Part 11

The morning of the 24th, the day set by Arnold for his surrender to Clinton, dawned bright and fine. Washington was expected at Arnold’s headquarters from Hartford. As he sat at breakfast Arnold received a message from Colonel Jameson, stationed to the south, which contained the intelligence not that the British were approaching, but that a Major André had been captured. Hastily asking to be excused, Arnold made his way to the room of his young wife, the beautiful Margaret Shippen, of Philadelphia, and bade her a brief farewell; then he let himself out of the house by a back way and took a short path to the water-shore where he summoned a boatman and had himself rowed to the British fleet. Washington arrived at Arnold’s headquarters in time to gather up the loose ends of things and prevent the dreadful catastrophe that the loss of the strongest of the American positions would have meant.

It has been claimed that the influence of Arnold’s wife, who was of a Tory family and had been an ardent British sympathizer before her marriage, had much to do with Arnold’s desertion from the cause he had first embraced. There is no evidence to finally set at rest this conjecture. Margaret Shippen had many friends amongst the British officers and Major André was the chief amongst these friends, but there is no reason to believe that she was base at heart, that she was not devoted to her husband, or that she could not realize how utter would be his undoing. After his downfall she rejoined him in New York and shared with him patiently all of the contempt and odium that were his portion for the rest of his life, from American and English alike.

The military academy at West Point was established by Act of Congress which became law March 16, 1802. The establishment of such a place had been proposed to Congress by Washington in 1793, and even before the close of the Revolution he had suggested such an institution and had even fixed on West Point as the location. Little was done in the matter even after the act of Congress of 1802, until in 1812, by a second enactment, a corps of engineers and teachers was organized and the school actually started. The beautiful buildings of the Academy are the fruit of the last generation’s labor.

Stony Point lies south of West Point, separating Peekskill Bay on the north from Haverstraw Bay on the south. Opposite is Verplanck’s Point. The river here is very narrow. In 1779 Clinton had strongly fortified Stony Point, thus cutting off West Point’s communications from the south and establishing a strong base from which to proceed against that place. Washington saw that Stony Point must be captured.

To carry out his bold scheme--for the spot was deemed impregnable to assault--he called upon General Anthony Wayne--“Mad” Anthony--and asked him if he would undertake such a commission. “General, I’ll storm hell if you’ll only plan it,” Wayne is said to have replied.

The situation of Stony Point was a fortress in itself. At high tide it was practically an island, the ravine on the shore side through which the railroad passes now-a-days being then a marshy inlet of the river. From the river the rock rose precipitously, and was at its highest point 700 feet above tide.

The assault was made under cover of darkness, July 15, 1779, the American forces advancing secretly under the guidance of an old negro who had learned the watchword of the fort for that night. This watchword was, “The Fort’s Our Own.” The phrase has been carved above the doorway of the reservation, where it may be seen by all visitors to-day. One by one the sentries were approached and overpowered, and the Americans were almost within the walls before their presence was discovered. By two o’clock on the morning of July 16 the fort was the possession of the assailants.

The stores of the English were destroyed and the post was evacuated.

Stony Point is now a public reservation of the State of New York. The battle-ground is in charge of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, which has marked the locality of the redoubts and of interesting points.

FORT CONSTITUTION

(FORT WILLIAM AND MARY)

GREAT ISLAND NEAR PORTSMOUTH--NEW HAMPSHIRE

The records of the War Department at Washington say that Fort Constitution reservation “contains twelve acres. It is situated on a rocky projection in the Piscataqua River at the entrance to the harbor of the City of Portsmouth. It is about three miles below the city on the west side of the river, on the eastern end of ‘Great Island,’ being the most eastern end of New Hampshire. It was formerly an English fort called ‘William and Mary’ and was occupied by United States troops in 1806.”

The location of Fort Constitution may be fixed more exactly by saying that it is very close to Newcastle, one of the outlying dependencies of Portsmouth. A long low stone structure thrust out on a wave-washed spit of rock, its picturesque appearance stimulates the fancy of every visitor who approaches Portsmouth by water.

Adjoining the fort is a light-house erected in 1771, and on a rocky eminence overlooking the fort is a ruined martello tower of striking aspect.

The history of Fort Constitution goes back to the early beginnings of settlement on the New England coast. In 1665 the commissioners of King Charles II began to erect a fortification on the point here, but were halted by the prohibitions of the Massachusetts fathers. In 1700 there existed a fort on Great Island and probably on the site of the present structure. This fort was visited by the Earl of Bellemont and declared by him incapable of defending the river, notwithstanding the fact that it mounted thirty guns.

