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Nathanael Greene

The Enigma of Dr. Benjamin Church

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One man’s traitor is often another man’s patriot, depending on who does the labeling. Frequently the victor in a war dictates the label. But often the label is not that simple and clear. Such is the case of Dr. Benjamin Church, often called “America’s First Traitor.”  The problem comes from the fact that “America” did not exist at the time of his alleged treason.

Dr. Benjamin Church

Benjamin Church

Benjamin Church was born in Newport, Colony of Rhode Island, British America, on Aug. 24, 1734. A Mayflower descendant through his ancestor Elizabeth Warren Church, his heritage was steeped in the founding of the New World. His father was a merchant. His grandfather, Col. Benjamin Church, played a prominent role in King Philip’s War and led the force that hunted down and killed King Philip.

Col. Benjamin Church, ca 1675

Being the son of a prominent, well-to-do family, much would have been expected of him. He went to Boston Latin School to prepare for Harvard, from which he graduated in 1754. He studied medicine in British America for a time before continuing the study in London. In England that he met and married his wife, Hannah Hill. After his return to Boston, he started a highly successful medical practice and was known for his medical and surgical skills.

By the 1760s Church began to be seen as a supporter of the burgeoning movement in Colonial America that would eventually lead to revolution. He became a prominent member of the Whig Party and was an intimate of Dr. Joseph Warren and Samuel and John Adams. The narrow telling of the story of the American Revolution has long fostered the myth that the intended purpose of the of the Patriot movement was dissolution of the union with England. But this is completely false. Most individuals who espoused the Patriot cause were not seeking to break their English bonds but to have perceived grievances redressed within the existing system. Open, armed rebellion was not a general cause celebre before 1775.

A Leading Patriot

Residing in Boston, Church became a trusted confidant of many of the prominent patriots. In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, he treated some of the wounded and examined Crispus Attucks’ body. He was a skilled orator, and three years after the Massacre, he gave a spirited oration commemorating the event.

The Boston Massacre, engraving by Paul Revere

Church’s involvement in Massachusetts politics culminated in his 1774 election to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Thereafter, he became a prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety. To all outward appearances, Benjamin Church was a leading patriot, deeply involved in the cause. Church commanded such respect that in July 1775 the nascent Continental Congress appointed him the first director general and chief surgeon of the new Medical Department.

However, sometime in early 1775, Church began to spy for the British military, with direct links to Gen. Thomas Gage. It is not clear how much information passed between them before the fatal shots on Lexington Green. His motives are still not clear.

General Thomas Gage (John Singleton Copley)

General Thomas Gage (John Singleton Copley)

Certainly, the British paid him, and he did maintain a lavish lifestyle that required a large income. Was money the primary motivation for his ostensible change of heart? Or did he grow disenchanted with n increasingly militant patriot cause? Or was it a combination of greed and disenchantment?

The Coded Letter

There is even some suggestion, without any real proof, that he was a closet Tory. It is not likely that the truth will ever be known.  The one thing to remember – often conveniently overlooked – is that treason can be a two-way street. Under British law, the law of the land in the colonies, patriots plotting against the government hovered on the borders of treason. When they began an armed conflict against the government, then they openly committed treason under the British law that governed them.

Church passed his messages to General Gage through a series of messengers. Then in October 1775, one of Church’s former mistresses gave a coded message to a Rhode Island patriot, who turned it over to Gen. Nathanael Greene instead of passing it along. Greene then sent it onward to General Washington.

Washington had the coded letter given to two men good at puzzles. They independently deciphered the message and came up with identical results. The letter provided details of ammunition, recruiting, American strength, New York artillery and Bunker Hill casualties. It was a damning missive.

Nathanael Greene

The former mistress, described as “a very lusty woman much pitted with smallpox,” was arrested and brought to Boston. Through her interrogation and clues from the letter, its author was identified as Dr. Benjamin Church. Church was immediately arrested and brought before the war council. He admitted to sending the letter, but professed innocence of any evil intent. Church claimed he sent it as a ruse to fool the enemy about the Americans’ real situation. He further claimed that nothing in the letter could not be gleaned from public documents and knowledge.

