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Chapter 58:
Britain Beats up for recruits in
America.
January—February, 1776.
the disbanded
Highlanders, who had settled in
the
valley of the Mohawk, were reported as disposed to rally once more under the king's standard; to prevent their rising,
Schuyler at
Albany, in January, following the orders of the general congress, called out seven hundred of the New York militia, and sending an envoy in advance to quiet the Mohawks of the
Lower Castle, marched upon
Johnstown, in what was then Tryon county.
He was joined on the way by
Herkimer and the militia of that district, till his force numbered more than two thousand, and easily overpowered
Sir John Johnson and his party.
The
Indians, as mediators, entreated the personal liberty of
Johnson, and
Schuyler, whose ingenuous mind would not harbor the thought, that a man of rank could break his word of honor, was contented with exacting his parole to preserve neutrality, and confine himself within carefully prescribed bounds.
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The quantity of military stores that he delivered up,
was inconsiderable; on the twentieth, at noon, between two and three hundred Highlanders marched to the front of the invading force, and grounded their arms.
In the two following days,
Herkimer completed the disarmament of the disaffected, and secured six Highlanders as hostages for the peaceable conduct of the rest.
Schuyler and his party were rewarded by the approbation of congress.
After the death of
Montgomery, the active command in
Canada was reserved for
Schuyler, to whom it properly belonged.
His want of vigorous health, and the irksomeness of controlling the men of
Connecticut, had inclined him to leave the army; the reverses, suffered within his own district, now placed him in a painful dilemma: he must either risk the reproach of resigning at the news of disasters, or retain his commission, and in the division of his department leave to another the post of difficulty and danger.
Unwilling at such a moment to retire, yet too ‘weak and indisposed’ to undertake the campaign in
Canada, he continued as before to render auxiliary services.
The general congress acquiesced in his decision, and invited
Washington to propose in his stead an officer to conduct the perilous warfare on the
St. Lawrence.
The position of New York gave great advantage to the friends of the royal government; for the British men-of-war were masters of the bay, the harbor, the
East River, and
Hudson River below the Highlands; neither
Staten Island nor
Long Island could prevent the landing of British troops; the possession of
Long Island would give the command of
Manhattan Island, which had not as yet accumulated materials
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for defence.
In
Queen's county, where a large
part of the population was of
Dutch descent, and among the
English there were churchmen and very many Quakers, the inhabitants, by a vote of more than three to one, refused to send delegates to the provincial congress; and it was only after long delays that the inhabitants of
Richmond county made their election.
In
West Chester,
Morris of
Morrisania and Van Cortland were unwavering in their patriotism; but the Delanceys and Philipse, who owned vast tracts of land in the county, bent their influence over their tenants in favor of the king with so much effect, that the inhabitants were nearly equally divided.
In the city the popular movement was irresistible; but a large part of the wealthy merchants were opposed in any event to a separation from Britain.
The colony of New York, guided in its policy by men of high ability, courage, and purity, had pursued with unvarying consistency a system of moderation, at first from a sincere desire to avoid a revolution, if it could be done without a surrender of American rights; and when that hope failed, with the purpose of making it manifest to all, that the plan of independence was adopted from necessity.
In this manner only could they stand acquitted of the guilt of needlessly provoking war, and unite in the impending struggle the large majority of the people.
It was also obviously wise to delay the outbreak of actual hostilities till warlike stores could be imported, and the women and children of a rich and populous city be removed from danger.
This system was maintained alike by the prudent and the bold; by
Livingston and
Jay, by
John Morin Scott and
Macdougall.
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A sort of truce was permitted; the
British men-of-
war were not fired upon; and in return the commerceof the port was not harassed, so that vessels laden with provisions, to purchase powder in St. Eustatia, went and came without question.
A small party in the city, insignificant in numbers and in weight of character, clamored at this forbearance; and with rash indiscretion would have risked ultimate success for the gratification of momentary passion.
Of these the most active was
Isaac Sears, who, as a son of liberty, had merited high praise for his fearlessness.
Vexed at his want of influence, impatient at being overlooked, and naturally inclined to precipitate counsels, he left the city for
Connecticut, and returned with a party of mounted volunteers from that colony, who rode into the city and rifled the printing house of the tory
Rivington.
