USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume II > Part 6
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Of his subsequent career but little can be said in this con- nection. The documents in his case fill five volumes of the Collections of the New York Historical Society, and occupy
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a large portion of the six volumes of Wharton's Revolution- ary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States. From all this it appears that he was embittered by the treatment he received, after his arduous and difficult labors. He was re- called by Congress from France in December 1777. His services, beginning with the Ticonderoga expedition, fol- lowed by his important work in organizing the navy, and by his success in obtaining from France sorely-needed stores and munitions of war, were all forgotten; and a large debt justly due him was ignored by Congress, as we have seen. No al- lowance was made for the difficulties of his situation in France, surrounded as he was by the court intriguers and soldiers of fortune of the days of Louis XVI. To a mer- curial temperament like Deane's the treatment of Congress was maddening; and it is but just to credit him with the con- viction that such a Congress as that of 1777 could never car- ry the war to a successful issue. And so we find him appar- ently pursuing a course to which it is difficult to give a better name than treason, as appears by the so-called "intercepted letters" published by Rivington in 1781, and by earlier letters from George III. to Lord North. Cumulative in this connec- tion is also a letter which he addressed to Governor Trumbull on the 2 Ist of October 1781, before the news of the surren- der of Cornwallis had reached England, where Deane then was. In this letter he strongly advises peace at any price, and expresses the utmost distrust of the French alliance and its ultimate results. Governor Trumbull's reply is decidedly plain and strong, closing as it does with these words: "I will sooner consent to load myself, my constituents, and my pos- terity with a debt equal to the whole property of the country than to consent to a measure so detestably infamous," refer- ring to Deane's proposal of peace at any price.
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We can only leave the subject of Deane's unhappy career with the reflection that if he sinned he was sinned against, and that there are some mysteries in his later courses which have never been cleared up.
It was during this same year, 1777, that Connecticut was called upon to do her full share in the final reorganization of the Continental army. As usual, she did her share, and more, and did it promptly. It had now at last dawned upon Con- gress that Washington's continued demand for an army which it would not be necessary to reorganize once a year or oftener was a reasonable demand. In pursuance of this be- lief, it was decided to recruit a force for three years, or the war. Of the eighty-eight regiments of infantry to be raised by the thirteen states, eight regiments were assigned as the quota of Cornecticut. Measures were taken by the General Assembly, as early as December 1776, to induce men already in the service to remain until their places could be supplied. Committees were appointed to go at once to several of the posts where troops were stationed, and offer bounties and oth- er inducements for re-enlisting men; but the task of these committees was a difficult one, as the men were dissatisfied at remaining unpaid for more than six months, and some of them had been discharged before the committee arrived. By the influence of that sterling patriot General Wooster, most of the men under his command were prevailed upon to stay. To the land bounties and pay voted by Congress for the new Troops of the Line to be raised, the State added other boun- ties and inducements, though the finances were at so low an ebb that the State Treasurer, John Lawrence, was obliged to issue urgent orders for the collection of taxes in arrears, and urgent appeals for the payment of taxes not yet due.
The quota of Connecticut in the newly enlisted troops was
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filled in April 1777, by re-enlistments and recruits; and an additional regiment under command of Colonel Samuel B. Webb was adopted as Continental at about this time. Of oth- er enlistments, Connecticut contributed several companies to a regiment recruited at large under Colonel Moses Hazen, and about one-half of a Rhode Island regiment. Several companies from Connecticut were also in Colonel Seth Warn- er's regiment, which was accredited to New Hampshire. In addition to this force of infantry, largely in excess of the quota, Colonel Elisha Sheldon's regiment of cavalry was a Connecticut force, as were four companies of artillery, sever- al companies of "Artificers," and a majority of the men in the small but important corps of Sappers and Miners, who remained in the service, with a creditable record at York- town. The Wyoming valley, which was by Connecticut en- actment and charter rights a part of the state, should not be forgotten as contributing two companies of infantry.
Summing up the enlistments in the Continental Line from the state at this time, we find about ten and a half regiments of infantry, where the quota was eight; one of cavalry, five companies of artillery, and the two companies from the Wy- oming valley. This force, or its equivalent, was kept up dur- ing the remainder of the war, being reorganized at White Plains into two brigades, and continuing this organization to January 1781; having supplied by recruiting and re-enlist- ment in 1780, the vacancies which were caused by the expira- tion of the three years' term of enlistment.
