Mutiny of the New Jersey Line

views updated

Mutiny of the New Jersey Line

MUTINY OF THE NEW JERSEY LINE. 20-27 January 1781. The two regiments of the reorganized New Jersey Brigade were in winter quarters at Pompton, New Jersey, with a small detachment at Suffern, New York, when the Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line started on 1 January. Brigadier General Anthony Wayne ordered part of the brigade south, and they eventually camped at Chatham under the command of Elias Dayton. The portion of the brigade remaining at Pompton was commanded by Colonel Israel Shreve. Having the same complaints as the Pennsylvania regulars, men of the Jersey Brigade followed developments of the Pennsylvania mutiny with avid attention. Even after New Jersey granted its men some of the benefits won by the Pennsylvania troops, a mutiny broke out on 20 January at Pompton. In many ways it seemed a small-scale repetition of the recently concluded performance. Several hundred men left their camp at Pompton and headed for Chatham. Shreve trailed them, just as Wayne had followed the Pennsylvanians. Dayton managed to disperse much of his detachment before the Pompton mutineers arrived on 21 January, so only a few recruits were acquired at Chatham. After two disorderly days the Pompton group agreed to follow Shreve back to camp, and the men were promised pardon if they subsequently behaved.

Washington, meanwhile, learned of the new disorder the evening of 21 January and ordered Major General William Heath in the Highlands to make five or six hundred good troops available to stamp it out. He placed Major General Robert Howe in command of the operation and told him to enforce unconditional submission. After a hard march through deep snow the troops from around West Point reached Ringwood, New Jersey, on 25 January. Here they were joined by other reliable units and by three guns. Washington arrived at midnight the next night and Howe led his command forward an hour later.

The troops at Pompton, eight miles away, became disorderly again soon after their return from Chatham. They obeyed some officers but not others. Sergeants George Grant, Jonathan Nichols, and John Minthorn had been the nominal leaders of the original uprising (although they apparently were forced by their men into assuming leadership); Sergeants David Gilmore (or Gilmour) and John Tuttle were the most conspicuous agitators of the later disorders.

With some well-founded doubts about whether his Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire troops would do their duty, Howe surrounded the Pompton encampment before daylight on 27 January. With the three cannon in plain view of the huts, Howe sent in word for the mutineers to assemble without arms. After some hesitation they complied.

Officers of the New Jersey Brigade submitted the names of the worst offenders and from these candidates selected one from each regiment (including a veteran of the Third New Jersey, which had been disbanded on 1 January in the reorganization). Grant, Gilmore, and Tuttle were named, tried on the spot, and sentenced to be shot immediately. The latter two were executed by a firing party formed by twelve other mutineers who had been named as prominent offenders. Grant was reprieved at the last minute; Van Doren comments that "it is tempting to guess that he may have been privately told by Shreve not to worry over the trial and sentence" (Mutiny in January, p. 223). A journal kept by a contemporary, Dr. Thacher, who saw the trials and executions, gives no indication that he suspected Grant's case was rigged.