USA > Pennsylvania > The Pennsylvania-German in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 > Part 3
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quarter of a mile, and notwithstanding the regular's fire, reached the island, and although the enemy were lodged behind the walls and under cover, drove them to their boats. Loss, one killed and three wounded; British loss, seventeen killed and one wounded."
" CAMP ON PROSPECT HILL, roth November, 1775.
" I give you the particulars of the fun our regiment had yesterday. About one P. M., a number of regulars, taking advantage of a high tide, landed from twenty boats on Lechmere Point to carry off some cattle. Six men of our regiment were on the point to take care of our horses; they did their utmost, and partly effected it. One poor fellow was taken; he was of Capt. Ross' company. I
think his name was Burke. When the alarm was given Col. Thompson was at Cambridge. I had gone to Water- town to receive the regiment's pay, but thanks to good horses, we arrived in time to march our regiment, which was the first ready, though the most distant of our brigade. Col. Thompson, who arrived before we had crossed the water, with thirteen men only of Ross' company, but not being supported by the musqueteers, before I could get up with the remainder of our regiment off duty, returned, und met Major Magaw and myself on the causeway; the whole then passed with the utmost diligence, up to our middles in water. David Ziegler, who acts as adjutant, tumbled over the bridge into ten or twelve feet of water; he got out safe, with the damage of his rifle only. As soon as the battalion had passed the defile, we divided them into two parties, part of Capr. Chambers', Capt. Miller's and Lowdon's, with Major Magaw and Col. Thompson, marched to the right of the hill, with part of Cluggage's, Nagel's, and Ross'. I took the left, as the
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enemy had the superiority of numbers, and the advantage of rising ground, with a stone wall in front, and a large barn on their right and flank, aided by a heavy fire of large grape-shot from their shipping and batteries. We had reason to expect a warm reception; but to the dis- grace of British arms, be it spoken, by the time we had gained the top of the hill, they had gained their boats, and rowed off. We had but one man wounded, I believe mortally, by a swivel ball, Alexander Creighton, of Ross' company. Wm. Hamilton need not grudge the money his son cost him. His coolness and resolution surpassed his years. Billy Burd had his eyes closed, by the dirt knocked off by a cannon ball." --- Lient. Col. Hand's letter to his wife.
In another chapter it is proposed to take up the further services of this distinguished regiment, and to dwell, more fully, on those of some of its Pennsylvania-German officers, individually. Our present record, however, of the First Defenders of the Revolution, would be incomplete were we to omit the following petition of John Youse, an humble Pennsylvania-German private in Capt. Lowdon's company, who came from Rockland Township of Berks County, and whose services differed but little from those of many others of his countrymen which are doomed never to appear on the written pages of history :
" The petition of John Youse, a resident of Rockland township, Berks County, humbly showeth :
" That your petitioner first enlisted in the county of Northumberland, under Capt. Lowdon, in 1775, and marched to Boston in the first campaign in the Revolu- tionary war with Great Britain. Was in a slight engage- ment there, at Ploughed Hill, and in several battles and
F
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scrimmages on Long Island, and at the taking of the I-Tessians at the battle of Trenton, on the second Christ- mas day in the year .- At the battle of Brunswick, where I received a wound in the left hip ( 15th June, 1777), and was at the taking of Burgoyne, in the rifle corps com-
manded by Col. Morgan and Major Parr, my captain then. I was one of the party of the corps in the expedi- tion against the Indians at Genessce, Seneca, &c, and was one of the party of five who survived out of twenty-four in a scouting party, and forty-one days of that campaign was on half rations. I was at the taking of Stony Point, and at the attack on the Block House ( Bergen's Point, July 21, 1780), Gen Wayne our commander. I was one of the eight hundred at Green Springs, in Virginia (July 6, 1781), in that hard engagement. My last service was on James Island, in South Carolina, and I have never received any satisfaction for back rations to this day ; and for my certificates for my pay, my indigent circumstances, obliged me to sell for fifty cents per twenty shillings, and for my said pay, it being State money, I passed for what
The First Defenders of the Revolution. 33
was called silk money, which silk money went for nothing. So that I lost in a manner all my long, hard eight year earnings. I am now unable to procure a livelihood by labor; therefore, I pray your honorable body ( Legislature of Pennsylvania, March 13, 1817) to commiserate my miserable situation, and place me on the pension list, so that I may not become chargeable to the township where I live. So that it may not be said after I am buried, ' there is John Youse's grave, who cost our township so much money.' "
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FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE SCHOOLMASTER.
