Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest author Michael Aubrecht
At the time of the Revolutionary War it is estimated that there were over a half million African-Americans living in the thirteen colonies. As the rebellion’s patriotic call to fight for liberty grew, the British government sought to undermine the expanding Continental Army by soliciting slaves who ran away from their masters. By promising to grant them their freedom and security, the Redcoat ranks were able to boost their manpower on the battlefield instead of constantly relying on the importation of additional troops who took months to travel to the Americas from England. Some of these all-black units even flourished as in the example of the Royal Ethiopian Regiment and later, the Black Pioneers.
According to the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives Website Black Loyalists in New Brunswick: “In November 1775, Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore, hoping to bolster the British war effort, encouraged slaves and indentured servants of the Patriots to join His Majesty’s army. Many did so. When the British evacuated their army from Boston to Halifax in 1776, a “Company of Negroes” was part of the entourage. British Commander-in-Chief Sir Henry Clinton extended the policy of appealing to African Americans in his Phillipsburg Proclamation of 1779 in which he offered security behind British lines to ‘every negro who shall desert the Rebel Standard.'”
Following the British Army’s surrender, it is estimated that nearly 35,000 loyalists fled the United States to settle north in the provinces of Canada including the maritime regions of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Nearly 3,500 free black loyalists were among them including many who had fought alongside the Redcoats on behalf of the English crown. New Brunswick saw thousands of African-Americans settle in as new citizens and many went on to fight again for Britain in the War of 1812. Despite their service to the king, many black loyalists and their families still faced racial discrimination, although it paled in comparison to the institution of slavery that continued to thrive in the southern United States.
Michael Aubrecht is the author of Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Faith & Liberty in Fredericksburg.
Amid the hot weather of June 28, 1778, the British army under General Henry Clinton battled General George Washington’s Continental Army in the fields outside Freehold, New Jersey. The Battle of Monmouth Courthouse ranks as the eleventh deadliest battle of the Revolutionary War, claiming at least 700 casualties between the two armies. While the armies moved on after the sharp fight, the citizens of Freehold were left to deal with the battle’s aftermath.
Below are excerpts from two letters written by citizens of Freehold in the immediate aftermath of the battle that describes the toll the armies and battle took on their homes.
An unidentified “young gentleman, an inhabitant of Freehold,” penned the first letter on June 29, 1778. This citizen marched during the battle with Nathanael Greene’s troops, who only arrived on the battlefield proper near the end of the fight. Thus, he could “form an idea of the particular movements of the…engagement only from the dead…” There was abundant evidence provided by the corpses on the battlefield as the British “left very many dead upon the field of action…” Beyond the furrowed ground sliced by artillery shots and musket balls, the British columns left a path of destruction in their wake. “The destruction the enemy have made is dreadful. A great number of houses, barns and out-houses, on and near the public roads, are entirely reduced to ashes. They have been all round us, and yet we have escaped.”
A lady of Freehold wrote her letter two days after the battle. She equally said the horrid aftermath of an 18th-century conflict. “The enemy declared, at Robert McKnight’s, they intended to pay us a visit the next day, as they went down to the Court-house, and said their orders were to burn all the houses in this neighborhood. Doctor Henderson is burnt out, as also Peter Foreman, David Foreman, Benjamin Covenoven, George Walker, Mr. Solomon, David Covenoven, Garret Vanderveer, David Clayton, and a number of others. Most of the people on the public road have lost every thing the enemy could carry off or destroy.”
This anonymous woman was pleased that the British army had passed on, though they left their dead behind “as thick as bees round Mr. Sutfin’s.”
The occupation of the area by the warring armies “I fear…will make a famine among us,” she sadly concluded.
The Battle of Monmouth Courthouse was only one of a long stretch of days for central New Jersey’s civilians between 1775 and 1783.
This sketch of British troops burning homes around Lexington, Massachusetts, is a view similar to the one had by Freehold’s citizens as the British army passed through their homes.
Kentuckians knew 1777 as the “Bloody Sevens” due to the severity and frequency of Native American attacks. Those raids were difficult in the spring, but only intensified after June, when Henry Hamilton, a Detroit-based lieutenant governor of Quebec, executed his orders to actively promote and support Native American offensives across the Ohio River. In particular, war parties from the Ohio and Great Lakes Indian nations allied with Britain crossed the Ohio and struck the region’s three largest towns: Harrodsburg, Boonesborough, and St. Asaph’s/Logan’s Fort. Of the three, the last was the smallest by far, and yet it was the scene of some of the year’s most dramatic moments.
