In the lowest depths of one of the coldest winters in the American Revolution, the Continental Army uncovered the dedication that the core of the military movement had.
Suffering was beyond comparison.
The cause was supply, the crux of many an army before and after the Revolutionary War. The issue started from the top, the quartermaster general position.
“The lack of a competent, effective quartermaster general for the period from October 10, 1777 to May 2, 1778 threatened the Continental Army’s existence more than the enemy” wrote author and historian Herman O. Benninghoff, II.
His bold proclamation is chillingly on-point.
That time frame coincided with the approximately same length of time George Washington’s forces were at Valley Forge.
Nathanael Greene would become Quartermaster General in March 1778 during the encampment at Valley Forge
On January 5, 1778, Nathanael Greene, who would soon be tapped as quartermaster general of the Continental Army, wrote to fellow officer General Alexander McDougall;
“The troops are worn out with fatigue, badly fed, and almost naked. There are and have been thousands of the Army without shoes for months past. It is difficult to get sufficient supplies to cloath the Army at large.”
Moving directly to Valley Forge from active campaigning, the soldiers arrived with their supplies in a deplorable condition. Shoes had been torn to shreds with the long marches and many of the men had nothing but rags to wrap feet in. Shortly after arriving, the army numbered approximately 12,000 men under arms, yet 4,000 of these men, 1/3rd of Washington’s entire force, was deemed “unfit for duty” because a lack of supplies.
Another 1,100 would desert because of the horrid conditions of the winter encampment; no food, no pay, and barely clothes to keep warm.
Another 2,000 died of disease, including typhus, pneumonia, and other “camp fevers” which categorized a whole assortment of various ailments. Medicine was almost non-existent and lack of proper sanitation played a major role as well.
A delegate to the Confederation Congress was informed by an informant in Valley Forge that “a great portion of the soldiers are in a very suffering condition for want of necessary clothing, and totally unfit for duty.”
The suffering of the soldiers for a want of simple, basic clothing, becomes even more painful with the following realization by John Marshall, serving as an officer at Valley Forge, and the same Marshall who would become the Supreme Court Justice.
“In a desert which supplies not the means of subsistence, or in a garrison where food is unattainable, courage, patriotism, and habits of discipline, enable the soldier…..but to perish in a country abounding with provisions, requires something more than fortitude.”
One artist’s depiction of what the encampment at Valley Forge looked like
That is what is most astonishing, that there were surpluses to be attained, but Continental currency had depreciated to the point that by late 1777 and early 1778 it was at an exchange rate of four Continental dollars to one dollar of hard specie. By 1779 that ratio would be 30 to 1.
To further complicate matters, the Continental Army did not even have the wagons to gather the materials. In mid-February, a report from camp to Henry Laurens, president of the Confederate Congress, deplored of the “want of Waggons & the like.”
Out of the depths of this despair, where cries of “No Meat, No Meat” rent the air as soldiers voice their frustration, came a self-proclaimed baron.
This man would leave a lasting impression on the make-up of the army, second only to George Washington.
His assessment of the army upon his arrival amazed him, the “fortitude of the common soldiers and that no army in Europe would hold together and endure under such deprivations of food and clothing and shelter.”
That prognosis shows the depth of commitment that boiled in the hearts of the dedicated survivors of the cold, hunger, and privations of Valley Forge.
The army was ready to be molded and with his arrival, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben would turn out to be the right guy at the right juncture in time. The Continental Army, held together by George Washington, would be transformed by this new inspector general.
Valley Forge would be the elixir of change for the army and the revolution.
Part One, of a series on the importance of Valley Forge in the American Revolution
On December 19, 1777, the Continental Army, under the command of General George Washington, marched into Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Located approximately 20 miles from Philadelphia, which had fallen to the British that autumn, Washington’s army would spend the next five-plus months in this soon-to-be iconic place in the quest for American independence.
