The Heart of Liberty

by Thomas Fleming

  “Look at this. The governor says I am persecuting these damn Quakers. Says they are exempt from militia duty. The same, governor that is hauling you off to fight for those damn Philadelphians. I will show him what it means to push Slocum around.”

  The calls for help from Washington became more and more frantic. The British army had landed at the head of the Chesapeake and was marching on Philadelphia. New Jersey militiamen were ordered to assemble at Morristown and march in a body from there to join the Continental army. Colonel Slocum was appointed a brigadier general commanding troops from Monmouth, Middlesex, and Somerset counties. An express rider was rushed to Philadelphia at public expense to purchase a suitable uniform for our leader. Kemble hurled himself into a round-the-clock effort to turn out more men. On the eve of his departure, Slocum strode into Liberty Tavern and made a stunning announcement.

  “The honorable Provincial Congress has passed a law,” Slocum said, “forbidding the Monmouth regiment from serving outside the county.”

  “That’s insane,” Kemble said.

  “They did so as a rebuke to the governor,” Slocum said, “after our honorable delegates communicated to them the perilous state of this county, infested as it is by Tories and Quakers, and the governor’s interference in our efforts to handle matters as we see fit. Maybe now the governor will learn that we ain’t kicked out one tyrant to be bullied by another one.”

  It was an awesome display of Slocum’s political power. He had, I hardly need add, elected his entire slate of candidates in the mid-August elections unopposed. No one wanted to become an enemy of General Slocum if he could avoid it.

  To Kemble’s dismay, Slocum’s coup was very popular among our militiamen. Samson Tucker echoed the prevailing opinion, as usual. “The General’s right,” he said. “Why should we march a hundred miles to get our tails blown off for those damn Phila.delphians? Let’s see how they fight for their own country. They sure as hell didn’t do much fighting for ours.”

  This use of the word “country” may strike later Americans as odd. But it was common during the Revolution and for many years after it for a man to call his home state his country.

  To further demonstrate his power, General Slocum mustered three hundred men. He gave Kemble command of them and ordered him to patrol the shores against loyalist raiders. Slocum rode off to Morristown, where he politicked his way into the leadership of the eight hundred New Jerseyans (out of a potential sixteen thousand) who responded to Washington’s call for help. Unacquainted with our local politics, Washington never learned that Slocum had deliberately left behind him the men for whom he was personally responsible. If the absence of Monmouth men ever arose, Slocum no doubt blamed the whole thing on the legislature. It was easy enough for a man like Slocum to impose himself on the harassed Washington as one of the first patriots of New Jersey.

  This nonsupport from New Jersey and an equally poor turnout of Pennsylvania militia - enthusiasm for the Revolution was never high in the Keystone State - undoubtedly played a part in Washington’s defeat at Brandywine Creek, which opened the gates of Philadelphia to Sir William Howe’s army.

  Abel Aikin brought us the news in his usual indirect fashion. “Well,” he said, getting off his horse in front of Liberty Tavern. “I am out of a job again.”

  “What’s this, Abel?” said Barney McGovern. “Have they finally found out you’re makin’ more than the postmaster general, with all them packages and private letters you carry on the side?” Abel shook his head, added a few purls to a scarf he was knitting, and said, “The postmaster general has gone to parts unknown. The British are in Philadelphia.”

  “Now all we need hear is Burgoyne is in Albany, and this may yet be the year of the gallows,” said Barney.

  For the next several days, Liberty Tavern’s taproom echoed with new denunciations of Washington. Again, Jonathan Gifford was his chief defender. “He may have been beaten at Brandywine,” be said, “but he saved his army. He will do something with it before the campaign is over, I promise you. He understands the main thing. As long as we have an army, we are in the game.”

