USA > New York > Washington County > Washington county, New York; its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 17
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* Ever renewing its strength, powerful enough even to create a commonwealth. it breathed its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky, so that hunters, who made their halt in the matchless valley of the Elkhorn, commemorated the nineteenth day of April, 1775, by naming their encampment LEX- INGTON."
139
ETHAN ALLEN CAPTURES TICONDEROGA.
was decidedly more attached to the American cause than the people of Charlotte.
The affair at Lexington and Concord to which allusion has been made, had, of course, been the signal for war throughout the Colonies. The forts, magazines and arsenals were everywhere seized by the Colonists. Troops, as well as money for their support-which was equally essential-were raised; and it was not many weeks before an army of thirty thousand men appeared in the environs of Boston under the command of General Israel Putnam, ' who, as is well known, when the news of the Battle of Lexington reached him, left his plow standing in the field, mounted his horse and rode away to Cambridge, Mass. Putnam will be remembered by the reader as one of the vet- erans of both the "Old" and the "French" wars, and one in whom the people had the greatest confidence.
Early in May Colonel Ethan Allen, a hardy and bold leader of the settlers upon the New Hamshire grants, (now Vermont) and under whose advice the latter had hitherto, so successfully resisted the Government of New York, concerted an expedition against Ticon- deroga and Crown Point. About forty volunteers from Connecticut were of the expedition, which, with the forces collected for this object at Castleton, made up the number of two hundred and thirty-one. Allen was unexpectedly joined by Colonel (afterwards General) Bene-
dict Arnold, who had also, it appears, independently of Allen, planned the same enterprise. They, however, patriotically throwing all jealousies aside, readily agreed to act in concert, and so admirably was the project carried into execution, that the Americans actually entered the fortress by the covered way ? just at daylight : formed upon the parade-ground within, and awoke the astounded sleeping garrison by their huzzas. A slight skirmish ensued and the commander, De LaPlace, aroused from his bed and in his night-shirt, surrendered to the novel 3 summons of Allen. " I demand a surrender in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." After Ticon- deroga had thus been given up to the leader of the hardy Green Moun- tain Boys, Colonel Seth Warner was immediately dispatched to Crown
' The Christian name " Israel" is here given, that the reader may not confound him with his cousin, Colonel Rufus Putnam, who built the fortress at West Point and whom we shall hear of later in the Burgoyne campaign.
1 This covered way may still (1900) be easily, discerned, even without a guide.
2 I say " novel" advisedly, as Allen was even then well known and, indeed, to the time of his death. as an avowed atheist and infidel.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
point, which was easily taken-the garrison consisting only of a dozen men and commanded by a sergeant. Meanwhile, Arnold proceeded northward to St. Johns, where he succeeded in capturing a sloop of war by surprise. On the 13th of May fifty men who had been levied in Massachusetts, under orders given by Arnold as he passed through on his way to Ticonderoga, appeared at Skenesborough and took pos- session of that village in the name of the revolted colonies. This com- pany was commanded by Captain Herrick and, it is said, was the first body of American soldiers which entered the present county of Wash- ington during the American Revolution. They seized on a schooner belonging to Major Skene and bore it off as a trophy to Ticonderoga. Taking, also, the absent owner's toryism for granted, they confiscated some of his property, among which was a very valuable Spanish horse, which had been brought by him from the West Indies. It is said, but on what authority I do not know, that this horse subsequently passed into the possession of Colonel Morgan Lewis, who afterwards loaned it to General Arnold to ride at the second battle of Saratoga, when it was shot under that daring commander, when he was wounded at the capture of the "Brunswick Redoubt" on the 7th of October, 1777. This little company of volunteers at the same time that they captured Skenesborough, made a prisoner of Skene's son, Andrew F. Skene, who, like his father, was also called " Major Skene."1 Herrick also made prisoners of some fifty tenants and twelve negroes, besides sev- eral pieces of cannon. Thus, by a sudden blow and without the loss of a man, was the command of Lakes George and Champlain obtained.