Yet, the accounts of how desperate the condition of the American forces were emanates throughout the centuries and strikes awe and amazement at the level of perseverance that the soldiers committed to. The winter of Valley Forge was just one of many cold, bleak, and destitute winters that the Continental Army faced during the seven-year conflict.
Artist depiction of the encampment at Valley Forge. George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette are the two horsemen depicted prominently
However, that does not take away from the conditions of that winter. Especially when written from the ink and quill or pencil of the common soldier. Especially with what that winter cantonment did in the transformation of that Continental Army.
One of the best remembrances of that cold winter comes from Joseph Plumb Martin, whose Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier, is still in print today.
Upon arrival at Valley Forge, Martin would write:
“We were now in a truly forlorn condition,–no clothing, no provisions, and as disheartened as need be. We arrived, however, at our destination a few days before christmas. Our prospect was indeed dreary.”
Just a short time after his arrival, Martin continued the plight of himself (and most likely many a soldier in that encampment) when he wrote;
“I lay here two nights and one day, and had not a morsel of any thing to eat all the time, save half a pumpkin, which I cooked by placing it upon a rock, the skin side uppermost, and making a fire upon it; by the time it was heat through I devoured it with as keen an appetite as I should a pie made of it at some other time.”
Martin’s account is supported by General James Varnum, who reported on December 20, 1777, “that his division had eaten no meat during 48 hours and had been three days without bread.”
Suffering at Valley Forge
Yet, during that winter, the experience of Valley Forge, according to another veteran of that harsh winter, “added iron to their souls.”
More than “iron souls” would be needed to defeat the British in the American Revolution. Winter, 1777, would see to that as well.
On Christmas, 1776, George Washington took the greatest gamble of the American Revolution, up to that date. On that cold and snowy night, with an ice-clogged river, and an army teetering on the verge of disintegration, the American commander led his command toward a signature, morale-improving, improbable victory.
He defeated Hessian soldiers, in the service of the British, at Trenton, New Jersey. The call sign –used to enter and exit the American camp– leading up to the offensive movement was “victory or death.”
That was quite an accurate statement to summarize the dire straits the American cause of independence had become by winter 1776. The heroics of that night lent itself to the painting by Emanuel Leutze in 1851 that is chock full of historical inaccuracies. But the painting conjured up images of that noble band of American patriots that followed George Washington across the frozen waterway in 1776.
Emanuel Leutze’s painting, 1851
[Did you know that James Monroe, who would be wounded at the Battle of Trenton, is painted in holding the flag? There is no primary account that puts both men in the same boat that night, though.]
Luckily, famous historical artist Mort Kunstler, took a look at Leutze’s famous painting and decided to make it more historically accurate. Although initially reluctant to tackle the project given the popularity of the previous work, Kunstler studied, tackled history books, and diligently sought such information like the type of boats that would have been used, in the process of creating a more historically accurate depiction.
He succeeded.
Mort Kunstler painting of the “Crossing of the Delaware”
So, as you celebrate the holidays, you now need a little more space on the wall for a second painting of Washington and his army crossing the Delaware.
Whether you have the space or not on your wall for two paintings, one thing these great illustrations have in common is showing the fortitude of the American soldier.
That fortitude is still on display to this very date. On Christmas Day 2015 thousands of men and women, in the service of America, will serve around the world, where the call sign of “victory or death” is not a mere anecdote from years past, unfortunately.
Thank you to all the men who crossed that icy river many cold nights ago to help win our independence and to the men and women who keep watch tonight on another cold night around the world.
To the readers of Emerging Revolutionary War, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Thank you for reading!
*Great article on Kunstler and the painting can be found here.
**Link to Mort Kunstler’s website can be found here.
The name Robert Middlekauf is very familiar to enthusiasts of the American Revolutionary War era. Twenty-three years ago, Middlekauf, Preston Hotchkiss Professor of American History, Emertius, at California-Berkeley, published A Glorious Cause. The book was a finalist for the Pulitizer Prize and was a thorough introduction to the build-up to and through the American Revolution.
