USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > Perth Amboy > Contributions to the early history of Perth Amboy and adjoining country : with sketches of men and events in New Jersey during the provincial era > Part 33
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The Committee was chosen the next day. It consisted of the sage and experienced Franklin, John Adams, and the youthful Rutledge of South Carolina. There was a manifest propriety in the selection of Franklin as Chairman. Lord Howe had sought his acquaintance when in England as Agent for several of the colonies, with a view to ascertain his senti- ments in relation to the practicability of effecting a reconcilia-
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tion ; succeeding through the agency of his sister, who obtained an introduction to Franklin under the plausible pre- tence of desiring to play chess with him-of which the Doctor himself has given us a very graphic account .. But neither then, nor subsequently, after his arrival in America, when he . opened a correspondence with Franklin, could Howe secure the co-operation of that patriot in furthering any plan of re- union based upon further subjection to the British crown ; yet each for the other seems to have contracted a sincere regard, such as could have existed only between men of honor and in- telligence ; a regard with which their political relations had not been allowed to interfere.
Having been notified of the appointment of the committee, Lord Howe, under date of the 10th, informed Dr. Franklin that he would meet him and the other gentlemen the next morning " at the house on Staten Island opposite to Amboy, as early as the few conveniences for travelling by land on Sta- ten Island will admit "-he being then on board of his vessel in the harbor of New York. A boat would be sent with a flag of truce over to Amboy for the committee, who were re- quested to wait for it at that place.
This arrangement was carried out, and was attended by a mark of consideration on the part of the Admiral, and of con- fidence on the part of the Committee, which is worthy of record. On the arrival of Lord Howe's barge at the dock, foot of Smith street, one of his principal officers was found to be on board, who had been directed to remain with the Ameri- cans as a hostage until the return of the Committee ; but as this had not been desired, the officer was taken back to the island. Lord Howe himself received the Committee on land- ing, and conducted them through his guards to a room in Colonel Billop's house, where, for three or four hours, they con- sulted upon the momentous measure which had brought them together ; but, as is well known, with no beneficial result. The report of the Committee, made at first verbally, and after- ward in writing, will be found entered in the Journals of Con- gress, under date of September 17th ; and Doctor Franklin has given in his " Account of Negotiations in London " a full
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recital of his previous intercourse with Lord Howe. It is well said by Botta, that "it seems in this revolution to have been the destiny of things, that the remedies should always arrive after the evils were become incurable ; and that the govern- ment refusing, out of pride at the favorable moment, to acqui- esce in useful concessions, should afterwards have to submit to the rejection of its useless propositions." 17
The parting between Franklin and Howe is said to have been marked by an exhibition of feeling which did honor to their hearts without detracting from their credit as negotiators, . and which must give to the spot that interest which ever at- taches to those consecrated by acts of self-denial or of sacrifice. Who can estimate the mental trials which our Revolutionary struggle brought upon those to whom the ties of kindred or of friendship were as naught compared with the claims of their country ?
During the night of 16th October, 1776, General Mercer passed over to Staten Island with a portion of the troops sta- tioned at Amboy, hoping to capture a force said to be in the vicinity of Richmond, composed of one company of regulars, one of Hessians and one of Skinner's militia.
A detachment, under the command of Colonel Griffin, consisting of Colonel Patterson's battalion and Major Clarke's riflemen, was sent to fall upon the east end of the town, while the remainder of the force enclosed it in on the other sides. Both divisions reached their positions by the break of day, but the enemy having been warned were on the alert, and after discharging a few volleys retreated in disorder, leaving two of their number mortally wounded and 17 prisoners in the hands of the Americans. Two of the attacking party were killed, and Colonel Griffin and Lieutenant-colonel Smith were slightly wounded. Forty five muskets and other arms were brought off, together with a standard of the British Light Horse.
