When Governor Benning Wentworth
granted the charter for the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, he named
the town after Sir Samuel Cornish, a renowned admiral in the Royal
Navy. In 1765, the Chase family traveled up the Connecticut River by
canoe to become the first family to live in the Connecticut River
town. Judge Samuel Chase had purchased a considerable tract of land
from one of the first incorporators of the town, and he and his two
sons came north to establish their homesteads in the wilderness north
of Fort Number 4. Judge Chase's son Dudley's and his wife Alice had
14 children, including Alice, who was born soon after they arrived at
their new home. Alice Chase was the first child born in Cornish.
Judge Chase's other son, Jonathan,
born in 1732, was a colonel in the Revolutionary War. He was
colonel, paymaster and mustermaster of the 13th New
Hampshire regiment. He was appointed as a colonel in 1775. Jonathan
was 45 during the Revolutionary War.
Jonathan and his men were first called
to duty in the early Spring of 1777. Cornish was a rendezvous point
for several other regiments. From Cornish the New Hampshire soldiers
marched to Cavendish, Vermont, where they met up with more regiments
and continued to Fort Ticonderoga. The whole trip took a month, and
when they finally arrived at Fort Ticonderoga they were told to turn
around and go home, that the danger to the fort had passed.
Jonathan Chase
Again they were called out. On June
27, Jonathan and his regiment of 186 men left again for Ticonderoga.
On their way, they met returning troops who told them that
Ticonderoga had fallen to General Burgoyne. When they heard this
news, they were angry and discouraged, feeling that had they been
allowed to stay at Ticonderoga when they were there a month ago,
maybe the fort wouldn't have fallen.
Fort Ticonderoga
During the previous several months,
Patriot Generals Philip Schuyler and Horatio Gates, both in positions
of importance in the northern region, had been involved in
competitions for more power and more important command posts. In
March, the Continental Congress gave the top position to Gates, but
when Schuyler protested, the decision was reversed and the position
was given to Schuyler. Gates, who was in charge of Fort Ticonderoga,
refused to serve under Schuyler and went to Philadelphia.
Arthur St. Clair replaced Horatio
Gates as commander in charge of Fort Ticonderoga. He arrived three
weeks before General Burgoyne attacked, on June 9. Jonathan and his
regiment from the Upper Valley had arrived during the change in
command. Jonathan left Cornish on May 7. If the History of Cornish,
by William Child (1911) is accurate, and it took exactly a month for
Jonathan and his regiment to reach Ticonderoga, would have arrived
on June 7, two days before St. Clair. It's possible that no one was
in charge at Ticonderoga when our guys arrived, and whoever was the
ranking officer there at the time just told them to go home. It's
also not hard to imagine Gates there, but packing to leave and not
wanting to bother with a bunch of country bumpkins from New
Hampshire.
All accounts of General St Clair's
arrival in Ticonderoga state that he immediately knew there weren't
enough troops, and insufficient ammunition to conduct a successful
defense if Ticonderoga were attacked. It's hard to believe he would
have met New Hampshire's troops, knocking on the gate of the fort
ready to serve, and sent them back home. When it became apparent
that an attack was imminent, St Clair abandoned Fort Ti, and
Burgoyne's troops arrived and took possession almost unopposed.
St Clair knew when he abandoned Fort
Ti that he was putting his reputation and military career at risk.
He is quoted as saying, “I knew I would have saved my reputation by
sacrificing the army, but were I to do so, I would forfeit that which
the world would not restore, the approbation of my own conscience.
Sure enough, St Clair was court martialled for charges of cowardice.
He was acquitted with the highest honor. The court concluded that
“Burgoyne's army, when he met St. Clair, numbered 7863 men. St.
Clair had less than 2200, all of whom were half fed and half clad.
Burgoyne surrounded him with 142 guns, while St. Clair had less than
100 second rate cannon of various sizes and these were manned by
inexperienced men.” (Stanley L. Klos 2011 “Arthur St. Clair”
The Forgotten Fathers
http://theforgottenfounders.com/the-forgotten-fathers/arthur-st-clair/)
No comments:
Post a Comment