The committee of New York and its convention censured the riot, as an unwise infringement of the liberty of the press, and a dangerous example to their enemies; but as the unsolicited intermeddling of
New England men in New York affairs, without concert with the New York committee and even without warning, it was resented by the
Dutch, and universally by all moderate men.
Jay and his colleagues were anxious, lest this high insult to the authority of the New York committee should confirm that jealous distrust of the eastern colonies, which the wise and the virtuous studied to suppress.
Disowned and censured by every branch of the popular representation of New York, vexed at not receiving a high appointment in the
American navy,
Sears repaired to the camp in
Cambridge, and there found a hearer in
Lee, to whom he represented that
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the city and colony of New York were in imminent
danger from the tories; and that large bodies of unpaid volunteers from
Connecticut would readily march to disarm them.
Meantime the New York provincial convention, in spite of many obstacles and delays, met in sufficient numbers to transact business; explained to the general congress the expediency of delaying the appeal to arms in their city till better preparations could be made; and requested that body to undertake the disarming of the disaffected on
Long Island.
All their suggestions were approved, and made general in their application.
After the report of a committee, consisting of
Samuel Adams,
William Livingston, and
Jay, the several colonial conventions or committees were authorized to disarm ‘the unworthy
Americans who took the part of their oppressors;’ and were carefully invested with full authority to direct and control the continental troops who might be employed in this delicate service.
Colonel Nathaniel Heard of
Woodbridge, New Jersey, and
Colonel Waterbury of
Stamford in
Connecticut, were then directed, each with five or six hundred minute men, to enter
Long Island, and disarm every man in
Queen's county who voted against sending deputies to the New York congress.
On second thought, the march of the minute men from
Connecticut was countermanded and the service assigned to the
Jersey men alone, who, before the end of the month, aided by Lord Stirling's battalion and in perfect harmony with the New York committee of safety, executed their commission.
Early in January the commander in chief ascertained
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that
Clinton was about to embark from Bos-
ton, with troops, on a southern expedition, of which New York was believed to be the object; at the same time
Lee, whose claim to ‘the character of a military genius and the officer of experience’ had not as yet been even suspected to be ‘false,’ desired to be detached from the army, that he might collect volunteers in
Connecticut to secure New York and expel the tories, or ‘crush those serpents before their rattles were grown;’ and he urged the measure upon
Washington, whether it exceeded his authority or not. After consulting
John Adams, who was then with the provincial convention at
Watertown, and who pronounced the plan to be practicable, expedient, and clearly authorized,
Washington, uninformed of the measures already adopted, gave his consent to the request of
Lee, expressly charging him to ‘keep always in view the declared intention of congress,’ and to communicate with the New York committee of safety; to whom he also wrote, soliciting their cooperation.
The proposed measure would have been warmly seconded, had its execution been entrusted to an officer who respected the civil authority; but
Lee drove on under the sole guidance of his own judgment and self-will.
As soon as he arrived in
Connecticut, he found that
Waterbury, obeying the countermand of the general congress, had disbanded his regiment; railing at congress for indecision, and cursing the provincial congress of New York, he forwarded no communication to the committee of safety of that colony, while he persuaded the governor and council of
Connecticut not only to reassemble the regiment
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of
Waterbury, but to call out another under
Ward.
In this manner
Lee, who had never commanded so much as one regiment before he entered the
American army, found himself in the separate command of two.
Following his constant maxim, he usurped authority which he perfectly well knew did not belong to him, and appointed
Sears assistant adjutant general with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
The tidings that
Lee, with nearly fifteen hundred men of
Connecticut, was advancing upon New York, without so much as intimating his design to its committee, or its inhabitants, offended the pride of the province, and increased a jealousy which afterwards proved unfavorable to federation.
According to the
American principle of the right of resistance, the wish to resort to force in New York must spring from within itself, and not be superimposed from abroad:
Washington scrupulously respected the civil authority of each colony, as well as of the congress;
Lee scoffed at the thought of being rigidly bound by either; and his movement seemed to have for its end to coerce New York, rather than to offer it his cooperation.
