1778

 

__________

 

“The moment I heard of America, I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom, I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest one of my life.”

 

Marquis de Lafayette

__________

 

 

January 1: Washington’s army has been camped at Valley Forge for two weeks. Conditions are miserable.  Time-Life adds a few notes.

 

The American commander warns Congress that short of supplies, the army “must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve, or disperse….” Typhus killed hundreds.

 

General Nathanael Greene wrote, “God grant we may never be brought to such a wretched condition again!”

 

Of our soldiers: “the marvel is that they fought so bravely, endured so much, and complained so little.” (2/142)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I wrote a good piece for my classes on Valley Forge, but left the next section out, in order to reduce length. It might come in handy in other ways.

 

As always, I put words I doubted most students would know in bold and we discussed those before reading.

 

ARE THE REDCOATS EVER COMING??? 

All that winter, the British and Hessians had a force of 19,000 men stationed in and around Philadelphia. Yet, they failed to strike at Washington’s position when his army was weakest. Indeed, it has been said that Lord William Howe, the British commander, was more interested in his mistress (described by witnesses as “a flashing blonde”) than going after rebel forces.

 

Occasionally, opposing patrols had minor scrapes, often while out looking for supplies. Captain Henry Lee and a half-dozen Americans once found themselves surrounded in a farmhouse. Outside 200 British troops blocked escape. Lee kept his head, ordering his men to move from window to window, shooting as if many more were inside. “Fire away, my good fellows!”  he shouted at one point. “Here comes the infantry!” he added loudly. “We will have them all, God d--- them!” Panicked by Lee’s clever bluff, the attackers scampered for safety.

 

Another day, John McCasland, a Pennsylvania rifleman, was part of a sixteen-man patrol when they surprised a Hessian force looking for food. In the yard of an American house, a lone German stood watch. Unaware, he could not know McCasland was preparing to fire from hiding. As the rifleman made ready, he balked at what seemed to him like murder. “I did not like to shoot a man down in cold blood,” McCasland later explained. So, aiming for the enemy’s hip, he dropped him with one shot. A dozen men inside gave up immediately, waving full bottles of rum from the windows like “flags of truce.”

 

A third incident was not so bloody. An American officer, riding out alone on some errand, spied several “Redcoats” along the edge of a large field. Racing back to camp, he sounded the alarm. U.S. forces marched to investigate. Ready to storm into battle, they discovered some farmer’s wife had hung her red petticoats (underwear) over a rail fence.

 

 Once more the enemy gave up without a shot.

 

*

 

AFTER THE WAR, Baron Von Steuben was granted a farm of 16,000 acres near Ft. Stanwix. New York. He died there in 1794 (97/175)

 

*

 

PAIGE SMITH notes that many women “raised money for the Continental Army by soliciting door to door, and others sewed shirts for the soldiers.” Often, they embroidered their initials on them.

 

A French officer was shown a room in Philadelphia with 2,200 shirts made for the troops. (45/66)

 

Van Loon notes of Washington and his men,

 

By this time they had suffered so much through the inefficiency and indifference of Congress, that the callousness of a few Pennsylvania farmers, who sold all their produce directly to the British (whose pockets were filled with golden sovereigns) and let their own countrymen starve (because they could not pay cash) was merely an unpleasant experience to be forgotten as soon as the actual fighting was resumed. (124/208-209)

 

He describes Franklin’s career: 

He invented a new sort of type. He experimented with the ink used on the press of his Pennsylvania Gazette. He taught himself Latin, Spanish, French and Italian. He helped found the American Philosophical Society. He was postmaster-general for the colonies and speeded up the mail service until New York had three Philadelphia deliveries every week. He was the first successful rebel against the Puritan Sabbath and spent his Sundays perusing his own studies instead of listening to the secondhand wisdom of someone else. He studied the cause of earthquakes, perfected the well-known Franklin stove and gave his native city an adequate system of street lighting. He received the Copley medal of the Royal Society in London for his new-fangled invention known as the Franklin-rod and since introduced into all parts of the world as the lightning-rod. Under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders he printed an annual little book which became known as Poor Richard’s Almanac and which was on every Christmas table in America during the latter half of the eighteenth century. He opened and operated the first public lending library. He was a member of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for thirteen years. He was colonial agent in London for his own state, for Georgia, for New Jersey, and for Massachusetts. And when at home he used to cart the paper necessary for his many publications by his own hand from the warehouse to the print shop so that his neighbors might see but that he did not consider himself too good for this job and intended to remain plain old Ben Franklin,  the printer. (124/215-216)

 

How did Franklin coax the French into an alliance? 

By the simplest of expedient, by absolutely remaining himself.

