John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 Read online

  Simcoe did not explain how McGill came to be with him. He did not name him as being in the party that had come under the flag of truce. According to one source, McGill was captured during the same raid into New Jersey, but Simcoe did not suggest this. McGill had emigrated to Virginia when he was twenty-one years of age. He had been a lieutenant in the Loyal Virginia Regiment when that unit was absorbed into the Queen’s Rangers.7 McGill may have been captured. Equally well, he could have come with the flag, but Simcoe had perhaps forgotten to name this officer when he was turning his diaries into a military journal some years later. The answer could also have been sheer bravado; McGill decided on his own initiative to pay a private visit to his commanding officer. He may have assumed, as usually happened, that his green jacket would not identify him to the enemy as a Queen’s Ranger.

  Scarcely had the Simcoe party arrived at Burlington than a “mittimus” or warrant committing a person to prison arrived. It was dated 6 November 1779, and the sender was Elisha Boudinet, the Commissioner of Prisoners for New Jersey. The mittimus instructed the keeper of the common jail that Colonel Billop “was to have irons put on his hands and feet, and be chained to the floor in a close room in the said jail, to receive only bread and water till further orders.” Billop received a letter from Commissioner Boudinet, also dated 6 November, informing him that he was being so treated as retaliation, to procure some relaxation of the sufferings of John Leshier and Captain Nathaniel Randal. Leshier was being held by the British for murdering a Loyalist; Randal, the commander of a vessel, was considered a militia private, who therefore was being denied release on parole.

  From Burlington, Simcoe wrote to Governor Livingston, seeking his permission to go to Staten Island where he might negotiate his parole. Replying, Livingston refused his consent, but he hoped a prisoner exchange could be arranged while Simcoe remained confined in the jail. He retorted that if Simcoe was never released, it would be the fault of the British!

  On 10 November, Simcoe again wrote Livingston, extremely perturbed. The treatment meted out to Billop was unprecedented, but he was learning first hand about the cruel fate that awaited Loyalists who openly embraced the King’s cause. He had also heard that General Washington had refused to allow the men captured with General Burgoyne at Saratoga to be exchanged, which was further cause for concern. The Saratoga Convention, which both Burgoyne and rebel General Horatio Gates had signed, specified that his army would be repatriated. Simcoe was aware that before Burgoyne surrendered his army at Saratoga, he sent orders to his Provincial troops to escape in small groups and make their way north to Canada. He was afraid he could not protect them under the Saratoga Convention which specifically covered his regular troops.8 Burgoyne, Simcoe thought, was a true gentleman, even though an inept commander.

  Simcoe wrote again to Livingston, this time for permission to go to Staten Island to obtain winter clothing and wine. Livingston again refused. When Colonel Henry Lee heard of this downright rudeness, he personally sent some wine to the prisoner.

  By then, the rebels were considering exchanging Simcoe for a Colonel Reynolds the British were holding, but they were thinking of exchanging Billop for an undecided number of rebel privates, which was also unprecedented. Simcoe then wrote to Sir Henry Clinton, informing him that Captain Vorhees was not killed until after Simcoe himself had been captured. Therefore he could not be held responsible for Vorhees’s death. Colonel Billop, he assured Clinton, was a most respectable and amiable gentleman, suffering, according to the enclosed mittimus, by order of Elisha Boudinet.

  Major John André replied on behalf of Sir Henry Clinton. He proposed to parole Simcoe to New York, in exchange for a Colonel Baylor, who would be sent to Virginia. Clinton was astonished to learn that Simcoe was not free on parole, but was being treated as a criminal. If an officer’s rights could be swept aside, the world was in a sad state indeed. The rebels were showing themselves, not officers of honour, but savage miscreants. Simcoe repeated that the exchange of a large number of privates for a colonel was unheard of. He wrote to General Washington, because Governor Livingston had claimed that Colonel Simcoe was a “prisoner of state” — also unheard of. Many letters passed back and forth concerning this matter, and Simcoe was growing ever more desperate. Meanwhile, Lieutenant John McGill and a prisoner named Bloxam had put their heads together.

