USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume II > Part 5
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field, he said, "I do not value my life if we do but get the day;" and the last words he uttered were, "Are we driv- ing them ?"
If it were possible to find a hero surpassing Knowlton in courage and patriotism, that hero would unquestionably be Nathan Hale. It is with no intention of drawing compari- sons between the young captain of twenty-one and the ma- turer colonel of thirty-six that this remark is made. We may look, but in vain, for a career which forms a parallel to Hale's. While his brave colonel, with the famous rangers, was engaged in the brilliant action which closed his career, his young captain was engaged in a service equally hazardous and fatal, but without the sense of comradeship in danger to inspire it, or emulation in achievement to incite it. It was not the rash venture of a foolhardy boy which he undertook. His story has been so well and so fully told by Professor Henry P. Johnston that it is unnecessary to repeat it here except in the barest outline.
Of the movements, position, and designs of the British just after the battle of Long Island, it was impossible for Wash- ington to get trustworthy informaton, though such informa- tion was of vital importance at this crisis. This fact was made known among the more trustworthy in the command, with a view to finding some suitable man to volunteer as a spy, penetrate the enemy's lines in disguise, and obtain the needed information. As soon as Hale learned that this ser- vice was needed, his sense of patriotic duty was aroused. After due consideration and consultation with his friend Captain William Hull, who has carefully preserved, in sub- stance, Hale's own words in the interview, he volunteers on this perilous service. Hull's report of the interview, in which he tried to dissuade his friend from the purpose in view, re-
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veals so well Hale's carefully weighed reasons for his de- cision, that his words, as Hull reports them, must be quoted in full. Knowing the frank, open nature of his friend, and his unfitness to undertake a disguise, Hull urges this consid- eration, together with the ignominious death resulting from almost certain detection. Hale replies :
"I am fully sensible of the consequences of discovery and capture in such a situation. But for a year I have been at- tached to the army, and have not rendered any material ser- vice while receiving a compensation for which I make no re- turn. Yet I am not influenced by the expectation of promo- tion or pecuniary reward; I wish to be useful, and every kind of service, necessary to the public good, becomes hon- orable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that ser- vice are imperious."
To further urgent entreaties to desist from his project, Hale only replies, "I will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands."
We see plainly enough, in the light of events, that his further reflection made no change in his views. To him, the known wish of Washington, and the urgent needs of the oc- casion, outweighed all other considerations. And among these other considerations we may be sure that there were none of a personal character.
The rest of the short but impressive story of Nathan Hale is well known, but cannot be too often repeated. Disguised as a schoolmaster, which rôle his experience of nearly two years of school teaching had fitted him to assume, he enters the British lines, collects probably all the needed informa- tion, and with his hazardous mission accomplished, is taken prisoner by the British while waiting for a boat to bring him
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From the Statue,
NATHAN HALE
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to the American lines. His frank acknowledgment of his er- rand seals his fate, and on the 22d of September this young life is ended by the hangman, and the young patriot, with the often quoted words on his lips,-"I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country",-is enrolled among the heroes and martyrs of the Revolution. As time goes on, his name grows dearer, his fame grows brighter, and mon- ument after monument marks the grateful tribute of the peo- ple to the young hero whose only thought was of his country's need.
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CHAPTER V THE FIRST BRITISH INVASION
I N the battle of White Plains, and the actions which fol- lowed, Connecticut forces, as we have seen, per- formed their full share; as they did at the close of the year 1776, and the opening of the year 1777 at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In these try- ing times, we know how the spirit of the Americans was re- vived by the master-strokes of that great genius, Washington, who snatched victory from defeat under circumstances which roused the admiration of such a general as Frederick the Great, and caused Cornwallis to confess four years later to Washington that the Yorktown campaign was almost sur- passed in generalship by the masterly strokes of Trenton and Princeton.