The committee of safety, conscious of their readiness to devote their city as a sacrifice to the cause of
America, despatched a messenger to
Lee to request that the troops of
Connecticut might not pass the border, till the purpose of their coming should be explained.
Lee made a jest of the letter, as ‘wofully hysterical.’
He treated it as a sign of fear; and in his reply, he declared that ‘if the ships of war should make a pretext of his presence to fire on the town, the first house set in flames by their guns should be the funeral pile of some of their best friends;’ and
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added, in his rant, that he would ‘chain one hundred
of them together by the neck.’
Both parties appealed to the general congress; and on motion of
Edward Rutledge and
Duane,
Harrison,
Lynch, and
Allen, were sent from that body with powers of direction.
On the first day of February the three envoys met the committee of New York, when
John Morin Scott said for himself and his colleagues: ‘Our duty to our constituents and their dignity forbid the introduction of troops without our consent; but we will always obey the orders of congress;’ and they were satisfied with the assurance, that the troops would be under the control of the committee of the continental congress.
On the fourth,
Lee entered the
city of New York, just two hours after
Clinton anchored in its harbor.
Troops from the Jerseys and from
Connecticut at the same time marched into town, and a transport, with two companies of British infantry and some Highlanders, came up to the docks.
In the general consternation, women and children were removed from the city which for seven years to come was to know no peace; all the wagons that could be found were employed in transporting valuable effects; the flight in winter was attended with peculiar danger and distress; the opulent knew not where to find shelter; the poor, thrown upon the cold hands of exhausted charity in the interior towns and the Jerseys, suffered from a series of complicated wants.
Both parties wished to delay extreme measures;
Clinton pledged his honor that for the present no more British troops were coming, and said openly that he himself was on his way to
North Carolina.
But the work of
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defence was not given up by the
Americans; under the
harmonizing influence of the continental committee,
Lee and the New York committee held friendly conferences; the whole people showed a wonderful alacrity; and men and boys of all ages toiled with the greatest zeal and pleasure.
To control the commerce of the
Sound, a fortification was raised at
Hellgate; on a height west of Trinity church, a battery was erected fronting the
North River; that part of the old fort which faced
Broadway was torn down;
Lee and Lord Stirling, crossing to
Long Island, marked out the ground for an intrenched camp, extending from the Wallabout to
Gowanus Bay, and spacious enough to hold four thousand men; the connection between
Long Island and New York was secured by a battery of forty guns at the foot of Wall street, and another of twenty guns a little further to the south.
It was fondly hoped that the proposed fortifications would prove impregnable; the ships of war, without firing a gun, removed to the bay; and this state of peace and of confidence confirmed the preconceived notion of
Lee's superior ability.
The charm of exercising a separate command wrought a change in his caprices; and he who two months before had scorned the
Americans as unworthy to aspire after independence, was now loud in praise of the doctrines of ‘Common Sense,’ and repudiated the thought of reconciliation with Britain, unless ‘the whole ministry should be condignly punished, and the king beheaded or dethroned.’
His zeal and his seeming success concentred upon him public confidence.
‘
Canada,’ said
Washington, ‘will be a fine field for the exertion of your admirable
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talents, but your presence will be as neces-
sary in New York.’
In like manner
Franklin wrote: ‘I am glad you are come to New York; but I also wish you could be in
Canada;’ and on the nineteenth the congress destined him to ‘that most arduous service.’
John Adams, who had counselled his expedition to New York, wrote to him complacently, ‘that a luckier or a happier one had never been projected;’ and added: ‘We want you at New York; we want you at
Cambridge; we want you in
Virginia; but
Canada seems of more importance, and therefore you are sent there.
I wish you the laurels of
Wolfe and
Montgomery, with a happier fate.’
Elated by such homage,
Lee indulged his natural propensities, and made bold to ask money of the New York congress; ‘two thousand dollars at the least,’ said he; ‘if you could make it twenty five hundred it would be more convenient to me;’ and they allowed him the gratuity.
‘When I leave this place,’ so he wrote to
Washington on the last day of February, the ‘provincial congress and inhabitants will relapse into their hysterics; the men-of-war will return to their wharfs, and the first regiments from
England will take quiet possession of the town.’
