder if it will be the same for them.
It is not only the experience of past wars that recedes when there are none that live who remember it. How we remember and understand those times becomes a matter of historiography and storytelling. Our memorials have more to say as artifacts of the society that created them than the events and individuals they commemorate. Whether carved in stone as Je me souviens or repeated by millions at Passover seders, the injunction "never forget" reinforces values and attitudes in the present time . It may or may not reflect the experience,and motivations of those we remember who were social actors in earlier times.
Memories are revisited and revised over a lifetime of reflection. What an eyewitness feels in the moment, the emotions it generates, and how that person responds to these stimuli is highly significant both to social historians as well as to psychologists trying to interpret individual and collective behaviors. I understand the emotion "fear" but not in the way that those in combat may experience it. Those who fight in modern wars with modern sensibilities may respond quite differently from those combatants with the world views of other times and societies. If there is no one left to tell us how it felt at the time, we are left trying to interpret whatever remains in the surviving historical record of what they chose to record.
As a genealogist, I often confront the regret that comes from no longer being able to ask a living relative about details from the past that I must now try to glean from other sources. As a society, there is now only one tangible living link to the Great War, and it is too great an expectation to place on her to be Virgil to our Dante. Our responsibility to the past is both to remember and to revisit those memories, to test our assumptions and gain a deeper understanding about ourselves as well as those who have gone before. Ultimately, for good or ill, the past is what we make of it. So too our destinies.
Ulysses Grant, writng his memoirs in failing health with his finances ruined, recorded his feelings about his former adversaries at the time of Lee's surrender nearly two decades before:
"I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us."
Grant was framing not only the narrative of his life but also the national themes of reunion and reconciliation among former combatants in 1885 that predominated following Reconstruction.
There was, of course, a countervailing regional 'Lost Cause' narrative whose embers still glow today. and others that would not be seriously confronted at the national level until the Civil Rights era. Still, Grant gave expression to a sentiment that had great persistence in Civil War memory for more than a century: one that 20th century reunions of aged veterans who embraced their former foes on the battlefields of their youth only served to strengthen.
Today the great-great-grandsons and granddaughters of those old men, to the degree that they give any thought to the meaning of the Civil War at all, are obviously not informed by direct experience of those times, or even personal contact with those who lived and took part in the events of mid-19th century America. My grandmother told me what her mother told her, and her mother was born in 1874 and so heard it from an earlier generation. We may draw on the powerfully compelling second-hand narrative spun in Ken Burn's PBS documentary, or on agendas that have much more to do with personal politics and identity than with an informed and dispassionate understanding of Civil War history.
We are also in a different place in our national dialogue than our predecessors were even 50 years ago during the Centennial. In some cases we seem to have moved forward, as our discussion at the national level now emphasizes the importance of slavery and African American memory in our interpretation of the causation and significance of this conflict. But there is a notable backlash as well, and not only from unrepentant racists but also among those who feel that personal and collective values of Southern pride and heritage are threatened by accusations that what their ancestors did for the Confederacy was treasonous and in defense of white supremacy.
One hears the same old belief of an affirmative right to secede that Lincoln so compellingly dispelled in his his first inaugural address. Our "bonds of affection" that he urged his fellow countrymen in the South not to break in 1861 make it virtually unthinkable today that a region of the United States would be willing and able to secede from the Union today, but so does our Constitution, which replaced the Articles of Confederation in a deliberate effort to establish a national government that could withstand fragmentation by entrenched sectional interests.
Why is it so important to some of our fellow Americans to defend what their ancestors did in taking up arms in the cause of secession? Why is it so difficult to say today, as Grant did in 1885, that the valor of their Confederate ancestors is beyond dispute, while acknowledging that they did not go to war primarily because of tariffs, or the rights of States to self rule, but first and foremost to preserve and defend a way of life and personal identity sustained by the enslavement of people of color? Why are these two sentiments incompatible?
Pride and shame create a powerful dissonance that warps and distorts memory and prevents us from seeing with clear eyes. We who admire our forebears do not want to be condemned by their actions, and all of us stand on the shoulders of those who came before, no matter how firm the foundation that grounds their feet (sometimes feet of clay). Mussolini may have made the trains run on time, but only the very foolish and irresponsible would march through Little Italy on Columbus Day in black shirts waving the banner of fascism marked with "Heritage not Hate" and claiming it was about nothing but Italian Pride.
There is a difference, though, and an especially significant one, between guilt and responsibility. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it best;
"Above all, the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people. Few are guilty, but all are responsible".
We are talking about the responsibility that we the living have to the past and to society - a responsibility that understands the need for honest appraisal of historical evidence as well as causality. I am not guilty for what my ancestors did, but I have a responsibility to understand them as social actors who made choices for good or ill based on what they possessed and what they knew that have consequences extending to our time.
We can, and should appreciate the impact of slavery on the economic and social stratification of the United States throughout its history and in all regions of the country. It does not excuse the actions of those who supported Secession that northern economic interests benefited from slave labor, or that every state in the Union had slavery at the time of the Revolution. It does not make the cause of southern Independence any less about maintaining the institution of slavery that Confederate armies made use of black labor (and eventually a very very small number of blacks under arms). Washington's army at Yorktown, lest we forget, was estimated by a French observer to be fully 25% American American soldiers, not all of whom were free.
I say this in full knowledge that each of us has a core identity that places different emphasis on its various components. Those in the dominant culture, and part of the dominant narrative, may be less inclined to identify first and foremost by region, or ethnicity, or the events of 150 years ago. Those who place religion, or gender, or language, or landscape ahead of other considerations of identity may engage with that narrative quite differently.
At the time of the American Revolution, the various colonies along the eastern seaboard were so geographically and economically isolated from each other that "easterners" from New England considered Pennsylvania part of the south. A strong case could be made that the Continental army was able to draw on soldiers from these disparate regions, though they rarely served all together, because of the unique personal qualities of George Washington, and that otherwise as Ben Franklin so memorably depicted in a political cartoon from the French and Indian War, it was truly a case of "Join or Die".
