Inspiration for Today's World

Category: Patriots (Page 2 of 2)

Caesar Rodney

Caesar Rodney may very well be one of those unknown patriots of the American Revolution that people see every day. If you were asked who is the man in the tricorn hat riding a horse on Delaware’s State Commemorative Quarter, most say Paul Revere but they are wrong. The State quarter, one of only a few dedicated to a person is dedicated to Caesar Rodney. So why such an honor? Rodney was an officer of the Delaware militia during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and President of Delaware during most of the American Revolution.

The family, from which Caesar Rodney was descended, was of ancient date, and is honorably spoken of in the history of early times. We read of Sir Walter De Rodeney, of Sir George De Rodeney, and Sir Henry De Rodeney, with several others of the same name, even earlier than the year 1234. Sir Richard De Rodeney accompanied the gallant Richard Coeur de Lion in his crusade to the Holy Land, where he fell, while fighting at the siege of Acre. Caesar Rodney, himself, was born on his father’s farm near Dover, Delaware, in October of 1728. He was tutored by his parents and may have attended a local Parson’s school, but received no formal education.

The Rodney’s were, by the standards of the day, wealthy members of society. Sufficient income was earned from the sale of wheat and barley to the Philadelphia and West Indies market to provide enough cash and leisure to allow members of the family to participate in the social and political life of Kent County. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Crawford, Anglican rector of Christ Church at Dover. Caesar Rodney was identified as an Episcopalian in the book, “A History of Delaware Through its Governors 1776-1984 by Roger A. Martin.” His maternal grandfather was an esteemed clergyman.

His father died when Caesar was 17 and was placed in the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely who was a clerk of the peace in Kent county, and this seems to be the root of Rodney’s life in politics. In 1755, under the royal government, Rodney was commissioned High Sheriff of Kent County Delaware. This was quite a distinction for a man twenty-two years of age and he apparently honored the distinction, for in succeeding years his official capacities grew to include registrar of wills, recorder of deeds, clerk of the orphan’s court, and justice of the peace. At age thirty he attained his first elected office as a representative in the colonial legislature at Newcastle. He served in that position, reelected each year except 1771, until the legislature was dissolved in 1776-and then resumed the seat as a representative to the Upper House of the State of Delaware until 1784.

Because of Rodney’s later military experience, he was named Brigadier General of Delaware’s militia. As Delaware and the other colonies moved from protest to self-government and then to independence, the situation in strongly loyalist Kent and Sussex County rapidly deteriorated. Numerous local leaders spoke strongly in favor of maintaining the ties with Great Britain. Rodney and his militia were repeatedly required to suppress the resultant insurrections. Some of the Loyalists were arrested and jailed, some escaped to the swamps or British ships, and some just remained quietly resistant to the new government.

Caesar Rodney’s fame was generated by his famous nighttime ride. Rodney served in the Continental Congress along with Thomas McKean and George Read from 1774 through 1776. Rodney was in Dover attending to Loyalist activity in Sussex County when he received word from Thomas McKean that he and Read were deadlocked on the vote for independence. To break that deadlock, Rodney rode 70 miles on horseback through a thunderstorm on the night of July 1, 1776, arriving in Philadelphia “in his boots and spurs” on July 2, just as the voting was beginning. He voted with McKean and thereby allowed Delaware to join eleven other states in voting in favor of the resolution of independence. The wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved two days later; Rodney signed it on August 2. Backlash in Delaware led to Rodney’s electoral defeat in Kent County for a seat in the upcoming Delaware Constitutional Convention and the new Delaware General Assembly.

Rodney remained a leading patriot in his colony, a member of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, a formative member of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence, a military leader in the colonial militia, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from formation until 1777. The following year he was elected President of the State of Delaware for a three year term, a duty that he assumed even as he served as Major-General of the Delaware Militia. In this office he played a crucial part not only in the defense of his own colony but in support of Washington’s Continental Army, for Delaware had a record of meeting or exceeding its quotas for troops and provisions throughout the revolutionary conflict. Rodney’s health and strength flagged for a time. He suffered from asthma and from a cancerous growth on his face, for which he never attained proper treatment. He saw his colony through the war at the cost of personal neglect.

In 1782 he was again elected to the national Congress, but was forced to decline the office due to failing health. He nonetheless continued to serve as Speaker to the Upper House of the Delaware Assembly. He died in that office, in June of 1784 of cancer.

Information was taken from the following references:
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/rodney.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_Rodney
http://colonialhall.com/rodney/rodney.php
http://www.adherents.com/people/pr/Caesar_Rodney.html

Molly Pitcher

It is hard to tell how much of Molly Pitcher’s life is a folktale and how much is fact. Most of her story is attributed to Mary Ludwig Hays who earned her nickname from carrying water to infantry troops on hot days. Legend has it she also baked delicious food, washed clothes and blankets, and cared for sick and injured soldiers. Her most famous story took place at the Battle of Monouth Court House in June of 1178 So who really is Molly Pitcher?

“Molly Pitcher” was a common nickname for women who carried water to the troops during the war since water was typically carried in a pitcher. History assigns the names of Mary Hays, Mary Ludwig Hayes, Mary Ludwig McCauley, Margaret Corbin and Molly Pitcher to the same person. However, there were more than one.

Mary Ludwig was born to a German family in Pennsylvania. There is some dispute over her actual birth dates. A marker in the cemetery where she is buried lists her birth date as October 13, 1744. Mary had a moderate sized family including Mary and her older brother Johann Martin, and their parents, Anna Margaretha (Wildt) and Hans Georg Ludwick, who was a butcher. It is likely that she never attended school or learned to read, as education was not considered necessary for young girls during this time. At the age of 13, she went to work as a domestic servant. During the same year (still13 years old) she married a man by the name of William Hays (a barber). On July 12, 1774, in a meeting in the Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Dr. William Irvine organized a town boycott of British goods as a protest of the British Tea Act. William Hays’ name appears on a list of people who were charged with enforcing the boycott. When the Revolutionary War began, William enlisted and became a gunner in the Pennsylvania Artillery. Mary eventually joined her husband as a camp follower during the Philadelphia Campaign (1777-1778) in New Jersey eventually wintering with the Army at Valley Forge.

Her name, Molly Pitcher, came as a result of her actions at the Battle of Monmouth Court House. Departing Valley Forge in June 1778, General George Washington moved his army across the Delaware River with goal of attacking General Sir Henry Clinton as his troops marched from Philadelphia to New York. On June 28, Washington dispatched Major General Charles Lee with 5,000 men to assault the British rear guard near Monmouth Court House, NJ. Lee mismanaged the fight and was forced to retreat with the British in pursuit. As Lee feel back, Washington advanced with the main army and rallied the troops. Repeated British attacks were beaten off before the fighting ended with both sides ultimately claiming victory. At the Battle, Mary Hays attended to the Revolutionary soldiers by giving them water. Just before the battle started, she found a spring to serve as her water supply. Two places on the battlefield are currently marked as the “Molly Pitcher Spring.” Mary Hays spent much of the early day carrying water to soldiers and artillerymen, often under heavy fire from British troops.

The weather was hot, over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometime during the battle, William Hays collapsed, either wounded or suffering from heat exhaustion. It has often been reported that Hays was killed in the battle, but it is known that he survived. A witness to the scene describes a husband and wife, Mary and William, working together: “A woman whose husband belonged to the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time. While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.”

