We welcome back guest historian Scott Patchan as he continues his series on Daniel Morgan.
When the situation deteriorated to outright rebellion against the crown, Morgan raised a regiment of crack riflemen from Frederick County, and marched them to Boston in twenty-one days to take part in the siege of Boston. There, he served under his former commander from the French and Indian War, General George Washington. Morgan learned the hard way that orders must be followed. He once allowed his riflemen to exceed orders in firing upon British positions at Boston. Washington called Morgan on the disobedience, and Daniel thought that he would be cashiered from the army. Washington, however, relented the next day, but Morgan had learned a valuable lesson about following orders.
Daniel Morgan in the American Revolution
In the fall of 1775, Washington sent Morgan as commander of three companies of Continental riflemen on a mission to capture Quebec from the British. Morgan’s command marched with the column of Colonel Benedict Arnold. They traversed the Maine wilderness, rowing up stream to the “Great Carrying Place,” where carried their canoes and bateaux for great distances overland to another series of streams and lakes that took them to Quebec. As the cold weather set in, sickness and hunger overtook the column and Arnold sent those unfit for duty back to the rear. After covering 350 miles, the American arrived in front of Quebec in early November, surprising the British.
Although Morgan wanted to attack immediately and utilize the element of surprise, he was overruled and the small American force besieged Quebec, waiting for another column under General Richard Montgomery to arrive from the Hudson Valley. When a British party sallied forth and captured one of Morgan’s riflemen on November 18, Arnold believed the British would come out and fight in the open. As such, Arnold drew up his army in front of the fortifications to meet them. They declined his offer and instead looked down on the ragamuffin Americans from the ramparts and exchanged taunts and catcalls. The overall situation frustrated the irascible Morgan, and when his men complained that Arnold was not giving the riflemen their fair share of rations, the “Old Wagoner” violently argued with Arnold, and nearly came to blows with the future traitor. Morgan departed Arnold, leaving him with angry warning about poor treatment of the riflemen. From that time forward, Morgan’s command always received their fair share of the army’s rations.
Montgomery’s column arrived on December 5, and the Americans commenced setting up his mortars and artillery outside of Quebec. The Americans finally attacked during a snowstorm in the early morning darkness of December 31, but their force numbered only 950 men. Arnold’s column came under fire as it moved toward the ramparts of Quebec, and a musket ball struck Arnold taking him out of action. Although Morgan was not the senior officer, the others insisted that he take command, having seen actual combat which they had not. Morgan later noted that this “reflected credit on their judgment.” At Morgan’s order, his riflemen rushed to the front, armed with both their Pennsylvania rifles and a spontoon for the assault while some carried ladders to storm the walls. They quickly drove a small force of British away and closed in on the walls.
Map of Battle of Quebec, 1775 (courtesy of British Battles)
Morgan ordered the men up the ladders and first one gingerly began the climb. Morgan sensed his hesitancy, pulled him down and scaled it himself, shouting, “Now boys, Follow me!” The men instantly complied, and Morgan reached the top of the wall where a volley of musketry exploded, knocking him back to the snow-covered ground. The burst burnt his hair and blackened his face; one ball grazed his cheek and another pierced his hat; but Morgan was otherwise unhurt. Stunned he laid motionless on the ground for a moment, and the attack stopped, his men thinking him dead. But he soon stirred and clambered up the ladder to the cheers of his men who followed suit. This time he stopped before reaching the top, and hurtled himself over the rampart into the midst of the enemy. He landed on a cannon and injured his back and found British bayonets levelled at him from all directions. While the British focused on Morgan, his riflemen poured over the wall and came to his rescue, driving off Morgan’s would-be impalers. Morgan kept up a close pursuit of the British who offered weak resistance to the attacking riflemen. Although Morgan had broken into Quebec, the main body of Arnold’s division failed to follow the riflemen over the wall and exploit the opportunity at hand. Morgan captured much of the lower portion of Quebec with only two companies of his riflemen. He later described the breakdown that occurred:
“Here, I was ordered to wait for General Montgomery, and a fatal order it was. It prevented me from taking the garrison, as I had already captured half of the town. The sally port through the (second) barrier was standing open; the guard had left it, and the people were running from the upper town in whole platoons, giving themselves up as prisoners to get out of the way of the confusion which might shortly ensue. I went up to the edge of the upper town with an interpreter to see what was going on, as the firing had ceased. Finding no person in arms at all, I returned and called a council of war of what few officers I had with me; for the greater part of our force had missed their way, and had not got into the town. Here I was overruled by sound judgment and good reasoning. It was said in the first place that if I went on I should break orders; in the next, that I had more prisoners than I had men; and that if I left them they might break out and retake the battery we had just captured and cut off our retreat. It was further urged that Gen. Montgomery was coming down along the shore of the St Lawrence, and would join us in a few minutes; and that we were sure of conquest if we acted with caution and prudence. To these good reasons I gave up my own original opinion, and lost the town.”
Montgomery never arrived; he had been killed in the first blast of musketry against his column, and his command broke. As time went on, the British regained their composure and pushed back against Morgan’s command. Morgan went back and brought up 200 New Englanders who joined the riflemen as they attempted to renew the attack. Now, the previously undefended point, was well manned, and daylight illuminated the paucity of Morgan’s numbers. Nevertheless, Morgan pressed them back further into the town to an interior fortification. A brave British officer led a counterattack, but Morgan personally shot him dead and disrupted the assault. Nevertheless, the time for action had passed. The British had become aware that Morgan’s was the only active American force in the city and closed in around him. In the meanwhile, additional British forces reoccupied the gates Morgan had initially taken and trapped him in the city. Morgan had no choice but to surrender his small command.
