The Burial of General Simon Fraser after the Battle of Saratoga, 1777, by John Graham, The National Army Museum
Avellina Balestri’s All Ye That Pass By trilogy is a deeply researched, thoughtfully constructed work of historical fiction set during the American Revolutionary War. Through the experiences of Edmund “Ned” Southworth, a young soldier serving in the British Army a protégé of General John Burgoyne, Balestri explores questions of faith, identity, morality, and military duty against the backdrop of a conflict that divided families, communities, and nations.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Drew Palmer of Revolutionary Maryland
Part I
The historical memory of the Revolutionary War in Maryland generally focuses on the state’s Patriots. Men such as Otho Holland Williams and John Eager Howard are remembered fondly for their committed, heroic military service to the American cause. Politically, men such as Charles Carroll and William Paca—both signers of the Declaration of Independence and Maryland Patriots—are remembered for their commitment to the cause. Studying and remembering these men is vital to understanding Maryland’s role in the conflict. However, the Revolutionary War was a civil war. A civil war that made men from the same states sworn enemies. Though Maryland is rightly known as a state that contributed immensely to the Patriot cause, both ideologically and materially, it had a sizable and vocal minority of Loyalists who took it upon themselves to fight against the Patriot cause. Just like Maryland Patriots, Maryland’s Loyalists supported their cause both politically and militarily.
Maryland Loyalist courtesy of Don Troiani Art
Geography and Religion
The strength of Loyalist sentiment depended on where you were in Maryland. Baltimore, Annapolis, and the surrounding area mostly favored the Patriots. After the Patriot Committees of Correspondence in Baltimore and Annapolis developed their own networks of communication and governance, they strictly enforced conduct among people living within their areas of control. Anyone deemed an enemy “to the cause of liberty” faced strict legal and extralegal proceedings, along with harsh punishments. Though the Patriot cause already preached ideals of liberty, free speech, and self-governance, Patriot governments ironically cracked down hardest on political dissent early in the conflict. The accused dissenters were expected to beg for forgiveness before a Patriot tribunal.
Many such instances occurred in Baltimore in 1775, when James Dalgleish, a merchant, was accused of saying, “that as soon as the English troops shall land here, he will join them against the Americans, it being a folly for him to longer deny his principles.” The Baltimore Committee of Correspondence deemed Dalgleish dangerous to the cause and an “incurable enmity to this country.” Dalgleish was summoned before a tribunal where he had to beg for forgiveness and blamed his Loyalist speech on his drinking. The Continental Congress declared Dalgleish an “enemy to the liberty of Americans.” Out of fear of violent retribution, Dalgleish fled Baltimore and was never seen again.1
James Christie, another merchant from Baltimore, faced ridicule and ousting from the Baltimore Committee of Observation for saying in a letter that, “we are in such terrible confusion here with our politics, there is no depending on anything, and that makes me wish myself out of this province. We have some fanatical spirits among us, who do everything in their power to run things to the utmost extremity, and they are gone so far, that we moderate people are under a necessity of uniting for our own defense, after being threatened with expulsion and loss of life.”2 Christie was arrested, deemed an enemy to liberty and the people of America, and, “banished from the province forever.”3 Early in the conflict, it was not realistic to be an outspoken Loyalist in most of the Baltimore and Annapolis region due to organized systems of punishment for speaking against the Patriot cause. Outspoken Loyalism was minimal in the greater Baltimore and Annapolis regions. Maryland’s Eastern Shore, on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, was a different story.
Captain Andrew Snape Hamond commanded the fifth-rate Royal Navy’s Roebuck. Although her 44-guns and rating technically qualified her for a position in a line of battle, a fifth-rate was among the smallest vessels considered for such a role in the Royal Navy. Yet, in February 1776, when Roebuck began operating off the American coast, she was one of the larger ships available to Vice Admiral of the Blue Molyneaux Shuldham, who had replaced Admiral Samuel Graves as the commander of the North American station.
Rather than adding to the growing flock of vessels in Boston, Shuldham sent Hamond and Roebuck south to patrol the colonial coasts, enforce the Coercive Acts, and stop ships smuggling gunpowder and arms. The task was all the more difficult since fighting had broken out and colonial governments had collapsed everywhere. Royal Governors fled to Royal Navy vessels, from which they attempted to preserve some modicum of British authority and rally loyalists to the king’s cause. Roebuck was not on station long before orders from Graves arrived and directed the captain to move his ship to the mouth of Delaware Bay and patrol the bay and river.[1] An aggressive sort, he exchanged fire with Delaware’s militia near Lewes at the capes on April 7, and then took his little flotilla up the Delaware fought Pennsylvania’s little navy near Wilmington on May 8-9.
