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Grave Errors: Erroneous Burial Markings

2/16/2023

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Abraham Hornback was a marksman from Hampshire County picked from the 8th Virginia to serve in Morgan's Rifles. Gravestones have been installed for him in Indiana and Illinois, one of which is obviously in error. He isn't the only one.
Of the roughly nine hundred men who served at some point in the 8th Virginia Regiment in the Revolutionary War, only fifty-two have identified graves. Several of them are marked with wrong information that needs to be corrected. In some cases, the information is dramatically wrong. Sadly, this review of fifty-two grave markers from just one regiment may indicate a significant amount of bad information carved into stone in cemeteries across the eastern half of the United States.

​Leonard Cooper had one leg and he didn’t like to tell people why. When he applied for a veteran’s pension in 1818, he more than bent the truth in saying that he was in “a skirmish” at Paramus Meeting House, New Jersey where he “was wounded and lost his leg.” The truth? He lost his leg in a duel with another officer at Pompton Plains in October 1779. 
Cooper was the lieutenant commandant, or “captain lieutenant,” of Col. John Neville’s company of the 4th Virginia Regiment. This was a new rank for the Continental Army modeled on British practice that resulted from a cost-saving reduction in the number of officers. As the regiment’s senior lieutenant, Cooper led a company nominally under the direct command of the colonel. Perhaps Abraham Kirkpatrick, the man who shot him, thought Cooper was putting on airs.

Whatever his reason, Kirkpatrick was clearly the aggressor. He attacked Cooper with a stick. Cooper apparently had a more peaceful temperament and showed no “disposition to demand satisfaction.” The era’s code of honor, however, required him to make the challenge. His peers could not abide Cooper’s reluctance to stand up for himself and told him that “unless he did, he must leave the Regiment, as they were Determined he should not rank as an Officer.” Cooper reluctantly complied. He and Kirkpatrick faced off with pistols and the hapless lieutenant took a ball of lead to his leg. The limb was amputated and he was transferred to the Corps of Invalids. He was one of the very last men discharged from the army at the end of the war.
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Read More: "Veterans at Rest: Known Graves of the 8th Virginia"

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The “Grand Division Standard” of the 8th Va.

6/20/2022

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Rob Andrews and Erik Dorman guard an 8th Virginia division standard in front of the Shenandoah County Courthouse in Woodstock, Virginia in 2012. (Courtesy of Rob Andrews)
Authentic Revolutionary War-era flags are incredibly rare artifacts, and the ones that survive are sometimes misunderstood. A case in point is a flag associated with the 8th Virginia that is privately owned but currently on public display.
 
Regimental flags were not just symbols—they were, like fifes and drums, used for command and control on the battlefield. Noise, confusion, and black-powder smoke could make it hard for individual soldiers to know what they were supposed to be doing. Failure to stay in formation could quickly lead to a loss on the battlefield. Large, waving, colorful flags helped prevent that from happening.
While the Grand Union flag and the Stars and Stripes may have appeared on some battlefields, they were more likely to be seen on forts and ships. Virginia had no state flag until the Civil War. Every regiment, however, had a flag that served important symbolic and battlefield purposes. Regimental flags were unique works of art, often featuring symbols from antiquity or popular culture with mottos in English or Latin. The flags of the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment and Connecticut’s 2nd Continental Light Dragoons are among the very few that survive.