One artist’s depiction of the Battle of Quebec, 1775. Both forces are wearing blue overcoats. (courtesy of British Battles)
Morgan and the other officers enjoyed a liberal captivity with generous quarters in a seminary. The British officers visited them often and remained on friendly terms with the Americans. Morgan developed a dislike for some of his fellow officers whom he regarded as dishonest and scheming, and his fighting skills were brought to bear on at least one occasion when several men teamed up against big Dan Morgan. The imprisonment ended when the British returned the American officers on September 24, 1776, in New Jersey. Morgan returned to his wife and two daughters at his home outside of Battletown or Berryville, where he awaited his proper exchange. While there, he named his home “Soldier’s Rest,” as he recuperated from the trials of the taxing expedition to Quebec. The war was still young, and the Continental Army would soon be calling upon his services again. A special command of riflemen was being organized and Morgan would be its commander.
Recently Emerging Revolutionary War Era authors Phillip Greenwalt and Rob Orrison were featured in Hallowed Ground, the Civil War Trust’s quarterly magazine. Their article “Shots Heard Around the World” focuses on the events surrounding Lexington and Concord in 1775. As CWT President Lighthizer writes “the journey towards the stillness at Appomattox began with a shot heard ’round the world at Concord.”
As many of you know, the Civil War Trust has launched a new initiative called “Campaign 1776”, to preserve American battlefields that relate to the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Part of that initiative is funding the archaeology and preservation of land around the area known as “Parker’s Revenge.” Here, on the afternoon of April 19, 1775, Minutemen met the returning British column on its way from Concord to Boston. The Minutemen under Capt. John Parker, severely bloodied the British, in a “revenge” from their earlier meeting on the Lexington Green.
Also in the same issue of Hallowed Ground, ERW contributors Drew and Kate Gruber write about the how the American Revolution was on the minds of those who fought in the Civil War. Their article “So Doth History Repeat Itself” covers the “ancestral connection” that both sides had to the patriots of the revolution.
Be sure to check out Hallowed Ground and if you are not already a member of the Civil War Trust, be sure to join today. Their work in preserving American battlefields is unparalleled. We thank the staff of Hallowed Ground for including us in their latest issue. Look for more exciting ventures from Emerging Revolutionary War Era soon!
Marker on the site of the 1774 Fort Harrison at Point Pleasant
Today, little of the Point Pleasant battlefield remains. A small park, of about four acres, at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers is the only preserved portion of the battlefield. Known as Tu-Endie-Wei State Park, it commemorates the October 10, 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant. “Tu-endie-wei” means “the point between two waters” in the Wyandotte Indian dialect, a fitting name for the point at the confluence of two great rivers.
The 84 foot-high obelisk on the site of the mass grave of the Virginia soldiers killed at Point Pleasant
This well-maintained little state park features an 84-foot-granite obelisk that honors
A detail of the frontiersman depicted on the obelisk.
the Virginia militiamen who fought and died at Point Pleasant, and a statue of a frontiersman stands at the base of the obelisk. Smaller memorial tables scattered throughout the park honor Chief Cornstalk and “Mad” Anne Bailey, whose husband was killed in the battle. A large and prominent monument marks the location of Camp Pleasant’s powder magazine. The 1796 Mansion House, erected by Walter Newman as a tavern, while not pertinent to the battle, is the oldest hewn log home in the Kanawha Valley and serves as both museum and visitor’s center for Tu-Endie-Wei State Park.
A depiction of the battle on the obelisk.Monument to Col. Andrew Lewis.
A large Army Corps of Engineers floodwall separates the Ohio River from the town of Point Pleasant. The side of the floodwall facing the river has been adorned with a handsome mural showing the history of the area, and depicting the battle. The mural extends for nearly a mile, and there are a number of odd modern sculptures along the river walk depicting some of the more important figures of the Battle of Point Pleasant, including Lord Dunmore, Chief Cornstalk, and Colonel Lewis. Done in an abstract, modern style, these statues are impressionistic representations of these important historic figures and are probably worth a visit.
A marker commemorating the death of Col. Charles Lewis at Point Pleasant.
Unfortunately, the history of the Battle of Point Pleasant has been dwarfed by subsequent events. Paranormal enthusiasts flock to Point Pleasant in search of the Mothman, a mythical creature said to be a harbinger of imminent disaster that inhabits an abandoned dynamite factory dating from World War II. In 1975, John Keel published his novel, The Mothman Prophecies, and a bad 2002 movie was made based Keel’s novel. A second film, also loosely based on the legend, was released afterward. There is a Mothman Museum that holds an annual Mothman Festival that offers tours and other silly events that celebrate the Mothman legend. Sadly, none of this focuses on the events of October 10, 1774, which languish largely forgotten.
Marker for the Virginia troops’ powder magazine.
All of the focus on the Mothman diverts attention away from the Battle of Point Pleasant, which can fairly be called the opening engagement of the American Revolution. The Battle of Point Pleasant, as a landmark event, deserves better, and I hope that by focusing on this important battle, you will now appreciate the significance of it, and that you will visit Tu-Endie-Wei State Park if the opportunity ever presents itself.
