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    Disestablishment: The Separation of Faith from Government Power

    Book Reviews Religion
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    Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History
    by Katherine Carté (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2021)
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    Dwight Eisenhower once said that “our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.” This uniquely American argument, made by other presidents as well, is rooted in a seeming paradox of the Founding Era. America abandoned official religion in the wake of the Revolution and yet the nation became much more religious.

    ​Katherine Carté’s book     Religion and the American Revolution is not about the theological origins of the conflict or the so-called “black-robed regiment” of militant clergy. It is about the impact of the Revolution on established religion on both sides of the sea. It is one of several recent books that opens the historical aperture on the era and lets us see familiar events in a broader context. This is especially important when it comes to the dominant Protestant sects of the period. These were trans-Atlantic organizations and America’s established colonial churches remained very close to and even dependent on support from home.
    Fundamental to Carté’s analysis is understanding that the Church of England was just one of three denominations that represented a compound Imperial religious establishment. Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists all held privileged status in different parts of the Empire: Anglicans in England and the American South, Presbyterians in Scotland, and Congregationalists in New England. Carté describes a tripartite “scaffold” of establishment that bound Protestants together and united the King’s dominions. Protestantism defined the British Empire more than Englishness did, since most of its subjects were not English.

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    Lost & Found: James Kay and Thomas Berry

    Artifacts & Memorials Veterans
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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.
    Salem Baptist Church, Verona, Ky.
    Berry Plain, King George Co., Va.
    Berryville and The Briars, Clarke Co., Va.
    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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    The Battle of Drake's Farm

    Generals Race Trenton & Princeton
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    Col. Charles Scott, depicted here many years later, commanded the Virginia troops at the Battle of Drake's Farm on February 1, 1777. His bold leadership there contrasted sharply with that of Connecticut Col. Andrew Ward, who did not or could not get his troops to engage. Scott was promoted soon after to brigadier general. The 8th Virginia served in his brigade at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. He later served as governor of Kentucky. (Kentucky Historical Society)

    Thomas McCarty spent his first two days in Morristown drunk. It was January 1777 and he was one of the many 8th Virginia men detached to the 1st Virginia in New Jersey. The regiment was in bad shape. The field officers were all wounded or dead. Captain Croghan had been sick in Philadelphia for months. Lieutenant Kirkpatrick was in command, but even he had been wounded at Princeton. Now the remnant of Washington's army was in Morristown for the winter. Reinforcements would come, but for now most of the army was gone. The remaining men were mostly Virginians on long enlistments and Adam Stephen, newly a general, led the Virginia brigade.

    ​After sobering up, McCarty spent Monday and Tuesday—January 13 and 14—organizing and distributing supplies to the men. He was, he wrote, “sick, most excessive bad.” It wasn’t the first time he wrote that in his diary. Wednesday and Thursday he spent resting in the sergeant major’s quarters. Then he ran to Chatham “about some business” on Friday. On Sunday, he felt the lure of alcohol again. He “took a walk through the country with Mr. Depoe, and bought a barrel of cyder.”
    After a couple of quiet days in quarters, McCarty was ordered to have the men ready to march with three days’ provisions. They marched on Thursday, January 23, to Springfield, where McCarty was able to acquire a store of new shoes, stockings, and breeches. The men, some of whom were barefoot, lined up in the snow for the desperately-needed gear. On Saturday evening, his tasks completed, McCarty once again “took a walk to the country, where I got some cyder and a very good supper.” Quartermastering had definite perquisites. Again, on Sunday, he went “into the country,” took some lodgings and “stayed all day.”

    On Monday, Stephen’s severely understrength brigade headed out to look for the enemy.  McCarty followed behind, responsible for the wagons. “Our Virginia troops had marched, and I got orders from General Stephen to follow on, and I marched to Westfield, and then to Scotch Plains, it being in the night and very muddy. I got lodgings at one Mr. Halsey’s.” There was was a regiment of Connecticut men in the field as well, commanded by Col. Andrew Ward. These were one-year men whose enlistments would be up in May. Ward's men had been begging to go home since December, however, and were beginning to desert. McCarty and his wagons caught up with the Virginians, commanded by Col. Charles Scott, and joined them in taking quarters at Quibbletown, a village known today as New Market. 
    The next couple of days were spent scouting for enemy foraging parties. Part of Washington's winter strategy was to prevent the British from collecting hay. Less hay over the winter would mean fewer horses for them in the spring—and armies needed horses. Finally, on Saturday, February 1, the Virginians found the fight they had been looking for. They spotted five British light horsemen. They captured an officer, but seventy or eighty balls of lead failed to stop any of the others as they rode away. 