In the spring of 1775, Benjamin Logan led a surveying party into Kentucky and established a “town” of sorts—mostly surveyor’s huts—that they dubbed St. Asaph’s. For his part, Logan built a log cabin and planted a corn crop that later established his land claim. Logan’s group did not remain long as Kentucky was already under attack, but he and several others, including his family, eventually returned in March 1776.[1] A raid on Boonesborough that summer prompted the St. Asaph’s residents to begin fortifying their town. Logan’s family left for the additional safety of Boonesborough, but he remained behind with several enslaved people to continue working on the fort.
Fortified towns were typically established by building two lines of cabins in parallel lines with their fronts face one another. Windows were limited to the front and perhaps the sides, but the rear wall was solid with narrow firing slits. Gaps in between cabins were then closed by digging a trench and standing cut posts in them upright, then filling in the trench and creating a wall. It was a fast means of quickly building a fort. More robust defenses would include blockhouses at the corners with overhanging rooms on a second story enabling defenders to fire down and along walls. There would be a substantial gate on one side and then perhaps a sally port or two along the walls or in a corner blockhouse. The common area between the rows of cabins would often have common buildings and facilities, such as a smithy, herb gardens, a powder magazine, etc. Several buildings, ranging from cabins to storehouses and horse stalls, might remain outside the walls. Residents of the community would then retreat into town when concerned about attack. Logan moved his family back to the fortifying town in February.[2] Logan took the additional step of digging a trench to a nearby spring to create a secure water supply. He then covered it and it was sometimes referred to as a tunnel, even though it was not completely underground.[3] The fort at St. Asaph’s, now more widely known as Logan’s Fort, was completed just in time.
Join us this Sunday at 7 pm as we welcome Saratoga historian Lauren Roberts. Lauren will discuss with us the upcoming as we discuss their upcoming Women in War Symposium and Bus Tour hosted by the Saratoga County 250th Commission. The third Annual Women in War Symposium will be held on May 4, from 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Old Saratoga American Legion Post, located at 6 Clancy St. As an enhancement to the Symposium, a bus tour of historic sites will be offered on May 5.
Lauren will also discuss some of the topics being covered at the Symposium and some of the diverse history in Saratoga that relates to the American Revolution. We all know about the Battle of Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights, but how many know about the “witch of Saratoga”? Grab a drink and join us this Sunday night at 7pm on our Facebook page for a fun and insightful discussion into the great work that Saratoga County is doing to commemorate “America’s Turning Point.”
On September 20, 1777 an American force under General Anthony “Mad Anthony” Wayne was surprised and routed by British forces under General Charles Grey. Wayne’s entire division was put to flight losing nearly 300 men (with the British losing just a dozen). Called by many the “Massacre at Paoli”, the fight was one of many that was part of the 1777 Philadelphia Campaign.
Join ERW on Sunday, April 14th at 7pm on our Facebook page as we welcome back historian and author Michael C. Harris, expert on the Philadelphia Campaign, we will discuss the battle, its role in the campaign, the personalities and the myths around Paoli. Harris is now working on his third volume in his much acclaimed Philadelphia Campaign trilogy, that will include the Battle of Paoli. If you can not make the livestream, the Revelry will be posted to our You Tube and Spotify channels.
Reverend John Gano served as a pastor of a Baptist Church in New York City before the Revolution. When the British occupied the city, his congregation split and dispersed. Although he resisted attempts to recruit him as a chaplain, the minister accepted an invitation to preach to a Continental regiment on Sundays until the Royal Navy cut him off from Manhattan. Recalled Gano, “I was obliged therefore, to retire, precipitately, to our camp.”[1] The preacher would become a chaplain after all. Gano joined Colonel Charles Webb’s Connecticut Regiment and followed it.