Monument to Chief Cornstalk.
As Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall described it in their 2003 book, At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America:
Statutes of Col. Lewis and Chief Cornstalk.
If Dunmore’s War serves as the epilogue to one story, it is the prologue to another: the story of American independence. The events of the preceding decade amounted to nothing short of a revolution in backcountry affairs, and the military campaign led by Lord Dunmore against the Ohio Indians constituted the opening chapter of a new epoch in American affairs. From the perspective of the backcountry, the shots fired on the Ohio late in 1774, not those at Concord six months later, constituted the beginning of the American Revolution. Though the Ohio campaign was led by a royal governor, its muscle was provided by two thousand men who had waited a decade in mounting frustration and anger while the king neglected their needs. This was their declaration of independence.
As a side note for those looking for more information: there is no good modern monograph in print on Lord Dunmore’s War. I relied upon two very old books for much of information included herein. However, there is a new monograph that is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2016 that I am looking forward to reading.
The last battle of the Revolutionary War was fought in 1951 in Winchester, Virginia. Daniel Morgan, the “Old Wagoner” or ‘Old Morgan” as he was known to his soldiers, was front and center of the maelstrom once again just as he was on many a battle field from Quebec to South Carolina during the War for Independence.
Daniel Morgan Statute in Winchester, Virginia (courtesy of Winchester Star)
Residents of Cowpens, South Carolina, a small town near Spartanburg named for Morgan’s dramatic and strategically critical victory of 1781, arrived in Winchester, Virginia to claim the earthly remains of their revered hero. Morgan’s grave was overgrown and in decrepit condition. In Winchester, only one out of forty people queried by the Carolinians knew who Morgan was. Armed with shovels, a mortician, and a letter of authorization from Morgan’s great-great granddaughter, the Carolinians showed up at Mount Hebron Cemetery to dig up the general, take him “home” and reinter him at the site of his greatest victory. There he could rest among a populace that revered his name and cherished his significant contributions toward American independence. However, word of the Carolinians’ attempted exhumation of Morgan quickly spread through town and a contingent of devoted local admirers quickly headed to Mt. Hebron to stop the Carolinians initiative. In the end, a court ruled that the “Old Wagoner” would remain interred at Mt. Hebron in Winchester. Not only did he stay, but this episode kindled a reverence for the General’s legacy and place in history among Winchester’s populace.
Seventeen year-old Daniel Morgan moved into the Shenandoah Valley in 1753, with nothing but sheer determination to carve out a life for himself in the rugged frontier of western Virginia. His early years are shrouded in mystery that Morgan himself kept secret from even his closest associates throughout his life. He was born of Welsh parentage in 1836 in Bucks County Pennsylvania or Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the fifth of seven children. It was a hard life of work on the family farmstead with no opportunity for even a rudimentary education. His time was spent chopping wood, hoeing fields and other taxing physical labor. His mother died when he was young, and his father remarried. A dispute with his father prompted the fiery Morgan to head west on the Great Wagon Road to Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he worked briefly during the winter of 1752-53, before continuing south to the Shenandoah.
Although Morgan lacked an education, the work on the family farm had hardened his six-foot, two-hundred pound frame into a powerful and muscular young man who was well suited for the physicality of life on the frontier. The blue-eyed youth initially obtained employment as a farm laborer in eastern Frederick County in what is now Clarke County. He worked hard and soon earned an offer of better employment. In spite of his youth, Morgan eared employment as the overseer of a saw mill where he learned to manage older and more experienced men, developing his leadership ability. Morgan’s energy and work ethic impressed Robert Burwell who offered Morgan a position as a teamster hauling valley produce across the Blue Ridge to Fredericksburg and other towns in the Virginia Piedmont and carrying badly needed supplies back to the frontier that was the Shenandoah Valley of the 1750’s.
Morgan enjoyed the freedom of the open road and in less than two years had earned enough money to buy his own team and Conestoga wagon. During this time, Morgan had become close friends with fellow teamster John “Captain Jack” Ashby, grandfather of the Virginia Civil War cavalryman. Ashby was noted for his “horsemanship, marksmanship and daring exploits.” Ashby taught Morgan to shoot, hunt, ride and live in the wilderness along the Blue Ridge. The two men were kindred spirits and became good friends.
In 1755, the French and Indian War came to the Shenandoah Valley when British Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock’s column passed through the Winchester area on its way to wrest Fort Duquesne from the French at the “Forks of the Ohio,” now the site of Pittsburgh. Morgan signed on the haul supplies to Fort Cumberland in western Maryland and soon found himself as a teamster with the army, rolling into western Pennsylvania. When the French and Indians routed Braddock at the battle of the Monongahela in July, the teamsters emptied their wagons of supplies and carried wounded soldiers back to Fort Cumberland. At some point in this campaign, Morgan’s actions or words angered a British officer who violently chastised the young teamster and struck him with the flat of his sword. Morgan’s temper exploded, and the young wagoner knocked the officer out with one strong punch. A court martial sentenced Morgan to 500 lashes, a punishment that often killed its recipients. The stout Morgan endured the suffering and noted that the drummer miscounted and he had only received 499 lashes. He would proudly wear the scars suffered at the hands of the British for the rest of his life.