​There is, however, an 8th Virginia flag that still exists—but it is not the regimental banner. It is a “grand division standard,” one of two that were used to direct halves of the regiment on the battlefield. These were utilitarian devices with little ornamentation. The most important thing about them was their color. 
The surviving 8th Virginia division standard was hidden from public view for 150 years. “The first time I heard of the 8th Virginia Standard was during an internet search on the 8th,” reported Rob Andrews, an SAR member and Revolutionary War reenactor with the 1st Virginia Regiment in 2015. What he found was an 1847 reference in the Richmond Whig.  The newspaper quoted Peter Muhlenberg’s great nephew saying, “The regimental color of this corps (8th Virginia Regiment of the Line) is still in the [my] possession.  It is made of plain salmon-colored silk, with a broad fringe of the same, having a simple white scroll in the centre, upon which are inscribed the words, ‘VIII Virga. Reg’t.’ The spear-head is brass, considerably ornamented.  The banner bears the traces of warm service, and is probably the only revolutionary flag in existence.”
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A close-up of the flag's fringe also shows the netting that is used conserve the flag. (Author)
Henry A. Muhlenberg was at that time preparing to publish a biography of his great uncle, the still-useful (but occasionally inaccurate) Life of Major-General Peter Muhlenberg of the Revolutionary Army. The younger Muhlenberg was a member of Congress and quite knowledgeable about his pedigree, but his description of the flag as “the regimental color” was wrong.
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The repainted side of the flag as displayed by Bernard Goetz before 2012. Exposure to light resulted in a rectangle of faded fabric in the center of both sides of the flag. (B. Goetz, courtesy of R. Andrews)
Other than the 1847 reference, Rob could find no mention of the flag anywhere. “I emailed the folks at Valley Forge and the Trappe Foundation in Trappe PA, where the Muhlenberg family lived.  Emails bounced around and finally one person said he thought he knew who had it. I didn't hear anything for a while and then one day an email from Bernard Goetz popped into my box with two pictures of the flag.  It was in a frame and had a card at the bottom stating its provenance.  I was appalled at the pictures and immediately advised Mr Goetz to remove the flag from the frame.” The flag had not been professionally conserved, had faded where it faced the glass, and was displayed with a card that claimed a service history that followed General Muhlenberg’s career, but not that of the 8th Virginia (which he led for just a year).
“That was all I heard of it for several years,” Rob reported.

​Sometime later, “Mr. Goetz passed away and [in 2012] his descendants placed all his historical artifacts up for auction at Freeman’s Auction in Philadelphia. Prior to the auction, Freeman’s brought it to Shenandoah County to be displayed.  I was lucky that I found out about it just a couple of days prior to the event.  I contacted my friend Erik [Dorman] who also was interested in writing about the 8th and we decided to show up in our uniforms.  We caused quite a stir when we walked around the corner of the Courthouse into the square.  We were immediately enlisted to "guard" the flag and unveil it during the event.”
Rob also shared one important explanation about the flag’s appearance. “As someone in the past painted the flag so that 8th Virginia was visible” the opposite side of the flag is displayed “to show its original condition.  And its years in the frame have led to its faded rectangle appearance.” The flag was purchased anonymously and is once again owned by a private collector. It was briefly displayed again at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware and is presently on display again in Philadelphia.

​The Muhlenburg flag resurfaced six years after another set of Virginia flags reappeared. The flag of the 3rd Virginia “detachment” was put up for auction in 2006 by a descendent of Banastre Tarlton. It is probably the only surviving Virginia regimental flag and is reportedly the oldest existing 13-star flag. It features a beaver (America) felling a tree (the empire) and the motto Perseverando (“By persevering”) in Latin.
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The "3rd Virginia Detachment" banner captured by Banastre Tarlton in 1780.
With it were two smaller, plainer flags of identical design but different colors. The 3rd Detachment was an ad hoc unit cobbled together under Col. Abraham Buford in 1780 from new recruits and soldiers who had avoided capture at Charleston earlier that year. The flags were used at the Waxhaws in South Carolina on May 29 when Tarlton defeated Buford there. It is unlikely that the flags were made specifically for the detachment. The regimental flag is described in detail in a 1778 inventory of then-new flags known as the “Gostelowe Return.” The flags were probably, therefore, inherited from a regiment that was folded into Buford’s detachment. Buford had been colonel of the 11th Virginia, and a number of the men in his detachment were reportedly from the 2nd Virginia. The flag could have come from either of those, or from another.
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The two “grand division” flags from the Buford detachment are almost identical, except for their colors, to the Muhlenberg flag. Buford’s maneuvering flags are blue and yellow. The Muhlenberg flag is a beige color today and was described as a “salmon” color in 1847. A fabric expert advises that the original color was red. The flag has faded considerably just from its time in the frame. It is not hard to imagine it having faded from red to a salmon color over the century or so before it was framed by Mr. Goetz.