With the opening of spring, military diversions appeared to be the order of the day. In the hope of weakening our resources, and of breaking the patriotic spirit of the people of Connecticut, an expedition was placed by Lord Howe in command of Governor William Tryon of New York. The avowed object of this expedition was the capture or destruc- tion of military stores which had been deposited in Danbury, a town selected for that purpose in 1776 by the commissioners of the Continental Army. Another motive was, no doubt, to weaken the main force of our army in New Jersey by drawing from it men and arms for the defense of the Con- necticut and Rhode Island coasts. It required the will and military genius of Washington to refrain from such a course later in the year at the urgent request of Connecticut au- thorities.
Tryon's force, consisting of two to four thousand men, according to varying contemporary accounts, sailed from New York on the 24th of April 1777, in twenty transports and six war vessels. They arrived at the mouth of the Sau-
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gatuck river on the 25th, and landed forces, probably to the number of about two thousand. The news of their landing was carried by swift messengers to Danbury. The British marched about five miles to a point on the Danbury road in the northern part of Fairfield, where they encamped for the night.
Upon the landing of the British, the alarm appears to have sped swiftly not only to Danbury but to New Haven. The tidings found the Americans rich in officers but sadly im- poverished in men. Information of the scarcity of men, car- ried by the Tories infesting the western portion of the state, was no doubt a strong inducement to Tryon to undertake his raid at this time. In New Haven it happened that General Benedict Arnold and the veteran general David Wooster received the news, and at once led such militia forces as could be mustered to Fairfield. Learning there that General Gold Sellick Silliman had collected forces at Redding, and was marching to Danbury, Wooster joined him on the 26th. It was here, at Redding, no doubt, that a plan of operations was agreed upon between Wooster, Arnold, and Silliman, whose combined forces, hastily gathered at Redding, New Ha- ven, and on the march, now reached about seven hundred men. This force advanced from Redding to Bethel, where it encamped for the night in a heavy rain.
Meanwhile the British took up their march from Fairfield to Danbury, which point they reached without opposition on the afternoon of the 26th. The only soldiers at Danbury were about fifty continentals and one hundred militiamen, a force barely sufficient to form a rear-guard for the fleeing, terror-stricken inhabitants. The only opposition which the British met at this time was from three young men, named Joshua Porter, Ebenezer Starr, and Adams; the latter being
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a negro slave, whose name may have been Adam. They rashly fired upon the enemy from the house of Captain Ezra Starr, and were killed on the spot by the British. The only prisoners taken at Danbury were a brother of the Joshua Por- ter just mentioned, and a man named Barnum. Porter is said to have surrendered to superior numbers, after a stout resistance, in which he overpowered three of his assailants. He was afterwards confined with Barnum in the old Sugar House prison, from which he was released, but his companion died there from starvation.
Upon arriving in the principal street of the town the Brit- ish opened an indiscriminate fire, which cleared the town of inhabitants who had not already fled.
And now began a wholesale destruction of military stores, of which the inventory of the invaders will be given later. Among these stores were large quantities of rum, then re- garded as an indispensable portion of the rations of the con- tinental soldier. To the British soldier of the day, too, the only proper method of destroying this article was by drink- ing it; and this method appears to have been put in practice as soon as the rum was discovered. There was more of it, however, than even two thousand British soldiers could destroy at once in this way; and the result was, that though the Americans did not have men enough to whip this force of British soldiers at just this time, they had rum enough to effect this purpose temporarily. Governor Tryon soon found, to his dismay, that his command, with only exceptions enough to prove the rule, was helplessly drunk. At about the time when this discovery fully dawned upon him, the news reached him that the American forces were gathering to oppose him. And as we find him, in the retrospect of a cen- tury and a quarter, with his helplessly drunken force for one
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horn of his dilemma, and the resolute American soldiers whose homes he had invaded for the other, no good Ameri- can can spare for Tryon one drop of pity, even at this late day. The work of the sufficiently sober members of his force, aided by their trusted Tory friends, appears now to have been the marking of a large cross in whitewash on the houses of the tories of Danbury, signifying that these houses were to be spared in the coming conflagration.
At about two o'clock on the morning of Sunday the 27th, the work of burning the homes of the patriots of Danbury began. Either owing to the need of haste, or the fear of burning the houses of the tories, or both, but nineteen dwel- lings were burned. The Congregational meeting house, and a number of stores and workshops, also perished in the flames. According to Sir William Howe's official report, printed in the London Gazette of June 7th, 1777, "the vil- lage was unavoidably burnt." After which, having reached a state of sobriety which admitted of marching, the British made a much more hasty retreat than they probably intended to make. Instead of retracing their steps through Bethel, Redding, and Fairfield, they adopted a more westerly course, apparently in the hope of eluding their pursuers.
