USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 47
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Verplanck House, Fishkill.
first of the name settled on the lower point of Manhattan Island when it was only a little fur-station ; and in every generation since that primitive period they have had their good and gifted men. Samuel Verplanck married Judith Crommelin, the daughter of a wealthy Huguenot in Amsterdam, and resided in a large yellow house in Wall Street, corner of Broad, which was the home, after the Revolution, of his distinguished son, Judge Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, who married Ann Walton. These latter were the parents of Gulian Verplanck, so well-known in the political, social, and literary life of modern New York, and to all lovers of Shakespeare.
While the flowers were nodding in the June breezes, Sir Henry Clinton and his suite were journeying over the roads of Long Island to review the troops stationed at Southampton. An escorting party rode in advance, helping themselves to everything which could be conveniently turned to
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NEW HAVEN ATTACKED.
account on the route, and when the exasperated inhabitants remonstrated they were cursed for rebels. July opened with an expedition into Con- necticut, the object of which was in part to draw Washington's attention from West Point. A fleet of forty-six sail, manned by two thousand sailors, bore Tryon with three thousand troops into Long Island Sound. It was not moving against any fortified post, but as General Parsons aptly wrote, "to execute vengeance upon rebellious women and formidable hosts of boys and girls."
On the morning of July 5 it anchored at the entrance to the harbor of New Haven, and its military passengers landed at both East and West Haven. It was not yet daylight when the city was July 5. roused with alarm-guns and the ringing of church-bells. President Stiles says in his diary, that he sent off his daughters on foot to Mount Carmel, placed the college records and a quantity of colonial papers in charge of his youngest son to carry three miles, dispatched a one-horse load of bags of clothing in one direction, a second load of four mattresses and a trunk, immediately following, sent his son Isaac to overtake his sisters with a carriage, and rode himself on horseback to various points, stirring up the militia ; his eldest son, Ezra, was with a band of college students, who formed on the green under Captain James Hillhouse, when suddenly Colonel Aaron Burr dashed in among them and offered himself as their leader. He had risen from a sick-bed to which he had been confined some days, and after conducting his aunt, a daughter of President Ed- wards, to a place of safety, spurred to the aid of whoever would contest the progress of the enemy. Joined by such of the militia as could be rallied in haste, the young heroes boldly proceeded to meet and harass the invaders, delaying them for priceless hours. The venerable ex-Presi- dent Daggett of Yale (who had been professor of divinity twenty-five years) mounted his horse and with fowling-piece in hand rode down into the face of the enemy, encouraging the students by his example as well as words; when the party under Hillhouse fell back he remained where he had been stationed in a little copse, and continued loading and dis- charging his musket. "What are you doing there, you old fool ?" called out an officer in the van of the British column, astonished at seeing a single individual in clerical costume firing at a whole regiment. “Exer- cising the rights of war," said the professor. In an instant bayonets were at his breast; "If I let you go this time will you ever fire at the king's troops again ?" was asked. "Nothing more likely," was the prompt reply. Blows and gashes followed, but the life so firmly jeopard- ized was spared ; the professor gave his name and station as one of the officers of Yale College, and was told that he had been " praying against
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the king's cause," which he admitted. He was placed in front of the column, and at the point of the bayonet compelled to lead the way to a bridge, two miles north of one which had just been demolished over West River, and thus to the college green, where he fainted from the excessive heat of the day, and loss of blood, and was carried into the house of a friend. He died a few months later in consequence of his wounds. About one o'clock in the afternoon the enemy reached the heart of New Haven, having burned several houses on their way (of which was the old stone manor-house of the Morrises), and mercilessly killed a num- ber of citizens in their own dwellings, among whom was Deacon Nathan Beers. Sir Henry Clinton had instructed Tryon to do his business quickly, and the troops, nothing loth, sacked New Haven without delay ; what could not be carried off was viciously destroyed - windows and furniture were broken, beds torn open, and occupants of houses abused and insulted. Cellars were everywhere visited and rum drank to excess. At eight in the evening the soldiers were so intoxicated as to be withdrawn with difficulty, the greater part who could walk reeling in the line, and carts, wagons, and even wheelbarrows necessary to transport the rest to the boats. Tryon paused at Beacon Hill, and at midnight wrote to Clin- ton, "The rebels are following us with cannon, and heavier than what we have." By sunrise the next morning the enemy were on the Sound again, having burned all the storehouses on the wharf, seven vessels, and many houses and barns. They had killed twenty-one men besides those who subsequently died of their wounds, and carried away between twenty and thirty prisoners. Tryon wrote that he "had a little difficulty with the rebels, and had lost eighty in killed and wounded." Among those who so resolutely disputed his advance were Dr. Levi Ives, the father of Professor Eli Ives of Yale, Mr. Rutherford Trowbridge, David Atwater, Simon Sperry,1 and other men of influence who shouldered their muskets and joined the party under Hillhouse.
