Robert Hamilton’s Enlistment Into the American Revolution: 1776
Part A: Lancaster Flying Camp; Battle of Long Island
Despite some of the conflicting stories within the Hamilton Family oral history as to where Robert landed and set down roots: was it a blacksmith uncle in Lancaster, PA who opened up his home?; or was it a fellow traveler on his ship (and also a blacksmith) who he befriended and together they made their way to Lancaster in the mid-1770’s? The reader should be aware that in such matters I defer to Donna Zurcher, whose research and written history on the Hamilton family seems the best and most thorough. So her conclusion finds Hamilton landing in Philadelphia, traveling to Lancaster in the mid-1770’s perhaps with or going to an uncle.
And James Webb, former US Senator from Virginia and decorated Vietnam war veteran, wrote this in his history of the Scots-Irish: “…by the early 1720’s …the port of choice had become Philadelphia [when large scale migrations began from Northern Ireland]”. Besides Philadelphia “….Over the next five decades the overwhelming majority of Scots-Irish settlers entered the American colonies through either Chester, PA or Wilmington, DE [all ports] along the Delaware River. Webb also commented on Philadelphia’s primary choice as a destination: “…[there] were two reasons. The first was that the Pennsylvania colony accommodated religious freedom and largely welcomed Ulster dissenters; and second, [the northern colonies of] New England and New York wanted nothing to do with [the Ulster Protestants].
So Philadelphia seems the logical destination for Robert Hamilton and Lancaster the obvious choice as a final destination for Ulsterites in 1775/6. Webb points out that Scottish born James Logan was William Penn’s choice as the State’s land sales agent. In that capacity “…Logan set aside a large tract of land for Ulster Scots near modern-day Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which the settlers immediately named Donegal after an area near Londonderry from which many migrated.” In a way, Hamilton was landing in a home away from home.
Now his American saga begins.
We assume that not long after Hamilton’s arrival in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he was engaged in work - if at his uncle’s, then learning the trade of a blacksmith which he continued after the war in Lancaster and throughout his journey to Brown County, Ohio from 1790 to 1815 with stops in Waynesburg, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Trumbull County, Ohio.
Without an exact date we can only guess that he came in 1775 or 1776. And at the latest in mid-1776 we can document that he had caught the ‘Independence Fever’ when he joined Lancaster County’s 1st Regiment ‘Flying Camp’ in support of General Washington’s Continental Army.
Associators, Flying Camps, and Militias
Before locating the Flying Camp into which our Robert Hamilton joined the fight for American independence, given the history of Pennsylvania, it is important to understand the rise of Associators and the lack of a coherent militia system.
Governance in Pennsylvania up through the early years of the revolution was in the hands of the Provisional Assembly. The Assembly was dominated by Quaker, Mennonite, and pacifist representatives. Unlike most of the other colonies Pennsylvania did not initially establish a militia network.
In 1747 Benjamin Franklin, frustrated by the Provincial Assembly’s refusal to take seriously the responsibility of self-defense against possible invasion, founded the Philadelphia Military Association. Made up of volunteers it was modeled after London’s Military Association. Unlike the militia system the Associators, as they came to be called, were not under the thumb of local authority.
After the French and Indian War broke out (1754-1763), threatening the western Pennsylvania frontier, the Provincial Assembly was forced to establish temporary Militia Laws thus allowing for defense in the west. Many Associator groups that had sprung up in counties around Philadelphia prior to the Assembly action joined with the temporary militias to do battle and defend the territory of the State. Ultimately Pennsylvania did establish a state militia, but not until March of 1777.
In the meantime, at the conclusion of the French-Indian War, the Associator groups became dormant until 1775 when word of the outbreak of hostilities in Massachusetts made the headlines. With new life breathed into the Associator groups their importance and role took on new significance. Then in the spring of 1776 with the British retiring from Boston, Washington asked the Continental Congress for additional troops to help his stretched out army on two fronts - an American attack on Quebec and anticipating a British invasion of New York as a precursor to attacking the middle colonies.
Washington requested the establishment of the ‘Flying Camps’ (based on the French model camp volent - a highly mobile reserve) where some 10,000 troops, formed into 400 man sized battalions from the colonies of Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, would be created. This action was a stop gap measure, since Congress would not enlarge the Continental Army, which Washington characterized himself as being “…unhappy with the short terms of enlistment, loose discipline, and reluctance of much of the militia to serve far from home.” (Verenna)
The Continental Congress authorized creation of the Flying Camps in June, 1776 where enlistments were for 6 months only. It turned out the Flying Camps were dissolved in December 1776, but not before the Pennsylvania Flying Camps distinguished themselves in nearly every engagement of the New York campaign and retreat through New Jersey (more on these battles shortly).