Later in the evening, the fighting was stopped due to gathering darkness. Although George Washington and his commanders expected the battle to continue the following day, the British forces retreated during the night and continued on to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The battle was seen as a major victory for the Continental Army. After the battle, General Washington asked about the woman whom he had seen loading a cannon on the battlefield. In commemoration of her courage, he issued Mary Hays a warrant as a non-commissioned officer. Afterwards, she was known as “Sergeant Molly,” a nickname that she used for the rest of her life.

At the close of the War, William and Mary Hays returned to Pennsylvania. They settled in Carlisle where Mary went back to work as a domestic as well as a “charwoman” (a woman employed to clean) in the State House in Carlisle. After the death of William, Mary remarried another Revolutionary War veteran by the name of John McCauley. She was awarded a pension in 1822 by the Pennsylvania State Legislature and it wasn’t until the anniversary of the War in 1876 that a marker noting her exemplary service was placed on her grave. She died on January 22, 1832.

Another probable source for the legend of “Molly Pitcher” is the true story of Margaret Corbin, which bears many similarities to the story of Mary Hays. Margaret Corbin was the wife of John Corbin of Philadelphia, also an artilleryman in the Continental army. On November 12, 1776, John Corbin was one of 2,800 American soldiers who defended Fort Washington in northern Manhattan from 9,000 attacking Hessian troops under British command. When John Corbin was killed, Margaret took his place at the cannon, and continued to fire it until she was seriously wounded. Her arm was almost severed and her breast was lacerated by grapeshot. In 1779, Margaret Corbin was awarded an annual pension by the state of Pennsylvania for her heroism in battle. Margaret was the first woman in the United States to receive a military pension. She lived until about 1800 after receiving charity payments from the Invalid Regiment and later a small pension from Congress. She was known throughout her community as a bad-tempered, hard-drinking eccentric by the nickname of “Captain Molly!”

Information was taken from the following references:
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bke1/biographies/bk_template.jsp?name=pitcherm&bk=bke1&authorname=pitcherm&state=ca
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/070.htm
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars16011800/p/Monmouth.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Pitcher

James Otis Jr.

James Otis Jr.James Otis was an American political activist during the period leading up to the American Revolution. He helped formulate the colonists’ grievances against the British government in the 1760s. Son of the elder James Otis, who was already prominent in Massachusetts politics, the younger Otis graduated from Harvard College in 1743 and was admitted to the bar in 1748. He moved his law practice from Plymouth to Boston in 1750. His reputation was built mainly upon his famous challenge in 1761 to the British-imposed Writs of Assistance. Arguing before the Superior Court in Boston, Otis raised the doctrine of natural law underlying the rights of citizens and argued that such writs, even if authorized by Parliament, were null and void. Going back to fundamental English constitutional law, Otis offered the colonists a basic doctrine upon which the Founding Fathers could draw for decades to come. At this time he also reportedly coined the oft-quoted phrase “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

James Otis Jr. was born in West Barnstable, Massachusetts (Cape Cod) on February 5, 1725. He was the second of thirteen children and the first to survive infancy. His sister Mercy Otis Warren, his brother Joseph Otis, and his youngest brother Samuel Allyne Otis became leaders of the Revolution, as did his nephew Harrison Gray Otis. His father, Colonel James Otis, Sr., was a prominent lawyer and militia officer.

In 1755 James married Ruth Cunningham, a merchant’s daughter and heiress to a fortune worth 10,000 pounds. Their politics were quite different, yet they were attached to each other. Otis later “half-complained that she was a ‘High Tory,'” yet in the same breath “she was a good wife, and too good for him.” The marriage produced three children (James, Elizabeth and Mary). Their son James died at the age of eighteen, and their daughter Elizabeth, a Loyalist like her mother, married Captain Brown of the British Army and lived in England for the rest of her life. Their youngest daughter, Mary, married Benjamin Lincoln, son of the distinguished Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln.

Otis graduated from Harvard in 1743 and rose meteorically to the top of the Boston legal profession. In 1760, he received a prestigious appointment as Advocate General of the Admiralty Court. He promptly resigned, however, when Governor Francis Bernard failed to appoint his father to the promised position of Chief Justice of the province’s highest court; the position instead went to longtime Otis opponent Thomas Hutchinson. In a dramatic turnabout following his resignation, Otis instead represented pro bono the colonial merchants who were challenging the legality of the “writs of assistance” before the Superior Court, the predecessor of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. These writs enabled British authorities to enter any colonist’s home with no advance notice, no probable cause and no reason given. James Otis considered himself a loyal British subject. Yet in February 1761, he argued against the Writs of Assistance in a nearly five-hour oration before a select audience in the State House. His argument failed to win his case, although it galvanized the revolutionary movement. In his oration against the writs, John Adams recollected years later, “Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities.” Otis is quoted to have said, “A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court may inquire.”

John Adams promoted Otis as a major player in the coming of the Revolution. Adams said, “I have been young and now I am old, and I solemnly say I have never known a man whose love of country was more ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never one whose service for any 10 years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770.” The challenge to the authority of Parliament by Otis made a strong impression on John Adams, who was present, and thereby eventually contributed to the American Revolution. In a pamphlet published three years later, in 1765, Otis expanded his argument that the general writs violated the British constitution referencing his argument back to the Magna Carta. Otis was elected in May 1761 to the General Court (provincial legislature) of Massachusetts and was reelected nearly every year thereafter during his active life. In 1766 he was chosen speaker of the house, though this choice was negated by the royal governor of the province.

In September 1762 Otis published A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in defense of that body’s rebuke of the governor for asking the assembly to pay for ships not authorized by them, though those ships were sent to protect New England fisheries against French privateers. Otis also wrote various state papers addressed to the colonies to enlist them in the common cause, and he also sent such papers to the government in England to uphold the rights or set forth the grievances of the colonists. His influence at home in controlling and directing the movement of events toward freedom was universally felt and acknowledged, and few Americans were so frequently quoted, denounced, or applauded in Parliament and the British press before 1769. In 1765 he was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, and there he was a conspicuous figure, serving on the committee that prepared the address sent to the House of Commons.

James Otis DeathOtis suffered from increasingly erratic behavior as the 1760s progressed.James Otis’s Death Otis received a gash on the head by British tax collector John Robinson’s cane at the British Coffee House in 1769. Some attribute Otis’s mental illness to this event, but this is in dispute as the cause of Otis’s illness. John Adams has several examples in his diary of Otis’s mental illness well before 1769. By the end of the decade, Otis’s public life largely came to an end. Some believe Otis was a manic depressive or schizophrenic and that his illness could be successfully treated today. Otis was able to do occasional legal practice during times of clarity.

Unique in his era, Otis favored extending the basic natural law freedoms of life, liberty and property to African Americans. He asserted that blacks had inalienable rights. The idea of racial equality also permeates Otis’s Rights of the British Colonies. Otis died suddenly in May 1783 at the age of 58 when, as he stood in the doorway of a friend’s house, he was struck by lightning. He is reported to have said to his sister, Mercy Otis Warren, “My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity that it will be by a flash of lightning”

Information was taken from the following references:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/434697/James-Otis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Otis,_Jr.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1204.html

Hercules Mulligan

Hercules Mulligan was born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1740. He moved to New York City with his family when he was six. After attending Kings College, the forerunner of Columbia University, Mulligan decided to become a tailor. This would be a very good career choice that would reward him handsomely and place him in a position to become an important player in our country’s struggle for freedom.

Mulligan opened his first shop on Water Street, near Lower Manhattan’s busy East River wharves. Mulligan later relocated to 23 Queen Street (today’s Pearl Street). His customers included wealthy British businessmen and high-ranking military officers. What those fine gentlemen weren’t aware of was that the genial Irish proprietor was one of the most ardent patriots in the colonies.