  They discovered that the militia arsenal was a locked room in the jail. Bloxam was a skilled armourer who had been serving on one of His Majesty’s ships. One morning when the jailor was ill, all unwary, he entrusted McGill to undertake duties on his behalf in the jail office — a hint that McGill was just visiting. He quickly made a wax impression of the key to the arsenal, and Bloxam set to work on a pewter implement, most likely a spoon secreted from a meal. With this false key, Bloxam made ready to unlock the door. Meanwhile, Simcoe was a party to the plot whereby Bloxam and himself would appropriate arms and escape. McGill would sleep in Simcoe’s bed so that his absence would not be discovered immediately. Here was another hint that McGill was not sleeping in the jail. If he had been, his own empty bed would have alerted the guards.

  Simcoe panicked when Bloxam attempted to open the door, because the bottom of the pewter key broke inside the lock. What would the rebels do when they discovered that the lock would not open? Bloxam, however, managed to poke at the piece of key so that it dropped undiscovered into the bottom of the lock. When some of Colonel Henry Lee’s men arrived, they had no difficulty opening it, and Simcoe heaved a sigh of relief. Bloxam by now had made a second key, and this time the scheme was to arm themselves, surprise Lee’s party, steal their horses and ride for Sandy Hook. Simcoe disliked the entire plan and he worried over what John McGill’s fate would be for his part in the business, but he was also more desperate than ever. He hesitated, which did not disappoint Bloxam, who thought the capture of Lee’s horses could take place any time. On 23 December, to Simcoe’s relief, Commissioner Boudinet wrote that he would be released very soon. He had been treated badly, the commissioner explained, because of like treatment by the British. Simcoe retorted that several unprincipled American militia officers, captured by his own side, had broken their paroles. Simcoe decided to postpone the jail break a few days to see whether Boudinet’s word was worth anything. This time Boudinet was sincere. The date of release was 27 December, and Simcoe reached Staten Island on the 31st. There, he learned that forty “friends of government” had armed themselves and were near Burlington, planning to rescue him, when they heard he had been exchanged.

  Not long afterwards, Bloxam escaped from Burlington jail and on reaching Staten Island he enlisted in the Queen’s Rangers. He was killed later, while serving in “the Jersies.” John McGill might have been exchanged at the same time, although Simcoe did not say so. For McGill’s services, Simcoe offered him the choice of an annuity, or rank as the Quartermaster of Cavalry. McGill chose the latter. No man, Simcoe wrote, ever “executed that office with greater integrity, courage and conduct.”9 He made no mention of the long-suffering Colonel Billop, although he was eventually released. Along with his wife’s father, Judge Benjamin Seaman, of Staten Island, and his brother-in-law, Richard Seaman, Billop became a founding settler in New Brunswick.10

  John Graves Simcoe was a man of certain contradictions. He revealed his distaste for slavery in 1777 when he had recommended enlisting blacks, chiefly escaping slaves, into the Provincial Corps. After he assumed command of the Rangers he overlooked the possession of slaves by nearly all the fine gentlemen from Virginia who served as officers in his regiment or in other Provincial units.

  Despite the weird and bizarre abuse meted out to him by the New Jersey and other American rebels, Simcoe did not lose his faith in the innate decency of the American people. Most resembled his Rangers more than they resembled the opposing rebels. In fact, some of his own men had deserted the rebel cause and joined the Rangers when they saw the light. Only the rebel leadership was misguided in this unholy fratricidal war.

  Duri
ng the year 1780, that dawned as he reached his regiment, Simcoe would be overwhelmed by the tragic fate of Major John André. Yet Simcoe would serve without apparent dislike or written word of complaint, Benedict Arnold, the man responsible for the loss of his very dear friend.

  FIVE

  JOHN ANDRÉ, EDWARD DREWE AND BENEDICT ARNOLD

  By the time Simcoe had rejoined the British army, on 31 December 1779, his beloved friend, Major John André was already in secret correspondence with General Benedict Arnold, of Washington’s Continental Army — the rebels’ regular troops. Arnold had become disenchanted with the rebel cause, according to some sources owing to the influence of his “Tory” wife, to others because he was not receiving the recognition he thought he deserved. Carrying on his usual duties, Simcoe was unaware that André was treading on dangerous ground.