Depiction of Daniel Morgan on the frontier (courtesy of Fort Edwards)
With Braddock’s devastating defeat, the French and Indians went on the offensive raiding into western Virginia. Morgan enlisted in a Ranger Company commanded by his friend, “Captain Jack” Ashby. Morgan spent much of his time patrolling the wilds of the Allegheny Mountain posts of Hampshire County and building stockades to defend against the marauding French and Indians. On one occasion while carrying messages to one of the forts along with two other men, Indians waylaid his party at Hanging Rock on the Cacapon River, killing his comrades. They shot Morgan in the neck, but he raced away on his horse, narrowly escaping the tomahawk of a pursuing Indian. Morgan lost consciousness from blood loss, but luckily the horse had the path to fort ingrained in her memory and carried him back to safety. Morgan remained in the Ranger Company until Col. George Washington disbanded it in October. Morgan began a period of multiple pursuits. He sojourned himself in the wilds for several months trying his hand as a hunter. He likely spent time as a militiaman in Frederick County. By 1758, however, he almost instinctively returned to the open road, hauling wheat, tobacco and hemp across the Blue Ridge to eastern Virginia commercial centers such as Alexandria, Dumfries or Fredericksburg. In driving the wagons, Morgan had found his calling. The harsh life of the teamster suited his rough and tumble personality. He quickly gained a reputation as on the leading pugilists of the Shenandoah Valley. He could often be found at Berry’s Tavern in what is now Berryville but at the time was known as Battletown because of the constant brawling that occurred at the tavern. These were brutal affairs that included wrestling, punching, choking and gouging of eyes, but Morgan reigned as the champion. Although not always victorious, the stout teamster made sure there was a rematch which he usually won. In spite of his reputation for drinking and fighting, Morgan prospered as a successful teamster, even if his brawling occasionally landed him on the docket of the Frederick County Circuit Court. In 1762, he found love with Abigail Curry who became his common-law wife, introduced him to the Presbyterian religion and bore him two girls. At her request, he cut back on drinking and brawling. He also rented a tract of land began farming marketable crops. Morgan had finally found the good life he sought in the Valley of Virginia.
With talk of independence in the air in 1774, Morgan participated in Lord Dunmore’s War. He was part of a column that operated in the Wheeling, Virginia area. They attacked Indians along the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country and drove them off, but he did not participate in that war’s decisive action at Point Pleasant. As the war drew to a close, word of the troubles in Boston circulated among the men, and Morgan was among those who committed to solidarity with the Massachusetts patriots.
Part Two will cover Morgan in the opening years of the American Revolution, so check back next week.
A life-long student of military history, Scott C. Patchan is a graduate of James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley. He is the author of many articles and books, includingThe Forgotten Fury: The Battle of Piedmont (1996),Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign (2007), andSecond Manassas: Longstreet’s Attack and the Struggle for Chinn Ridge (2011).
Patchan serves as a Director on the board of the Kernstown Battlefield Association in Winchester, Virginia, and is a member of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation’s Resource Protection Committee.
After defeating Cornstalk, Lewis and his command crossed the Ohio River and advanced to within eight miles of the Shawnee villages at Pickaway Plains (near present-day Circleville, Ohio) on the Scioto River. The built Camp Charlotte on Sippo Creek and began peace negotiations with Cornstalk. On October 19, 1774. They signed the Treat of Camp Charlotte, whereby the Shawnee agreed to cease hunting south of Ohio River and to end harassment of travelers on the river. Logan did not attend, but agreed to cease fighting. However, the Mingo refused to accept the peace terms, and Maj. William Crawford attacked their village at Seekunk (near present-day Steubenville, Ohio), destroying the village.
Lord Dunmore, the final colonial governor of Virginia
With the submission of the Shawnee, Lord Dunmore’s War ended. Dunmore began his return to the colonial capitol of Virginia at Williamsburg, proceeding by Redstone to Fort Cumberland, and on to Williamsburg. By the time that Dunmore and his troops made it back to Williamsburg, the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in Massachusetts, opening the Revolutionary War. As colonial governor of Virginia, Dunmore led the British war effort in Virginia, and by the end of 1775, the same militiamen who had fought at Point Pleasant managed to drive Lord Dunmore and the British troops supporting him out of Virginia. Dunmore’s gambit had failed miserably. Before being driven from office, Dunmore sought to form an alliance with the very same Indians he had defeated at Point Pleasant, prompting many Virginians to suspect that he had collaborated with the Shawnee from the beginning.
Lord Dunmore’s War is generally considered to be the opening engagement of the Revolutionary War. As one early historian of the Battle of Point Pleasant put it:
It will be seen by a review of the history of the colonies that prior to the Battle of Point Pleasant, not only the Colonists but England knew, as did Patrick Henry when he made his famous speech that “The War was inevitable.” The British Government seeing the fomentation in the colonies had made repeated concessions; willing to relinquish, if necessary, all but the principle of the Right of England to levy taxes upon the Colonists without giving them representation in the British Government. The Colonists were astir with intense excitement. The tea had been thrown over board in Boston Harbor and the Port had been closed by a bill passed by Parliament in March of that year. Meetings had been and were being held protesting against Royal oppression. That powerful engine of resistance, Committees of Correspondence had been formulating their ideas of resistance and the Virginia Assembly convened at Williamsburg in May, had passed an independent resolution setting forth that June 1st, 1774, should upon the making effective of the Port Bill be made “a day of fasting and prayer to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity, which threatens the civil right of America;” whereupon, the Earl of Dunmore, then Governor of Virginia, at once dissolved the Assembly. The Continental Congress had already convened and its every breath was ladened with resistance of British oppression.
