I am lucky to have a wife with a talent for doing interviews, and to have fallen in with the Written by Veterans program founded by Andreas Kossak. They collaborated to produce this interview in the Written by Veterans Magazine.
It is also available in CultScoop Magazine.
It was a great opportunity for me to supply some of the background and motivation that would never have fit on the back cover.
Enjoy!
-CEF
Wilton Meetinghouse and surrounding town today. The festive raising of the Wilton meetinghouse turned to tragedy in 1773 when a worm-eaten support post gave way. All 53 of the men working on the roof beams fell 27 feet among axes, planks, hammers and crowbars. The Essex Gazette of Salem called it ‘the most melancholy Accident…that perhaps […]
via The Wilton Meetinghouse Collapse of 1773 — New England Historical Society
There is also an excellent book on this topic, The Meetinghouse Tragedy by Charles E. Clark, with Illustrations by John Hatch. It gets into the details–worth a read; I have a copy, and learned Isaac Frye was one of the men who was injured.
-CEF
“Voted, to raise as minute men 25 privates, two commissioned officers, two sergeants, twenty nine in all. Voted, 6 dollars a month to each officer and soldier after they are called to an expedition, till they have proper time to return after they are dismissed.”
From the minutes of the town of Wilton, New Hampshire, April 4, 1775
This was the contract. No language specifying when the militia would be paid or any limit of time beyond an “expedition”. By May 19, 1775, I imagine a few of the New Hampshire men besieging Boston might have begun to have concerns about being paid. The New Hampshire Provincial Congress was working to determine the ways and means to support three regiments, which implied they would be paying, rather than the towns that raised the militia. By the middle of July, three months had slipped past with none of the New Hampshire militiamen paid. Read more
When I first began to think about writing a book on the experiences of Isaac Frye and his family during the American Revolution, I felt naked in spite of wearing my twenty-first century clothes. A great deal about life in the eighteenth century was different. Since then I’ve sent quite a few days in these clothes, thinking about what it meant to have lived during the American Revolution.
It was a hard life, and war made it much more difficult. I have no delusions of time travel, and am thankful for all the surviving records I’ve had access to while piecing together Isaac and Elizabeth’s Frye’s story during these times.
-CEF
As I summarized in The ‘Battle at McIntire’s Farm’, on October 3, 1780 Lord Cornwallis sent Maj. John Doyle on a foraging party north… The post Avenging Francis Bradley, the Mecklenburg Marksman: A Family Story appeared first on Journal of the American Revolution.
In the title, “A slain patriot, a historic letter and the push to preserve a NJ battlefield” of an article by Jerry Carino for Asbury Park Press, the words “historic letter” caught my eye. The image of the letter got me to read, but about half-way down, there is a line about this being the only surviving record of what an American soldier carried on his person into battle. In this case, the Battle of Princeton, and for three days I have not been able to recall seeing such a letter in all my research.
Very interesting, Enjoy,
-CEF
Photo Credit: Tom George Davison PhotographyDear Reader,One of the most pernicious and hard to eradicate myths about the eighteenth-century is that people were quite short, roughly 3/4ths the size of Americans today. Visitors to historic sites and reenactments frequently offer it as an example of their knowledge of the period, or inquiry regarding soldiers’ height. In…
via How Tall was the Average Eighteenth-Century Soldier? — Kabinettskriege
The Americans and British around and in Boston in the last weeks of June and early July of 1775 needed some time to take stock, bury the dead, heal the wounded, and determine what to do next. During the aftermath of the Battle of Breeds Hill, there was no other place on Earth where sorrow and grief was greater.
Add a healthy layer of frustration: the Americans were critically short of gunpowder, and the British learned they could not just punch through. In fact, the British knew they were outnumbered and learned the Americans had the upper hand in the Siege of Boston.
For the next few weeks I will be taking some time away from the blog while putting my efforts toward my day job. The busiest time of year is at hand, and there is no escaping it.
However, I will endeavor to re-post some blog postings that I see and like here during these next weeks.
Enjoy,
-CEF
As I researched how Sullivan’s Brigade made its way north from Albany to Fort Ticonderoga in the late spring of 1776, I came across a remarkable document. It was a project plan sent from Major General Philip Schuyler to his commander, General George Washington describing the number of men needed, and their roles in transporting food 185 miles from Albany, NY to the Continental troops in Quebec based at Fort St. Jeans.
Schuyler learned of the need for food in a letter from Charles Carroll and Samuel Chase, two of Congress’s commissioners in Quebec, dated 11 May, 1776. They wrote, “We are unable to express our apprehensions of the distress our Army must soon be reduced to from the want of provisions, and the small-pox.”
Separately, Brigadier General John Thomas, who was now in command of the Continental Troops in Quebec wrote Brigadier General Benedict Arnold also in Quebec, on May 8, 1776 appraising him of the need of provisions in Canada:
“I shall make a stand here with a small number of men. I have but two days’ provision, and will bring them to half allowance, and remain on the ground myself till I can hear from you.”
Much of the route was over water, but to get from Albany to Fort George at the southern tip of Lake George, several overland carriages were required, including the longest at fifteen miles. The plan spelled out exactly how Schuyler would to transport barrels of pork and flour, enough for 10,000 men in about two and a half weeks.