Anticipating this movement, Generals Wooster, Arnold, and Silliman divided their forces, detailing about two hun- dred men to march to Danbury under Wooster, and harass and detain the enemy from the rear; while Arnold and Silli- man, with the remaining five hundred men, proceeded by a forced march to Ridgefield, occupying a position suitable for opposing the enemy on the front and on both flanks. By the destruction of a bridge on their march from Danbury, the British were somewhat delayed; so that Wooster, possibly reinforced by the continentals and militia from Danbury,
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From an original painting.
David Wootter
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gained on them, and approaching through a wooded coun- try, took them completely by surprise at breakfast, capturing forty men. Retreating with his prisoners as suddenly as he had come, he hung upon the rear of the enemy as they hast- ily resumed their march, and at about eleven o'clock made another bold attack with his handful of men, about two miles north from Ridgefield. While cheering his men, with the shout "Come on boys !" he fell, fatally wounded, and was carried from the field. Thus bravely fell another Connecti- cut hero, a man of sixty-seven, in whom dwelt that love of country which forgets age and all other personal considera- tions.
The British reached Ridgefield at about noon, and began a fire of artillery upon Arnold's and Silliman's forces as soon as these forces were discernible. As the British approached within musket range a fierce fight began, and it is said to have been fully an hour before these two thousand disciplined British troops were able to force the five hundred Ameri- cans to retreat from their position. It was at this time that the brave Colonel Abram Gold fell, while refusing to re- treat, and attempting to rally his men by his own example. He fell, sword in hand, from his horse, mortally wounded, in the midst of the enemy. In this engagement the British left unburied thirty dead on the field, besides a number whom they buried.
On the following morning their retreat was resumed, and it was on this retreat that Tyron more narrowly escaped de- feat than in any of his numerous incursions on Connecticut soil. The Americans were now gathering from various quar- ters. Colonel Lamb's artillery soon appeared with three field pieces under Lieutenant Colonel Oswald, joined by part of an artillery company from Fairfield on one hand, and
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sixty continentals and three volunteer companies from New Haven, on the other hand. Colonel Jedediah Huntington with five hundred men attacked the British on the rear, and with General Silliman's assistance drove them past the bridge which they were intending to cross, near which point they were threatened on the flank by Arnold and his men, and retreated precipitately to the ford of the Saugatuck river, while Silliman held the bridge. After crossing this ford, and hastily retreating over the high land on the east bank, with the gathering forces in hot pursuit, their position was still hazardous, and many fell by the way. At last, panting and exhausted, they gained the commanding position of Compo Hill, where they hastily mounted some field pieces and se- cured the height. Here it was that the brave Colonel John Lamb, leaping from his horse, gathered a volunteer force to storm the hill; and here, while bravely leading them, he fell, severely wounded, so that his men, supposing him to be dead, gave up the attack. Forces from the fleet were now landing, and with their assistance, and still under a hot fire up to the point of embarkation, they at last gained their ships, and bade good-bye to Connecticut for the space of two years. Even at their landing three days before, they had met some determined though unorganized resistance, in which one American was killed and several British wounded; and in their retreat, as we have seen, they had found that the few men left in Connecticut were a match for them.
Twenty-two of these Connecticut men lie buried in one grave on the beach where this action took place. It is his- toric ground, hallowed by the blood of patriots, and the movement now on foot to erect a suitable monument to their memory should meet with a liberal aid from the State and the people.