The Declaration of Independence transformed the fight of the Colonies from armed resistance in defense of their rights as Englishmen to a national struggle for self-determination. The Emancipation Proclamation made the abolition of slavery a central war aim of the Union, but as Lincoln said in 1861 it was always the center of the conflict.
"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute."
I believe we can honor our ancestors for their admirable qualities and their misdeeds, without needing them to be infallible or blameless. I believe we can look at atrocities and injustices honestly, whether perpetrated by the victors or the vanquished. I believe that we will still be rehashing the causes and justifications for our Civil War and flogging those old dead horses until and unless we put pride and shame aside, and start taking responsibility to give an honest appraisal of the evidence of history and its legacy today.
When I began this blog, nearly six years ago, I was just finding my way in a new medium, writing about a certain place and the natural world. My blog, like my brain, is an amalgam of intersecting interests that do not fit into a simple category. Those dealing with American History and family genealogy have come to predominate, but while I post less frequently than I did when this was my sole creative and social outlet, it is still quite possible to come here looking for one thing and to find something quite different in close proximity. Let serendipity be your guide.
My Revolutionary War interests now predominate, and for those of you who have come to Walking the Berkshires with that in mind, a few words of introduction may help to set the scene.
Scrolling down to the Blog archives section in the right hand column, you will find several categories of interest. The catch all link for RevWar related material is called American Revolution and it is full of all sorts of stuff, including my reenacting experiences and those of my ancestors who served in our Independence struggle. I often research and write extended series, one of which received the high honor of a 2008 Cliopatria Award for best series of posts. Many of these have their own archive category, and are archived with the last post at the top of the chain. They can be found here:
Canada Expedition and Death of Montgomery in which my 5th Great Uncle, Matthias Ogden, played a prominent part, and which received the aforementioned Cliopatria award.
Margaret Corbin, a real life Molly Pitcher and a soldier to the bone
Tryon's Danbury Raid (1777) where there is a family connection to a 2nd Lt. in the 5th CT (second establishment)
Sullivan's Staten Island Raid (1777); in which my ancestors in the 1st & 3rd NJ had a romp and the rear guard of Marylanders and 2nd Canadian got left to fend for themselves.
The Convention Army in Connecticut (1778); in which I share some of my research into the route and encampments of Burgoyne's surrendered army on the march through CT from MA to VA.
Court Martial of Col. Matthias Ogden; where I dig up the dirt on my ancestor, the commander of the 1st NJ Continentals and observe how once again he comes out smelling like a rose.
Knyphausen's Raid (1780); my "unfinished symphony", in which over several years I have written no further than the death of Mrs Caldwell after Connecticut Farms. Still more research to do before I am satisfied with continuing.
Ogden and Dayton, POWS (1780-1781), in which I discuss the capture and release of Col. Matthias Ogden and my 4th Gr-Grandfather, Jonathan Dayton of the 3rd NJ.
I write about the Jerseys because I descend from or am closely related to prominent officers and commanders in the 1st and 3rd NJ (and this is also a major reason why I reenact in the 1st, where my 4th Great Grandfather Aaron Ogden also served under his brother Matthias). Elias Dayton, Senior Colonel in the NJ Brigade, was his father and my 5th Gr-grandfather. My family history includes a conflicted family with a loyalist turncoat and another whose lands were confiscated but but who then later successfully petitioned for reinstatement. It includes Ebenezer Olmsted, who served as an NCO and junior officer in three campaigns in three CT regiments, impregnated the minister's daughter, and later robbed his townsmen blind. There is also a minuteman from Andover who arrived too late for Lexington but was in the redoubt at Bunker Hill, and another from Bedford who fought at Concord. Most of them are listed here, but I keep finding more RevWar veterans in the branches of the tree.
I am also involved in the Cannon Committee of the Salisbury Association Historical Society, on a quest to identify and recover a surviving example of one of the nearly 900 iron guns that came from the cannon foundry of this NW CT town during the Revolution. I believe some of them may be at the bottom of the Penobscot River, as a number of scuttled transports for the failed expedition there came from CT.
I am always game to delve into other research projects in this time period, and follow leads wherever they may take me. I hope you may find something of interest here.
The venerable History Carnival celebrates its 100th edition this month. It all began as a fortnightly affair back in January, 2005, and carried on that way through the first 50 editions. It then shifted to a monthly schedule in April, 2007 and so it continues to this day.
This state of affairs makes it challenging to apply an appropriate commemorative modifier to History Carnival 100. I suppose one might call it something along the lines of the "Demicentimensiversary Edition", but I'm no fan of the tendency in certain academic circles to invent needless, inelegant jargon instead of communicating in clear and lucid prose. All this manages to accomplish is to problematize structural totalities under the rubric of hegemonic hermeneutics, n'est-ce pas? Damn skippy. History Carnival 100 it is.
Here at Walking the Berkshires, we serve up history the way we like our single malt: neat, with plenty of smoke and peat and a dry lingering tail. Some light agitation helps to bring out all the subtle notes and complexity: less a kick in the jaw than warm oil on the tongue...
Excuse me a moment...Mmmm....Ahhh. Caol Ila, 12 Years Old. Right, well, why not help yourself to the beverage of your choice, and we'll get on with the show!
Alternate History: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Ignorant
I am extremely fond of counterfactual history when it is done well. So much of the actual history has to be right in order for the fabrication to hold together. There is also the possibility that 2nd order counterfactuals stemming from the first might well bring about the same historical outcome from a different direction. Sometimes, no matter where they begin, all roads must inexorably lead to Rome.
One of the first rules of counterfactual hypothesizing is to make as few changes as possible to the conditions leading up to the alternate reality. We are talking about the lack of horseshoe nails, here, not the gun that won't exist until 2419 - cool as that is - as described by the National Museum of American History Blog.