Then it was down to the Chesapeake for the summer to provide some backbone to Royal Navy vessels operating in the lower Chesapeake Bay in support of Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, who had built his own little flotilla of ships to house loyalists and their defenders, but Hamond considered the task impossible. He wasn’t happy with it and wrote an acquaintance in August, “I have been under the absolute necessity of giving to Lord Dunmore & his floating Town, consisting of a fleet of upwards of 90 Sail, destitute of almost every material to Navigate them, as well as seamen, has given full employment for three Ships, for these three months past, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Enemy.”[2] But, the assignment also convinced him that the Chesapeake was ripe for offensive naval operations, particularly if combined with significant land forces.
Shortly after penning his letter, Hamond and Roebuck departed Virginia, bound for New York. His crew was sick, as were the soldiers and civilians crowded aboard Dunmore’s ships and swampish haven on Gwynne’s Island. Lord Dunmore, for one, was grateful for Hamond’s service in the Chesapeake. As the vessel sailed north, Dunmore penned a letter to Lord George Germain, counting illness among his own forces, but praising Roebuck as “well regulated, and as clean a Ship as any in the Navy,” also noting that many of its crew were ill.[3] Once in New York, Hamond and his vessel supported the Army’s landings and advance on American positions on Long Island.
Situated near the York River, across the street from the American Revolution Museum of Yorktown, sits a monument commemorating the French soldiers that fought, bled, and for some, gave their lives during the siege.
A few years ago, or 1421 days ago to be exact, I pulled over into the parking lot for that monument, walked up, and gave a cursory look at the names and the wording. I did not speak or read French–much to the detriment of my French teacher in high school I must say–but determined there that I would. Later that same evening I downloaded the language learning app Duolingo and started a streak, which if you had not guessed already, has reached 1421 straight days.
I recently went back to that monument and could at least interpret enough of the wording to understand the gist. Good start.
The monument in question Author collection
I now take that rudimentary language foundation capability on the road. Where may you ask?
Screenshot to confirm streak
Next week, after deciding approximately a whole 10 days ago, that following the wedding of a cousin in Connecticut, I would drive the remaining 7 hours to Quebec, Canada. Impromptu? Kind of. Just have to remember to pack my passport!
A bucket list item of mine in the history column is to see the famous Plains of Abraham, from one of the climactic battles of the French and Indian (Seven Years’ War), fought 267 years ago this month, on September 13. I also want to walk the last footsteps of General Richard Montgomery as he led an unsuccessful attack by the fledging rebellious American military against the British during the first winter of the American Revolution. I may have missed the anniversary but at least I am within the same year-ish (since the battle was fought on New Year’s Eve 1775).
Side note, Maryland honors Montgomery by a county named in his honor, one of, if not the first, place, county, town, etc. to be named for a person not related to the British monarchy, aristocracy, or gentry. Along with Washington, the two counties in Maryland were siphoned off of Frederick in 1776.
Stay tuned next, week to Emerging Revolutionary War’s Facebook page as I will go live there.
And then I will retreat to a Quebec cafe…or brewery and test out my French…so if you have a suggestion of a can’t miss place, drop a comment below!
Join us this Sunday at 7pm as we ERW authors and historians Dan Welch and Mark Maloy continue their 250th anniversary coverage of the New York Campaign. They’ll chat with us about the events following the Continentals retreat from Long Island, Nathan Hale, the Turtle, the Peace Conference, and of course the fighting at Kip’s Bay and Harlem Heights. Welch and Maloy’s new book, “Conquer or Die” will be available this fall. This Revelry will be LIVE on our Facebook and You Tube pages at 7pm.
The New York Campaign had been building for over year by August 1776. In July 1775, previous British commander of forces in America, Thomas Gage, had sent a request to his superiors to be allowed to leave Boston and begin a new campaign in New York. Following Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, Gage’s force remained bottled up and besieged in and around Boston and Charleston. When word of approval of Gage’s plan reached Boston, so too did orders relieving him of command. Before he departed for England in October 1775, he met with his successor, William Howe, and greatly stressed the importance of moving the theater of war to New York. Howe would follow Gage’s preplanning and approval to the letter, including waiting until the spring to began the shift in the army’s base of operations. Howe’s timetable, however, was moved up after the arrival of Henry Knox’s artillery train and the placement of guns on Dorchester Heights. On March 17, 1776, Howe and 11,000 troops and Loyalist citizens sailed for Nova Scotia. Foreshadowing the British departure and the location of the next campaign in a letter written two days before they set sail, Col. Joseph Reed, later George Washington’s adjutant-general, correctly asserted, “If Howe should leave Boston, we expect he will make for New York; and, at all events, we look upon that as one of the scenes of the summer business.”