  On his return to Staten Island, Simcoe learned of an expedition during the summer and autumn that had punished the warriors of the Six Nations, or Iroquois Confederacy, for being allies of Britain. An army 5,000 strong, commanded by rebel General John Sullivan, had marched through the natives’ country, destroying villages and crops, chopping down orchards and driving off cattle through a scorched earth exercise that deprived these people of their winter stock of food. Now they were seeking shelter and sustenance from the officers of the stations of the Indian Department, chiefly from Major John Butler, at Fort Niagara. Butler had formed a Provincial Corps of Rangers from among Loyalists whose homes were in the Mohawk Valley. Even before his capture, Simcoe had wondered about obtaining permission to join Butler and the natives in the frontier war they were waging against their rebel neighbours. Now, he was too late; the damage had been done. However, the coming summer would prove him wrong; Butler’s Rangers, aided by Sir John Johnson and his Mohawk Valley Provincials of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, would stage retaliatory raids that would similarly affect the “breadbasket” of New York. Meanwhile, Simcoe was soon fully occupied with his usual duties.1

  He was again operating out of Staten Island, and his Rangers were stationed in Richmond village, near the centre of the island. His active mind was conjuring up other schemes that he longed to carry out. He frequently sent notes to Colonel Thomas Stirling (sometimes spelled Sterling), the commander of the 1st Battalion, 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment, with which his Rangers sometimes operated.2 Stirling encouraged him, because the British Army stood in dire fear of a major attack. The winter of 1779-1780 was unusually harsh, and solid ice had formed between Staten Island and the New Jersey shore. The British garrison stood ready for an invasion over the ice, so much simpler than an amphibious operation.3

  Simcoe proposed leading eighty of his infantrymen by little-used paths to the rear of Washington’s encampment near Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in the hope of kidnapping the rebel commander in chief. Such an attack, even if Washington should elude them, would draw attention away from the British-controlled islands. If he felt overwhelmed, Simcoe could withdraw into the backwoods of Pennsylvania, ideal for guerrilla warfare. Captain George Beckwith, serving as an aide-de-camp, had placed his own plan before General von Knyphausen, which the northern commander preferred. The general would lead a main body of cavalry towards Elizabethtown, while Simcoe would stage a diversion by attacking some militia at Woodbridge, south of Washington’s position and close to Perth Amboy.4

  The Ranger infantry set out, and were skirmishing near Woodbridge when heavy rain fell. The snow on the roads turned to slippery ice that was impassable for horses. General von Knyphausen cancelled the operation and recalled Simcoe and his infantrymen. Meanwhile, Sir Henry Clinton was in South Carolina. By the end of March he was laying siege to Charleston. He sent orders for Simcoe to sail with other reinforcements, taking his infantry. The Hussars would remain behind with the garrison protecting New York. Only the few horses the officers needed would accompany the foot soldiers. Moving horses by sea was costly, and often a guarantee that some would not survive. The replacement for the mount killed when he was taken prisoner was Salem, a reliable, steady horse that Simcoe came to love.5

  Simcoe and his infantrymen reached the waters off Charleston harbour in April. For the first time, four regiments of the American establishment would be represented in the same campaign. The 1st American was Simcoe’s; the 2nd, Lord Rawdon’s Volunteers of Ireland; the 3rd, Colonel George Turnbull’s New York Volunteers; and 5th, newly honoured, was Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion. The 2nd, 3rd and 5th had been in the south for some time. The 4th American was Colonel Edmund Fanning’s King’s American Regiment, which was at New York.

  Charleston lay on a promontory between the Cooper and Ashley Rivers. Simcoe and his men circled inland and took up a position beside the Ashley River, blocking reinforcements reaching the town from that direction. Simcoe acquired two 6-pounder cannon and had them placed on the shore, sent an old sloop into the river to challenge rebel boats, and his men prepared fire rafts to provide light in the event of a night attack. They did not see action. Charleston surrendered on 12 May, and the Rangers were ordered back to Staten Island.