Mulligan took up the patriot cause at least a decade before the start of the Revolutionary War. In 1765, he joined the Sons of Liberty, an underground group that engaged in anti-British agitation. In January 1770, he fought in the Battle of Golden Hill, a skirmish with British soldiers that was one of the first violent incidents leading up to the Revolution. In the summer of 1775, he helped the Sons of Liberty steal a cache of muskets from the city armory. Mulligan was also a member of the New York Committee of Correspondence, a group that rallied opposition to the British through written communications.

On July 9, 1776, he led a group of patriots to New York’s Bowling Green, a park at the lower end of Broadway. In the center of the oval greensward stood a hated symbol, a huge gilded statue of King George III, perched regally astride a horse. Mulligan and his fellow Sons of Liberty broke through the iron fence surrounding the park and toppled the gleaming British monarch, hacking the statue apart. Beneath its gold gilt, the statue was made of lead, which colonists melted down and cast into bullets to be used against the British.

Mulligan’s career as a spy came about through sheer coincidence. In 1773, he and his wife took in a young boarder named Alexander Hamilton. Born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, Hamilton had later moved to St. Croix. In his mid-teens, Hamilton left the islands to complete his education in the American colonies. He brought with him a letter of recommendation addressed to Mulligan’s older brother Hugh. Hugh introduced Hamilton to Hercules, and when Hamilton enrolled in Kings College, Hercules invited the slender, reddish-haired young man to board with his family.

Hamilton often shared his evenings with the Mulligans, taking part in serious political discussions with their friends. Up until this time, Hamilton had supported British rule over the colonies, but as he listened to his impassioned host make the case for liberty, he gradually came to share Mulligan’s views. Hamilton joined the Sons of Liberty, and in February 1775—at the age of 18—he wrote a lengthy essay that persuasively laid out the case for independence. Hamilton’s essay caused a sensation and helped hasten the Revolution.

In July 1776, Hamilton assumed command of an artillery company and fought in several early battles around New York. However, Hamilton was known more for his writing than his military prowess. In March 1777, General Washington made him his aide, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. For the next four years, Hamilton handled all of Washington’s correspondence, becoming intimately involved in every facet of the war effort, including intelligence operations.

General Washington depended on good military intelligence, and he employed a wide network of “confidential correspondents (spies)” to supply it. When Washington spoke of his need for reliable information from within New York City—which the British had held since the Continental Army was driven out in September 1776—Hamilton recommended his friend Hercules Mulligan.

Washington already had a handful of spies in New York, but as a tailor to British officers, Mulligan was ideally placed. Mulligan agreed to the arrangement and soon proved his worth. In the winter of 1779, he picked up a piece of information that literally saved the commander in chief’s life. Late one evening, a British officer called at Mulligan’s shop to purchase a watch coat. Curious about the late hour, Mulligan asked why the officer needed the coat so quickly. The man explained that he was leaving immediately on a mission, boasting that “before another day, we’ll have the rebel general in our hands.”

As soon as the officer left, Mulligan dispatched his servant to advise General Washington. Washington had been planning to rendezvous with some of his officers, and apparently the British had learned the location of the meeting and intended to set a trap. Thanks to Mulligan’s alert, Washington changed his plans and avoided capture.

Two years later, Mulligan warned Washington about a second attempt to waylay him. This time, Mulligan’s brother Hugh played a crucial role. Hugh’s import-export firm did considerable trade with the British military.

In February 1781, the British placed a rush order for provisions to be loaded onto a transport ship. Hugh casually asked the British commissary officer in charge what the supplies were for. The officer revealed that 300 cavalrymen were being dispatched to New London, Connecticut, to intercept General Washington as he traveled to Newport to confer with French General Rochambeau. Hugh Mulligan passed the information to his brother, who relayed it to Washington’s camp. Washington altered his route to Rhode Island and arranged a surprise welcome for the British forces.

When the war finally ended in 1783, anyone who’d supported the British was in potential danger. Many Loyalist homes and businesses were destroyed. A few New Yorkers may have felt that Hercules Mulligan had been a bit too friendly with the British. No one but Washington and his staff knew of the valiant efforts of his spies. Worried about his confidential correspondents, Washington made a point of personally visiting each of them and very publicly thanking them for their contributions. The morning he arrived back in New York, General Washington called on Hercules Mulligan. The men shared breakfast, and afterward General Washington ordered a complete civilian wardrobe from the Irish tailor. Mulligan promptly installed a new sign outside his shop: “Clothier to Genl. Washington.”

Mulligan prospered after the Revolution. His business grew and so did his family. He and his wife had three sons and five daughters altogether. Mulligan retired from business at the age of 80 and died five years later. He is buried in the churchyard of the same house of worship in which he was married, New York’s venerable Trinity Church (he’d become an Episcopalian as a young man). The grave of his friend Alexander Hamilton lies just a few yards away.

Material taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/04/this-july-4-let-thank-forgotten-revolutionary-war-hero/
http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/1913

Peter Muhlenberg

PeterMuhlenbergJohn Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was a Minister of the Gospel, a Military Officer under General George Washington, and a politician of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Post-Revolutionary eras in Pennsylvania. His father, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg was a German Lutheran pastor sent to North America as a missionary. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg was integral to the founding of the first Lutheran church body or denomination, in North America and is considered to be the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States. His family had a significant impact on colonial life in North America. In addition to Henry Muhlenberg’s role in the Lutheran church, his children became pastors, military officers, and politicians.

Peter Muhlenberg was born October 1, 1746 in Trappe, Pennsylvania. He was sent, together with his brothers, Frederick Augustus and Gotthilf Henry Ernst 1763 to the University of Halle in Germany. They were educated in Latin at the Francke Foundations. Peter and his brothers went by ship to Germany where their father had once worked at Halle. Peter’s brothers settled into their new life. Peter did not. The teachers could see that he was not a scholar and helped him learn a trade. Peter was sent to work for a man named Herr Leonhard Niemeyer. Herr Niemeyer had a shop in the town of Lubeck. He promised to teach Peter about running a business and to teach him about medicine.

Herr Niemeyer did not keep his promises. Peter worked hard every day, long hours but not learning anything. He had only two shirts, and no warm coat. The people at Halle blamed Peter. Knowing that he must find a way out, Peter contacted a man named Captain Fiser. Captain Fiser was recruiting soldiers for the British army to go to America. Peter left the Niemeyer house early one morning and was sworn into the British army. Muhlenberg, having spent time in Germany from 1763 to 1766, now sailed to America with Captain Fiser’s regiment. When he reached America, he was let out of the army and Peter’s father gladly paid for his trip home.

Peter Muhlenberg served briefly in the German dragoons, earning the nickname “Teufel Piet” (Devil Pete) before returning to Philadelphia. Peter’s father sent him back to school to learn bookkeeping. Provost Wrangle was a Lutheran minister. He offered to teach Peter. Peter learned from him about being a minister. Muhlenberg learned to preach sermons. Soon he was preaching sermons in churches in the area. Peter’s brothers came home from Germany in 1770. They both became ministers. There he received a classical education from the Academy of Philadelphia, which is today the University of Pennsylvania. He was ordained in 1768.

Before moving to Woodstock, Virginia. In 1770 he married Anna Barbara “Hannah” Meyer, the daughter of a successful potter. Together they had six children. Muhlenberg visited England in 1772 and was ordained into the priesthood of the Anglican Church although he served a Lutheran congregation. Since the Anglican Church was the state church of Virginia, he was required to be ordained in an Anglican church in order to serve a congregation in Virginia. Besides his new congregation, he led the Committee of Safety and Correspondence for Dunmore County, Virginia. He was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1774, and was a delegate to the First Virginia Convention.