Despite his smooth talk, his lengthy protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears.

Church’s code. Photo courtesy National Park Service.

The Dilemma of Benjamin Church

The problem came when it was time to decide how to deal with him. It was one thing to call his conduct treason, but another to give it the force of law. In open rebellion, the Colonies could not simply fall back on British law and the articles of war adopted in Philadelphia said nothing about treason or espionage. In fact, under the current legal conditions, his actions did not rise legally to a crime of any kind. The easiest thing for Congress to do was strip Church of his appointment as Surgeon General and to turn Church over to the Massachusetts to decide his fate.

Church appeared before the Massachusetts House of Representatives to plead his innocence in an hour-long oration. Again, it fell on deaf ears. The House expelled him. But Massachusetts had the same legal problem as the Continental Congress. It had no laws governing treason, so it could not pass sentence. Congress simply ordered Washington to send him under arrest to Connecticut for indefinite confinement.

He was confined in a damp, dark cell, and specifically denied pen, ink and paper. He won a brief parole when several physicians attested to his poor health in confinement. But this release did not last long, as rioters sacked his Boston house. He returned to prison for his own protection. Efforts to use him in a prisoner exchange also failed. In 1778 he was released and sent in exile to Martinique. However, he never reached his destination as his ship was lost at sea. His wife and children made their way to London. There, the King granted her a £150 pension, over £30,000 today.

Treason or Not?

For 150 years, the single intercepted letter served as the only real proof of Church’s “treason.” Then definite proof emerged in General Gage’s papers showing that he spied for the British since at least the early part of 1775. Among the information passed on by him: the existence of Patriot arms in Concord. And the British paid him for all the information he gave them.

The question remains, however: Did he commit treason? Information passed to British authorities before April 19, 1775, when the Revolution broke out, would not have risen to the level of treason. Everyone was a British subject at the time so he could not have committed treason against any government.

It can be argued that he betrayed the trust of others. But that is not a crime. After April 19, 1775, from a British standpoint, the rebels committed treason against the Crown.  So Church’s spying for British authorities, whether for money or not, served as patriotism to the mother country. Furthermore, at the time of his arrest, the colonies, while in open rebellion, had not declared independence.

Certainly, his contemporaries faced a quandary about what to do with him. Dangerous to the patriot cause, certainly, so they could not simply let him go free. But they didn’t find him guilty of anything.

Traitor or patriot? It depends on your point of view.


Bill Utley has a B.A. in History from Syracuse University and an M.A. in Criminal Justice from the University of New Haven. He has co-authored a book on the French history of Fort Niagara.  Retired from the U.S. government, he is an Army veteran and Dr. Benjamin Church’s fifth cousin, seven times removed. 

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How George Washington Recruited a Whole New Army Under British Noses

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George Washington had a problem he believed no one had ever encountered before. On January 1, 1776, the Continental Army would disappear unless Washington recruited enough men to replace it.

Somehow, he managed.

It wasn’t quite like that.

His ragtag fighting force, strung out along the hills surrounding Boston, had bottled up British troops despite having little gunpowder, inferior weapons and no heavy artillery. Nearly all enlistments expired on December 31. But somehow Washington recruited a whole new army within firing range of the world’s most powerful fighting force.

On Jan. 4, 1776, he wrote a letter to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, to explain.

“It is not in the pages of History perhaps, to furnish a case like ours, to maintain a post within Musket Shot of the Enemy for Six months together without — and at the same time to disband one Army and recruit another, within that distance, of Twenty off British regiments, is probably more than ever was attempted.”

George Washington Recruited by Congress

The Continental Congress authorized a standing army on June 14, 1775, and the next day named George Washington “captain general” of American fighting forces.

It took nine days for Washington to ride from Philadelphia to Cambridge, delayed by public demonstrations along the way. He arrived on July 2, 1775, 15 days after the Battle of Bunker Hill. He knew little about the battle, though he learned along the way that 1,000 British troops had perished during the conflict. They were still encamped on top of the hill, peppering the Americans with artillery fire.

Washington was dismayed at what he saw. Few soldiers had uniforms or tents, and they lived in shantytowns of lumber and cloth. Some lived in vacated Tory homes, in one case, 250 men to a house. They hadn’t dug latrines and the camps stank.