Washington’s Revolution, the Making of America’s First Leader by Robert Middlekauff
For fans of Middlekauf, his most recent publication, Washington’s Revolution, the Making of America’s First Leader, will not disappoint.
Washington was the American Revolution according to Middlekauf, whom in the second sentence of the prologue writes that his title “emphasizes his [Washington’s] enormous importance for its course and outcome” (xv). Middlekauf then takes the reader on a very concise, quick-paced, blend of biography and history, journey through Washington’s early years to the culmination of the American Revolution.
“All the time that he served as commander of the Continental Army, he was in fact also the leader of the Revolution” (304). A tall order for a tall man–both literally and figuratively–but Washington was able to succeed because “he understood that the Revolution represented a rare opportunity”
To evaluate, examine, and explain Washington, one has to do a series of reading between the lines and looking at other primary sources of the compatriots. Washington was meticulous in reviewing what he left for posterity about his life achievements.
Middlekauf’s skill blends the reasons Washington embodied the American Revolution–from his daring in the winter of 1776 that culminated in the twin victories of Trenton and Princeton to literally holding the Continental Army together every winter–the Virginian insisted, cajoled, pressured, and through his own strong determination saw the war through.
That success, was due “in large part because he understood the Revolution represented a rare opportunity–something quite new, in fact–to lead a people in defense of principle long honored in conceptions of liberty” (304).
Not only was Washington a military leader, he also understood the political ramifications of his actions and the need to keep the army subjected to the rules of Congress. Even if that body was the cause of his soldiers going hungry and bereft of other necessities.
His “grand imagination, a vision of his new country….set him apart and made him a great leader” (306). Not too bad for just “a general” (306).
This book is a welcome addition to any military historian’s library. The blending of biography and historical monograph allows one to learn about the entire American Revolution and then from the Notes on the Sources have a road-map to delve into longer narratives on specific subjects.
Book Information
Publisher: Alfred Knopf, 2015.
358 pages, including maps, acknowledgments, notes, and sources
Over the Thanksgiving holiday my wife and I visited friends along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The mutual friends knew about my keen interest in American history and had planned an excursion accordingly.
Within a fifteen-minute drive of where we were staying, sits Beauvoir, the last home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In 1877, the ex-Confederate president, looking for a quiet place to write his memoirs of the Confederate cause in the American Civil War, paid $50 a month to rent what is known as the “Library Pavilion” on the property. Davis became enamored with the property and purchased the house and grounds from the owner, a Mrs. Dorsey for the price of $5,500 in 1879.
The restored “Library Pavilion” The original was damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
In the “Library Pavilion” Davis would write the majority of, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Ten years after purchasing Beauvoir, Davis was dead.
Although not buried on the property, hundreds of former Confederate soldiers are. Yet, there is one Davis is interred on the property now.
The Davis that is buried there is what struck my interest. With no surprise, according to my wife, I had researched what history sites were in that area of Mississippi and had circled Beauvoir as a place of interest. I did not realize that the friends we were visiting had also planned to take me there because they also knew I am a history nerd, err, enthusiast.
What had caught my attention and serves as the basis of this post is the other Davis.
Samuel Emory Davis’s Toombstone
Samuel Emory Davis.
Samuel, the father of Jefferson Davis, lies buried in the cemetery. Originally buried below Vicksburg, Mississippi, the elder Davis’s remains were brought to the Gulf Coast to lie at rest at Beauvoir after the course of the Mississippi River was slightly altered.
The Sons of the American Revolution were responsible for saving the remains and having them re-interred.
Samuel Emory Davis, born sometime around 1756, served, like his half-brothers in the militia of Georgia. However, the records available lead to the fact that he served most of the war in South Carolina militia forces.
Furthermore, accounts, gathered by Rice University in conjunction with the Jefferson Davis Papers, have him serving in some of the major engagements of the American Revolution in Georgia, including the Battle of Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779 and the Siege of Savannah from September to October 1779, and lastly the Siege of Augusta between April and June 1781.