Gano stayed with the army, was there during the battles in New York and mistakenly found himself in front of his regiment at White Plains. He remained with the unit until enlistments expired at the beginning of 1777. The minister pledged to rejoin if Webb and his officers raised a new regiment, but instead found himself at Fort Montgomery on the Hudson, eventually succumbing to arguments from General James Clinton and Colonel “Dubosque” to join the men stationed there as a chaplain. (This was probably Colonel Lewis Dubois of the 5th New York.) He remained there until Sir Henry Clinton launched his autumn attack into the Hudson Highlands to support General Burgoyne’s campaign to Albany. Allowing for the uncertainties and errors of first-hand experiences and perspectives, the happenstance-chaplain provided an excellent first-hand account of the battles for Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton on October 6, 1777.
“We had, both in Fort Montgomery, and Fort Clinton, but about seven hundred men. We had been taught to believe, that we should be reinforced, in time of danger, from the neighbouring militia; but they were, at this time, very inactive. We head of the approach of the enemy, and that they were about a mile and a half from Fort Clinton. That fort sent out a small detachment, which was immediately driven back. The British army surrounded both our forts, and commenced universal firing. I was walking on the breastwork, viewing their approach, but was obliged to quit this station, as the musquet balls frequently passed me. I observed the enemy, marching up a little hollow, that the might be secured from our firing, till they came within eighty yards of us. Our breast-work, immediately before them, was not more than waist-band high, and we had but a few men. The enemy, kept up a heavy firing, till our men gave them a well directed fire, which affected them very sensibly. Just at this time, we had a reinforcement from a redoubt, next to us, which obliged the enemy to withdraw. I walked to an eminence, where I had a good prospect, and saw the enemy advancing toward our gate. This gate, faced Fort Clinton, and Captain Moody, who commanded a piece of artillery at that fort, seeing our desperate situation, gave the enemy a charge of grape-shot, which threw them into great confusion. Moody repeated his charge, which entirely dispersed them for that time.
About sun-set, the enemy sent a couple of flags, into each of our forts, demanding an immediate surrender, or we should all be put to the sword. General George Clinton, who commanded Fort Montgomery, returned for answer, that the latter was preferable to the former, and that he should not surrender the fort. General Hames Clinton, who commanded in Fort Clinton, answered the demand in the same manner. A few minutes after the flags had returned, the enemy commenced a very heavy firing, which was answered by our army. The dusk of the evening, together with the smoke, and the rushing in of the enemy, made it impossible for us to distinguish friend, from foe. This confusion, have us an opportunity of escaping, through the enemy, over the breastwork. Many escaped to the water’s side and got on board a scow, and pushed off.”[2]
In his recent history of the Saratoga Campaign, Kevin Weddle cites General Clinton’s estimate of 350 American casualties: 70 killed, 40 wounded, and 240 captured, roughly half of the combined garrison of both forts. (Weddle estimates the American garrison at 700, not the 800 Gano believed). British losses amounted to forty killed and 150 wounded out of 2,150 in the assaulting forces.[3]
Gano spent the remainder of his service in the northeast, accompanying the men during General Sullivan’s campaign against the Iroquois, but otherwise spending the time in encampents. He finally returned to New York and reoccupied his house after war: “My house needed some repairs, and wanted some new furniture; for the enemy plundered a great many articles.”[4] After the war, the minister rebuilt his congregation in New York before relocating to Kentucky, where he died in 1804.
[1]Biographical Memoirs of the Late Rev. John Gano (New York: Printed by Southwick and Hardcastle for John Tiebout, 1806), 93.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Eric Wiser to the blog.
This is a brief story of my first and memorable visit to the Camden Battlefield in South Carolina this September past. I am a husband and father living in the suburbs of Chicago. I make my living as an accountant. As rewarding as my career has been, it’s my strong interest in early American history that stirs my imagination. My pilgrimage to Camden was part of a visit to my friend Phil Kondos who moved to eastern Georgia with his family over a decade ago. Phil is a gifted musician and wonderful father and happens to share a mutual love of history. This narrative of our visit will hopefully inspire others to place Camden Battlefield on their bucket list.
My interest in the Battle of Camden mostly derives from having a Patriot ancestor who fought there. Pvt. Michael Wiser, a 23-year-old grist miller from Frederick County, Maryland, was with the First Maryland Brigade and captured by the British at Camden.[i]
“Given the order to defend the American withdrawal from Long Island, the Maryland Line saved the Continental Army from annihilation in the first major battle of the war.” wrote historian Ryan Polk.