In Lancaster County some of the Associator Companies transitioned directly into Flying Camp battalions. And we find our first documentation that Robert Hamilton served in the County’s Flying Camp in 1776 and the War of Independence. Hamilton, as you can see from the August 13, 1776 muster role in Captain Watson’s Company, had the role of ‘Drummer’ for the company. According to Stephen Bradney, a local Lancaster County researcher/educator/reenactor explained in an email to me that given Hamilton’s age (just 16 years old), according to the current rules of the Continental Army in 1776, no volunteers under the age of 18 could be ‘under arms’.
The ‘Drummer’ played an im-portant role by communicating orders from the commanding officer which could be a style of formation or action to be taken (advance, stop, etc…). And the drummer (and fife player) also had menial jobs around the camp: basic cleanup, foraging for wood, and the like. I have included a copy of Hamilton’s Revolutionary War Service Record to show how over five years he transitioned from Drummer to a Corporal by the end of the war (see below).
A good summary of the Pennsylvania Flying Camps was written up on a website American Revolutionary War History entitled “Swope’s Regiment Flying Camp (1776 - 80)”. Colonel Michael Swope commanded the eight companies making up the 1st Battalion Flying Camp of York, PA and he was captured and imprisoned at the fall of Fort Washington along with Major General Greene. According to Benjamin Franklin, Col. Swope was traded in a prisoner exchange, one-to-one, for Franklin’s estranged, loyalist son who was the Governor of New Jersey.
The following describes the role of the Flying Camps:
Faced with defending a huge amount of territory from potential British operations, Washington recommended forming a “flying camp”, which in the military terminology of the day referred to a mobile, strategic reserve of troops. Congress agreed and on June 3, 1776, passed a resolution “that a flying camp be immediately established in the middle colonies and that it consist of 10,000 men ….”
The men recruited for the Flying Camp were to be militiamen from three colonies: 6000 from Pennsylvania, 3400 from Maryland, and 600 from Delaware. They were to serve until December 1, 1776, unless discharged sooner by Congress, and to be paid and fed in the same manner as regular soldiers of the Continental Army.
The Flying camp was to be composed of troops from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware for the immediate defense of New Jersey while the Main Army focused on the defense of New York. No such numbers were ever realized for this purpose, the total being under 6,000, but Maryland and tiny Delaware seemingly managed to fulfill their quotas. Delaware was assigned to provide 600 men from among those it had already recruited for one year, and the unit was to be “engaged to the first day of December next [1776].” Pennsylvania sent some 2,000 men, many of whom were quickly drafted into other service by Washington in New York.
But the battle losses to the British at Long Island, White Plains, Fort Washington, and Fort Lee (NJ) in the fall of 1776 ended in Washington’s Army retreating across New Jersey hoping to find sanctuary in Pennsylvania. The final rear guard action by a contingent of Flying Camp battalions probably ensured the Continental Army would fight another day. The story continues:
The soldiers from tiny Delaware, fighting alongside the 1st Maryland Regiment, may well have prevented the capture of the majority of Washington’s army, an event that might have ended the colonial rebellion then and there. Some 300 of the 400 men from Maryland died, along with 31 of the men from Delaware. The British buried the dead in a mass grave consisting of six trenches in a farm field. Ultimately, of the original Maryland muster, 96 returned, with only 35 fit for immediate duty. Historian, Thomas Field, writing in 1869, called the stand of these troops “an hour more precious to liberty than any other in history.”
With that background we can join Hamilton and Captain Watson’s Company on August 13, 1776 as it marches to join other Pennsylvanians at Ft. Lee, not knowing they would soon see battle August 27th on the Brooklyn Heights.
The 1st Regiment Flying Camp of Lancaster: The Battle of Long Island, White Plains, Ft. Lee, and Retreat Across New Jersey
Lancaster County’s 1st Regiment Flying Camp began their 140 mile march to (Perth) Amboy, New Jersey on August 13, 1776 destined to arrive under the command of General Hugh Mercer, who was selected by Washington to command the Flying Camp troops.