Is it to be wondered at and is it not the most natural thing in the world, that Dunmore would try to devise ways and means to prevent Virginia from participating in the federation of the Colonies; and what more powerful instrument could he have set in motion to distract their attention from the clouds gathering in the East, than by setting in motion a band of howling Indians on the frontier, making it an absolute necessity that Virginia protect her homes, her women and children and her property rights, and this danger so eminent, could not be delayed. So calling together the flower of the Colonial Army of Virginia, which he promised should be united and together encounter the Indians in their homes, he should cause one branch to alone be attacked, hoping they would thus be destroyed and if only temporarily defeated, they would be so busy protecting the frontier and their homes they would have no time to go into the Colonial Army, confederated as they would be to resist the British Army, already many of whom were camping upon the plains of Boston. But to the surprise of Dunmore the Division of Lewis’ Army was victorious and the tide of American interests was changed.
Without the Army of Lewis, which was the great military training school of the Colony, many of whom went on into the Revolution and became many of them, officers of high rank, it would have been impossible for Virginia to have raised her quota of men and officers to have participated in that struggle for liberty; and without Virginia the Colonists would have thought it impossible, as it would have been, to have undertaken that struggle for independence. Without the entire support that Virginia gave George Rodgers Clark, who was in the Dunmore division, but who later conquered the North West Territory, weakening the otherwise impregnable back ground that constantly threatened the frontier and in whose territory did not close the struggle for American Independence until Wayne’s treaty twenty years later.
We think the opinions of the early writers of history we have quoted, the natural circumstances surrounding Dunmore at and previous to the Battle, makes it plain that although the battle was between the Colonists and Indians it is beyond doubt the first Battle of the Revolution, and the Government of the United States, while it has been tardy, is fully justified in making the declaration that the $10,000 appropriated for the erection of a monument is “An act to aid in the erection of a memorial structure at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to commemorate the Battle of the Revolution, fought at that point between the Colonial troops and Indians, October 10th, seventeen hundred and seventy four.” While a shaft 82 feet high will stand as a sentinel upon the site where the dead were buried, form whence the battle was directed and subsequently the fort, built, it is a pigmy as compared with the fact that at last, after a lapse of One Hundred and thirty-four years, the Congress of the United States has officially called it as it is a battle of the Revolution, and if a battle of the Revolution it must of necessity be the first, as the hallowed Lexington was not fought, until April 19th, 1775, while that of Point Pleasant, was fought October 10th, 1774.
The battle in its acquisition of territory ceded by the Indians and previously ceded by France to Virginia but literally in control of the Indians until this time, this followed by the ceding of all the vast territory of the Great North West by Virginia to the infant republic.at the close of the Revolution with the cessation of Indian hostilities following the battle, permitting the Colonists to turn their attention to the expulsion of the English army and the overthrow of the British yoke, the moral effect that it had on Virginia, and thus on the Colonies, made it the farthest reaching in its effect an battle ever fought on the American Continent.
While this strong declaration perhaps overstates the case regarding Dunmore’s motivations in commencing the war, there seems little doubt that Lord Dunmore’s War had far-reaching and unforeseen consequences for the success of the American Revolution. As mentioned above, on February 21, 1908, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Bill 160 to erect a monument commemorating the Battle of Point Pleasant that identified Point Pleasant as a “battle of the Revolution.” Unfortunately, the bill failed in the House of Representatives and was never enacted. However, a handsome monument was erected on the Point Pleasant battlefield that specifically states that the battle was the opening of the American Revolution.
Sadly, the peace established at Camp Charlotte did not last long. On March 24, 1775, just before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a renegade band of Shawnee attacked Daniel Boone along the Wilderness Road in Kentucky. In May 1776, the Shawnee then joined Cherokee chief Dragging Canoe in declaring war on the Virginia colonists, triggering the Cherokee-American Wars of 1776-1794. Little, it seems, was accomplished to secure the peace by Lord Dunmore’s War.
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.
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789. (courtesy of archives.gov)
As president of the United States, George Washington wrote the following Thanksgiving Proclamation that was published and designated Thursday, November 26, 1789, as a national day of thanks.
Although the official holiday came later when the sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln that made the national day of thanks as a national holiday.
Yet, Washington’s words, in their entirety below, still resonate today and give us a chance for reflection this Thanksgiving holiday.
Thanksgiving Proclamation
Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Go. Washington”
Besides reflection, there are events going on at historic places, this Thanksgiving weekend, that will help you experience the American Revolutionary Era.
A few to note:
At Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, the home of George Washington situated sixteen miles below Washington D.C., in Virginia, candlelight programs are scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Click here to learn more.
Check out what is going on at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts over the holiday weekend by clicking here.
At the Jamestown Settlement, in the Historic Triangle; Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, a “Food and Feasts of Colonial Virginia” event begins on Thanksgiving Day. Click here to learn more about this event. On the same trip, Colonial Williamsburg has a plethora of activities ongoing over the weekend as well and can be discovered here.
Whether you head out to one of these events or enjoy your holiday weekend with friends and family, the ERW community wishes you and yours a “Happy Thanksgiving!”