On Wednesday, the 7th, Tryon landed at Fairfield and stripped every dwelling and burned the whole beautiful town. A com- July 7. munity so cultivated as well as prosperous had not in that day its parallel in England. Three churches, ninety-seven dwellings, a hand- some court-house and jail, two school-houses, sixty-seven barns, and forty-eight stores and shops were reduced to ashes. Green's Farms, five
1 Simon Sperry was descended from Richard Sperry, who was notable in colonial history for supplying food to the regicides, Goffe and Whalley, and who lived in the famous old moated manor-house approached by a causeway leading across his estate from the river in the beautiful and picturesque town of Woodbridge. Simon Sperry was the grandfather of ex-Mayor Sperry, and of the Hon. N. D. Sperry of New Haven.
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BURNING OF NORWALK.
or six miles distant, was plundered, fifteen houses burned, including the dwelling of the minister, Rev. Mr. Ripley, and the church, eleven barns, and several stores. The militia attacked the invaders and very much shortened their stay. They re-embarked on the 8th and sailed across the Sound to Huntington, to rest and recruit for further ignoble exploits.
On the following Saturday the cloud of sails was once more moving toward the Connecticut shore. Norwalk was doomed. The ene- my landed Sunday morning. Tryon took possession of a small July 11. hill, where with chairs and a table he sat writing his orders and over- seeing the destruction of the town. The inhabitants fled to the moun- tains, taking such valuables as they could carry. The old Benedict homestead, which had been in the possession of the family since the first settlement of the town, was not burned at first, but consigned to the flames as the British were retiring, which were happily extinguished through the efforts of a negro slave who had concealed himself in the bushes near by. Mrs. Mary Benedict Philipse, the wife of Ebenezer Philipse, mounted her horse and drove a number of cattle before her into the country. One hundred and thirty-five houses were burned, including the old mansions of Governor Fitch and Nathaniel Raymond, together with two churches, eighty-nine barns, forty stores and shops, five vessels, and four mills. Six houses only were left standing.
The militia, who rallied, interposed some opposition, but they were few in numbers, and the British force was strong. Wolcott and Parsons came forward rapidly from the vicinity of the Hudson, arriving the next morning.
In the mean time Sir Henry Clinton had withdrawn from Verplanck's Point all the troops not strictly destined for the garrison, with whom, in addition to several thousand others, he advanced to the heights near Marmaroneck, not far from the Connecticut line, in order to co-operate with Tryon should Washington march eastward; from this point he sent troops to burn the towns of Bedford, Salem, and North Castle, not even sparing their places of public worship. But a surprise was being pre- pared for the British commanders, which brought them suddenly to New York, and stayed further destruction upon the Connecticut coast.
A design upon Stony Point was culminating, which for its daring, and its combination of skill, prudence, foresight, careful attention to details, and absolute obedience on the part of the men concerned, and its con- spicuous success, was one of the most brilliant achievements of the war. Washington selected a body of light infantry for this critical service from the various regiments of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsyl- vania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The New York and New Jersey forces were chiefly on their way into the Indian country with Sullivan.