Speaking of events that may yet come to pass, the question of whether there should be a new monument to Virginia State troops at Antietam is the subject of a fascinating post at Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory. Brian Schoeneman, a candidate for elected office in the Virginia House of Delegates, gamely weighs in at several points during an extensive comment thread - every bit as interesting as the post itself - in support of his campaign pledge to make this happen.
An excellent example of alternate history done right is featured this month at Today in Alternate History, which speculates on what might have been, if only Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand had avoided assassination in 1914. Would you believe resurgent Hapsburgs, giving rise by 1930 to a "Triple Monarchy of Austria-Hungary-Slavonia, Turkey, and a docile but resource-rich Romanov Russia under the frail hemophiliac Tsar Alexander IV"?
Certainly that is more believable than some of the self-deceptive mangling of American history perpetrated recently by some of the most prominent faces of the Tea Party movement. I felt compelled to offer these candidates for the highest office in the land a helpful multiple choice quiz on our Revolutionary history, but J. L. Bell of Boston 1775 corrects the record on Sarah Palin's mistatements about the Midnight Rider with far more class and less snark than I could muster. Quoth he;
"So did Palin share a correct and uncommonly knowledgeable interpretation of Revere’s ride? Or was she correct only in the way that a stopped clock is correct if you look at it in exactly the right way and ignore it a second later? That argument might have raged forever, but then someone came along and made it impossible to maintain that Palin enjoys a detailed, accurate understanding of the start of the Revolutionary War. That person was Sarah Palin."
"...in his Houston speech to the Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan fell for one of the great hoaxes of American history, surpassed in taking people in only by H.L. Mencken`s enchanting fable about Millard Fillmore’s installing the first bathtub in the White House,” Schlesinger wrote. “The author of the less than immortal words Lincoln never said was an ex-clergyman from Erie, Pa., named William J.H. Boetcker.”
Airminded examines British media claims during WWII that RAF precision bombing in reprisal for the Blitz was morally and technically superior to indiscriminate Luftwaffe bombing, and finds them wanting:
"Nearly everything in these articles is, at best, wishful thinking. Bomber Command's aircrew may as well have shed their bombs as aimed them, for all the difference it made: as the Butt Report revealed the following year, only one in four aircraft dropping bombs over Germany did so within five miles of their target point. The intention was 'accurate bombing', but the effect was indiscriminate (when the bombs didn't fall on open countryside, that is, which most of them did)...as things were, it's just not possible that what the RAF was doing to Germany in late 1940 was more effective (in any sense) than what the Luftwaffe was doing to Britain."
Still, for my money, if your history is going to be bad, it might as well be entertaining.
"This is a history that gets overlooked or ignored because of recent debates in the West over garments-as-oppression for other women–you know, Afghani women in burkhas, or other Muslim women covered by the hijab or la voile. As though Western women’s clothing has never been an issue in their citizenship or their feminism!"
And then we have certain minted pneumismatic artifacts of scholarly interest blogged about at Hypervocal. Be forewarned that these may be considered NSFW in some quarters. Are they ancient Roman brothel tokens, or possibly pornographic gaming pieces? At right, a proposed design for a modern token, suitable for use by disgraced US Congressmen in exchange for sexting services, appropriately priced at "sex asses", if I remember my High School Latin.
(I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that certain internet search terms taken out of context from the preceding paragraph are going to single handedly make History Carnival 100 the most heavily visited edition of all time. Just imagine if I had included extended pasages from The Satyricon...)
Blinding Me With Science
It seems appropriate at this point to bring up the subject of censorship. Take, for example, the history of the active suppression of various lines of scientific inquiry. There have been a number of mutually sustaining blog discussions this month on this topic, including one at Christopher M Luna that opines;
"the tendency to label pre-nineteenth century thinkers as scientists created the “possibility of a false impression that science is somehow eternal, separate from the people who practiced it, just waiting to be revealed” and that such an impression could lead to “a problematic faith in progress, a misunderstanding of the scientific method (as though it is static or eternal), and, perhaps most popular these days, a mischaracterization of the interaction between people investigating the natural world and religion."
"The heliocentric hypothesis says that heliocentricity offers a possible model to explain the observed motion of the planets; it says nothing about the truth-value of this model. The heliocentric theory says that the universe is in reality heliocentric. In 1616 the Church banned the heliocentric theory but not the hypothesis. This might at first seem like splitting hairs but in reality it is a very important distinction."
In a similar vein, Jeannie at Tripbaseblog offers her picks for the 8 Most Inspiring American Speeches of All Time and presents their settings as potential history tourism destinations. I confess I would not have thought to include Swami Vivekananda in this lineup, but I wouldn't mind a visit to Chicago (when the Cubbies are in town).
Thomas Dixon's The History of Emotion's blog delves into emotional animals in history and offers up a 1705 account of a weeping horse in Augsberg. I'll see your horse and raise you a Beagle - Schultz's, not Darwin's.
Reading and Misreading
Sandusky Library/Follett House Museum posts at Sandusky History about The Prisoner's Farewell by Irl Hicks, a confederate POW, who upon release at war's end was selected to give a Valedictory Address to the Young Men's Christian Association of Johnson's Island Ohio.
Anchora discusses the relationship between the use of inverted commas in early modern texts as commonplace markers and Kindle's "popular highlights" feature. Here's mine from hers;
"Once you become aware of the significance of inverted commas in early modern books, though, you will never read them the same way again -- it opens up an entirely new (if, perhaps, still familiar to us) way of reading in which texts are mined for pithy, quotable passages."
Mark Liberman at Language Log takes his shots at the media bias toward "sensationalism, conflict and laziness" and offers up this post entitled "A Reading Comprehension Test". Are you smarter than the designers of this American History test for 12th graders, the educational expert who assessed its results, and the news outlets that covered those findings?
