The Mutiny at Morristown
“I can tell you what was told me by men who engaged in it,” said Kinnison. “For myself, I was at that time, with the Massachusetts troops at Middlebrook. The Pennsylvania line, numbering about two thousand men, was stationed at the old camp ground at Morristown. Most of these men believed that their term of service expired at the end of the year 1779, though Congress and some of the generals thought otherwise, or that the men were enlisted to serve until the end of the war. This difficulty about the term of enlistment was the seed of the mutiny. But there were many other things that would have roused any other men to revolt. The Pennsylvanians had not received any pay for twelve months, and during the severest part of the fall, they suffered for the want of food and clothing. To expect men to bear such treatment and remain in the army when there was the slightest pretext for leaving, it was building on a sandy foundation. Patriotism and starvation were not as agreeable to common soldiers as they were to some members of Congress. Even some of the officers—men who depended upon their pay to support their families while fighting for liberty—grumbled at the conduct of those who should have supplied them. This gave the men courage, and they determined to act boldly. They appointed a serjeant-major their major-general, and at a given signal on the morning of the 1st of January, the whole line, except a part of three regiments, paraded under arms, and without their regular officers, marched to the magazines, supplied themselves with provisions and ammunition, and secured six field-pieces, to which they attached horses from General Wayne’s stables. The regular officers collected those who had not joined the mutineers, and tried to restore order; but some of the mutineers fired, killed Captain Billings, and, I believe, wounded several of his men. They then ordered those who remained with the officers to join them or meet death by the bayonet, and they obeyed. Then General Wayne appeared, and, by threats and offers of better treatment, endeavoured to put an end to the revolt. The men all idolized Wayne; they would have followed him almost anywhere, but they would not listen to his remonstrances on this occasion. Wayne then cocked his pistol as if he meant to frighten them back to duty; but they placed their bayonets to his breast, and told him that, although they loved and respected him, if he fired his pistols or attempted to enforce his commands, they would put him to death. General Wayne then saw their determination, and didn’t fire; but he appealed to their patriotism, and they spoke of the impositions of Congress. He told them that their conduct would strengthen the enemy. But ragged clothes and skeleton forms were arguments much stronger than any Wayne could bring against them. The men declared their intention to march to Congress at Philadelphia, and demand a redress of grievances. Wayne then changed his policy and resolved to go with the current and guide it. He supplied the men with provisions to prevent them from committing depredations on the people of the country, and marched with them to Princeton, where a committee of serjeants drew up a list of demands. They wanted those men to be discharged whose term of service had expired, and the whole line to receive their pay and clothing. General Wayne had no power to agree to these demands, and he referred further negociation to the government of Pennsylvania, and a committee to be appointed by Congress. But the cream of the matter is to come. The news of the revolt reached General Washington and Sir Henry Clinton on the same day. Washington ordered a thousand men to be ready to march from the Highlands of the Hudson to quell the revolt, and called a council of war to decide on further measures. This council sanctioned general Wayne’s course, and decided to leave the matter to the settlement of the government of Pennsylvania and Congress. You see, General Washington had long been worried by the sleepy way Congress did business, and he thought this affair would wake them up to go to work in earnest. The British commander-in-chief thought he could gain great advantage by the revolt, and so he very promptly sent two emissaries—one a British serjeant and the other a Tory named Ogden—to the mutineers, offering them pardon for past offences, full pay for their past service, and the protection of the British government, if they would lay down their arms and march to New York. So certain was Clinton that his offers would be accepted, that he crossed over to Staten Island with a large body of troops, to act as circumstances might require. But he was as ignorant of the character of our men as King George himself. They wanted to be fed and clothed, and wanted their families provided for; but they were not soldiers fighting merely for pay. Every man of them knew what freedom was, and had taken the field to secure it for his country. You may judge how such men received Clinton’s proposals. They said they were not Arnolds, and that America had no truer friends than themselves; and then seized the emissaries and their papers and handed them over to Wayne and the mercy of a court-martial. The men were tried as spies, found guilty and executed. A reward which had been offered for their apprehension was tendered to the mutineers who had seized them. But they refused it. One of them said that necessity had wrung from them the act demanding justice from Congress, but they wanted no reward for doing their duty to their bleeding country. Congress appointed a commissioner to meet the mutineers at Princeton, and soon after their demands were satisfied. A large part of the Line was disbanded for the winter, and the remainder was well supplied with provisions and clothing. About the middle of January, the greater part of the New Jersey line, which was encamped near Pompton, followed the example of the Pennsylvanians, and revolted; but different measures were taken to quell them. General Washington ordered General Robert Howe to march with five hundred men, and reduce the rebels to submission. Howe marched four days through a deep snow, and reached the encampment of the Jersey troops on the 27th of January. His men were paraded in line, and he then ordered the mutineers to appear unarmed in front of their huts, within five minutes. They hesitated, but on a second order, they obeyed. Three of the chief movers in the revolt were tried and sentenced to be shot. Two of them suffered, and the third was pardoned as being less to blame. The two who were shot fell by the hands of twelve of the most guilty of the mutineers. That, I think, was piling it on rather too thick. General Howe then addressed them by platoons, and ordered their officers to resume their commands. Clinton had again sent an emissary to make offers to the mutineers; but the man heard of the fate of the Tory and the British serjeant, and he took his papers to General Howe instead of the men. These Jersey mutineers were reduced to submission, without much difficulty. But the Pennsylvanians displayed a determination to fight if their demands were not satisfied, and so they gained their point.”