3
PENN
-
Φιλεπάλλη
TE
LOUS
CHAPTER IN.
THE RESCUERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
HE rejoicings over the Peace of 1763, and the close of the French and Indian War, were greatly tempered by a realization of the fact that its cost had been very great, and that a large debt had been incurred. The raising of funds for this debt was the direct cause of the American Revolution. The mother country, acting upon the specious plea that, as the debt was incurred for the benefit of her colonies, they were in duty bound to pay their share of it, proceeded to levy taxes for that purpose. This is not the place to go over the old and, more or less, familiar story of the Sugar Bill and Stamp Act, with their result and effect.
This result was widely different in the several colonies because of the diversity in character of the people who inhabited them.
The Puritan of New England was, from birth, a Re- publican at heart. He was never more than nominally
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a subject of the king. In religion, also, he was independ- ent, so that, both from a civil and an ecclesiastical stand- point, he always insisted upon self-government. His con- struction of the law was based upon the contents of the Bible, and he was ever ready to dispute any emanation from Parliament or the Throne, no matter upon what legal status it may have been based, if contrary to his views or liking. It was but natural for him to become an extremist.
In Virginia the bone of contention was the Established Church which was forced upon the colony. To this the dissenters were ever opposed, and were but too ready to be ardent supporters of a revolution which would result in the suppression of their greatest practical grievance.
In New York existed the antagonism between the mass of the population and the great land-botders, between the Dutch and Scotch Presbyterians and the church people, which was felt during the whole war as it had been throughout the history of the colony.
In the Carolinas there was a spark, which had been smouldering for years, but too ready to burst into a flame whenever fanned by the right wind.
In all colonies, under the direct rule of the throne, the English government was constantly meeting with obstacles and difficulties, just as did the Continental Congress when it declared independence of the British Crown as the basis of political action.
Pennsylvania differed from every one of its sisters. With all its petty differences between Assembly and Ex- ecutive, which cropped out ever and anon, these were barely ripples upon its placid stream of existence. Its government was comparatively just ; its people were com- paratively happy and, as it were, always at peace with
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each other. With such contentment and quiet why should there not be a fair degree of satisfaction with the existing condition of affairs? Rather, let us say, why should not its actions be conservative in character ?
Of its three classes of inhabitants the Quakers were, by nature and religion, peaceful. They were living under a Proprietary rule which was practically controlled by themselves, under the grant of an Assembly in which they constituted the governing force. There were no parsons to rouse their passions, nor to delade them by chimerical fears of a religious revolution, whose results should be more disastrous than those by which their civil rights were threatened. The very first principle of their religion was a loyal submission to the government under which they lived, so long as it did not openly infringe their civil and ecclesiastical rights.
The Germans came to find a home and did find it. With this home they were accorded a quite full measure of freedom, which brought with ir a large degree of happiness and a correspondingly kind feeling for their Quaker neighbors and rulers. This feeling continued, in spite of a certain neglect accorded them during the Indian massacres, with their resultant misery and hard- ship. To what an extent might it not have been strength- ened had they been given proper popular representation in the governing body !
Even the Scotch-Irish, with their naturally restive dis- positions and temperaments, were so well satisfied as to be little tempted to trouble, for any light cause, the peace- ful waters on which they floated.