​The scrolls on the blue and yellow flags contain only the word "regiment." The word is not centered in the scroll, suggesting that a space was retained to the left  on both flags to be filled in when they were assigned to a specific regiment. The writing in the 8th Virginia's scroll is illegible now. It was retouched on one side by Mr. Goetz or a previous owner to say "VIII Virg Regt." The 1847 account in the Richmond Whig says the scroll was styled a bit differently as "VIII Virga Regt."
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The grand division standard as it likely appeared when new, recreated by 8th Virginia Regiment reenactor Nathan Gibson. (Courtesy of Nathan Gibson)
A comparison of this flag to other Virginia standards could not be done until after it and the Buford flags had all resurfaced. Now that a comparison is possible, it is quite clear that the Muhlenberg flag was in fact one of two divisional standards. Though a maneuvering banner and not the regimental standard, the flag is still a treasure. It is presently on display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.

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Lost & Found: James Kay and Thomas Berry

2/3/2022

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Dave Gilbert of the Simon Kenton Chapter, Kentucky SAR, after he and Stuart Martin found Private Kay's headstone lying flat under the snow. (Stuart Martin)
The grave stones of Revolutionary War veterans are remarkable things. Many of them are the last tangible vestiges of men who played a role not only in creating the United States but also in proving that governments dedicated to freedom and republican government can last. Sadly, many of them are long gone, and with them the last physical connection with the men who lie beneath them. In Boone County, Kentucky, Dave Gilbert and Stuart Martin are doing what they can to preserve or replace the markers that remain.
James Kay enlisted in the 8th Virginia on February 20, 1776. This was four days after someone named John Kay enlisted in the same company. Recruiting and enlisting were family and community affairs in those days. John may have enlisted and then talked James into joining him. John was promoted to sergeant and then became an officer, so he was almost certainly older—probably James’s brother, but maybe his father, an uncle, or a cousin. James was only seventeen.
They enlisted in Capt. Thomas Berry’s Frederick County company. Surprisingly, however, James attested later that he enlisted in King George County. Yes, it is ironic that a rebel soldier lived in “King George” county, but the county was named after King George I, who ruled from 1714 to 1727, not his great-grandson, George III. That, however, is not why the enlistment is surprising. Captain Berry, Lt. John Jolliffe, and two other officers were appointed by the local committee of safety to raise  their company in Frederick County, which surrounds the town of Winchester. Kay lived almost a hundred miles away. Frederick County sits west of the Blue Ridge in the lower (northern) Shenandoah Valley. King George County sits in the Virginia Tidewater between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers east of Fredericksburg. They are a long distance apart, especially by horse. Like all historical oddities, however, there is an interesting explanation.
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Private Kay's original headstone. Kay was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. (Stuart Martin)
Captain Berry grew up in King George, at the family plantation known as Berry Plain. Like so many others, his great grandfather had come to Virginia in 1650 as an indentured servant. From that humble start, the family did well. Berry Plain was built about 1720. Thomas and his older brother Benjamin moved to Frederick County sometime before the war and settled near Battletown, the tavern village famous for street brawls sometimes featuring future general Daniel Morgan. Berry Plain is still standing, has been restored, and was up for sale in 2007. (Some of the plantation’s valuable and ancient boxwoods were sold to Colonial Williamsburg in the 1930s, providing much needed funds to “save the farm.”)  Battletown, meanwhile, is now known as Berryville and is the county seat of Clarke County (created in 1836).  ​​Benjamin is recognized at the town's founder.

