In the Spring of 1777, political
battles within the upper echelons of George Washington's military
commanders had left Fort Ticonderoga in New York State vulnerable to
attack by the British. Colonel Jonathan Chase and his soldiers from
Cornish, New Hampshire marched all the way from Cornish to Fort Ti,
only to be told that their services were no longer needed because the
danger from British forces had passed. The arrived home only to be
sent back to New York, but on their return trip they met soldiers
headed for home with the news that Fort Ticonderoga had fallen to the
British. In response to this fiasco, General Horatio Gates was
reinstated as the commander of the northern forces.
During the Revolutionary War,
Committees of Safety in each state organized and managed the troops
from their areas and districts. The Upper Valley's Committee of
Safety consisted of delegates from Cornish, Lebanon, Plainfield and
Hanover. In a letter dated September 17, General Gates wrote to the
Committees of Safety asking them to send troops, as British General
Burgoyne was headed toward Saratoga. The Committee of Safety met on
September 21 to plan a response to this request. It's impressive
that in the space of four days, the letter traveled safely from the
war zone in the Lake George region, to the Upper valley and the
Committee was able to meet and take action.
During the Revolution, troops couldn't
travel long distances because of inadequate roads and primitive modes
of transportation. When General Gates needed more troops in New York
than that area could provide, he sent missives requesting
reinforcements to committees of safety within a couple of days
travel. Troops were not sent across the country to fight in other
regions. I think that partially explains why the Patriot troops were
more likely to win battles fought in rural areas. The men that
fought in those battles were more familiar with guns and could use
them more effectively than soldiers from the city who may have had
less experience with firearms.
The Upper Valley Committee of Safety
sent Jonathan Chase and his troops back to New York one more time,
along with troops from Lebanon and Hanover. Originally, the term
“regiment” referred to the geographic area a commander drew his
troops from. The minutes of the Committee of Safety, quoted in “A
History of Dartmouth College and Hanover New Hampshire” by
Frederick Chase, say, “whatever number of men shall turn out for
the purpose aforementioned from the towns of Colonel Chase's regiment
shall have the liberty to chuse (sic) proper officers for their
company from amongst themselves.” This quote refers to the towns
of the regiment and not to the members, men, or soldiers of the
regiment. There were seventeen regiments in New Hampshire and Chase's
regiment was the 17th. Each regiment had to fill a quota,
providing a certain number of soldiers. These men left Cornish on
September 26, 1777, and traveled to Fort Number 4, crossed the river,
and headed toward New York, probably via the Crown Point Road.
General Burgoyne's plan was to invade
New York, and by controlling the Hudson River he would cut New
England off from the rest of the colonies. He believed that if he
could isolate New England the rest of the states would abandon the
rebellion, because New England was the heart of the rebellion. After
the British captured Fort Ticonderoga, Burgoyne sent a force of
Hessian troops to Bennington,
Vermont looking for food and supplies.
These men were defeated in the Battle of Bennington and never
rejoined the main army in New York. Just as importantly, they never
brought the much needed food and supplies they were sent to find.
While Burgoyne was on the march from
Ticonderoga to Saratoga, Horatio Gates was busy building defenses on
a ridge of bluffs near Stillwater, New York overlooking the Hudson
River. If the Patriots controlled the river and the road coming into
Saratoga, a natural bottleneck in the river valley would funnel the
invading British right into a trap. On September 19, 1777, the two
armies collided in a field on a farm near the bluffs. In a day of
fierce fighting, the field changed hands several times but at the end
of the day, the British prevailed and controlled the field. They
could not manage to advance any further. On September 22, Burgoyne
got word that General Clinton, the British officer who was in charge
of the forces occupying New York City, was getting ready to send
reinforcements to Saratoga. Burgoyne's forces had carried the day on
that first day of fighting, but could not gain any further ground
without reinforcements, so he decided to dig in and wait for the
arrival of Clinton's men.
Clinton's men did start north,
capturing a few forts a long the way. A few troops made it as far as
Albany, but Clinton decided he needed them more to maintain the
occupation of New York City and Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Horatio
Gates' army was becoming increasingly stronger as more and more
reinforcements arrived every day. One of the new arrivals was
Jonathan Chase's regiment of 142 men from Cornish. Along the way, he
had gathered even more recruits so that by the time he arrived in
Saratoga on September 26th, he had 235 men. On October 1,
30 more men to joined the Patriot forces.
These additions, combined with
significant reinforcements from northern New England, gave Gates
confidence that he could meet the British in battle and beat them.
On October 7
th, the two armies battled again, and this
time the outcome was much different. Although Burgoyne managed to
hold the field on September 19
th, he lost a large number
of troops in the effort. On October 7
th, his depleted
troops faced an enemy that was substantially increased in number.
The Patriots soundly defeated the
British in that battle. Burgoyne
lost so many men he was outnumbered 3-1. With nightfall, he and his
remaining troops retreated under cover of darkness to the town of
Saratoga. In Saratoga, starving, miserable and surrounded by the
Patriot army, there was no other option for General Burgoyne but to
surrender. The first thing the Patriot army did after the surrender
was feed the starving British troops.
There is some mention online that
Jonathan Chase may have “drawn up” the Articles of Convention”
that outlined the terms of Burgoyne's surrender. The Wikipedia entry
for Jonathan Chase makes that claim, and so do several ancestry
websites. I have spent hours looking for other, more legitimate
sources that mention this, but I could not find any. The other
question, not that it really matters, is what does “drawn up”
mean? Did Jonathan write the Articles of Convention, supposedly, as
dictated by someone else because he had good handwriting? Or did he
compose and write them? Reproductions of the Articles of Convention
are available for purchase, and if it could be verified that Jonathan
wrote them, it would be possible to buy a document that you know is a
copy of something written by him.
Sources: Chase, Frederick "A History of Dartmouth College and Hanover New Hampshire" 1891 Hanover, NH: J Wilson and son
http://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_Dartmouth_College_and_the_T.html?id=gfEKAAAAIAAJ
Child, William Henry "History of the Town of Cornish New Hampshire" 1911 Concord NH: Rumford Press
https://archive.org/details/historyoftownofc01chil
Heald, Bruce "New Hampshire and the Revolutionary War" 2013 Charleston: The History Press