From the vicinity of the two armies desertions were fre- quent. On one occasion an Irishman, who had enlisted in the Pennsylvania line, swam the Sound notwithstanding the firing
17 See John Adams' Works (Diary), Vol. II. p. 73, &c.
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of the American riflemen, and was seen going into the bushes on the other side in safety. It was customary for considera- ble numbers of the men to bathe at the same time beneath the hill north of the town, just above the Cove, under the eye of sentinels stationed on the top of the bank. This fellow was observed making his way at a rapid rate towards Staten Island, and a ball was immediately sent whizzing at his head, the only part of his body visible. This of course brought out an increased number of men, and although it was supposed two hundred men made him the object of their aims, he never- theless escaped unhurt. Single shots were oftentimes fired from rifles and muskets from one side to the other ; and on one occasion when a number of English officers were regaling themselves under the trees on the Island, Richard Griggs, the father of the late Thomas Griggs, so well aimed his piece that the ball shivered a bowl filled with some refreshing bev- erage which an officer was in the act of putting to his mouth-the company soon dispersed. The musket (or rifle) which aided in the execution of this feat was in the possession of the family a few years since, and may be so yet.
The breastwork, of which some remains may here and there be seen along the top of the bank towards Staten Island, was not thrown up until after a soldier had been seriously wounded while on parade in the street, in front of the residence of the Hon. James Parker. It was made to guard the men from similar accidents, and to serve as some protection in case of an attack from that side. The more regular works or small earth redoubts (with the exception of one called the " lower entrench- ment," capable of holding 200 men, which was constructed by Capt. Bloomfield's company in 1776), were thrown up by the British when they obtained possession of the place. There are some remains of these yet visible, in State street, in the Presbyterian graveyard, at the parting roads, and on the farm of Mr. Parker.
In November, 1776, Washington's retreat through New Jersey commenced. His head-quarters were at Hackensack from the 19th to the 21st of November ; at Aquackanonck on the 21st ; at Newark from the 23d to the 27th ; at New Bruns-
22
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wick from the 30th to the 1st December ; and at Trenton from the 3d to the 12th ; the army crossing the Delaware about the 7th. 18 " Thus to suffer the shattered remains of the rebel troops," writes a British officer, 19 " a set of naked, dispirited fugitives, encumbered with baggage, to run a race of ninety miles, and outstrip the flower of the British army three times their number, appears to be an omission, not to give it another name, without example." The English took possession of Amboy about the 1st December, the Americans there under General Greene, joining Washington's retreating forces.
By this retreat New Jersey was left in the undisputed pos- session of the enemy ; but Washington, having been reinforced by a detachment which had remained in the State of New York, again crossed the Delaware on the night of the 25th December, and by the brilliant affairs of Trenton and Prince- ton, re-established the supremacy of the American arms south and west of New Brunswick, and enabled his harassed and suffering army to go into comfortable winter quarters at Mor- ristown.
The British concentrated all their forces upon Brunswick and Amboy, relinquishing all the advantages they had gained during the preceding month, excepting the retention of these two places. Sufficient time, however, had elapsed while they remained in possession of New Jersey, to make people fully "aware of the true character of the enemy that was deluging their soil with the blood of their friends and kindred, and every day the English cause lost ground. "Sufferers of all parties rose as one man to revenge their personal injuries and particu- lar oppression," and whenever attempts were made by the Brit-
18 It was during this retreat that General Charles Lee negligently, as some thought, or purposely, as others were uncharitable enough to suggest, remained so far in the rear, that on the 12th December he was taken prisoner, by a detachment under Colonel Har- court, and, it is thought, taken first to Amboy; and I have been told of the excitement which attended the arrival of the squadron having him in charge, as they rode into the Market Square.
He was subsequently removed to New Brunswick, and arrived in New York from there January 22d, 1777. See Allen I., p. 561 ; Botta I., p. 396 ; Mar- shall I., p. 124; Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution, Vol. II., p. 222. Mr. L. says "he was conveyed to New York " at once ; but the papers of the day will be found announcing his ar- rival there on the day I have named. 19 Captain Hall's Civil War in Ame- rica, p. 216.