Meanwhile, George Washington also looked to New York as the next seat of this growing conflict. In January he sent Charles Lee to begin laying out a position for the Continental Army to take once it shifted southward from Boston. Not long after Lee arrived in February 1776 he assured the Committee of Safety that even though he could see no way to make New York into a “tenable fortification” he could make a position strong enough to be “a most advantageous field of battle” that would “cost the enemy many thousands of men to get possession of it.” Just two months later, on April 13, Washington and the Continental Army arrived.
The Continental Army commander had no other choice than to do what he could in New York. There was immense political pressure on Washington not to abandon it, the Congress believing it had high political and psychological value. Many in Congress believed abandoning it would demoralize the Patriot cause and swell the morale of the Loyalist population in the city and colony thereof. Furthermore, it was a central location along the Atlantic coast and a conduit of communication and supplies between New England and the southern colonies via the Hudson River. Furthermore, the Hudson River/Lake Champlain corridor remained a vital passage to Canada and the Great Lakes. New York was also a bustling economic hub, the second largest urban center in the colonies, with a port, shipbuilding, and deep-water harbor had immense naval and trade value. Widely considered as the “key to the continent,” Washington would have a difficult task defend the city, it’s deep water port, and the numerous navigable waterways; all reasons the British wanted to seize the city in their effort cutoff New England from the middle and southern colonies. Writing to his brother, John Augustine Washington, between May 31 and June 4, 1776, he confessed, “We expect a very bloody Summer of it at New York . . . & I am sorry to say that we are not, either in Men, or Arms, prepared for it.”
Finally, after several months of resupplying and refitting his army in Nova Scotia, William Howe and his command arrived on Staten Island, unopposed, in June 1776. Pvt. Daniel McCurtin, 1st Company of Maryland Rifles, recorded the British arrival, noting he saw, “the whole Bay was full of shipping as ever it could be. I declare that I thought all London was afloat.”Over the coming weeks he would be joined by his brother, Richard, with large numbers of reinforcements, ships, transports, supplies, and Hessians. Although the two brothers leaned into their role of peace commissioners, attempting to end this growing rebellion through pardons and not bloodshed in July, by August, with no peaceful resolution insight, military preparations moved forward.
On August 20, 1776, British troops began loading onto ships and transports from their Staten Island camps, and 250 years ago today, August 22, 1776, the first British troops landed on Long Island at Denyse’s Ferry. Howe had chosen this site for its richness and crops and plentiful livestock in which to supply his army. Still unsure of Howe’s intentions, and constantly worried about his flank and rear being turned by the British Navy, Washington had spread his army dangerously thin across several islands with waterways separating reinforcements should the need for them arise. Thus, on August 22, Washington only had 3,000 men, John Nixon and Nathaniel Heard’s brigades, and some Long Island militia in which to contest the landing. All they could really do was raise the alarm. By the end of the day 20,000 British troops were on Long Island. Only time would tell, at least for Washington, whether or not this would be Howe’s main push or simply a diversion to another beachhead and main strike.
Learn more about the 1776 New York Campaign with ERW’s forthcoming release, Conquer or Die: The 1776 New York Campaign, by Dan Welch and Mark Maloy. Pre-order here!
