USA > New York > Essex County > The military and civil history of the county of Essex, New York : and a general survey of its physical geography, its mines and minerals, and industrial pursuits, embracing an account of the northern wilderness > Part 14
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2 Carleton's letter. 2 Silliman's Journal.
3 Palmer's Champlain.
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another, fell dying into the arms of Burr. Cheeseman and McPherson, the aids of Montgomery, both fell at the side of their commander. That single explosion was fatal to the enterprise. The fall of their leader crushed the spirit of the troops. Colonel Campbell, who succeeded to the command of the column on the fall of Montgomery, hastily retired and abandoned the assault without further effort.
The operations of Livingstone and Brown were defeated by the furious tempest, and they necessarily failed in effect- ing the diversion contemplated by the plan of attack. Arnold, marching promptly at the concerted signal, ap- proached in silence along the St. Charles, moving through St. Roques street toward the Saut au Matelots. At this point a battery of two twelve-pounders had been con- structed. This barrier could only be approached by a path which, at that time, obstructed by an enormous mass of snow and ice, afforded only a deep and narrow passage of the breadth of a single track. The difficult defile might be raked by the guns of the battery and swept by the mus- ketry from the walls and pickets of the garrison; but it fur- nished the only avenue by which the Americans could advance to the assault. Arnold rushed along this terrible gorge at the head of Lamb's Artillery Company, with a sin- gle field-piece mounted upon a sled. It became impossible to move the gun through the pass, and it served only to ob- struct the path and to impede the passage of the troops. The main body closely followed the artillery, preceded by Mor- gan's riflemen. An alarm was soon sounded, and a severe fire of grape and musketry opened upon the assailants. As Arnold, leading with the most daring intrepidity, ap- proached the battery, he was prostrated, by a ball that shattered his leg, and borne from the field. Morgan, the future victor at the Cowpens, succeeded to the command and assailed the battery with irresistible impetuosity. Receiving the fire of one gun almost at its mouth, and while his riflemen fired upon the defenders through the embra- sures, the barricade was scaled by ladders carried on the
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shoulders of his men. The battery and the guns, with most of the guards, were captured. Morgan was the second man who crossed the barricade. His gallant sergeant, Charles Porterfield of Virginia, afterwards a lieutenant-colonel and slain at Camden, was the first.
Notwithstanding this success, the situation of Morgan was in the highest degree critical. He was alone with his own company, and a few bold individuals who had pressed to the front; all the efforts of Lamb to advance his gun were ineffectual. Morgan had no guides, was ignorant of the formation of the city, and without intelligence of the cooperative movements. The soldiers were oppressed by the cold ; icicles covered their clothes; they were be- wildered by the intense darkness and the raging of the storm. A temporary pause was necessary, and Morgan returned to the barrier. Here he succeeded, with the active aid of Colonel Green and Major Bigelow and Meigs, in assembling a body of about two hundred men. When the appearance of light revealed the aspect of affairs, the spirit and confidence of the troops were reanimated, and with a united voice, they called on Morgan to lead against the second battery, which was near, but disguised by an angle of the street. Morgan, placing himself at their head, and animating them by his voice, pealing above the howl- ing of the tempest and the din of battle, rapidly advanced. Passing the angle, he was confronted by a body of troops, commanded by Captain Anderson, who called on him to surrender. Morgan instantly shot him dead, and the Americans rushing onward planted their ladders against the barricade, under a galling fire as well from the win- dows of the adjacent houses, as from the works. A san- guinary conflict ensued, and a few of the most resolute of Morgan's little band mounted the ladders, but when they reached the top of the parapet, an obstacle was revealed calculated to appall the stoutest heart. Two lines of British troops stood on the opposite side; the butts of their muskets resting upon the ground and the bayonets pointed to the summit of the barricade, formed an impene-
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trable abatis of steel. Part of the Americans retreated into the stone houses which lined the narrow street, securing shelter both from the elements and the furious fire to which they had been exposed, while from the window they were able to assail the enemy. One circumstance which was peculiarly depressing, greatly impaired the efficiency of the riflemen. Although the precaution had been observed of binding a handkerchief about the lock of each gun, not one in ten had been effectually protected from the storm, and was fit for service.