The officers were not only ignorant and quarrelsome but scandalously disobedient, wrote Washington’s aide Joseph Reed to Elias Boudinot on Aug. 13, 1775. “Many had proven themselves notorious cowards.”

It took him a week to find out how many men he commanded.

He thought he had 20,000. He had 16,500 and only 14,000 were fit for duty. The rest were sick or wounded. The british had 6,000, but he figured they could form a fighting force of 12,000 if they armed slaves and Loyalists left in Boston.

“We are in an exceeding dangerous situation,” he wrote to his friend Richard Henry Lee on July 10.

Gunpowder

In early August, Washington learned the shocking truth about his gunpowder supply. During a war council, he was told his men barely had enough gunpowder for eight, maybe nine rounds each.

For a half hour, Washington sat in silence before speaking again, reported one of his generals, John Sullivan.

From then on, Washington didn’t dare order a morning or evening gun fired. When the British bombarded his forces with cannonade he couldn’t order their fire returned.

General Gage by John Singleton Copley

General Gage by John Singleton Copley

Fortunately, the enemy couldn’t believe how bad things were, according to the journal of Elias Boudinot. A member of the Committee of Safety of Massachusetts knew the secret, wrote Boudinot. He deserted and went over to Gen. Thomas Gage, the British commander, and told him.

“The fact was so incredible that General Gage treated it as a stratagem of war and the informant as a spy, or coming with the express purpose of deceiving him and drawing his army into a snare, by which mean we were saved from having our quarters beaten up,” wrote Boudinot.

“Few people know the predicament we are in,” wrote Washington to his friend Joseph Reed.

Had they known, the American Revolution might have ended right then and there.

Countermoves

On November 16, Washington ordered a 25-year-old former bookseller named Henry Knox, a colonel, to ask Congress for cannon. If he couldn’t get any, he should go to Fort Ticonderoga, captured in May, to retrieve the heavy artillery.

Henry Knox by Gilbert Stuart 1806

He also sent two men – his muster-master general, Stephen Moylan, and Col. John Glover — to outfit privateers to capture unarmed enemy supply ships. On November 29, Capt. John Manley, commanding the privateer Lee, captured the British brigantine Nancy, along with thousands of musket, shot and a cannon.

Washington also knew about a lightly guarded cache of gunpowder in the British colony of Bermuda. So he asked Rhode Island Gov. Nicholas Cooke to send an armed vessel to the island to capture it. Cooke obliged, sending Abraham Whipple on the mission.

But the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. Congress also sent an armed vessel to Bermuda to steal the British store of gunpowder there. Bermudans who shared the colonies’ displeasure with Britain stole enough gunpowder to quadruple Washington’s supply. When Whipple arrived, the powder was already on its way to Washington.

The Army Dwindles

On October 31, King George III delivered a speech to Parliament declaring the Americans in open rebellion and asking for more troops to put down the uprising.

israel-potter-king-george-iii

King George III

Winter was coming. Washington’s army had few blankets and no winter clothing. Enlistments started to expire on December 1 and every man could leave on January 1.

The patriotic fervor that inspired thousands to rush to Boston had worn off. Men started to flock back home. Whole regiments packed up and left.

By late November, Washington had only 3,500 men. “Could I have foreseen what I have, & am like to experience, no consideration upon Earth should have induced me to accept this Command,” he wrote in a Nov. 28, 1775 letter to Joseph Reed.

How Washington Recruited an Army

Enlistments came in slowly. News of the army’s harsh condition had spread. Washington, too, had introduced discipline: the lash, the pillory and the court martial.

And so the army offered a signing bonus: a dollar, big money in those days.

Joseph Plumb Martin described the allure of a dollar on a drum head.

A dollar deposited upon the drum head was taken by some one as soon as placed there, and the holder’s name taken, and he enrolled . . . My spirits began to revive at the sight of the money offered; the seeds of courage began to sprout . . . O, thought I, if I were but old enough to put myself forward, I would be the possessor of one dollar, the dangers of war notwithstanding.

Some enlistees tried to game the system, waiting until the last minute to enlist in the hopes the army in its desperation would raise the bounty.