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest writer, historian Kenneth Bancroft
Leesburg, Virginia. Tuesday, July 9, 1776. “…News that the Sanhedrim (1) had declared the thirteen united Colonies Free and Independent States. That this was intended by the Northern Colonies from the first, I am well convinced…” (2) These are not the words one expects when talking about the Declaration of Independence, but to a 26-year-old entrepreneurial Englishman caught in a revolution that he neither wanted nor supported, this was the worst news ever. (3)
The Journals of Nicholas Cresswell is an informative source on the Revolutionary War from what could be considered a ‘Tory’ point of view. It is a personal account that shows that the struggle for freedom was not just on the battlefield but also in the streets and homes at the end of the colonial era. Nicholas Cresswell was an outsider from the moment he stepped on American soil in 1774 and heard news of the siege of Boston, noting that the colonists “talk as if they were determined to dispute the matter with the Sword.” (4) For two years, Cresswell observed the American colonies descend into rebellion, “The people here are Liberty mad, nothing but war is thought of.” (5)
When the colonies officially separated, Cresswell felt despair and anger instead of hope. Cresswell’s intention was to set up life as a farmer, but misfortune and bad timing foiled his plans. He blamed the “cursed Rebellion” for turning this “earthly paradise to a Hell upon terra firma.” (6) Constantly under the suspicion of the local committees tasked with enforcing the Continental Association as a suspected ‘Tory’ spy, he grew to despise the Continental Congress as vile and hypocritical. “The Congress under the fallacious pretense of nursing the tender plant, liberty, which was said to thrive so well in American soil, have actually torn it up by the very root.” (7)
Cresswell could not help himself and always got into political discussions in the bars and houses of Virginia. “At Dinner had a long dispute with Doctor Jacson about the origin of the present proceedings…Most of the company agrees that I had the better of the argument. But never so much embarrassed in my whole life.” (8) He even chided General Washington as a yeoman farmer “Negro-driver” (9) and a and was befuddled that he kept evading General Howe. Ultimately, he did decide that he was a decent General.
In the end, Cresswell decided that Virginia, for all of its bounty, was lost and returning to England was his only option. After three years of surviving the storm of a revolution, he made his slip to British lines. While technically not a Loyalist, (10) Cresswell provides critical details on the otherwise missing narrative of Loyalism in the colonies, especially Virginia. His last act dramatically involved him in a plot to free English sailors and soldiers from a jail in Alexandria Virginia. Some of the conspirators were well known merchants in Alexandria. (11) Thankfully Cresswell’s account exists to inform how a revolution hits the home front and the profundity of independence at that time.
Action off Mud Fort by William Elliott circa 1787 (Wikimedia Commons). This image portrays a subsequent battle in the Delaware in the Autumn of 1777, during the naval campaign to open the Delaware River. Roebuck was a major combatant in those engagements as well.
The beginning of May 1776 found Captain Andrew Snape Hamond of the Royal Navy’s Roebuck, a fifth rate of forty-four guns, operating off the Delaware capes. His job was to control traffic in and out of the bay and maintain a de facto British blockade while seizing any supplies that might be of use to the rebel Americans and instead secure them for British forces. On Saturday, May 4, Hamond began moving up the bay and into the Delaware river in company with Liverpool, 28 guns, the brig Betsey and several tenders. He was short of water and needed to refill empty casks at a fresh source. It was also an opportunity to take a look at rebel defenses on the critical waterway.[i] The British enjoyed only light winds and cloudy skies as they sailed upstream for the next two days, periodically anchoring and frequently taking soundings to avoid the muddy shallows. Operating at some distance, on May 6 the Liverpool spotted a grounded sloop and sent a boat to recover it. But, it was stuck fast and Captain Henry Bellew’s crew burned the ship instead.[ii]
Between 6 and 7 am on Tuesday, May 7, Hamond signaled his little squadron to raise anchor and continue moving up the Delaware River in the direction of Wilmington. Off New Castle, they spied an armed schooner and several boats and gave chase in the afternoon, just as the weather broke and began pelting the ships in strong winds and heavy rain. The schooner ran for the shallows under fire from the British ships. She grounded and Hamond sent boats to seize her around 3 pm. Unable to refloat her, they settled on taking off her cargo: bread and flour.[iii] At the end of a productive day, around 7 pm, Hamond anchored his ships near the Christina River and Wilmington.
Ashore, word spread quickly of Roebuck’s advance up the river. At Dover on May 6, Colonel John Haslet of the Delaware Regiment received word that the British were off Port Penn in the area of Reedy’s Island and the local militia expected an attack. The British were already upstream from Haslet. As Roebuck alternately sailed and anchored, the troops ashore had time to assemble, although they were often chasing dated intelligence about the British position. One hundred thirty men assembled in Cantwells Bridge about 4 am on the 7th, but by then Roebuck had already moved up to New Castle.[iv] Word of the British anchoring off New Castle reached Philadelphia in the afternoon, about the same time that American gondolas at Fort Island left to drop down the river and attack the British at their anchorage. Robert Morris, Vice President of the Continental Congress Marine Committee, ordered Continental Navy Captain John Barry to assemble as many Continental Navy crew as possible and dispatch them to the Pennsylvania ship Reprisal and a floating battery, which were both also to drop down the river and join in the attack on the British.[v] Men from Captain Proctor’s Company of Artillery in the fort even joined the slapdash crews, serving aboard the American vessel Hornet.[vi] It was an all hands moment for Philadelphia’s naval defenders.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Ben Powers
Huw Davies’s work The Wandering Army: The Campaigns That Transformed the British Way of War posits that the British Army underwent a period of enlightenment during the late eighteenth century, inspired by its poor showing in the War of the Austrian Succession. Officers turned to continental Europe to study military art in the same spirit that enlightenment scholars studied moral philosophy. This period of military change, innovation, and adaptation encompassed what Davies refers to as “the interconnected relationship of these three areas: military thought, experience, and knowledge exchange, which together drove Britain’s accidental military enlightenment.”