According to a biography written by his great nephew in the mid 1800’s, on January 21, 1776 in the Anglican church in Woodstock, Virginia, Reverend Muhlenberg took his sermon text from the third chapter Ecclesiastes, which starts with “To everything there is a season…”; after reading the eighth verse, “a time of war, and a time of peace,” he then declared, “And this is the time of war,” removing his clerical robe to reveal his Colonel’s uniform. The next day he led out 300 men from the county to form the nucleus of the Eighth Virginia. Muhlenberg’s unit was first posted to the South, to defend the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.

During the early years of the Revolution, while Muhlenberg was still in Virginia, he became a follower of patriot Patrick Henry. His contributions to the revolutionary cause included service as the chair of the Committee of Safety in Virginia’s House of Burgesses (1775) and as a member of Virginia’s provincial convention in 1776.

In early 1777, the Eighth was sent north to join Washington’s main army. Muhlenberg was made a Brigadier General of the Virginia Line and commanded that Brigade in Nathanael Greene’s division at Valley Forge. Muhlenberg saw service in the Battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. After Monmouth, most of the Virginia Line was sent to the far south, while General Muhlenberg was assigned to head up the defense of Virginia using mainly militia units. At the Battle of Yorktown, he commanded the first brigade in Lafayette’s Light Division. His brigade was made up of the Corps of Light Infantry, consisting of the light infantry companies of the line regiments of Massachusetts (ten companies), Connecticut (five companies), New Hampshire (five companies), and Rhode Island and New Jersey (one each).

At the battle of Yorktown, Muhlenberg’s brigade held the right flank and manned the two trenches built to move American cannons closer to Cornwallis defenses. The battalion commanded by French Lt-Col Jean-Joseph Sourbader, Chevalier de Gimat, led the night bayonet attack that stormed Redoubt No. 10 on October 14, 1781. At the end of the war (1783), he was promoted to major general and settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

After the war, Virginia had rewarded Peter for his good work by granting him some land in Ohio. Peter Muhlenberg traveled to Ohio by horse and flat-bottomed boat. He reached Louisville but found that the land was not free. It belonged to the Native Americans who lived there. Peter came back home to Pennsylvania, telling Congress to make a treaty with the Native Americans before any more people attempted to settle there. After his return, Muhlenberg decided to permanently live in Pennsylvania.

Peter Muhlenberg was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1784. He was elected Vice-President of the Council, a position comparable to that of Lieutenant Governor, on October 31, 1787. His term as Vice-President ended on a mysterious note. On October 14, 1788 the minutes of the Executive Council report that Muhlenberg had left Philadelphia without tendering his resignation—why his resignation was needed or expected is not noted—so a messenger was sent after him. That night, after the messenger returned with the resignation, the Council met at President Benjamin Franklin’s home to choose Muhlenberg’s successor, electing David Redick to the position.

When the Constitution was written, Peter worked to have it accepted by the people. In 1787 Pennsylvania accepted the Constitution. There was a big parade. Peter carried a large blue flag. It had silver letters on it. It read, “Seventeenth of September, 1787.” Benjamin Franklin was elected President of Pennsylvania in 1787. Peter Muhlenberg was elected Vice President. Benjamin Franklin was in poor health. Peter took over many of his duties. George Washington became President in 1789. Peter Muhlenberg joined the Congress. He went to the first, third, sixth, and seventh sessions of Congress. He never made a single speech.

Muhlenberg was elected to the 1st Congress (1789–1791) as one of the at-large representatives from Pennsylvania. His brother Frederick was the Speaker of the House for that same Congress. He was the first founder of the Democratic-Republican Societies in 1793. Muhlenberg served in Congress as a Republican during the 3rd Congress 1793-1795 and 5th Congress 1799-1801 for the 1st district.

Muhlenberg died in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on October 1, 1807 and is buried at the Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe, Pennsylvania.

This information was taken from the following references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Muhlenberg
http://www.heritageofthefoundingfathers.com/article11.html
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/muhlenberg_johnpg.html

Robert Morris, Jr.

RobertMorrisJrRobert Morris, Jr. was an English-born American merchant, and signer ofRobert Morris Jr. the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly, became the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, and was chosen as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, where he served as chairman of the “Secret Committee of Trade” and as a member of the Committee of Correspondence.

Morris was born to Robert Morris, Sr. and Elizabeth Murphet in Liverpool, England, on January 20, 1734. At the age of 13, Morris emigrated to Oxford, Maryland, to live with his father, who was a tobacco factor. The younger Morris was provided a tutor, but he quickly learned everything that his teacher could pass on.

His father sent him to Philadelphia for study, where he stayed with Charles Greenway, a family friend. Greenway arranged for young Robert to become an apprentice at the shipping and banking firm of the Philadelphia merchant (and then mayor) Charles Willing. A year later, Robert’s father died after being wounded in an accident when hit by the wadding of a ship’s gun that was fired in his honor.

In 1757, Morris became a business partner with Thomas Willing. Their partnership was a merchant firm with interests in shipping, real estate, and other lines of business. The partnership was forged just after the Seven Years’ War began (1756–1763), which hindered attracting the usual supply of new indentured servants to the colony. Potential immigrants were conscripted in England to fight in Europe, and the contracts for those already in the colonies in America were expiring. Indentured servants could legally break their contracts to join the British forces to fight against the French and their Indian allies.

At the same time, the British Crown wanted to encourage the slave trade to enrich the King’s friends. While Morris was a junior partner and Willing was pursuing a political career, the company Willing, Morris & Co. co-signed a petition calling for the repeal of Pennsylvania’s tariff on imported slaves. (About 500 slaves were imported into Philadelphia in 1762, the height of the trade)

Both partners supported the non-importation agreements that marked the end of all trade with Britain, including the importation of slaves. They became advocates for free trade, which would end the kind of trade restrictions that gave rise to the business. As a government official, Morris tried to tax the domestic slave trade, and to lay a head tax on the slaves payable by the owner. His efforts were resisted by the Southerners who fought all his measures. While Morris’s fortune did not come from the slave trade or from slave labor, he owned one or two slaves who worked as household servants.

The Stamp Act of 1765-1766 was a tax on all legal documents. The merchants banded together to end what they saw as an unconstitutional tax. Morris began his public career in 1765 by serving on a local committee of merchants organized to protest the Stamp Act. He mediated between a mass meeting of protesters and the Stamp Tax collector, whose house they threatened to pull down “brick by brick” unless the collector did not carry out his job. Morris remained loyal to Britain, but he believed that the new laws constituted taxation without representation and violated the colonists’ rights as British citizens. In the end, Britain lifted the stamp tax.

After Britain passed the Tea Tax, the tea ship Polly reached the lower Delaware Bay. Philadelphia ordered the bay pilots not to bring it to port. Morris was a warden of the port at that time. Captain Ayers brought the Polly, in by following another ship up the bay, and set off a protest. At least 20% of the population filled the street as Ayers was escorted to the State House. A meeting with Ayers and the port wardens, including Morris, was held. Ayers agreed to leave Philadelphia without delivering any taxed tea. Bostonians handled the matter quite differently.

On March 2, 1769, at age 35, Morris married 20-year-old Mary White. Together they had five sons and two daughters. White came from a prominent family in Maryland; her brother was the well-known Anglican Bishop William White.