When God, in the furtherance of His plans, saw fit to harden the hearts of the King of England and his Parliament, as He did that of Pharaoh, and permitted
Rescuers of the Declaration of Independence. 37
them to do the senseless things which followed so rapidly, one after another, all colonies were equally aroused, but each one in its own way, and each according to the tem- perament of its own people. Massachusetts violently seized the obnoxious tea, which had been sent it, and tossed the same overboard; Pennsylvania quietly refused to receive it and allowed it to be taken, peacefully and safely, back to England. No one colony was any more loyal, nor any less patriotic, than the other, but they all differed in their manner of showing it. Some were like the babbling brook, -noisy but liable to be shallow ; Penn- sylvania was quiet, but none the less deep. Many wished and pleaded for violent action, from the beginning; Penn- sylvania hoped to accomplish the same end peacefully and by legal enactment.
On the 4th of November, 1775, the Assembly of Pennsylvania chose, as its Delegates to the Continental
ADEST
FRANKLIN ARMS.
Congress, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Humphreys, Edward Biddle, Thomas Willing, Andrew Allen and James Wilson, certainly the
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very flower of the moneyed and intellectual aristocracy of the Province, considered from an English standpoint.
On the 9th of November, 1775, the Assembly gave these delegates instructions with regard to the policy they were to pursue in Congress as representatives of Penn- sylvania. They were told, " You should use your utmost endeavors to agree upon and recommend the adoption of such measures as you shall judge to afford the best prospect of obtaining the redress of American grievances, and utterly reject any proposition (should such be made) that may cause or lead to a separation from the mother country, or a change in the form of this government." (That is the charter government of the Province.)
Briefly stated, they believed that the existing govern- ment, under the charter of Penn, was ample and suffi- cient, and that, without going to the length of separation, all necessary redress might be legally secured from the home authorities. They foresaw the evils incident to separation, and wished to avoid them. To this plan the Assembly held, in all sincerity, to the day when the Declaration of Independence was an assured fact. It was a mistake, and proved to be the rock upon which they were finally split and wrecked, but it was only a mistake, and gives no cause for impugning the loyalty of men like John Dickinson, their leader, and others of his kind.
Opposed to this stand was the newly formed Whig party in Pennsylvania which insisted that the government, under Penn's charter, was not suited to " the exigencies of their affairs," and should be abolished in order that a popular convention might frame a new one. Again arises the question,-What might have been the result had the charter been so amended as to give true and popular representation to all classes of the citizens of the Province ?
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How Massachusetts, with its aggressiveness, precipi- tated hostilities, is known to every school boy. The same spirit of violence was permeating many of the other colonies, even though without the same result. Up to April, 1776, all the talk of independence, however, had been of a private nature. North Carolina won the honor of making the first move. On the 12th of April that
MINUTE MEN OF " 76."
colony instructed its delegates in Congress "to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring in- dependence and forming foreign alliances." This was a move of the greatest importance, and it was but a short time until Rhode Island, and then Massachusetts, fol- lowed the example of their southern sister. The fourth colony, to pronounce for independence, was Virginia, which went further than all the others by instructing its delegates to propose independence to the Continental Congress. This bold resolution was sent by special mes- senger to Philadelphia, and, on June 7, Richard Henry Lee, one of the foremost delegates from that colony,
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rose to his feet and solemnly made the motion, "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent stares, and that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown." When the resolu- tion came up for debate, three weeks later, John Adanis, of Massachusetts, delivered, in its favor, the most power- ful speech made on the floor of Congress during the Revolutionary period, while John Dickinson, of Penn- sylvania, unavailingly endeavored to stem the tide, by answering, as best he could, but the result was a unanimous vote, in its favor, of twelve colonies, New York not voting.
Smoothly as the proceedings may now read, the favor- able result, above given, was only reached with much travail and difficulty.
Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other colonies to the north, with Virginia, Carolina, and those to the south, all wanted separation, but how would it be possible for any action, which they might take, to succeed, without not only the passive encouragement of Pennsylvania, but even its active cooperation, lying, as it did, between them and severing them in twain. To attempt anything of the sort would be worse than folly.