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
Col. Andrew Lewis, commander of the Virginia forces at Point Pleasant.
Andrew Lewis, another Scot, whose family had founded the town of Staunton, Virginia, led a command of the same Scots-Irish ruffians who later fought and won the 1781 Battle of Kings Mountain during the Revolutionary War. These men were fiercely independent and were known to be hard, determined fighters. They were the right men to pursue the mission laid out by Lord Dunmore.
Chief Cornstalk
Chief Cornstalk, the Shawnee leader, led a force to intercept Lewis’ force to prevent Lewis from completing his rendezvous with Dunmore’s army. The Shawnee chief led somewhere between 300-500 warriors, including the future Shawnee war chief, Blue Jacket. If they attacked Lewis’ command, they would do so with less than half the manpower. Cornstalk intended to attack Camp Pleasant, hoping to trap Lewis’ force on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River.
The Indians crossed the river on rafts about three miles upriver from the confluence of the rivers on the night of October 9. They expected to take Lewis’ camp by surprise, and they nearly succeeded. However, half an hour or so before sunrise, two men of Capt. William Russell’s company spotted the Indian war party about a mile from Camp Pleasant. The Indians shot down one of the two men, but the other escaped and brought in the intelligence that an Indian attack was imminent. A few minutes later, two men of Capt. Evan Shelby’s company brought in a similar report.
Shawnee war chief Blue Jacket.
Lewis immediately ordered his brother, Col. Charles Lewis, to take command of a division of 150 men, while Col. William Fleming assumed command of another division of 100 or so men. The following is a contemporaneous account of the battle, written a week later:
Col. Charles Lewis’ division marched to the right, some distance from the Ohio, and Col. Fleming, with his division on the bank of the Ohio, to the left.
Col. Charles Lewis’ division had not marched quite half a mile from the camp when, about sunrise, an attack was made on the front of his division, in a most vigorous manner, by the united tribes of Indians—Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, Tawas, and of several other nations—in number not less than eight hundred, and by many thought to be one thousand.
In this heavy attack, Col. Charles Lewis received a wound which, in a few hours caused his death, and several of his men fell on the spot; in fact, Augusta division was obliged to give way to the heavy fire of the enemy. In about a second of a minute after the attack on Col. Lewis’ division, the enemy engaged the front of Col. Fleming’s division, on the Ohio, and in a short time the Colonel received two balls through his left arm, and one through his breast, and, after animating the officers and soldiers in a most calm manner to the pursuit of victory, retired to the camp.
The loss in the field was sensibly felt by the officers in particular; but the Augusta troops, being shortly after reinforced from the camp by Col. Field, with his company, together with Capt. McDowell, Capt. Mathews and Capt. Stewart, from Augusta; Capt. Paulin, Capt. Arbuckle and Capt. McClannahan, from Botetourt, the enemy no longer able to maintain their ground, was forced to give way till they were in a line with the troops, Col. Fleming being left in action on the bank of the Ohio.
In this precipitate retreat. Col. Field was killed. During this time, which was till after twelve, the action in a small degree abated, but continued, except at short intervals, sharp enough till after 1 o’clock. Their long retreat gave them a most advantageous spot of ground, from whence it appeared to the officers so difficult to dislodge them that it was thought most advisable to stand as the line was then formed, which was about a mile and a quarter in length, and had sustained till then a constant and equal weight of the action, from wing to wing.
It was till about half an hour till sunset they continued firing on us scattering shots, which we returned to their disadvantage. At length, the night coming on, they found a safe retreat.
They had not the satisfaction of carrying off any of our men’s scalps, save one or two stragglers whom they killed before the engagement. Many of their dead they scalped, rather than we should have them, but our troops scalped upwards of twenty of their men that were first killed.
It is beyond doubt their loss, in number, far exceeded ours, which is considerable;
The return of the killed and wounded in the above battle, same as our last, as follows:—Killed—Colonels Charles Lewis and John Field, Captains John Murray, R. McClannahan, Samuel Wilson, James Ward, Lieut. Hugh Allen, ensigns Cantiff and Bracken, and forty-four privates. Total killed, fifty -three.
Wounded—Col. William Fleming, Captains John Dickinson, Thomas Buford and I. Skidman Lieutenants Goldman, Robinson, Lard and Vance, and seventy-nine privates. Total wounded, eighty-seven; killed and wounded one hundred and forty.
Steven T. Mitchell, who fought at Point Pleasant, left this 1827 account of the fighting:
We landed about a mile on the left-hand shore of Kanawha, and climbing a large hill, we were saluted by a hundred Indians, encamped upon the top. Our captors told their adventures, no doubt, with every aggravation; for, after the most frantic expressions of grief and rage, I was bound to a tree, a large pine tree, which stands to this day upon the brow of the hill, and the fire was kindled around me. I said my prayers; my time was come; my body felt the scorching heat: but, by a miraculous interposition of Providence, the clouds which had been lowering all day, now burst out in showers, and quenched the flames. The Indians thought the Great Spirit looked over me, and directed the shower for my safety. My bonds were loosened, and I was allowed a little jirk and hommony for my refreshment. The next day I could perceive some great expedition on foot; the Indians were running to and fro in every direction; some grinding paint and some cleaning up their arms; and even the squaws and little boys were providing themselves with hatchets and scalping knives, and strewing themselves from the Ohio river all along the cliffs of Kanawha.