The rendezvous for the Connecticut Continentals at the time of their enlistment was at Peekskill on the Hudson River. After the battle of Brandywine, six of these regi- ments were ordered to New Jersey, and reached their desti- nation in time to engage in the battle of Germantown, and
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the subsequent minor but severe engagements at Fort Mif- flin and Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. They afterwards passed the terrible winter at Valley Forge, with death by starvation and freezing staring them in the face. To no State can re- lief at this time be so fully accredited as to Connecticut. Upon the urgent letters of Washington to Governor Trum- bull, stating that the army must disband unless relief could be sent, the Council of Safety placed in the hands of Colonel Henry Champion and Peter Colt the sum of two hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of "live beef," to be sent in droves to the army at Valley Forge. These droves, with the exception of one hundred and thirty head of cattle, which fell into the hands of the enemy, were safely delivered in mid- winter to the starving army at Valley Forge, having been driven some three hundred miles under the personal direc- tion of Colonel Henry Champion and his son Epaphroditus. The first installment of these cattle was devoured by the army in five days.
The official record of the services of the troops of the Connecticut Line is so fully given, both in descriptive text and by annotated muster-rolls in the "Record of Connecticut men in the Military and Naval Service during the War of the Revolution," edited by Professor Henry P. Johnston, that it is unnecessary to give more than an outline taken from that valuable work. In the battle of Monmouth in June, 1778, we find General Huntington's brigade engaged after the shameful retreat of Charles Lee, and Colonel Durkee of Connecticut commanding Varnum's brigade in the same bat- tle. After this, the army moved to White Plains, N. Y., where a reorganization was effected as has been stated. Meantime, from the autumn of 1777, the brigade under Gen- eral Parsons was the only Connecticut force under Putnam
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From an etching by H. B. Hall.
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at Peekskill. After Burgoyne's surrender, Colonel Charles Webb's regiment from this brigade was ordered to Pennsyl- vania. On the 8th of December, 1777, this regiment engaged in a sharp skirmish with the enemy at Whitemarsh.
In the battle of Rhode Island, Aug. 29, 1778, Colonel Samuel B. Webb's regiment under Major Ebenezer Hunting- ton was actively engaged, as was Colonel Sherburne's Rhode Island regiment, one half of which was composed of Con- necticut men.
For nearly a year from this time no active military oper- ations appear to have been within reach of any of the regi- ments of the Connecticut Line. They wintered at Redding in their native state from November 1778 to May 1779. In May they were ordered to the Highlands opposite West Point, where they remained until July 10, when Parsons' and Huntington's brigades were ordered to the Connecticut coast for defense against Tryon's raids, which devastated New Ha- ven, Fairfield, Norwalk, and Greenwich, at this time. As usual, Tryon did not wait to be attacked, but escaped with his fleet. Connecticut contributed a full regiment of light in- fantry under Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, which took part in the brilliant capture of Stony Point on the 15th of July.
In October, the Division, following the movements of the enemy, was sent to the vicinity of King's Ferry, below Peeks- kill, and afterwards, for the winter of 1779-80, to Morris- town, New Jersey, where the unusually severe weather caused much suffering. With changes of camp to Springfield and Westfield, the Division remained in New Jersey until late in the spring of 1780, when it was once more ordered to the Highlands, where General Jedediah Huntington took com- mand, and commenced recruiting to fill the vacancies caused
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by the expiration of the term of service of the men who had enlisted in 1777 for three years.
The summer was passed uneventfully, and in September occurred the treason of Benedict Arnold, upon the discovery of which Colonel Meigs' regiment was sent, with others, at once to West Point, to meet any movements of the enemy which might be made as a result of Arnold's treachery.