The failure of the assault upon the other parts of the town empowered Carleton to hurl the whole force of the garrison against this single column. Dearborn, who held with a company in reserve the entrance of the gorge at the St. Roche gate, had been already surprised and com- pelled to surrender, and that avenue of retreat was there- fore in possession of the enemy. Morgan, with the concurrence of the officers who survived, determined to burst through every obstruction, and to effect an escape; but when the attempt was made to collect the troops and animate them to the effort, overwhelmed by the cold, oppressed by a conviction of their desperate situation, and intimidated by the deadly fire to which they had been exposed in the street, they shrunk from the undertaking, and the bold proposition was abandoned. Compelled to relinquish this purpose, Morgan determined to maintain his position in the faint hope of receiving succor from the other detachments. Attacked, however, by a foe whose strength was increasing every moment, in front and rear, and by a still more destructive fire from the windows, Morgan, after contending for several hours with the utmost skill and gallantry against all these adverse circumstances, was at length constrained to capitulate. Thus disastrously terminated a daring and energetic enterprise, in which the Americans lost, including sixty killed and wounded, about four hundred men. The valor and ability of the defense exhibited by Carleton were not more conspicuous than the generous humanity of the conqueror. The prisoners were
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treated with kindness; the wounded cared for in the hos- pitals, and the dead interred.
The body of Montgomery, lying in a guard house with thirteen corpses of his brave followers, which had been ex- humed from the snowdrift that had formed to them a com- mon sepulchre, was recognized by an American officer and consigned to the care of an old companion in arms, and was reverently buried near the ramparts of the city. The loss of his great military talent and acquirements, and the in- fluence of his social and intellectual eminence was irreparable. The death of Montgomery was deplored not only by his own countrymen, but in every clime where the love of liberty was cherished. Even in the British parliament, the loftiest eloquence pronounced his eulogium, and Barrè, and Burke, and Fox, ascribed to his deeds and character the exalted virtues which adorn the names of the noblest heroes and patriots of antiquity. Lord North, while denouncing the course of Montgomery, and reprehending these tributes to his worth, pointed and enforced the panegyric, when he ex- claimed in the language of the poet :
Curse his virtues, for they have undone his country.
It was a fit and beatiuful coincidence that this youthful hero, for he had not attained his fortieth year, the pupil of Wolfe, a disciple of the glory and spirit of Montcalm, should have fallen on this consecrated ground.1
The body of Montgomery reposed for almost half a century in the grave where it had been deposited by a generous enemy; but in the year 1818, the executive of New York claimed the sacred deposit for removal to the state of Montgomery's adoption, and the governor-general of Canada gracefully acceded to the request. The remains of Montgomery were borne through the country, accom- panied by every exhibition of love and reverence. A single day they lay in state, in the rotunda of the Capitol at Albany, and thousands of a grateful posterity visited
1 Botta's Graham.
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them, rendering the homage of gratitude and veneration. His final obsequies were performed in New York in all the imposing solemnities of civil and military rites. His relics were buried in a grave near the monument erected at an early period, by congress, to his memory, in St Paul's church-yard.
He left no children to bear the heritage of his glorious name, but his widow survived to an extreme old age, an object of respect and interest as the relict of Mont- gomery.
CHAPTER X.
THE RETREAT FROM CANADA.
Arnold succeeded to the command upon the death of Montgomery, and was compelled by the exigencies with which he was surrounded to convert the siege into a block- ade. In the judicious policy of Carleton he was left undis- turbed, although inflicting severe suffering upon the town and garrison. The troops had become insubordinate, the Canadian people disappointed and harassed, and stimulated by the potent influence of the rural priests, who refused the last consolations of religion to those who adhered to the Americans, had assumed a hostile attitude, while the American army was oppressed by disease and exposure. M. Beaujeu, an influential and intrepid Canadian, had organized a hostile corps; but this, by a sudden and vigorous attack of Arnold, were broken up and dispersed. At length, baffled in various attempts to effect a surprise of the city, Arnold erected batteries and assaulted the city and shipping by shells and hot shot; but all their efforts were defeated by the skill and prudence of Carleton.