Soon after these startling events Major Skene arrived from England, and on his arrival at New York, the authorities, like Captain Herrick, taking his toryism for granted, arrested him, seized all his papers and threw him into prison. Shortly after he was released and allowed to go on his parole at Middletown, Conn. He was not permitted, how- ever, to return to his home at Skenesborough and his property-his tenants, as we have seen having also been captured and taken away- rapidly went to destruction.
The following May, (1776) being highly, and as it was thought at the time even by some patriots, justly incensed at his treatment,
From this fact has arisen, in several histories, the statement that the original Major Skene was taken prisoner at this time; but as then the Major Skene was in England, this, of course, was a mistake. A. P. Skene is also sometimes called the nephew of Colonel Philip Skene; but in the original records of the sale of their confiscated property the younger man is described as the son of the elder .- Johnson.
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WAR COMMITTEES ORGANIZED.
he refused to renew his parole and was again imprisoned, but was finally exchanged. Embittered by his losses, and by what he con- sidered his ill treatment, he, as will be seen hereafter, returned to Skenesborough in the army of General Burgoyne. Before, however, dismissing Colonel Skene, for the present, it may, I think, truthfully be said, that his case was only one of numerous others at the beginning of hostilities when a little policy and leniency on the part of the Continental Congress would have converted a man conscien- tiously wavering in his opinions as to which side to espouse, into a staunch friend of the Colonists in their rebellion against the Mother Country ; whereas, by a contrary course, the Continental Congress, by making him a bitter enemy, only threw in their own way obstacles which rendered the contest of much greater difficulty than otherwise it would have been.
Although the Colonial Assembly convened under royal authority had adjourned, as we have seen, on the 3d of April, 1775, and never met again, its powers passing by general consent to the Provincial Congress, yet in some of the counties of New York State the old courts were still held. The last court in Charlotte County, which derived its authority from the Royal government, was held on the 20th of June, 1775. Its first judge, Philip Schuyler, had twelve days before been appointed the third Major-General of the Continental army, and was, at this time, giving Washington advice regarding the then con- templated invasion of Canada.
At the same time the friends of the American cause were execed- ingly active throughout the county. A county committee was organized and delegates elected from the several townships, to whom was en- trusted the general direction of affairs in the new and remarkable conditions which had so suddenly arisen. These committees, in fact, really corresponded to the "Committees of Safety," which had been now organized in Tryon County, west of Albany, and throughout the entire war they did excellent and efficient service. The Provincial Congress, also, ignoring the former disputes between Governor Went- worth and Sir Henry Moore, then governor of the Province of New York, authorized the formation of a battalion of "Green Mountain Boys"-five hundred strong-and the latter, laying aside, for the time being at least, all animosity, so far recognized the authority of their old time foes as to organize under this aet. Seth Warner, however,
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
instead of Ethan Allen, was chosen by the battalion as the Lieutenant- Colonel commanding.
It must be admitted, however, that the people of the county were by no means unanimous in the efforts of the Colonists to throw off the British yoke. More particularly was this disaffection to the American cause manifested in the towns of Skenesborough, Kingsbury and Fort Edward, the feeling in this regard being stronger in these places than anywhere else in the county. "Among the most promi- nent Tories in the two latter districts," says Johnson, "were the members of the Jones family, emigrants from New Jersey, and several of whom were influential farmers. In the fall of 1776, two of the younger brothers, Jonathan and David Jones, raised a company of nearly fifty soldiers in Kingsbury and Fort Edward. To their patriot neighbors and the American officials these soldiers declared that they were about to join the garrison of Ticonderoga, but among themselves they had a very different understanding. All the men that the Joneses could trust having been enrolled, they set out for the north, but instead of stopping at Ticonderoga they passed through the woods in the rear of that fort and joined the British forces under Sir Gny Carleton in Canada." Carleton gave Jonathan Jones a captain's com- mission and David a lieutenant's. The career of the latter becomes a subject of special interest, on account of his subsequent connection with the murder of his betrothed, Jane McCrea-one of the saddest episodes of the American Revolution-to an account of which a special chapter will be devoted in its proper place when I come to narrate the Burgoyne campaign.