On New Year’s Eve Washington had 9,650 men – about half of what Congress authorized.

Nathanael Greene

To minimize disruption, Washington asked the men who enlisted for 1776 to join their new regiment a few days before the new year. He asked dismissed soldiers to stay longer and called up militias to reinforce the army.

On Jan. 1, 1776, Washington ordered the soldiers who didn’t reenlist to their parade grounds. They were then sent home, leaving by the hundreds and thousands.

Gen. Nathanael Greene lost three-fourths of his brigade and had fewer than 700 men.

Slowly, the Continental Army returned to its strength of 1775. The British stayed put, failing to take advantage of their enemy’s weakened position. By March, Henry Knox would arrived with his noble artillery train, and the British would soon evacuate.

This story last updated in 2022.

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Martha Washington Tries To Cheer the Troops in Cambridge

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Martha Washington thought it would be a great idea to throw a Twelfth Night party in 1776 at Continental Army headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. After all,  17th wedding anniversary and the troops needed a morale booster.

Martha Washington in her younger days

Martha Washington in her younger days

George Washington didn’t like the idea of a Christmas party in Puritan Boston — or in a time of war.

Then he changed his mind.

Subsequent generations of those who attended the party re-enacted it. So did the children of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who later lived in the house.

Martha Washington Goes To Cambridge

Martha Washington had never been farther north than Alexandria, Va., when she set out for her husband’s winter headquarters during the Siege of Boston. She had stayed close to Mount Vernon, but as the Marquis de Lafayette said, she loved her husband madly.

George in October had asked Martha to join him. She brought her son Jacky and his wife Nelly, a maid and a coachman in scarlet livery. They set out in a chariot drawn by four horses, and often picked up military escorts through the 500-mile journey. When Martha Washington arrived in town, church bells rang, crowds cheered and newspapers reported on the event.

They reached Cambridge on Dec. 11, 1775,  a signal for rejoicing in camp.

Winter Camp

George Washington takes command (the troops didn't really look that good)

George Washington takes command (the troops didn’t really look that good)

When Washington arrived in Cambridge on July 2, 1775, he was appalled by what he found. His 16,000 mostly filthy men gambled and drank all day instead of drilling. They relieved themselves in the street and piled up garbage.  Men who had never fired a musket shot themselves while trying. Massachusetts militia feuded with Virginia and no one liked the Pennsylvanians. City and country folk didn’t get along, officers quarreled and ethnic rivalries turned into fights.

There were 6,500 British troops bottled up in Boston, but that looked likely to change soon. Washington was getting reports that Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec had failed miserably. He had sent 1,100 men through rough terrain and bitter weather to block the British from sweeping down and attacking the rebels from the north. On Dec. 31, the Americans attacked Quebec, but Gen. Richard Montgomery was killed and Arnold badly wounded. The ragtag troops that survived the march and the battle tried to besiege the city, but they would fail.

Washington set about disciplining his men, with drills, work and standards of conduct. On Jan. 1, 1776, he raised a new flag and declared the Continental Army ready. He was putting on a brave front.  Many thought he would suffer an ignominious death at the hands of the world’s best trained army. The death penalty hung over him.

‘Very terable indeed’

Into that bleak and desperate place came Martha Washington. She recorded her impressions in a letter to her friend Elizabeth Ramsay, in which she wrote,

…every person seems to be cheerfull and happy hear–some days we have a number of cannon and shells from Boston and Bunkers Hill, but it does not seem to surprise any one but me: I confess I shudder every time I hear the sound of a gun–…I just took a look at pore Boston and Charlestown–

Martha noted that Boston had a number of very fine buildings, “god knows how long they will stand.” The British were pulling up the wharves for firewood. “To me that has never see anything of war, the preparations, are very terable indeed, but I endever to keep my fears to myself as well as I can…”

Vassall House

the Vassall House

The Vassall House

Martha Washington made her home with her husband in the Georgian mansion of John Vassall, a Loyalist who fled when war broke out.

She immediately relieved him of the vexing social problems that took up too much of his time. Washington received a number of visits by members of Congress, local Massachusetts officials, governors from nearby colonies and revolutionary leaders such as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. His officers, too, wanted his attention.