A new defensive structure was planned by Colonel Romer, who recommended as additional works a strong tower on the point of Fryer’s (Gerrish’s) Island and batteries on Wood and Clark’s Islands. His main plans were carried out and with slight alterations formed the fortification which was known at the time of the Revolutionary ferment as Castle William and Mary, its name sufficiently emphasizing the period of its conception. While Castle William and Mary had an honorable career in a passive fashion during the French wars by frightening off French descents upon the flourishing little city which it guards, it does not spring into the lime-light until 1774, when it becomes the scene of the first capture of arms made by the Americans in the struggle against the Mother Country.

In the year we have under consideration the Governor of New Hampshire was the able and passionate Sir John Wentworth. An account of the seizure of the supplies at Fort William and Mary may be succinctly given by means of extracts from Sir John’s letters of that period, a series of which was published in 1869, in the “Historical and Genealogical Register” by the Honorable John Wentworth, of Chicago.

In a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Portsmouth, December 20, 1774, Governor Wentworth says:

On Tuesday the 13th instant, in the afternoon, one Paul Revere arrived with letters from some of the leaders in Boston to Mr. Samuel Cutts, merchant, of this town. Reports were soon circulated that the Fort at Rhode Island had been dismantled and the Gunpowder and other military stores removed up to Providence and ... it was also falsely given out that Troops were embarking at Boston to come and take possession of William and Mary Castle in this harbour. These rumors soon raised an alarm in the town; and although I did not expect that the people would be so audacious as to make any attack on the castle yet I sent orders to the captain at the fort to be upon his guard.

On Wednesday news was brought to me that a drum was beating about the town to collect the populace together in order to go and take away the Gunpowder and dismantle the Fort. I immediately sent the Chief Justice of the Province to warn them from engaging in such an attempt. He went to them where they were collected in the centre of the town near the townhouse, explained to them the nature of the offence they proposed to commit, told them it was not short of Rebellion and intreated them to desist from it and to disperse. But all to no purpose. They went to the island and, being joined by the inhabitants of the towns of Newcastle and Rye, formed in a body of about four hundred men and the Castle being in too weak a condition for defence (as I have in former letters explained to your lordship) they forced their entrance in spite of Captain Cochrane who defended it as long as he could; but having only the assistance of five men their numbers overpowered him. After they entered the Fort they seized upon the captain and triumphantly gave three huzzas and hauled down the King’s colours. They then put the captain and men under confinement, broke open the Gunpowder magazine and carried off about 100 barrels of Gunpowder but discharged the Captain and men from their confinement before their departure.

On Thursday, the 15th, in the morning a party of men came from the country accompanied by Mr. (Gen. John) Sullivan one of the New Hampshire delegates to the Congress, to take away the cannon from the Fort, also. Mr. Sullivan declared that he had taken pains to prevail upon them to return home again; and said, as there was no certain intelligence of troops being coming to take possession of the Castle, he would still use his utmost endeavors to disperse them.

While the town was thus full of men a committee from them came to me to solicit pardon or a suspension of prosecution against the persons who took away the Gunpowder. I told them I could not promise them any such thing; but if they dispersed and restored the gunpowder, which I most earnestly exhorted them to do, I said I hoped His Majesty may be thereby induced to consider it an alleviation of the offence. They parted from me, in all appearance, perfectly disposed to follow the advice I had given them; and having proceeded directly to the rest of their associates they all publickly voted ... to return home....

But, instead of dispersing, the people went to the Castle in the night headed by Mr. Sullivan and took away sixteen pieces of cannon, about sixty muskets and other military stores and brought them to the out Borders of the town.

On Friday morning, the 16th, Mr. Folsom, the other delegate, came to town that morning with a great number of armed men who remained in Town as a guard till the flow of the tide in the evening when the cannon were sent in Gondolas up the river into the country and they all dispersed without having done any personal injury to any body in the town.

On the Fourth of July, 1809, an explosion of powder took place at Fort Constitution in which four men and three boys were killed and a number of bystanders wounded. The cause of the explosion was the carelessness of a sergeant with a lighted fuse, and the unlucky hour that he chose for his celebration was a time when his colonel (Colonel Walbach) had a number of guests to dinner. None of the diners were injured, and a quaint contemporary account tells their natural distress at various of the phenomena around them. “One poor fellow,” says this account, “was carried over the roof of the house and the upper half of his body lodged on the opposite side near the window of the dining-room; the limb of another was driven through a thick door over the dining-room leaving a hole in the door the shape of the foot.”

The appearance of Fort Constitution to-day is not very warlike and it does not play a very active part in the city’s defences. The walls of the older part of the fort are of rough stone topped with brick. Over the arch of the sally-port here is a date, 1808. These walls have been partly enclosed by unfinished walls of granite of later construction.