"My recent engagement with the wonderful world of blogs and Twitter has certainly shown me both more interest in and more misused history of science than I had previously come across. (I do not feel, in some cases, that misuse is too strong a word. What the Tea Party do to 18th-century American history, supporters of ID do to Darwin and both sides in the arguments about what Christianity has and has not done for science tend to do to the whole history of Western science.) "
Once again, the comment thread is as thought provoking as the post itself.
Frank Jacobs is Mapping Bloomsday in his Strange Maps blog at Big Think.
"This map is not much help in reconstructing that walk, but it does capture the elementary narrative structure of Ulysses. And it does so in that perennial favourite of schematic itineraries, Harry Beck’s London Underground map."
Ralph Luker kindly passed along this highly visual post by Lili Loufborrow writing at the Hairpin concerning women with books they're not reading in art. Mind you, El Greco's Penitent Magdalen has one heck of a Golgotha paperweight blocking her view. I suspect that Christiane Inman's 2009 Forbidden Fruit: A History of Women and Books in Art , described as "a history of women's literacy, and the social forces that often opposed it", may offer a helpful corollary for those with interest in pursuing this topic further.
The History of England gets a fix on the Anglo Saxon World View. I was particularly struck by the following citation attributed to Louise C., participating in a discussion at Historum Forum;
'A mappa mundi is a depiction of the world as a place of experiences, of human history, of notions and knowledge. It's more like an encyclopedia. It's certainly not - and was never intended to be - a chart to be followed by travellers"
History and the Sock Merchant explores Dejima: the 'Deep Space Nine' of Feudal Japan that was "the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period (1603 - 1868)."
"The volunteers I was working with started turning up some startling items amid the field reports and correspondence—pulp magazines from the 1930s, newspaper clippings with headlines straight out of the era of yellow journalism, and gruesome photos of dead bodies...And what a story it turns out to be! It has everything you’d expect (and wouldn’t expect!) from a Smithsonian expedition to tropical seas—exotic islands, fascinating wild fauna, stout-hearted scientists, a love triangle, and, very likely, murder.."
Looks like excellent beach reading. In other mysterious museum news, Galt Museum & Archives blog has one concerning Miss Edith Kirk, an artist "who came from an influential family in Yorkshire, travelled to remote towns in western Canada and then settled in Lethbridge. We don’t know why she left England, nor how she would find herself in the far northern reaches of British Columbia. Trying to fill in the many gaps of her life is an interesting challenge."
ThinkShop explores Joris Ivens and the Legend of Indonesia Calling, a film about the struggle for Indonesian self determination after WII that few saw at the time but which had an impact that was felt by many.
"By the mid-1960s Indonesia Calling had become a film that had a growing following in Holland, long before it had an audience. This made it unique in the history of the cinema. In its symbolic form it intervened in the historical process, shaping memory and providing a site for the articulation of diametrically opposing approaches to the national, and indeed international, past. The facticity of the film become tangential to it most significant impact. The film as fact had been replaced by the film as signifier."
HSP's Hidden Histories takes us out on an uplifting note with selections from a useful but often underutilized historical resource: the 1850-1880 US Mortality Schedules. Alas for the likes of poor William Shuler, age 54 , who died in June of 1869 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Norriton Township, "while disinterring a dead body in {a} Cemetery, having a cut on his finger, had his blood poisoned, from which he died."
This concludes History Carnival 100, brought to you this month by the Roman numeral C, and respectfully submitted by your most humble and obedient servant, a sometimes Continental in the recreated 1st New Jersey Regiment who on occasion even manages to go Walking the Berkshires. The History Carnival returns in August and you could be the host! Trust me, Sharon makes it easy and it's much more fun than your viva or junior prom ever were.
The rest of you may submit nominations here or follow along on Twitter (@historycarnival). Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see a man about a ray gun. I'm leaving the Brown Bess at home for my next reenactment. Consider this my warning to the British, à la Palin's Revere; "You are not going to take our atomic pistols!"
In the parlance of historical reenacting, the word "farb" is a derogatory term for someone whose indifference to authenticity manifests itself in the use of inappropriate items or anachronistic comportment. The commitment to well documented items of period material culture and accurate historical impressions that draws many of us to the hobby can also produce extreme obsessiveness. There are some who would not dream of appearing in the field in anything less than hand woven, hand died fabrics and uncomfortable straight last shoes, and others who are content to use the best they can get until they can find something better.
Standards of authenticity can range from merely acceptable to absolutely hardcore, but "farby" gear and behavior can be glaringly off putting, and all things being equal I would rather avoid making common mistakes and ill advised purchases.
The trouble is that documentation for some of the items used during the time period of the American Revolution that I depict, either in general or by particular units, is often either extremely limited or non-existent. Unlike the mid 19th century, there are no contemporary photographs of items used and worn by the Continental Army, leaving us only with those artifacts that have survived to the present day, written records (often incomplete and inadequately described), and period illustrations and portraits which provide only a few glimpses of enlisted men and the way they lived, dressed and fought.
I fall in with the 1st New Jersey Continentals (2nd establishment), which depicts the unit on campaign as it was in 1777. This narrows the choices for uniforms and equipment in some respects - no French lottery coats yet - but even so there is no precise documentation of the cut and color of any locally procured uniform coats or any flag that may have been carried by the 1st at this time. Unlike some of its sister regiments in the New Jersey Brigade, surviving correspondence, deserter descriptions advertised in newspapers, orderly books and journals from the 1st NJ do not provide much in the way of definitive documentation.
It is possible that its commander, my ancestor Col. Matthias Ogden, was less attentive to the requirements of quartermaster and commissary than he appears to have been to grievances over the inadequacies of officer pay and to demonstrations of personal courage and daring in the field. It is also possible that in 1777, his first year as commander of the regiment and one in which the unit participated in almost constant marching and a number of sharp engagements, there was little time to devote to requisitions. Historian John Rees has done as fine a job as anyone of documenting the uniforms of the Jersey Troops in the early stages of the war up to the Monmouth Campaign in 1778, and this still leaves a good deal of room for informed guesswork and interpretation.
