American Revolution Archives - 250 and Counting

Charles Lee was born in Great Britain and only came to British America in 1773, when he purchased an estate in western Virginia. It wasn’t his first time in America; he’d fought for the British in the French and Indian War and married the daughter of a Mohawk chief. Lee was injured in 1758 during an attack on Fort Ticonderoga. The following year he was part of the capture of Fort Niagara and of Montreal the year after that. Lee returned to Europe and served in Portugal as a lieutenant colonel. In 1763 he returned to England and retired on half-pay. Two years later he served as an aide-de-camp under King Stanislaus II of Poland. He saw some action in the Russo-Turkish War but it was during a duel in Italy that he lost two fingers. Lee returned to England and realized that he was sympathetic to the Colonists’ cause, so he moved to America and purchased an estate in what would now be West Virginia. When the Continental Army formed, he joined up immediately, expecting to be second-in-command to George Washington (he did realize that Congress would want a native-born Commander in Chief). Lee took on the command of the Southern Department and was present for the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. He was given credit for the victory, though based on some accounts the win didn’t really belong to him. Lee was captured in December 1776 in New Jersey and released in a prisoner exchange in 1778. In subsequent battles Lee was cast in a villain role by official reports, and he was court-martialed. He was found guilty by the jury but the court reduced the final charges and suspended from the army for a year. In 1780 Lee sent a scathing letter to Congress that led to his dismissal from the army. He returned to Virginia but his debts piled up and he was advised to sell off his property. Unfortunately he died in 1782 before he could complete the sale and his sister Sidney Lee inherited the property. It’s not clear but he likely died of tuberculosis. Lee’s legacy has waxed and waned over the years, and most recently it’s in a “down” cycle, as documents have been discovered that he may have been attempting to communicate with British officers regarding a potential plan with which they might defeat the American rebellion. However, there are still many who doubt the idea that Lee was specifically acting treasonously. The post The Return of Charles Lee–October 14, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Split Rock is really just a continuation of the Battle of Valcour, and a lot of it takes place in a location called Button Mould Bay (or Buttonmold Bay). So why is it called the Battle of Split Rock? That’s a fine question. On the western shore of Lake Champlain, just north of Button Mould Bay, is a formation called Split Rock Mountain. It rises sharply from the lake to an altitude of just over 1000 feet, and it’s where the confrontation between the British and the Americans resumed. Button Mould Bay is an area of shallower water on the opposite side. It gets its name from a series of clay masses which have hardened almost to the point of concrete, into a shape much like an oversize button, or like the molds used in button making. Those concretions actually made it easier for Benedict Arnold to run his ship, and the galleys accompanying him, aground and set ablaze. This was the ship that had all of Arnold’s papers on it that I told you about the other day. The post Battle of Split Rock–October 13, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Throgs Neck, or Throg’s Point, or a number of other names, was part of a move intended to trap Washington’s forces through flanking them from the north while Washington concentrated on the troops already in front of him on Manhattan Island. Washington did anticipate that this might happen, and sent American troops that way, but part of the problem that he had was that there were so many possibilities, and he just couldn’t cover them all. So he took a little gamble in sending his numbers to different places and hoping it would be enough. In the case of Throgs Neck, it was 4000 British troops against 750 Americans, but they handled it in a clever way. They managed to contain the British advance by taking advantage of the local geography, forcing the British to retreat. But this only meant that they’d regroup and try again somewhere else. This led to the Battle of Pell’s Point, of which this battle is usually considered a part, or just a prelude. As Mike will explain to you in a few days, the Battle of Pell’s Point is technically a British victory, but it also had a separate function that breaks well for the American side. The post Battle of Throgs Neck–October 12, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Valcour Island didn’t really take place on the island; rather it was in Valcour Bay, a strait between New York and Valcour Island, in Lake Champlain. After the failed invasion of Quebec the Continental forces retreated south to Fort Ticonderoga, at the south end of Lake Champlain. As they retreated they destroyed materiel they couldn’t use and left it behind in the relatively shallow, relatively narrow lake. This made navigating the lake tough for the British, so they took their time to get more reliable ships to assist with their next move. That turned out to be a mistake. As both sides prepared for the next conflict, the Americans scouted the lake and determined that they could effectively steer the British ships into Valcour Bay, where they would have ships waiting to fight them off. In addition, the wind was blowing the “wrong” way for British navigation, making things even tougher. Some British ships actually ran aground near the island but the battle itself was pretty brutal, with ships on both sides being badly hit. One British vessel’s powder magazine was struck and the entire ship exploded. In the long run, however, darkness began to fall and both sides backed off. The Americans retreated, and the British basically stopped their attack largely because they were getting low on ammunition. Benedict Arnold realized that Crown Point was no longer a viable defense point, so he destroyed and abandoned the fort, moving the forces to Ticonderoga. The next day, the British took Crown Point and remained there for about two weeks. Unfortunately, cold weather was already settling in and the decision was made to winter back up in Canada. Remember when I said that taking their time was a mistake? Had they acted more quickly, they’d have beaten the weather AND caught the Americans by surprise. General Carleton and other officers recognized this in hindsight. Hessian commander Baron Riedesel noted, “If we could have begun our expedition four weeks earlier, I am satisfied that everything could have ended this year.” And in a weird way, this battle was the catalyst for Benedict Arnold turning against the Americans. He’d lost a lot of personal papers during the battle, and when he requested compensation for some of his expenses in and following Quebec, he couldn’t provide documentation. He’d already been secretly negotiating with the British to change alliances (this would have been in late 1779), but that incident pushed him into resigning his command in order to be transferred to West Point, which he’d planned to surrender to the British. Fortunately his plot was discovered and he fled to New York City, which was still occupied by the British. Eventually he got passage for himself and his family to England. He never set foot in the United States again. The post Battle of Valcour Island–October 11, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It took a month to figure it out, but the British ship movement up the Hudson River was a sign that they’d finally decided how they were going to implement their plans. Rather than concentrating on New York City, which was going to be problematic because George Washington’s troops were pretty dug in over in Harlem Heights, Admiral Howe made the choice that ran closer to the original plan: start sending warships up the Hudson and establish a new foothold in the Pelham area of what we now call the Bronx. This could then become a base of operations for moving further up the Hudson Valley and make it very difficult, if not impossible, for materiel and information to pass between New England and the rest of the states. And since New York had a pretty sizeable chunk of Loyalists there, the downstate area should be fairly easy pickings. So the British ship movement came as a surprise to nobody on the American side; what probably did come as a surprise was that it wasn’t as difficult to get through as they probably hoped they’d made it. Washington and his War Council did plan for this possibility and there will be troops waiting when the British make their landing. We’ll talk about that in a few days. The post The British Finally Make Their Move–October 9, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.