USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The history of the city of Albany, New York : from the discovery of the great river in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the present time > Part 28
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"Dear Sir :- Agreeable to verbal orders received from Col [James] Holmes [of the fourth regiment], when last in New York, I made all the dispatch in my power to this place, where I arrived the 26th inst., finding Capt. Henry B. Livingston with his company in a small house in town. He wants many things-such as shoes, stockings, shirts, under cloths, haversacks and cash, having ad- vanced all himself that has been paid his men as yet. The day I arrived came up the following captains with their companies : Capt. Herrick, Capt. Palmer, Capt. Horton and Capt. Mills-all without blankets, excepting Capt. David Palmer-many of the men wanting shirts, shoes, stockings, under cloths, and in short without any thing fit for a soldier, except a uniform coat, and not more than thirty guns with four companies fit for service.
"They are now on board of the small boats that brought them up, having no place for them to go into, as there is not one tent that I can find for our battalion ; and three companies without blankets, and none to be had at this place. I do not know how to act, or what to do with them. They began to ask for cash and better lodgings, being much crowded in the small boats in which I am obliged to keep them.
"I this morning made application to the committee of Albany, who will do all in their power for me, which I believe, is but very little.
"I shall be much obliged to the Honorable Congress to send me with all convenient speed, arms, blankets, tents, shoes, stockings, haversacks, and cash by all means. I want to be going forward, where, by what I can learn, we shall be wanting if we can go soon, or not at all.
"The men say, 'give us guns, blankets, tents, &c., and we'll fight the devil himself, but do not keep us here
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in market-boats, as though we were a parcel of sheep or calves.' In short nothing can give me more pleasure than the arrival of the aforesaid articles, until which I shall do all in my power to keep the men in as good order as clubs and canes can keep them, without arms to keep a proper guard ; as I have orders from the general to collect all the arms together, and send as many men off directly to Ticonderoga, (and that without tents), which will not be a full company, unless I can purchase some arms here."
This letter was sent by the Albany committee the next day to Peter Van Brugh Livingston, the president of the Provincial Congress, sitting in New York. The chairman of the committee thus adverts to the assistance given to the needy troops :
"We expected when the army was once organized, we should not be so frequently called upon about matters not in our province. But the situation of Col. Van Cortlandt, and the men under his command, in a measure obliges us to give him all the assistance in our power- not, however, that it is to be made a precedent of. The enclosed letter from Col. Van Cortlandt will show you the posture he is in, and the necessity of a speedy relief. We fear we shall be able to afford him but little assist- ance. The hospital and the barracks are filled with In- dians attending the congress ; the barns about the town loaded with the crops of the season, and the city crowded continually with a numerous concourse of people. The former and frequent applications for ammunition have drained us in short of almost everything of that sort."
Colonel Goose van Schaick, commanding the second New York (Albany County) regiment thus describes the wants of the soldiers at Albany in a letter written the same day to the Provincial Congress : "I am at present
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stationed in Albany by Gen.Schuyler to forward the troops that arrive here to Ticonderoga, and it gives me pain to in- form you that Col. [James] Clinton [commanding the third New York (Ulster County) regiment] arrived here with the other field officers and six companies of his battalion, five of which are armed, but [their guns] in bad repair. They have been supplied with blankets at this place- other necessaries are wanted. *
"I should ever accuse myself of inhumanity and want of love to my country should I be backward in giving you a true account of the situation and distress of these companies, when I consider how much they are wanted at the forts above. I therefore look up to you, and beg that you will, without delay, send up such or so many arms, tents, blankets and other necessaries, as will sup- ply those companies so that they may be forwarded with the greatest dispatch.
"I must also inform you the men are much discon- tented for want of their pay, and I do assure you that the service greatly suffers. There is scarce anything to be heard in the camp but mutinies. I have for that pur- pose wrote to Mr. Jonathan Trumbull, jr., who, I am in- * formed, is appointed deputy-paymaster-general.
"I am very happy, however, to inform you that notwithstanding the clamors and discontents of my men at first, there are at present nine of my companies up at Ticonderoga, with the other two field officers 1 in actual service, and the last will march to-morrow."?