​When Berry and Jolliffe were appointed by the Frederick County Committee of Safety, they had recruiting quotas to fill. It appears that Berry's ties to King George County were still so strong that he made a trip home to recruit among his old friends and neighbors. That, at any rate, would explain Kay’s enlistment. Berry’s company was assigned to the 8th Virginia Regiment, which was brought south into the Carolinas in the spring of 1776. Berry and Kay were present in Charleston for the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, though most 8th Virginia men were not in combat. We know Private Kay was at Sunbury, Georgia that summer when many of his comrades succumbed to malaria. Having grown up near the Chesapeake, he may have had some resistance to the mosquito-borne disease. The soldiers were given furloughs after returning to Virginia that winter and then marched to Philadelphia where they were inoculated for smallpox. Lieutenant Jolliffe was quarantined with smallpox that spring in Winchester, either naturally contracted or from inoculation, and died from it.)
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Berry Plain, built when Thomas Berry's grandfather was still alive about 1720, still stands in King George County near the Rappahannock River. This was Captain Berry's childhood home. Though now surrounded by development, it has been nicely restored and retains many of its centuries-old boxwoods.
In September 1777, Kay saw his first serious combat at the Battle of Brandywine. He was “badly” wounded in his right hand. A musket ball seems most likely. The wound was serious enough that Brig. Gen. Charles Scott gave him a furlough to go home and recover. He returned to Battletown and spent the winter there while the rest of the regiment went into winter camp at Valley Forge. Kay's hand healed, but he was partially disabled for the rest of his life. His colonel, Abraham Bowman, also went home (to Strasburg) on furlough. “Soon after he was so recovered as to return to his company,” Kay's pension application says, “his two years expired & he was discharged in Virginia by Col. Abraham Bowman which was in the spring of the year 1778.”
After the war, thousands of Virginia veterans moved to Kentucky. Kay settled in Fayette County, named for the Marquis de Lafayette. By 1826 he lived in Boone County, named for Daniel Boone, but since Boone had originally been part of Fayette that doesn't necessarily mean he moved. He applied for a veteran’s pension in 1833 to supplement a wounded veteran’s benefit he was already receiving and died soon after. He was buried at Salem Baptist Church, then a log church built by a congregation formed in 1827. The church has since been known as Salem Predestinarian Baptist Church and as Salem Creek United Baptist Church.
With the 250th Anniversary of the Revolution approaching, the Simon Kenton Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution are working to compile a complete list of Patriot graves in their area, matching pension records with cemetery records. They are visiting each grave to confirm its existence and note its condition. Stuart Martin and Dave Gilbert have been leading the effort and have been at it since the start of the year. Stuart notes the project is sometimes challenging, especially when “graves have fallen into disrepair, or they reside on private property with access prohibited, or the family cemetery and the headstones are sadly lost to eternity.”
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Captain Berry is believed to be buried at The Briars.
They found Private Kay’s marker intact but lying flat on the ground in the Salem Baptist Church cemetery. Because the stone is worn and hard to read, they plan to replace it with a new one. The ground is frozen, however, so they are leaving it alone until after the ground thaws. For now, they are working on the application for a government-issued headstone and searching for relatives who might attend a ceremony this summer or fall. If you are a descendant or relative of James Kay, please reach out to the Simon Kenon Chapter, SAR.
Captain Berry, according to genealogies, is buried at "The Briars" outside Berryville. This farm has a long history and now functions as an agricultural cooperative. A call to the cooperative revealed that the current occupants have never seen the grave or even a graveyard on the property. It seems Berry's is one more Patriot grave that, in Stuart Martin's phrase, "is sadly lost to eternity."

Read more: "The Stamp Act and Captain Berry"

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James Craig Trampled Under Foot

8/28/2021

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GOOD NEWS: As reported in the comment below by Gary Tunget, the Findagrave.com images that formed the basis for this post were are inaccurate. "The Muhlenburg County History group visited the Craig Cemetery This afternoon March 27th with the property owners and two members of the SAR the photo above is not the Craig Cemetery Capt. Craig's grave stone is still standing. and not trampled by cattle . The group is going to clean the cemetery and fence the property and afterwards the Local DAR and SAR will host a Patriot Grave marking ceremony." Apologies are due, particularly to the property owner, for repeating bad information. The Findagrave.com page appears to have been corrected. --Gabe Neville
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A 2015 photograph shows the Craig Cemetery in deplorable condition. (Jon Craig, Find-a-Grave)
​James Craig deserves better. He was a Continental officer who signed on early for the Revolutionary cause and took part in its first major victory. Despite this important service to his country his grave site is now a shambles.
 
