Best Little Stories from the American Revolution

by C. Brian Kelly

  The Josiah Martin plan, proposed in June of 1775 and quickly approved in London, was this: Governor Martin himself would raise an army of 3,000 Scottish Highlander Loyalists who had settled in North Carolina in recent years. Next, British General Thomas Gage up in Boston would send Martin and his Highlanders guns and ammunition. Further, 2,000 troops would be sent southward from Boston, to arrive at Wilmington on the Cape Fear River in February 1776. And, finally, Mother England herself would dispatch a new force of seven army regiments transported in seventy-two ships, the redcoats to be commanded by Lord Charles Cornwallis.

  That latter officer and gentleman of course did come to America, together with 2,500 troops—but he wouldn’t be arriving quite on time, and even then it would be to join British forces attacking Charleston, South Carolina.

  General Gage, on the other hand, was quick to take a small step in fulfilling his part of the bargain—by sending two officers, both Highlanders themselves, to help recruit Martin’s homegrown army of Carolina Loyalists. Gage’s two officers arrived on the scene before the end of July 1775—not all that long after the first fighting of the war had broken out in Massachusetts. Martin, in the meantime, had received London’s approval of his plans, along with instructions from Colonial Secretary of State Lord Dartmouth to “lose no time” in recruiting a Loyalist army.

  But there, unfortunately for Martin and his allies, was the problem. The Scottish Highlanders at the hub of the plan were not nearly as well disposed toward the Crown as everyone had thought.

  It had seemed so made to order, too. The Highlanders, the Irish and fellow backcountry settlers had it in for the haughty planters of the coastal lowlands, didn’t they? Weren’t they neighbors, friends of the backcountry “Regulators”… in some cases even mixed with that same crowd who fought the lowlanders in the Battle of Alamance Creek back in 1771? And weren’t the arrogant planters of that day now, in 1775, the leading rebels of the colony?

  All true facts, all logical-seeming expectations, but in the actual event, only about 1,400 Highlanders responded to the royal governor’s urgent call, barely 500 of them armed for actual battle. As for the Regulators, 2,000 to 3,000 strong for their crushing defeat at Alamance Creek, it appeared they had no stomach for this fight. Only another 100 or so backcountry settlers joined the Highlanders gathering at Cross Creek. Surprising, true, but perhaps such a lukewarm attitude could have been expected, given the fact that William Tryon, Martin’s immediate predecessor as royal governor, had led the destruction of the Regulators at Alamance Creek, a debacle followed by the execution of six of their leaders.

  Whatever the possibilities, as late as January 1776, Martin expected Cornwallis to be arriving at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, but that also was not to be, since the Cornwallis force at the last moment was directed to Charleston instead.

  Under eighty-year-old Brigadier General Donald MacDonald, meanwhile, the Highlander-dominated Loyalists struck out for the coast on February 18 along the south side of the Cape Fear, but they soon were pursued by a Patriot force directed by Colonel James Moore. After some days of near-encounters, the two forces finally met at a bridge on a stream called the Widow Moore’s Creek, eighteen miles northwest of Wilmington.

  Still plagued by misfortunes or outright miscalculations at nearly every step of the campaign originally envisioned by Royal Governor Martin, the 1,500 Loyalists now lost the services of the elderly MacDonald, who had been rendered ill and exhausted by the tough march. Meanwhile, the Patriots reached the Moore’s Creek Bridge on February 26, just hours before the Loyalists camped for the night six miles away.

  The Patriots, 600 militiamen under Moore’s subordinate Richard Caswell, established their defenses at the swampy bridge site in hopes the Loyalists would be crossing it the next morning. New Loyalist commander Alexander McLeod obliged by deciding the moment had come to face the Patriots in outright battle rather than continue trying to elude them. The die was cast.

  Unfortunately for the Loyalists, their hopes of achieving some element of surprise meant slogging through unfamiliar swampy terrain in the dark from one o’clock in the morning until dawn. Their stamina already sapped by that struggle, they foolishly mounted an immediate charge against the Patriots holding the primitive span at Moore’s Creek.