“Perhaps,” said Hand, “the Jersey troops had not as much reason to revolt as the Pennsylvanians.”
“I know they hadn’t as much reason,” said Kinnison. “They had suffered as much for want of food and clothing, but their term of service was more certainly known.”
“How nobly the men treated the offers of Sir Henry Clinton!” said Hand. “I should think the British government might have learned from that affair, the spirit of the Americans, and the futility of efforts to conquer men with such motives and sentiments.”
“They might have learned it if they had wished to learn,” said Pitts. “They might have learned the same thing from the Boston tea-party. But they determined that they had a right to act towards us just as they pleased, and their pride was blind to consequences.”
“One may look through Greek and Roman history in vain to find men holding such noble and patriotic sentiments, while harassed with want of every kind,” said Hand, growing eloquent.
“Ah! those were times to try the metal men were made of,” said Colson. “The men who took up the sword and gun for freedom were resolved to win their country’s safety or die in the attempt, and such men will not be bought at any price. Arnold was a mere soldier—never a patriot.”
“I might combat that last remark,” said Davenport, “but I’ll let it go.”
“Come, Brown, more music,” exclaimed Warner. “The dinner and the dull conversation makes some of us drowsy. Stir us up, man!”
“There’s nothing like the fife and drum for rousing men,” said Kinnison. “I hate these finnicking, soft and love-sick instruments, such as pianos, guitars and some others they play on now-a-days. There’s no manliness about them.”
Brown and Hanson, having produced their old martial instruments, then struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the best of the national anthems of America. Soon after the last roll of the fife had ended, Hand, without invitation, struck up the anthem itself, and sang the words with great force, the whole company joining in the two last lines of every verse. The music and the anthem thoroughly roused the old as well as the young members of the company, and, at its conclusion, three cheers were lustily given for the stars and stripes. One of the young men then said that he had a song to sing, which would be new to the company; but still was not an original composition. The music was stirring and appropriate. The words were as follows:—
Freemen! arise, and keep your vow!
The foe are on our shore,
And we must win our freedom now,
Or yield forevermore.
The share will make a goodly glaive—
Then tear it from the plough!
Lingers there here a crouching slave!
Depart, a recreant thou!
Depart, and leave the field to those
Determined to be free,
Who burn to meet their vaunting foes
And strike for liberty.
Why did the pilgrim cross the wave?
Say, was he not your sire?
And shall the liberty he gave
Upon his grave expire!
The stormy wave could not appal;
Nor where the savage trod;
He braved them all, and conquer’d all,
For freedom and for God.
We fight for fireside and for home,
For heritage, for altar;
And, by the God of yon blue dome,
Not one of us shall falter!
We’ll guard them, though the foeman stood
Like sand-grains on our shore,
And raise our angry battle-flood,
And whelm the despots o’er.
We’ve drawn the sword, and shrined the sheath
Upon our father’s tomb;
And when the foe shall sleep in death,
We’ll sheath it o’er their doom.
Firm be your step, steady your file,
Unbroken your array;
The spirits of the blest shall smile
Upon our deeds to-day.
Unfurl the banner of the free
Amidst the battle’s cloud;
Its folds shall wave to Liberty,
Or be to us a shroud.
O’er those who fall, a soldier’s tear
Exulting shall be shed;
We’ll bear them upon honour’s bier,
To sleep in honour’s bed.
The maiden, with her hurried breath
And rapture-beaming eye,
Shall all forget the field of death
To bless the victory.
The child, O! he will bless his sire,
The mother bless her son,
And God, He will not frown in ire,
When such a field is won.
“Good!” exclaimed Kinnison, when the song was done. “That is a war-song of ’76, I know.”
“It is,” replied the singer; “and judging from what I have heard you say, it expresses in it the feeling of the period.”
“A truce to songs and music,” said Davenport. “I never was fond of any kind of music but that of the fife and drum, and I never needed that to put me in a condition to stand fire.”
“You are too gloomy,” said Kinnison.
“I have had cause enough for gloominess,” said Davenport.
“But I wanted to talk to you about something—and that was my reason for checking you. You talk so much about the treason of Arnold, and say that he never was a patriot, that I wanted to tell you of another man’s treason, not to excuse Arnold, but to show you that he wasn’t alone in preferring the British side of the question, and that there were bolder patriots than Paulding, Williams, and Van Wert, the captors of André.
“We know there were plenty of traitors and patriots in the country without a showing,” said Kinnison, “but go on with your narrative.”
“But this will prove that all censure should not be heaped upon Arnold’s head, nor all the praise on the militia-men of Tarry-town,” observed Davenport.