Even before there were any Virginia Continental regiments, Craig signed on to help lead one of the Old Dominion’s independent frontier companies. He was a lieutenant under Capt. William Russell in a company that ranged the southwest Virginia frontier from 1775 to 1776. In 1776 he joined Capt. James Knox in forming a Fincastle County company assigned to the 8th Virginia Regiment. After a year serving in the south, he and Knox were selected to lead a company in Daniel Morgan’s elite rifle battalion. With Morgan and Knox, he played a key role in the defeat of Gen. John Burgoyne at Saratoga—the first major American victory and the event that persuaded the French to openly support the cause.
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An undated image, evidently clipped from a newspaper, shows Craig's headstone upright and intact. (Liz Gossett, Find-a-Grave)
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Craig is listed on a state historical marker in front of the Muhlenberg County court house. Josiah Arnold is also an 8th Va. veteran. (E. C. Russell Chapter, DAR)
After the war Craig settled in Kentucky like thousands of other veterans. He was appointed by the Commonwealth to be one of the first justices of Muhlenberg County, when it was created in 1799. The county, of course, was named in honor of Peter Muhlenberg, under whom Craig had served in the war.
Though never famous on the national stage, Craig led a consequential and locally important life. He died in 1816 at the age of 81 after marrying twice and having many children. He is buried in Craig Cemetery in Rosewood, a rural Muhlenberg County community about forty miles west of Bowling Green. According to a Find-a-Grave page maintained by Liz Gossett, Craig’s headstone is in “very bad shape.” The featured image of it appears to be an old one taken from a newspaper. Three pictures of the Cemetery show a progressive decline. The first image, said to be from the late 19th century, shows a tidy, well-kept site. The second, from 2004, shows fallen headstones interspersed with clumps of weeds. A third photo (the first one shown above) shows cattle roaming among the fallen markers, the dirt churned up by their hooves.
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An old photograph shows the cemetery in good condition. It was maintained by Luther Craig until he died in 1960. (Courtesy Liz Gossett, Find-a-Grave)
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A 2004 photograph shows fallen headstones and unrestrained weeds, 44 years after maintenance ceased. (Liz Gossett, Find-a-Grave)
Ms. Gossett indicates that the cemetery was maintained by descendant Luther Craig until his death in 1960 and has since been abandoned. Someone—the DAR, the SAR, the property owner, or descendants—should restore this cemetery and see to it that James Craig and those buried around him can rest with the dignity they deserve.

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Many Men Have Died in Darkness

6/15/2020

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On January 13, 1777 future President John Adams went for a walk in Philadelphia. He was, at the time, a delegate to the Continental Congress. After returning to his lodgings he wrote:

"I have spent an hour this morning in the Congregation of the dead. I took a walk into the 'Potter's Field,' a burying ground between the new stone prison and the hospital, and I never in my whole life was affected with so much melancholy. The graves of the soldiers, who have been buried, in this ground, from the hospital and bettering-house, during the course of last summer, fall and winter, dead of the small pox and camp diseases, are enough to make the heart of stone to melt away! The sexton told me that upwards of two thousand soldiers had been buried there, and by the appearance of the grave and trenches, it is most probable to me that he speaks within bounds. To what causes this plague is to be attributed, I don't know--disease had destroyed ten men for us where the sword of the enemy has killed one!" ​
Philadelphia's recently defaced Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is not a memorial for George Washington (though it is located in Washington Square). It is a memorial for the two or maybe three thousand penniless soldiers who are buried there in mass graves. Each was fighting for freedom at a time when a better understanding of freedom and equality was only just dawning on humanity. The evident majority who died of smallpox suffered more than most modern people can comprehend. They died for the principle that "all men are created equal" (the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776) and so that we might have the right "peaceably to assemble" and to "petition the Government for redress of grievances" (the 1st Amendment, written in 1791).

"Black lives matter" has essentially the same meaning as "all men are created equal." Both are true statements. The newer slogan, however, is also a Declaration that the "arc of history" has farther to bend until it achieves justice. That is also true. Ask any member of "Mother Emanuel" AME Church in Charleston or the families of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.

We have a better understanding of freedom and equality today than America's founding generation had. But you have to walk before you can run, and the men buried in Washington Square were among the very first common people on Earth to walk upright and proudly in defense of human and civil rights. Today, most of the world is still trying to catch up.

​We can't let up now, however. We have farther to go.