Morris worshiped in Philadelphia at St Peter’s Church on Pine Street and Christ Church on 2nd Street, both of which were run by his brother-in-law, Bishop William White. Morris remained a constant worshipper and supporter at this Anglican Church for his entire life. Both Morris and his brother-in-law William White are buried at Christ Church, in the churchyard located at Second and Market. Because of the locations and reputations of Christ Church and St. Peter’s Church in Philadelphia, they served as places of worship for a number of the notable members of the Continental Congress, sometimes including George Washington.

Morris was elected to the Pennsylvania Council of Safety (1775–1776), the Committee of Correspondence, the Provincial Assembly (1775–1776), and the Pennsylvania legislature (1776–1778). He was also elected to represent Pennsylvania in the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1778.

In 1775 the Continental Congress contracted with Morris’ company to work with the Secret Committee of Trade after 14 March 1776. He devised a system to smuggle war supplies from France a year before independence was declared. He handled much of the financial transactions, contracting with merchants and business firms to obtain needed war materiel and purchasing commodities for export to pay for it.

He served with John Adams on the committee that wrote the Model Treaty. The Model Treaty incorporated his long held belief in Free Trade. It was an outgrowth of his trading system, and acted as the basis for the 1778 Treaty with France.

He served on the Marine and Maritime Committees and sold his best ship, The Black Prince, to the Continental Congress. It was renamed as the USS Alfred (1774), the first ship in the Continental Navy. John Barry, a captain who sailed for his company, became the captain of the Alfred.
Morris used his extensive international trading network as a spy network and gathered intelligence on British troop movements. One of his spies sent the information that allowed the Americans to defend Fort Moultrie near Charleston, South Carolina.
On July 1, 1776, Morris voted against the Congressional motion for independence. The Pennsylvania delegation, which was split 4-3, cast its vote in the negative. The following day, Morris and John Dickinson agreed to abstain, allowing the other Pennsylvania delegates to vote for independence. The final vote was 12 states in favor and no states opposed. (New York’s delegates voted later.) On August 2, Morris signed the Declaration of Independence saying, “I am not one of those politicians that run testy when my own plans are not adopted. I think it is the duty of a good citizen to follow when he cannot lead.”

Morris personally loaned £10,000 to pay the Continental troops under Washington. This helped to keep the Army together just before the battle of Princeton. He subsequently paid from his own funds the troops via “Morris notes” to continue Washington’s ability to wage war. In March 1778 Morris signed the Articles of Confederation as a representative of Pennsylvania.

During the war, privateers seized the cargo of English ships. As Morris owned an interest in many privateer ships, and his firm helped sell the English spoils as they came into port, he grew wealthy during the war. Seen to be profiting, he wrote a friend that his firm had lost over 150 ships during the war and so came out “about even.” He had lost one of the largest private navies in the world during the War, but he never asked for reimbursement from the new government. Morris acquired this large private navy in the course of privateering during the war. He used money gained to buy shares in a variety of ships that waged an economic war on Britain. During this period he acted as a commercial agent for John Holker, a French national who was one of many military contractors who dealt with the French and American forces.

During this time Thomas Paine, Henry Laurens, and others criticized him and his firm for alleged war profiteering. In 1779, a congressional committee acquitted Morris and his firm on charges of engaging in improper financial transactions, but his reputation was damaged after this incident.

Immediately after serving in the Congress, Morris served two more terms in the state legislature, from 1778 to 1781. While he was in the Pennsylvania Assembly, Morris worked on the constitution and legislation to restore checks and balances, and to overturn the religious test laws. These had excluded from voting 40% of the state’s citizens, including Quakers, Jews, and Mennonites.

Morris and his allies supplied the majority of war materials to the troops when the state failed to act. Pennsylvania went bankrupt in 1780 due to Constitutionalist policies which mandated state-controlled markets and self-imposed embargoes. Ultimately the state called on Morris to restore the economy. He did so by opening the ports to trade, and allowing the market to set the value of goods and the currency.

From 1781 to 1784, he served as the powerful Superintendent of Finance, managing the economy of the fledgling United States. As the central civilian in the government, Morris was, next to General George Washington, “the most powerful man in America.” His successful administration led to the nickname, “Financier of the Revolution.” At the same time he was Agent of Marine, a position he took without pay, and from which he controlled the Continental Navy.

Morris obtained supplies for the army of Nathanael Greene in 1779, and from 1781-1783. He took an active role in getting Washington from New York State to Yorktown, Virginia. He was in Washington’s camp the day the action was initiated. He acted as quartermaster for the trip and supplied his own credit to move the Army. As Agent of Marine, hecoordinated with the French Navy to get Washington’s Army to the Battle of Yorktown (1781). After Yorktown, Morris noted the war had changed from a war of bullets to a war of finances.

At times he took out loans from friends and risked his personal credit by issuing notes on his own signature to purchase items such as military supplies. In 1783 Morris issued $1,400,000 in his own notes to pay the soldiers. He did this during the same year that New Hampshire contributed only $3000 worth of beef toward the war effort, and all the states combined contributed less than $800,000. This extensive use of his personal credit strained his own fortune.

Morris founded several canal companies, a steam engine company, and launched a hot air balloon from his garden on Market Street. He had the first iron rolling mill in America. His icehouse was the model for one Washington installed at Mount Vernon. He backed the new Chestnut Street Theater, started the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and had a green house where his staff cultivated lemon trees. His son Thomas settled the peace with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, four of whom had sided with the British during the Revolution.

In 1786 Washington wrote to Morris discussing his hopes for the democratic process bringing an end to slavery. His reference to how escaped slaves made their way to the North is taken as the first reference to the Underground Railroad. The 1790 census is the first in Philadelphia County that lists slaveholders by name. Morris had none at this time.

Robert Morris was one of Pennsylvania’s original pair of US senators, serving from 1789 to 1795. Unwise land speculation right before the Panic of 1796–1797 led to his bankruptcy in 1798 when he was placed in debtors’ prison. After his release in 1801 he lived a quiet, private life in a modest home in Philadelphia, until 1806 when he died.

Information was obtained from the following references:
http://www.history1700s.com/articles/article1141.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morris_(financier)
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/morris-robert-american-merchant.html#ixzz2E2FTdZMT

Joseph Plumb Martin

Joseph Plumb MartinIn the war for independence, the life of a common soldier was a rough one. Soldiers served relatively short periods in state militias or longer periods in the Continental Army, raised by Congress. About two hundred thousand men enlisted for one period or another. Militias supplied the greatest number of soldiers, comprised of farmers, artisans, and some professionals. All faced war’s hardships of severe food shortages, discomfort, low morale, and danger. As a result, the Continental Congress recruited both the young and old. Typically, those with fewer resources, such as apprentices or laborers were attracted to the American Revolution. Pay and a promise of land was the typical incentive. While Some enlisted voluntarily others were drafted; the more affluent hired paid substitutes. What makes Joseph Plumb Martin unique is that his education and writing skills allowed him to keep a journal throughout his wartime activities. Later, after the war ended (1830) , he wrote a colorful portrayal of the life of a common soldier, “A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier.” Because Martin was just an ordinary soldier with no political aspirations other than to survive, his narrative has become one of the most referenced documents on the life of a common soldier.

Joseph Plumb Martin, born in Becket, Massachusetts on November 21, 1760 to the Reverend Ebenezer Martin and Susannah Plumb. At the age of seven, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Milford, Connecticut. Because his family was well-to-do (His father studied at Yale), Martin was able to receive a well-rounded education, including reading and writing. When he was 15, in 1775, he was eager to join the war effort following the Battles of Lexington and Concord. His grandparents initially opposed the idea, but agreed after Martin vowed to run away and join a naval ship as a privateer if he was not allowed to join. He joined the 8th Connecticut Regiment in June 1776 and was assigned duty in the New York City area, arriving just before the opening of the British Long Island Campaign.

