USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume II > Part 9
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Of the little band of about one hundred and fifty men who held Fort Griswold for nearly an hour against a force esti- mated at six times their number, eighty-seven were killed, forty wounded, and fifteen made prisoners, showing that only eight or ten escaped unhurt. The casualties of the British, as reported by Arnold himself, were forty-seven killed and one hundred and thirty-nine wounded. Later re- ports state that the expedition returned to New York with two hundred and twenty fewer sound men on its rolls than when it started. Thus it appears that this little band of de- fenders, nearly every one of whom was a Groton farmer, made havoc in the British ranks to an extent of at least about forty more than their own number.
That Arnold tried to conceal the true state of affairs from Clinton is evident from his report. We learn on the author- ity of eye witnesses that not above thirty were killed or wounded in the fort before it was taken. Arnold reports that "Eighty-five were found dead in Fort Griswold, and sixty wounded, most of them mortally."
And here, after conducting the most atrocious raid that the Connecticut coast suffered, within thirteen miles of his
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birthplace, we leave Benedict Arnold, at the close of a career in the Revolution which opened most brilliantly and closed most shamefully.
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CHAPTER X THE END OF THE WAR
F ROM the foregoing outline of military and naval service rendered by Connecticut, it is readily to be inferred that the position of the Governor and Council, and of the other legislators of the day, was no sinecure. In providing for and regulating all this service both within and outside the borders of the State, many new problems and many emergencies presented themselves, which required prompt and decisive action. There is no doubt that the financier and political economist of to-day can find much in such action to criticize; but it must be remembered that the leisure which such theorists and doc- trinaires are able to take in reaching their conclusions, was not granted to the men who were straining the resources of their State to provide both the literal and the figurative sinews of war. Had they and their compatriots taken time for reaching the conclusions of modern political scientists, the revolution would doubtless have come to an untimely end in its early stages.
Foremost among the problems with which they had to deal was the money question. We have seen how this question was met from April 1775 to June 1776 by the issue of £260,000 in bills of credit, the payment of which was pro- vided by taxation, to meet the emergencies of the times. The financial situation soon became complicated by the increasing influx of continental money, which depreciated to such an extent towards the close of the war that five hundred dollars were needed to buy a dollar in specie. Early Connecticut legislation, as we have seen, made it a penal offence to fix higher prices for property sold and paid for in continental money than in "hard money." Notwithstanding this, the higher or more powerful law which governs values among men soon asserted itself, and prices of all commodities began
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to advance as early as in November 1776, when we find the legislators of the day establishing by enactment prices above which certain goods could not be sold. There is no doubt that speculation soon grew rife in these times, and that un- scrupulous and unpatriotic men took every possible advantage of the situation. Within a month from this first attempt to regulate prices by law, a second attempt was made, which went so far towards acknowledging the inevitable as to allow higher maximum prices. This policy was temporarily aban- doned in August 1777; and in the following October, pur- chases beyond small quantities for daily needs could only be legally made by those who took the oath of fidelity to the United States. Patriotism by enactment having failed to bring about the expected result, regulation of prices was again undertaken in February 1778, with greater stringency and comprehensiveness than before, the additional safeguards being that no person could commence a suit in any court with- out first swearing that he had violated none of the provisions of the law regulating prices; and that any person who vio- lated this law should be forever disqualified from holding public office in the State. This law remained nominally in force until January 1780, by which time it may be surmised that it had become a dead letter.
The Continental Congress, too, was equally fertile in devices, which it could only recommend to the States, for re- moving the symptoms rather than the causes of an inflated currency. Another expedient which Congress adopted at this time was the establishment of loan offices in the various States, for borrowing money for the common cause, first at four per cent., and when this was found insufficient, at six per cent. interest. A loan office for this purpose was estab- lished with the State Treasurer, in December 1776, and some
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money was raised through the means. But the amount so raised did not meet the expectations or needs of Congress, and in the year 1778 it was found necessary to tax the sev- eral States to the extent of $5,000,000, of which the propor- tion assigned to Connecticut was $600,000, which although far beyond her just proportion, Connecticut promptly as- sumed, and promptly provided for, as usual, by laying taxes at the rate of two shillings to the pound in this instance. This simple expedient of taxing the States, after the failure or partial failure of loan offices and lottery schemes, was re- sorted to by Congress to the extent of $15,000,000 for the following year, and $6,000,000 annually for eighteen years thereafter; but this expedient yielded no better results than the loan offices and lotteries, and the issue of Continental bills continued.