 

The immensely bored courtiers of King Louis, accustomed to the dull formality and the affectations of their own little Versailles, suddenly found themselves face to face with a pleasant old man in a beaver cap and a coat of the vintage of the year 1730, who talked to them as if they had been his own grandchildren and who, if they were very good, might give them a hickory nut or an apple, “grown in his own garden.”

 

Thank heaven, here at last was something new.

 

France went wild about this philosopher from the backwoods.

 

In less than a month, everyone in the whole country knew the old man at least by sight. Peddlers carried his engraved portraits and plaster-cast busts from the Pyrenees to the Meuse. Every snuff-box and shaving-mug, in order to be up-to-date, must show the benign countenance of the “Apostle of Liberty.” Lovely ladies wore Franklin bracelets and rings. The populace at large went Franklin mad and only a man with the iron constitution of the old printer could hope to eat his way through the endless official banquets, luncheons and suppers that were arranged in honor of this most distinguished guest and live. (124/219-220)

 

 

Until Franklin began to work his magic, the French viewed Philadelphia as if “it was the last station before the planet Mars.” (124/225)

 

* 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS says that it was a rule in school, from 1778 to 1786, that every hoop, sled, and boyhood possession should in some way bear thirteen marks, for the Thirteen Colonies. (226/172)

 

*

February 6: France recognizes the United States, and the two nations agree to a formal alliance. (According to Lancaster and Plumb, the French had been impressed not only by the American victory at Saratoga, but the “display of strength and moral at Germantown.”

 

* 

SIR HENRY CLINTON, who has taken over command from Lord Howe is ordered, on news that France has joined the war, to send 5,000 of his troops to the West Indies, for attacks on St. Lucia, and 3,000 more to St. Augustine. 

Clinton also decides to move his army out of Philadelphia, and head for New York City – opening up his strung out troops and wagon train to attack. Washington called a council of war, which he often did. (Hamilton compared these meetings to gaggles of midwives.) Gen. Charles Lee was “passionately opposed” to any strike at Clinton’s force. (48/204-206) 

June 28: The Battle of Monmouth again shows that the Continental Army can stand up to the best British and German professionals – but Charles Lee helps ruin American chances when he orders an untimely retreat. Washington’s army suffered 500 casualties, the enemy 600, and Clinton stole away in the darkness and kept on toward New York.

 

* 

July 5: Warfare in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania takes a bloody turn. Ridpath describes events: 

[The Tory] major John Butler, commanding sixteen hundred loyalists, Canadians and Indians marched into the valley of Wyoming, Pennsylvania. The settlement was defenceless. On the approach of the of the Tories and savages, a few militia, old men and boys, rallied to protect their homes. A battle was fought, and the patriots without discipline or efficient command were routed. The fugitives fled into a rude fort which they had erected and which was soon crowded not only with the militia, but with the women and children of the settlement. Honorable terms were promised by Butler, and the garrison capitulated. On the 5th of July the gates were opened and the Canadians entered followed by the Indians. The latter and some of the former immediately began to plunder and kill. The passion of butchery rose with the work and nearly all the prisoners fell under the hatchet and the scalping knife.

 

* 

September 17: Article V of a treaty signed with the Delaware Indians states: 

The United States do engage to guarantee to the aforesaid nation of Delawares, and their heirs, all their territorial rights in the fullest and most ample manner as it hath been bound by former treaties, as long as they the said Delaware nation shall abide by and hold fast the chain of friendship now entered into. And it is further agreed on between the contracting parties should it for the future be found conducive for the mutual interest of both parties to invite any other tribes who have been friends to the interest of the United States, to join the present confederation, and to form a state whereof the Delaware nation shall be the head, and have a representation in Congress: Provided, nothing contained in this article to be considered as conclusive until it meets with the approbation of Congress. (125/131)

 

* 

September 23: General Washington served without pay during the war. Lafayette (Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette) did likewise. 

In hopes of landing a commission, the young Frenchman wrote to Henry Laurens, a congressman, “The moment I heard of America, I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom, I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest one of my life.” 

After the French Revolution, with Lafayette in prison, his son, George Washington Lafayette, was “cherished and fathered at Mount Vernon as one of the family.” (109/69) 

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It might be interesting to ask students what their families did after the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 – that is, what share in defending the country they played. 

My own family played no role. 

At some point, I read of a man killed on his thirteenth combat tour in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this the way it should be? 

Perhaps a better question to ask students today would be: “If the United States was attacked, and assuming you were old enough to serve, what would you do?” 

Not all students will realize you can enlist at age 17, with parental permission. Few will know how a draft works.