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The contemporary account of this fight places the casual- ties among the Americans at about sixty killed and wounded; and among the British more than double, in addition to twen- ty prisoners, probably a part of the forty taken by Wooster. Sir William Howe's "Return of the stores, ordnance, pro- visions, etc., found at the rebels' stores, and destroyed by the king's troops, in Danbury," is as follows :
"A quantity of ordnance stores, with iron, etc .; 4,000 barrels of beef and pork; 1,000 barrels of flour; 100 large tierces of biscuit; 89 barrels of rice; 120 Puncheons of rum; several large stores of wheat, oats, and Indian corn in bulk; 30 pipes of wine; 100 hogsheads of sugar; 50 ditto of molasses; 20 casks of coffee; 15 large casks filled with medi- cines of all kinds; 10 barrels of saltpetre; 1,020 tents and marquees ; a number of iron boilers; a large quantity of hos- pital bedding; engineer's, pioneers', and carpenters' tools; a printing press complete; tar, tallow, etc .; 5,000 pairs of shoes and stockings."
The casualties of the British in this same official report, are twenty-five killed, one hundred and seventeen wounded, and twenty-nine missing.
The report also places the number of Americans killed as seven officers and precisely one hundred privates; wounded, three officers and precisely two hundred and fifty privates; taken, fifty privates.
Among the Americans killed were, Colonel Abram Gold, Lieutenants Ephraim Middlebrook, Samuel Elmore and William Thompson ; also Dr. David Atwater of New Haven. Among the wounded were Colonel John Lamb, Amah Brad- ley and Timothy Gorham. The escape of Arnold at Ridge- field was, from all accounts, little short of miraculous. When the enemy gained the ridge commanding one flank of his po-
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sition, his retreat was necessarily hasty, in the midst of a shower of bullets at short range. His horse was killed under him, pierced by nine bullets, but Arnold was untouched, though he narrowly escaped capture at the time. While he was entangled with his dead horse, a soldier approached him, calling out, "Surrender ! You are my prisoner !" "Not yet," said Arnold, as he drew a pistol from his holster and shot his would-be captor dead. He then extricated himself from his fallen horse, and escaped, under a heavy fire. On the fol- lowing day his second horse was wounded. His loss was made good by the Continental Congress in the following month, when it was voted that a horse, properly caparisoned, be presented to him, "in the name of this Congress, as a token of their approbation of his gallant conduct in the action against the enemy in their late enterprise to Danbury."
The town records of Danbury were burned in the house of the town-clerk, but the probate records escaped destruction.
Within a month from the time of Tryon's raid, the Amer- icans were practically compensated by a successful attack up- on a Britsh depository of military stores at Sag Harbor, L. I. General Parsons, learning that stores were being collected at this place, despatched a force from New Haven in thirteen whale-boats, on the 2 Ist of May, under Colonel Return Jon- athan Meigs, to attempt the destruction of these stores. This force reached Guilford on the same day, and waiting there for favorable weather, embarked from Sachem's Head on the 23d, under convoy of two armed sloops. An unarmed sloop also accompanied them to carry prisoners. Reaching Sag Harbor at one o'clock on the morning of the 24th, they secured their boats in the woods near the shore. The force, according to General Parsons' report, numbered one hundred and sixty, "and having made the proper arrangement for at-
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tacking the enemy in five different places, proceeded in the greatest order and silence within twenty rods of the enemy, when they rushed on, with fixed bayonets, upon the different barracks, guards, and quarters of the enemy; while Capt. Troop, with a party under his command, at the same time took possession of the wharves and vessels lying there."
The result of this surprise was the burning of all the ves- sels at the wharves, to the number of eleven; the capture of ninety prisoners, of whom one-third were seamen and the rest mostly tories; the destruction of one hundred tons of hay, a large quantity of grain, ten hogsheads of rum, and other West India stores. Notwithstanding an incessant fire of grape and round shot for about an hour from a British schooner of twelve guns lying within a range of one hundred and fifty yards, not one of the Americans was killed or wounded. Six of the British are reported to have been killed. By two o'clock of the afternoon of the same day, Colonel Meigs had returned to Guilford, accomplishing in twenty- five hours, with his hundred and sixty men, without the loss of a man, very nearly the same result, so far as legitimate warfare is concerned, which Tryon with his two thousand men accomplished in three days, with a heavy loss.