Joseph Plumb Martin’s propensity to re-enlist provided him with numerous firsthand accounts of many of the critical battles in the Revolution. It is notable that Martin, for most of the war, was a mere private in the army, and his account does not involve the usual heroes of the Revolution. Scholars believe that Martin kept some type of journal during the course of the war, and fleshed it out in detail later on in his life. It is interesting to also note that while some events may be dramatized, the narrative is remarkably accurate, since Plumb Martin’s regiment would have been present at every event he writes about, according to war records of the time.

Martin participated in such notable engagements as the Battle of Brooklyn, the Battle of White Plains, the siege on Fort Mifflin and the Battle of Monmouth. He encamped at Valley Forge, witnessed John Andre being escorted to his execution and was also present during the climactic Siege of Yorktown in 1781. He was assigned to Light Infantry in 1778, attaining the rank of Corporal. In the summer of 1780, under Washington’s order to form a Corps of Sappers and Miners, he was recommended by his superior officers to be a non-commissioned officer of this regiment, and in being selected, was promoted to Sergeant. Prior to Yorktown, the corps was responsible for digging the entrenchments for the Continental Army. During the battle, they were also a vanguard for a regiment commanded by Alexander Hamilton, clearing the field of sharpened logs called abatis so that Hamilton’s regiment could capture Redoubt #10.

Martin’s narrative was originally published anonymously in 1830, at Hallowell, Maine, as A narrative of some of tSurrender At Yorktownhe adventures, dangers, and sufferings of a Revolutionary soldier, interspersed with anecdotes of incidents that occurred within his own observation. It has been republished in many forms, but was thought lost to history. In the mid-1950s, a first edition copy of the narrative was found and donated to Morristown National Historical Park. The book was published again by Little, Brown in 1962, in an edition edited by George F. Scheer (ISBN 0-915992-10-8) under the title Private Yankee Doodle; as well as appearing as a volume in Series I of The New York Times’ Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution in 1968. The current edition, published since 2001, is entitled A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin. Other current versions include a version adapted for children, entitled Yankee Doodle Boy and The Memoirs of a Revolutionary and ended with Plumb describing the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781.

When Martin was discharged from duty when the Continental Army disbanded in October 1783, he taught in New York state for a year, and eventually settled on Maine’s frontier, becoming one of the founders of the town of Prospect, near modern day Stockton Springs. Over the years, he was known locally for being a farmer, selectman, Justice of the Peace and Town Clerk (the last position being held for over 25 years). He married Lucy Clewley (b. 1776) in 1794 and had five children, Joseph (b. 1799), Nathan and Thomas (twins, b. 1803), James Sullivan (b. 1810) and Susan (b. 1812). He also wrote many stories and poems over the years, most famously a narrative of his experiences during the war in 1830.

In 1794, he became involved in a bitter land dispute with Henry Knox, former Major-General in the Continental Army and Secretary of War under George Washington’s administration as President. Knox claimed that he owned Martin’s 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm, as well as the surrounding 600,000 acres (2,400 km2) in an area now known as Waldo County, Maine. Martin said that this was not true, and he had the right to farm the land. In 1797, Knox’s claim had been legally upheld, and Martin was ordered to pay $170 in rent. He could not raise the money and begged Knox to allow him to keep the land. Knox denied the request. By 1811, his farmland was cut by half, and by 1818, when he appeared in court with other Revolutionary War veterans to claim a war pension, he owned nothing.

In 1818, Martin’s war pension was approved and he received $96 a year for the rest of his life. Still, other war veterans were fighting for what they were properly owed, and in an effort to further the cause of the veterans, published his memoirs in 1830. It was not considered a success, and mainly fell to the wayside, apparently lost to history.

In 1836, a platoon of United States Light Infantry was marching though Prospect and discovered that Plumb Martin resided there. The platoon stopped outside of his house and fired a salute in honor of the Revolutionary War Hero. Joseph Plumb Martin lived to the age of 89, dying on May 2, 1850. He is buried with his wife at the Sandy Point Cemetery, outside of Prospect, Maine.

Information was taken from the following references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plumb_Martin
http://www.history.com/topics/joseph-plumb-martin
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6597/

John Lay

463px-John_Jay_(Gilbert_Stuart_portrait)John Jay was born on December 12, 1745, to a wealthy family of merchants and government officials in New York City. His father, Peter Jay, was born in New York City in 1704, and became a wealthy trader of furs, wheat, timber, and other commodities. On the paternal side, the Jays were a prominent merchant family in New York City, descended from French Huguenots who had come to New York to escape religious persecution in France. In 1685 the Edict of Nantes had been revoked, thereby abolishing the rights of Protestants and confiscating their property. Among those affected was Jay’s paternal grandfather, Augustus Jay. He moved from France to New York, where he built up a successful merchant empire.

John’s mother was Mary Van Cortlandt, who wed Peter Jay in 1728, in the Dutch Church. They had ten children together, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Her father, Jacobus Van Cortlandt, was born in New Amsterdam in 1658. Van Cortlandt served on the New York Assembly, and twice as mayor of New York City. He also held a variety of judicial and military titles. Two of his children: Mary and his son Frederick, married into the Jay family.

Jay spent his childhood in Rye, New York, and took the same political stand as his father, who was a staunch Whig. He was educated there by private tutors until he was eight years old, when he was sent to New Rochelle to study under Anglican pastor Pierre Stoupe. In 1756, after three years, he would return to homeschooling under the tutelage of George Murray. Jay attended King’s College (which was later renamed Columbia University) in 1760. During this time, Jay made many influential friends, including his closest friend, Robert J. Livingston, Jr.—the son of a prominent New York aristocrat. In 1764 he graduated and became a law clerk for Benjamin Kissam.

John Jay’s long and eventful life encompassed the movement for American independence and the creation of a new nation — both processes in which he played a full part. His achievements were many, varied and of key importance in the birth and early years of the fledgling nation. Although he did not initially favor separation from Britain, he was nonetheless among the American commissioners who negotiated the peace with Great Britain that secured independence for the former colonies.

Jay represented the conservative faction that was interested in protecting property rights and in preserving the rule of law, while resisting what it regarded as British violations of American rights. This faction feared the prospect of “mob rule”. He believed the British tax measures were wrong and thought Americans were morally and legally justified in resisting them, but as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774, Jay sided with those who wanted conciliation with Parliament. Events such as the burning of Norfolk, Virginia, by British troops in January 1776 pushed Jay to support independence. With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he worked tirelessly for the revolutionary cause and acted to suppress the Loyalists. Jay evolved into first a moderate, and then an ardent Patriot, because he had decided that all the colonies’ efforts at reconciliation with Britain were fruitless and that the struggle for independence, which became the American Revolution, was inevitable.

Jay served as a delegate to both the First and Second Continental Congresses, and was elected President of the Continental Congress in 1778. He also served in the New York State militia. In 1779, Jay was sent on a diplomatic mission to Spain in an effort to gain recognition and economic assistance for the United States. In 1783, he helped to negotiate the Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the Revolutionary War.

In 1787 and 1788 Jay collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison on the Federalist, authoring essays numbers two, three, four, five and, following an illness, sixty-four, thus contributing to the political arguments and intellectual discourse that led to Constitution’s ratification. Jay also played a key role in shepherding the Constitution through the New York State Ratification Convention in the face of vigorous opposition. In this battle Jay relied not only on skillful political maneuvering, he also produced a pamphlet, “An Address to the People of New York,” that powerfully restated the Federalist case for the new Constitution. Jay served as the President of the Continental Congress (1778–79).