Tench Tilghman, staff officer to George Washington and a native Marylander wrote about his fellow soldiers, “bore the palm…by behaving with as much Regularity as possible.”
Furthermore, if you Google “Battle of Guilford Court House” the image used by Wikipedia depicts an artist’s rendition of the 1st Maryland defending Nathanael Greene’s last line during the March 1781 engagement. The particular image is below.
The Continental Maryland Line was one of the preeminent stalwarts of the American army, both in the northern and southern theaters of the war. Join Emerging Revolutionary War historians in a discussion about the men from the Old Line State and their military acumen during the American Revolutionary War. The discussion will also highlight their memory and memorialization. We hope you can join us Sunday at 7 p.m. EST on the Facebook page of Emerging Revolutionary War.
This article by ERW’s William Griffith first appeared on the American Battlefield Trust’s websiteon January 4, 2021.The original link can be found here.
The French and Indian War was in its fifth full year, and the tables had turned in Britain’s favor. As the larger conflict, the Seven Years’ War, raged throughout the globe, in North America, the British were one swift strike away from conquering the continent. The French in the Ohio River Valley, Great Lakes region, and Upstate New York had been thrown back on their heels and sent scurrying north into Canada leaving the road open for a British thrust against Montreal and Quebec. For the summer of 1759, the latter city, the capital of New France, would be placed in the crosshairs by an army commanded by Major General James Wolfe. If Quebec, situated along the most important water highway in Canada, the Saint Lawrence River, should fall, the French in North America would be squeezed into the region around Montreal. Pending any catastrophic failures by Britain’s army and navy and their allies elsewhere in the world, it would only be a matter of time than before New France was conquered.
James Wolfe and His Army
Thirty-two year old James Wolfe had served in the British Army for almost eighteen years when he was given command of the roughly 9,000-man force that was tasked with defeating the French in and around Quebec City in 1759. He was hard-nosed and did not always get along with his subordinate generals, Robert Monckton, George Townshend, and James Murray. The previous year he had been a brigadier general under Jeffry Amherst during the successful siege and capture of the fortress city of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, and afterward led a campaign of destruction against the fishing villages of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. He then returned to England and secured a major generalship and command of the Quebec expedition. He arrived in Halifax in April 1759 and began training his force and preparing plans for his campaign.
Wolfe’s army was composed predominantly of professional British soldiers. Several hundred North American ranger units also complimented his force, which he described as, “… the worst soldiers in the universe.” He did not have much respect for colonial troops. On June 26, Wolfe’s men began landing at Ile d’Orleans in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River just to the east of Quebec City. Across the river, the French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, prepared to oppose them.
The Marquis de Montcalm and Quebec’s Defenders
Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, had been in command of France’s regular troops in North America since 1756. During that time he had put together an impressive string of victories at places like Fort Oswego, Fort William Henry, and Fort Carillon. As the attack on Quebec loomed, he was given command of all military forces on the continent, including the Canadian militia and marines. The previous harvest had not been good in Canada, and his army and the civilians in the city were on short rations, but relief came during the spring of 1759 when ships arrived carrying food and supplies. With this, Montcalm was determined to hold onto the city at all costs. He dug trenches outside the city and along the Saint Lawrence’s northern shoreline extending for nearly ten miles, welcoming a frontal assault from Wolfe. His army, consisting of over 3,500 French regular troops, included thousands more Native American allies and Canadian militiamen who were not accustomed to fighting in open fields against professional enemy soldiers. This important disadvantage would play a large part in Montcalm’s ultimate defeat.
An engraving of General James Wolfe’s failed attack on the Montmorency River, July 31, 1859. Library of Congress
The Campaign
When General Wolfe’s army began landing at Ile d’Orleans and subsequently Point Levis (directly across the river from the city) to the east of Quebec, he had initially hoped to force a landing on the northern shore just a few miles downstream at Beauport. However, he quickly discovered that Montcalm had heavily fortified the landing site, throwing a monkey wrench into his plans. This did not deter Wolfe, however, and by July 12, he had placed ten mortars and cannon at Point Levis and began bombarding the city itself. More guns were brought up and the bombardment continued for weeks in an effort to demoralize those within Quebec City.