Washington, in replying to General Parsons' report of this affair, says :
"And now I shall take occasion not only to give you my hearty approbation of your conduct in planning the expedi- tion to Long Island, but to return my sincere thanks to Colonel Meigs, and all the officers and men engaged in it. This enterprise, so fortunate in the execution, will greatly distress the enemy in the important and essential article of forage, and reflects much honor on those who performed it. I shall ever be happy to reward merit when in my power, and
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therefore wish you to inquire for a vacant ensigncy in some of the regiments for Sergeant Gennings, to which you will promote him, advising me of the same, and the time."
Washington also highly commended this affair in his gen- eral orders, and Congress voted a handsome sword to Col- onel Meigs in recognition of this important service.
Not so successful was an attempt in August of this year, 1777, to capture a tory garrison which had seized the Presby- terian church at Setauket, L. I., and had occupied it for mili- tary purposes. General Parsons, with a force of one hundred and fifty picked men, advanced upon this garrison on the 14th of August, and a surrender being refused by the commanding officer, firing began on both sides, and was continued for some time, until three British war ships were perceived, ap- parently coming to the rescue of the garrison, when Parsons prudently withdrew his men. He arrived safely at Black Rock, the point from which he had set out, "with a few of the enemy's horses, and a quantity of military stores," as we learn from Thompson's History of Long Island.
At this time smaller expeditions of a similar character, both regularly and irregularly planned, were undertaken, until the sight of a Connecticut whaleboat brought terror and dismay to the Long Island tory.
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CHAPTER VI SERVICES IN FRANCE AND THE HOME FIELD
W HILE the events just described were hap- pening in Connecticut, Lafayette was on his first voyage to America, and supplies from France were reaching this country as the result of the mission of a Connecti- cut man, whose efforts in the early years of the Revolution were of great importance.
In March 1776 Silas Deane was appointed by Congress a commissioner to France-or, as his commission reads, "one of the delegates from the Colony of Connecticut, * appointed to go into France, there to transact such business commercial and political as we have committed to his Care and Behalf, and by Authority of the Congress of the thirteen united Colonies." Pursuing this mission, which was certainly a most delicate and important one, he reached Paris in the following July, where he remained incognito while studying the situation. The result was, that upon gaining an audience with the Count de Vergennes, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deane bargained with that brilliant dramatist, mer- chant, and politician Pierre Auguste Beaumarchais, to supply, through a shadowy mercantile house called Rodrique Hor- talez and Company, twenty-eight mortars, two hundred brass cannon, clothing for thirty thousand soldiers, and large quan- tities of small arms, ammunition, etc. All these, after many difficulties in eluding the watchful eye of the British minister, and avoiding other complications, were at last safely landed from three French ships at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, early in the year 1777. Much of what appears to be Deane's indiscretion and over-zealousness at this time may be for- given him in view of the successful accomplishment of this important part of his mission. And if he did go so far as to suggest to the committee of secret correspondence the en-
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gagement of "a great general of the highest character in Europe, such for instance as Prince Ferdinand, Marshal Broglie" as commander-in-chief of the American army, we must remember that it is to Deane that we owe the final ar- rangement and agreement with the Marquis de Lafayette.
The career of Deane, from the days of the Ticonderoga expedition of 1775, of which we have found him an active promoter, to his death in voluntary exile and in poverty in 1789, forms one of the saddest stories of the American Revo- lution. From an ardent patriot, he seems to have been goad- ed into something like treason to his country by the narrow and prejudiced policy of the Continental Congress of 1777, which failed to recognize the beneficial part of his very diffi- cult and arduous services, and failed to adjust his accounts, leaving his heirs to wait more than half a century for a final and partial adjustment, in 1842. That he made mistakes there can be no doubt, but that he was strictly honest in his financial transactions there is equally no doubt. Notwith- standing his unauthorized engagements with many French officers whom he induced to come to this country, it is hardly too much to say that he gave an impetus to the French alli- ance which made the treaty of March 1778 an easier task for the three commissioners, Franklin, Deane, and Arthur Lee, than it would otherwise have been. There is, of course, no doubt that this task would have been accomplished without Deane's previous influence, and in spite of Arthur Lee's ob- stinacy and vindictive enmity to Deane; still we may allow to Deane the credit of paving a portion of the way, and to Burgoyne's surrender the credit of paving the rest.
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