Those about him chimed in with his revilings.
‘Things will never go well,’ said
Waterbury, ‘unless the
city of New York is crushed down by the
Connecticut people;’ and
Sears set no bounds to his contumelious abuse of the committee of New York and its convention.
On the first of March, after a warm contest among
the delegates of various colonies, each wishing to have him where they had most at stake, on the motion of
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Edward Rutledge,
Lee was invested with the com-
mand of the continental forces south of the
Potomac.
‘As a Virginian, I rejoice at the change;’ wrote
Washington, who had, however, already discovered that the officer so much courted, was both ‘violent and fickle.’
On the seventh he left New York, but not without one last indulgence of his turbulent temper.
The continental congress had instructed him to put the city in the best possible state of defence; and this he interpreted as a grant of unlimited authority.
He therefore arrested men at discretion, and deputed power to
Sears to offer a prescribed test oath to a registered number of suspected persons, and, if they refused it, to send them to
Connecticut as irreclaimable enemies.
To the rebuke of the New York convention, he answered: ‘When the enemy is at our door, forms must be dispensed with;’ and on the eve of his departure, he gave
Ward of
Connecticut the sweeping order, ‘to secure the whole body of professed tories on
Long Island.’
The arbitrary orders were resented by all the New York delegates as ‘a high encroachment upon the rights of the representatives of a free people,’ and were unequivocally condemned and reversed by congress.
Instead of hastening to his new command,
Lee loitered at
Philadelphia, till, on the fifteenth,‘
Richard Henry Lee and
Franklin were directed to request him to repair forthwith to his southern department.’
The expedition to the Carolinas never met the ap-
proval of
Howe, who condemned the activity of the southern governors, and would have had them avoid all disputes, till New York should be recovered.
When Lord Dunmore learned from
Clinton that Cape
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Fear River was the place appointed for the meeting
of the seven regiments from
Ireland, he broke out into angry complaints, that no heed had been paid to his representations, his sufferings, and his efforts; that
Virginia, ‘the first on the continent for riches, power, and extent,’ was neglected; and the preference given to ‘a poor, insignificant colony,’ where there were no pilots, nor a harbor that could admit half the fleet, and where the army, should it land, must wade for many miles through a sandy pine barren before it could reach the inhabited part of the country.
But
Martin, who had good reason to expect the arrival of the armament in January or early in February, was infatuated with the hope, that multitudes, even in the
county of Brunswick, would revolt ‘from their new-fangled government;’ and ‘his unwearied, persevering agent,’
Alexander Maclean, after a careful computation of the numbers that would flock to the king's standard from the interior, brought written assurances from the principal persons to whom he had been directed, that between two and three thousand men, of whom about half were well armed, would take the field at the governor's summons.
Under this encouragement he was sent again into the back country, with a commission dated the tenth of January, authorizing
Allan Macdonald of Kingsborough, and eight other Scots of
Cumberland and Anson, and seventeen persons who resided in a belt of counties in middle
Carolina and in
Rowan, to raise and array all the king's loyal subjects, and to march with them in a body to
Brunswick by the fifteenth of February.
Donald Macdonald, then in his sixty
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fifth year, was to command the army as brigadier;
next him in rank was
Donald Macleod.
The first return to
Martin represented that the loyalists were in high spirits; that their force would amount even to six thousand men; that they were well furnished with wagons and horses; and that by the twentieth or twenty fifth of February at furthest they would be in possession of
Wilmington, and within reach of the king's ships.
On receiving their commission,
William Campbell,
Neil MacArthur, and
Donald Macleod issued circular letters, inviting all their associates to meet on the fifth of February at
Cross Creek, or, as it is now called,
Fayetteville.
At the appointed time all the Scots appeared, and four only of the rest.
The
Scots, who could promise no more than seven hundred men, advised to await the arrival of the
British troops; the other royalists, who boasted that they could bring out five thousand, of whom five hundred were already embodied, prevailed in their demand for an immediate rising.
But the
Highlanders, whose past conflicts were ennobled by their courage and fidelity to one another, whose sorrows, borne for generations with fortitude, deserved at last to find relief; were sure to keep their word: from a blind instinct of kindred, they took up arms for a cause in which their traditions and their affections had no part; while many of the chiefs of the loyalists shrunk from danger to hiding places in swamps and forests.
