The Minuteman, Elizabeth and the Battle of Springfield

Apologies for the delay between posts.  This one notes the Minuteman monument in Elizabeth, New Jersey, shown below:

The Battle of Springfield, whose anniversary is this month, took place on June 23, 1780.  A British and Hessian force of some 6,000 under  Lieutenant General Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen landed at Elizabethport, seeking to attack Washington's army in northern New Jersey.  This area of Elizabeth, on Elizabeth Avenue at what is now Union Square, was the opening salvo.  A small contingent of minuteman were involved, and the British and Hessians moved in two columns through Connecticut Farms (now Union Township) where the British and Hessians were delayed, but victorious on June 7. They continued on towards Springfield, where they were forced to retreat.

Although the prime effort of the British was in the Carolinas at this point, had this attack succeeded for the British, it could have had a far more significant impact on war.  It failed, and has been relegated to not much more than a footnote in histories of the war, but the argument may be made that its importance has been understated.

In the context of today's Elizabeth, this seemingly incongruous monument is a vivid reminder of the importance of this battle and the close calls that often marked the activity in the Revolution.

Bennington, Stark and Warner

The Battle of Bennington, on August 16, 1777, occurred in Hoosick, New York, although the storehouse that was the subject of the raid was just across the border in the recently "independent" Vermont.  Burgoyne was advancing on Albany, and by early August 1777 Burgoyne knew Howe was not moving northward to meet up with him.  Burgoyne needed supplies.  He sent a predominantly Hessian force, with Indian components, led by Colonel Friedrich Baum to procure the supplies.  Burgoyne's intelligence was flawed, and he was unaware that Colonel John Stark had become Major General John Stark, and had nearly 1500 militia at Bennington.

The hilltop where the battle occurred gives a real sense of why the Hessians thought they had a defensible position, and what the Americans had to overcome.  This is a view looking north

The American victory Bennington was significant because it further weakened Burgoyne's already finite force; he lost 15% of his men at Bennington.  Beyond this, of course, was the failure to obtain the necessary supplies.  He continued to move deeper into hostile territory, and into the cataclysm that was Saratoga. 

Bennington is the story of two of the great commanders of the Revolution, John Stark and Seth Warner.  Both were veterans of prior battles, and fought throughout the Revolution.  Warner never made general; he ended his career as a colonel and died in 1784 at the age of 41 in poverty. 

The battles of the Revolution, unlike those of the American Civil War, generally had far fewer casualties, and yet the stakes were certainly as high as in any war.  These small battles and these small victories resonated far beyond their superficial aspects.  Burgoyne sent this force to obtain supplies for his main force that was suffering from attrition.  The effort not only failed, but further depleted Burgoynes' forces.  To whatever measurable extent this depletion affected the result at the battles of Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights, collectively known as the Battle of Saratoga, the efforts of Stark and Warner contributed not only to that victory, but also to the consequential decision of the French to formally enter the war.  

Washington's Crossing 2014

I attended the annual reenactment of the 238th anniversary of General George Washington' Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware River, which preceded the 9 mile march south to Trenton and the victory over the Hessian garrison there.  Here is one image of one of the Durham boats being ferried across, filled with soldiers, and oared by the Colonel John Glover's Marbleheaders (in the red caps).

The narrator's concluding remarks stated that with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, the war ended in 1781.  This, of course, was not quite correct; the war continued until 1783 and Washington remained concerned that it might still be lost.  People who think the entire British army surrendered at Yorktown forget that New York, Charleston and Savannah were still occupied by significant numbers of British troops.  While the British loss at Yorktown caused the downfall of the North government and seriously hurt the British army, both sides had lost significant armies to surrender earlier in the war--the Americans at Forth Washington (New York) and at Charleston, and the British at Saratoga.  I do not raise all this to quibble as such; Yorktown was a decisive victory and led to the political will on the British side towards peace.  But the headline style way that history is presented, and the less than superficial understanding of Americans, is problematic, even in casual contexts.  These things have a way of sticking.

The reenactors deserve great credit for making history accessible and visible.  Still, there remains no substitute for presentation of history with integrity and attention to facts.  I saw a trailer playing in the movie theater this week that highlighted the History Channel's forthcoming series that basically casts Revolutionary leaders as moving from rogues to rebels to heroes.  Perhaps good marketing strategy, but this constant recasting of historical figures to make them fit contemporary "understandings" or notions of "narrative" and "political correctness" is disturbing.  A photographer is always safest returning to the negative; when they work off prints they are working off edited information.  The more we move from fact to narrative, the more we lose history.  Like a jpeg file that ultimately loses information if it is opened too many times, so, too, does our understanding dissipate if we try to "retell" what happened on the basis of preset dispositions.

Second Battle of Trenton

So today was the reenactment of both the first and second battles at Trenton; I attended the second.  The actual battle occurred January 2, 1777, with the British essentially charging three times the bridge across the Assunpink Creek, and being repelled three times by the Continental forces.  In this interpretation, the British and Hessians battle the American forces on what is now called Broad Street (then, Queen Street).  I managed to get "flash" as they fired.

Here are the Americans:

And facing them, the British:

Mill Hill Park is where the main British assaults occurred; here is a representation of the British artillery firing on the American position:

The yellow house is the Douglas House.  It was originally on Queen Street south of the creek, and was eventually moved to its present location after other moves.  Washington held a council of war in this house on January 2.

Kudos to the reenactors; watching them and listening to the officers bark commands (in German, for the Hessians), and watching the process of loading and firing, in such close proximity, drives home just how personal this war was.  Unlike the drone operator moving around a joystick, these men looked, quite literally, into each other's eyes as they fired.