There is also the problem that even items for which there is contemporary documentation may be historically inaccurate when used by reenactors. Consider the "New Invented Haversack", a one strap knapsack offered for sale by modern sutlers and based on a February 1776 contractor's letter in the Maryland Archives which includes a detailed description of the item and claims that it had already been provided to PA, NJ and VA troops. One might think this was more than adequate documentation, but there is no surviving example of a knapsack of this type and no evidence that any such item was ever provided to troops in the field.
The general consensus among authenticity-conscious reenactors today is that this item should be avoided, but there are very few surviving artifacts or modern sources representing what would be considered an authentic knapsack. The best option I have found is a two strap linen canvas knapsack based on the one carried by Benjamin Warner of Connecticut and currently in the Fort Ticonderoga collection. I was able to get a Warner Knapsack kit that is no longer in production and am now learning how to sew it together authentically, but this takes a high level of commitment and is more effort than others in the hobby might consider worth taking. It ought to be easier to avoid farbiness than this.
The same charge of inauthenticity can be applied to the so-called "Pickering's Tool", an item designed and described by U.S. Quartermaster Thomas Pickering but for which no contemporary example survives in the archaeological record. Being made of iron, such tools may have been lost to corrosion, but still one would expect there to be some artifacts left if they had been widely produced. I learned this fact too late after purchasing my Pickering's Tool, but for $10 it was not as costly a mistake as it might have been and I will use it until I can replace it with something better.
Don't get me started on tents. There has been some excellent research undertaken by participants in the Yahoo group RevList that points to significant differences in authenticity between the 18th century tents manufactored for use during the Revolution and those available today from commercial manufacturers. The more authentic ones made by the 2nd VA are beautiful. Even so, unless you do it yourself, it is going to be extremely difficult to get a professionally made unbleached linen hemp duck canvas wedge tent (untreated) secured by wooden pegs through hemp rope loops with wooden washers and hand stitched grommets and with sectional tent poles held together with iron ferulles. The cost for such an item would be least twice what the standard cotton canvas wedge tent costs with flame retardant and water resistant coating. It will be vulnerable to mildew if packed when wet and may be a poor shelter during a downpour. Is it worth the effort and expense to go this route?
And that brings me back to subjectivity and the personal reasons we are drawn to this hobby. If you spend every waking moment critiquing the presentation of others in the hobby, you are just replicating a clique from High School (and a nerdy one at that). If you do not strive to learn from others in the hobby and to improve your impression, you are doing a disservice to the public and to your fellow reenactors. If it isn't enjoyable, there are better ways to spend one's discretionary income and leisure time.
On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is extremely farby and 10 is obsessively authentic, I am probably about an 8. I will shave my facial hair prior to the campaign season (and that, my friends, is a significant sacrifice to authenticity), but I will not worry if the interior, non visible stitching in my uniform coat is done by machine. I'll leave it to the really hardcore reenactors to go lose forty pounds and half their teeth and develop body lice if they want to. I am making careful choices, within my budget, in the items I acquire, and striving to improve my impression where it makes sense to do so.
Ultimately, what matters most is my behavior, on the firing line, in camp and in conversations with the public. It is more important to me to develop a greater appreciation for why people in the 18th century made the choices they did and took the actions they did - and to convey this to the public - than to quibble over minute differences in original vs. reproductions of the British long land pattern infantry musket. That distinction may be important to others, but not to the general public and is not my top priority.
Mind you, if you look in my haversack next month at Monmouth (a hand-stitched unbleached linen haversack, no less), you will find parched corn and a big slab of salt-cured bacon, nicely washed with the mold scrubbed off. My accouterments were chosen to be appropriate for early war Continental or militia use (hemp webbing instead of cotton or leather straps). My (used) civilian shoes have holes in them, and will be replaced with more authentic rough side out versions before the cold weather season. I have a wool blanket that is good enough for now.
It is a process of ongoing refinement, and curiosity, and of courtesy to others. I like my unit and my comrades, and that matters most of all.
In the days that followed Sullivan's Staten Island Raid, while the General marched his division to rejoin Washington's Army at Philadelphia, some of his officers wrote bitterly to their friends and patrons that he had bungled the whole affair. Sullivan - with a Nixonian nose for enemies within - assembled his field commanders and let them know he was aware that some of them had written to Congress about his conduct. The other officers had agreed to keep silent, but Colonel Samuel Smith of the 4th Maryland, who had been officer of the day and was not aware of this pact; stood up and told Sullivan that he had, indeed written to his uncle in Congress and then "in the strongest terms, but in polite language, gave a full view of the errors which he considered to have been committed."
Sullivan advised his officers, in particular General DeBorre, to keep silent about the matter until he had had the chance to have a hearing and defend his actions, but the horses had already left the barn. Major John Taylor of the 2nd Canadian Regiment, which had lost 8 of its officers captured on Staten Island, wrote first to his superior Colonel Moses Hazen, and then brought formal charges against Sullivan that prompted Congress on September 1st to order a court martial.
At Washington's subsequent request this hearing was delayed several weeks due to the dire military situation as the Royalist forces moved on Philadelphia, and when proceedings resumed Sullivan faced new charges of maladministration stemming from his questionable performance at the Battle of Brandywine. On September 17th, Washington wrote;
"Tho' I would willingly pay every attention to the Resolutions of Congress, yet in the late instance respecting the recall of Genl Sullivan,I must [beg leave to] defer giving any order about It, [till I hear further from that Honble. Body.] Our Situation at this time is critical and delicate, and nothing should be done to add to its embarrassments. We are now most probably on the point of another Action, and to derange the Army by withdrawing so many General Officers from it, may and must be attended with many disagreeable, if not ruinous, Consequences. Such a proceeding at another time, might not produce any bad effects, but How can the Army be possibly conducted with a prospect of Success, if the General Officers are taken off, in the moment of Battle? Congress may rely upon it, such a measure will not promote, but injure the service. It is not my wish to prevent or to delay a proper inquiry into Genl Sullivan's Conduct, a single instant, when the Circumstances of the Army will admit; But now they prohibit it, and, I think, the suspension in his command also."
