The First American Army

by Bruce Chadwick

  In 1776, Chatham was a small village twenty miles west of New York. The main highway from New York to Chester that then took travelers to Philadelphia ran through Chatham and the Passaic River bisected it. The village could boast of thirty-nine buildings that included a sawmill, a forge, a gristmill, and two taverns. The population consisted of about two hundred forty people, including several slaves. Most of the residents were Presbyterians who worshipped at a church in Bottle Hill (Madison) or traveled to Hanover to another Presbyterian church to hear the fiery patriotic minister, Rev. Jacob Green. Three doctors lived in town. The village children attended school in nearby Morristown.

  Chatham was a patriotic community in a patriotic county. Half the men in the village served in the war. Most of them were young; their average age was eighteen. Dr. Peter Smith, twenty-seven, left his practice to become an army doctor just nine months after the war began.3 Many of the younger boys, from nine to fourteen, formed a mock children’s militia. They played soldier, battling each other in nearby fields with wooden guns. Chatham served as part of the Continental Army’s winter camp in 1776–1777. The town let soldiers live in the homes of its residents and in tents in nearby fields. The army brought problems, however. The hundreds of soldiers billeted in the village drained all of the area’s food and at times starved when local farmers ran out of it and the army commissary could not find any more to send them. The food crisis there in the winter of 1776–1777 was so bad that Washington mentioned the town in a heated letter he sent to the commissary demanding more food. “The cry of provisions comes to me from every quarter. General Maxwell writes word that his people are starving . . . people could draw none [food]; this difficulty I understand prevails also at Chatham.” The town was hit hard by the smallpox epidemic of 1777 that began in nearby Morristown. Washington took the unprecedented step of inoculating his entire army without the traditional rest and diet formula used all over the world, and offered inoculations for civilians in the area. Some residents were inoculated; some were not. Dozens who did not obtain the inoculation in Chatham died, including young children and a local minister.

  Chatham gave the Revolution its young men, one of its doctors, much of its food and supplies, and its townspeople died in the smallpox epidemic. Its citizens, including Captain Seely of its militia, had pledged everything to the cause. The townspeople were so staunchly on the side of the rebellion that people who were on their deathbeds made out patriotic wills, such as Eunice Horton, who in her last days, in 1778, wrote a will that was dated with great pride, “This first day of August, in the year of American Independence.”4

  It was a pretty town. Thousands of acres of fertile land surrounded the farming community where residents grew a variety of crops, such as corn. Dozens of large cherry and apple orchards dotted the countryside. The village lay amid thick forests of hickory, oak, and butternut trees. Chatham was also close enough to larger towns, such as Morristown, Newark, Elizabethtown, and New York to provide business for its merchants. A local farmer praised the community in a newspaper ad, writing that his farm, for sale, was “pleasantly situated in a village of great resort, and excellent situation for business . . . [my] farm is an excellent one for a grazier, is well watered, has thereon a large barn and sheds for cattle and a pretty spot on which a dwelling house might be built . . . a fine prospect.”5

  Seely erected a Liberty Pole in front of his inn and hosted a large crowd there to celebrate the news of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776. For Seely, the Revolution was not just a celebration; he was eager to fight. Seely applied for a commission in the Continental Army when the war began and was so intent on obtaining one that he had several influential members of the community sign a petition recommending him. It read, “He is an honest man firmly attached to the liberties of his country.”6 He was not given a commission in the regular army, so he won himself the job of captain in the Morris County militia. His ability as a recruiter, administrator, and a superb marksmen who could train others to shoot well earned him a promotion to colonel in just three months.

  In the summer of 1776 he took the militia to New York, where they joined George Washington’s army in what turned out to be a series of debilitating defeats. Seely and the militia left New York with the army when it fled across New Jersey toward Pennsylvania that fall. They broke off from the main force and went home to Chatham when the army reached New Brunswick and their period of service was up. The head of any militia company or regiment during the Revolution led a dual life, military and personal. Seely, for example, was required to live with the militia when it was ordered into service by the governor to serve with the Continental Army, usually for a period of only a few months. On duty out of the county, but still in New Jersey, the Morris militia lived in the army camp.

