a mistake:
[H]e must have meant that the 10th Company was complete, for I suppose the others might want forty of their complement to which[,] if 110 sick and convalescent with fifty recruits who were on duty in this Garrison are added[,] it appears only 100 remained for cutting timber and firewood, servants, guards, &c…. When the detachment went off, I think Colonel Butler informed me he had only eight men left for that [garrison] service, and some time after it was with difficulty that twenty-five men could be mustered to go to Detroit.
He referred Haldimand to the monthly return now on its way to the adjutant general “in which every man is accounted [for]” and risked being preachy:
You must be sensible, Sir, that when a regiment is called upon it is never able to furnish the number of men returned in the column “fit for duty”, and allowance should always be made for servants, convalecents, &c. I think [it] is right to observe that whenever demands are made upon the post for troops to be employed in the enemy’s country, very large allowances must be made as there are very few of the King’s Regiment [8th Foot] equal to the fatigue they necessarily undergo upon that service. In the summer there are frequently 100 of the Rangers upon the sick list owing to the ague which generally rages here at that season, which with cutting timber and firewood, providing hay, guards, servants, &c, will prevent furnishing that number of men for active service, which from returns might be expected.
He noted that a lack of clothing for the Rangers at Detroit had prevented them from “acting against the enemy” and then shifted ground to advise that Second Lieutenant Andrew Wemple had been selected for a first lieutenantcy and that Butler recommended Serjeant Silas Secord, “who distinguished himself on the last expedition, to succeed second lieutenant Frederick Docksteder, who died upon the march to the Mohawk R.”39
On Christmas Day, Captain William Fraser, LR, sent returns for the two blockhouses on the Yamaska River to General Riedesel and reported seventy-three men had been ordered for the upper blockhouse and thirty- ordered for the upper blockhouse and thirty-three for the lower one where he was personally posted. Fraser kept two scouts of six men each operating in rotation on the St. Francis River. The overall strength in both posts had shrunk, presumably due to illness, and Fraser had been unable to increase it and requested that Riedesel do so. Riedesel replied, questioning Fraser’s dispositions and the captain wrote to explain why he had assigned twelve men to scout the “river St. Francois,” exclusive of those selected for the “Grand Scout” to Hazen’s Road which numbered only twenty-eight as opposed to fifty-six of the year before.40
Although painted long after the Revolutionary War, the clothing and equipment are suggestive of a senior warrior on a winter scout.
Remarkably, Haldimand was still without reliable information about Cornwallis’s fate when, on December 27, he ordered Sherwood to go to the Loyal Blockhouse and dispatch scouting parties to get confirmation or denial of the capitulation.
That same day, the governor wrote to Brigadier de Speth about claims that certain rebel officers being held on Île Perrot, northwest of Montreal, were reported to have committed atrocities on prisoners taken from Butler’s Rangers, cutting hands and arms off some before tomahawking and scalping them. Presumably, de Speth was to keep a weather eye on these fellows while an investigation was underway. As nothing came of the story, it was presumably apocryphal.41
On Christmas Eve, Governor Clinton wrote to the state’s Congressional delegates, enclosing the letters, reports, and affidavits relating to “The Grants” and the Sancoick affair. He found it incredible that:
[P]ersons against whom there are such unquestionable proof of a traitorous correspondence, should be permitted to go at large with impunity and even at times be attending our public councils … you must be sensible of the disagreeable impression which this has made on the minds of many of our most zealous friends, who have not hesitated to attribute to this cause in a great measure our misfortunes on the Frontiers during this and the last year.
On Christmas Day, General Heath wrote to John Stark from headquarters in the Highlands commiserating over the Vermonters’ conduct. “I fear that there will, sooner or later, be serious consequences produced by their disputes.”
Heath went on to advise that the many promises of fair treatment for the Continentals in the north had finally been honoured. “The paymasters of the New Hampshire regiments have drawn clothing of every kind, and will convey it up as soon as possible. The naked condition of those regiments led me to direct that they should be first served.” This would be very welcome news for the soldiers huddling for warmth in the freezing reaches of the frontiers.42
3 TO TAKE POST AT OSWEGO An Object of Great Importance
As winter gripped the Mohawk Valley, supplies of provisions grew so short that Captain Garret Putman’s company of Willett’s Levies had to be discharged two months early, on New Year’s Day. As most of the men were from Tryon County, they did not have far to travel.
Militiaman William Feeter of Tryon’s Palatine District, who was serving in Captain Seferinus Klock’s 2TCM company, recalled being sent out several times to fend off the enemy. Natives attacked a settlement in Fairfield and several people were killed or taken prisoner and their property destroyed. Another raid struck in northeastern German Flatts. In both instances, Klock’s company pursued the raiders without success.
Captain Job Wright’s company of three-years’ men had been posted at Fort Rensselaer. A sixteen-man platoon guarding Walradt’s ferry was alarmed when a large scouting party of whites and natives hove into sight; however, nothing came of it and the raiders went elsewhere to commit their depredations.1
While these minor events were disturbing the Mohawk Valley, George Washington unofficially wrote a reasoned, powerful letter to Thomas Chittenden, which later was claimed to have greatly influenced Vermont’s future course. He recommended that the republic’s claims to the two unions be relinquished and gave hopes that, if the original boundary claims were returned to, Congress would view her request to join the union favourably. On the other hand, maintaining these two claims could lead to general antipathy and a likely intervention by the United States.
There is no calamity within the Compass of my foresight which is more to be dreaded than a necessity of coercion on the part of Congress and consequently every endeavour should be used to prevent the execution of so disagreeable a measure. It must involve the Ruin of that State against which the resentment of the others is pointed.
He ostensibly accepted Chittenden’s assertion that the negotiations with the British “were so far innocent, that there never was any serious intention of joining Great Britain”; however, he stressed that the talks gave the enemy great advantages and, by creating “internal disputes and feuds,” encouraged all enemies of the United States, at home and abroad,