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Every field officer chosen had proved his ability and valor on former oc- casions. The leadership was assigned to Anthony Wayne, a handsome, impetuous, magnetic, dashing Pennsylvanian of thirty-four, styled " Dandy Wayne " among his companions because of his fastidious notions about dress. He said he had " rather risk his life and reputation at the head of the same men in an attack clothed and appointed as he wished, with a single charge of ammunition, than to take them as they appeared in common, with sixty rounds of cartridges "; and Washington evidently sympathized with his tastes and gratified them to the extent of his narrow means. Under Wayne were Colonels Richard Butler and Udney Hay of Pennsyl- vania, Colonel Christian Febiger, and the gallant De Fleury, who after- wards became field marshal of France, commanding Virginians, Major John Steward of Maryland, Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs of Sagg Harbor fame, Colonel Isaac Sherman, son of Roger Sherman of New Haven, Major William Hull, uncle of Commodore Hull of the Constitution, and Major Hardy Murfree, the pioneer of Murfreesborough, Tennessee, with two North Carolina companies.
The arrangements were conducted with the utmost secrecy. At noon on Thursday, July 15, Wayne and his noble twelve hundred left Sandy Beach, fourteen miles above Stony Point, and marched over the roughest of roads and pathways, the column stretched out the greater part of the way in single file. At eight in the evening they halted a mile and a half from the fort, and the officers reconnoitered. Midnight was the time fixed for the attack. The men lounged by the roadside three hours and a half in silence, under the enforced penalty of instant death. At half past eleven the time was up, and a whispered call quivered along the line. Each man knew the watchword, and bore upon his cap a patch of white paper to save him from his friends. They advanced with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets. Whoever should attempt to load his piece without orders was to be put to death on the spot by the officer next him. Two columns were to break into the fort from nearly opposite points in silence, doing their work with the bayonet, while Murfree and his North Carolinians were to take position in front and draw attention to themselves by a rapid and continuous fire. Wayne led the right column, spear in hand, Butler the left. They were discovered by the pickets, and every man in the garrison was up, completely dressed, and at his proper station. Stony Point was a bold, rocky peninsula nearly two hundred feet high, jutting out into and bounded on three sides by the river, and almost isolated from the land by a marsh, which, it being high tide, was now two feet under water. From the formidable breastworks on the summit thundered gun after gun while yet the assaulters were
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STORMING OF STONY POINT.
wading the stream. But they faltered not. Up the hill they ran, the bellowing cannon in their faces, and the musket-balls whistling around their ears. Every officer performed his part to the letter. One and another fell. The brave Colonel Hay was wounded in the thigh. Ezra Selden of Lyme, a handsome young officer fresh from Yale at the opening of the war, received a wellnigh fatal wound in the side, but he made his way into the fort. Wayne, with every sense alive, balancing all chances and duties while apparently wild with the fierce outcry which fired the veins of his men, fell backward with a wound in his head ; but he rallied and directed his two aids to carry him along, and in five minutes more the whole party were rushing into the fort through every embrasure, and a thousand tongues let loose repeated the cry, "The fort's our own !"
The astonished Britons fell back into the corners of the fort under the terrible charge; De Fleury, first in, hauled down the flags, Sherman of Connecticut rushed over the space and grasped Butler of Pennsylvania by the hand as he climbed in from the north. Murfree came upon a run from the marsh, leaping in to join in the glory ; and the surrender of the whole garrison was immediate. Tradition says that the enemy fell upon their knees, crying, "Mercy, dear Americans ! Mercy !" However they may have asked for quarter, from the moment the cry was heard every bayonet was uplifted and not a man was hurt thereafter. The commander came forward and delivered up his sword, and a July 16. line was thrown around the prisoners, numbering five hundred and forty- six ; some fifty-eight had jumped down the rocks in the darkness and es- caped, and the killed and wounded numbered ninety-four. Fifteen Amer- icans were killed, and six officers and seventy-seven privates wounded. The whole action occupied only twenty minutes after the first shot.
The cheers that rent the air with one common impulse were answered by the British ships in the river, and the garrison at Verplanck's Point opposite. "Ha, the fools think we are beaten !" exclaimed an officer ; and the guns were whirled round riverward, and the fiery story was told in such language as compelled the ships to slip their cables and drop down the river in sullen silence. Washington's original idea had been to attack Verplanck's Point simultaneously, but he modified his plan so far as to attempt only a feint, conducted by Colonel Rufus Putnam, who alarmed that garrison the moment he heard firing across the river, effectually pre- venting any effort to aid Stony Point, and withdrew from the vicinity in the morning. The total value of the ordnance and stores captured by Wayne was estimated at over one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The news of the event spread swiftly over the country, and the heroic band was everywhere applauded. Even the enemy lavished encomiums
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upon the professional skill with which extraordinary difficulties were surmounted, and the high soldierly qualities of the storming party. "It was worth a dukedom," writes Joseph Roswell Hawley, " to have been even a private there that night."