“Questions of social etiquette, jealousies with regard to dinner invitations to headquarters, and the like, had perplexed Washington,” wrote historian Anne Hollingsworth Wharton. “And in one of his letters to Mr. Reed he refers to “unintentional offences, which were rather owing to inattention, or more properly [to] too much attention to other matters.”

Rave Reviews

Martha created a social stir when she arrived in Cambridge. She was fashionable, outgoing, an assertive woman of means who knew how to get along with people. Her calmness boosted morale in a desperate time.

She greeted visitors with tea, oranges and vivacious conversation, and hosted frequent dinner parties for the young officers. The walls of the Vassall House resounded to talk of war and sport and frolic, wrote Dorothy Dudley and Arthur Gilman in The Cambridge of 1776.

Women were dazzled by the glamor and excitement Martha brought to Puritan Boston. Mercy Otis Warren, who became a lifelong friend, wrote,

The complacency of her manners speaks at once the benevolence of her heart, and her affability, Candor and gentleness, qualify her to soften the hours of private life, or to sweeten the cares of the Hero, and smooth the rugged paths of War…

Twelfth Night

Not long after Martha Washington arrived in camp, she decided to throw a Twelfth Night party to celebrate her wedding anniversary. Washington at first was horrified at the idea of partying in the middle of war. But then he realized “a little amusement often served to raise the spirits of both officers and men.”

They celebrated their anniversary with cake, candles and rejoicing, wrote Wharton. There would have been music, and guests would have danced the minuet and reels. Martha’s friend Lucy Knox, the pregnant young wife of Gen. Henry Knox, would have been the life of the party. Catharine Greene, the wife of Gen. Nathanael Greene, would have flirted with the officers wearing their beautiful blue uniforms.

Catharine Greene

Who else was at the party? Present at camp, and likely the party, were

  • Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, a dashing Virginian who got drunk at one of Martha’s soirees and introduced Abigail Adams to his dog;
  • Nathaniel Greene, the Rhode Island Quaker who became close to Washington;
  • Israel Putnam, the brave, nearly illiterate Connecticut farmer, another Washington favorite;
  • Thomas Mifflin, charming and elegant, a favorite of the ladies;
  • Washington’s close friend and secretary, Joseph Reed.

George and Martha Washington left Cambridge in April, after the British evacuated Boston. Eventually the Vassall House was purchased for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by his father-in-law.

Longfellow’s children carried on the Twelfth Night tradition, holding parties in which guests dressed in costumes of the guests at Washington’s party. Some were descendants of those guests.

About That Cake

Martha Washington famously served a great cake at her Twelfth Night parties. Here is the recipe:

Take 40 eggs and divide the whites from the yolks and beat them to a froth. Then work four pounds of butter to a cream and put the whites of eggs to it a Spoon full at a time till it is well work’d. Then put 4 pounds of sugar finely powdered to it in the same manner then put in the Yolks of eggs and 5 pounds of flour and 5 pounds of fruit. 2 hours will bake it. Add to it half and ounce of mace and nutmeg half a pint of wine and some fresh brandy.

This story last updated in 2022. 

Images: By Daderot at en.wikipedia – Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here. Original uploader was Daderot at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2929917.

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William Gordon, Annoying Minister, Wins Fight Over Ban on Clergy

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In debating the first Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, John Lowell, lawyer of Newburyport and Roxbury, had a proposal. Ordained ministers should be barred from serving in the state’s Legislature. William Gordon, a minister not easily silenced, launched an attack on the idea.

John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin drafting the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 in this painting by Albert Herter, which hangs in the Massachusetts Statehouse.

John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin drafting the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 in this painting by Albert Herter, which hangs in the Massachusetts Statehouse.

Minister of the Third Parish Church of Roxbury, Gordon was an outspoken man. The attack on the clergy was not something he would quietly tolerate.

The ban on clergy went nowhere due to vigorous opposition from Gordon and other ministers.

William Gordon

That the outspoken Gordon would tackle the issue head on was typical of him. Gordon had came to America from England in 1770 because of his passion for the American cause. He had no official political office, but he still crossed many of the biggest figures in Massachusetts.