The proceedings of this Court of Inquiry are among the few from this conflict where documents relating to the testimony and deliberations not only survive but are available online. They have featured prominently in the documentation I have drawn upon in writing this series. Rather than repeating evidence previously cited, I will briefly summarize the proceedings and then turn to the verdict.
The Court Martial was convened on Washington's order with Major General Alexander Lord Sterling presiding. Sterling was the division commander whose men fought on the right of Sullivan's Division at Brandywine, and like Sullivan he had been captured in 1776 during the Battle of Long Island. The other members of the tribunal included Brigadier Generals Alexander McDougall and Henry Knox, Colonels Oliver Spencer of New Jersey and Thomas Clark of the 1st NC, with Timothy Pickering as A.G.
They received oral and written testimony from thirteen officers. Maj. Edward Sherburne's was given on September 6th, but he was mortally wounded during the Battle of Germantown before the Court Martial had concluded its deliberations. Some officers were unavailable to appear in person and gave their testimony in written form. Some of these were cross examined, and others not.
The charges dealt both with the plan of attack and its execution. Questions were raised about the ability for Sullivan's Division and Col. Ogden's force to support each other at a distance of over 10 miles during their separate landings and engagements, and the wisdom of marching Sullivan's men to Old Blazing Star Ferry to link up with Ogden rather than returning to the Jersey shore by the shorter route they had followed when they crossed over to the Island. Charges of rampant looting and poor control over the troops were levelled at Sullivan, particularly during the withdrawal to Old Blazing Star, and during embarkation with the three boats that were available for the return to New Jersey. His decision not to bring cannon to support the raid, and to march more than 20 miles the day before and as much again during the fighting without giving the men time to rest and refresh themselves was also part of the charges.
General Sterling summarized the evidence and after due consideration, the Court Martial released its findings on October 12th, 1777 clearing Sullivan of wrongdoing in the Staten Island Raid.
"The Court...are Unanimously of opinion that the expedition against the enemy on Staten Island was eligible and promised great advantages to the cause of America. That the expedition was well concocted, and the orders for the execution proper, and would have succeeded with reputation to the General and Troops under his command had it not in some measure been rendered abortive by accidents which were out of the power of the General to forsee or prevent. - That General Sullivan was particularly active in Embarking the Troops to the Island and took every precaution in his power to bring them off - That he made early provision at Elizabethtown for refreshing the Troops of his Division when they returned to Jersey, and that upon the Maturest consideration of the evidence in possession of this Court, General Sullivan's conduct in planning and executing was such in the opinion of this Court, that he merits the approbation of his Country, and not its censure. the Court therefore are Unanimously of opinion that he ought to stand honorably acquitted of any unsoldierlike conduct in the expedition to Staten Island."
Sullivan was soon thereafter cleared of the charges brought against him for Brandywine (aided by the resignation of his inept subordinate DeBorre). He was gleeful about the verdict, and wrote yet another gloating and vindictive letter to Congress on October 17th in which he stated that "Congress must be at some loss to know how it was possible for Lt. Col. Smith and Maj. Taylor to write so warmly against me to their friends in Congress when there was no Colour in it." He then proceeded to lay out yet another conspiracy theory that there was bad blood between these officers and his now deceased Deputy Adjutant General Maj. Edward Sherburne, aided by the now disgraced DeBorre.
Sullivan knew how to deflect criticism and assign blame to his subordinates, and he also knew how to intimidate them. With regard to his second Court Martial, he demanded that the officers of the regiments under his command sign politically motivated letters that were essentially loyalty oaths. Sullivan sought a similar endorsement from the officers who served under him in 1779 during his more successful campaign against the Iroquois, but did not secure the signatures of all of them (Matthias Ogden demurred). Examples of the letters from 1777 are also compiled online with the Court Martial proceedings. That of the Delaware Regiment (absent, it will be observed, the signature of Captain Enoch Anderson) will stand for the whole:
"Sir - Agreeable to your request in the order of this day, informing the officers of your Division, that you were Inform'd in the hearing of His Excellency, that the officers were Universally dissatisfied with your Command, and had no confidence in you, as an officer. - We the subscribers officers in the Delaware Regiment, in Justice to you and ourselves, do declare, that we repose the highest Confidence in you as an officer, and are entirely satisfied with your Command, and do not wish to be succeeded by any other."
The best he could secure from the disgruntled 2nd Canadian regiment was the following letter from Lieutenant John Erskine;
"Sir - I have just now been informed by Maj. Taylor, that you have been told by some Persons, that all the officers of this regiment are very uneasy at being under your Command, that you were desirous to know their minds on the subject - I have only to observe for my own part, that if I could reconcile myself as well to the Conduct of the Officers with whom I am more immediately concerned (I meant the Filed officers of Colo Hazen's Regimt) I could live in the Army as happy as I could wish."
Sullivan knew how to win support with flattery as well as through intimidation. His after action report to Congress singles out Colonel Matthias Ogden, who with his men "behaved with equal bravery" to the troops in Sullivan's sector, and forwarded Ogden's recognition of those of his men who preformed with zeal and activity. Ogden, for his part, wrote a supportive letter to Sullivan and praised his handling of the raid (the idea for which he may well have been presented to the General). Sullivan was also sure to praise the brave stand made at the landing by the captured Majors Tillard and Stewart, who were not available to give evidence conflicting with his own about the way he handled things on the return to New Jersey.