Davies documents that the British Army in the 1700s entered a doldrums of intellectual and tactical stagnation in the early decades of the century, following its successful participation in the War of the Spanish Succession. Victory bred complacency, leading to a poor showing at Fontenoy in 1745. He goes on to demonstrate that defeat galvanized officers to undertake self-directed study of military theory and share lessons learned with other officers, forming a community of practice. Officers later combined these efforts with practical experience gained through active campaigns and peacetime training, resulting in cycles of learning throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century. Davies’s work contributes to the historiography of the British Army by demonstrating that officers actively sought to synthesize the latest military theories, their own combat experiences, and the ideas of their peers into innovative systems to address challenges across multiple theatres of war.
Davies uses a variety of evidence, including historical analysis, accounts of officer practices, and descriptions of training reforms. The bibliography of The Wandering Army contains almost 600 entries, ranging from period treatises, manuals, and official correspondence such as orderly books and military returns, to contemporary newspapers, to historical manuscripts. Davies traces a paper trail of British study of military art from 1745 to 1815, showing that officers studied war, applied what they learned, and discussed war in public forums and personal correspondence. He cites examples of General Henry Clinton walking and studying old battlefields in 1774 to prepare himself for future challenges (Davies, 82–83); Lord Charles Cornwallis’ establishment of a standardized system of drill and equipage for his troops in India, based on lessons he had learned during the War for American Independence (Davies, 204); and the establishment of a camp for the training of light troops at Shorncliffe, England, to teach innovative tactics to light infantry, developed by Sir John Moore (Davies, 287–315).
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historianBjorn Bruckshaw, a bio follows the post.
British nautical chart of the eastern portion of Long Island Sound showing the location of Block Island and the surrounding waters where the Continental Navy squadron encountered HMS Glasgow on April 6, 1776. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Public domain.
In the early morning hours of April 6, 1776, a lone British warship slipped through the moonlit waters southeast of Block Island. The twenty-gun frigate HMS Glasgow was carrying dispatches from Newport, Rhode Island, to the British fleet assembling off Charleston, South Carolina. Suddenly the ship’s lookout sighted sails on the horizon—then more sails behind them. Within minutes Captain Tyringham Howe realized the alarming truth: his single ship had encountered nearly the entire fleet of the newly created Continental Navy.¹
What followed should have been a decisive American victory. Commodore Esek Hopkins commanded a squadron of seven armed vessels, including the flagship Alfred, the brigs Cabot and Andrew Doria, and several additional ships. Against them stood only one British frigate. Yet by dawn the British ship had fought its way free and escaped. The encounter became one of the earliest—and most embarrassing—naval engagements of the American Revolution.²
The clash southeast of Block Island revealed the weaknesses of the young American navy: inexperienced crews, poor coordination between ships, and ineffective gunnery. Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, the Continental squadron failed to capture a single enemy warship. As one frustrated American officer later remarked, “A more imprudent, ill-conducted affair never happened.”³
The British vessel at the center of the encounter was HMS Glasgow, a sixth-rate twenty-gun frigate of the Royal Navy. In early April 1776 the ship had been tasked with delivering dispatches from Newport to the British fleet gathering off Charleston for an upcoming campaign against the southern colonies. That expedition would ultimately culminate in the failed British assault during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island in June 1776.⁴
Meanwhile the American rebellion had begun extending onto the seas. The Second Continental Congress had authorized the creation of a navy in late 1775 to challenge British control of American waters. By February 1776 the first ships of the fleet were ready for service, and Congress appointed Hopkins as commander-in-chief of the new force.⁵
Hopkins’s squadron consisted largely of converted merchant vessels hastily adapted for war. The fleet included the flagship Alfred, along with Columbus, Cabot, Andrew Doria, Providence, Wasp, and Fly. Among the officers serving aboard the fleet was a young lieutenant named John Paul Jones, who served aboard the Alfred and would later gain fame as one of the most celebrated naval commanders of the Revolution.⁶