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ish to forage in the surrounding country, they were obliged to go in large parties, and generally sustained some loss. Mr. Dunlap thus describes their conduct, of which he was an eye- witness at Piscataway, when they advanced upon the retreat- ing footsteps of Washington :-
" I saw the soldiers plundering the houses, the women of the village trembling and weeping, or flying with their children-the men had retired to await the day of retribution. In many houses helpless old men or widowed females anxiously awaited the soldiers of monarchy. A scene of promiscuous pillage was in full operation. Here a soldier was seen issu- ing from a house armed with a frying-pan and gridiron, and hastening to deposit them with the store over which his helpmate kept watch. The women who had followed the army assisted their husbands in bringing the furniture from the houses, or stood sentinels to guard the pile of kitchen utensils, or other articles already secured and claimed by right of war. Here was seen a woman bearing a looking-glass, and here a soldier with a feather bed-but as this was rather an inconvenient article to carry on a march, the ticking was soon ripped open, and a shower of goose feathers were seen taking higher flight than their original owners ever attained to." 20
And Governor Livingston draws a still more revolting pic- ture of their excesses. In a speech to the Council and Assem- bly, February 25th, 1777, he says :-
" They have plundered friends and foes. Effects capable of division they have divided ; such as were not they have destroyed. They have warred upon decrepit age; warred upon defenceless youth ! They have committed hostilities against the professors of literature and the ministers of religion ; against public records and private monuments ; against books of improvement and papers of curiosity ; and against the arts and sciences. They have butchered the wounded asking for quarter ; mangled the dying weltering in their blood ; refused the dead the rites of sepulture; suffered prisoners to perish for want of sustenance; violated the chastity of wo- men ; disfigured private dwellings of taste and elegance; and in the rage of impiety and barbarism profaned edifices dedicated to Almighty God! "
The New Year opened with quite active hostilities north of the Raritan, the skirmishes being frequent with varied results.
A party of Jersey Militia on Sunday, 5th January, 1777, attacked a regiment of British troops in the neighborhood of Spanktown (now Rahway), and notwithstanding great disparity of numbers, the skirmishing continued for two hours-a suffi- cient time to enable the enemy to bring up reinforcements from Woodbridge and Amboy. The object of the attack was
20 History Amer. Theatre, p. 236.
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to obtain possession of a thousand bushels of salt which the enemy had secured.
It was about this time that Elizabethtown was evacuated on the approach of General Maxwell with a considerable body of continental and provincial troops, between 70 and 100 pris- oners falling into his hands ; and General Heath, a few days after, is reported to have destroyed more than one hundred flat- bottomed boats at the Point.
On Monday, January 20th, there was an engagement took place at a bridge over the Millstone River, about two miles from Somerset Court House, between 450 militia men of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, under General Dickinson, and about 600 of the enemy in charge of a quantity of cattle and forage, in which the former were very successful. Finding that they could not cross the bridge in consequence of its being defended by the British with three field-pieces, they sought a ford below, and breaking the ice, waded through the river, flanked the enemy, and routing them, captured 43 baggage wagons, 104 horses, 118 cattle, 60 or 70 sheep, and made 12 prisoners. Their loss was only 4 or 5, while the enemy's killed amounted to five or six times that number. General Wash- ington alluded to this engagement in the following terms : " General Dickinson's behavior reflects the highest honor upon him, for though his troops were all raw, he led them through the river middle deep, and gave the enemy so severe a charge, that although supported by three field-pieces they gave way and left their convoy."
Three days after, a similar detachment of the enemy under Colonel Preston, with two pieces of cannon, was attacked on its way to Amboy from New Brunswick by an advanced party from the 6th Virginia Regiment ; but Lieut .- colonel Parker in command of it, not having been supported by his superior Col. Buckner, was obliged to retreat, after keeping up a short con- test, for twenty minutes, but without loss. The British lost, however, 65 in killed and wounded ; Col. Preston being among the killed, and his second in command being dangerously wounded.
About the 1st February there was a skirmish at Piscataway
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between 700 Americans and about 1,000 British, the latter having 3 field-pieces. They were obliged to retreat, however, leaving 36 men dead on the field ; but, subsequently, having obtained reinforcements, with 3 additional guns, they returned and renewed the attack, obliging the Americans to retire. The latter lost in both affairs 9 killed and 14 wounded.