A large British naval fleet had arrived in New York Bay in June and by August 21st some 35 warships and 400 transports were anchored off New York City with 35,000 fighting men. Washington, on the other hand, could count on only 16,000 Continental soldiers fit for duty. To complicate his situation Washington, not knowing where the attack may occur, had his forces split in several locations. Besides the troops positioned in the strategic choke point on the Hudson River - Ft. Lee in New Jersey and Ft. Washington in Manhattan - Continental soldiers were assembled on the Brooklyn Heights to protect an entry point onto the southern tip of Manhattan where more soldiers were located.
Under the cover of darkness, General Howe brought more than 20,000 soldiers from Staten Island onto Long Island, landing his troops on shore near Utrecht and Gravesend and launching multiple flanking maneuvers to engulf the defenders in Brooklyn as a first step to push the patriots out of New York City.
It is important to note that the Flying Camps from Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were not deployed in the orderly fashion one normally associates with military operations. Where Regiments, Battalions, Companies, and Platoons are generally moved as units into battle, the Flying Camps were the proverbial ‘thumb in the dike’ - placement was piecemeal and determined by a demonstrated need by military leaders on the ground who faced unexpected overwhelming odds, insufficient troops for a specific mission, or replacements for the dead and injured. This caveat regarding the Lancaster County Flying Camp will be important when we examine the Battle of White Plains.
Stephen Bradney, Lancaster County’s Flying Camp historian/researcher, reports the deployment of James Watson’s company as it reports in to General Mercer at Perth Amboy and quickly stationed “at Fort Lee on the New Jersey bank of the Hudson, well north of….Perth Amboy. This was one company of the Lancaster Battalion, temporarily commanded by Captain Jacob Clotz, who was relieved of command…..upon the arrival of Major William Hays” days later.
On August 27th the “200 men of the Lancaster Regiment (including Robert Hamilton) under command of Major Hays” were assigned to “Stirling’s Brigade which protected the American right flank (on the Heights of Guan)” in a blocking action and in front of General Putnam’s 6000 troops of the Continental Army on the Brooklyn Heights.
General Stirling’s brigade, along with Colonel Miles were under the direct command of General Sullivan. Together these three commanders were positioned on the Heights of Guan and had a total of 4000 troops. Unknown to them some 22,000 British and Hessian troops were bearing down on their positions in the Heights.
Early on August 27th General Grant, with 7000 troops under his command, attacked General Stirling’s position (made up 1600 troops which included 600 Flying Camp/Militia Pennsylvanians ). And Grant’s attack was not the main thrust; it was a diversionary attack to mask the 15,000 British/Hessian troops heading towards the American left anchored by 800 members of Colonel Miles’ Pennsylvania State Rifle Regiment and Sullivan’s 1600 troops in the middle. In the ensuing battle nearly one fourth of Miles’ command was lost; General Sullivan’s defenses collapsed on the Guan Heights and he was captured. And when Cornwallis’ troops attacked from the rear, General Stirling ordered his men to retreat while he remained behind with the 1st Maryland (known as the Maryland 400) which fought a courageous and bloody rear guard action. Their fight ensured the escape of Stirling’s men, but the Maryland 400 suffered 256 killed and few returned to the American lines. General Stirling was captured as well.
Firsthand accounts of the August 27th British attack on the Guan Heights:
“By eleven o’clock am the British had swept the ridge clear of all but Stirling’s two regiments…Stirling had news of the collapse of the center (Sullivan) and left (Miles) about ten o’clock…then (Grant) opened seriously against Stirling’s front, while the (Hessians) from Flatbush…hit his left, and Cornwallis took position…blocking Stirling’s rear. Here developed the hottest fighting of the day. Stirling faced an impossible situation with courage and resolution. (Stirling) ordered his troops to retreat across Gowanus Creek and its marshes (impossible at high tide and filling fast), took Major Gist and his Maryland regiment and attacked Cornwallis to cover the retreat of his main body and attempted a breakthrough. After five attacks and reinforcement of Cornwallis’ troops, Stirling and the Marylanders were driven back in confusion, despite Stirling’s men ‘fighting like a wolf’.” (Onderdonk - Scheer/Rankin)
The remaining survivors of Sullivan, Miles, and Stirling’s troops retreated behind the mile long battle works and forts erected by General Putnam on the Brooklyn Heights to guard the water lifeline across the East River to lower Manhattan. Onderdonk completes his account of the battle between Stirling and Grant:
“…the main body of British, by a route we never dreamed of, had surrounded us, and driven within the lines or scattered in the woods…Thus situated, we were ordered to attempt a retreat by fighting our way through the enemy, who …nearly filled every road and field between us and our lines. We forced the (British) advance party who attacked us to give way…we got a passage down to the side of a marsh (which we waded) and swam a narrow river.” (Onderdonk, ibid)
And while Stirling’s remnant made it back to Putnam’s Brooklyn defensive position, the General, Major Gist, and the Maryland 1st Regiment thwarted the British for an hour giving time for their escape and moving Washington to cry out: “Good God! what brave fellows I must this day lose!” (Scheer/Rankin)
Finally, by early afternoon on the 27th, most of the Continentals who escaped the three-pronged British attack were safely behind the Brooklyn Heights defenses. Captain Watson, with his drummer Robert Hamilton, and the remaining members of the Lancaster Flying Camp are there as well. Now Washington must decide to do battle in Brooklyn or retreat to Manhattan.