He opposed John Adams’ proposed limits on amendments to the first Massachusetts Constitution. Gordon suspected the founders of the Constitution wanted to prevent future generations from tampering with their work.

“He is an eternal talker, and somewhat vain, and not accurate nor judicious; fond of being thought a man of influence at headquarters; he is a good man, but wants a guide,” John Adams wrote of him.

Gordon lost his post as chaplain of the Provincial Congress because of his outspoken criticism of Massachusetts’ first, failed effort at a Constitution in 1778.

He upbraided John Hancock for his handling of accounts as treasurer of Harvard College. The resulting bad blood prompted Hancock to abandon his country estate in Roxbury (where Gordon held sway) for Boston.

And in his opposition to slavery, he would not be silenced. He was pleased by Massachusetts’ stand against slavery in its Constitution, but believed the nation needed to be united in outlawing it.

In an article critical of the Virginia Constitution, he wrote: “’All men are born free and independent’ . . . If these are our genuine sentiments, and we are not provoking the Deity by acting hypocritically to serve a turn, let us apply earnestly and heartily to the extirpation of slavery from among ourselves.”

Three Cheers for a Pratfall

Gordon was equally mercurial in his personal dealings. Students taking religious training from him noted he liberally beat them with a birch switch. One of his former pupils recalled that following close of school on one wintery day, Gordon slipped and fell on the icy steps as he went outside. His hat and wig went flying wildly in the air.

“We shouted in high glee, and gave three cheers,” his old student said.

In another incident related in Francis Samuel Drake’s The Town of Roxbury, Gordon visited the wealthiest man in his parish, Benjamin Pemberton. Pemberton often found Gordon’s demeanor unpleasant, and on this day the minister arrived at Pemberton’s home and hitched his horse to a newly painted fence.

Pemberton asked him to move it, and Gordon refused. He then directed his servant to move the horse, and Gordon again forbade it. Eventually, Gordon rode off in anger.

The bad blood persisted between the two men to the end. On his death bed, Pemberton refused a visit from Gordon and altered his will. Instead of leaving his estate to the church, he directed it to the service of the poor in Boston.

Back to England Goes William Gordon

Finally, in 1786, Gordon departed for England. He had spent several years reviewing the papers of George Washington, Henry Knox and Nathaneal Greene. He even sought, and received, dispensation from Congress to review Washington’s private papers.

Gordon said he intended to write an account of the Revolution to further educate British citizens about the war. The mercurial Gordon would seem the perfect candidate to write a no-holds-barred account of the rebellion, tinged with his blunt observations. It should have been a page turner.

Sadly, however, it seems he was thwarted. Gordon did find a British publisher, who released his: The history of the rise, progress, and establishment, of the independence of the United States of America. But far from being a fiery tell-all, the book was flat, stilted and not well-received.

No Best Seller

The reasons were revealed in the book Principles and acts of the Revolution in America written by researcher Hezekiah Niles. In it, he tells the story of his investigation into Gordon’s book.

“In 1790 . . . I was introduced to a relative of Doctor Gordon, of whom I inquired how the doctor had succeeded in his history. He smiled and said, ‘It was not Doctor Gordon’s history’.”

Niles reports that Gordon’s English publisher told him his book was too pro-America to sell to British audiences. The publisher also said it contained numerous libels against British officers. Even if Gordon’s stories of misdeeds by British soldiers were true, his publisher didn’t think he could defend the inevitable libel claims. He therefore could not afford to publish it. Disillusioned, Gordon asked what he should do. The publisher then helped him find a writer to “fix” the manuscript.

A dry recounting of the history of the war emerged. Gordon drew much of it from public documents. He did salt it liberally with quotations from letters that show some interesting details of the day-by-day events of the war. But the book lacked any of Gordon’s bomb-throwing style. The book sold poorly, and ultimately Gordon died a poor preacher in Ipswich, England, in 1807.

This story last updated in 2023. 

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R.I. Sgt. John Smith Determines To Fight or Die in the Battle of Red Bank

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Sgt. John Smith of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment expected no mercy from the Hessian troops that would soon attack his garrison at Red Bank on the Delaware River.