This season the Division went into winter quarters in the Highlands, at a point near Robinson's Farm, which they christened "Connecticut Village." In June 1781 they were ordered to Peekskill, and in July to Dobbs' Ferry, to co- operate in the beginning of that great movement which had its crowning victory in the surrender of Cornwallis at York- town. It so happened, however, that Washington took with him from this encampment at Dobbs' Ferry only a portion of the Continental Army. Ten of the thirty-six companies of Connecticut men in the new formation of 1781 were with Lafayette, though these ten companies served in newly formed regiments under Colonels Gimat, Scammell, and Alexander Hamilton, none of whom were Connecticut men. These com- panies saw service in Lafayette's brilliant Virginia campaign, and in the subsequent siege of Yorktown.
Besides Connecticut's active service in the Continental Army, which has been thus briefly outlined, the militia of the state, which was constantly kept up to its quota, performed similar service from 1777 to 1781. Within the borders of the state we have seen them engaged in the defense of Dan- bury, and we shall find them also engaged in home defense at New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk, in 1779, and notably in the Groton massacre of September 1781, not to mention various coast guard duties and alarm services. Outside of their own State, they continued, as in 1776, to reinforce and
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co-operate with the Continentals. Early in 1777, three regiments of militia from General Erastus Wolcott's bri- gade were sent to Peekskill to fill the gap occasioned by the delay in the arrival of new recruits, and remained for about two months. In the northern army, Colonels Jonathan Lati- mer and Thaddeus Cook each commanded a regiment of Connecticut militia which saw active service in the battles of Bemis' Heights and Saratoga, and suffered more losses in the first of these battles than any other two regiments, win- ning high commendations from the commanding officer. In this same campaign, too, three hundred volunteers from the militia, upon the call of General Oliver Wolcott, went to the front, arriving in time for the battle of Saratoga. Co-operat- ing in this same campaign, General Gold Selleck Silliman's brigade reinforced Putnam on the Hudson in October, 1777.
Colonel Obadiah Johnson's regiment appears on duty in Rhode Island during January and February of 1778; and at the time of the battle of Rhode Island in August, 1778, we find two regiments of Connecticut militia in the service under Colonels Samuel Chapman and Samuel McClellan. Dur- ing the same month, Colonel Roger Enos' regiment is found on the Hudson.
It is, perhaps, enough to say of the military service that Connecticut's quota was constantly filled, either by regu- larly enlisted forces in the Continental Line, or by forces drawn from the State Militia to fill temporary vacancies in the regular quota, or to meet emergencies which, at certain times, could be more promptly met by sending detachments from the militia. With the exception of service in the ex- treme South, to which, as it happens, no Connecticut troops were assigned, we find them in active service in various fields
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and campaigns throughout the entire war, and always ac- quitting themselves well.
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CHAPTER VII NAVAL AFFAIRS IN CONNECTICUT
O F the share of Connecticut in the navy of the Revolution, it is impossible to speak as ac- curately as of the military service. From the nature of the case, the Continental Navy was not, and could not be, as thoroughly organ- ized as the Continental Army; and for that reason, if for no other, the records of naval service are incomplete, confusing, and sometimes contradictory. A newly born nation like our United States of 1777 was able, from its own internal re- sources, as we have seen, to organize an army which could, under the leadership of Washington, achieve and carry to a successful issue the great military campaigns of the Revolu- tion. The importance of such a home navy as we were able to equip has never been fully appreciated. And in the equip- ment of this home navy, the share of Connecticut is only mentioned very casually by historians. The contributions of the state to this branch of the service may be rather rough- ly divided into three classes :- the privateers, the State ves- sels, and the vessels of the Continental Navy.
The captures made indiscriminately by Connecticut ves- sels of all these three classes in the year 1777 amounted in value, according to the estimate of Isaac W. Stuart, to not less than £200,000 sterling, or about $1,000,000. The dis- tribution of prize-money to the officers and crews was very liberal, being one-half the net value of the captured vessels and cargoes. None the less, however, did these prizes con- tribute to the resources of the State; for both vessels and cargoes were bought whenever it was possible by the State. It sometimes happened to be necessary, however, to bring the prizes into the harbors of other states, in which case they were usually sold where they lay to avoid the risk of re-cap- ture, the proceeds, however, forming a contribution to the
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common cause. The services of privateers, State vessels, and Continental vessels appear to have been quite similar. Mer- chant vessels of the enemy were of course the legitimate prey of all classes, and in the capture of such prizes our cruisers were constantly encountering British privateers and ships of the line. Often, too, transports with armed convoys of the enemy were encountered, and many prisoners taken.