August 28 - 29
Had Washington remained in Brooklyn and the British naval warships were able to sail from New York Bay north into the East River and encircle the colonial army the American Revolutionary War would have ended at its first great battle. Providentially, General Howe did not press his advantage on August 27th against the advice of his officers, instead he withdrew to await his ships to cut off any rebel retreat. Howe was conservative in his approach as he remembered the lesson of Bunker Hill a year earlier when the rebels demonstrated their ability of fighting from covered positions. However, adverse winds and bad weather - a Nor’easter - prevented Howe’s ships for at least two days from encircling Putnam’s defenses through August 29th and preventing an almost war ending blunder by General Washington who had split his troops in half. However, Washington tricked the British and on the night of August 29th quietly led the majority of his forces about a mile across the East River while Howe awaited his navy. The next morning the British found the Brooklyn Heights defensive line essentially abandoned.
We pick up the story here and one can only wonder what ‘our’ Robert Hamilton, a 16 year old Scot-Irish immigrant drummer from Ulster, Ireland was thinking he got himself in to.
For the next 3 months the colonial army dodged and weaved around and through Howe’s British pursuers: Washington leads his troops north on the west side of Manhattan as Howe lands at Kip’s Bay hoping to cut him off; Washington makes it to Harlem Heights and defeats the British in a skirmish; Howe refuses advice once again which would have caught and finished off the Continental Army; Battle of White Plains fought and won by British, but Howe retires to capture Fort Washington on east side of Hudson River; Forts Washington in New York and Lee in New Jersey fall as the disastrous New York campaign comes to an end and Washington takes his troops south to safety in Pennsylvania.
We are not exactly sure where Robert Hamilton and the 1st Lancaster Flying Camp was positioned in this three month campaign to survive except at one engagement - and that is what concerns us here.
There is a suggestion, based on the documentary record, that Robert Hamilton may have been under Washington’s command at the Battle of White Plains which ended in a draw. Washington pushed his troops further north and set up defensive positions in White Plains after escaping Howe’s attempt once again to encircle and destroy his army. The White Plains Historical Society has a record of some, but not all, military units present for the battle. A group of Lancaster County 1st Regiment Flying Camp members were clearly present based on the record. Stephen Bradney also has this in his research indicating another group of the Lancaster Flying Camp was stationed across the Hudson River at Ft. Lee (Constitution). The most suggestive documentation is a report by Lt. Col. Edward Hand who on October 5, 1776 commanded Lancaster Flying Camp troops, which included Capt. Watson’s company (and Hamilton), at DeLancey’s Mills, Westchester, NY.
Of particular interest was a report found in the book Scots Breed which reports Hand and others were “…contemplating the organization of battalions for a march to save Fort Ticonderoga. Hand had got together 700 of the Scot-Irish militia rescued from Long Island, and was seeking to enlist them for a new mission…. [Hand] told of the eagerness of the men for the new assignment [he] added…a picture of sick and shelterless men in Pennsylvania battalions ‘lying on the bare earth without boards, without blankets, and [unable] to make fires, and surgeons wholly unprovided with medicines to relieve them.’”
But before the ink was dry on their report and request they heard a bombardment from southwest of their position. Hand and his confederates rode to King’s Bridge to watch three British frigates pass by, unharmed by American battery fire, on their way up the Hudson to Ticonderoga. The remote possibility of saving Ticonderoga confirmed by what they had just witnessed, it was decided they were needed more for a staying action in Westchester. According to records at the White Plains Historical Society, Col. Edward Hand of the Pennsylvania Flying Camp was present at the Battle of White Plains on October 28th and so too Watson’s company.
The following are some first hand accounts describing events starting with the escape from Brooklyn and the hasty retreat through New Jersey in December 1776.