A little more research led to the fact that Samuel Davis might have even raised his own mounted force which may have led to the rank listed on his tombstone; major.
After independence, Davis moved his family to Kentucky, where Jefferson Davis was born, then to Mississippi, and finally to Louisiana. While visiting his oldest son, the old patriot died on July 4, 1824.
Marker beside Samuel Davis’s grave stone.
And from 1943 to this present day the former militia officer and father of the only Confederate president, lies in the Beauvoir Confederate Cemetery.
Thus, the visit, which I am thankful for friends who coordinated it on a holiday weekend that Americans celebrate what we are thankful for, now leads to another thankful opportunity.
More reading and research into the American Revolution.
As I came to Beauvoir for the Civil War history connection. I left wanting to know more about the Davis that fought in the American Revolution.
Why did Boston’s act of political vandalism lead to a British military expedition against small towns in Massachusetts sixteen months later?
How, exactly did evolving political tensions result in actual warfare?
How did Lexington and Concord become, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “the shot heard around the world.”
The Spirit of ’74, How the American Revolution Began by Ray Raphael and Marie Raphael
In a much-needed narrative, historians Ray and Marie Raphael fill in the movement toward those first shots at Lexington and Concord. In a primary source driven, easy to read history of that year before and leading up to 1775. However, “our story slows, pausing at additional markers that are often bypassed or slighted” (x).
Therein lies “only in a full telling is war a plausible outcome” (x).
The Raphael duo fluidly walks the reader through the build-up to that fateful April 1775 day. The book sheds light on developments in towns and counties across the colony of Massachusetts. A timeline in the beginning provides a good resource to remember the important dates as you read.
With the British response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773, committed activists perceived that Britain had handed them a blueprint for disenfranchisement (44). What would be seen in the colony as the Coercive Acts, which, among other changes nullified the Charter of 1691 which colonists in Massachusetts held as sacrosanct. When the news of what the British government had did, which arrived in the harbor of Boston in May 1774 until the following April 1775, “resistance would mount, coalesce, and manifest itself in armed, relentless rebellion (44).
That coalescing would resemble an accordion, with Boston being one end and the countryside of Massachusetts the other end of the instrument. Both ends would reverberate the bellows as ideas, exchanges of opinions, passive and aggressive action, all marred the intervening months of 1774. Until as Abigail Adams wrote many months before April 1775, the”flame is kindled and like lightening it catches from soul to soul” (192).
The Raphael duo capture what the farmers in Berkshire set in motion, in accordance with capturing the attitude of townspeople in Worcester, Massachusetts at the same time. These various local uprisings, which put an emphasis on peaceful activities coalesced into the call for committees and eventually into the need for the Provincial Congress. This Congress acted as the de-facto governing body of Massachusetts in response to British measures to subdue and punish the intransigent rebels.
When viewed through the prism of the preceding years, what happened on the green of Lexington or the North Bridge at Concord becomes clearer as the pivot in which the simmering resentment in Massachusetts finally boiled over and led to the “shot heard around the world.”
Every once in a while a monograph is written that fills a necessary void in the field of early American Revolutionary history. This history is definitely one of those as it fills in that critical, yet overlooked, time period in the build-up to the fighting between British-American colonists and the redcoats that represented the mother country.
One cannot hope to understand the events of 1775 and beyond without knowing how the colonists of Massachusetts, so many that have unfortunately been lost to the passing of time, began the protests that led to independence, beginning in the years before.
Or as the authors more succinctly state; “and so begins a story we know” (214).
Book Information:
Publisher: The New Press, New York, NY
Pages: 219 pages plus acknowledgements, bibliography, index, and, timeline
For the next year and a half, until he was exchanged for a British officer captured in the Battle of Saratoga, Williams faced an ordeal that would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. Initially treated as a gentleman because of his officer status, the first few months of his imprisonment passed in relative ease. The ease of the beginning months of his captivity was the norm for officers taken in civilized 18th century viewed warfare. Williams’ early imprisonment showed the gentleman status he had attained through his rise in the military ranks. During this time, an anecdote reinforces this point.