As a mapmaker and product engineer at a software company, I learned project management is a vital skill, but I had myopically thought that skill to be a modern, i.e., 20th century competency. Schuyler’s plan shows a high level of proficiency, and his organization and efficiency of expression are also noteworthy.
Below is my transcription of Schuyler’s plan, where I have inserted additional lines to make use of right side of the page similarly to Schuyler’s original.
[1776, May 24]
An estimate of the number of men necessary to transport provisions for 10,000 men from Albany to Canada specifying the manner in which it is conveyed.
10,000 Weight of Pork is …… Barrels … 50
10,000 Weight of Flour is …… ……. 55
add for sundries …….. …………. 15
To leave Albany each day …… ……… 120
At Albany the provisions is put into bateaux capable of carrying 13 Barrel when Hudson’s River has plenty of water, but henceforward only ten Barrels will be carried in each bateaux – Thus it will take 12 bateaux, but I have stationed 14 between Albany & Half moon (which are about ten miles apart) to make up for rainy days and accidents. Each of these bateaux is navigated by 3 men
……. 42 (men)
From Half Moon it is conveyed in wagons to Stillwater, the distance is 12 miles. From Stillwater it is conveyed to Saratoga (12 miles farther) in 14 boats.
……. 42 (men)
From thence it is carried two miles by land to McNeils
…… 42 (men)
And four bateaux receive it there, and convey it to Fort Miller which is about 3 1/2 miles.
…… 12 (men)
There is a land carriage of half a mile above the falls. Thence it is carried in 14 bateaux and the river being frigid & incommoded with rifts or small falls, each boat must have 4 men, the distance is about 8 miles.
…….. 56 (men)
From Fort Edward it is carried to Fort George by land / distance 15 miles.
Sub total …….. 152 (men)
On Lake George, we have a flat bottom boat with sails, which will carry about 200 barrels and allowing five days for a trip, she carries at a rate of 40 barrels a day & is navigated by 11 batteaus carrying 30 barrels each & navigated by seven men,
……. 8 (men)
working a trip in four days – convey at the rate of about 82 barrels the length of the lake 36 miles.
…… 77 (men)
From the North end of Lake George it is conveyed 1 1/2 miles by land to Lake Champlain, where it is put in one bateaux making 4 trips a day and carried to Ticonderoga, the distance about 1 1/2 miles.
……. 7 (men)
On Lake Champlain we have two schooners, a sloop, and Row Galley which may carry about 600 barrels and make a voyage to St. John’s (about 120 miles in ten days, which is at the rate of 60 barrels a day navigated by sailors assisted by about
…… 30 (men)
For the remaining sixty barrels per day it will take 20 bateaux carrying 30 barrels each making a voyage in 10 days navigated by 8 men each.
…… 160 (men)
total ……. 434
Allow for sick, lame, & lazy …… 66
Total of ….. 500
A guard at Half Moon of privates: 12
A guard at Stillwater of privates: 12
A guard at Saratoga of privates: 24
A guard at McNeils of privates: 12
A guard at Fort Miller of privates: 12
A guard at Fort Edward of privates: 12
560
At the landing at the north end of Lake George and at the North side of the carrying place:
48
At crown Point: 24
Fort George should not by any means have a garrison of less than 200
Ticonderoga should have a like number: 200
Total 1,060
For opening Wood Creek & repairing Roads: 232
Total: 1,300
Colo. Van Schaick’s Regiment by last: 425
Colo. Wynkoop’s Regiment supposed at last: 300
Hired Bateauxmen: 100
Total: 825
If no flour is to be sent it will reduce the number of men to be employed in bateaux to about 250… If therefore about 250 men were sent to the six posts it would suffice.
The scans of Schuyler’s plan are available online at the Library of Congress’s collection of George Washington’s papers.
Another reason this plan is noteworthy is that it was not previously transcribed like much of the collection, and thus, not text searchable, so unless you are specifically searching for this, you would be unlikely to find it. I happened to be searching for all correspondence between generals Schuyler, Sullivan, and Arnold during May of 1776, trying to determine their whereabouts and the location of Sullivan’s troops as they moved north from Albany.
In The War has Begun, I wrote of how Quartermaster Isaac Frye and the 3rd NH Regiment played a role in implementing this plan as they moved north from Albany in May of 1776 to support the Continental troops already in Quebec.
Citations:
George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Philip J. Schuyler to George Washington, May 24, 1776, with Estimate of Men. 1776. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/mgw444852/>.
Force, Peter, 1837, American Archives: Fourth Series Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, from the King’s message to Parliament, of Mar 7, 1774 to the Declaration of Independence by the United States. Series 4, Volume 6. M. St. Clair Clark and Peter Force Under Authority of an Act of Congress, Passed on the Second of March, 1833. Washington D.C. p. 482 (letters from commissioners and General Thomas)
George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Charles Carroll and Samuel Chase to Philip J. Schuyler, May 16, 1776. 1776. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/mgw444803/>.
-CEF
Duty in the Cause of Liberty 