The issue of £260,000 in bills of credit, which was com- pleted in June 1776, was the last issue of paper money by Connecticut, with the exception of a small amount of frac- tional currency, until 1780. The old issue was called in as fast and as far as possible, beginning in February 1778, for the sake of leaving a clear field for Continental bills as a legal tender, though it was at last rather equivocally enacted that they should be a legal tender "according to their current value," and that creditors in other States whose laws were not similar should not be entitled to the benefits of this law. Upon the recommendation of Congress to all the States, this law was repealed in Connecticut in 178 1.
The issue of State bills of credit in 1780 amounted to £190,000, and was made in lieu of the new Continental bills to which the State was entitled under the act of Congress, but of which privilege, if it could be so called, Connecticut never availed.
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These leading facts regarding the finances of the period are taken from a carefully prepared treatise by Dr. Henry Bronson, on "Connecticut Currency, Continental Money, and the Finances of the Revolution," which may be found in vol. I of the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical So- ciety.
The financial record of Connecticut throughout the war stands on the whole, as a pleasing contrast to the record of the other New England States, when measured by its results after the war, and in the disastrous times which then ensued. The delusive issues of paper money in all the other States, excepting only Delaware, brought about the usual result. Connecticut, practically free from paper obligations, though suffering the results of heavy expenditures which she had met by heavy taxes, came out of the struggle much better pre- pared to avail of the coming times of peace and prosperity than her neighbors.
In the final adjustment of the accounts of the several States under Hamilton's plan, in 1790, the amount found to be due to Connecticut was: For apportionment of State indebted- ness $1,600,000. For other amounts due from the United States, $619,12I.
These amounts were liquidated by the issue of United States stocks, which though largely reduced by compromise in the final settlement, probably brought to the State a larger amount of "hard money" in the end than the figures of the indebtedness of the United States actually represented, as these figures represented inflated Continental money values.
Of the number of men furnished by Connecticut during the Revolution, there are varying estimates, the most reliable being those of the compilers of the official records ; Dr. Henry P. Johnston, who prepared the valuable publication, "Con-
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necticut Men in the Revolution," and Mr. Albert C. Bates, . who compiled Volume 8 of the Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, giving additional muster-rolls and records. Dr. Johnston's estimate of the number of men in his com- pilation, is thirty thousand; and Mr. Bates' estimate of the number in his compilation, not included in the other, is about eight thousand. To this total of thirty-eight thousand should be added the number in scattered muster-rolls and records which are in the hands of individuals, and are coming to light from time to time; so that it is safe to call the number of men furnished by this little State in the Revolution not far from forty thousand.
An important service rendered by Connecticut was the custody and care of prisoners of war. Owing to the almost uniform loyalty of the people to the common cause, this ap- peared from the first to be the safest State for the confinement of suspected traitors, Tories, and prisoners captured in bat- tle. One of the first, if not the first of the political prisoners of the war was Dr. Benjamin Church, who in November 1775 was detected in secret correspondence with the enemy. The vigorous and prompt measures of Israel Putnam at the time resulted in the detection of a bearer of this secret corres- pondence. Putnam is said to have appeared on horseback, with a rather bulky woman riding on the same horse, at Washington's headquarters, where he firmly and uncere- moniously ushered the woman into the presence of the Com- mander-in-chief, under whose searching inquiries and com- manding presence she disclosed the fact of Dr. Church's secret correspondence, and her share in its delivery. Church was arrested and sent at once to the care of Governor Trum- bull, under whose direction he was confined in jail at Nor- wich. His doings had been so guarded that it was impossible
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to establish legal proof of his treason, and he was at last allowed to take a voyage to the West Indies for the benefit of his health. He must have been lost at sea, as neither he nor the vessel on which he sailed were ever heard of again.