  The militia resided in their own homes when the militia remained in service to protect northern New Jersey, which was usually the case. Seely’s function changed during those in-county periods. He lived at his residence but spent several days each week working on militia business. He recruited new men, visited troops stationed at lookout posts, conducted all militia administrative business, and procured clothing, food, and munitions for his men. He was also responsible for obtaining clothing and food for New Jersey prisoners housed on the notorious British prison ships in nearby New York harbor. Seely was in charge of all repairs to army fortifications in the area and in 1779 worked feverishly to repair a series of tall, wooden, pyramid-like towers, filled with dry brush, built to be lit and serve as beacons to warn the army at Morristown that the British had invaded the area. As the captain and then colonel, he sent troops off on assignment out of the county while he returned home. He worked as a liaison between the army and local courts on crimes involving soldiers and frequently dined with judges. He was named to a joint committee that settled civil disputes between the soldiers and local residents. These disagreements often involved unpaid loans and goods or tools that were borrowed but not returned or damages to property. From time to time, he served as one of the judges on a court-martial board. As the local militia head, he was sometimes asked to suggest honest merchants with whom the army could do business. He also knew from army sources when certain military goods would be auctioned off to raise extra revenue for the army. He went to the auctions, hunting for bargains. Sometimes he brought friends, such as Shepard Kollock, who at Washington’s behest would become a newspaper publisher.7

  At the same time that they tended to army affairs, militia leaders ran their own businesses or farms; in Seely’s case, his inn. Seely spent just as much time on his personal business as he did on the militia when it was stationed in-county. He traveled by horseback, a horse-drawn, two-seat riding chair, or wagon to cities such as Elizabethtown, New Brunswick, or Philadelphia to buy rum, brandy, sugar, cheese, clothing, and other goods for resale at the store in his inn.

  These trips were often major undertakings. He would buy several one-hundred-pound barrels of sugar or pepper or some other commodity and transport them more than ninety miles to his home in sturdy wagons. On one trip he purchased ninety-seven gallons of rum and twenty-nine gallons of brandy. Distant trips required him to stay over at an inn somewhere; his trips were often lengthened when ferry service was interrupted by turbulent rivers or ferries under repair. Ferries rarely ran when rains raised rivers, making the passage too dangerous; passengers had to find lodging for a night or two until the river subsided. Sometimes, despite his best efforts, his business failed. Christmas 1778 was a fine example of how the life of any businessman was dramatically affected by the events of the war and the vicissitudes of the weather. His problems that holiday began on Tuesday, December 22, when he was tied up all day sitting as a judge on the local court of appeals. The next day he was informed that a large load of salt that he had purchased and planned to sell to a Chatham man for $33 had been left in a valley several miles away. He had just sold a second load of salt to Major Sears for the army’s use. He spent all of that day and t
he next, Christmas eve, investigating the missing salt and learned that his friend Jacob Minthorn had forgotten to pick up the salt. Determined to have the salt delivered and to earn the $33, Seely rose early on Christmas Day and spent more time working on the case of the missing salt. He was apparently unable to find anyone to retrieve the load on the holiday and gave up shortly after noon. Nothing would be done about it for a few days, either, because as Major Sears, Seely, and his wife dined with their friends it began to snow—hard. The snowstorm continued all night and throughout the next day. “Froze me ears,” Seely noted.

  The weather remained cold. Enough snow fell on Christmas Day and the following day to make the roads impassable. Seely wrote angrily, “Snowed so hard that the teams cannot go with the salt and all hopes of the sale is over.”