Perhaps we should give Captain Enoch Anderson the final word. Writing to his nephew years after the war, the old soldier observed;
"The Jersey Troops got much spoil, - fair game. The Delaware regiment got nothing, save what was taken by my company. One of the officers in my troops gave me a share of his spoils, but it was not much."
[I am grateful to the kind assistance of Todd Braisted and Tim Terrell who generously shared access to documentation that was of critical importance in writing this series.]
I am not at all sure my ancestors Matthias and Aaron Ogden would have recognized much of themselves in their descendant this weekend as I donned my gay apparel and fell in with Odgen's Ist NJ Continentals for Training Day. It was a fine day nonetheless. Here I stand with a borrowed Brown Bess and early pattern 3rd NJ drab and blue uniform coat, cartridge box and bayonet. I managed to pull together the rest of my clothes myself, though the blue breeches will need a complete overhaul (fortunately I only paid for the buttons and buckles so can afford to have a better seamstress make the replacement pair). The mustache will also have to go for the campaign season, though some of my comrades keep their facial hair however anachronistic it may be.
I found myself wanting to do the manual of arms left handed, but did not utterly disgrace myself in the line, which because I am 5'7" has me sized for front rank, dead center. My firelock misfired about half the time, though whether from a dull flint or my inexpertise in priming the pan I cannot say. I learned a great deal and the other members of the unit were very supportive.
This is a fine group of fellows, good fun and good living historians. I am very much looking forward to the encampment at Monmouth Court House in Freehold, NJ on June 19th-20th. Meanwhile, here are a few pictures of the soldiers and distaff of the 1st NJ (Col. Ogden's) for your viewing pleasure.
Brigadier General John Campbell, commander of the British garrison on Staten Island, rallied the scattered elements of the 4th New Jersey loyalist volunteers and British 52nd Regiment of Foot that had been pushed back from Decker's Ferry during the initial phase of Sullivan's Raid. He then proceeded with them and the 3rd Waldeck Regiment in pursuit of the Americans that were withdrawing toward Old Blazing Star. It was exceedingly hot on August 22nd, 1777, and General Campbell wrote that he halted his men at Richmond to rest and regroup (as the Americans had done before him) before pushing on to find and engage the enemy.
"From [Richmond] brigadier general Skinner was directed to send repeated expresses to inform col Dongan [of the 3rd NJV] of my approach, and desiring him to endeavor a junction. I had proceeded but a short way beyond Richmond, when I was informed that the rebels had reached the Old Blazing-Star, and were using the greatest diligence in transporting their troops to the Jersey shore. At this very instant an officer arrived from col Dongan that he was a little more than a mile's distance on his way to join me; whereupon I sent him orders to turn towards the enemy, and to attack whatever body he could come up with, and I was following with all expedition, and would immediately support him. He obeyed my orders with spirit, bravery, and resolution, and engaged the rear for nearly half an hour..."
Dongan's men had already fought hard against Col. Matthias Ogden's New Jersey Continentals and militia that morning, and retreated under fire and in good order to old earthworks at Prince's Bay toward the southwest corner of the Island. Ogden then withdrew to Old Blazing Star Ferry, and having determined that he was unlikely to be supported by Sullivan's men who were then fighting at the north end of the Island, he subsequently reembarked his troops for the Jersey Shore. This left a battered but unbroken enemy in the rear, and it was these troops - some 400 men of the loyalist 3rd and 6th Battalions and also a few survivors from the 1st Battalion that had been routed by Ogden at daybreak - that moved to engage Sullivan's force as it was crossing over to New Jersey.
2nd Lt. Andrew Lee of the 2nd Canadian Regiment left a journal describing the rear guard action of Sullivan's men at Old Blazing Star;
"[General Sullivan] was obliged to wait the tedious opportunity of three boats which lay at the ferry for the crossing of both divisions. This delay he justly apprehended would be attended with ill consequences, as he had received information of the enemy being in motion, and would undoubtedly harrass his rear. He therefore ordered a picket of 100 men, taken from the rear, commanded by Maj. [Edward] Tilllard [of the 6th MD], and Capt. [John] Carlisle and myself [of the 2nd Canadian Regiment] to secure the boats and cover the embarkation of the troops. About 5 o'clock p.m. the troops being nearly all over except our picket, .a wagon was ordered back to take any of the men that might still be on the road, with directions to proceed as far back as Richmond. But before he had gone half a mile he espied the van of the English army in full march. I immediately returned and informed Captain Carlisle, upon which he formed the picket as quick as possible to form troops as much fatigued as they were, they having marched 30 miles without refreshment."
The 6th Maryland formed part of Smallwood's Brigade, which had marched ahead of De Borre's brigade to the landing. Most of Smallwood's men seem to have crossed ahead of DeBorre's, but detachments may have straggled, or the loading may not have been adequately supervised at the start as was later alleged at Sullivan's Court Martial.
"In the meantime Maj. Tillard went forward in order to view the number of the enemy, and finding them to exceed ours ran tot he place of embarkation, in order to stop the boats which were just then leaving the shore. Col. Smith [of the 4th MD], who was in one of them, did not think proper to reland, upon which Maj. Tillard applied to Maj. Stewart [of the 2nd MD] to know if he would support the picket with what force of his remained on shore. But not receiving any answer from him he returned to the picket which he [had?] represented to Maj. Stewart must unavoidably be cut off by superior numbers without his assistance."
The last unit to cross to safety was under Col. Smith of the 4th, MD of De Borre's Brigade, while Major Stewart of the 2nd MD of De Borre's Brigade was left ashore. Major Stewart and his men did, in fact, support the picket, but whether this was by design or default after Colonel Smith departed with the last boat may never be known. For his part, Colonel Smith felt bad about Major Stewart being left behind to be subsequently captured, and attempted to provide for him during his captivity;
"Colonel Smith was particularly attached to Major Stewart, having fought a duel with him, and becoming subsequently, on the friendliest terms with him. Having procured a flaf of truce, he [later] went with it and gave a bill of Exchange on London for twenty-five pounds Sterling, to a British Officer, who honourably gave it to a Major Stewart."
