First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [95]
Military ill success and the personal humiliation of the Peace Commission had prompted the commissioners to issue the manifesto known as the Carlisle Proclamation. Its expressed threats were modest compared to the intentions of its first unpublished draft, proposing “a scheme of universal devastation,” to be applied by the army and fleet, which its author fondly believed “will have effect.” A test came in Connecticut. Whether or not taking its cue from the Carlisle Proclamation, a short campaign of terror was carried out by Governor Tryon of New York in July, 1779. Compared by Henry Laurens to the operations of the Duke of Alva, in dreadful memory of the Spanish Terror, the Connecticut raid was no massacre, but vicious enough to stimulate rather than subdue resistance, a well-known effect of such measures, and to induce residents to record the events in many journals.
Apart from geographical convenience, Connecticut was chosen because it had made itself obnoxious to the British in and around New York by manufacturing munitions for the colonials and furnishing more troops for the rebel cause than any other colony except Massachusetts, and by launching frequent raids on land and water that interfered with the military plans of Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander-in-Chief. Moreover, its population was counted as three-quarters disloyal. Clinton had decided upon “severe punishment” to be inflicted by a force of 3,000 troops coming from New York under the command of Major General Tryon, Governor of New York, and to be joined by 2,000 sailors and marines crossing from Long Island in 48 transports with tenders escorted by two warships. The largest collection of ships that had ever entered Long Island Sound, the armada made an impressive sight as it came up to New Haven and anchored in the early light of dawn July 5, 1779.
On the previous day, July 4, Tryon had issued an eloquent proclamation distributed in printed copies evidently thought to be truly persuasive, for although their effect, he reported, “cannot be discovered until further operations and descent upon their coast,” he expected his words to awaken “terror and despondency” among the people of the coast, whom he believed to be “already divided and easily impressible.” He told them that their lives and “the existence of their habitations on your defenceless coast showed Britain’s forbearance and lenity in its mild and noble efforts.” He urged the population to give up their “ungenerous and wanton insurrection into which they had been deluded by designing men for private purposes.” In this plea, General Tryon reflected the enduring British belief, which held Britain to the expectation of an early victory around the corner, that the mass of Americans were basically loyal and only waiting to overturn demagogues and agitators to come back to their old allegiance. “Can the strength of your whole province,” continued the proclamation, “cope with the force of Great Britain? You are conscious it cannot. Why then, will you persist in a ruinous and ill-judged resistance? We hoped you would recover from the frenzy which had distracted this unhappy country and we believe the day will come when the greater part of this continent will blush at their delusion.”
How was it possible for Tryon, Governor of a colony, to know so little of the people he was fighting? Only the year before, giving firm notice of their intent, Connecticut and six other colonies—two from New England, two from the mid-Atlantic and two from the South—signed the Articles of Confederation that were to be the foundation of the United States of America.
At sunrise on July 5, a gunshot from the ships of Tryon’s raid sounded the signal for landing. Instantly, a string of boats filled with redcoats was seen dropping astern from every transport and pulling directly for shore. They were met by a biting blaze of musket fire from a people who proved less “impressible” than supposed. Warned in advance by compatriots in New York of Tryon’s coming, defenders armed with ancient long-range Queen Anne muskets poured into