The Connecticut Navy, especially in the early days of the war, was a motley fleet, composed of boats and shipping of all classes and rigs from whaleboats to frigates, recruited and collected from the merchant marine, from prizes taken from the enemy, and from such vessels as could be built in the times when the resources of the State were strained to the ut- most to supply the needs of the army. It must be remembered however, that the industry of shipbuilding was one in which the people had engaged quite extensively in colonial times, and that many of our men were followers of the sea by in- heritance and by choice. No doubt, in the building of ships they found themselves much hampered by the lack of iron work, rigging, and armaments which had formerly been sup- plied by the mother country. But early in the war, we find the iron works of Benjamin Williams and Ebenezer Backus supplying a part of this deficiency, the foundry at Salisbury making cannons and balls for the armaments of the vessels then building, and James Tilley manufacturing cordage.
In 1777, two frigates were built in Connecticut for the Continental Navy. One of these, a ship or frigate of twenty- eight guns, was built at Chatham on the Connecticut River, and was called the Trumbull. This vessel was manned most- ly by New London sailors, and was commanded by Dudley Saltonstall of New London. The other Continental vessel, the Confederacy, had an armament of thirty-six guns, and
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was built on the Thames River at Brewster's Neck, a few miles below Norwich. Captain Seth Harding, formerly of the State naval service, was placed in command.
Neither of these vessels can be said to be, according to nautical parlance, "lucky." The Trumbull, in June 1780, en- gaged the British ship Williamson, or Watt, of thirty-six guns, in a fight lasting nearly three hours, which proved to be one of the bloodiest and fiercest sea-fights of the war. The Trum- bull was dismasted, and would have been an easy prey for her antagonist, had not she also been so disabled that she was obliged to withdraw, with a loss of ninety-two men in killed and wounded, the loss of the Trumbull being thirty-nine men. This ship was afterwards forced to surrender to two British men-of-war, the Iris and the General Monk, which vessels overtook her in a disabled condition, after a storm.
Even less fortunate was the larger Connecticut-built ves- sel, the Confederacy. On her first cruise, her masts were lost, one by one, and she put in at Martinque with six feet of water in the hold. After being refitted, the first ship of the enemy which the Confederacy encountered was a seventy-four ship of the line, accompanied by a frigate, to which vastly superior force she was obliged to surrender.
Of the vessels built or bought and fitted out by direction of the General Assembly or Council of Safety, and placed in commission under direction of the State, the following im- perfect but carefully revised list will give some indications :
America, brig, Captain John Mott.
Crane, row galley, Captain Jehiel Tinker, built at East Haddam in 1777.
Defence, ship, Captain Seth Harding, Captain Samuel Smedley, built at Essex in 1776; lengthened and ship-rigged, 1777.
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Dolphin, sloop (prize), Captain Robert Niles, 1777.
Fanny, sloop, Captain -- Whittlesey, 1777.
Guilford, sloop (prize), Captain William Nott, name changed from "Mars."
Guinea Man, ship (prize), - -, captured, 1776.
Hancock, ship (prize), - Manly, formerly brig Weymouth.
Minerva, brig, Captain Giles Hall, chartered by State; afterwards privateer.
Nancy, brig (prize), -
, on record, 1777.
New Defence, row galley, Captain Samuel Barker, built at Branford, 1779.
Old Defence, brig, Captain Daniel Deshon, Captain Wil- liam Coit, built at Saybrook, 1776. Largest state vessel.
Oliver Cromwell, ship, Captain Seth Harding, Captain Timothy Parker.
Putnam, ship, Captain Thomas Allen. Continental ?
Resistance, brig, Captain Samuel Chew.
Schuyler, schooner, Captain - Hawley.
Shark, row galley, Captain Theodore Stanton, built at Norwich, 1776.
Spy, schooner, Captain Robert Niles, formerly Britannia, bought, 1776.
Whiting, row galley, Captain John McCleave, built at New Haven, 1776.
