Chapter Twelve:

Tim: “In June of that year, 1777, we found out that father was dead…we found all this out from one of the men who’d been taken away during the raid on Redding that spring.”

Life dying in a British prison ship is ironic seeing Life is loyal to the British cause. But it highlights the hardship of the loyalists who chose “passive resistance” in the war…they were caught in the middle of a war they didn’t support, suffering injustices when attempting to go on with their lives as they always had.

Redding prisoners taken away during the raid were: *Redding militiamen captured in Weston (James Rogers, Timothy Parsons, Russell Bartlett, Daniel Chapman, Thomas Couch, David Fairchild, Ezekial Fairchild, Jabez Frost, Daniel Meeker, Jonas Platt, Oliver Sanford, Nathaniel Squire and 13 year old, Jacob Patchen were among the captured.), Patriots Stephen Betts, Daniel Sanford, Jeremiah Sanford and a non-combatant (Benjamin Lines) captured on Redding Ridge.

*Betts, Bartlett, Lines, Patchen, and most of the Redding militiamen would all eventually return to Redding. Daniel and Jeremiah Sanford, Daniel Chapman, David Fairchild died in captivity while being held in the “sugar houses” of New York, where sanitation was deplorable and disease was rampant.

Tim: “Jerry? He’s dead?” Betsy: “You can understand why they took Mr. Rogers or Captain Betts, but why imprison a ten-year-old boy?”

Jerry Sanford is portrayed as a 10 year old, that is taken prisoner and dies in the prisons of New York in my brother Sam is dead. Jeremiah Sanford of Redding, Connecticut was taken prisoner by the British and did die in the prisons of New York but he was 19 years old not 10 years old. Jerry Sanford’s portrayal as a youth is no fault of the Collier brothers. He was long thought to be a youth in Redding history, as that is how Charles Burr Todd portrayed him in both versions of his History of Redding publications. Jeremiah Sanford’s gravestone holds the truth, it reads:

“Jeremiah Sanford, who died a prisoner in New York, June 28th in the 19th year of his age.”

Children of patriots were killed in the war. Relating to Redding, British General, William Tryon, was said to have an ill-natured propensity for women and boys. The latter especially he made prisoners of, and consigned to the horrible prison ships, holding them as hostages, on the justification that they “would very soon grow into rebels.”

In addition to prison ships, prisoners were also confined to the infamous “Sugar House”, a Revolutionary War version of a POW compound. There were actually three “Sugar Houses”- i.e. sugar warehouses which the British converted into makeshift prisons. Van Cortland’s on the northwest corner of the Trinity Church lot, Rhinelander’s on William & Duane Streets, and another on Liberty Street which was the largest and was used the longest. The most vivid accounts of confinement come from the journals of prisoners confined in the Liberty Street Sugar House, a five story stone building which was stifling in summer and frigid in winter. Food rations were minimal and of poor quality. Sanitation was deplorable and disease was rampant. Many prisoners died of mistreatment and/or neglect.

Tim: “We couldn’t get over to Verplancks Point that fall. The Rebels were holding all of northern Westchester County – Peekskill, Verplancks, Crompound, all of it.

By the time of the American Revolution, the tiny community of Peekskill was an important manufacturing center from its various mills along the several creeks and streams. These industrial activities were attractive to the Continental Army in establishing its headquarters there in 1776.

The mills of Peek’s Creek provided gunpowder, leather, planks, and flour. Slaughterhouses were an important part of the food supply. The river docks allowed transport of supply items and soldiers to the several other fort garrisons placed along the Hudson to prevent British naval passage between Albany and New York City. Officers at Peekskill generally supervised placing the first iron link chain between Bear Mountain and Anthony’s Nose in the spring of 1777.

Though Peekskill’s terrain and mills were beneficial to the Patriot cause, they also made tempting targets for British raids. The most damaging attack took place in early spring of 1777 when an invasion force of a dozen vessels led by a warship and supported by infantry overwhelmed the American defenders. Another British operation in October 1777 led to further destruction of industrial apparatus. As a result, the Hudson Valley command for the Continental Army moved from Peekskill to West Point where it stayed for remainder of the war.

Sam: “I’m going to be in Redding for a while, General Putnam, is bringing a couple of regiments here for winter encampment. We’re going up to Lonetown and hole up until spring.”

General Israel Putnam’s division of the Continental Army encamped in Redding in the winter of 1778-1779. This division was comprised of General Poor’s brigade of New Hampshire troops under Brig. General Enoch Poor, a Canadian Regiment led by Col. Moses Hazen, and two brigades of Connecticut troops: corps of infantry commanded by Brig. General Jedediah Huntington, and corps of cavalry commanded by Brig. General Samuel H. Parsons. This division had been operating along the Hudson (Eastern New York) during the fall, and as winter approached it was decided that it should go into winter quarters at Redding, as from this position it could support the important fortress of West Point in case of attack, intimidate the Cowboys and Skinners of Westchester County, and cover lands adjacent to Long Island Sound.

Colonel Aaron Burr, one of General Putnam’s aides and a frequent visitor to Redding, had suggested that Putnam look over the area for a future winter encampment during a summer visit to General Heath’s Brigade in Danbury. Putnam found the topography and location ideal. Three camp locations were marked and later prepped by an Army Corp. of Engineers: the first in the northeast part of Lonetown, near the Bethel line, on land owned by John Read, 2nd (now Putnam Park). The second also in Lonetown, was about a mile and a half west of the first camp, between Limekiln Rd. and Gallows Hill in the vicinity of present day Whortleberry Rd. & Costa Lane. The third camp was in West Redding, on a ridge about a quarter of a mile north of West Redding Station (vicinity of present day Deer Spring Drive & Old Lantern Road).

