near Red Bank, and to relieve and reinforce the garrisons of both forts. The hope was entertained, that the appearance of a respectable continental force might encourage the militia to assemble in greater numbers.
In this state of things, intelligence was received of the successful termination of the northern campaign;9 in consequence of which, great part of the troops who had been employed against Burgoyne might be drawn to the aid of the army in Pennsylvania. Colonel Hamilton10 was dispatched to General Gates, to make the proper representations to that officer, and to urge him, if he contemplated no other service of more importance, to send immediately the regiments of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to aid the army of the middle department.
On reaching General Putnam, Colonel Hamilton found that a considerable part of the northern army had joined that officer; but that Gates had detained four brigades at Albany, for an expedition intended to be carried on in the winter against Ticonderoga.
Having made arrangements with Putnam for the immediate march of a large body of continental troops, Colonel Hamilton proceeded to Albany, for the purpose of remonstrating with General Gates against retaining so large and valuable a part of the army unemployed at a time when the most imminent danger threatened the vitals of the country. Gates was by no means disposed to part with his troops. He would not be persuaded that an expedition then preparing at New York was designed to reinforce General Howe; and insisted, that by a sudden movement up the Hudson, it would be in the power of the enemy, should Albany be left defenceless, to destroy the valuable arsenal at that place, and the military stores captured with Burgoyne.
After obtaining, by repeated remonstrances, an order directing three brigades to the Delaware, Hamilton hastened back to Putnam, and found the troops which had been ordered to join General Washington, still at Peekskill. The detachment from New York had suggested to Putnam the possibility of taking that place; and he does not appear to have made any great exertions to divest himself of a force which might enable him to accomplish an object that would give so much splendor to his military character. In addition to this circumstance, an opinion had insinuated itself among the soldiers that their share of service for the campaign had been performed, and that it was time for them to go into winter quarters. Great discontent, too, prevailed concerning their pay, which the government had permitted to be more than six months in arrear; and, in Poor’s brigade, a mutiny broke out, in the course of which a soldier, who was run through the body by his captain, shot the officer dead before he expired. Colonel Hamilton came in time to borrow money of the Governor of New York, to put the troops in motion; and they proceeded by brigades to the Delaware. But delays retarded their arrival until the contest for the forts on that river was terminated.
The preparations of Sir William Howe being completed, a large battery on Province Island, of twenty-four and thirty-two pounders, and two howitzers of eight inches each,11 opened early in the morning of the 10th of November, upon fort Mifflin, at the distance of five hundred yards, and kept up an incessant fire for several days. The block-houses were reduced to a heap of ruins; the palisades were beaten down;12 most of the guns disabled, and the barracks battered in every part so that the troops could not remain in them. They were under the necessity of working and watching through the night; and, if in the day a few moments were allowed for repose, it was taken on the wet earth, which incessant rains had rendered a soft mud. The garrison was relieved by General Varnum every forty-eight hours; but his brigade was so weak that half the men were constantly on duty.
In the hope that the place might be maintained till reinforcements should arrive from the northern army, General Washington ordered that it should be defended to the last extremity; and never were orders better executed.
Several of the garrison were killed, and among them Captain Treat, a gallant officer who commanded the artillery. Colonel Smith received a contusion on his hip and arm, which compelled him to give up the command, and retire to Red Bank. Major Fleury, a French officer of distinguished merit, who served as engineer, reported that the place was still defensible, but the garrison was so worn down with fatigue, and so unequal to the extent of the lines, that he dreaded the event of an attempt to carry them by storm. The command was taken first by Colonel Russell, and afterwards by Major Thayer; and the artillery, commanded by Captain Lee, continued to be well served. The besiegers were several times thrown into confusion, and a floating battery which opened on the morning of the 14th was silenced in the course of the day.
Nov. 15
The defence being unexpectedly obstinate, the besiegers brought up their ships as far as the obstructions in the river permitted, and added their fire to that of the batteries. The brave garrison, however, still maintained their ground with unshaken firmness. In the midst of this stubborn conflict, the Vigilant, and a sloop-of-war,13 were brought up the middle channel, between Mud and Province islands, which had, unperceived by the besieged, been deepened by the current, in consequence of the obstructions in the main channel; and taking a station within one hundred yards of the works, not only kept up a destructive cannonade, but threw hand-grenades into them; while the musketeers from the round-top14 of the Vigilant, killed every man that appeared on the platform.
Major Thayer applied to the Commodore15 to remove these vessels; and six galleys were ordered on the service; but they returned without attempting any thing. Their report was that these ships were so covered by the batteries on Province Island, as to be unassailable.
It was apparent that the fort could be no longer defended; and on the night of the 16th, the garrison was withdrawn; soon afterwards a detachment from Province Island occupied the ground that had been abandoned.
The day after receiving intelligence of the evacuation of fort Mifflin, the commander-in-chief deputed Generals De Kalb and Knox, to confer with General Varnum, and the officers at fort Mercer, on the practicability of continuing to defend the obstructions in the channel. Their report was favorable; but a council of naval officers had already been called by the commodore, in pursuance of a request made by the commander-in-chief, previous to the evacuation, who were unanimously of opinion that it would be impracticable for the fleet, after the loss of the island, to maintain its station, or to assist in preventing the chevaux-de-frise from being weighed by the ships of the enemy.
General Howe had now completed a line of defence from the Schuylkill to the Delaware, and a reinforcement from New York had arrived in the river at Chester. These two circumstances enabled him to form an army in Jersey for the reduction of fort Mercer, without weakening himself so much in Philadelphia as to put his lines in hazard. He detached Lord Cornwallis in the morning of the 17th, with a strong body of troops, who formed a junction with the reinforcement from New York, at Billingsport.
General Washington communicated the movement of Lord Cornwallis to General Varnum, with orders to defend fort Mercer to the last extremity; and, with a view to military operations in that quarter, ordered one division of the army to cross the river at Burlington, and despatched expresses to the troops who were marching from the north by brigades, directing them to move down the Delaware, on the northern side. Major-General Greene was selected for this service. But before Greene could cross the Delaware, Lord Cornwallis approached fort Mercer, and the place was evacuated.
Washington still hoped to recover much of what had been lost. A victory would restore the Jersey shore, and his instructions to General Greene indicated the expectation that he would be in a condition to fight Lord Cornwallis.
That judicious officer feared the reproach of avoiding an action less than the just censure of sacrificing the real interests of his country by fighting on disadvantageous terms. The numbers of the British, unexpectedly augmented by the reinforcement from New York, exceeded his, even counting his militia as regulars; and he determined to wait for Glover’s brigade, which was marching from the north. Before its arrival Lord Cornwallis took post on Gloucester Point, entirely under cover of the guns of the ships, from