The foraging and scouting parties of the Americans which kept ranging through the country between Amboy and New Brunswick, effectually cut off all communication with the latter place during the month of February, excepting by the river Raritan. Lord Cornwallis had his head-quarters at New Brunswick, and his detachment became quite short of provi- sions. It was no very pleasing sound, therefore, just as their expectant eyes had descried, on the 26th February, a fleet of boats coming up the river from Amboy with the needed sup- plies, to hear the reverberations of a battery of six 32-pounders, which the vigilant provincials had put in position the night before on a high bluff below the town, overlooking the river, and to see the dire effects upon the boats. Four or five were sunk, and the remainder returned to Amboy and thence to New York. General Howe himself subsequently attempted to open the communication, but failed, narrowly escaping cap- ture, and New Brunswick continued shut up until late in March.
This risk was incurred by General Howe in the neighbor- hood of Bonhamtown. He was at that place on the 8th March, and with the view of facilitating his return to Amboy, about 3,000 of the enemy, which was presumed to be the en- tire force then stationed there, marched out with artillery and posted themselves in an advantageous position, on what the contemporaneous account designates "Punk Hill." To dis- guise their real object they had wagons with them, as if to for- age, but there was none of any consequence then obtainable in that neighborhood. The enemy were too strongly posted to be attacked by General Maxwell's troops in that quarter, but advanced parties having been sent out, skirmishes ensued be- tween them and detachments under Colonels Potter and Cook of Pennsylvania, and Colonel Thatcher of New England, which
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brought reinforcements to both sides, and led to a more general engagement, in which it was thought the British lost 60 in killed and wounded, and they left three field-pieces and a bag- gage wagon in the hands of the Americans.
General Washington having wintered in Morristown, to- wards the end of May, 1777, made advances upon New Bruns- wick, from which place General Howe marched on the 14th June, to take the field against him.21 He had received some reinforcements, but not so many as had been looked for. Mr. Oliver De Lancey of New York and Attorney-general Skinner of New Jersey,22 who were considered to be particularly influ- ential, were made Brigadier-generals, and authorized, the former, to raise three battalions, and the latter five ; but their joint endeavors could only get together 1,114 men : a convin- cing proof of the increasing unpopularity of the royal cause, arising from the sufferings and insults the people had experi- enced. General Washington thus alludes to them in a letter to the President of Congress, under date of Jan. 1st, 1777 :-
"I have sent into different parts of New Jersey men of influence to spirit up the militia, and I flatter myself that the many injuries they have received will induce some to give their aid. If what they have suffered does not rouse their resentment, they must not possess the common feel- ings of humanity. To oppression, ravage, and a deprivation of property, they have had the more mortifying circumstance of insult added ; after being stripped of all they had without the least compensation, protections have been granted for the full enjoyment of their effects." 23
Among reinforcements received by General Howe were some troops from Rhode Island, intended to strengthen Amboy and New Brunswick should his Lordship deem it advisable to attack the troops at Morristown, and to open the communica- tion with New Brunswick,24 then closely surrounded, as we have seen, by the watchful Americans. They arrived in Feb- ruary, and the following graphic account of their debut on the
21 On 6th June, 1777, one of those melancholy spectacles, a military exe- cution, took place in New Brunswick. Abraham Patten was executed as an American spy, having bribed a grena- dier to carry four letters to Generals Washington and Putnam, giving in- formation respecting the town, engag- ing to set fire to it, &c. He would not accuse any as his accomplices, but
it is said acknowledged at the gallows that he was a principal in setting fire to New York.
22 See notice of him on a preceding page.
23 Washington's Writings, Vol. IV., p. 255.
24 General Howe's Despatch, Feb- ruary 30th, 1777.
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scene of action in New Jersey, is extracted from Mr. Dunlap's vivid recollections of that period : 25
"They were landed on a fine, clear winter's day, and with all the 'pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.' I saw them march into the rebellious country adjacent, attended by a long train of wagons to procure forage. I walked out of the village (Amboy), to see the last of the brilliant show, and tried to keep up with a tall grenadier of the 42d, whose height and beauty particularly attracted my attention. I returned and placed myself at a garret window, which commanded a view of the roads leading on the left to Brunswick, on the right to Woodbridge, that I might catch another view of the long procession, which I saw passing over the hill, and vanishing as it moved on towards the nearest village.