Washington did not attempt to retain Stony Point, as it was too far advanced from his main army; he simply removed the stores and artillery, burned the barracks, and demolished and evacuated the fortress. Sir Henry Clinton, who at the time was in possession of the whole county of Westchester, employing men, protected by detachments of soldiers, to cut the hay from all the farms in the region, retreated with the first news rapidly to New York, calling in his haymakers and their covering parties. He doubtless expected a descent upon the city. Learning, however, that Stony Point had been abandoned, he took possession the second time, and rebuilt and garrisoned the fort; but in the month of November with- drew his forces from both Stony Point and Verplanck's Point, and demol- ished the works. Washington then took peaceable and final possession, and rebuilt and garrisoned them.
While America was proudly rejoicing over the exploit of Wayne, a July 27. quiet wedding occurred at Baskenridge, New Jersey. William
Duer, who had been so prominent in the New York Congress, and a member of the Continental Congress, was married to Lady Kitty, daughter of Lord Stirling. John Jay escaped from his duties at Philadel- phia, and with his wife graced the occasion; the mansion swarmed with the relatives of the family, many bright and winsome belles were present, and several army officers.
In the midst of the banquet which followed, the situation of Paulus Hook was discussed. Attached to Lord Stirling's command was the young and daring Henry Lee, afterwards governor of Virginia, who sought to attack the British post at that point, which had been held by the en- emy with great tenacity since 1776, and was in reality the only safe spot on the Jersey shore for their marauding parties to land. Lord Stirling favored Lee's project, but Washington hesitated for a time, deeming the attempt too hazardous. Permission was finally obtained from the com- mander-in-chief, and Lord Stirling, with five hundred men, moved down to the Hackensack bridge to be in position to cover Lee's retreat if neces- With about three hundred infantry and a troop of dismounted sary.
dragoons, Lee boldly swooped down upon the post in the night Aug. 19. with such celerity, address, and vigor, that he captured one hun- dred and fifty-nine men, with the loss of only two killed and three wounded. He had been directed to make no effort to hold the position, and returned safely with his prisoners to the American lines. This auda-
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GARDINER'S ISLAND.
cious achievement, within sight of New York and almost within the reach of its guns, was very galling to the British officers. Great praise was awarded to Lee for his spirited and prudent conduct of the enterprise, and especially for his humanity.
Ten days later Sullivan gained a victory over the Indians under Brandt, who was assisted by Sir John and Colonel Guy Johnson, and the
two Butlers ; they had thrown up breastworks and intrenchments Aug. 29. half a mile long at Newtown, where the city of Elmira now stands. The conflict was not of long duration. The enemy were outflanked, and, scat- tering, fled. Indians and Tories alike made their way to Niagara, one of the strong points which Washington most desired to possess, but which was not attacked, to the great disappointment of both Washington and Congress. Sullivan visited a terrible retribution upon the savages for their havoc and slaughter of 1778. Forty towns were destroyed. Not a cabin nor a roof from the Genesee valley to the Susquehanna was left standing. Their homes, their orchards, their crops, their possessions, were all annihilated. The manifest inability of England to protect them inclined the Six Nations ultimately to desire neutrality.
Sir Henry Clinton was disconcerted and surly as one batch of disagree- able news after another reached him in New York City. The loyalists criticised his acts and his inaction, which did not improve his temper. In October a rumor that the French squadron was about to unite with Washington in an attack upon the metropolis induced him to order the evacuation of Rhode Island, and the troops, in hastening to New York, left all the wood and forage collected for six thousand men during the winter behind them. The post was immediately occupied by a body of Ameri- can troops. Clinton learned finally that Count D'Estaing had abandoned the siege of Savannah and retired to the West Indies. The Southern campaign had been novel and exciting, ever presenting splendid prospects, sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other, and turning at the moment of anticipated success into bitter disappointment. Clinton himself sailed late in December, under the convoy of Admiral Arbuthnot, with seven thousand men, to operate against Charleston, South Carolina, leaving Knyphausen in command of New York.