Another distinguished political prisoner, who was for sev- eral years under the care of Connecticut, was Governor Wil- liam Franklin of New Jersey. Unlike his patriotic sire, the illustrious Benjamin Franklin, he is described in the journal of the Council of Safety as "a virulent enemy to this coun- try." He arrived at Lebanon, under guard, on the memor- able 4th of July, 1776, having been consigned by the authori- ties of New Jersey to the care of Governor Trumbull, with the request that he be paroled as a prisoner. He was accord- ingly kept on parole in various Connecticut towns until the 30th of April 1777, at which time it had been made known to Congress that he had been disseminating peace proclama- tions and similar literature; whereupon it was ordered that he be placed in close confinement, without access to writing materials. He was accordingly placed in Litchfield jail. He was released as an exchanged prisoner in November 1778, after an experience of more than two years under the watch- ful care of Connecticut.
These more important instances give some idea of the trust that was reposed in this State in such cases. Not only were the first political prisoners of the Revolution entrusted to her care, but the first military prisoners as well. The gar- rison of Ticonderoga were paroled at Hartford, where, as it appears from the diary of Major French, one of the officers of this garrison, they did not assimilate well with the patriots of that town. And throughout the State, during the entire war, an important duty of the Council of Safety and the General Assembly was to provide for prisoners of war.
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Memorable among the places of confinement for prisoners is the Newgate prison-so called-at Simsbury. This was an abandoned copper mine purchased by the State, and used as a prison before the Revolution. The subterranean cells of this place have been so treated by romancers and others that they bear an unsavory reputation in these days of enlight- enment and prison reform. The place, however, accorded with the notions of penal confinement at the time. Notwith- standing its alleged unsanitary condition, we have yet to learn of a case where a prisoner suffered materially from this cause ; and notwithstanding its supposed security, escapes were fre- quent. In one instance, on the 18th of May, 1781, all the prisoners, most of whom were Tories, to the number of thirty, escaped, having disarmed the guards, who were asleep, and having placed most of them in the prison, after a sharp contest in which one of the guards was killed and six were wounded. Many of the prisoners, too, were wounded, in some instances by their comrades who could not distinguish them from the guards in the darkness.
It was not until 1827 that the Simsbury copper mine was abandoned as a State prison, and the Wethersfield prison was substituted.
Although Connecticut was known as the Provision State, the draft upon her food supplies was sometimes so great as to cause distress within her borders. On the 2d of February, 1779, we find President Ezra Stiles of Yale College writing to Governor Trumbull that "the Steward of the College has been every way disappointed with respect to flour, so that it has become impossible for us to receive the students," and requesting that fifty or sixty barrels of flour be allotted to the College from the commissary department. On the 6th of April, 1779, Commissary-General Jeremiah Wadsworth
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writes to Governor Trumbull that breadstuffs for the troops cannot be found, and that he fears that the Continentals then at New London were without bread. He shows the cost of three tons of flour seized under the law at Suffield to be £1,412, and very properly adds: "If it were possible to ob- tain bread for the army by the present law, the expense is so great that the Treasury of the United States is not suf- ficient to pay for it."
Not only in food supplies, but in munitions of war, Con- necticut won her title of the Provision State. The iron fur- nace at Salisbury was continued under the management of the General Assembly and Council of Safety during the war, after its capabilities and resources were fully appreciated. The cannons and balls from this furnace performed an im- portant service in the Burgoyne campaign, and on the war- vessels, besides furnishing the armaments of forts and artil- lery companies. Many an iron kettle from the same furnace performed less conspicuous but no less important service. The lead mine at Middletown, too, did its share in furnishing bullets.