The best chance to defeat Montcalm was to force him out of his defenses and into an open field battle. Wolfe understood that his vigorously trained and superior disciplined regular troops would have the upper hand against lesser-numbered French regulars and their militia. His first attempt to accomplish this occurred on July 31, when he landed a force of grenadiers, light infantry, and rangers near Montmorency Falls further downstream from Beauport hoping to ford the Montmorency River and reach a position in the rear of the French lines. It failed miserably. Montcalm guessed correctly that an attack was coming from that direction and rushed men there to meet the enemy. The river’s tide prevented Wolfe from getting all of his troops in position on time and frontal assaults launched from the beach were beaten back with heavy losses. The British retreated, leaving behind 443 men killed and wounded. The first attempt to force a landing on the Quebec side of the river had failed, but it would not be the last. Wolfe turned his attention further upriver, where he hoped his prospects for victory would be more fruitful.
The Plains of Abraham
As the weeks passed following the debacle at Montmorency, the British probed the northern shore west of Quebec for a secure landing spot. During this time, Wolfe grew sick with a severe fever and kidney stones and believed his days were numbered. He recovered enough, however, to begin moving his army upriver about eight miles from the city not far across from Cap Rouge. It was decided that the landing would be made at Anse au Foulon, where a narrow gap and trail led to the top of the cliffs just two miles west of the city.
At four in the morning, September 13, Lieutenant Colonel William Howe (who would serve as the commander of the British Army in America during the Revolutionary War) came ashore with the light infantry and surprised and overwhelmed the enemy outpost above the landing site. The conditions for rowing the army into position that early morning had been perfect for Wolfe. Montcalm was caught off guard.
After securing the landing zone, Wolfe began moving his attack force of roughly 4,400 regulars onto the Plains of Abraham, an open field about a mile wide and a half a mile long in front of the city’s western defenses. Responding to the threat as quickly as could be done, Montcalm rushed some 1,900 French regulars and 1,500 militiamen and Native Americans to meet the British line. This was the open field fight that Wolfe had been yearning for ever since the campaign began.
Benjamin West’s depiction of the death of British General James Wolfe during the Battle of Quebec, painted in 1770. Wikimedia Commons
As the French commander formed his men up in a line of battle, the British waited patiently across the field to receive their attack. Montcalm ordered his troops forward, and almost immediately his militiamen’s lack of experience and training in open combat became apparent as their formations wavered and some failed to advance close enough to the enemy line to fire effectively. One British participant described what happened next:
The French Line began … advancing briskly and for some little time in good order, [but] a part of their Line began to fire too soon, which immediately catched throughout the whole, then they began to waver but kept advancing with a scattering Fire.—When they had got within about a hundred yards of us our Line moved up regularly with a steady Fire, and when within twenty or thrity yards of closing gave a general [fire]; upon which a total [rout] of the Enemy immediately ensued.
The battle was over in just fifteen minutes as the British swept forward, claiming the field and capturing hundreds of prisoners. Both sides each lost over 600 men killed and wounded, including both respective commanders. Wolfe was mortally wounded and died a hero on the field. Montcalm, too, was hit by grapeshot in the abdomen and died the next morning. Five days later, Quebec surrendered. The French retreated further downstream to Montreal, attacked and failed to retake Quebec the next spring, and surrendered in whole on September 8, 1760, effectively ending all major military operations in North America during the French and Indian War. The battle for the continent between Britain and France was over.
We are excited to announce our 2024 (fourth annual!) bus tour location will be Lexington and Concord on October 11-13, 2024. Join historians Phillip Greenwalt, Rob Orrison and Alex Cain as we tour the sites associated with the beginning of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775. The tour will cover events in Lexington, Concord and sites along the “Battle Road.” Tickets are $250 per person and includes a Friday night lecture, all day tour on Saturday and half day tour on Sunday (bus tour transportation and Saturday lunch included in cost).
Join us for our FOURTH annual tour as we take on the beginning of the American Revolution just a few months before the 250th anniversary. Learn about the dramatic events that led to the first shots for the Revolution and the bloody aftermath. We will visit Lexington Green, Buckman’s Tavern, North Bridge in Concord, Battle Road including Merriam’s Corner, Parker’s Revenge and the Jason Russell House. There is no better way to experience history than to stand in the footsteps of where it happened!
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 