Of the privateers fitted out in Connecticut, Admiral George F. Emmons compiled a list, revised by Mr. Thomas S. Col- lier, making a total of 202 vessels, carrying 1,609 guns and 7,754 men. This list is confessedly imperfect, as it contains among other inaccuracies the Schooner Spy, which by the official record was the Schooner Britannia, bought by the
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State and renamed. The list also contains the galleys Crane and Shark, which were built by the State. Doubtless, too, the inaccuracies of the recording landsmen of the day gave us for one vessel several of the same name, called sometimes a ship, sometimes a sloop, or by any other designating class name which would answer the recorder's purpose. Thus we have three Chathams, a ship, a boat, and a sloop; two Eagles, a schooner and a sloop; and the Continental frigate Governor Trumbull appears in the list as a privateer under command of Captain Dudley Saltonstall.
It is impossible within the present limits to trace the cruises and exploits of our State vessels and privateers. A few typical or leading instances must suffice.
Among the State vessels, one of the smallest was the lit- tle Schooner Spy, of about fifty tons burden. The name was probably given to this vessel to signify the service she was expected to perform, by coasting along the Long Island shore and elsewhere, detecting illicit trade with the enemy, mak- ing such captures and gaining such information as chance might throw in her way. One of the former appears to have been the Sloop Dolphin, of eighty tons, which vessel was placed for a time in command of Captain Robert Niles, her captor. Captain Niles was restored to the Spy during the following year for a very important service, the carrying to Paris of an officially confirmed copy of the treaty of alliance with France. Of the six vessels undertaking this service, she was the only one which escaped capture, possibly for the rea- son that it seemed impossible to the enemy that so small a vessel would cross the Atlantic as an American war-vessel. In the records of the Council of Safety for July 1779, we read :
"Cap. Niles came in having arrived home last Saturday
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after having been twice captured &c .- gave an account of his voyage &c .- arrived at Paris in 27 days after he sailed, which was beginning June, 1778, and delivered his mail to Dr. Franklin, containing the ratification by Congress of the Treaty with France, being the first account he had received of that event, which was greatly satisfactory to him and the French ministry and nation in general &c."
It appears from this and other records that the Spy, hav- ing fulfilled her mission, was captured by the British; as a newspaper item of April 15, 1779, mentions the arrival from New York of "Mr. Mortimer, late mate of the Schooner Spy," having come from England as a seaman, and having escaped upon his arrival in New York. The voyage of the Spy across the Atlantic was remarkably short for so small a vessel, being reported as twenty-one days from Stonington to Brest.
More fortunate than the two Continental frigates built in Connecticut were the two State ships Defence and Oliver Cromwell, also built in the State. Within a month from the beginning of her first cruise, the Defence under Captain Seth Harding captured three transports, with three hundred and thirty-two officers and men of General Frazier's regiment of Highlanders. Two of these transports, an armed ship and an armed brig, were captured in one engagement on the 17th of June, 1776, at Nantasket, their capture forming a fitting celebration of the first anniversary of Bunker Hill. The other transport was captured on the following day. The loss of the enemy in these engagements is reported as eighteen killed, and many wounded. Nine men of the Defence were wounded, but none killed. The ship was so badly damaged in the engagement, however, that she was obliged to put in at New London to refit.
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During the following September, the Defence captured the ship John of two hundred tons, with a valuable cargo of sugar, rum, and cotton; also the ship then or afterwards called the Guineaman, which will be found in the list as pre- sumably in the service of the State after her capture. In Jan- uary 1777, during the illness of Captain Harding, Lieutenant Samuel Smedley was placed in command of the Defence, and captured during his cruise the snow Swift, the schooner Anna, and the bark Lydia. He also captured in the follow- ing April a "West Indiaman" called the Grog. In the fol- lowing May Captain Smedley received his commission as permanent commander of the Defence, Captain Harding having been transferred to the Oliver Cromwell. About this time the Defence was lengthened and changed from a brig to a ship. Her original tonnage having been two hundred and sixty, the change must have made her a formidable ship for the times.
She sailed from Boston in March 1778; and not long afterward, in company with the Oliver Cromwell, captured, after a sharp engagement, the British war vessels Admiral Keppel and Cygnus, the latter being the prize of the Defence. In the following March this ship met an untimely end by shipwreck, in which her guns and most of her stores were saved.
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