Read More: "The Tragedy of Henry Laurens" (August 1, 2019)

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The Mighty Oaks of the Forest

6/3/2020

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George Rogers Clark & William Croghan by Gwynne Tuell Potts (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2020)
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“The phenomenon of fame confounds and fascinates, indiscriminately raising some to glory while consigning apparent equals to exile.” This is Gwynne Tuell Potts’s insight in her new book on George Rogers Clark and his brother-in-law, William Croghan. “In its most satirical form,” she continues, “fame dooms an occasional soul to both states.” Potts’s 300-page volume is an exploration of the vagaries of fame and fortune.

George Rogers Clark was famous, once. He was a towering figure on the western front of the Revolutionary War. Potts quotes French Gen. Henri Victor Collot describing Clark as the person who had “gained from the natives almost the whole of that immense country which forms now the Western states.” Collot said Clark was “the rival, in short, of George Washington.” Clark’s reputation was diminished in his own lifetime and his fame has since waned. His story is not taught in most schools and his Virginia commission excludes him from the pantheon of well-known Continental generals.

William Croghan has never been famous, but his life illustrates the aspirations and achievements of America’s early frontiersmen. He fought for national expansion and then played an important role in that expansion by moving to Kentucky and running the office that parceled out bounty land to veterans. This was a lucrative position. Croghan prospered and built a stately home, which he called Locust Grove.

...continue to The Journal of the American Revolution.

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Stolen Valor in Georgia

5/25/2020

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Who is the man who lies buried in the ground of central Georgia?
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Drury Jackson of the 8th Virginia probably never set foot in Georgia. So why is his gravestone there? (Dutch Henderson)
Thirty years ago, Dutch Henderson was “stomping through the woods” near Lake Sinclair in central Georgia when he stumbled upon an old gravestone. Some might have thought it an odd spot for a grave, but Dutch knew the history of the area and it made sense. In fact, the setting told him the man six feet under had played an important role in American history.
 
The inscription on the marker read: “CORP. DRURY JACKSON, SLAUGHTER’S CO. 8 VA. REGT. REV. WAR.” Why was this headstone for a Revolutionary War soldier all alone in the woods near a lake? Time changes things. Neither the lake nor the woods were there when Drury Jackson died. Back then the grave was on cleared ground overlooking the Oconee River. Depressions in the soil still reveal to the trained eye that Drury was buried in proper cemetery. The river became a lake in 1953 when it was dammed up to create a 45,000-kilowatt hydroelectric generating station. When Dutch found the grave, the cemetery had been neglected and reclaimed by nature. Today it is in a copse of trees surrounded by vacation homes.
Dutch spends his free time studying local history and conducting archeology. He has made some important finds, including a string of frontier forts along what was once the “far” side of the Oconee. He’s pretty sure that Drury’s burial in that spot is an important clue to his life in the years following the Revolutionary War. From there, however, things get complicated.

...continue to Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

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Three Germans: The Regiment's Field Officers

1/10/2020

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PictureThe signatures of Col. Peter Muhlenberg, Lt. Col. Abraham Bowman, and Maj. Peter Helphenstine. (Author)
Why Germans? The 8th Virginia Regiment of Foot was authorized by the revolutionary Virginia Convention on December 13, 1775. It had no numeric designation yet, but was intended to be unique in two ways. It would be ethnically-based and all of its men would carry rifles. It was conceived as a “battalion” to “be composed of Germans, with German officers.”
 
The concept may have originated with the Rev. Peter Muhlenberg and Jonathan Clark, both delegates from Dunmore County in the Shenandoah Valley. Dunmore (now called Shenandoah County) was the cultural hub of German life in the Valley. It is inconceivable that the resolution could have been drafted without the involvement of at least Muhlenberg and probably of Clark as well. Muhlenberg was the Rector of Beckford Parish, the geography of which was identical to that of Dunmore County. His church was at Woodstock, the county seat. He was, however, more than just the community’s pastor. He was the son of the patriarch or the Lutheran Church in America, whose church was in the village of Trappe near Philadelphia. Clark was the county’s deputy clerk, an important job, under Thomas Marshall (soon to be colonel of the 3rd Virginia Regiment and father of future Chief Justice John Marshall).