  While awaiting the return of Sir Henry Clinton, General von Knyphausen planned a major diversion to prevent Washington moving part of his army to attack General Charles Cornwallis, who would remain in command of the south. By 21 June, Simcoe and his infantrymen had reached Staten Island. The Hussars had already crossed to Elizabethtown Point in New Jersey, serving as the vanguard of von Knyphausen’s 5,000-man force, and part of the Rangers’ infantry followed the next day. On the 23rd the Hussars drove the enemy out of Elizabethtown despite furious resistance. Then the army marched on to Springfield, but when heavy reinforcements reached Washington, von Knyphausen withdrew to Staten Island, the Rangers now in the rearguard.

  In the skirmishing, a rebel officer named Fitzrandolph (or Randal) was killed. Simcoe identified him as one of the officers released through his own exchange. During the withdrawal they passed the home of Governor Livingston, where some “exasperated Loyalists” wanted to burn it down. Exhibiting very professional conduct, Simcoe stopped them, despite hurtful memories of how Livingston had treated him only a few months before.6

  Lieutenant Aeneas Shaw, in command of Simcoe’s riflemen, was among the wounded, but he recovered. The Rangers returned to their favourite camp, at Oyster Bay, on Long Island, for a well-earned rest. The officers, in particular, liked this posting. They could have billets in the fine houses in this long-settled area of the country where people prided themselves on their refinement. When Sir Henry Clinton arrived back in New York, he planned to capture West Point, a strong rebel fort fifty miles up the Hudson River. He chose Colonel Simcoe and his Hussars for the assault and added two more troops of dragoons attached to the Queen’s Rangers.7 The command at West Point passed to General Benedict Arnold in September.

  Major John André

  When word reached Long Island that Major André had been taken prisoner at Tappan by three rebel militiamen, Simcoe was devastated. He sought out Sir Henry Clinton and held confidential conversations over how he might effect a rescue, no matter how great the risk to himself and to any who joined him. André, he learned, had gone north, and attended a secret meeting with Arnold at West Point on 21 September. He was returning when he was captured, and incriminated by papers he was carrying in one of his boots. By order of General Washington he was to be tried by a specially appointed board of officers. Simcoe assumed that André would be sent to Philadelphia. If so, surely his escort could be intercepted along the route.8 Clinton was less confident, and wary of finding the British in deeper trouble if Simcoe failed. Besides, he thought André’s trial would be at Tappan to avoid the bother of moving him.

  On 2 October, Simcoe received a letter from Light Horse Harry Lee, written from “Light Camp” in New Jersey. He was pleased that Simcoe had enjoyed the gift of his “best wines,” but Lee had been thanked enough by his somewhat long-winded correspondent. Lee assured Simcoe that he expected André to be “restored to his country
and the customs of war being fully satisfied.” As officer and gentleman himself, Lee assumed that André would be exchanged for a major the British were holding. In Lee’s view, and Simcoe’s, André could not be treated as a spy because he had travelled north in his uniform. What Simcoe did not know at the time, was that Arnold had persuaded André to change to civilian clothing before he set out to return to New York.9

  Washington demanded that Arnold, who had recently reached New York City, be exchanged for André, but Sir Henry Clinton decided he must refuse or the entire British administration would be discredited. Simcoe was furious. Clinton was permitting “a grave injustice.” Washington found himself obliged to allow André’s execution or face unpopularity from his own supporters. “Posterity will pass judgement on Washington over André,” wrote Simcoe.10

  On 2 October, the day Lee had written Simcoe, Major André was hanged, not even permitted a soldier’s death by firing squad. Simcoe ordered the Queen’s Rangers to add, in addition to green ones, black and white feathers to their caps in mourning for his murdered comrade.11 Many in the crowd that watched the public execution wept. The handsome André had gone to the scaffold with courage and dignity, and during his imprisonment and trial at Tappan, he had acquired many admirers.

  Simcoe continued thinking up plans and hoping for permission to carry them out. He recommended a raid on Burlington, to attack Light Horse Harry Lee’s cavalry post. Clinton authorised such a raid but then cancelled it. The colonel then proposed capturing Billingsport, down the Delaware from Burlington, a scheme he thought superior to any others he had suggested. Success would give the British a port where an army could be landed. Again Clinton grew wary and refused his consent.12