In spite of remonstrances, in spite of pleas, in spite of threats, in spite, even, of the refusal of the battalions of associators to obey its orders, the Assembly of Penn- sylvania, the only true and legal power of the Province, would not recede from the stand it had taken. Whether this position was right or wrong, originally, it had now become an impossibility to carry it out, and it would have been the better part of judgment to bow to the inevitable, but this the Assembly was not prepared to do. Finally, by force of circumstances, on the 8th of June, 1776, that body, after much heated discussion out of doors, and
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several days' debate within, rescinded the instructions to its delegates, adopted November 9, 1775, and authorized them, by new instructions, to concur with the other dele- gates in Congress in forming contracts with " the United Colonies, concluding treaties with foreign kingdoms, and such measures as they shall judge necessary for promoting the liberty, etc., of the people of this Province, reserving to said people the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government of the same." But it was too late for even this compromise. Other events had already hastened on to other conclusions, so, when, on June 14, the resolution was to be transcribed for final passage, the Whigs of the Assembly, by a secret understanding, had withdrawn and failed to put in an appearance, thus leav- ing the body without a quorum. It kept up a fitful ex- istence until the close of August, 1776, and then died of " innocuous desuetude."
In despair of converting the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and of success in any other way, John Adams, on May IO, offered a resolution in Congress recommending that the colonies should establish a " government sufficient to the exigencies of affairs." Because of objections raised to this wording, on May 15 Mr. Adams presented a pre- amble, which was really a substitute, to the effect that, " the respective Assemblies and Conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs has been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representa- tives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general."
This measure was the true Declaration of Independence, because that of July 4 followed as a mere form and matter of course. It was aimed against the Charter of
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Pennsylvania, which, from that hour, was doomed, to- gether with the Assembly, not by its own act but by the greater force of Congress, which it was unable to resist. The passage of this resolution meant a popular conven- tion, in which all classes should be represented, and a government in Pennsylvania, for the first time, " of the people, by the people and for the people." In due time delegates, from all the counties, were selected to meet in conference in the city of Philadelphia, on Tuesday, the 18th day of June. At this conference the Pennsylvania- German at last was given a voice in the governmental affairs. He held the balance of power. If his voice were uttered in favor of independence it would become a fact, if not, a failure. To his honor, be it now said, however tardily, that every man recorded his vote for freedom, and it was the Pennsylvania-German who made the Declaration of Independence possible on July 4, 1776.
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SEAL OF
y SOCIETY
...... ..
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRESERVERS OF THE NEW BORN NATION.
ARDLY had the Declaration of Independence, of the newly born nation, been ushered in by the ring- ing of bells and firing of salvos, when the Brit- ish commander decided to crush out its very life APHILAD with one fell blow. To IP MAN do this he determined to cut the colonies in two by the capture of New York City, and, if within his power, to annihilate the rebel army at the same time.
The battle of Long Island, the result of these move- ments, was, preeminently, a battle fought by the Penn- sylvania-Germans. The troops engaged consisted of Col. Miles' Rifle Regiment, to which were attached at least four companies, all of whose members were practically of that blood, with many scattered throughout the other companies; Col. Atlee's Musketry Battalion had two Penn-
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sylvania-German companies; Col. Kichlein's Associators were all Pennsylvania-Germans, also Col. Lutz's battalion of Associators. No attempt has been made to learn if there were any Germans in Col. Smallwood's battalion of Marylanders, and among Col. Hazlet's Delaware troops, as these constituted but a small part of the whole, but it is likely such was the case even there.
This desperately fought battle was a loss to the Ameri- cans, it is true, but it was lost through no fault of the troops engaged in it, and only because of the blunder of their superior general officers. While, on account of this blunder, it was lost, yet the valor of the Pennsylvania- German soldiers kept it from becoming the disaster their enemy desired to make it; by their own sacrifice they saved the American army from destruction, and from this fact, became the " Preservers of the New Born Nation," of which they represented no unworthy part.