" I have a confused recollection that my thoughts that day were occu- pied altogether by the proud display I had witnessed, and the events which might be passing in the interior; and the sound of distant musketry gave activity to these thoughts-my mind was on the stretch. I took my way up the road by which the army had passed, and I met a wounded man returning, assisted by a less injured comrade. A little further on strag- glers were met returning, more or less hurt, and evincing pain. I next met the gigantic grenadier of the 42d, his musket on his left shoulder, his right hand bound up; he walked fast, but he no longer looked like the hero I had admired. I turned about and followed him. It was soon known that the militia had assembled, and were skirmishing with the regulars. In the evening it was known that this gallant military array were returning, their baggage wagons loaded with the wounded instead of the booty they went in search of. By the fireside I heard the heavy rumbling of the wagons over the frozen earth, and the groans of those who were borne to the hospitals. I had now seen something of war."
This was on Sunday, the 23d February. The detachment consisted of the 3d Brigade, with the battalions of light in- fantry and grenadiers, and was destined for what is now Rahway. Capt. Hall, who refers to the expedition, says :-
" As the body proceeded, the enemy, discovering its force, withdrew their advanced parties, but when we had completed our forage and were returning, having collected, they attacked us in our retreat, and behaving much better upon this occasion than they had been accustomed to do, they pressed hard upon the rear of the detachment, notwithstanding the fire of our field-pieces, which occasionally played upon them whenever they showed themselves in numbers. It was dark before the detachment reached the garrison, having been marching through deep snows for ten hours, losing in the action four officers and near one hundred killed and wounded."
That this skirmish was very severe is evident from the num- ber of killed and wounded, and one circumstance which he states shows the precision with which the Americans used their guns. "Lieutenant Peebles," he says, "out of twenty grena-
25 Hist. American Theatre, p. 236.
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diers that flanked with him that day, alone escaped, keeping his ground in the action till the whole of his party was either killed or wounded, and then joining the grenadiers unhurt." 26 A letter-writer of the day states that the officer in command was placed under arrest, for not having at once proceeded towards New Brunswick, instead of marching out of his way in the hope of capturing General Maxwell and his troops at Rahway, to grace his entrance into the beleaguered town.
The occasional visits to the surrounding country made by the British troops, were sometimes returned in a way to excite considerable alarm. On the night of the 23d of April, 1777, a detachment of 60 men and three subalterns, commanded by Capt. Lacy, marched from the neighborhood of Rahway to sur- prise the picket in the suburbs of Amboy, but they failed in their object in consequence of its removal. They killed, how- ever, one sentinel and wounded another,27 and caused much apprehension. Numbers of the Hessian soldiers came running into town from the barracks, exclaiming "the rebel in the bush ; " and expecting a general attack, all the troops were ordered out, and formed a semicircle extending from the water to the "parting roads." 28 This placed them on their guard, and the following night a similar expedition of 20 or 30 men, bewildered by the darkness, got within the lines, and not one escaped to tell the fate of the rest.29
On the 10th May there was a skirmish at Piscataway be- tween portions of the regiments of Colonels Cook and Hen- drick, and 71st Regiment of Scotch Regulars. The latter were forced to retire, and the Americans got possession of some part of their quarters, but a reinforcement arriving from Bonham- town, the Highlanders were reinstated, although with consid- erable loss. The provincials behaved well, losing 26 or 27 in
26 Hall's Civil War in America, p. wounded, while the British loss is put 262. The American account made the down at 500 ! !
British force 2000 strong, with 6 field- pieces, and it was stated that the ac- tion lasted all day from 9} o'clock, A. M. The Americans had to retreat 5 or 6 miles, but being reinforced by 1,400 men of General Maxwell's Bri- gade, they eventually gained the day, with a loss of only 3 killed and 12
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