  In the half-light of dawn, they didn’t realize the Patriots had removed much of the bridge flooring and greased the narrow supports remaining. Worse, Caswell and his men were waiting with rifles and even two cannon at the ready. Once the deadly fire struck the floundering, exhausted Loyalists, the battle lasted only minutes.

  Among the 850 Loyalists taken prisoner was the elderly MacDonald, and among the 30 or so Loyalists killed was his unfortunate successor as commander, Alexander McLeod. The result, for the time being, was Patriot ascendancy in North Carolina, but this was only a beginning to years of bloody civil war among Patriots and Loyalists in both Carolinas. The British, seeing the futility of Martin’s scheme of preserving North Carolina as a base for saving the South, now diverted their attention from his Cape Fear region to Charleston to the south.

  First Salute

  IT WASN’T LONG—JUST A SPEEDY FEW MONTHS, REALLY—BEFORE THE NEWLY declared American independence won its first foreign acknowledgment with the dip of a flag and a nine-gun salute for Continental Navy brig the Andrew Doria.

  And, no, the formal greeting wasn’t received in the safe harbors of France, Spain, or any other of the world’s great powers. Rather, it came from an “infertile rock” of an island in the Caribbean—a mere speck of land in the West Indies where the Leeward and Windward islands meet.

  It was an historic first, this early bow to American sovereignty accorded to the American warship on November 16, 1776, reported historian Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy in the Autumn 2010 issue of Colonial Williamsburg, of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

  The official greeting rendered by Fort Orange on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, somewhat hesitantly to be sure, “is generally regarded as the first foreign salute of the flag of the United States,” O’Shaughnessy wrote.

  The American Doria, one of the Continental Navy’s first four ships, was already the veteran of a victory in the Battle of Nassau against the British in the Bahamas. Now, the ship apparently confused the guardians of barren St. Eustatius when it first appeared before the fort. They hesitated when the ship fired its cannon, a salvo meant as a greeting. “The fort commander was uncertain whether to respond and waited for orders from the governor [Johannes de Graff] before dipping the fortress flag and firing a nine-gun acknowledgement.”

  But dip and fire they did, an historic salute to young America that would be recognized many years later by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he placed a plaque in the old fortress commemorating the event. It stated that here “the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged… by a foreign official,” as O’Shaughnessy also noted.

  And why this particular wealthy-yet-barren island in the Caribbean? Because as a free port located a goodly distance from England, it became a major supplier of gunpowder and other vital materials for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, explained O’Shaughnessy. As the “primary conduit of trade between Europe and the mid-Atlantic states and New England,” St. Eustatius was responsible for 80 percent of the ships arriving in Philadelphia and Baltimore as late as 1780.

  Boasting a harbor that could hold 200 ships at a time, St. Eustatius became known as the “Golden Rock” for its busy trade—and resultant wealth—before the Revolution had even begun. In 1781, though, the Dutch island paid a dear price for its salute to American independence. Now, the British descended—chiefly in the form of Sir George Brydges Rodney, a Tory member of Parliament but more importantly, well known as a fighting admiral despite advancing age, creeping physical ailments, and financial problems.

  Rodney arrived in February of 1781 with 15 ships and troops commanded by General John Vaughan.

  Fort Orange surviv
ed one volley from Rodney’s fleet before surrendering, a capitulation allowing the British to seize 130 merchant ships in port—50 of them American—and an estimated £3 million in supplies.

  Following the attack, financially-pressed Rodney spent three more months on the island gathering booty and arranging for its shipment back home to England, rather than press on with his wartime duties. Instead of emerging to fight the French naval forces in the Caribbean, he delegated the job to his second in command, Admiral Sir Samuel Hood. Rodney then pleaded illness and sailed for home, where a Parliamentary inquiry led by Edmund Burke awaited him.

  Many historians have argued that Rodney’s dilatory attitude allowed the French undeserved mobility in the Caribbean, thus contributing to the surrender of General Cornwallis while bottled up at Yorktown by French warships later that same year. Meanwhile, noted O’Shaughnessy, Rodney’s first interest upon arriving in Britain was not his health, “but an unannounced visit to the king [George III] to justify his actions at St. Eustatius.”