On the 1st of May, Arnold was superseded by the arri- val of General Thomas, who assumed the command. Arnold, always impracticable in a subordinate position, was early involved in dissensions with his superior, and severe
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injury affording the pretext, he was transferred from the active duties of the field to the command at Montreal. In that position so favorable to the exercise of his worst pas- sions, he revealed the cupidity and rapaciousness, which in after years, and on another stage deformed and debauched his whole character.
My limits restrain me from tracing the narrative of the republican army in its retreat. Its extreme necessities, its endurance from the fell scourge that pursued it, the ineffi- ciency that demoralized its strength and its inadequacy to resist a more powerful enemy, have afforded thrilling pages to general history.
On the fifth of May, the hesitating councils of the American general were decided by the arrival of three British ships, the precursors of a large fleet, which with infinite peril and hardihood had braved the tempests of the gulf, and, pressing up the river amid storms of snow and vast ice fields, had effected the passage far earlier than usual. The reenforcements and supplies they conveyed were immediately landed. The retreat of the American army was at once commenced, and with a precipitation that con- strained the abandonment of most of its sick and wounded, and all its military stores. At Sorell, Thomas died of the prevailing epidemic, and was succeeded by General Sullivan, who conducted the movements of the retreating army with a consummate ability that evoked the highest encomium of the country and the formal recognition of congress.
The treatment by Carleton, of the sick and wounded Americans, who, wandering from the line of march, had been concealed and cherished by the characteristic chari- ties and kindness of the Canadian people was signalized by an exalted clemency and generous benignity. Wise policy may have suggested these beneficent acts, but it were unjust to withhold the recognition of deeds of mercy so habitual, and not to concede that they may have had their inspiration in purer and more exalted emotions.
The calamities which marked this retreat were deeply intensified by a repulse at Three Rivers, and the san-
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guinary catastrophe at the Cedars. After these reverses, Sullivan pressed his retreat to the Isle aux Noix, slowly and defiantly receding before Burgoyne, while Arnold was narrowly escaping by extreme energy and prompti- tude, another column directed upon Montreal to intercept his escape.
Sullivan dismantled the works he had occupied, and burnt or destroyed every craft that he did not remove in the conveyance of his own army and stores. The sick and wounded were first transported to Crown point, and were immediately followed by the troops. The suffering of the former was scarcely paralleled by the endurance and dis- tress of any scenes of that war, so replete with sacrifices and hardships. They were necessarily placed in open and leaky boats, drenched continually with water and exposed to the burning rays of the summer's sun, with no food but raw and rancid pork and hard biscuit.1
While at St. Johns, Arnold caused the frame of a vessel on the stocks at that place to be taken to pieces, carefully numbered and marked, and transported to Crown point. He superintended, with indefatigable vigor and activity, the embarkation of the army on its retreat to Isle aux Noix. Colonel Warner, with the Vermont regiment, formed the rear, and collecting most of the sick and wounded, effected a safe retreat, rejoining the army some days after the main body had arrived at Ticonderoga. The operations of war are always in their result preemi- nently influenced by fortune and accident. The American campaigns in Canada singularly illustrate this maxim. An elegant and philosophical historian with great force remarks, that although the direct results contemplated in the invasion of Canada were not achieved, the measure exerted a powerful influence upon the issue of the war, by compelling England to adopt the policy of dividing her armies in isolated attacks, when their united strength