The Indians having received presents as on former occasions when they bound themselves to keep their cove- nants with the representatives of the people of the prov- inces returned to their castles. An epidemic shortly
1 Of the second regiment, Peter Yates was lieutenant-colonel, and Peter Gansevoort, jr., major.
2 Proceedings of the Albany committee.
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afterward greatly lessened the numerical strength of their tribes. This fatal disease the agents of King George made them believe was a scourge of the Great Spirit who was angry with them for not taking up the hatchet for the king, for had not the colonists taught them "to fear God and to honor the king." By such de- ceptive arts were many of the tribes of the six nations induced to become the allies of Great Britian during the revolution.
In September, General Schuyler having received in- structions to invade Canada, moved with the army of the northern department to the Isle au Noix near the confluence of the River Chambly and the Grande Riviere du Sud, north of Lake Champlain. Here becoming ex- tremely ill, he was compelled to intrust the command of the army to General James Montgomery, who captured the forts at St. Johns and Chambly, and in Novem- ber, took possession of Montreal. After the return of General Schuyler to Albany and his convalescence, he received orders to proceed to Johnson Hall in Tryon County and to disarm the tories under Sir John Johnson, and to obtain possession of all the military stores that he might find there. This mission General Schuyler suc- cessfully accomplished in January, 1776, with a force of about two thousand militia. In March, the Continental Congress ordered him to make Albany his headquarters, and to forward to Canada such supplies as were needed there by the army under General Montgomery. In June, Colonel Goose Van Schaick, who was then in command of the fifth New York regiment, as designated in the re- cent re-organization of the provincial troops, had detach- ments of his battalion at different points between Albany and Lake Champlain.
It would seem that the municipal officers, who, on
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the fourteenth of October, 1775, had taken the " oaths of supremecy and allegiance " to King George III., and had subscribed their names to "the test," were deposed from their official position in the latter part of March, 1776. It is related that the mayor, Abraham C. Cuyler, and a number of other citizens honored King George III., on his birthday, the fourth of June, in 1776, by assembling in the dining-room of Cartwright's inn, and partaking of a banquet prepared at their expense. While these Tories were singing "God save the king," a number of provincial patriots entered the room and forcibly ejected the partisans of George III. Some of these de- fiant Tories it is said were arrested by the orders of the committee of safety and lodged in the jail already crowded with other aiders and abettors of those uphold- ing the authority of Great Britain.
On the ninth of July, the Provincial Congress of the colony of New York, began its sessions at White Plains. Having approved the Declaration of Independence, 1 the congress ordered it to be published throughout the prov- ince. On the fourteenth of July, Abraham Yates, jr., Robert Yates, and Matthew Adgate sent a copy of the im- portant document to the Albany committee of corres- pondence. On the afternoon of the eighteenth of July, the day after its reception, the committee, sitting in the city-hall, took the following action :
"Resolved that the Declaration of Independence be published and declared in this City to-morrow at Eleven O'Clock at this place, and that Col. Van Schaick be re- quested to order the Continental Troops in this City to appear under arms at the place aforesaid, and Farther that the Captains of the several Militia Companies in this
1 Philip Livingston, who signed the Declaration of Independence, was born in Albany, January 15, 1716. The residence of the Livingston family was on the northwest corner of State and North Pearl street.
.
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City be requested to warn the Persons belonging to their respective Companies to appear at the place aforesaid."
On Friday morning, the nineteenth of July, at the ap- pointed hour, a great throng of citizens and soldiers filled the streets, now Hudson Avenue and Broadway, at their intersection at the city-hall, a three-story stone building, occupying the site of the Commercial Building. 1 The memorable event has this brief mention in the minutes of the committee : "Pursuant to a Resolution of yester- day, the Declaration of Independence was this day read and published at the City Hall to a large Concourse of the Inhabitants of this City and the Continental Troops in this City and received with applause and satisfaction."
"The Provincial Congress of the colony of New York " after the reception of the Declaration of Independence changed the name of the body to the "Convention of the representatives of the state of New York," and on the first of August appointed a committee to report a constitution for the state .? On the twelfth of March, 1777, the com- mittee presented a draft of a constitution, which on the twentieth of April was adopted by the convention. Under the new constitution, Brigadier-general George Clinton was elected, on the third of July, governor of the state.