  Within two weeks, Daniel Slocum was back in Liberty Tavern telling us about the battle of Germantown. This is listed in the history books as another Washington defeat. But for us, with our desperate need for hope, it. was a marvelous restorative. We listened with exultant delight as Slocum described the secret march of the American army, the hammer blow struck at the British camp in the dawn. We all but tore our hair with vexation at the unexpectedly heavy morning fog that threw the American columns into confusion. Whether the American tactics were good or bad, even whether we won or lost, did not mean as much to us as the simple fact that within three weeks of a supposedly ruinous defeat, Washington had come back to fight the British army with ferocious guile.

  “Let the lobsters have Philadelphia,” crowed Samson Tucker. “What did that damn city ever do for us here in Jersey but suck out our money for gewgaws and luxuries?”

  Slocum naturally portrayed himself and the Jersey militia he commanded as the heroes of Germantown. He had them scattering British regiments like leaves in a thunderstorm. Nothing stopped them, not the Foot Guards, the Black Watch, the King’s Own. Jonathan Gifford did not believe a word of it. But he let Slocum talk and pretended to be impressed. For the time being there was no way to stop him from puffing his military reputation. He listened patiently while the General threw Washington’s name around the taproom, giving everyone the impression that the commander in chief relied heavily on Daniel Slocum’s advice.

  “Yes,” said Slocum, “I told His Excellency about our situation here, exposed to the ravages of that damned banditti on Staten Island and pernicious enemies in our midst. He agreed to send us a regiment of regulars to patrol the coast this winter.”

  Slocum’s already large popularity became immense with this announcement. Not even the news that General Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga and his entire Canadian army were prisoners of war created as much of a sensation among us as the arrival of our Continental regiment. They camped about a mile from Liberty Tavern and we all went down to take a look at them. Jonathan Gifford was not impressed. They were a Massachusetts outfit, commanded by a major named Yates. He was a tall lean Yankee with a stoop to his shoulders and a prow of a nose that gave a disconsolate cast to his solemn face. They all had twangs so broad they sounded as if they were speaking a foreign language. They were only at half strength, barely two hundred men. Their colonel and several captains had gone home to recruit. They were a scruffy-looking bunch of soldiers, confirming what we’d heard about Yankees - they had a dread of soap and water that equaled their fear of hell-fire. But they looked mean enough to fight.

  That night, Yates and two captains came down to Liberty Tavern and got pretty drunk. One of the captains was a potbellied ex-shoemaker who had “liberated” some hides from a Bergen County Tory and said he would be glad to whip together some boots for anyone with ready cash. When he got no takers he grew disgruntled and began taunting us about our inability to defend ourselves. “Why from what we hee-uh,” he twanged, “the keows in Massachusetts will fight harder than you Jersey men.”

  “Too bad you didn’t tell General Washington that,” Kemble said. “He could have used a few of those cows to do the fighting you Yankees forgot to do on Long Island.”

  “Maybe their keows can run faster than they can,” Samson Tucker said, “and like most Yankees don’t know the difference between fighting and running. It’s all the same to them.”

  “What’s this, Captain Gifford?” Yates droned. “You serve Tories in here?”

  “Samson? You can’t find a better Whig in south Jersey.”

  Yates sighed with astonishment. “Why, if he was up in Massachusetts we would be praying for his immortal soul, yes we would.”

  “More likely he’d be wearing a Tory overcoat,” said the ex-shoemaker who had started the argument. “Hot tar and feathers.”

  “How many Tories do you h
ave up there?” scoffed Kemble. “Ten, twenty at the most?”

  “Yeah,” said Samson, “take a march down Shrewsbury way. You will find enough in that one town to chase you and your damn scarecrows all the way to Boston.”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Jonathan Gifford said, “you are all Americans. This name-calling is childish.”

  “Amen, Captain Gifford,” said Major Yates. “We are all fighting the Lord’s battle. I only wish our chaplain was here. He would get these fellows down on their knees, yes he would, and he’d raise them up with the strength of ten.”