During and after the American Revolution, Jay was a Minister (Ambassador) to Spain and France, helping to fashion United States foreign policy. In 1789, Washington appointed John Jay Chief Justice of the new Supreme Court. His major diplomatic achievement was to negotiate favorable trade terms with Great Britain in the Treaty of London of 1794.

Jay resigned from the Supreme Court on June 29, 1795. As a leader of the new Federalist Party, Jay was the Governor of New York State (1795–1801) and he became the state’s leading opponent of slavery. His first two attempts to end slavery failed in 1777 and in 1785, but his third attempt succeeded in 1799. The 1799 Act, a gradual emancipation act, that he signed into law eventually brought about the emancipation of all slaves in New York before his death. Jay died on May 17, 1829, at the age of 83. His longevity enabled biographers and early historians of the founding era to draw directly upon his personal recollections of the people and events of the early years of the nation. In his later years, Jay’s own correspondence with various members of the founding generation revealed a keen interest in ensuring an accurate appraisal of his own role in the momentous events of that time.

Information was taken from the following references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/jay/biography.html
http://www.supremecourthistory.org/history-of-the-court/chief-justices/john-jay-1789-1795/

James Caldwell

The importance of the military chaplain was critical to the success of George Washington.  Here is an excerpt from his field orders issued a mere 5 days after The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.  Included in general orders issued July 9, 1776 was the following:

The Hon. Continental Congress having been pleased to allow a Chaplain to each Regiment, with the pay of Thirty-three Dollars and one third pr month–The Colonels or commanding officers of each regiment are directed to procure Chaplains accordingly; persons of good Characters and exemplary lives–To see that all inferior officers and soldiers pay them a suitable respect and attend carefully upon religious exercises. The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger–The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country. ~ George Washington1http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/105/George_Washington_General_Orders_July_09_1776_1p.html

James Caldwell was born in April 1734, in Cub Creek in Charlotte County, Virginia. He graduated from Princeton in 1759, and was ordained the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown in 1762. Caldwell served as Third Battalion of Company No. 1, New Jersey Volunteers during the Revolutionary War, and was also Commissary to the troops in New Jersey. He was known as the “Fighting Chaplain.”

On 25 January 1780, Reverend Caldwell’s church was burned down by the enemy. He moved his family to the parsonage at Connecticut Farms (now Union), New Jersey so that they might enjoy a safer life. Unfortunately, this was not to pass.

His journey into American history arrived at the end of a hundred-year journey for religious freedom. His ancestors had fled France after the fall of La Rochelle to Richelieu’s army in 1628. They migrated to Scotland, settling on an estate known as Cold Well, named for its cold well water (hence, the origins of the family name). Episcopacy was on the rise in Scotland, so they left for Ireland, sometime prior to 1649. But civil strife involving conflicts between Scotch and Irish; economic restrictions enacted by Parliament; limitations on Presbyterian activities and a famine which began in 1725, combined to push the Caldwells out of Ireland into the New World.

His parents landed at New Castle, Delaware, on December 10, 1727, and eventually made their way to the edge of the frontier in Charlotte County, Virginia. But their longing for religious freedoms were not quite within their grasp. The Church of England dominated that part of the county, so his father, John Caldwell, and others helped send a delegation to the Governor to seek permission to settle at Cub Creek and worship as Presbyterians. The petition was granted and a church was organized in 1738. Services were held under a tree, and then a log church was built. By then James was part of the family, having been born on April 14, 1734.

Not much is known about James Caldwell’s youth, but as part of a family living on the frontier in the early 1730s he would have spent much of his time working: clearing land, feeding livestock, harvesting crops, cutting wood, hunting game and fishing. His father, as one of the leaders in the church (and in the community, serving as one of the first judges), would have conducted family devotions and taken his family to church. At some point during these years James felt the call of God upon his life and declared his desire to serve in the ministry. To help him prepare for college, he was sent to a local Classics School. In 1755, he entered the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) and graduated three years later with seventeen others, completing classes in Greek, Hebrew, rhetoric, logic, and so forth.

Following the procedures of the Presbyterian Church, James spent the next several months studying the Bible and preparing sermons under the tutelage of Dr. Samuel Davies, then president of the College of New Jersey. He was presented for licensure examinations on March 11, 1760. After delivering the last of three required sermons on September 17, he was ordained and promptly began searching for a ministerial position. One such opening was in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey. During the eighteen months the church had been without a pastor, twenty men had applied for the office. Like those before him, he preached a trial sermon. His superior capacity for extemporaneous speaking, his animated, impressive and captivating eloquence in the pulpit, and his fervent piety, rendered him the preferred candidate and James was offered the position. He was installed with a salary of one hundred and sixty pounds in March, 1762. He was 27-years old. One year later, he added the last piece to the foundation of his life, marrying Hannah Ogden on March 14, 1763.

The next twelve years would grow as a pastor, mostly affected by the looming shadows of war. The church at Elizabeth Town was one of the oldest in the country, having been constructed in 1667. It was a congregation made up of laborers, shopkeepers, farmers, political figures and future military leaders. By God’s grace, Caldwell’s energy and forceful preaching contributed to the growth of the congregation. They soon added a sixteen-foot extension to the rear of the church. By 1776, there were 345 “pew renters.” His days were filled with the standard pastoral duties: visiting the sick, conducting weddings and funerals, attending to building matters, and helping to plant new churches. He preached two sermons every Sunday, pouring out his heart and soul: “As a preacher, he was unconsciously eloquent and pathetic; rarely preaching without weeping himself, and at times he would melt his whole audience into tears.”

To his church duties add denominational responsibilities. He maintained close connections with his alma mater, serving as a trustee. With Rev. John Witherspoon, he traveled through Virginia raising funds for the college. He was a founder of several societies, including the verbosely titled “Society for the Better Support of the Widows and the Education of Children of Deceased Presbyterian Ministers in Communion with the Present Established Church of Scotland.” He served on a committee to promote missionary work among Indians; he was on a committee to select, procure and distribute religious books and hymnals; and, sat on a committee to encourage missionary work in Africa and examine the church’s position on Negro slavery. And he served as a faithful husband and father to ten children.

From the start of the American Revolution, Caldwell was an ardent supporter and was not ashamed to proclaim so from the pulpit. When the recriminations, protestations and tensions finally broke out into flying musket balls and cannon fire on the fields of Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, James Caldwell was ready. At a meeting of the Presbyterian Synod in May he again served with Rev. Witherspoon and was appointed to a committee to formally urge the Presbyterian churches to support the rebellion. These actions made the Presbyterians, and especially their clergy, targets for revenge. Back home he preached thunderous sermons, pleading for loyalty to the cause. Thirty-one officers and fifty-two enlisted men were to come out of the Elizabeth Town Presbyterian church. Though it was common for ministers to preach the cause of liberty, few stepped out of the pulpit into the line of duty. James Caldwell was one of the few.

He had already been working for the budding Revolution as a member of the Committees of Correspondence, which had helped disseminate news about anti-British activities prior to the war, and then once hostilities broke out helped recruit soldiers, materials and arms. As chaplain, he went wherever his troops went. This meant that he was in a position to minister, not only to the soldiers, but also to the residents of nearby towns. He preached, held baptisms and too often, funerals. As he had in his home town, he quickly gained a reputation for his preaching, as was written of him: His countenance has a pensive, placid cast; but when excited, was expressive of high resolution and energy. It was said that his voice became sweet and musical, and yet so strong that, when needful, he would make himself heard above the notes of the drum and fife.