The invasion of the state by the British commander, General John Burgoyne, from Canada, with an army of
1 The Assembly on the twenty-ninth of October, 1740, passed "an act to enable the mayor, recorder and aldermen of the city of Albany and the justices of the peace of the said city and county to build a new court-house and gaol for the said city and county." On the twenty-ninth of April, 1743, another act was passed to enable the officers named in the former act "to raise {400 to finish and complete " the buildings. From these acts it would seem that the city-hall was erected in 1741, 1742, and 1743.
2 The persons composing the committee were: John Jay, John Sloss Hobart, William Smith, William Duer, Gouverneur Morris, Robert R. Liv- ingston, John Broome, John Morin Scott, Abraham Yates, jr., Henry Wis- ner, sr., Samuel Townsend, Charles DeWitt, and Robert Yates. James Duane was afterwards added to the committee.
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
about eight thousand toops, which force was afterward augmented by about four hundred Indians of the six nations, spread great alarm among the people of the northern frontier. General Schuyler, having retreated to Saratoga, wrote, on the first of August, to the committee of safety, saying : "I have been on horseback all day, reconnoitering the country for a place to encamp on, that will give us a chance of stopping the enemy's career. I have not yet been able to find a spot that has the least prospect of answering the purpose, and I believe you will soon learn that we are retired still farther south."
At this time General Burgoyne had his headquarters at Fort Edward. He had been ordered, when he left Canada, to form a junction with that part of the British army commanded by Sir William Howe ; five thousand men under Sir Henry Clinton being stationed in and around the city of New York. Gen Burgoyne, confident that the Continental troops could not successfully oppose the progress of his large army, informed General Howe, in his report of the sixth of August, that he was " well forward," "impatient to gain the mouth of the Mo- hawk," but not likely "to be in possession of Albany," before "the 22d or 23d " of the month.
General Schuyler, having retreated from Saratoga to Stillwater, wrote to General Washington, on the fifth of August, to acquaint him with the weak condition of the army of the northern department : "By the unanimous advice of all the general officers, I have moved the army to this place Here we propose to fortify a camp, in ex- pectation that reinforcements will enable us to keep the ground and prevent the enemy from penetrating further into the country ; but if it should be asked from whence I expect these reinforcements, I should be at a loss for an answer, not having heard a word from Massachusetts on
24
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
my repeated application, nor am I certain that Connecti- cut will afford us any success.
"Our Continental force is daily decreasing by deser- tion, sickness, and loss in skirmishes with the enemy, and not a man of the militia now with me will remain above one week longer, and while our force is diminish- ing that of the enemy augments by a constant acquisition of tories ; but if, by any means, we could be put in a situation for attacking the enemy and giving them a re- pulse, their retreat would be extremely difficult, that in all probability they would lose the greater part of their army."1
General Burgoyne to supply his army with the means of transportation and provisions, sent Lieutenant-colonel Baum, on the eleventh of August, to Bennington, where he had been informed that the Americans had collected a large number of horses, wagons, and stores of all kinds for the use of the Continental troops. He instructed Baum to proceed along the Connecticut River as far as
1 On "a return of a brigade of militia of the county of Albany, whereof Abraham Ten Broeck, esq., is brigadier-general," dated Fort Edward, July 18, 1777, the following named regiments and the number of the men in them appears :
Col. Jacob Lansing's regiment, rank and file,
- 62
Abraham Wimple's
132
Francis Nicholl's
- 69
Killian van Rensselaer's
90
Gerrit Van den bergh's
٠٠
- 151
Robert van Rensselaer's
109
Abraham van Alstyne's
36
Peter van Ness's
-
223
Peter R. Livingston's
100
Anthony van Borgen's
62
Jacobus van Schoonhoven's "
-
118
John McCrea's
150
Johannes Knickerbacker's
97
Peter Vrooman's 66
57
William B. Whiting's
-
257
Total,
1.755
- 42
Stephen J. Schuyler's
-
1
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
Brattleborough, and return by the great road to Albany, where he would meet him with the main army. Lieuten- ant -colonel St. Leger, who had been sent from Canada to invade the valley of the Mohawk by way of Oswego, and to get in the rear of the forces under General Schuyler, was then laying siege to Fort Stanwix, on the site of the village of Rome. On the thirteenth of August, General Benedict Arnold was ordered by General Schuyler to hasten to the relief of Fort Stanwix with about eight hundred militiamen. The same day General Schuyler wrote to General Washington, saying :
"We are obliged to give way and retreat before a vastly superior force daily increasing in numbers, and which will be doubled if Gen. Burgoyne reaches Albany, which I apprehend will be very soon."