Meanwhile, the management of the Northern Department had been committed by Washington to Generals Schuyler and Montgomery, in both of whom the Commander-in-chief had the utmost confidence, and these generals were now (1775) directing a force upon Montreal and Quebec. It may, also, be noted in passing-as showing how much Washington County figured in this war-that both Schuyler and Mont- gomery tarried a few days at Fort Edward on their way to assume the command of the northern army. 1 General Schuyler, however, having been obliged temporarily to leave the Northern army in consequence of ill health, the entire command and responsibility devolved upon
. ) While Schuyler was at Fort Edward at this time, he used the opportunity to write out a proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada (which was at once distributed throughout that province) calling on them to throw off the British yoke.
143
DEATH OF MONTGOMERY.
General Montgomery, who had advanced a second time upon St. Johns and captured that fortress-Sir Guy Carleton having been repulsed by Colonel Warner at Longqueil, in his attempt to cross the St. Law- rence and advance to its succor. St. John's surrendered on the 3d of November of this year; but while the siege was still pending, Colonel Ethan Allen, with thirty-eight of his "Green Mountain Boys," was captured and sent to England in irons. 1 It cannot be said, however, that Allen did not deserve his fate, on account of his rashness and dis- obedience of orders. Still, he was very near capturing Montreal with the small party he led in advance, as was subsequently admitted by one of the British officers.
The fort at Chamblee fell into the hands of Montgomery, together with a large quantity of military stores, which were of great use- among them being three tons of powder. Montreal was next taken by the Provincials, General Carleton narrowly escaping in a boat with muffled oars to Three Rivers, whence he hastened with all speed to Quebec. Montgomery, with his little army, was swift to follow him thither, where his arrival had been anticipated by Colonel Arnold, with upward of seven hundred New England infantry and riflemen, with whom he had performed the almost incredible feat of traversing an unexplored forest, from the Kennebec to the mouth of the Chall- diere. Uniting the forces of Arnold with his own, Montgomery laid seige to Quebec on the first of December. His artillery, however, was of too slight calibre to make any impression upon its walls; and it was finally determined, if possible to carry the town by a combined assault from two directions-one division to be led by Montgomery and the other by Arnold. This assault was undertaken on the 31st of December, and the year closed by the fall of both divisions, the wounding of the brave Arnold and the death of the chivalric Mont- gomery. :
The conquest of Canada, however, notwithstanding this unfortu- nate termination of the armies of Montgomery and Arnold, continued to be a favorite project with Congress, and every possible effort with-
1 Ilolme's Annals. See also, Parliamentary Register. I give these authorities as the fact of his being ironed has, by some, been doubted.
2 In 1818 the remains of General Montgomery were removed from Canada to New York, by order of the New York Legislature and deposited, with military honors, underneath the beautiful cenotaph which now ( 1900) stands in the front wall of St. Paul's church on Broadway. New York City. The curious reader will find a full account of this transaction in my History of New York City.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
in the means of the Colonists was made to that end. But the fall of Montgomery had thrown a gloom over the enterprise which was never dissipated. Colonel, now General, Arnold had maintained himself before Quebec during the winter and until late in the spring, with but a handful of men, numbering at at one time, not more than five hun- dred fit for duty. But the reinforcements were slow in arriving. General Thomas, also, who had been assigned to the command of the army in Canada, arrived before Quebec on the Ist of May, where he found an army of nineteen hundred men, less than one thousand of whom were effective, while three hundred of these, being entitled to their discharge, refused to perform duty. They had, moreover, but one hundred and fifty barrels of powder and six day's provisions. In view of this state of affairs and knowing that General Carleton's rein- forcements from England would soon arrive, General Thomas, with the concurrence of a council of war, determined to raise the siege on the fifth of May, and take up a more eligible position farther up the river .. It was the intention of the American commander to remove the sick to Three Rivers, but on the 6th a British fleet with heavy reinforcements arrived. General Carleton immediately made a sortie at the head of one thousand men, to oppose whom, General Thomas had not more than three hundred available troops. No other course remained, therefore, but a precipitate retreat for all who could get away, leaving the sick and the military stores to the enemy. General Thomas, accordingly, led his little Spartan band back to the mouth of the Sorel, where he was seized with the small-pox and died. Large reinforcements joined the fugitive army at that place, under General Sullivan. 1 But before General Carleton moved from Quebec, an ex- pedition was undertaken from Sorel to the Three Rivers, against General Frazer, under the direction of General Thompson and Colonel (afterwards General) St. Clair. It was unsuccessful and from this time disaster followed disaster, until, owing to the combined causes of defeat, sickness, the loss of General Thomas and insubordination, the Americans found themselves, on the 18th of June, driven entirely out of Canada; the British army following so closely upon their heels, as immediately to occupy the different posts as they were successively evacuated.
