The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [164]
The next day, Friday, brought even more trouble for the militia colonel. He learned in the morning that a friend, William Crowell, had been killed by a musket ball from a British gun that had accidentally discharged. Then, that night, he saw Mrs. Ball again and they got into a terrible fight. “Believe I shall never be able to get her affection again, and that she hates me,” he wrote in his secret diary.
Despite these personal woes, Colonel Seely worked hard to prove himself innocent at his court-martial, which was eventually held on May 4 in Bernardsville. He asked a friend to gather evidence that would prove him innocent and he himself testified that he had done no wrong and offered the court-martial board all the assistance they requested in looking at his orders and his militia payrolls. The court-martial board only took one hour to acquit Seely of all charges.
In an extraordinary move, Governor Livingston issued an official proclamation noting the acquittal that was published in both the Jersey Journal and the New Jersey Gazette. It was no ordinary proclamation, though. It listed the charges and the not guilty verdict but then, at the end, the governor wrote that Seely “is entitled to the character of a good soldier, a vigilant officer, and faithful citizen, and as such deserves the gratitude of his country.”30
Seely was relieved; the court-martial had worried him for weeks. He wrote, “Cannot help remarking that I felt very heavy when I was called to answer guilty or not guilty although I knew my innocence.” He was relieved, too, that his friend Governor Livingston had written the special proclamation. The governor and the militia leader had become friends during the war, sometimes dining together, and the governor knew that at some point the New Jersey militia might be instrumental in defending the state.
That day came sooner than Livingston anticipated.
Mutiny
The month of May did not bring much happiness to the troops camped at Morristown. There was not much of a harvest following the dreadful winter. Farmland had been ruined by the cold and snow, fruit trees were destroyed, and corn fields frozen. Hundreds of cattle died from a lack of fodder. Food supplies were short and the soldiers complained continuously. In addition to the lack of food, there was a lack of money since many of the soldiers had not been paid in months. At the same time, soldiers talked bitterly about the profits being earned by the thousands of men working as sailors for the privateers that preyed on British merchant ships while the soldiers at Jockey Hollow starved.
The enlisted men were just as angry with black market entrepreneurs who purchased salt for $15 a bushel in south Jersey and sold it in Morristown for $35 a bushel. The lower-ranking officers, some of whom had risen from the ranks of enlisted men, were bitter about problems with promotion. The states had consolidated lowly enrolled companies and regiments into new regiments. Captains and lieutenants were then forced into the consolidated companies at the lowest rank. Officers who had been prisoners, and there were many, were told that their time imprisoned in warehouses or ships would not count toward their time in the army; they fumed as men with less time in service than they were promoted ahead of them. All starved.
“The men were now exasperated beyond endurance; they could not stand it any longer,” wrote Private Joseph Martin.31 Their anger boiled over on May 25, a rather pleasant day, and exploded in a mutiny, the very event that George Washington feared the most. That evening, a hungry Connecticut soldier complained about some orders to a sergeant. The sergeant called him “a mutinous rascal.” The soldier slammed the butt of his