The next day, the despondent general with his small force retreated on the old road on the west bank of the Hudson to the mouths of the Mohawk, and encamped his men upon Haver and Van Schaick islands.
General Schuyler's retreat to the islands at the con- fluence of the Mohawk with the Hudson was interpreted by many as evidence of his inefficiency and want of cour- age. But this assumption had nothing to substantiate it. The truth was his army was short of ammunition, numerically weak, and daily reduced by sickness and desertions. A paragraph from a letter written in July by General Schuyler to Colonel Lewis, deputy-quartermaster general, in Albany, discloses an important fact respecting a pressing want that was not easily supplied :
"The citizens of Albany only can supply our immedi- ate exigencies ; recourse must therefore be had to the committee, begging their interposition to collect such lead as is in the city ; the lead windows and weights may, perhaps, afford a supply for the present. As soon
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
as it is collected, Mr. Rensselaer will have it made into ball, and send it up without a moment's delay. Should a wagon be sent off with one box, as soon as it is ready it must be pushed off ; also all the buck shot."
Writing about the same time to General Washington, he says : "Desertion prevails and disease gains ground ; nor is it to be wondered it, for we have neither tents, houses, barns, boards, or any shelter except a little brush; every rain that falls, and we have it in great abundance almost every day, wets the men to the skin. W.e are be- sides in great want of every kind of necessaries, provisions excepted. Camp kettles we have so few, that we cannot afford one to 20 men."
Aware of his inability to oppose the advance of the British army, he therefore determined to retreat from the immediate front of the enemy, and to move his troops nearer to his base of supplies, where he could more ad- vantageously watch the movements of Lieutenant-colonel St. Leger, and, perhaps, defeat the plans of the sanguine commander of the main body of English and Hessian soldiery. Immediately upon his occupation of Haver and Van Schaick's islands, General Schuyler gave orders for the construction of a formidable line of earth-works along the northeastern and northwestern sides of Haver Is- land, to defend the approaches to the fords at Half Moon Point, as the site of the present village of Waterford was then called. The chief engineer of the army of the northern department was the brave Pole, Thaddeus Kosciusko. Under his superintendence and direction the soldiers, both white and black, diligently dug and shovelled during the hot days of August to construct the line of earth-works which still remain as monuments to remind those who inspect them of the arduous toil of the defenders of Albany in the summer of 1777.
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
Meanwhile the city was a place of refuge for the peo- ple of the country overrun by the invading army. The fleeing farmers who with their frightened households and driven cattle hastened to Albany, brought daily to its inhabitants direful accounts of the vandal acts and inhuman cruelties of the British troops and the Indian allies. The committee of safety to provide pasture for the cattle of the country-people sojourning in the city, ordered on the fourth of August that the "large Tract of Pasture Ground," belonging to certain Tories who had joined the army of the enemy, should be used for the grazing of the cattle of the refugees.
To silence the clamor of those who deemed General Schuyler unfit to have the command of the army of the northern department, the congress of the United States appointed Major-general Horatio Gates to be com- mander-in-chief of it. Three days after taking command of the army, General Gates wrote from his headquarters in the Van Schaick homestead, on Van Schaick Island, the following letter to General Washington :
" Headquarters, Aug. 22, 1777 .- Sir : Upon my ar- rival in this department I found the main body of the army encamped upon Van Schaick's Island, which is made by the sprouts of the Mohawk River joining with Hudson River, nine miles north of Albany. A brigade under Gen. Poor encamped at Loudon's ferry, on the south bank of the Mohawk River, five miles from hence ; a brigade under Gen. Lincoln had joined Gen. Stark at Bennington, and a brigade under Arnold marched the 15th inst, to join the militia of Tryon County, to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix.