1 Palmer's Champlain.
11
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would have been irresistible, and probably subversive of the republican cause.1
The Canadians, whose overt adherence to the invaders compromised their relations with the British government, were pursued with a severe retribution. Large numbers followed the American army in its retreat; those who remained were hunted down with a stern severity ; many were tried and convicted of rebellion, and several, imme- diately after the repulse at Quebec, were executed.2 Soon after the termination of the war of independence, the state of New York devoted a large and valuable tract of land in the county of Clinton, designated the Canadian and Nova Scotia refugee tract, for the relief and indemnification of these sufferers; but a large proportion of the grant was either not accepted or forfeited by the grantees, or lost by obstacles interposed by corrupt and designing speculators.3 When the retreating army reached Crown point, its muster roll indicated a force of five thousand men, but more than half of the number were prostrated by disease, and chiefly by the terrible scourge, that desolated it like the sword of the destroying angel. The troops remained at that post ten days, and during that time, most of them were lying in the agony of their suffering, with no protection from the rain and storms, except open huts or frail coverings, formed by pine bowers, and destitute of almost every comfort and even the most common necessaries due to the sick and dying. The dead and the dying were exposed together, without any discrimination, in all these wretched receptacles of woe and charnel houses of death. In this brief period in the pause of its retreat, three hundred new- made graves arose as sad memorials of the sacrifices of this devoted army. Happily the judicious prescience of Sullivan had spread an ample shield of protection between its helpnessness and the assaults of the foe.
1 Boat. 2 Tryon to Earl of Dartmouth, Doc., VIII, 663.
3 Land Papers, Secretary of State's Office, vol. XLVII, 126-172.
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When the British commander arrived upon the waters of Champlain, he found farther pursuit imperatively ar- rested, until a new fleet and fresh means of transportation could be organized. The important and decisive struggle now arose to secure the naval supremacy upon the lake. To attain this object Carleton directed all his energies and resources. He caused six vessels of a large class, which had been constructed in England, to be taken apart below the Chambly rapids, conveyed in pieces to St. Johns, and there rebuilt with the utmost celerity. Bateaux, with incredible labor, were made to ascend the rapids, and boats and transports of various dimensions were constructed in the navigable waters of the Sorel. By such vigor- ous measures, Carleton succeeded in creating a fleet of thirty-one vessels, ranging in their armament from one to eighteen guns, and on the 1st of October was prepared to appear upon the lake. This formidable fleet was navigated by seven hundred veteran seamen, and armed in addition by an efficient corps of artillery.
Congress had been equally alert and energetic, but with means totally inadequate to the magnitude of the issue. The timber required for the construction of a fleet was yet standing in the forest, and was to be cut, prepared, and con- veyed by human labor to the shipyards at Ticonderoga and Crown point. The material for its equipment must be transported a long distance over roads, nearly impractica- ble. The ship carpenters, who must construct the vessels, were occupied by urgent duties in the yards upon the sea coast. Amid all these adverse circumstances, the indomi- table energies of Arnold formed and equipped a squadron of fifteen vessels, bearing an aggregate battery of fifty-five guns, and armed by three hundred and fifty gallant and determined men, who had, however, little or no experience in naval affairs. The great exigency invoked courage and sacrifices ; and, notwithstanding this vast disparity of strength, Arnold decided boldly to throw himself across the path of the advancing enemy.
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While the belligerents were thus sedulously laboring at the opposite extremities of the lake to attain the momentous design that prompted each, Arnold cruised with a few small vessels in undisputed ascendancy upon its waters. For a short space we will pause in the narrative of public events and recur to the domestic history of the colony on the Boquet. Amid the eventful scenes which surrounded it, the settlement had not escaped the tempests which were raging along the lake. Mr. Gilliland early espoused the patriotic cause, and in concert with men of congenial sentiments, a military organization, embracing both sides of the lake, had been formed immediately after the capture of Ticonderoga. His zeal and activity marked him as a victim to be pursued by the special vengeance of the government. He enjoyed, with a few other patriots, the high distinction of being by name proscribed and out- lawed. A proclamation was issued by the governor of Canada in June succeeding the surrender of the Champlain fortresses, offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the arrest and rendition of Gilliland to the government. The allurements of this reward overcame the patriotism and fidelity of some of his tenants, who engaged in unsuccessful attempts to seize and convey him to Canada. Abortive efforts were made to seduce his household slaves into schemes for his betrayal. Various other attempts were made to effect his capture, and the most formidable one was nearly accomplished, by a sheriff of Tryon county, who penetrated into the settlement " with four tories and three savages." With great adroitness, Gilliland not only escaped the peril, but succeeded in effecting the surprise " and capture of the whole party with all their arms, and sent them prisoners to Crown point."
