The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [165]
There were several versions of what happened next. According to most, a popular officer, Colonel Return Meigs, was accidentally wounded by a bayonet. That prompted an officer to order other officers to put down the mutiny. They approached the group and one officer apparently seized a man. Another officer shouted that the men should not move. Instead, the Connecticut men turned on the officers, brandishing their bayonets, and pushed them back.
A Pennsylvania officer quickly brought up a regiment of his men, armed with their muskets, to put down the mutiny but many of the troops thought they had been brought up to join it. Their officers then ordered them back to their quarters. Confusion reigned.
Finally, according to Martin, the Connecticut soldiers quieted down and broke into small groups to argue their grievances, still uncertain what action to take. They were “venting our spleen at our country and government, then at our officers and then at ourselves for our imbecility in staying there and starving in detail for an ungrateful people.”32
The soldiers abandoned the mutiny and returned to their huts after Colonel Walter Stewart wrote down their complaints and promised to take them to General Washington. The commander was angry, but fully understood the reasons why the men revolted. He could not bring himself to have all of the mutineers executed, or even the instigators. He chose one of the leaders and had him shot. The rest were eventually forgiven. The mutiny, which followed a few smaller ones in other posts, deeply disturbed Washington.
News of the dissension in the ranks, a feeling that the Americans were too hungry to fight, plus an assessment that the members of the local militia were not skilled and would not turn out for a battle, prompted the British to launch an invasion of New Jersey that they believed could smash the American army. A victory over Washington’s force, coupled with the capture of Charleston, would surely force the Continental Congress to surrender and end the war.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
SPRINGFIELD:
The Militia Saves the Revolution
General Wilhelm Knyphausen was left in charge of the eightthousand-man British force in New York when Sir Henry Clinton sailed south to take Charleston. The veteran Prussian general, in charge of all Hessian troops since January 1777 and second in command of British forces to Clinton, was a slender man who walked and sat ramrod straight. The sharp-featured Prussian was a gentleman and esteemed by his men. In the beginning of June, Knyphausen decided to attack the Americans at Morristown by landing at DeHart’s Point, Elizabethtown, and then marching west through Connecticut Farms (now Union) and then Springfield. He would surprise the Americans by landing at night, overcome what he believed to be a skeleton lookout force in the area, and then march to Morristown the next morning with five thousand troops. The attack surprised no one. Washington expected such a campaign and had carefully prepared for it. His beacon fire towers and alarm guns had been manned twenty-four hours a day for more than a week when the British landed on June 7. Couriers were ready to ride to militia leaders to alert them to the attack. The number of lookouts had been increased. On June 2, Washington had asked Governor Livingston to call out the entire state militia and have them march to the Morristown area.1 Elizabethtown was protected by Continentals under Colonel Elias Dayton.2
Knyphausen was also wrong about the loyalty of the militia. They responded immediately upon hearing the alarm guns. Militia leaders rode as quickly as they could to mobilization points and waited for their men, who arrived soon after, in force and