"Upon leaving Philadelphia, the prospect this way appeared very gloomy ; but the severe checks the enemy have met with at Bennington and Tryon County have
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
given a more pleasing view to public affairs. Particular accounts of the signal victory gained by Gen. Stark, and the severe blow Gen. Herkimer gave Sir John Johnson and the scalpers under his command, have been trans- mitted to your excellency by Gen. Schuyler. I anxiously expect the arrival of an express from Gen. Arnold, with an account of the total defeat of the enemy in that quar- ter. By my calculation he reached Fort Stanwix the day before yesterday. Cols. [Henry Beekman] Livingston's [the fourth New York] and [Philip van] Courtlandt's [the second New York] regiments arrived yesterday, and immediately joined Gen. Poor's division. I shall also order General Arnold, upon his return, to march to that post.
"I cannot sufficiently thank your excellency for send- ing Col. Morgan's corps to this army. They will be of the greatest service to it, for until the late successes this way, I am told the army was quite panic-struck by the Indians and their tory and Canadian assassins in Indian dresses. Horrible, indeed, have been the cruelties they have wantonly committed upon many of the miserable in- habitants, insomuch that it is now fair for Gen. Bur- goyne even if the bloody hatchet he has so barbarously used should find its way into his own head.
"Gov. Clinton will be here to-day. Upon his arrival I shall consult with him and Gen. Lincoln upon the best plan to distress, and I hope finally to defeat the enemy.
"My scouts and spies inform me that the enemy's headquarters and main body are at Saratoga, [Schuyler- ville,] and that they have lately been repairing the bridges between that place and Stillwater."
The rifle-corps of Colonel Daniel Morgan arrived at Van Schaick's Island a few days thereafter. The army,
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THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.
by these and other accessions, was at the beginning of September an effective force of about six thousand men. Having obtained some needed munitions, General Gates moved north with it on the eighth of September, and on the following day arrived at Stillwater.
To comply with the urgent demand of General Gates for bullets, the committee of safety on the eighteenth of September "resolved that the Quarter Master and the Committee appointed to take the Lead out of the Win- dows do immediately enter upon that necessary busi- ness." The engagement at Bemus's Heights, and the subsequent surrender of Burgoyne, at Saratoga, now Schuylerville, on the seventeenth of October, unexpect- edly defeated the plans of Great Britain of ending the war by getting possession of the cities of Albany and New York.
The news of the surrender of General Burgoyne was received with the wildest demonstrations of joy by the anxious citizens who had heard the sounds of the cannon fired at Saratoga. The event was celebrated by a pro- cession, the firing of cannon, the ringing of bells, the roasting of an ox, and at night by an illumination of the windows of the houses and a great bonfire on Gallows hill.
Although by General Burgoyne's orders General Schuyler had lost by fire his dwelling-house, store- houses, and saw-mills at Saratoga, nevertheless, with marked courtesy, when introduced to the British officer after the signing of the papers of capitulation, he told the distinguished commander, who then expressed his regrets for having caused the destruction of the property, "to think no more of it, and that the occasion justified it according to the principles and rules of war." Gen- eral Burgoyne, in his speech to the House of Commons,
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in 1778, adverted to this remarkable evidence of General Schuyler's magnanimity, and said : "He did more, he sent an aid-de-camp to conduct me to Albany, in order, as he expressed it, to procure better quarters than a stranger might be able to find. That gentleman con- ducted me to a very elegant house, and, to my great surprise, presented me to Mrs. Schuyler and her family. In that house I remained during my whole stay in Al- bany, with a table with more than twenty covers for me and my friends, and every other possible demonstration of hospitality." Not to subject himself to any invidious aspersions, General Schuyler, while General Burgoyne was a guest in his house in Albany, remained at Sara- toga. The Schuyler mansion, in which the British officer was entertained, is still standing at the head of Schuyler Street, on the southwest corner of Clinton and Catharine streets. It is related that when General Burgoyne with the officers of his staff, arrived on horse back in Albany that a great crowd of boys gathered round them and cried out, "Make elbow room there," which phrase, the chronicler explains, was "the Rejoycing Word."
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