St. Lawrence.”3
On November 27, Major Ross wrote from Fort Haldimand with details of his examination into the behaviour of Lieutenant Jacob Adams of the Quebec Indian Department. Before the war, Adams had been a trader with the Mississaugas and he had been lured into the service by the promise of a commission. When Fort Haldimand was built, Adams was assigned to manage the Mississaugas’ war effort. After several years, he succumbed to the lure of his commercial interests and organized his charges to gather ginseng, a medicinal plant with a lucrative world market. Ross noted that the Mississaugas were so often gathering the plant, it was difficult to bring thirty together for military purposes. Adams was dismissed.4
A day later, the ex-officers serving as Volunteers in Eben Jessup’s Pensioners’ company were ordered to submit an exact list of the men they had recruited so that they could be given preferment accordingly when additional companies were formed.5
On November 29, Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Claus, a deputy superintendent of the Six Nations’ Department, reported to headquarters that he had equipped and sent off a party of six rangers with two trusty Mohawks under the command of Lieutenant Walter Sutherland, 2KRR, “an officer, I flatter myself His Excellency the General will approve of, as being particularly well acquainted with the business and route he is to undertake, and as capable of executing the orders and instructions he carries than any person I know employed in that service.” As the rebels had ordered away everyone suspected of being friendly to government, he predicted Sutherland would have a difficult time finding a safe harbour; however, Reverend Stuart had provided the names of trusty people who might venture to assist. Claus noted that a foot of snow had fallen since the previous night, which would prove tiring for the party.
He reported that the rebels were selling their wheat for four shillings, six pence, New York currency, and the loyalists were compelled to sell theirs for only two shillings. The quality of the wheat was very good, but army worms had damaged the grass and summer grains — the same pest that had done so much damage to Quebec’s crops.
Fort Frederick at Albany (head of State Street) 1765. A notorious jail for housing Tories throughout the Revolution.
On behalf of Stuart, Claus informed headquarters that, as the rebels had received no word about the priest’s exchange, they confined his surety with the common criminals in the Albany jail, which was a most unwholesome, nauseous place. The fellow was in ill health, which gave Stuart much unrest. Obviously, Stuart hoped this news would speed up the exchange process.6
On November 25, two reports of the disastrous news of Cornwallis’s capitulation arrived at Lord George Germain’s London office within hours of each other. Prime Minister Lord North received the news “as he would have taken a ball in the breast … and paced up and down the room exclaiming ‘Oh God! It is all over.’”7
On November 27, the various levels of the rebel command initiated a brisk round of correspondence about the defence of New York’s frontiers. Governor Clinton wrote to General Heath from Poughkeepsie about the imminent expiration of the New York Levies’ terms of service. As it was usual for Continental regiments to replace the Levies over the winter, he asked what arrangements were in train, in case some strategic plan should prevent adequate coverage along the frontiers and make it necessary for him to keep the Levies in service:
For although we have not to apprehend any formidable body of the enemy on our frontiers in the course of the winter, yet they have seldom failed visiting us with small parties, sufficient to annoy these posts, should they find them abandoned or possessed only by the neighbouring inhabitants & desolate the country. The raising of Levies at this season will be attended with a great expence & difficulty and an additional consumption of our provisions & stores. I, therefore, sincerely wish it might be avoided & I would fain hope that such a disposition may be made of the army as to render it unnecessary.
The following day, Washington wrote to Heath from Philadelphia on this same topic and confirmed that the New Hampshire Continentals would remain in the north and, he believed, would be adequate for the purpose. Hazen’s regiment, which had been in the Mohawk region the previous winter, had undergone “a long Tour of March and Duty” during the 1781 campaign and would not join them. He closed with, “The Success of Colo Willett at the Northward, does him great Honor; and I hope will be attended with very good Consequences.”
Stark reported to Heath on November 29 that he had dismissed all the militia and Levies at Saratoga. The two blockhouses were nearing completion and repairs were underway to the barracks, although resources were very limited. He pled for improved clothing for the New Hampshire Continentals and an adequate fuel supply, refuting Heath’s supposition that fuel was “at command,” for none could be had within a mile and half of the post. As to Heath’s advice that materials were being sent for the regimental tailors to make up clothing, he wrote that there was only one tailor in the New Hampshire Line and he was “a drunken rascal, that could be hardly compelled to make three coats in a winter.” He agreed with Heath’s observation that only a few horses should be kept with the troops and the remainder sent where forage could be had; however, there was not a man in the district who knew where that place was. Naughtily, he added, “But I suppose it is romantic to issue any more complaints, when experience has taught me that they are of so little value.”
Next, he displayed a nice turn of phrase:
I can not sufficiently admire the magnanimous conduct of our soldiers. They certainly put knight errantry out of countenance; and all those whimsical tales which are generally supposed to have existed no where but in the brains of chimerical authors, seem realized in them. But I fear that this virtue will not last forever; and, indeed, it is my opinion that nothing but their too wretched situation prevents an insurrection. However, I have not heard a syllable of the kind yet, and shall take every imaginable precaution to hinder it; and I hope that their firmness and my endeavors will prove efficacious.
He reported that Willett had eighty to one hundred three-years’ men and believed that two hundred men should be kept on the Mohawk River for its protection as less than that would be dangerous, but he cautioned that until the men were clothed, they should not be sent. Currently, the three-years’ men at Saratoga could scarce leave their barracks for lack of clothing. Their distress was so great, it was found difficult to form a guard.
There were few troops left in the district, so Stark intended to retire to Albany when the barracks and blockhouses were finished. As he anticipated little business for a general officer, he requested leave to visit home.
On November 30, General Heath responded to Governor Clinton’s request by advising that the two New Hampshire regiments, of some three hundred to four hundred men each, would winter in the north. Reflecting Washington’s opinion, he suggested they would be sufficient to man the Mohawk Valley posts when the Levies’ terms expired. He was unable to spare any other Regular troops for the other western frontiers, such as the Catskills, and pronounced that the state must provide them, if necessary. Obviously, if Willett’s recommendations were accepted, the governor would have to take the Mohawk into consideration