  It wasn’t exactly a successful visit at that. “He hurried from Plymouth to Windsor, where his unexpected arrival astonished and embarrassed the king, who had just returned from hunting,” O’Shaughnessy wrote. “The king deflected the admiral by pleading fatigue. As news of the British surrender at Yorktown reached London, Rodney was defending himself against critics in the (House of) Commons.”

  Indeed, Rodney’s absence from the Caribbean in the summer of 1781 “had deprived the navy of its most senior and experienced commander in North America,” the same historian added. Rodney’s own second, Admiral Hood himself, “said that Rodney would have beaten [French Admiral Francois Joseph] de Grasse in the Battle of the Capes and unlocked the only escape for the British army at Yorktown.”

  The ultimate irony was that Rodney soon would go into the history books as one of Britain’s greatest fighting admirals ever for his great victory in April of 1782 over the same de Grasse in the key Caribbean Battle of Les Saintes. For now, after this victory, even his Parliamentary critic Edmund Burke “wrote that he could crown the admiral and ended the parliamentary proceedings against him. “

  Not exactly a crown, Rodney in fact was elevated to a peerage, noted O’Shaughnessy. In addition to this honor, Rodney’s defeat of de Grasse was “one of the most decisive naval battles in the century preceding Trafalgar,” for he had kept the Frenchman from aiding in an invasion of Jamaica. Thus, “The villain of St. Eustatius had become one of the few British heroes of the American Revolutionary War.”

  As for the plundered island of St. Eustatius itself, the so-called “Golden Rock” briefly was taken over (from the British) by the French, then returned to the Dutch a year after the official end of the American Revolution. Rodney, meanwhile, after a long and difficult struggle with gout, died of that very disease in 1792.

  Personal Glimpse: Tom Jefferson

  THE YOUTH ARRIVING IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA’S CAPITAL OF WILLIAMSBURG AT the age of seventeen was tall, red-haired, shy of speaking before groups, and even given to occasional stammering.

  He was there, in 1760, to begin his studies at the College of William and Mary, and the academic process indeed was one fascination for this truly eager student. Another, however, was the political caldron known as the Virginia House of Burgesses.

  Later in life, after he was fully grown to six-feet-two, it would be seen that both centers of interest had left their permanent mark on the youthful Tom Jefferson—he would be founder of the University of Virginia and chief author of the Declaration of Independence.

  The teenager from tiny Shadwell in Albemarle County, Virginia, arrived in Williamsburg already well-tutored in Greek, Latin, French, and the classics. At William and Mary, itself tiny by today’s standards (only six professors), he quickly fell into the orbit of William Small as his primary instructor and mentor.

  This perpetually inquiring Scotsman was able to add considerably to Jefferson’s knowledge of mathematics and natural philosophy…and to become a lifelong friend who, Jefferson once said, “fixed the destinies of my life.” Through Small, Jefferson met two more influential figures: his future mentor in the law, George Wythe, and the urbane, highly affable Francis Fauquier.

  Ironically, Wythe would later be a signer of Jefferson’s Declaration, and Fauquier would fade from the scene as one of Virginia’s last royal governors.

  It was the privilege of all three older men to dine quite often in the governor’s palace with no one else but themselves and the gangling youth from Albemarle County…to be sure, it was his unusual privilege to be in their company as well.

  Also a formative influence for the fast-maturing “Man for all Seasons” was the nearby House of Burgesses, where, it so happened, some of the future nation’s Founding Fathers were grappling with the major issues of the day on a frequent, if not a daily, basis…and in an open forum that drew the young Jefferson as a spellbound onlooker.

  Remaining in Williamsburg off and on for several years, he also could be a college kid. He belonged to a secret society of six students called the “Flat Hat Club.” He visited Raleigh Tavern and like watering holes, went on long walks or runs, and attended dances with a young woman named Rebecca Burwell, who later rejected his proposal of marriage.