A full account of the encampment is located in Chapter Four: Redding, Connecticut and the Revolution.

Susannah: “You mean your troops are stealing from your own people?”

Given the conditions, it is difficult to blame the soldiers that took matters into their own hands and ventured out of camp in search of provisions. The citizens of Redding, did not see things this way, those who initially felt quite honored by the selection of their town for the army’s winter quarters, soon grew tired of soldiers looting their livestock. The soldiers position was that they were the one’s fighting the country’s battles and plundering the neighboring farms was within their rights as men of war. To them a well-stocked poultry yard, a pen of fat porkers or field of healthy heifers offered irresistible cuisine when compared to the horse-beef they were being offered back at camp. After a time, however, the wary farmers foiled the looters by storing their livestock over night in the cellars of their houses and in other secure places. Others butchered their stock as Sam urges his family to do.

A full account of the encampment is located in Chapter Four: Redding, Connecticut and the Revolution.

Tim: “Of course the ordinary soldiers didn’t have much fun. For one thing, there was always snow. It came down in a great blizzard about a week after the troops had started to build the encampment.”

Brigade orders out of Parsons’ command on December 27th reveal a desperate lack of food:

“The General of the brigade informs the officers and soldiers that he has used every possible method to supply flour or bread to the brigade. Although a sufficiency of every article necessary is at Danbury, the weather had been so extreme that it is impossible for teams to pass to that place. Every measure is taken to supply flour, rum, salt and every necessary tomorrow, at which time, if a quantity sufficient comes in, all past allowances shall be made up. The General, therefore, desires for the honor of this corps and their own personal reputation, the soldiery, under the special circumstances caused by the severity of the season, will make themselves contented to that time.”

The journals of private Joseph Plumb Martin (stationed with the 8th Connecticut in Parsons’ middle camp) show the desperate lack of food and poor weather conditions continued through January:

“We settled in our winter quarters at the commencement of the new year and went on in our old Continental Line of starving and freezing. We now and then got a little bad bread and salt beef (I believe chiefly horse-beef for it was generally thought to be such at the time). The month of January was very stormy, a good deal of snow fell, and in such weather it was mere chance if we got anything at all to eat.”

Report out of the New Hampshire division (main camp, present day Putnam Park), Dec. 22, 1778:

“a severe snow storm…'”

Report out of the New Hampshire division, Dec. 25, 1778:

“Christmas Day. The Weather is so cold we take but little notice of the day…'”

Report out of the New Hampshire division, Dec. 26, 1778:

” we have a very severe snow storm…”

Tim: “I thought General Putnam gave strict orders against stealing.” Sam: “Oh he did, and knowing General Putnam he’ll hang any soldier he catches stealing. He’s tough as nails but he’s honest.”

General Putnam was more concerned with deserters and spies while he was in Redding. Nothing had so much annoyed Putnam and his officers during the campaign of the preceding summer on the Hudson than the desertions which had thinned his ranks, and the Tory spies, who frequented his camps, under every variety of pretext, and forthwith conveyed the information thus gathered on the enemy.

To put a stop to this it had been determined that the next offender of either sort (deserter or spy) captured should suffer death as an example.

Sam: “The other day some of the men were actually talking mutiny.”

The troops went into winter quarters at Redding in no pleasant humor, and almost in the spirit of insubordination. This was particularly the case with the Connecticut troops. They had endured privations that many men would have sunk under: the horrors of battle, the weariness of the march, cold, hunger, and nakedness. What was worse, they had been paid in the depreciated currency of the times, which had scarcely any purchasing power, and their families at home were reduced to the lowest extremity of want and wretchedness.

The forced inactivity of the camp gave them time to brood over their wrongs, until at length they formed the bold resolve of marching to Hartford, and airing their grievances in person to the Legislature then sitting. The two brigades were plotting their escape when the threat of troop desertion was brought to Putnam’s attention. He, with his usual intrepidity and decision of character, threw himself upon his horse and dashed down the road leading to his camps, never slacking rein until he drew up in the presence of the disaffected troops.

“My brave lads,” he cried, “whither are you going? Do you intend to desert your officers, and invite the enemy to follow you into the country? Whose cause have you been fighting and suffering so long in-is it not your own? Have you no property, no parents, wives, children? You have behaved like men so far-all the world is full of your praises, and posterity will stand astonished at your deeds; but not if you spoil it all at last. Don’t you consider how much the country is distressed by the war, and that your officers have not been any better paid than yourselves? But we all expect better times, and that the country will do us ample justice. Let us all stand by one another then, and fight it out like brave soldiers. Think what a shame it would be for Connecticut men to run away from their officers.”

When he had finished this stirring speech, he directed the acting major of brigades to give the word for them to march to their regimental parades, and lodge arms, which was done; one soldier only, a ringleader in the affair, was confined to the guard house, from which he attempted to escape, but was shot dead by the sentinel on duty- himself one of the mutineers. Thus ended the affair. Private Joseph P. Martin related two more uprisings that occurred in January, both thwarted by regimental officers, in his camp journal, indicating discontent among the troops still lingered.