It is impossible and unnecessary to describe in fuller detail the share of Connecticut in the Revolution. That share, as we have seen, was always ungrudgingly and promptly per- formed. Realizing that she was in her own right a free-born republic, she merged the rights of her political position in the common cause, and freely devoted to that cause all the advantages and facilities which her unique position gave her. As she, first of all the States, instructed her delegates to vote for independence, so when the question of adopting articles of confederation arose, she furthered that project in every possible way.
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In the diary of Governor Trumbull, a man too busy to keep an elaborate journal, the following entry may be read:
"Friday, October 26th [1781]. About 7 o'clo. in the eveg recd the hand Bill from D. Govr Bower, of the surren- der of Ld Cornwallis & his Army-9000 men, seamen in- cluded-quantity of Warlike Stores-one 40 gun ship- I frigate-about one hundred Transports. Praised be the Lord of Hosts !"
Although the fighting practically ended with the surrender of Cornwallis, none the less did Connecticut, for a year and more after that event, keep up her quota of troops, make her contributions in money, and give every other evidence of her belief in the maxim, "Eternal vigilance is the price of lib- erty."
When at last, in 1783, peace was declared, Governor Trumbull, who had reached the age of seventy-three,-con- scious, apparently for the first time, that the infirmities of age had taken hold upon him,-declined a re-election, and retired, after fifty-one years of arduous public service, to the well-earned rest which he enjoyed for the less than two remaining years of his life. At the election which took place in May, 1784, Matthew Griswold was elected to the office of Governor. During the fifteen years of Trumbull's ad- ministration he had held the office of Lieutenant-Governor; and from his familiarity with public affairs and his unflinch- ing patriotism, was well fitted to conduct the affairs of his native State in the new era now opening before her.
J. T.
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CHAPTER XI
SKETCHES OF MILITARY CHARACTERS OF THE REVOLUTION
T HE actions of Connecticut in the Revolution were not those of an abstract entity, but of warmly living human personalities ; some note of their lives is therefore an important part of the contemporary history. The chief names on the roll are still vividly familiar, from their picturesque individuality as well as their accomplishments; and curiously, the one regarded with least pride achieved the most import- ant and decisive results of all.
First in permanent esteem stands Israel Putnam, the "old Put" of affectionate admiration in his time; the Blucher of Connecticut, a born military leader of rough and racy per- sonality, unpretending and jovial but heavy of hand, full of resource and ignorant of fear. Not of Connecticut birth, he was identified with us from his majority. Born in Salem (now Danvers), Massachusetts, Jan. 7, 1718, he removed to a farm in (now) Pomfret at twenty-one; and lived for six- teen years as an ordinary farmer, but known far around for the daring with which he followed a formidable wolf to its lair in a rocky cave and slew it. In the French and Indian War he was captain of a company under the much underrated Phineas Lyman; was in the battle of Lake George, which won William Johnson his knighthood for defeating Dieskau, and Lyman nothing; and was famed as a leader of rangers for two years after, finding those opportunities for adven- turous exploit which always come to the man who wishes them. He saved a boat-load of soldiers from the Indians by steering them down the furious Hudson rapids-which sug- gests Horseneck; he risked his life in the flames of Fort Ed- ward to save it from destruction; captured by the Indians and tied to a tree to be burned alive, he was actually scorched by the fires when a French officer rescued him. Command-
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ing a regiment under Amherst, a bold and skilful exploit of his threw two armed vessels and an important fort into Amherst's hands. Again under Lyman in the West Indies, he aided in capturing Havana from the Spaniards; in Pon- tiac's War he went with Bradstreet (1764) to relieve De- troit; and after nine years of richly varied and brilliant mili- tary experience, came back as Colonel Putnam, a veteran officer fit to match any in the English army. The absurdity still lingers in some minds of styling the colonial soldiery of the Revolution an "untrained militia": some of them were. Then for another decade he was farmer, innkeeper, traveler, and vigorous patriot, prominent among the "Sons of Liberty" in the Stamp Act times and the thickening storms that fol- lowed. In 1774 he aids in slipping provisions into Boston under Gage's not very acute eyes. When