Homegrown Terror. Eric D. Lehman
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Continental Congress as the future home of the American navy.45 Shaw himself owned several unarmed ships and an astonishing ten armed vessels, including the General Putnam, a privateer with twenty guns that took fourteen prizes.46 He and the other owners or captains were able to auction off the captured ships and inessential supplies, while all the necessary food, clothing, and arms were sent to the army.
But Shaw did much more than this, keeping up the now-dangerous Caribbean trade to gather more supplies. On July 12, 1775, he told his agent to sell goods in Philadelphia and then take the ship to Hispaniola to purchase gun powder, and if there was none, then to bring back coffee and brown sugar. He tells him to burn the letter “for Fear of Accidents.”47 By January 1776 the prosperous businessman had felt the financial effects of war and moaned that “all our Trade is now at an end, & god knows whether we shall ever be in a Situation to Carry it on Again, no Business now but preparation for Warr, Ravaging Villages, Burning of Towns &c.”48 But he persevered, commissioning another ship to collect gunpowder and by the following June sent a supply of the precious powder to Washington, along with cases of guns and flints and cutlasses.49
Shaw was a businessman through and through and kept a clipped, professional attitude in his correspondence. His stark letters gave clear information, such as sending flour up the river to Norwich “as soon as the river opens,” delivering powder to Providence, or informing others that “a great number of French troops are daily arriving.”50 But as the richer son of a rich man, Shaw had grown up with an opportunity for leisure that few in the eighteenth century had. He saved his emotions for hunting expeditions into the coves and bays of the Sound, searching for ducks and other waterfowl. Perhaps he considered these small holidays necessary for his effectiveness and came back to his huge stone house ready to make more money.
Trumbull’s friend John Ledyard had died, but his younger brothers, William and Ebenezer, continued the family business. Though much less prominent in the interconnected Connecticut community, they were a vital part of the New London and Groton war effort. William and his brother sent supplies to the army, probably at a great loss, complaining once that “we don’t mean to sell one article only to take some for the families. The remainder to lay by until we hear from the company…. We don’t believe anything about Boston prices.”51 They also worried about the inefficiencies of government and the meanness of the common people at the same time, saying, “I must fear we shall ruin ourselves while we are striving to support our Liberties against our mother country we shall lose it among ourselves.” Yet William and his brother kept faith, saying to Joseph Trumbull, “We hope and pray that union will increase throughout the Continent since on that our all depends.”52
William Ledyard had married Anne Williams of Stonington, and together they lived happily on the large hill in Groton, giving birth to child after child. Ledyard was not as passionate as Silas Deane, as ambitious as Benedict Arnold, or as religiously devoted as Governor Trumbull. He had a classically moderate patriot attitude, desiring liberty from England but concerned about the cost and the consequences. He wrote to Joseph Trumbull that many of the “country people” were not Tories but felt as if “we have got between two fires.”53 Nevertheless he wanted “to hear of the welfare of our friends and Country Men” and told their overworked friend, “you have our best wishes for your health and prosperity and we hope that a kind Providence will preserve you in all your undertaking.”54
Meanwhile, Benedict Arnold returned to his house on Water Street in New Haven, where his three motherless children and sister, Hannah, met him. His business had already suffered as well, even though Hannah had tried to take over, with the occasional help from their friend Silas Deane.55 She never lost sight of her brother’s welfare, sending him a horse on one occasion, “anxious” to have him know that she was looking out for him.56 But Arnold was too passionate about the war to think of business anyway and could not sit idle for long.
There was not much opportunity to achieve distinction at the ongoing siege, but the American invasion of Canada offered a better chance. While the main invasion up Lake Champlain toward Montreal staggered under delays, Arnold proposed a new line of attack up the Kennebec River of Maine. He received approval on August 27, 1775, and put together an expeditionary force from the troops stationed around Boston, including his comrade from the foot guard Eleazar Oswald, who continued his friendship with the newly promoted Colonel Arnold. By September 13 Arnold had gathered his troops and George Washington himself had given him instructions, saying, “you are entrusted with the command of the most consequence to the interest and liberties of America.”57
Arnold and his troops struggled through the backwoods of Maine, heading for the fortress of Quebec City. He and Eleazar Oswald learned to depend on each other during this brutal, epic march over stubborn portages. By the time they reached Canada, they had lost at least a third of their men, and the rest were starving and frostbitten. They were joined on December 2 by Gen. Richard Montgomery, who had just conquered Montreal. In Montgomery’s train were his young aide, Aaron Burr, and Capt. John Lamb of Stratford, another man who became great friends with Arnold. On the fifth, the combined force set up camp on the Plains of Abraham just west of the fortified city, above the icy Saint Lawrence River. The British troops stationed inside the citadel had much bigger cannon, and the Americans could not set up a proper battery to bombard the walls. So, on December 31, during a blinding snowstorm, they attacked.58
While Montgomery’s troops scaled the bastion of Cape Diamond on the southwest corner of the city walls, Lamb bombarded the citadel with his mortars to give Arnold cover as he made a direct attack around the north side to the lower town. Cannonballs smashed through snow banks, and a musket ball smashed into Arnold’s leg, bouncing off the bone and splintering it. His men tried to carry him off, but he concentrated on commanding their safe retreat while blood flowed down his leg. Finally, weakened by blood loss, he allowed his men to drag him to the makeshift hospital.59 Oswald and Lamb attempted to keep up the hopeless assault, but grapeshot hit Lamb in the face, ripping his cheek bone and knocking him unconscious and destroying the sight in his left eye.60 Though the soldiers continued assaulting the defenses, they were left without support and could not hold their gains. Lamb and a small band were captured before they could retreat.
From his bed, Arnold waited to hear the fate of his men. Meanwhile, his old Freemason master and the man who held the keys of the powder house back in New Haven, David Wooster, was coming with a relief expedition. Arnold wrote him, “In the attack I was shot through the leg and was obliged to be carried to the Hospital, ware I soon heard the disagreeable news that the General [Montgomery] was defeated at Cape Diamond.”61 It was worse than that: Montgomery had been shot on the walls of the citadel, and his men had fled in panic.
As the siege of Quebec dragged on, Arnold slowly recovered from his leg wound. As at Ticonderoga, Arnold made enemies among the other officers, but this time he also made friends, like he did with the paroled Lamb during their mutual convalescence. In battle, soldiers had to be sure their comrades had their back, and men like Oswald and Lamb had his.62 One lonely midnight at the hospital Arnold penned a long letter to another friend, Silas Deane, saying, “I have often sat down to write you, and as often been prevented by matters of consequence crowding upon me, which I could not postpone.”63 Deane had become closer to Arnold after Ticonderoga, writing that the brave Colonel “has deserved much and received little or less than nothing.”64 And Arnold needed friends now, telling Deane that the fight for Canada looked more and more like a disaster. The American reinforcements under David Wooster did arrive, but they were not enough. When British reinforcements began arriving in May and June, Arnold and his comrades were pushed southwest back up the Saint Lawrence, and down into New York.
There was one piece of good news—Americans had finally dragged cannons from Ticonderoga across the snow-covered mountain paths to Boston, and the bombarded British had fled. But with reinforcements arriving on the continent, including tens of thousands of German mercenaries, unpleasant times seemed ahead for the Americans. If England was going to have this kind of help, the Americans needed help too. It was time to call on an old enemy, the French, who hated the British far more than the Americans did. The man they chose for the job was none