The American forces, however, still retained the control of Lake
1 For some of this data I am indebted to my friend, the late Mr. Thomas C. Amory of Boston, a great grand-son of General Sullivan.
145
GATES WITHDRAWS TO TICONDEROGA.
Champlain and occupied the fortifications upon its shores, the com- mand of which had now been assigned by Congress to General Gates, with great and manifest injustice toward General Schuyler. 1 Gates established his headquarters first at Fort Edward and afterwards at Crown Point, but soon afterward withdrew his forces from that post and fell back upon Ticonderoga. This step was taken by the advice and concurrence of a board of general officers, but contrary to the wishes of the field officers. Always a most arrant coward (as will, I think, be apparent when we come to the Burgoyne campaign) Gates was only too glad to fall in with this decision. Washington, the com- mander-in-chief, was, however, exceedingly dissatisfied with this movement of Gates, believing that the relinquishment of that post would be equivalent to an abandonment of Lakes George and Cham- plain and all the advantages to be derived therefrom. " In reply to the concern that had been expressed by Washington on this occasion, General Gates contended, in his own defense, that Crown Point was untenable with the forces then under his command, nor could it be successfully defended even with the aid of the expected reinforce- ments. These reinforcements, moreover, the General added, could not be allowed to approach nearer to Crown Point than Skenes- borough, since "it would be only heaping one hospital upon another. " 3 In fact, the annals of disastrous war scarcely present a more deplorable picture than that exhibited by the Americans escap-
1 The appointment of Gates to the command of this department, was from the first unaccep- table to the officers of New York, nor was his own course very conciliatory toward them. In the course of this (1776) summer it was reported to Lieutenant-General Gansevoort, a brave and deservedly popular officer, belonging to the regiment of Col. Van Schaick and then in command of Fort Edward and Fort George, that the general had spoken disrespectfully of that regiment. Irritated by such treatment, Gansevoort wrote a spirited letter to Gates, referring to several matters in which he had been aggrieved by the letters and conversation of that officer. He requested a Court of Inquiry and avowed his determination, with the leave of General Schuyler, to relinquish the command of these posts. MS. Letters of Gates and Colonel Gansevoort in the author's possession.
2 MS. Letter of Washington to Gates-once in the author's possession.
3 Letter of Gates to Washington in reply. July 28, 1776. The small-pox which had been so fatal to the troops in Canada, had now broken out at Fort Edward, Crown Point and Ticonderoga the pestilence having been purposely introduced by a villain calling himself Dr. Baker. This fact is stated in a MIS. letter from the Adjutant General of the Northern Department to Colonol Ganse- voort, dated Ticonderoga, July 24. "The villain," says the letter now before me, "by private inocculations in the army, has caused in a great degree, the misery to which we are now reduced by that infectious disorder." Baker was arrested and sent to Albany, but his " pull" probably saved him from punishment, as we do not learn that he was ever subjected to any summary proceedings. The reader may, perhaps, recall that in our own Civil War, attempts were made by the Confederates to injure us by the same methods.
[ 18 ]
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
ing from Canada. In addition to the small-pox, the army had been afflicted by other diseases, generated by exposure, destitution and laxity of discipline. Fleets of boats came daily up the lake freighted with the sick and dying and even those reported from day to day fit for duty, presented but the appearance of a haggard skeleton of an army. "Everything about this army," wrote General Gates in the letter already cited, "is infected with the pestilence-the clothes, the blankets, the air and the ground they walk upon. To put this evil from us, a general hospital is established at the fort at the head of Lake George [there was also a subsidiary one at Fort Edward] where there are now between two and three thousand sick and where every infected person is immediately sent. But this care and caution have not effectually destroyed the disease here; it is, notwithstanding, con- tinually breaking out."