  The next day General Slocum was growling at Jonathan Gifford and Kemble for insulting the Major and his “brave Yankees.” But he did not pursue the subject. The General had other things on his mind. With him was a small hook-nosed Scotsman named Andrew McIntosh. “Andy here’s as staunch a Whig as walks the earth,” General Slocum said, “a refugee from Philadelphia, where he had his own wharf and a fleet of ships running between the West Indies and the main. A half-dozen good Bermuda sloops that he turned to privateering and made him the terror of our coast from the capes of the Delaware to Florida. Now he’s here to do another service for his country. His business was salt before the war came. He brought it in by the ton from the Cayman Islands. With Philadelphia closed and the coast thick with British cruisers, the country’s running short of it. Believe me, it’s as needed as gunpowder. Washington himself said as much to me before I left him. So Andy and me have decided for our country’s sake to build the biggest saltworks ever seen in America down on the Manasquan. Between us, there’s a chance for a profit that will make your eyes pop. West of Philadelphia, salt is selling for twenty-five dollars a bushel and going up every day. What do you think of investing five or ten thousand?”

  “I don’t have it,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Every cent I’ve got is out in the neighborhood. People needed a lot of money to rebuild their houses.”

  “There ain’t nobody runs a tavern without a cash reserve,” said the General. “Put in with me now and you will have Slocum for a partner. That’s something will do you good in this county for a long time to come.”

  “I’m telling you the truth,” Jonathan Gifford said, lying with a clear conscience. He had ten thousand dollars in his strongbox. But he had no intention of going into business with Daniel Slocum.

  “Well, that disappoints me,” Slocum said. “Disappoints me greatly. But I half-expected it from you.”

  While McIntosh slurped his ale, Slocum went to work on Kemble. “But I don’t expect the young squire here to disappoint me. We need his help. There ain’t no one else in the county that can raise the lads we need to work this thing. Andy here says we will need between forty and sixty hands. There ain’t no one but you that can make them understand the importance of salt to this. country.”

  “It’s the presairvation of the nation, so to speak,” said McIntosh with a shrill cackle at his own joke.

  “They’ll be paid militia wages and be exempt from call-out.”

  Gifford agreed to help raise the men. Neither he not Jonathan Gifford realized it at the moment, but they were present at the launching of the great salt boom of 1777. It is one of the more disgraceful and perhaps better forgotten episodes of the Revolution in New Jersey. But I have promised to tell the whole truth about our supposed Golden Age. Salt was one of the few natural resources with which our continent was not blessed. Before the war most of it was imported from Europe or the West Indies. As the British fleet tightened its patrols off our coast it became more precious than gold. There was no other cheap way to preserve meat and without meat the average American was devoutly convinced then as now that he would wither like a daffodil in September. We are an incurably carnivorous people.

  There was one obvious source of salt lapping the shores of New Jersey - the Atlantic Ocean. Heretofore the process of extracting this precious item from the surrounding liquid had been too expensive to compete with imported salt. This was no longer the case and merchants like McIntosh rushed to our shore to make a fortune. General Slocum was determined to be in the vanguard of this column. With Kemble’s help he signed up sixty young men in two furious days. They marched south to the Manasquan, convinced that they were joining their General on a military mission. In the next few weeks, other salt entrepreneurs poured into the neighborhood and offered twice, then three times the wages Slocum was paying. The strength of our militia dwindled to the vanishing point, giving the loyalists new grounds for complacency and arrogance.

  “Thank God we have the Continentals,” Kemble said at first.

  But Major Yates and his Yankees began to look less and less like the answer to anyone’s prayers except their own. They showed practically no interest in patrolling the shore. Their chief activity, besides singing hymns and listening to three-hour sermons from their chaplain, was serving as escorts to the latest arrivals in our little village - Deputy Commissary Beebe and Deputy Quartermaster Beatty. Beatty was built like a birch tree, with a small head on his narrow shoulders. Beebe was his opposite - fat as a mulberry bush with a pumpkin-size head. They were part of a small army of similar government servants Who sat themselves down in every town in New Jersey. The commissaries bought food for the Continental army and the quartermasters forage for its horses.

