Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War by Thomas B. Allen

Author:Thomas B. Allen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: History
ISBN: 0061241806
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2010-11-09T10:00:00+00:00

At Valley Forge, Washington was losing men while desperately trying to find food for those who stayed. After the Royal Navy took control of the Delaware River, Howe began getting most of his supplies via ships from New York. The British also foraged, buying provisions from farmers who defied Patriot threats against people who aided the enemy. British Regulars and armed Tories attacked Rebel foraging parties. Washington, who had a highly efficient intelligence system inside Philadelphia, usually knew when Howe was sending out foragers. But, because of desertions and fears of mutiny, Washington had to limit sorties against them.42

The only good news at Valley Forge was the arrival in February 1778 of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a former Prussian captain on the staff of Frederick the Great. Steuben was jobless in Paris when he was discovered by Ben Franklin, a recruiting officer as well as a diplomat. Steuben immediately impressed Washington.

Steuben began by teaching the ragged, unruly men how to be soldiers who marched in formation and fired muskets on command. While his soldiers, under Steuben’s tutelage, began to coalesce into a fighting force, Washington made a new move to get food for his men. In January 1778, he turned to the commander of the local militia, Brig. Gen. John Lacey, a Quaker and, at twenty-five, the youngest Patriot general.43 Washington ordered Lacey to stop the “immense supplies” flowing to Philadelphia and to protect the meager provisions heading for Valley Forge.

The “market people,” as the British suppliers were euphemistically known, included both committed Tories and apolitical war profiteers. With the addition of Tory infantry and cavalry units, Howe’s foraging expeditions became bigger and bolder and persistently eluded Lacey’s patrols. Many of the Tories pillaged from longtime neighbors and kidnapped others who were Rebel leaders. In one raid, twenty-six miles from Philadelphia, about forty Loyalists killed five militiamen, took thirty-two prisoners, and pillaged a wool mill, taking two thousand yards of cloth meant for Rebel uniforms.44

Lacey did not have enough soldiers to stop the raids or the illegal trade. His frustration showed itself one day when his men stopped a farmer who was trying to smuggle a wagonload of produce to Philadelphia. The militiamen confiscated his goods and horse, tied thefarmer to a tree, and pelted him with his own eggs.45 By the end of March, Lacey was so angry that he proposed forcibly removing everyone in a wide swath of land between the Delaware and the Schuylkill rivers. Washington, who had enough problems with civilians in the area, rejected Lacey’s suggestion.46

Galloway’s operatives, who had been carefully tracking Lacey’s operations, provided Howe with information to plan a major attack on the militiamen. Howe decided to send a combined force of Regulars and Loyalists led by Maj. John G. Simcoe, regimental commander of the Queen’s American Rangers.47

A sign on an oddly shaped piece of wood marked the Crooked Billet Tavern on the old York road about sixteen miles north of Philadelphia. Here Lacey and four hundred militiamen were camped on the morning of May 1.

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