Lt. William Wilmot of the 3rd MD, part of Smallwood's Brigade, also fought with the rear guard at the Ferry, most likely with Maj. Stewart's stranded force, and left this colorful account of the action;
"the dasterly Enemy watching our retreet, when they saw that we had all crossed but about 200 men and 20 officers thay caim down on us with about 1000 of their herows, and attacked us with about 500 of their new troops [the NJV Battalions] and hesions expecting I believe that thay should not receive oune fire from us but to their grate surprise thay received many as we had to spair and had we as many more thay should have been welcome to them, thay made two or three attempts to rush on us, but we kept up such a blais on them, that thay wair repulsed every time, and not withstanding we was shure that we must very soon fall into their hands. When we see them running back from our fire there was such a houraw or huzzaw from the oune end of our little line to the other that they culd hear us quight across the river, but what grieved me after seeing that it was not the lot of many of us to fall and our amonition being expended, that such brave men wair obiged to surrender them selves Prisioners to a dasterly, new band of Murderrers, natives of the land..."
These "natives of the land" referred to with such vehemence by Wilmot were the green coated New Jersey loyalists that first struck Tillard's picket. Major James R. Reed of the 2nd Canadian Regiment, who was able to embark in the boats to the Jersey SHore, later testified that upon landing;
"I took particular notice of the ground, which on this side did not command that on the other, but notwithstanding if we had had our artillery considering the timidity of those Green Coats, I thought we could prevent their coming forward before our people might get over."
Sullivan did not have any cannons with him, but Brigadier General Campbell did, and the two field pieces attached to the 52nd Regiment of Foot under Lieutenant Grant, and 2 more from the German troops, were a considerable factor in preventing the boats from returning to offload the rearguard. Sullivan's Deputy Adjutant General, Maj. Edward Sherburne, later wrote;
"I accordingly obeyed the Genls order, double manned the boats & used my endeavour to get them off but was all in vain, two boats went off they never reach'd the opposite shore, being as I suppose terrified by the Enemies incessant fire from their Artillery and small arms."
Major John Taylor of the 2nd Canadian Regiment, who subsequently brought court martial charges against Sullivan for his handling of the Staten Island Raid, testified that two men were killed by cannon fire in the marsh, while Chaplain Philipp Waldeck of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment noted in his diary that "Our cannons and the English cannons were brought into play and ours, in particular, earned high praise."
Lt. Colonel Stephen Kemple, who served as Deputy Adjutant General to Sir Henry Clinton in New York, recorded in his journal from second hand reports that
"the Rebels fled with great precipitation to their Boats; our Troops follows, with two pieces of Cannon. Lieut. Grant's Artillery fired several rounds of Grape Shot into them as they were Crossing; they were heard to make a great outcry, and some of them were seen to Jump overboard."
"On his arrival [Maj. Tillard] found the picket disposed in a manner he did not think proper to alter. The enemy immediately heaving in sight the firing began, but the ground not favoring our small party, we were compelled to retreat in disorder, as the enemy had outstretched us on the right, and must have surrounded us had we kept our position. On our right we fell in with Maj. Stewart, who without giving Maj. Tillard notice, formed his party in our rear, upon which Maj. Tillard, endeavouring to collect our men again, many of which had made their escape, but the firing began again from Stewart's party, who also retreating before superior numbers precipitously fell in with the remainder of the picket, which was collected and forming on an eminence having a small valley in our front. Here Maj. Stewart having formed his men on our right made a line of about 200 yards, with a three rail fence before us."
According to Lee's account;
"The fire now began general from left to right, at the distance of about 90 yards, for the space of half an hour, in the course of which time the enemy were more than once broke. They endeavoured continually to force our front, but finding it impossible they extended their lines beyond our right, and doubling in at the same time pressing on in front with two pieces of artillery forced us from our fence, and finding it impossible to hold out against five times our numbers without advantage of artillery, it was thought advisable to surrender."
This version of events is supported in Lieut. Wilmot's letter;
"When our amonition was all spent Maj. Sturd took a Whight handkerchief and stuck it on the point of his Sword, and then or'd the men to retreet whilste he went over to their ground, and surrendered, for he had never gave them an inch before he found that he had nothing left to keep them off with the enemy advancing fast to surround us with the musketree in frunt and the horse on our right flank and the watter on our left and in the rear."
If indeed there were any light horse engaged on the Royalist side, perhaps they were part of the loyalist Richmond militia, for there were no other dragoons assigned to the Staten Island garrison.
"After having marched 18-miles, the Fifty-Second came up with the rear of the rebels at a bay called the Blazing Star, where they were busy embarking. However, a hot engagement ensured, which did not continue above five minutes, when 300 of the rebels, commanded by a lieutenant colonel, two majors, five or six captains, 24 officers in all, and a number of subalterns, cried out for quarter and clubbed their arms. The Waldeck regiment was at this time two miles behind, not being able to keep up. I prevented, as much as possible, any effusion of blood, but in the havock of such cases, it was impossible to prevent it wholly. The number I have mentioned became prisoners, and being equal to the number of the captors, it was impossible to do more, so the rest got off."
These casualty figures represent the high end of estimated prisoners taken both at the landing and from stragglers and those surprised by looting in the north of the Island. From this account, it appears that the 52nd arrived near the end of the fight at the landing, which had been carried on up to that point by the Col Dongan and his New Jersey Volunteers, and that the cannons that were brought to the fight by this relief force were a significant factor in bringing the fight to a close. We will consider the aftermath of the engagement, and account for the likely casualties suffered on both sides, in the next post in this series.