While in prison in New York, he became acquainted with a Major Ackland of the British military. The two became fast friends. Williams, under the auspices of his imprisonment, was able to move freely through the city of New York with this new friend.The friendship was confirmed when after dining with Major Ackland he was invited to attend an assembly. This was the term used to describe a fashionable ball of the period. When arriving at the ball, the reception that Major Williams received was so contemptuous and full of scorn that it attracted the attention of Major Ackland who replied: “Come, Williams, this society is to ill-bred for you and me; let us go home.” The account shows the personable demeanor and gentlemanly qualities that Williams espoused. This quote only tells half the story. The other half of the account transpired after Major Ackland returned to England that makes this story so worthy.
Upon Ackland’s return to England attended a mass dinner and one of the topics broached was the questionable courage of the American military. The major defended Americans so vehemently that he was issued a duel by a fellow British officer. This led to his demise, with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. To defend the abilities of Americans to such an extreme depicted the immense respect and valued friendship that blossomed between the two officers. Along with showing the respect and admiration that constituted the friendship was the fact that Williams reached a level where he could fraternize with gentlemen of pre-war higher social classes. In addition he was an amiable companion and a worthy military adversary in the views of British counterparts.
A sketch of one of the prison complexes used in New York City by the British to house American soldiers.
The imprisonment of Williams took a drastic turn to the worse when an accusation of espionage surfaced against him. According to the General Phillips, the commandant of New York, Major Williams was in the habit of communicating to General Washington all the information to be collected from the British camp by means of emissaries employed for that purpose. Williams was seized as soon as the accusation was leveled against him and was denied a chance to provide a defense or refutation of the charges. He was placed in the provost jail in New York, in a room about sixteen square feet. The prison cell had poor ventilation and was best described as “disgustingly filthy.”Here Williams languished for approximately eight months; the last of the fifteen months he was a prisoner of war. Although the spying was never verified and for all intents probably a false accusation, Williams’ “naturally fair constitution…was much impaired” by this ordeal.
After his exchange in January 1778, Williams took command of the 6th Maryland Regiment and Williams would see action at Monmouth Court House in the summer of that same year.
Williams headed south with the Maryland Continentals to aid the Southern Department and relieve the American garrison at Charleston, South Carolina. Unfortunately, the American reinforcements arrived too late to lift the siege.
The reinforcements did make it in time for another American military disaster; the Battle of Camden. Plucked as adjutant general for Horatio Gates, the American commander, Williams was powerless to stop the route of march that Gates chose to move the American army from North Carolina to South Carolina.
The condition of the troops, fatigued from the march along with other difficulties, mixed with very limited rations would prove fatal tomorrow to the American effort at Camden. What ensued the following day was the death of General Kalb, the lost of over 1,000 American soldiers, and the ruin of Gates military career as a field commander. The way the battle unfolded would haunt Williams for the rest of his life, which was recorded in a written component for the Papers of Nathanael Greene. He remembered how the “great majority of the militia fled without firing a shot.” This was a significant issue because the militia comprised two-thirds of the total force of Gates! Williams, along with the survivors were left to question the reasons behind the campaign, the strenuous marching, and the condition they were led into battle with.
Williams took part in the strategic move north across the Dan River in Southern Virginia, part of Nathanael Greene’s strategic maneuvering in the face of British Lord Charles Cornwallis’ British forces. Able to recuperate and refit his army across the watery boundary from the British, Greene planned the strategy that would lead Williams and the rest of the Americans back to North Carolina and to a place called Guilford Court House.
After serving a stint as a commander of light infantry, Williams played a pivotal role in the March 15, 1781 Battle of Guilford Court House. Serving in the last line, where other Marylanders of the 1st Maryland Continentals played a decisive role in saving Nathanael Greene’s American army, Williams helped lead the rear-guard away from Guilford Court House.