Such was the deplorable condition in which an army that had passed a little before through the county winning admiration from all except the Tories, and which had been so recently victorious, found itself driven back from what was in fact a conquered country, lost entirely through gross mismanagement and the want of an army upon the basis of permanent enlistments.
Indeed, this defect in the manner of enlisting men was, especially in the beginning of the war, strikingly illustrated in the difficulties which Washington had to contend with in raising and keeping his army together. In fact, the Commander-in-chief was continually ap- pealing to the Continental Congress for men that should be raised to serve throughout the war, and he graphically and feelingly represents to that body how vain it was to expect him to conduct the war to a suc- cessful issue with men only enlisted for a few weeks, since often, on the eve of what might prove to be a decisive battle-the men's term of enlistment having expired-they would quit the army, go home to plough and plant their fields. I have now before me, as I write, a MS. Journal (yellow and faded by time) of my great uncle, Stephen Stone, a " minute man" in the Revolution, in which his entries bring out the above remarks about enlistments in vivid relief and corrobor- ate Washington's statements in the fullest degree. Nor, since un- doubtedly this Journal is but a sample of the experiences of thousands of volunteers at that time, can one peruse it without realizing how much justice there was in the complaints of Washington. On the other hand, neither can the men themselves be censured for their
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BRITISH CONCILIATION.
course. Their pay was poor, if indeed it were anything. They wished, through motives of the highest and purest patriotism, to aid the cause of their country, yet they could not allow their families to starve. Hence, with no money to pay a hired man in their absence, the only alternative was to do the best they could under the circum- stances, viz: to divide their time between "solgering" and the sup- port of their loved ones at home. 1
To this matter of the precarious term of enlistments there was another difficulty lying beneath the surface. Many prisoners had fallen into the hands of the enemy at Quebec and, during the subse- quent retreat all of these, had been treated (Allen excepted) with the greatest care and humanity, but so much of the subtle poison of flat- tery, mingled with kindness had been poured into their ears, that their return on parole, which was soon after allowed by the British commander, was regarded with apprehension. On one occasion a large number of prisoners arriving at Crown Point from St. John's, in a vessel provided by Carleton, were visited before landing by Colonel
1 A few passages from this journal of Stephen Stone may be of interest to the reader as illus- trating the statements in the text, inasmuch as it brings one down from an abstraet view to a very realistic and concrete one.
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL.
"June 22, 1778. I enlisted.
26th. I went to Guilford [Connecticut] to guard some prisoners.
27th. Guarded them to New Haven and returned to Guilford.
28th. Came home and carted William [his brother] a load of wood.
30th. Lieutenant Atkins joined us with twenty men.
July ist. We marched to Fairfield.
3d. We marched to Stamford and joined Colonel Mosely, and were sent on to Greenville.
4th. Came home and worked in the garden.
7th. We marched to Saw-Pitts and encamped on a hill about two miles from Bryant's Bridge.
Feb. 25th. I enlisted to guard at the Salt House on the Neck Highlands.
29th. Stood upon guard for Jonathan Everts. *
April 9th.
Hired a man to plough.
21st. I ploughed the garden.
26th. Began to plant.
April 12th. Went upon guard.
14th. Began to plough.
May 21st Began hoeing."
And thus the Journal continues in the same strain.
* An ancestor, 1 believe, of the Ex-Secretary of State William M. Evarts.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
John Trumbull, the Adjutant-General for the Northern Department. From the feeling they manifested, and the tenor of their conversation Colonel Trumbull saw at once that it would not be prudent to allow them to land, or hold the least intercourse with the suffering troops of the garrison. (To such an extent had the human treatment-so en- tirely unexpected by them-affected them !) Trumbull immediately reported this fact to Gates and advised him that the said prisoners should be sent directly forward to Skenesborough and thence des- patched to their respective homes, without allowing them to mingle with the troops at that place. This suggestion was adopted. In view of this episode, one cannot but believe that if, in the beginning of the Revolution, all of the British generals had adopted the same concilia- tory tactics of Carleton, there might have been sufficient Tories in the revolted Colonies, to have turned the scale-already hovering in the balance-in favor of the mother country. Nor is this inference wholly conjecture, as the writing of several contemporaneous historians abundantly prove. 1
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