Washington's headquarters were at West Point during the autumn. Here he welcomed Luzerne, the new minister from France, who had re- cently landed at Boston, and was on a circuitous route to Philadelphia. "He was polite enough," said Washington, "to condescend to appear pleased with our Spartan living." Prior to the advent of the French dig- nitary, Washington invited Mrs. Dr. Cochrane and Mrs. Walter Livings- ton to dine with him, and in a humorous letter to the doctor apprised them of their prospective fare. He wrote :-
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" Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham, sometimes a shoul- der of bacon, to grace the head of the table; a piece of roast beef adorns the foot ; and a dish of beans or greens decorates the center. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure, which I presume will be the case to-morrow, we have two beefsteak pies, or dishes of crabs in addition, one on each side of the center dish, to reduce the distance between dish and dish to about six feet, which without them would be about twelve feet apart. Of late he has had the surprising sagacity to discover that apples will make pies, and it is a question, if, in the violence of his efforts, we do not get one of apples instead of having both of beefsteak. If the ladies can put up with such entertainment, and will submit to partake of it on plates once tin but now iron (not become so by the labor of scouring), I shall be happy to see them."
The increasing difficulties in the way of providing for the army threatened the most alarming consequences. Every branch of trade was unsettled and deranged, and the price of every commodity rising in pro- portion as the paper money depreciated in value. Liabilities to the enormous amount of two hundred millions of this currency had been issued, and no portion of it was redeemed. Every remedy adopted proved impracticable or aggravated the evil. A delegation from Congress din- ing with the officers of the army one autumn day, Robert Morris, of the party, was bewailing the miserable condition of the treasury. Baron Steuben exclaimed : -
" But are you not financier ? Why do you not create funds ?"
" I have done all I can; it is not possible for me to do more," replied . Morris.
"And yet you remain financier without finances ?"
" Yes."
" Well, then, I do not think you are as honest a man as my cook. He came to me one day and said, 'Baron, I am your cook, and you have nothing to cook but a piece of lean beef which is hung up by a string before the fire. Your negro wagoner can turn the string as well as I can ; you have promised me ten dollars a month ; but as you have nothing to cook I wish to be discharged and no longer chargeable to you.' That was an honest fellow, Morris."
In the mean time Spain had entered into a secret alliance with France against England, and war was waged in various quarters of the globe. The intelligence reached Congress while that body was deliberating upon the instructions to be given to ambassadors, who in connection with French statesmen were to negotiate a treaty of peace with England as opportunity might arise. John Adams, who had returned from his French mission in the same vessel with Luzerne, was chosen, and authorized to
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act as negotiator, proceeding again to Paris. And although Spain had not yet acknowledged the independence of the United States, John Jay, the President of Congress, was dispatched as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid, to accomplish a direct alliance if possible with that power. He sailed on a few days' notice, October 10, accompanied by his wife, and her brother, Brockholst Livingston, as his private secretary. M. Gerard returned home in the same vessel.
The year closed gloomily for England. Lord Gower and Lord Wey- mouth, disapproving of the continued struggle with America, retired from the government. The Earl of Coventry lamented in the House of Lords that a war so fatal to Great Britian should ever have been begun, and declared that if the propositions he had made during the last session of Parliament had been regarded, England would have been at that hour at peace with America. In the House of Commons great heat was ex- hibited. Fox caustically asked, "What has become of the American war ?" The king, it seems, had not even mentioned it in his speech at the opening of the autumn session. "Is the war totally extinct, like the war of ancient Troy ?" continued Fox, referring to that silence. " What produced the French rescript and the French war ? What produced the Spanish manifesto and the Spanish war ? What has wasted forty millions of money and sixty thousand lives ? What has armed forty- two thousand men in Ireland with arguments carried on the points of forty-two thousand bayonets ? For what is England about to incur an additional debt of twelve or fourteen millions the ensuing year? Is it not that accursed, diabolical, and cruel American war ?"
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