It was Oct. 21, 1777, and Smith was holding Fort Mercer on Red Bank Plantation in New Jersey. The British had captured Philadelphia less than a month earlier. George Washington intended to starve the enemy out of the city. He ordered two forts built on either side of the river to block supply ships from reaching Philadelphia.

Continental Army soldiers. The soldier on the far left is from the First Rhode Island Regiment.

John Smith had enlisted for three years in the spring of 1777. His regiment consisted of Rhode Islanders from Kent and King counties, and it would later recruit African-American soldiers. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment was part of Gen. Nathanael Greene’s brigade.

The Continental Army, though outnumbered, would defeat the Hessian troops during the Battle of Red Bank on Oct. 22, 1777. The victory boosted the Americans’ morale when their outlook for the war was bleak.

View of the battleground at Red Bank. Courtesy New York Public Library.

Sgt. John Smith Writes

John Smith recorded the battle preparations in his diary:

we were Inform’d that a Party of Regulars had Landed at [blank] ferey to attacke our fort — we Remov’d all our tents & baggage into the Citidale & Every man was Employd at worke on the fort to fortify the same — between 3 & 4 o Clock 300 more troops Came here to Reinforce us — we Cut Down an orchard by the fort & hald trees Round the fort to Keep off the Enemy — we had no Disturbance from the Enemy this Day — this is tusday 21st of October — Mr. Henery holden [departed] for home by whome I sent a Letter to my wife

The next day the Hessians advanced to the woods next to the fort. Smith wrote the Hessian commander sent a flag and demanded surrender – or else they’d show no mercy and ‘put all to death.‘

18th century Hessian soldiers

An American captain answered. “We’d asked no mercy nor did we expect any.”

“We was determined to fight or die in defence of the Garrison,” wrote Smith.

The Battle of Red Bank

The flag returned and the enemy attacked, beginning with a brisk fire. The Hessians advanced with knives spades, pickaxes and saws to cut through the trees surrounding the fort. The American troops responded with a smart fire from artillery and small arms for 47 minutes – ‘as smart as Ever was Known,’ wrote Smith.

The firing continued until dark, when the Hessians retreated.

The Hessians reported more than 300 killed and wounded with 60 missing or captured, while the Americans reported 14 killed and about 25 wounded. The Hessian commander, Col. Karl von Donop, was mortally wounded.

John Smith, along with everyone in the garrison, then stayed up all night dressing the wounded.

Smith went on to survive the winter at Valley Forge.

The Red Bank battlefield is now a part of the Gloucester County parks system.


This story last updated in 2022. 

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Lt. Col. Ebenezer Huntington, Discouraged Revolutionary, Bemoans ‘Rascally Stupidity’ of His Countrymen

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On July 7, 1780, a despairing Lt. Col. Ebenezer Huntington of Norwich, Conn., had no way of knowing the United States would defeat Britain at Yorktown in a little over a year.

Lt. Col. Ebenezer Huntington was one of Washington's officers at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Painting by John Trumbull.

Lt. Col. Ebenezer Huntington was one of Washington’s officers at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Painting by John Trumbull.

He was awaiting provisions near New York with Gen. George Washington’s army of 6,650 poorly fed, badly clothed and unpaid men. That the army existed at all was a credit to Washington’s leadership. The war, at that point, was one of attrition for the colonists. All they could hope for was to keep the British bottled up in New York City and avoid annihilation.

Ebenezer Huntington was 25 years old, an ardent patriot who had left Yale College without permission on April 21, 1775, to enlist in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment . He participated in the Siege of Boston, marched with Washington to New York, and fought in the battles of Long Island, Rhode Island and Springfield.

He wrote a letter to his brother Andrew Huntington from Passaic Falls, N.J., on July 7, 1780. In it, he described the Battle of Springfield and complained about the ‘rascally stupidity’ that prevailed in the country. Clearly, Ebenezer Huntington wrote his letter in a passion.