Late in the evening, I saw an uncommon anxiety on the faces of the savages; councils, grand and petty, were held in various places, and so completely were my guards absorbed in the undertaking which was at hand, that they became entirely remiss in their attentions to me. I resolved to seize the propitious moment, and make my escape. I sprang: on my feet and ran as fast as my legs would carry me. A loud whoop proclaimed the event, and in a moment, I could perceive myself closely pursued by half a dozen athletic young fellows, with uplifted tomahawks. Fear added to my limbs the agility of the deer. With my head turned back over one shoulder, I bounded through the pine-trees until my speed had carried me unawares to the brink of a precipice. I tried to stop; it was too late; I gave a piercing shriek and bounded over. A rushing sound in my ears like the roaring of a mill-dam, then the crashing of branches and limbs recalled me to my recollection, and I found myself to my inexpressible delight, breaking my way through the thick branches of a buck-eye tree. I alighted without injury, and looking back upon the cliff above, could see my savage pursuers gaping over the precipice in amazement. I gave not a second look, but darted off towards the point with a heart swelling with praise to the great Creator, who had thus twice rescued me so miraculously from my enemies. Arriving at the mouth of the Kanawha, I shouted aloud for assistance. But, the whites had too often been decoyed by their own people to the savages, to be easily imposed upon. They answered me they could give no assistance. I could not swim, but my ingenuity, never fertile in expedients, befriended me now for the first time in my life. I rolled down a dry log from the bank into the water, and getting astride of it, I managed by great exertion of hands and feet, to row it across the stream, which at that time, from the great height of the Ohio, was as still as a mill-pond I was received by General Lewis, the commandant of the fort, with great cordiality and affection; and, being naked and necessitous, I enrolled myself as a regular in the corps; and, being dressed in militaire, with a tremendous rifle in my hand and a thick breast work before me, I felt as brave as Julius Caesar.
I was in hopes that I might enjoy, within the walls of a fort, some respite from the fears, toils and anxieties which had, for the last two weeks, worn me out both body and mind. But he who undertakes to settle in a new and savage country, must look out for no such respite, until, by hardihood and perseverance, he has leveled the forest, with its inhabitants, to the earth.
On the 10th of October, 1774, about sun-rise, the hunters came in at fall speed, and gave the appalling information that a large body of Indians had spread themselves from river to river, and were advancing by slow degrees, towards the fort; at the same instant, we could observe the women and boys skulking up and down the opposite banks of the Ohio and Kanawha. The position of the fort was peculiarly favourable to a surprise. As I have above mentioned, it was situated at a right angular point formed by the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. The country above the fort was covered with a heavy forest and impervious growth of underwood, through which an invading force might penetrate completely undiscovered, to the very walls of the fort. The garrison was composed of about twelve hundred men entirely Virginians, from the counties of Botetourt and Augusta. The Indians consisted of about the same number, the flower of the Shawnee, Wyandotte and Mingoe tribes, who were commanded by the celebrated “Chieftain, Cornstalk.”
From the large force which he had collected for this expedition, and from the secrecy of his movements, it was evident that the Indian Chief, in this desperate attempt to recover the country east of the Ohio river, meditated nothing less than an entire extermination of the garrison. General Lewis ordered out about seven hundred of his rangers, under the command of his nephew, Colonel Charles Lewis; with the remaining part of his troops, about five hundred in number, he determined to act as a reserve and defend the fort to extremities.
I happened to be among those who were ordered out, very much against my will; but it was neck or nothing; we advanced about three hundred yards in front of the fort, toward a deep ravine which intersected the valley at the right angles with the Kanawha. All was still as death; one moment more and a yell mingled with the roar of a thousand rifles, rung from river to river, and at the same moment every bush and tree seemed alive with armed savages. Col. Lewis was killed at the first fire, but the rangers maintained their ground, and a contest commenced more desperate and more rapidly fatal than any which had ever, been fought with the Aborigines, excepting that of Talledaga. The Indian Chief, with that promptness for seizing an advantage, and that peculiar military tact for which he was so much renowned, extended his line from the Ohio as far as it would stretch across to the Kanawha bank, for the purpose of out flanking the opposing forces. But, in the execution of this manoeuvre, he was completely foiled by the superior address and boldness of the whites who, animated with revenge for the loss of their leader and a consciousness of their desperate situation, fought with a fury that supplied the inequality of numbers, and set at defiance every stratagem of the savages.
Finding that his method of outflanking would not succeed, the Indian Chief concentrated his forces, and furiously attacked the centre of the Virginia line. The savages, animated by their warlike and noble Chieftain, Cornstalk, forgot the craftiness of their nature, and rushing from their coverts, engaged hand to hand with their stout and hardy adversaries, until the contest resembled more a circus of gladiators than a field of battle. I became desperate; hide where I would, the muzzle of some rifle was gaping in my face, and the wild, distorted, countenance of a savage, rendered more frightful by paint, was rushing towards me with uplifted tomahawk One fellow in particular, seemed to mark me as his victim; I levelled my rifle at him as he came yelling and leaping towards me, and fired. The ball missed my aim. He rose upon his toes with exultation, and whirling his tomahawk round his head, slung it at me with all his powers. I fell upon my face, and it whizzed harmless over my head and stuck into a sapling. I bounded up and forced it from the tree, but the Indian was on me and rescued the hatchet from my hands. I seized him round the waist, enclosing both his arms at the same time and tripping up his heels, we rolled together upon the ground. I at last grew furious, gouged him with my thumbs in both eyes, and seizing him with my teeth by the nose, I bit the whole of it from his face; he yelled out with pain and rage, and letting loose the hatchet to disengage my teeth, I grasped the handle and buried the sharp point into his brains. He gave one convulsive leap which bounced me from his body, and in a moment after expired. I immediately rose, and gaining a secure position behind a tree, remained there till the close of the fight, and made a thousand resolutions, if I survived this engagement, never to be caught in such a scrape again. I kept my word; for, I have never since encountered the savages, and if Heaven forgives me, I never will. There is no fun in it.