  Aware of the temptations in such an urbane town as Williamsburg, he nicknamed the capital city “Devilsburg.”

  As another of the young man’s early accomplishments, he played the violin—well enough, in fact, to appear in chamber ensembles. He also liked to sing on outings with his college chums, and it goes without saying that he was a spirited, knowledgable conversationalist.

  He completed his undergraduate studies and graduated from William and Mary in 1762. He then began his law studies under Wythe, often traveling the ninety or so miles between Shadwell and Williamsburg, a program he followed until admitted to the bar in 1767. He then practiced law in Williamsburg as well.

  In the meantime, since his father had died when Tom was only fourteen, he came into his inheritance at age twenty-one—a legacy that included twenty-five slaves. In 1769, still in his twenties, he began building his villa-like “little mountain” home overlooking Charlottesville, Virginia—the famous Monticello, well known today for its striking architecture and inventive devices designed to improve efficiency.

  The year 1769 would also be the very year that Jefferson became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, thus joining the distinguished company that included George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph, and others who would soon be luminaries of the Revolution. The onetime college kid who would drop in and watch the proceedings of the Burgesses would soon be as well known to the world—and to history—as any of them.

  Before traveling to Philadelphia and finding that destiny as a member of the Continental Congress, however, Jefferson took one more major step in his life, itself an echo of his college days at Williamsburg. The bride he brought to the one-room structure that was the start of Monticello one wintry night in the early 1770s was Martha Wayles Skelton, the young widow of his college friend Bathurst Skelton.

  “Royals” of America

  ONE AND ALL, THEY DID THEIR BEST TO STEM THE TIDE OF REVOLUTION ENGULFING the king’s American colonies—their own colonies, you could also say, since they were the king’s royal governors: Sir James Wright, Lords Dunmore, Campbell, and Montagu, and even Ben Franklin’s illegitimate son, William. If things had only turned out a bit differently, their names might be household words today. New Bern could be capital of North Carolina and Williamsburg capital of Virginia.

  Still fairly well known is the name Thomas Gage, legacy of the British general who not only was military governor of Massachusetts, but for a while commander of all British forces in North America. It was Gage, of course, who dispatched from Boston that small yet fateful expedition that ran afoul of the aroused Minutemen at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, with battle—and outright war—quickly ensuing.

  Also a soldier and a
general was William Tryon, royal governor of not one, but two American colonies—first North Carolina and then New York. In 1771, he led eastern North Carolina’s militia to victory in pitched battle against antiestablishment backcountry “Regulators” at Alamance Creek. Transferred to New York soon after, he would spend the better part of the Revolution as a leader of Loyalist raiding parties descending upon Patriot strongholds in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

  Another soldierly fire-eater was Virginia’s Lord Dunmore (born John Murray), once fondly known by his Old Dominion subjects for his leadership against marauding Indians on the frontier. Taking place before the Revolution, this aggressive activity was called “Dunmore’s War.” A lavish spender with an eye for the right investment, he later had to flee his former colony after offering freedom to slaves who would fight for the British. He first bombarded Norfolk and fought his former subjects at Great Bridge in a losing battle.

  Another who eventually fought his own people was the thirty-four-year-old soldier who succeeded Tryon in North Carolina: Josiah Martin. But it is Tryon’s palace that is a popular, lovingly restored historic site in New Bern today, rather than any major memorials to the obscure Martin. Almost equally invisible today are reminders of the American-born William Franklin of New Jersey, who served on the opposite side of his famous father, Benjamin. The same obscurity cloaks John Wentworth, the third New Hampshire Wentworth to serve as royal or lieutenant governor on behalf of the Crown. All three of the foregoing, even the two native-born governors, shared the usual fate of royal governors—they eventually had to relinquish their posts and flee their royal capitals.

  The Patriots were happy to see them go, while the colonial Loyalists sorely missed their protective influence. As one exception to the rule, however, Lord Montagu of South Carolina turned over his governorship to a successor, stuck loyally with the British throughout the Revolutionary War…and yet was destined to be honored in death by a Patriot monument erected at his grave.