The martello tower, to which reference has already been had, was constructed during the War of 1812 and was begun one Sunday morning while two British cruisers were lying off the Isle of Shoals. Its purpose was to prevent a landing on the beach at the south side of the main work. An assault on that work was not attempted at the time, but who can say that the promptness of the New Hampshiremen in thus adding to their defences in the face of the enemy did not have its moral value in forestalling an attack? The tower had three embrasures.

FORTS TRUMBULL AND GRISWOLD

NEW LONDON AND GROTON, ON THE THAMES--CONNECTICUT

The sunny waters of the Thames at New London, Connecticut, present a smiling aspect, and from the high flag-staff of trig little Fort Trumbull the stars and stripes float gaily. Across the river on the hill above the little town of Groton is the State reservation containing the remains of Fort Griswold, with rough zig-zag paths approaching the summit of the hill. Adjacent to Fort Griswold is the stone monument which commemorates the Fort Griswold massacre. Many sunny years will not wipe out the memory of the bloody deeds of that violent hour.

Fort Trumbull is situated one mile from the mouth of the Thames River and one mile and a half below the little city of New London, with whose history it is associated. A modest work of substantial construction, it covers only thirteen acres and is so restricted for living space that it cannot accommodate a full garrison within its walls. Fort Griswold is a work of far more ancient and rougher construction. It is not garrisoned to-day and has not been garrisoned for many years, though in the fighting days of the two forts it was the more important of the two places.

The little village of New London is a favored watering place for many in summer and its safe and accessible harbor has made it desirable as a haven for the storage of summer light craft during the winter months. These same considerations hold true of Groton on the other side of the river. Thousands of visitors every summer go over the historic defences of Fort Griswold or gaze upon the equally historic site of Fort Trumbull.

The erection of two forts was begun in 1775 by the citizens of New London and Groton, one on the west side of the Thames which was designated in the correspondence of the time as a “block-house with embrasures,” and the other, a more pretentious work, on the east side of the river and designated at once “Fort Trumbull.” In 1776 Washington directed General Knox to examine the harbor of New London. This gentleman carried out his commission in workmanlike fashion and reported that the harbor was a safe and well-protected retreat for vessels in any wind that blew. The harbor is three miles long and seldom encumbered with ice.

In that same year Captain Shapley was ordered to take command of Fort Trumbull, and Colonel William Ledyard of Fort Griswold on Groton Hill. Later, Ledyard was placed in command of the two positions. In 1777 he revised, strengthened and enlarged Fort Trumbull, and in 1778 performed this same work upon Fort Griswold. Under his direction, in 1779, strong works were thrown up on Town Hill, New London. Finally, in 1780, the assembly of New London ordered his accounts paid.

The successful operations of the Continental forces in Virginia in 1781 caused Sir Henry Clinton to cast about for some means of distracting his opponents and of recalling Washington from the South, preferably by some deed of enterprise in the North. He fixed on New London as the scene of operations, as he had heard that there were many stores in the little town, and as the leader of the expedition he picked out Benedict Arnold, the traitor, who had just returned from scenes of pillage on the James River, Virginia. The choice of Arnold may have appealed to some saturnine sense of humor in Clinton, as Connecticut, it may be remembered, was Arnold’s native State and New London not far from the scenes of his boyhood.

The little works at New London and Groton, despite the conscientious efforts of Colonel Ledyard, were not positions of much consequence. Fort Trumbull, we are told, was merely a strong breastwork of three sides, and open in the rear, mounting eighteen 12-pound guns and three 6-pound guns. Its garrison numbered twenty-three men. Fort Griswold was somewhat more formidable, being “an oblong square with bastions at opposite angles, its longest side fronting the river in a northwest and southeast direction, its walls of stone 10 or 12 feet high on the lower side and surrounded by a ditch; in the wall pickets projected over for 12 feet; above, a parapet with embrasures and within a platform for cannon, with a step to mount to shoot over the parapet with small arms.”

In addition to these,--the main defences--there was the little work on the summit of Town Hill, New London, which mounted six small-bore guns and which had become known by the airy title of “Fort Nonsense.”

It being manifestly impossible to hold Fort Trumbull with a force of twenty-three men, the Americans, on the approach of Arnold and the British, took all of their forces and placed them in Fort Griswold. At its best the garrison of this point was not as numerous as the attacking body and it was made up of untrained militia gathered at the moment’s call.

The result of the battle, when battle was finally given, was a foregone conclusion. The British soldiery landed September 6, 1781, and advanced in force. The plucky American garrison tried desperately to hold back the onslaught, fighting most of the men in sight of their own homes, but without effect. After a sharp engagement the fort was taken and the conclusion of the combat was a signal to Arnold’s forces for an indiscriminate slaughter of the Americans, many of whom had thrown down their arms. Of the 160 men making up the garrison all but 40 were killed or wounded, and the vast majority of them after resistance had ceased. The wounded, contemporary testimony asserts, were placed in carts under Arnold’s direction and dumped over the edge of the hill here which is very steep.