But, to return to the history of this ever memorable battle. There was a peninsula extending from a high range of bills running parallel with the Ohio river, which jutted close to the Kanawha bank, about a half a mile from its mouth. Knowing the importance of securing the narrow pass which ran between its base and the river, the Indian Chief dispatched a picked body of his troops to take possession of it. They entered the dry bed of a small creek which skirted the foot of the hills, and pursued their route unnoticed till they were about to enter the important pass, when a shower of rifle bullets pierced their body and swept down the foremost ranks. A chosen band of rangers at’ the same moment made their appearance, with whom General Lewis in anticipation had guarded the pass. A yell of surprise and rage burst from the savage line, and they seconded their returning fire by an unanimous and desperate charge with the hunting-knife. The contest now assumed all the wild and terrific cast which a personal struggle, conducted with the deadly feelings of hate and revenge then existing between the whites and Indians, could inspire. The air was filled with the screams of the savages and the deep imprecations of the riflemen; every blow brought death, and the ground was soon heaped with the corpses of the combatants. But the disappointed efforts of savage desperation were ineffectual against the unbroken and impenetrable column which was maintained by the whites; and the Indians were driven, with the loss of half their force, back upon the main body. Here, the fight still raged in the extremity of opposition, every inch of ground was contested, from behind every bush and decayed log the murderous flash arose, and the continued roar of a thousand rifles vibrated through the forest.
The savage Chieftain discovered that the chances against him were desperate, yet, by his own personal example of courage and address, was the fight long1 sustained, even after his line had been driven, step by step, from their original position. His voice could at intervals be heard, rising above the din of the fight like the shrill blast of a bugle; at one moment, his dusky form and glittering ornaments could be seen flitting through the trees upon the Ohio bank, and his war cry in the next would fill the echoes of the hill at the farthest extremity of the line. A sheering ejaculation of triumph would one moment escape him, as an advantage was gained by the de voted gallantry of some Shawnee warrior; an imprecation upon some skulking Mingoe, in a short time afterwards, would be recognized in his voice. “Charge high and aim low” was his command incessantly throughout the day; and, it is one of the circumstances remarked of that fatal fight, that most of the bullet wounds received by the whites proved mortal; but few of the wounded ever recovered. Yet, all the efforts of the old warrior were vain; defeated and discouraged, the savage army almost abandoned the fight in the latter part of the day, and it was reduced to a mere straggling fire between individuals of the contending parties.
Night closed upon the scene, yet the ground was still occupied by the two armies. Although victorious, the Virginians could neither press their advantage nor retire to rest. An ambuscade or a night attack was expected from the savages, and their behaviour warranted the latter supposition. For, behind a long line of watch-fires, they could be discovered as if cautiously examining the points most open to attack. The wild scream of a savage warrior, apparently advancing to the fight, would at intervals break upon the death-like stillness of the night, and cause my heart to leap almost out of my mouth. I confidently calculated that every moment was the time for their attack, and fancied divers times could hear them stealing through the bushes upon us. The gleams of the morning sun, however, at length illumined the scene, but not a vestige of the Indian army remained; the living and the dead had alike disappeared, and it was not until then, it was ascertained or even suspected, that the savages had secure themselves from interruption, under pretense of a night attack, had thrown their dead, with weights attached to them, in the river, and retreated across it under cover of darkness.
The next morning, Colonel William Christian marched his men over the battlefield, finding 21 dead Indians in the open, and another 12 hidden by brush and old logs. The dead included Pucksinwah, the father of the great Shawnee war chief, Tecumseh. Christian’s men also captured 40 guns, many tomahawks and other plunder.
So ended the brutal Battle of Point Pleasant. Lewis’ men held the battlefield after repulsing Cornstalk’s determined attacks, but the toll had been frightful. Lewis lost 75 killed and 140 wounded, including his brother, Col. John Lewis. Capt. Thomas Buford of Bedford County was mortally wounded and died several days later. Buford, a veteran of the Braddock Expedition during the French & Indian War, was the older brother of Col. Abraham Buford, who found infamy during the 1781 Battle of Waxhaws during the Revolutionary War. Abraham Buford and his younger brother Simeon both served in the Culpeper Minutemen, and helped to depose Lord Dunmore the next year. Simeon Buford was the grandfather of the great Civil War cavalryman, Maj. Gen. John Buford.
Indian casualties are unknown, since Cornstalk either buried the bulk of his dead, or threw them into the river. His losses had to have been similar to those sustained by Lewis. More importantly, Cornstalk’s bloody defeat at Point Pleasant brought a quick end to what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War.
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.
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 