  Beatty and Beebe were armed with thousands of Continental dollars. But this medium of exchange was beginning to lose its appeal to almost everyone, including the stoutest Whigs. Already its value had begun to decline. It took two dollars to buy what one had bought in 1776. It slowly dawned on us that Yates and his soldiers were there to intimidate Whigs and Tories alike into taking paper money for our oats, wheat, corn, and hay.

  But the Tories were the ones who learned to dread the approach of Yates and his troops, slouching sullenly beside Beatty and Beebe’s wagons. For them the term “Tory” included neutrals like my father. Slocum had supplied Yates with a list of the “disaffected and suspected.” We were on it.

  My father greeted Yates, flanked by Beatty and Beebe, at our front door with the same philosophic calm he had displayed to Major Moncrieff. Beneath this deceptive exterior, to which he was trained from boyhood, his feelings could be and often were in turmoil. After Moncrieff and his British foragers had left us with our barns in ashes and our hen house empty, he had gone to bed for two weeks with a high fever and other alarming symptoms of apoplexy. He was weak and melancholy most of the summer and was only beginning to take an interest in the farm when these new foragers arrived.

  “We are here to purchase supplies for the troops and horses of the Continental army,” said Beatty.

  “I am prepared to accept your money, gentlemen,” my father said. “But I hope you will take into account the depreciation. At New Brunswick I hear it is already over two to one.”.

  Yates shook his head lugubriously, a saint contemplating a sinner lost beyond redemption. “It is almost hard to believe, yes it is,” he said. “A man so deep in the toils of Satan, he don’t even know it. I vow it makes me think the devil is setting up a church, and the next thing men like this will be declaring themselves justified.”

  “A little repentance on a rail might do wonders for him,” said the shoemaker Captain.

  “We don’t have time,” Yates said. “But we will exact justice from this fellow, in the Lord’s name, for the sake of our, suffering country-.”

  He took a small black book from his pocket and paged methodically through it, a parody of St. Peter on doomsday. “Yes, here he is, failed to pay the fine of two hundred and fifty dollars levied for refusal to perform militia duty.”

  “I told General Slocum I would not pay that fine. The courts will decide which of us is right,” my father said.

  “The time is past when vipers like you can escape the hand of justice by bribing juries and judges,” Yates droned. “I have orders to secure from your house chattel goods to the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, this day.”

  “I would like to see that order,” my father
said.

  Yates whipped his sword from the scabbard and put the point of it against my father’s throat. “Here it is. The same order the Lord sent to Gideon and Joshua. I am ready to deliver it. Say but the word.”

  My father stood there with the sword at his throat for a full minute. For the first time it dawned on me that in an oblique way he was a man of courage. I think he considered the possibility of dying on that sword.

  He finally stepped aside and let Yates and ten of his men troop through our house. My father was a rich man, thanks to the combination of his law practice and a well-run three-hundred-acre farm. Our furniture, wallpaper, rugs equaled the splendor of Kemble Manor, if our house was not quite so large.

  “Look at the way this Tory lives while honest Whigs are shivering in tents,” Yates said. He put the point of his sword into the blue satin upholstery of a sample chair made by Philadelphia’s Benjamin Randolph and ripped it up the middle.

  A shriek from the doorway announced that my mother had arrived. “How dare you, sir. How dare you ruin my property?”.

  “Why, madam, I don’t know,” Yates said with a clumsy bow. “Perhaps the Lord was guiding my hand. You know what He says, vengeance is mine.”

  My mother, with a majesty that came naturally to an upper-class Bostonian, began denouncing the Major as a blackguard, a pirate, a hypocrite, and a vandal. He caught the Yankee echo in her tirade. Twenty years in New Jersey had not erased it from her tongue.