The Shenandoah Valley’s Germans had nearly all come the way Muhlenberg had: down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road to Virginia. The road passed through communities that remain heavily German to this day, such as Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Scotch-Irish immigrants followed the same route, but tended to settle farther south in the Valley, around Staunton and Augusta County. 

Lutheran Germans like Muhlenberg were seen by the Virginia gentry as reasonably reliable and trustworthy. Their theology differed little from the Church of England. Muhlenberg had, in fact, gone to London to be ordained before taking his position in Woodstock. (King George III was himself of German descent and his great grandfather, George I, couldn’t speak English when he took the throne.) The Ulster Irish, however, were less trusted. They were theological dissenters and often politically radical. Their Calvinist faith differed in important ways from Anglicanism. They could, however, be counted on to fight

The ordinance creating the 8th Virginia and the selection of field officers that followed it suggest that what the convention really meant by calling it “German” was that Germans would command it (and that the Irish would not). Muhlenberg was the perfect candidate for such a role. He and Clark both served as officers in the regiment, something that may well have been predetermined. Muhlenberg would be the top officer and Clark would command one of Dunmore County’s two companies (the German one).
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The lichen-encrusted grave of Abraham Bowman in Lexington, Kentucky. No portraits of Bowman or Helphenstine survive. Though Helphenstine is known to be buried in the Lutheran section of Winchester's Mount Hebron Cemetery, there's no surviving marker. It may be that his destitute widow was not able to afford a stone memorial. (author)
“And be it farther ordained,” read the resolution, “That of the six regiments to be levied as aforesaid, one of them shall be called a German regiment, to be made up of German and other officers and soldiers, as the committees of the several counties of Augusta, West Augusta, Berkeley, Culpeper, Dunmore, Fincastle, Frederick, and Hampshire (by which committees the several captains and subaltern officers of the said regiment are to be appointed) shall judge expedient.”
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Peter Muhlenberg portrayed at the end of the war as a brevet Major General.
Muhlenberg and Bowman were both too young to have participated in the French and Indian War as most of Virginia’s other senior officers had. Muhlenberg had spent some time in a British military unit after dropping out of seminary in Germany years before. Bowman had experienced at least one dangerous encounter with Indians as a teenager. It is fairly clear that in choosing them the Convention prioritized their ability to rally and unite the Shenandoah Valley over their fairly meager military experience. Patrick Henry was the only other appointed colonel who had no real military experience.

When they received their commissions Muhlenberg was twenty-nine years old and Bowman was twenty-six. The regiment’s major was Peter Helphenstine, a German from Winchester in Frederick County. He was about twice Bowman’s age, in his middle fifties. He had commanded a company in the governor’s division during Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774. He was a respected tradesman and an active Lutheran.
Below them, the officers of the ten companies—captains, lieutenants and ensigns—were a diverse group. English, German, and Scotch-Irish were most common. Capt. Abel Westfall of Hampshire County was Dutch, though his family had been in America for generations. Lieut. Jacob Rinker was Swiss. Lieut. Isaac Israel was Jewish. Religiously, though it is hard to trace, they were mostly Anglican, Lutheran, German Reformed, Presbyterian, and probably Baptist. If there were no Methodists, some of them—including Capt. Westfall—would become Methodists soon.
​`
The diversity of the officers reflected the diversity in the rank and file. The 8th Virginia was a microcosm of the Continental Army at large. It was America’s original “melting pot.” Originally divided by race and religion, their shared hardships would soon make them a band of brothers.

​The committees were generally dominated by English elites and could be counted on to appoint the right kind of company officers. Only two of ten companies had Irish captains: Fincastle County and the West Augusta district (both on the frontier) selected James Knox and William Croghan. Both were capable and loyal officers.