 

* 

November 11: Ridpath notes that a similar massacre occurred at Cherry Valley, New York. In this instance, Joseph Brandt and Walter Butler, son of John, led the invaders. “The people of Cherry Valley were driven from their homes without mercy. Women and children were tomahawked and scalped, and forty prisoners carried into captivity by the Indians.” (1219/221)   

Ridpath has a different way of describing what followed: 

To avenge these outrages, an expedition was organized and sent against the villages in the Onondaga Valley. The commanders were Colonels Gansevoort and Van Schaick. The Americans made their way unexpectedly into the Indian country. It chanced that a fog concealed the approach of the Whites until they were already in the Indian villages. Three of these were destroyed. A number of warriors were killed, and thirty-three taken prisoners. Most of the savage inhabitants fled away. The horses and cattle were slaughtered, and in six days the exhibition returned to Fort Schuyler without having lost a man. Thus in their turn the Red men were made to feel the terrors of lawless war. (1219/221)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I might copy the section above and ask students for their reactions. How would a resident of the three villages burned by American troops describe what had occurred? 

It strikes me as quite telling that the American expedition did not lose a man. You wonder what kind of defense the natives could have mounted – and wonder if the prisoners were women and children – which Ridpath does not specify.

 

* 

“The redemption of America from barbarism.” 

In this depiction, a later artist captures Jane Wells, pleading for her life, as a “savage” prepares to tomahawk her. Wells was one of thirty non-combatants killed in Cherry Valley. The engraving is by Thomas Phillibrown, from an original painting by Alonzo Chappel. 

Ridpath continues: 

The year was marked by more than a score of thrilling episodes in which brave frontiersmen either perished in defense of their homes or exhibited extraordinary courage in successful efforts to beat back the savages. Among the more distinguished heroes of this. Were the Bradys and Wetzels, whose valorous deeds have served to perpetuate their names until the annals that describe the redemption of America from barbarism are no longer printed. The Bradys were singularly marked as victims of Indian savagery. Captain John Brady, a brave pioneer was assassinated by three Indians as he was riding along a highway. James, the son of John Brady, with three companions, was set upon by a company of Indians; his comrades deserted at the first signs of danger, but he stood his ground and disdaining all overtures for surrender, fought with his back to a tree until ten bullets from guns of his enemies extinguished his brave life.

 

An elder brother, named Samuel, swore to avenge the death of James and thereafter devoted many years to satisfying his vengeance, in which service he rose to the very pinnacle of fame as a scout of unexampled daring, who passed through perils greater and more numerous perhaps than beset any other pioneer.

 

Equally famous as the Bradys were the Wetzel brothers, whose dashing daring has been made the subject of many a thrilling tale of adventure with Indians. The father, John Wetzel, built a cabin in the Ohio Valley, but he had scarcely become settled and begun clearing some of his ground when one day while working in the woods he was pitilessly murdered by lurking savages. Though a man indisposed to strife himself he was father of five sons who became desperados in their unappeasable thirst for a bloody vengeance. The eldest of these, named Martin, was soon after made captive by a band of Indians to whose life he adapted himself in order the more effectually to satisfy his desire for vengeance. While thus living on apparently amiable terms with the tribe into which he was adopted he contrived to kill no less than twenty before his criminal intents were discovered, and by this time he had retreated and was a leader of the settlers. Each of the brothers in turn became a sleuth-hound upon the tracks of the Indians, slaying at every opportunity and ever demanding the blood of atonement for their father’s slaughter.

 

The youngest of the Wetzels was Lewis and he was the most implacable of the five. So great was his thirst for vengeance that when in 1787-88 efforts were made by General Harmar to make a treaty of peace with Indians, Lewis opposed such temporizing measures and with many other settlers preferred to have the war go on until the savages were exterminated. When, therefore, a council was called at Fort Harmar, Wetzel waylaid and shot an Indian who on the way to the treaty ground. This act created such intense indignation that General Harmar set a price upon Wetzel’s head, which incentive prompted a company of soldiers to set out upon his tracks and after a week’s pursuit they arrested him while he was sleeping in the house of a friend. Securing him with heavy manacles they carried the desperate Indian hunter back to the fort, where he was kept under a close guard for some weeks. At length relaxing somewhat his severity under specious promises of the prisoner General Harmar permitted Lewis to exercise about the fort, but always under strict surveillance of two or more guards and never without handcuffs upon his wrist. On one occasion, however, Wetzel seized the small opportunity offered for his escape and made his surprising dash for liberty. The guards were quick to detect his bold maneuver and each fired at the fugitive but without effect. Running like a deer Wetzel plunged into a thicket, baffled all pursuit and managed to cross the Ohio, where he met a friend who relieved him of his fetters and he returned to his old vocation of killing Indians. Subsequently he was again arrested, but the settlers rallied to his defence and threatened an insurrection if he was not released. Under this pressure the court granted a writ of habeas corpus and again he was free. He was the hero of many escapades thereafter which were by no means creditable to his reputation as an Indian fighter, but desperado as he was, Lewis Wetzel died a natural death at Wheeling in the summer of 1808. (1219/221-223)