    ​Scott and his ninety or a hundred men were walking into a trap set by the enemy, who had grown tired of having their foraging parties ambushed. Though their officer was not meant to be captured, the small group of mounted men had done their job. The Virginians pursued them to Drake’s Farm, near Metuchen, where they "discovered their main body where they were loading hay.” It was not immediately apparent to the Virginians that they were approaching a much larger force than had previously been sent out to guard foragers. Colonel Ward’s surly Connecticuters were nearby, but it is not clear why and command was not unified. 

    ​Scott was a popular and aggressive officer and his Virginians attacked immediately. They soon realized they were facing two brigades of British and Hessian troops supported by eight artillery pieces. The Continentals were heavily outnumbered, but fought hard anyway, counting on Ward’s men to back them up. They boldly attacked the enemy line and drove back a battalion of grenadiers. “We attacked the body, and bullets flew like hail,” McCarty wrote. The enemy artillery checked their momentum, but they kept fighting anyway for several minutes. “We stayed about 15 minutes, when we retreated with loss. We drove them first, but at our retreat the balls flew faster than ever.”
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    The grave of Col. Andrew Ward V in Guilford, Conn. Ward's great-great grandfather came to New England with John Winthrop in 1630. He was a veteran of the 1745 Siege of Louisbourg (assisting his father as a boy) and the Battle of Lake George in 1760. Though his regiment fought at White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton, his miserable and poorly-equipped men were deserting and begging to go home as early as December when he wrote to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull asking him to prevail upon Washington to let them go home. He appears to have completely lost control of his regiment by March. Ward left Continental service in May but was later made a brigadier general in the Connecticut militia. He voted against the U.S. Constitution at the state ratification convention in 1788. (Findagrave.com)

    McCarty, like the other Virginians, was furious that Ward’s men didn't support them. “There was a body of above 400 men that never came up to our assistance till we retreated. Then they came up, but too late, and only some.” Their anger was soon directed back at the enemy when it was discovered that some wounded Americans had been murdered on the field. Several enemy soldiers (officers, according to McCarty), “went to the field where we retreated from, and the men that was wounded in the thigh or leg, they dash out their brains with their muskets and run them through with their bayonets, made them like sieves. This was barbarity to the utmost.”

    The murder of the wounded Virginians is confirmed by several sources. General Stephen wrote directly to British general Sir William Erskine to complain that six Virginians “slightly wounded in the muscular parts, were murdered, and their bodies mangled, and their brains beat out, by the troops of his Britannic Majesty.” He warned that such conduct would “inspire the Americans with a hatred to Britons so inveterate and insurmountable, that they never will form an alliance, or the least connection with them.”

    Stephen could think of no better threat than a reprise of Gen. Edward Braddock’s defeat in the French and Indian War. Stephen used his credentials as a survivor of that battle to insult and to intimidate the British general with over-the-top threats of Indian cannibalism.

    I can assure you, Sir, that the savages after General Braddock’s defeat, notwithstanding the great influence of the French over them, could not be prevailed on to butcher the wounded in the manner your troops have done, until they were first made drunk. I do not know, Sir William, that your troops gave you that trouble. So far does British cruelty, now a days, surpass that of the savages.

    In spite of all the British agents sent amongst the different nations, we have beat the Indians into good humour, and they offer their service. It is their custom, in war, to scalp, take out the hearts, and mangle the bodies of their enemies. This is shocking to the humanity natural to the white inhabitants of America. However, if the British officers do not refrain their soldiers from glutting their cruelties with the wanton destruction of the wounded, the United States, contrary to their natural disposition, will be compelled to employ a body of ferocious savages, who can, with an unrelenting heart, eat the flesh, and drink the blood of their enemies. I well remember, that in the year 1763, Lieutenant Gordon, of the Royal Americans, and eight more of the British soldiers, were roasted alive, and eaten up by the fierce savages that now offer their services.

    The fundamental British strategy in the Revolution was to empower Loyalists and to pacify rebels and persuade them to accept offers of amnesty. The plan clearly wasn’t working. Shortly after the Battle of Drake’s Farm, a loyalist wrote home: “For these two month[s], or nearly, we have been boxed about in Jersey, as if we had no feelings. Our cantonments have been beaten up; our foraging parties attacked, sometimes defeated, and the forage carried off from us; all travelling between the posts hazardous; and, in short, the troops harassed beyond measure by continual duty.”
     
    The Forage War was a brilliant (and still-unheralded) success for the Americans. Denying the enemy forage and forcing them to live in close quarters for several months had a cumulatively severe impact on them. Howe had more than 31,000 troops at New York on August 27, 1776. When spring came, he had lost between forty and fifty percent of those men to death, desertion, capture, or disease. That was not sustainable.
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    The Battle of Drake's Farm occurred at nor near Metuchen, N.J., half-way between major British outposts at New Brunswick and Perth Amboy. This 1781 map was drawn four years after the engagement. This map is oriented ninety degrees to the right of standard orientation, with the right facing to the north. (Library of Congress)

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