Williams would continue to serve admirable in future engagements at Hobkirk’s Hill and Eutaw Springs. In the later stages of 1781 Williams was given command of the 1st Maryland Regiment, the same unit that the famous painting below depicted at the Battle of Guilford Court House.
1st Maryland Continentals at Battle of Guilford Court House
In January 1783, Williams received notice that Congress had approved his promotion to brigadier general on account of his merit and service in the Southern Theater Campaigns.
Approimately halfway through that same month, on the 16th, Williams retired from the army.
After almost eight years of arduous service, Williams, like the nation he helped create by his service was a changed being. The changes were numerous, first being the obvious, that he had shown tremendous progress in climbing the officer ranks, from lieutenant in 1775 to brigadier general in 1783. Secondly, and possibly the most important he had endured through numerous campaigns and some of the bloodiest battles of the war, from Fort Washington in New York to Camden in South Carolina.
Williams return to civilian life saw him appointed as commissioner of the Port of Baltimore and he was active in the Society of Cincinnati, the society created to preserve the fellowship of former officers of the American army during the Revolution.
In 1786 Williams married Mary Smith and became a father to four sons, settling on the banks of the Potomac River where he tried his hand at farming.
Springfield Farm, home of Otho Holland Williams (courtesy of HMDB.org)
With his friendship to George Washington, Williams had his appointment as commissioner of the Port of Baltimore renewed and then in 1792 was approached by Henry Knox, Secretary of War in Washington’s administration (and at the behest of Washington) to see whether he would accept a commission as brigadier general in the regular army.
Although the position would have made Williams the second highest ranking officer in the military, he declined the position because he had no ambition for the position and also his health was poor.
Williams died on July 15, 1794. He was 45 years old. His health never recovered from the strains of imprisonment and the fatigues of war.
The town of Williamsport, Maryland, which would play a prominent role in the Gettysburg Campaign of 1863 was named after him and where he was laid to rest.
On October 19, 1781, General George Washington had one of the ultimate highs in his military career. With the help of the French army and navy, Washington forced the surrender of British Lord Charles Cornwallis’ forces at Yorktown, Virginia.
To best sum up the impact of this momentous victory for the Americans in their cause for independence, British Prime Minister Lord Frederick North exclaimed when receiving the news:
“Oh God, it’s all over.”
But, weeks before North learned of the calamity in the Tidewater of Virginia, Washington dealt with his own calamity. One very personal. The death of his stepson.
John Parke Custis, affectionately known as “Jackie” or “Jack” as he got older, was one of two children that Martha Custis Washington brought into the marriage with George Washington on January 6, 1759.
John Parke Custis
The other child, Martha Park Custis, known as “Patsy” had died in 1773 of an epileptic seizure.
Now, seventeen days after the successful completion of the Siege of Yorktown, Jack Custis would be dead.
Custis had joined his stepfather as a volunteer aide-de-camp for the Yorktown Campaign and contracted “camp fever” a catch-all term for a whole litany of illnesses. With the disease quickly causing his health to fail, Custis had one last wish before leaving the lines at Yorktown. He wanted to see the surrender, so faithful attendants lifted Custis in a stretcher to the top of one of the redoubts.
From there Custis had a complete view of the proceedings, the crowning achievement of his stepfather.
To remove him from the scene of pestilence and in a hopeful attempt to save 26-years old life, Custis was moved 30 miles up the Tidewater Peninsula of Virginia to Eltham Landing, where his uncle, Burwell Bassett owned a plantation. His mother, Martha and wife, Eleanor Calvert Custis was summoned to his bedside.
Before Washington could arrive at the bedstead, Jack died on November 5, 1781. He was the last of five children Martha had given birth too. Martha was, understandably, slipped into a “deep and solemn distress.” Even the general exhibited some rarely seen emotion, And”clasping his [Jack’s] bereaved widow to his bosom and proclaiming that henceforth he regarded Jacky’s two youngest children as his own.”
Jack was buried in the family plot near Williamsburg, Virginia at Queen’s Creek.