The choice of field officers, however, was up to the Virginia Convention and it chose three Germans as it had planned. Each was from a different down in the lower (northern) Shenandoah Valley. Muhlenberg was appointed to be the colonel. Abraham Bowman of Strasburg (also in Dunmore County) was appointed to be the lieutenant colonel. Bowman came from a prominent family. His grandfather, Jost Hite, had led the first group of German settlers into the valley from Pennsylvania in 1731.  ​

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A Martinsburg Mystery

11/30/2019

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PictureThe tomb of Adam Stephen in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Tunnels beneath his nearby house have yet to reveal whatever secrets they may hold. (Gabe Neville)
Maj. Gen. Adam Stephen was the 8th Virginia's division commander in 1777, leading them at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. He worked closely with George Washington for more than two decades, sometimes challenging and undercutting him. He ran against Washington for the House of Burgesses and almost ruined the surprise Christmas, 1776 attack on Trenton by sending soldiers across the river to settle a personal vendetta against the Hessians. He was reportedly drank too much, and was finally court-martialed and cashiered from the Army after the disaster at Germantown.

That did not end his life of civic engagement, though. He founded Martinsburg (now in West Virginia) and served in the Virginia convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution. Sometime during the war, he built a fine house for himself where Martinsburg grew up. Intriguingly, he built his house over the mouth of a cave. According to tradition, this was done to prove an escape in case of an attack by Indians or other enemies. Since that era, the cave has been filled in with dirt, leaving a persistent mystery: where does the natural underground tunnel lead? For nearly twenty years, TriState Grotto--a local caving club--has been working to excavate the passage, one five-gallon bucket at a time. Videos of their progress (and archeological finds) have been posted occasionally on YouTube. Here they are, in chronological order. 

Stephen died in 1791 and is buried under a rustic monument not far from his home. Despite the controversies associated with his life, he served his country at important moments and in important ways. He was with Washington at Jumonville Glen, Fort Necessity, and Braddock's Defeat years before his Revolutionary War service. His French and Indian War waistcoat and gorget are in the Smithsonian. Aside from his legacy of service and these artifacts, he left an enduring mystery beneath his house. One day soon, perhaps, we'll know where the tunnel leads.

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The Last Vestige of the Clove Road

7/16/2019

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The last vestige of the Clove Road runs by Sidman's Tavern, better known today as the Smith House. The road was the Continental Army's critical connection through New York's Ramapo Mountains that kept armies supplied and moving. (Image: Aidan Hand)
The last remnant of the Continental Army's route through ​New York's Ramapo Mountains may soon be gone.
With no actionable intelligence, General Washington had to guess where British Maj. Gen. William Howe was taking his army. So in July 1777, he led the Continental Army north from New Jersey into what was then a rough, dangerous, and little-known pass through New York’s Ramapo Mountains. He had guessed incorrectly, however, and they were soon racing south again. Two hundred and forty-two years later, one of the last vestiges of this frantic Revolutionary detour may fall to a bulldozer.
After wasting much of the spring of 1777 trying to lure Washington’s army out of the Watchung Mountains, General Howe moved his army out of New Jersey and back to Staten Island. The preceding twelve months included the battles of Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, Trenton, Assunpink Creek, Princeton, and Short Hills, but Howe was now literally back where he had begun. Together, the eight battles had earned the British little more than possession of Manhattan.
In July, Howe’s soldiers began to board ships. This was big news, but not actionable intelligence. Washington needed to know where the enemy planned to go. Howe’s ships could take the Crown troops any place near navigable water. The Continentals, on the other hand, would have to race on foot to meet Howe’s Anglo-German army, planning their first movements on nothing more than an educated guess. This was an extreme disadvantage for the Americans. Washington reported to congressional President John Hancock, “The amazing advantage the Enemy derive from their Ships and the Command of the Water, keeps us in a State of constant perplexity and the most anxious conjecture.”

​Conjecture focused on two primary possibilities: Howe might move up the Hudson River and seize the Hudson Highlands, a strategic choke point on the river next to the site where the United States Military Academy was later built and sixty miles upriver from New York City. With Gen. John Burgoyne’s forces moving south from Canada, this maneuver would complete the British plan of achieving control of the critically important Hudson-Lake Champlain corridor. The other scenario was an attack on Philadelphia, the target Howe had seemed intent on taking through the spring. If the seat of Congress was in fact his target, a landing on the west bank of the Delaware River now seemed most likely.
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A revised and expanded version of this essay appears in the 2020 printed volume of the Journal of the American Revolution.
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    Gabriel Neville

    is researching the history of the Revolutionary War's 8th Virginia Regiment. Its ten companies formed on the frontier, from the Cumberland Gap to Pittsburgh.

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