the news of Lex- ington is brought to him, while plowing in the field, he leaves the plow in the furrow like the Highlanders at the sending of the fiery cross, and without putting on his uniform, mounts his best horse and gallops to Cambridge. At Bunker Hill he holds a leading command : his order to his men, "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes," is classic. When Wash- ington assumed command of the army, Putnam was made one of his first four major-generals, and commanded his right wing. Later, in command at Brooklyn Heights, he shared in the inevitable American defeat at the battle of Long Island; but Colonel Knowlton's force which did itself honor at Harlem Heights was of his command. He is command- ant at Philadelphia after Lee's treachery and treason; then at Peekskill, holding the Hudson highlands against the Brit- ish. It is there that he captures a British spy, and in answer to a letter from Clinton threatening vengeance if the spy is harmed, replies that the prisoner was "taken as a spy, tried as
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a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy," with a "P. S. He has been executed." Then he assists in recruiting. Later he holds western Connecticut against Brit- ish raids; and while fighting Tryon, saves his command by lingering too long near the enemy himself, then escapes cap- ture by riding down an almost impossible bluff at Horseneck with the bullets flying after him. Stricken with paralysis in 1779, he passed his remaining years on the farm, and died May 19, 1790, secure of the fame for which he had taken no thought, and the good repute for which he had-each being the best way to secure its special prize.
Next to Putnam must be placed a nature built on broader lines of intellect and more vehement elemental force, and like him with no spark of meanness; but engulfed in ruin from lack of his unselfish and single-minded devotion to duty, his likable character and unspeculative common-sense. Bene- dict Arnold was all Connecticut's own, but his worse side had nothing typical of her; and the mantle of sorrow and pity we cast over him is not one of shame,-a feeling lost in the spectacle of the tremendous retribution which fell on him, and the temptation which was not wholly nor perhaps mainly one of selfishness, but a specious appeal to the very patriotism he seemed to forget. The boy prefigured the man : noted for athletic prowess, reckless daring, and resource; almost cer- tainly displaying the proud, passionate, uncontrolled, and rather self-seeking nature, quickly responding to affection or resentment, generous to the weak but not conciliatory to com- panions, which brought on the final tragedy. Arnold was a good man to have for a master, and a magnificently useful one to have for a subordinate; but he was not a comfort- able yokemate, and it is hard to believe that the train of hates and resentments which followed him were wholly without his
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fault. Yet again and again he acted with exemplary patience and the utmost magnanimity. Born in Norwich, Jan. 14, 1741, and becoming a prosperous New Haven druggist and bookseller, he turned West India trader, traveled thither, fought a victorious duel with and wrested an apology from an insolent English captain. At news of Lexington, recruit- ing a company in hot haste he obtains a Massachusetts com- mission to capture Ticonderoga; finds Ethan Allen and the men of Connecticut beforehand with him, and as they pay no attention to his commission and claim of command, accom- panies them as a volunteer, and shares in the bloodless cap- ture. Joined a few days later by his own band, he sails down Champlain and takes St. John's; asks for the command of the captured forts and is refused it. Then he proposes to Washington the expedition to Quebec, across the great water- shed between the northern affluents of the Kennebec and the early waters of the Chaudière; and after a fearful march through sleet storms, frozen lakes, rapids, and forests, deserted by part of his force under an officer who furnishes excellent excuses, his matchless energy and resolution bring the bulk of the forces to the city in November. He scales the heights, and dares the garrison of thrice his numbers to come out and fight; joined by Montgomery, he attempts an assault in which Montgomery is killed and his own leg shat- tered, but he keeps the place blockaded till he is relieved in spring. When the British undertake an invasion of New York by the path of Lake Champlain, Arnold spends the summer building a fleet to bar their way, and on Oct. II, 1776, fights one of the most heroic and obstinate naval bat- tles in our history, off Plattsburg; hopelessly outnumbered, he finally brings off all his men and most of his boats, the nominally victorious British retire to Montreal, and the
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