The funeral was a week later and afterward Washington accompanied Martha and Eleanor back to Mount Vernon. George and Martha Washington would spend considerable energy in the pursuing years raising their late son/stepson’s children. Jack’s widow, Eleanor, would leave the two youngest children in the care of the Washington’s and by war’s end had remarried to a Dr. David Stewart of Alexandria in which the couple would have 16 more children.
But, all that was in the future. In the meantime, after leaving Mount Vernon in mid-November, George Washington had a revolution to see through to its successful conclusion.
The loss of his stepson, whose limited service in the war does not diminish the anguish felt by his family, put Washington in the company of countless parents whose sons had given their lives in the same cause.
And the war had approximately two years left in America.
When I was completing my graduate degree in American history from George Mason University a few years back, I took on the challenge of trying to examine the motivations of American soldiers during the American Revolutionary War.
The basis was to examine, “why they fought” if I can borrow a line used frequently by Civil War scholars and historians.
Being a native Marylander, I narrowed my focus on soldiers from that colony/state.
Yet, I was struck by the continued emergence of one name in particular and this gentleman became a focal point of mine.
This gentleman became through the war and could not be ignored with any mention of Maryland and her patriotic citizenry’s service in the war. His name is Otho Holland Williams.
Otho Holland Williams
First a little background on Otho Holland Williams. Otho Williams’ early life mirrors that of many early American colonists. His parents, Joseph and Prudence Holland Williams were born and married in Wales before emigrating to the colonies and settling in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Otho was born on March 1, 1749, one of eight children. The following year the family moved to western Maryland, settling near the mouth of Conococheauge Creek in Frederick County. Life on the frontiers of the British North American colonies could be rough and hard and before Otho reached adulthood, he lost his father. However, he showed enough promise and potential to be entrusted by a brother-in-law to a clerk position in Frederick County. Showing his ability to grasp a new skill, the young Williams rose to be given “final charge” of the clerk’s office before moving on to a clerk position in the larger town of Baltimore at age eighteen in 1757.
In Baltimore, Williams continued to enhance his reputation and business prospects. After seventeen years in the spiraling, busy port town situated on the Chesapeake Bay, Williams moved back to more familiar grounds in Frederick in 1774. With the move, he entered into the merchant trade, overseeing commercial enterprises in the growing town. Williams was building a respectable life and he would have been considered a gentleman.
However, nothing truly remarkable had happened to cause this ordinary British colonist in Maryland to be remembered by history. Events transpiring on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean soon reared an opportunity for Williams to change that.
Otho Holland Williams now 26 years of age, at the direction of the Committee of Observation of Frederick County, Md, on the 21st of June, 1775, would have heard of a letter from the Delegates of Maryland asking for the formation of two companies of “expert Riflemen to be raised” to join the army near Boston.
The gist of that correspondence is below:
“A letter from the Delegates of Maryland, and a resolve of the Congress enclosed therein, were read, requiring two companies of expert Riflemen to be furnished by this County, to join the army near Boston, to be there employed as Light-Infantry, under the command of the Chief officer of that Army
In the second company, Williams was elected one of three lieutenants and within the month was marching north to join the army, arriving in Cambridge in 22 days, marching over 550 miles, which needless to say gave a great first impression on the military officers and one that the future Commander-in-Chief George Washington would realize in New York.
George Washington was using this house as his headquarters when Williams and the Maryland riflemen arrived after a 550 mile trek to report for duty (courtesy of Mt. Vernon)
In January 1776, Capt. Price, of the rifle company, was promoted to major in Col. William Smallwood’s Maryland Regiment. The gentleman who replaced Price was Williams who succeeded him as captain. Williams’ star continued to rise and in June 1776 was appointed major in Colonel Hugh Stephenson’s newly organized rifle regiment. He was still a major in November when he saw action in New York.
While other Marylanders serving valiantly but unsuccessfully in the opening engagements of the battles around New York City, further the Hudson River stood Fort Washington and stationed there was the rifle company that Otho Williams was a member of.