The British then entered Groton and New London and set them on fire. Arnold finally led his forces back to New York.

To commemorate the gallant defence of Fort Griswold and the terrible scenes which it had witnessed, the State of Connecticut began the erection of a monument on Groton Heights in 1830 and carried the shaft to the height of 127 feet. At this height the monument rested until 1881, when it was carried eight feet higher. On the face of the shaft is a tablet which bears the following inscription:

This monument was erected under the patronage of the State of Connecticut, A.D. 1830 and in the 55th year of the independence of the United States, in memory of the brave patriots who fell in the massacre at Fort Griswold on this spot on the 6th of September, A.D. 1781, when the British under the command of the traitor Benedict Arnold burnt the towns of New London and Groton and spread desolation and woe throughout this region.

Various spots in the little grounds of the fort have been marked with tablets. The grounds are carefully maintained and are open to visitors at all times.

Though no effort was ever made to rebuild Fort Griswold, a like fate did not befall Fort Trumbull. At the outbreak of the War of 1812 the embankments of Fort Trumbull were nothing but green mounds. A formal work was commenced, leaving the old block-house inside the new lines. During this war the fort was often threatened but never attacked.

An anecdote which shows the spirit of the locality is retailed by Lossing:[1]

When the British squadron which drove Decatur into the harbor of New London in 1813 menaced the town with bombardment the military force that manned the forts were deficient in flannel for cannon cartridges. All that could be found in New London was sent to the forts and a Mr. Latham, a neighbor of Mrs. Anna Bailey’s, came to her at Groton seeking for more. She started out and collected all the petticoats of little children that she could find in town. “This is not half enough,” said Mr. Latham on her return. “You shall have mine too,” said Mrs. Bailey as she cut with her scissors the string that fastened it, and taking it off gave it to Latham. He was satisfied, and, hastening to Fort Trumbull, that patriotic contribution was soon made into cartridges. “It was a heavy new one but I did not care for that,” said the old lady while her eyes sparkled. “All I wanted was to see it go through the Englishmen’s insides.” Some of Decatur’s men declared that it was a shame to cut that petticoat into cartridge patterns; they would rather see it fluttering at the mast-head of the _United States_ or the _Macedonia_ as an ensign under which to fight upon the broad ocean.

The present Fort Trumbull was begun in 1839 on the foundations of its two predecessors and finished at a cost of $250,000. Part of the old block-house of the first Fort Trumbull is still preserved in the confines of the present fort.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Lossing, vol. i, p. 617.

FORT MIFFLIN

ON THE DELAWARE--PHILADELPHIA

A visit to Fort Mifflin, Mud Island, on the Delaware River, Pennsylvania, to-day reveals a star-shaped fort of familiar pattern and of most substantial construction. It has the distinction of being within the corporate limits of one of the largest cities on the continent of North America,--Philadelphia,--yet a more deserted or forlorn looking spot it would be hard to imagine. Without benefit of policemen or any of the familiar marks of a great city, it might well serve in a “movie” for an ancient stronghold in a desert waste and may have been discovered by some enterprising movie manufacturer before these words are in print. Not always quiet, however, Fort Mifflin was the scene of one of the heaviest cannonadings of the War of Independence, when it sturdily held off the combined English naval and land forces until its own walls were reduced to powder.

The ground on which the Fort Mifflin of to-day stands was deeded to the Federal government by the State of Pennsylvania in 1795, and the present works were commenced in 1798. As the strategic advantage and the ease of fortification of the point had been amply demonstrated during the Revolution, a large and strong fortress was built and garrisoned until changing conditions of warfare caused its importance to be a thing of the past and its garrison to be withdrawn in 1853. During the Civil War the fort was garrisoned by a volunteer regiment and served as a detention place for prisoners taken during that conflict, but this structure saw no service in this war and, indeed, has never fired a shot in anger. After the Civil War the place was deserted, though the government has ever since kept a care-taker there. The government land reservation includes over three hundred acres. In other parts of the island are more modern government stations, but in these we have no present interest.

The old fortification is surrounded by a deep moat over which are bridges leading to its three sally-ports. Only one of these entrances is open now. Passing through the thick walls of this entrance, one finds one’s self facing a large parade ground, which is surrounded by quaint, old-fashioned structures--the barracks and officers’ quarters of a by-gone day. On the south of the parade is a very charming little Georgian chapel, through whose broken window-panes pour in damp winds.