The American War for Independence was on the edge of disaster entering 1780. More than 600 had deserted Washington’s army in Morristown, N.J., helped along by a more severe winter than that suffered at Valley Forge. Pockets of mutiny had sprung up throughout the winter and into the spring. Then, in May 1780, Charleston, S.C., fell to British General Charles Cornwallis. For Reverend James Caldwell, the year of 1780 would prove to be a year of suffering and sorrow for the soon to be “Fighting Chaplain.” First, a night raid by the British against the town left the courthouse and Presbyterian Church burnt to the ground. Caldwell lost many personal papers, as well as church records and documents.

On 6 June 1780, Lieutenant General Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen crossed over from Staten Island into New Jersey with six to seven thousand German soldiers. He was on his way to Springfield, but first there was a skirmish at Connecticut Farms where Caldwell had earlier relocated his family. When word reached the town of the invasion, Caldwell made arrangements to once again move his family. His wife, however, did not wish to leave. It is speculated that she did not want to travel with the young children, or that she felt safer in her house than out on the open road. Whatever the reason, she stayed behind while the older children were sent to friends in another town. James then rode off to join his brigade. It was a fateful decision. While the noises of war—whizzing musket balls, braying horses, shouting troops—filled the air, Hannah made a few nervous preparations. She hid several items in a bucket, lowering them into the well; she pocketed some silverware. She put on nicer clothes, in case she would have to address a British officer, and then retreated to her bedroom with her youngest children. “Mrs. Caldwell felt confident that no one would have the heart to do injury to the inhabitants of the house. Again and again she had said, ‘They will respect a mother.’” She was wrong. As the British marched into town, a redcoat jumped the fence, came up to the house and shot through the window, splattering glass, killing Hannah Caldwell with a ball through the chest. Other soldiers poured into the house. They pilfered her pockets, looted the house and took five hundreds sermons James had written out in longhand. Thankfully, her body was removed before they torched the home. For several hours she was left exposed in the open air, clothes torn and disheveled, until neighbors took her in. The day ended with the British setting fire to the village.

James was with General Lafayette on the heights near Springfield. When he saw the smoke he said, “Thank God! The fire is not in the direction of my house.” He was wrong and soon overheard the truth from returning soldiers. He rushed back to the town to find his wife, and the mother of his ten children, gone. The funeral was held that afternoon. Following the death of his wife, Caldwell made provisions for his children then continued his duties. He kept on preaching and attending to the troops. The news of the murder lit up the country with indignation, but for James, there was no time to mourn. Indeed, in a mere two weeks he would be riding the countryside, sounding the alarm of the British advancement on Springfield.

As Knyphausen marched down the main turnpike, he met American Colonel Israel Angell, bunkered down in an apple grove across the Rahway River. The Redcoats moved up and let loose a furious volley, using 6 artillery pieces. The broadside tore off chunks of the apple trees and killed the American regiment’s lone artillery gunner. Despite the crucial loss, Colonel Angell held off a force five times larger than his own for 25 minutes. During the heat of the battle, the American militia began to run out of wadding, the paper used to roll powder and ball, thus sealing the barrel so they could continue shooting at the enemy. Reverend James Caldwell sprang into action. Caldwell was said to have dashed into a nearby Presbyterian Church, scooped up as many Watts hymnals as he could carry, and distributed them to the troops, shouting “put Watts into them, boys.” The boys responded and poured lead into the oncoming enemy.

Caldwell’s legendary deed did not turn the course of battle that day. At best, it delayed the invasion of Springfield by a few minutes. But the event stirred such patriotic fervor that those who witnessed it passed it on to succeeding generations until Washington Irving recorded it in his biography of George Washington. For the “Fighting Chaplain,” it was just one more selfless act in a life full of courage, patriotism and disinterested service to others and God.

On Nov. 24, 1781, Reverend Caldwell went to greet Beulah Murray, who was scheduled under a flag of truce to visit some relatives. She had rendered service to American prisoners in the prison ships in New York and was held in esteem. He drove a chaise, thought to be a light open two-wheeled carriage, to Elizabeth Town Point along Newark Bay to bring her to town. He could not find her. He went on board the sloop. Upon debarking with a bag, a sentry ordered him to stop. American authorities were battling smugglers of British goods from New York to New Jersey. Strict orders had been issued to all sentries to look for illicit trading. After walking Ms. Murray to his carriage, he returned to the boat, to retrieve a package that was left behind. On the return back to his carriage, an American sentinel, named James Morgan, challenged him, asking what was in the package. Caldwell attempted to proceed to the proper officer with the package, but as he attempted to move away, the sentinel, just relieved from duty, fired his musket, killing the Reverend Caldwell with two balls. Caldwell had stopped, but the sentry shot him anyway. James Caldwell, the “Fighting Chaplain,” dropped dead. The sentry, James Morgan, was hanged for murder on January 29, 1782 in Westfield, New Jersey, amid rumors that he had been bribed to kill the chaplain.

There were ten orphaned children of Hannah and James Caldwell, all of whom were raised by friends of the family. Caldwell lived a full life. One marvels at the breadth of his service to his country and his Savior. It is easy to imagine that he might have gone on to serve his country in the new Republic as one of the Founding Fathers. What distinguishes James Caldwell from most other clergymen of his day is that, while he continued his ministerial activities during the struggle for freedom, he also performed other services demonstrating his devotion to that cause. Others, from many different walks of life, exhibited the same devotion and made sacrifices. But James Caldwell, as the minister who stood with the fighting men in the midst of battle, who rallied others to continue the war when the situation appeared hopeless, who unwittingly sacrificed the life of his wife when he considered it his duty to be with the troops, and who met his own death while performing a helpful service for someone else, stands out above many others.

The Reverend James Caldwell and his wife were buried in the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethtown. A monument to him in Elizabeth, New Jersey was dedicated in 1846.

 

More information on the Battle of Springfield: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Springfield_(1780)

The information contained in this document was taken from the following sources:
http://www.leben.us/index.php/component/content/article/62-volume-4-issue-2/254-james
http://americanrevolution.org/women/women44.html
http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2012/06/june-23-rev-james-caldwell/
http://dansamericanrevolutionblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/reverend-james-caldwell-and-battles-of.html

Patriots

patriotAmerican History, especially the time around the Revolution, is filled with so many unsung heroes. Ordinary people stepped out in faith and became the patriots that formed a new nation. Most would not have listed “soldier” or “politician” as their profession. Each was drawn into acts of bravery and courage because of their love of liberty. This section is dedicated to those not so well know individuals whose stories are truly remarkable. It will grow over time as they are researched and identified.

Rev. James Caldwell – The Fighting Chaplain
John Jay – First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
Sybil Ludington – The Female Paul Revere
Joseph Plumb Martin – Boy soldier
Robert Morris Jr. – Financier of the American Revolution
Peter Muhlenberg – Minister, patriot and politician
Hercules Mulligan – An American Spy
James Otis Jr. – First Patriot of the Revolution
Thomas Paine – American political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary
Molly Pitcher – Most notable camp follower
Caesar Rodney – Another famous night time ride
John Pulling – Raising the lanterns at Old North Church
Benjamin Rush – The first Surgeon General
Deborah Sampson – America’s first female soldier
Baron von Steuben – America’s first drill instructor
The Rattlesnake – Meaning of the Rattlesnake on our early flags
Dr. Joseph Warren – The outspoken physician
John Witherspoon – Pastor and signer
Betty Zane – Last hero of the American Revolution

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