Gilliland, with his family, withdrew to the vicinity of Crown point, but returned, with part of his tenants, to secure their harvests, and to remove and secrete their property. Ponderous articles were buried or sunk in the lake. Many families, homeless and destitute, embracing Carleton's offers of amnesty, joined the British forces, and
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in a few cases, adopted the interests of England. Much valuable property, thus secreted, was, by the agency of these loyalists, exposed to the British officials, and seized and confiscated. Earlier than these final disasters, strange and unexpected trials gathered about the path of Gilli- land, accumulating additional cares and anxieties. The perils and exigencies of the times demanded the most active vigilance, and often subjected the patriotic to unjust suspicions and unworthy surveillance. Although the pa- triotism of Gilliland had been the most zealous, and mani- fested by such efficient services, he was not exempt from the consequences of these jealousies. The acts of the tenants, whose defection we have noticed, and over whom he was supposed to exercise an absolute control, reflected upon him suspicion. Formal charges were pre- ferred against him by Colonel Hartley, in July,1 but these imputations seem to have been satisfactorily ex- plained.2
This difficulty could scarcely have been composed, when an incident transpired that involved far more serious and enduring consequences. While Arnold was cruising on the lake, as we have already mentioned, the soldiers and sailors, attached to the fleet, were permitted to land at the plantations of Gilliland, and in the " most impudent and licentious manner," committed destructive ravages upon his own, and the crops and property of his tenants. These acts, Gilliland evidently believed, were perpetrated with Arnold's complicity, and yet on the 1st of September, he addressed to Arnold a letter on the subject, clothed with the most courteous and respectful language. He earnestly complained of the depredations, and submitted a statement of the crops and property that had been seized and conveyed away.3 The amount was not only in itself considerable, but at the time and under the circumstances, the losses could not be retrieved. A month elapsed, and Arnold had returned no response, while it seems the outrages were
1 American Archives, 5th series, 1, 564. 2 Idem.
3 Idem, II, 102.
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continued. Gilliland, always impetuous and resolute, and revolting at injustice, appealed to General Gates. The let- ter of Gilliland was then communicated to the commander- in-chief, accompanied with charges by Arnold against Gilliland, of disloyalty and fraud upon the government. The frivolous and malignant character of these charges are apparent from the documents themselves.1 Gilliland, in his remarkable memorial to congress, alleges, "that Arnold sent a party of soldiers to tear your memorialist from his property, dignifying him with an officer for a com- mander, whose rank was so high as a sergeant, with pri- vate orders not to allow him to remove any of his property." In this manner Gilliland was conducted a prisoner to head- quarters, but no evidence exists that further proceedings were prosecuted on these charges against him, and from the letter from Gates to Arnold, it appears that he was dismissed.2
In another part of the same memorial which was addressed to Congress in 1777, Gilliland bursts into a magnificent and scourging invective of Arnold, which, if it were the only memorial we possess of the moral and intellectual qualities of Gilliland, would stamp him a man of extraordi- nary character. Arnold, when this denunciation was utter- ed, was in the zenith of his fame and influence, yet Gilliland boldly proclaimed before the highest tribunal of the nation his rapacity and perversion of power, and almost animated by the spirit of prophecy delineates his character with a fearless and unfaltering hand as striking as is the eloquence and vehemence ofhis language. He exclaims after glancing at his own services and losses and describing his arrest: " Gen. Arnold is your servant; all the power and authority he has is derived from you and that has enabled him to commit the acts of tyranny and outrage upon your memorial-
1 American Archives, II, 592. All the documents bearing on this affair are collected in The Pioneer History of the Champlain Valley, pages 56 to 68, where the subject is fully examined and discussed.
2 Idem, II, 847.
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ist and others, whose complaints have been laid before you. It is not in mine, but it is in your power to bring him to justice. Bursting with pride and intoxicated with power to which he ought to have been a stranger, but which he has had the art to obtain from you, he tyrannizes when he can. If temerity, if rashness, imprudence, and error can recommend him to you, he is allowed to be amply supplied with these qualities, and many people think, they ought to recommend him in a peculiar manner to Lord North, who, in gratitude for his having done more injury to the American cause than all the ministerial troops have the power of doing, ought to reward him with agenerous pension."
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