Upriver from New York City the Americans had constructed two forts on either side of the Hudson River. On the island of Manhattan stood Fort Washington, named in honor of the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. On the other bluff, stood Fort Lee named in honor of Charles Lee, a major general in the American army that had overseen the defense of New York City prior to the Continental Army’s arrival. Nathanael Greene, the very capable American general convinced General Washington that his namesake fort could be held and although of a different opinion initially, Washington relented to his subordinate. The decision would have dire consequences for Williams and the men in the rifle regiment.
Before discussing the role of Williams and his gallant band of riflemen in the defense of Fort Washington, one fact that cannot be looked over is the rapid rise that Williams had undertaken. The mere fact that a young boy, with no prior military experience, could rise to the rank of major was truly exceptional.
To rise to that similar rank in the British army would depend more on family prestige and the ability to pay the price for the commission. That this was not the case in the American army was a sign of the difference in ideals and make-up of the military. The American colonies were revolting against the aristocratic regime of Great Britain, so to imitate their promotion mechanisms would seem out of place with the republican ideals espoused by the aspiring new republic. Furthermore, the ability to navigate the command structure with the added benefit of superior’s being promoted or more morbid, die, allowed Williams to rise.
However, the previous mentioned attribute only tell a portion of the career so far of Williams. His commitment and perseverance to the cause had been duly noted and he would soon show the coolness and battlefield leadership that would cement his rise through the officer ranks.
Battle of Fort Washington, 1776
Williams commanded men of the rifle company occupied a portion of the outlying trenches that surrounded the fort because of a very grave insight the defenses in the environs of Fort Washington could not accommodate the number of American defenders. In their exposed position, the men from Maryland and Virginia would come into contact with their British and Hessian counterparts in the opening stages of the conflict on November 16, 1776. The action commenced in the morning and would be an all-day, drawn out conflict, the epitome of a “fight to the death” type battle. Part of the reason the affair turned out to be so relentless and bloody was the fact that the Americans had refused to surrender the fort initially and the ensuing action could quite possibly result in the British and their allies showing no quarter if the Americans suffered defeat.
History does not depict whether the men with Williams and under the command of Colonel Rawlings knew this fact, but what they did know was that they had been given an assignment to defend the fort and the men from Virginia and Maryland were prepared to do just that.
Map of Battle of Fort Washington (courtesy of Wiki)
Unfortunately, after facing overwhelming odds and the collapse of other sections of the American lines, Williams and his men were forced to fall back from their exposed positions. During the action Colonel Rawlings received a severe wound to the leg, resulting in a fracture of the bone. Serving as second in command, Williams assumed command of the rifle regiment, continuing to show his unwillingness to yield the field even after suffering a severe groin wound.
With the wound and the collapse of the American lines, he did not command for long. The survivors of the regiment, along with the rest of the fort’s garrison, surrendered to the British and German forces.
After the conflict, a Hessian survivor remarked about attacking the Maryland riflemen, in which Williams was most likely in command of; that “he had a hard time of it.” Another enemy soldier noted the inordinate number of wounded. Official casualty reports, listed 2,780 Americans, including Williams, as prisoners of war, and another 149 were killed and wounded. The British lost 458 killed, wounded, and missing during the day long fight.
You can almost feel the cold weather from just looking at the painting. With the snow on the ground, and white specks of wintry mix falling in the distance, one almost wants to say “brrr.”
With rags wrapped around feet, heads bowed into the storm, and no two soldiers dressed a like the painting depicts winter 1777 for the American Continental Army. The title “The March to Valley Forge” also concocts images of the harshness of that winter during the American Revolution.
And in the middle of the picture, sits George Washington, astride his horse, staring at the marching soldiers in silent tribute. One of the soldiers is depicted doffing his cap at Washington. Respect, admiration, and solidarity of the joint struggle of the war, is present, by just examining the painting a little closer.
That is why this painting below, done by William Trego, a century and a few years after this march would have happened, is my favorite painting about the American Revolution.
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 