Washington had early divined the intentions of the British, but, while satisfied that New York City was to be their objective point, it was impossible to foretell at which exact spot the blow would be struck. His whole force consisted of but, nominally, 24,000 inen, mostly militia, of whom 7,000 were invalids, and one third of the re- mainder scarcely furnished with arms. To protect all possible points of attack the troops were disposed as follows :
The main body on the island of New York, where it was but natural to suppose the principal attack would come.
Two feeble detachments guarded Governor's Island and the point of Paulus Hook.
The militia of New York Province, under Gen. Clinton, were posted upon the banks of the sound, where they occupied the two Chesters, East and West, and New
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Rochelle, to prevent the enemy from penetrating to Kings- bridge, and thus locking up the Americans on the island of New York.
One corps only was stationed on Long Island, number- ing less than 5,000 men, under the eventual command of Gen. Sullivan. Col. Miles, with his Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, formed the extreme left of this body, in front of the village of Flatbush. The right center (and only center) was composed of Col. Arlee's Pennsylvania Musketry Battalion, with the Delaware and Maryland troops. Supporting them, somewhat to the rear, was a part of Lutz's Battalion of Pennsylvania Associators, with the Seventeenth Connecticut Regiment, and, event- ually, the remnant of Col. Miles' Regiment as, while retir- ing, it hung on to the flank of the advancing enemy. The extreme right was held by Col. Kichlein's Pennsylvania Associators, and part of Lutz's Battalion, joined, as the fight progressed, by Col. Atlee and his men. A picket of some 200 men of Lutz's Battalion, under Major Ed- ward Burd, was thrown out to the Red Lion Inn, near the Narrows, on the Martense Lane, leading from the old Flatbush and New Rochelle Road to the Gowanus Road, running by Gowanus Cove to the village of Brooklyn.
Opposed to the American right was the British left, 2,000 men and ten cannon, under Gen. Grant; their center consisted of 8,000 Hessians, under Gen. de Hiester, while, with 8,000 more, and a train of artillery, under Clinton, Cornwallis and Percy, the enemy planned to turn the American left. Nearly 20,000 trained and well- equipped veteran soldiers against a scant 5000, most of whom were raw recruits.
With the early morning of August 27, 1776, a force,
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under Col. Dalrymple, suddenly surrounded and captured the outpost commanded by Major Burd, after a short fight. This was followed by an attack of Gen. Grant on the American right, during which much hard fighting took place. While the conflict was here ebbing and flowing, suddenly the Americans were astounded to find that the troops, which were endeavoring to circumvent Col. Miles, had succeeded but too well in the purpose, and were pouring volleys upon them both on the flank and in the rear. At the same instant the Hessians, and Grant's Highlanders, sprang fiercely upon their front. In a brief space of time the Delaware and Maryland troops were dispersed, Atlee's regiment and Lutz's battalion were broken up, and nothing remained to stem the on-rushing wave, which bade fair to annihilate everything in its course, save the associators of Col. Kichlein, together with the remnants of Lutz's battalion and Atlee's command which still held together. It was a most critical moment in the history of our nation. Unless the onslaught of the enemy could be stemmed sufficiently to allow the de- moralized troops to rally under the guns of Putnam's forti- fications, at Gowanus Cove, they were doomed, and, with their loss, no one could foresee the consequent train of disaster which might occur.
Bravely the Pennsylvania-Germans stepped into the very "jaws of death," and manfully they stood their ground against overwhelming foes, under the Greenwood Hills, where, to-day, a monument marks the scene of their heroism. One by one they fell, under the bullets and bayonets of their adversaries, many slaughtered in cold blood, even pinned to the trees by which they fought, until they were no more. The army was saved, the nation was preserved, but at what a cost to them. In the one
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company, alone, from Easton, the home of Col. Kichlein, which went into the battle with less than one hundred men, the fatalities were seventy-one.
The above outline of this unfortunate conflict has been made brief, purposely, so that its details may be given direct, as it were, from the lips of some of those who participated in it and whose records of it have been fortu- nately, preserved.
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