  Seely was a careful businessman, weighing each barrel when he brought it home. He spent much time managing the inn and took care of the needs of the boarders who lived there and locals who drank at his tavern. He had a nineteen-acre farm behind the inn. He and his slave, Prince, tended gardens there and grew crops for sale, along with hay that he sold to local residents for their horses. He collected apples from trees in an orchard and brought them to a local mill where they were turned into barrels of apple cider he would sell at the tavern and store. He rode to the farms of neighbors to buy other fruits, such as peaches, that he sold in his store.

  He was a valued member of the Chatham community and was often called upon to serve on juries in civil and criminal matters. He and his wife attended Sunday church services together, visited friends for dinner parties, and drove in his riding chair to the farms of neighbors to pick fruit for their own enjoyment. He often won jugs of cider or money at the shooting matches that were a popular form of local entertainment at the time and attended by many.8

  It was his work as head of the militia, though, that was critical to the war effort. His diary does not describe his relationship with George Washington, but they must have met from time to time during the two winters that the army spent in nearby Morristown, New Jersey, or during the winter of 1778–1779, when it was fifteen miles south in Bound Brook. He also had a friendly relationship with William Livingston, the fiery governor of New Jersey, with whom he had dinner several times during the Revolution.

  The Battle of Monmouth

  Seely and the militia were called on to fight in the summer of 1778. On June 21, Seely was ordered to send the five-hundred-man militia fifty miles southward, toward Mount Holly. The unit was to meet up with Washington’s force that had left Valley Forge on June 19 and was trying to intercept Sir Henry Clinton’s main army. The British had occupied Philadelphia during the winter and decided to return to New York, leaving the Pennsylvania city on June 18. Spies had informed Washington of their route and the commander in chief hoped to engage them, and defeat them, somewhere in Monmouth County.

  Washington was full of optimism as he learned that the New Jersey state regiments were headed toward Monmouth. The ranks of the newly trained and resuscitated American army had swollen with new militia units and thousands of new recruits. The army had more cannon than at any time during the revolution. An exchange of prisoners had brought the return of General Charles Lee, whom Washington made his second in command and put in charge of the Monmouth attack. Washington’s total force consisted of about 12,600 men, as large as the British army. He was convinced that he could end the war when he intersected Clinton on the highway that meandered through central New Jersey’s farmland. He wrote to Robert Morris, “I rejoice most sincerely with you on the glorious change in our prospects . . . The game, whether well or ill, played hitherto, seems now to be verging fast to a favorable issue.”9

  On June 27, British troops were near the tiny village of Monmouth Court House (now Freehold, New Jersey). Rumors that a fight was imminent spread through all the regiments. As night fell, a Rhode Island officer assembled his men to address the rumors. He was blunt. “You have been wishing for some days past to come up with the British,” he told them. “You have been wanting to fight. Now you shall have fighting enough!”10

  The next day, the temperature soared into the high nineties, and the fields seemed like “a heated oven,” according to Pvt. Joseph Martin, who added that it was “almost impossible to breathe.”11 Seely had orders “to attack the enemy” that morning and he did, leading his men in an advance against Clinton’s rear guard and pushing them back across a wide meadow toward the courthouse. He intended to make certain that the Redcoats in front of him were unable to help flank General Lee’s main force. “We drove them back and they formed in a line across the plain from the courthouse.”

  The Morris militia drove the British back even farther in another sustained attack, overseen by Colonel Seely, and the Redcoats retreated at 8:30 a.m. when it was already sweltering and Seely’s men sweated under their shirts and breeches. They did not sweat as profusely as the Redcoats, though, because Washington, realizing how much the heat would affect his men, ordered them to remove their coats before the battle.

  Just after 10 a.m., General Lee arrived with some four thousand men. He spent some time studying the area and then ordered the Morris militia to join him in an advance that failed badly. Lee’s orders were confusing and contradictory. One advancing regiment would pass another that he had ordered to retreat. One command superseded another. Despite an order to devise one, Lee arrived without a general plan of battle and was unable to mount an orderly assault. Sensing that something was wrong, the British then attacked just before noon. Lee did not know what to do. Confusion reigned on the fields around the courthouse and the Americans, including Seely and his militia, were forced to retreat back toward a white clapboard meeting house, where they stopped.