Employing a few days to collect his army, which was composed chiefly of Highlanders and remnants of the old Regulators,
Macdonald, on the eighteenth, began his march for
Wilmington, and at evening his army, of which the number was very
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variously estimated, encamped on the
Cape Fear river,
four miles below
Cross Creek.
On that same day
Moore, who, at the first menace of danger, took the field at the head of his regiment, and lay in an intrenched camp at
Rockfish, was joined by
Lillington, with one hundred and fifty minute men from
Wilmington, by Kenon with two hundred of the Duplin militia, and by
Ashe with about a hundred volunteer independent rangers; so that his number was increased to eleven hundred.
On the nineteenth the royalists were paraded, with a view to assail
Moore on the following night; but his camp was too strong to be attempted; and at the bare suspicion of such a project, two companies of
Cotton's corps ran off with their arms.
On that day
Donald Macdonald, their commander, sent
Donald Morrison with a proclamation, prepared the month before by
Martin, calling on
Moore and his troops to join the king's standard, or to be considered as enemies.
Moore made answer instantly, that ‘neither his duty nor his inclination permitted him to accept terms so incompatible with American freedom;’ and in return, he besought
Macdonald not to array the deluded people under his command, against men who were resolved to hazard every thing in defence of the liberties of mankind.
‘You declare sentiments of revolt, hostility, and rebellion to the king and to the constitution,’ was
Macdonald's prompt answer; ‘as a soldier in his majesty's service, it is my duty to conquer, if I cannot reclaim, all those who may be hardy enough to take up arms against the best of masters.’
But knowing that
Caswell, at the head of the gallant minute men of
Newbern, and others to the number
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of six or eight hundred, was marching through
Duplin county, to effect a junction with
Moore,
Macdonald became aware of the extremity of his danger; cut off from the direct road along the
Cape Fear, he resolved to leave the army at
Rockfish in his rear, and by celerity of movement, and crossing rivers at unexpected places, to disengage himself from that larger force, and encounter the party with
Caswell alone.
Before marching, he urged his men to fidelity, expressed bitter scorn of ‘the base cravens who had deserted the night before;’ and continued: ‘If any amongst you is so faint-hearted as not to serve with the resolution of conquering or dying, this is the time for such to declare themselves.’
The speech was answered by a general huzza for the king; but from
Cotton's corps about twenty men laid down their arms.
The army then marched to
Fayetteville, employed the night in crossing the
Cape Fear, sunk their boats, and sent a party fifteen miles in advance to secure the bridge over
South River.
This the main body passed on the twenty first, and took the direct route to
Wilmington.
On the day on which they effected the passage,
Moore detached
Lillington and
Ashe to reenforce
Caswell, or, if that could not be effected, to occupy
Moore's Creek bridge.
On the following days the Scots and Regulators drew near to
Caswell, who perceived their purpose, and changed his own course the more effectually to intercept their march.
On the twenty third they thought to overtake him, and were arrayed in the order of battle, eighty able-bodied Highlanders, armed with broadswords, forming the centre of the army; but
Caswell was already posted at Corbett's Ferry,
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and could not be reached for want of boats.
The
royalists were in extreme danger; but at a point six miles higher up the
Black River a negro succeeded in raising for their use a broad shallow boat; and while
Maclean and
Fraser, with a few men, a drum and a pipe, were left to amuse
Caswell, the main body of the loyalists crossed
Black River near what is now Newkirk Bridge.
On the twenty fifth
Lillington, who had not as yet been able to join
Caswell, took post with his small party on the east side of the bridge over
Moore's Creek.
On the afternoon of the twenty sixth,
Caswell reached its west side, and raising a small breastwork and destroying a part of the bridge, awaited the enemy, who on that day advanced within six miles of him. A messenger from the loyalists, sent to his camp under the pretext of summoning him to return to his allegiance, brought back word that he had halted upon the same side of the river with themselves, and could be attacked with advantage; but the wise Carolina commander, who was one of the best woodmen in the province, as well as a man of superior ability, had no sooner misled his enemy, than lighting up fires and leaving them burning, he crossed the creek, took off the planks from the bridge, and placed his men behind trees and such slight intrenchments as the night permitted to be thrown up.