Ebenezer Huntington Writes

He first apologized to his brother for not writing, but “our very rambly Situation will not admit of any Conveniency for writing, this I write on my knee ”

Huntington then described how the regiment took the field on March 7, 1780, “not from inclination but from necessity.” The enemy had moved so near their huts that they had to send their baggage to the rear. “We have lain in the Woods without any Covering but what the Almighty gives the Brute Creation to which State we verge fast.”

The whole army, he wrote, amounted to two-thirds of the enemy’s force. He then described how the enemy landed in New Jersey the militia harassed them. That, “for some reason induc’d the Enemy to burn wherever they went.”

Battle of Springfield

The British then maneuvered as if they intended to move up the North River. In response, Washington marched five brigades toward West Point. He left behind Gen. Nathanael Greene and 1,500 men, including John Stark’s brigade, to which Huntington’s regiment belonged.

On June 23, “the Enemy moved from Elizabeth town (to which Place they had Previously retir’d) toward Springfield where our troops lay except Parties advanced,” wrote Huntington.

Continentals repulsing the enemy at Springfield, by John Dunmore

“Our People fought them as they advanc’d but when they had got to Springfield they endeavor’d to turn our left flank at the same time pushing a heavy column toward our Centre,” he wrote. The Continentals repulsed them on the left, though the British overwhelmed the center  after 40 minutes of very heavy firing.

Then Huntington described how Col. Israel Angell’s regiment with some small detachments fought the enemy’s main force during that 40 minutes. Forty-one men were killed and wounded. “The Enemy suffered much by their own accounts,  he wrote. “Our troops behav’d well.” Greene thanked the troops.

At about 3 PM, wrote Huntington, the British retired, harassed in the rear by the Continentals. The next night they retreated to Staten Island.

What Huntington could not have known when he wrote his letter was that the Battle of Springfield effectively ended the war in New Jersey.

He left something else out of the letter, probably something he didn’t know–but which went down in history as a key moment in the battle. When Angell’s artillerymen ran low on wadding, James Caldwell, the Continental Army chaplain, brought up a load of hymn books published by Isaac Watts to use instead. “Give ’em Watts, boys,” he said.

Rascally Stupidity

His regiment began to march to join the main army on June 25, he wrote. “We lie in the Woods as stated in the beginning of this letter, hoping to be able to have tents in a few days.”

Ebenezer Huntington by John Trumbull

And then he let loose. “The Rascally Stupidity which now prevails in the Country at large, is beyond all descriptions,” he wrote. He complained that people saw their illustrious commander at the head of 2,500 or 3,000 “ragged tho’ virtuous good men,” obliged to put up with what no troops ever did before.

“Why dont you Reinforce your Army, feed them Clothe and pay them, why do you Suffer the Enemy to have a foot hold on the Continent?,” he wrote. “You Can prevent it, send your Men to the field, believe you are Americans Not suffer yourselves to be dup’d into the thought that the french will relieve you.”

“Fight your battles,” he implored. He then complained about Congress asking for foreign aid. “It is a Reflection too much for a Soldier, You dont deserve to be freemen unlefs you can believe it yourselves, when they arrive they will not put up with such treatment as your Army have done they will not serve Week after Week without Meat without Cloathing, paid in filthy Rags.”

‘All this for my cowardly countrymen’

Ebenezer Huntington continued in his letter to work himself into a froth.

“I despise My Countrymen. I wish I could say I was not born in America, I once gloried in it but am now ashamed of it,” he wrote.

“The Insults ” Neglects which the Army have met with from the Country, Beggers all description, it must Go no farther they can endure it no longer.”

He admitted he wrote in a passion. “Indeed I am scarce ever free from it.  Clothed in rags, he had lain in the rain on the ground for the past 40 hours. To eat, he had only had a “junk of fresh beef without salt to dine on this day.” He hadn’t been paid since December.

“All this for my Cowardly Countrymen who flinch at the very time when their Exertions are wanted,   he wrote.[They] “hold their Purse Strings as tho they would Damn the World, rather than part with a Dollar to their Army.”

Life improved for Ebenezer Huntington. The Americans won, of course, and he ended the war as a lieutenant colonel. He married twice, had 10 children and served as adjutant general of the Connecticut militia for 30 years. He won a promotion to brigadier general during the Quasi-War with France in 1798. He also served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.


This story was updated in 2021.

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