Major Talmadge of Connecticut remembers: “As the dawn of the next day [Aug. 30] approached, those of us who remained in the trenches became very anxious for our own safety, and when the dawn appeared there were several regiments still on duty. At this time a very dense fog began to rise and ….settled over both encampments…[it was] so dense I could scarcely discern a man at 6 yards distance. When [the orders] arrived for the regiment to retire…we bid those trenches a long adieu. In the history of warfare I do not recollect a more fortunate retreat.” General Washington left Brooklyn with the last boats to escape. No one was left behind.
Washington wrote the Continental Congress on September 8th this assessment of his army’s status and that of New York City: “It is now extremely obvious that having landed their (Howe’s) whole army on Long Island they mean to enclose us on the island of New York…[He informed the Congress that] at yesterday’s generals [war] council…all [ultimately] agreed that the town was indefensible.”
And Washington suffered the effects of near disaster, missteps, and the pang of defeat at New York over those 3 months. He wrote to his brother John: “…it is not in the power of words to describe the task I have to act. Fifty thousand pounds should not induce me again to undergo what I have done.
And to his cousin Lund he wrote: “…Such is my situation that if I were to wish the bitterest curse to an enemy on this side of the grave, I should put him in my stead with my feelings; …In confidence I tell you that I never was in such an unhappy, divided state since I was born…”
And finally while waiting for Howe to move, Washington observed the most disheartening assessment of his troops: “They were heartbreaking weeks for the General. His army seemed to be falling apart. Straggling, plundering, malingering, desertion, and a dozen other offenses forced him to issue successive General Orders that somehow seemed futile…At the same time he exhorted the Congress to hurry plans for a standing army.” (Scheer/Rankin)
A SPRINT TO THE WEST SIDE OF THE DELAWARE RIVER AND THE RELATIVE SAFETY OF PENNSYLVANIA
With enlistments for many ending on December 31, the Flying Camps scheduled to be disbanded before the end of the year, an aggressive British army hoping to kill the hope for independence, and a dispirited Continental army coming apart at the seams will the Revolution survive January 1, 1777?
First hand accounts of the retreat from New York:
“On the appearance of our troops, the rebels fled like scared rabbits, and in a few moments after we reached the hill near their entrenchments, not a rascal of them could be seen.” (Moore Diary)
“We continued on our retreat - our regiment in the rear [were] tearing up bridges and cutting down trees to impede the march of the enemy.” (Anderson)
These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” (Thomas Paine, The American Crisis))
General Sullivan arrived in camp on December 20 with the forces of captured Charles Lee, amounting not to the anticipated 5000, but to only 2000….this was the most chilling aspect of all: his little army would dissolve itself almost entirely in two or three weeks.” (Scheer/Rankin)
What more can be added? Washington orders his army south through New Jersey a step ahead of General Cornwallis. He orders General Lee to move his 3500 troops to help protect Philadelphia - Lee ignores the order, works to undermine Washington’s command, and is captured by the British. The Continental army stays a step ahead of the British, but too many soldiers contemplate leaving and heading home. Washington makes a fateful decision that becomes known as the “Ten Crucial Days”.
Before we move on to the Ten Crucial Days: The Battles of Trenton, Assunpink Creek, and Princeton, one has to ask these questions: What did Hamilton think of his baptism under fire in New York? Why would a 16 year old recent immigrant volunteer to join the Continental Line of Pennsylvania? Join the soldiers going to Trenton and Princeton? Some of these questions can never be answered, but his odyssey in helping create the United States of America is a great story waiting to be discovered!
Books, Articles, Authors Used for this Post:
Blog 3/4 A: “Partial List of American Regiments at the Battle of White Plains, October 28 - November 1, 1776, edited by White Plains Historical Society.
Journal of the American Revolution, “Explaining Pennsylvania’s Militia”, by Thomas Verenna, June 17, 2014.
Journal of the American Revolution, “One Soldier’s Story: Isaac Lewis of the Flying Camp”, 1776, by Donald B. Lewis, June 14, 2018
1st Regimental Flying Camp of Lancaster County, “Regimental Time Line”, as researched by Stephen Bradney, Lancaster, PA.
Pennsylvania History, Vol. 46, no. 1, January 1979, “The Pennsylvania Flying Camp, July - November 1776, by Francis E. Devine, University of Southern Mississippi.
Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, Vol 13, edited by William H. Egle, M. D., 1887.
Rev War Talk: American Revolutionary War History (Website), “Swope’s Regiment Flying Camp (1776- 80)
Rebels & Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It, by George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin.
Scots Breed and Susquehanna, by Hubertis M. Cummings