The loyalists, expecting an easy victory, unanimously agreed that his camp should be immediately assaulted.
His force at that time amounted to a thousand men, consisting of the
Newbern minute men, of militia from
Craven,
Johnson,
Dobbs, and
Wake counties, and the detachment under
Lillington.
The
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army under
Macdonald, who was himself confined to
his tent by illness, numbered between fifteen and sixteen hundred.
At one o'clock in the morning of the twenty seventh, the loyalists, commanded by
Donald Macleod, began their march; but it cost so much time to cross an intervening morass, that it was within an hour of daylight before they reached the western bank of the creek.
There they had expected to find
Caswell encamped; they entered the ground in three columns without resistance, for
Caswell and all his force had taken post on the opposite side.
The
Scots were now within lessthan twenty miles of
Wilmington; orders were directly given to reduce the columns, and for the sake of concealment to form the line of battle within the verge of the wood; the rallying cry was, ‘King George and broadswords;’ the signal for the attack, three cheers, the drum to beat and the pipes to play.
It was still dark;
Macleod, who led the van of about forty, was challenged at the bridge by the
Carolina sentinels, asking: ‘Who goes there?’
He answered: ‘A friend.’—‘A friend to whom?’— ‘To the king.’
Upon this the sentinels bent themselves down with their faces towards the ground.
Macleod then challenged them in Gaelic, thinking they might be some of his own party who had crossed the bridge; receiving no answer, he fired his own piece, and ordered those with him to fire.
Of the bridge that separated the Scots and the Carolinians, nothing had been left but the two logs, which had served as sleepers; only two persons therefore could pass at a time.
Donald Macleod and
John Campbell rushed forward and succeeded in getting over; Highlanders who followed with broadswords, were shot
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down on the logs, falling into the deep and muddy
water of the creek.
Macleod, who was greatly esteemed for his valor and his worth, was mortally wounded; and yet he was seen to rise repeatedly from the ground, flourishing his sword and encouraging his men to come on, till he received twenty six, or as some say thirty six balls in his body.
Campbell also was shot dead.
It was impossible to furnish men for the deadly pass, and in a very few minutes the assailants fled in irretrievable despair.
The
Americans had but three wounded, one only mortally; of their opponents, about thirty, less than fifty at most, were killed and mortally wounded, most of them while passing the bridge.
The routed fugitives could never be rallied; during the following day the aged
Macdonald, their general, and many others of the chief men, were taken prisoners; amongst the rest,
Macdonald of Kingsborough and one of his sons, who were at first confined in
Halifax jail and afterwards transferred to Reading in
Pennsylvania. Thirteen wagons, with complete sets of horses, eighteen hundred stand of arms, one hundred and fifty swords, two
medicine chests just received from
England, a box containing fifteen thousand pounds sterling in gold, fell to the victors; eight or nine hundred common soldiers were taken, disarmed, and dismissed.
A generous zeal pervaded all ranks of people in every part of
North Carolina; in less than a fortnight more than nine thousand four hundred men had risen against the enemy; and the coming of
Clinton inspired no terror.
They knew well the difficulty of moving from the sea into their back country, and almost every man was ready to turn out at an hour's
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warning.
Moore, under orders from the council, dis-
armed the
Highlanders and Regulators of the back country, and sent the ringleaders to
Halifax jail.
Virginia offered assistance, and
South Carolina would gladly have contributed relief; but
North Carolina had men enough of her own to crush the insurrection and guard against invasion; and as they marched in triumph through their piny forests, they were persuaded that in their own woods they could win an easy victory over British regulars.
Martin had promised the king to raise ten thousand recruits; the storeship, with their ten thousand stands of arms and two millions of cartridges, was then buffeting the storms of the
Atlantic; and he could not supply a single company.
North Carolina remained confident, secure, and tranquil; the terrors of a fate like that of
Norfolk could not dismay the patriots of
Wilmington; the people spoke more and more of independence; and the provincial congress, at its impending session, was expected to give an authoritative form to the prevailing desire.