  Washington, with the rest of the army, seven thousand men, arrived just after noon to find the army in retreat as Clinton’s army attacked across the field. The commander, sensing disaster, rode to find Lee. He shouted at Lee in scathing language that his soldiers had never heard him use during the first three years of the war and relieved him of command. He later had him arrested. A threatened court of enquiry forced Lee to resign.

  Washington sat astride a handsome white horse given to him as a gift by Governor Livingston and then took command himself. He called for an officer from the area, Lt. Col. David Rhea of the Fourth New Jersey, and asked him for a quick description of the terrain. Rhea told him that a slight ridge that overlooked open fields was bordered by a swamp that would prevent a flanking movement by the enemy. He noted, too, that the woods at the top of the ridge could protect reserve troops. A nearby knoll with a relatively flat top with an unobstructed view of the meadow and a nearby orchard, he said, would be a good place for artillery placement.

  As Rhea spoke to the commander, British shells exploded around them. Washington noticed, gazing across the meadows, that although his army had retreated, it had done so in great order. No one had panicked. Washington listened to Rhea, looked, nodded, and decided within minutes to do what Rhea suggested, with modifications. He then ordered the army to take up the new positions.12 Officers and men at Monmouth marveled at Washington’s calmness amid the fury of the battle and his ability to make quick decisions and issue crisp and clear orders that not only halted the retreat, but renewed the spirit of the American troops.

  Seely then reported a sight that invigorated all of the Americans that morning. George Washington, on his white horse, rode back and forth in front of the American lines to yell out orders and rally the troops, an easy target for British guns.13 Wrote Lafayette of Washington’s bravery, “Never had I beheld so superb a man. [He] rode along the lines, amid the shouts of the soldiers, cheering them by his voice and example and restoring to our standard the fortunes of the fight.”14

  Washington placed Anthony Wayne’s regiments, with some two thousand men, just arrived, on a second line of defense farther back up the slope and repositioned the first cannon that he could find on the knoll Rhea had designated. Regiments were sta
tioned along the edges of woods to the right and left of the main force to prevent any flanking movements by the British.

  Seely noted that what followed was “a great severe action in which the enemy lost several officers of distinction and left about two hundred men dead on the grounds. Numbers died on both sides.” On the other side of the battlefield, Sergeant Ebenezer Wild of the First Massachusetts had been marching with brigades under the Marquis de Lafayette for several days. Washington had at first put Lafayette in charge of the attack, but later changed his mind because he felt that Lafayette’s troops were not in the proper position and because the obstinate Lee insisted on being given that job as second in command.

  Wild, who always spelled Lafayette’s name as “Markis Delefiat,” had been drenched in the thunderstorm that broke over the region two nights earlier. Lafayette’s brigades slept in the field each night as they moved closer to intercepting the British, with no protection from the elements. Wild wrote, “We took our lodgings in the road, without anything to cover us, or anything to lodge on but the wet ground and we in a very wet condition.”

  The First Massachusetts marched five more miles the next day, June 27, that Wild said was “excessively hot,” and then, on June 28, reached Monmouth Court House just before 2 p.m. He had arrived at the opposite side of the battlefield from Seely and his militia. The Massachusetts men found the fighting severe as soon as they tried to hold a position on top of the slope where Washington had repositioned his army. Wild wrote, “Our division formed a line on an eminence about a half a mile in the front of the enemy and our artillery in our front. A very smart cannonading ensued from both sides.”

  The Massachusetts men had marched into the middle of the fury and were unable to make much movement. Shells exploded all around them in what one newspaper called “the severest cannonade [that] ever happened in America.”15 Wild wrote, “We stayed here till several of our officers and men were killed and wounded. Seeing that it was of no service to stand here, we went back a little ways into the woods; but the cannonading still continued very smart on both sides for about two hours.”