Damages from the Battle of Monmouth

On the day of the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, there were roughly 30,000 Continental and British soldiers and camp followers in Monmouth County—more than double the population of the county itself. Even without a battle, the movement of so many people across the county would inevitably result in significant disruptions—trampled fields, impressed livestock and foodstuffs, thefts, and vandalism. On top of that, the two armies fought a twelve-hour battle that included a massive artillery duel in its final hours. All of this activity caused real harm to many people in Monmouth County.

Damages from the Battle of Monmouth

Henry Perrine owned the largest farm on which the Battle of Monmouth was fought (800 acres). Parts of his land and his barn were badly damaged by cannon fire. His 18-year-old son refused to help guide British troops and was temporarily taken prisoner. The family was requested to provide food to Hessian troops and did so, but their home was looted anyway. Fearing for the family’s safety, Hannah Perrine (Henry's wife) led her four young children and two slaves "into the fields and with their hands, shelled grain for immediate use of the family" for two days.

John and Sarah Freeman married in January 1778 and moved onto a rented farm near Freehold. Sarah later recalled that "he [John Freeman] was in the Battle of Monmouth, which took place principally on the farm then occupied by the deponent and her husband.” Their farm sustained severe damage from the battle. Another farm renter, Joseph Bowne, was also in the path of the armies. He took his family and hid for two days. His home was destroyed and fields damaged. Part of the Battle of Monmouth was fought on "Carr's Farm" (a farm owned by David Rhea, but rented to a man named Carr). A year’s worth of crops were ruined by the marching and countermarching of the armies. Thomas Seabrook, who had fled to Freehold after his son was bayoneted by Loyalist raiders in 1777, rented the Tennent Parsonage house and farm. His home took cannon fire and the farm was damaged during the battle.

Benjamin Van Cleave, Jr., a boy in 1778, later described the “naked chimneys” standing in the neighborhood in which the British Army burned a dozen homes. He also recalled that, “Several wagons and an artillery carriage were burnt at the shop, but the piece of artillery was thrown into a hole of muddy water in the middle of the road and was not found by the enemy." And young Van Cleave wrote that “the earth was strewn with dead carcasses, sufficient to have produced a pestilence.”  The arson and plundering of Freehold is discussed in another article.

One of the arsons may have had a military purpose. Solomon Parsons of Massachusetts wrote that during the British advance in the morning of the battle, "they [the British] set fire to a house and marched under cover of smoke.” Parsons was wounded and left on the battlefield, "then came the plunderers and demanded my money. I told him that if he dragged me to the shade, I would give it to him. I gave him my pocketbook containing twenty-four dollars."

Both of the Freehold area’s churches were turned into impromptu hospitals during the Battle of Monmouth. St. Peter’s (Anglican) church in Freehold was hit by Continental cannon balls and loaded with British wounded as the British withdrew from Freehold. The Tennent (Presbyterian) church in Manalapan was also converted into a hospital and sheltered local families needing refuge during the battle. One of those refugees, a boy, Tunis Coward, was, according to an antiquarian account, shot by a stray bullet during the battle. He had to be carried into the church.

While there is considerable documentation of the damages inflicted on the people of Freehold by the British Army, there is no documentation of damages attributable to the Continental Army’s behavior while at Englishtown. But there must have been bad conduct because general orders read to the troops on June 29 and 30 promised death to “marauders.” The Continental command also put its soldiery on notice that it would find stolen items and punish any thieves in its ranks. 

William Malcolm's order book includes the following, read to his New York regiment on the morning of June 30:

Complaints having been made to the Commander in Chief that certain persons belonging to the Army have received the property of the inhabitants which had been concealed in order to escape the revenge of the Enemy. He calls on the Commanding Officers to order a strict search of the soldier's packs at parade time; the offenders that may be discovered are to be brought to condign punishment; such articles as may be found are to be left the Adjutant General's.

After the war, Elizabeth Burke wrote that she and husband, Samuel Burke, were robbed by British soldiers and never compensated for their losses: "Her home was robbed by the British and Hessians... neither she nor her husband received any compensation for the goods and clothes that were taken by the enemy." Other accounts also note losses without compensation. While the New Jersey Legislature acted to forgive the debts of war victims from time to time, there was no attempt by the cash-strapped government to compensate victims for war-related theft or property damage. Without compensation, there was less need to document property damage and theft.

The lack of documentation means that it is impossible to fully represent all of the damage and mischief inflicted on the people of Monmouth County. At the end of the war, some New Jersey counties assembled a “Book of Damages”—in a belated attempt to document the harms against the county’s citizens. Unfortunately, Monmouth County’s Book of Damages was either never compiled or is missing.

After the battle, several newspapers discussed the roads around Freehold being littered with the discarded property of the armies. The statements in the New York Journal and Pennsylvania Evening Post are typical: “The enemy have continued their march very precipitously, the roads are strewn with knapsacks, firelocks and other implements of war," and “Their line of march from the Court House was strewn with dead, arms, knapsacks & accoutrements, which they dropped on their retreat." The debris, when combined with the mud from thunderstorms and ruts made by cannon and heavy wagons, made the roads impassable in places, though enterprising scavengers likely profited from the discarded items.

Philip Freneau, who would become famous for his satirical anti-British verses, rode from his home at Mt. Pleasant toward Freehold on the day of the battle. He noted that locals turned out to sell goods to the armies. “Everyone was on the road that day -- children dressed in their best, crowded into farm wagons -- wagons bearing hard cider, wagons bearing food to be sold along the way to anyone with hard money.” Daniel Noe, a soldier with George Washington's main army, noted that locals slowed the Army’s march to the battlefield. "The road from Englishtown to Freehold was so crowded that we had to march across fields to pass."

The families that came to Freehold to sell wares to the armies demonstrate that opportunism trumped political preference for many Monmouth Countians. The residents of Middletown, a township with many disaffected and people of fickle politics, would soon host the British Army as it marched through the township on its way to Sandy Hook.

Caption: Although unfinished and struck by cannon balls, St. Peter’s Church in Freehold was secure enough to be used as a barrack by the departing British Army for their severely wounded.

Related Historic Site: St. Peter’s Church

Sources: Mark Lender, Garry Wheeler Stone, Fatal Sunday (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 2016) pp 201-216; National Archives, Revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - John Freeman; Franklin Ellis, The History of Monmouth County (R.T. Peck: Philadelphia, 1885), p 508; Edwin Salter, Old Times in Old Monmouth (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970) appendix 56; The Library Company, Pennsylvania Evening Post; Charles Gilman, Monmouth: A Road to Glory (Red Bank, NJ: Arlington Laboratory for Clinical and Historical Research, 1964) p 10, 29, 34; William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 357, 373-4; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 2, p 268, 325; Archibald Robertson, Archibald Robertson: His Diaries and Sketches in America, 1762-1780 (New York: Arno, 1969) p 178; Munn, David, Battles and Skirmishes of the American Revolution in New Jersey, (Trenton: Bureau of Geology and Topography, New Jersey Geological Survey, 1976) p 40; Henrietta Elizabeth Smith, “The Anderson, Perrine, Barbour-Smith, Howell-Clark, Porter and Savery Families (New York: Perrine Press, 1902) pp. 39, 53-5; New York Historical Society, MSS 50, Benjamin Van Cleave – autobiography; Solomon Parsons, Genealogical Matters Relating to the Parsons Family, Proceedings of the Worcester Society for Antiquity, v 20, 1904, p 62-4; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans' Pension Application, Thomas Henderson of  of NJ, www.fold3.com/image/#23877525; Mary Austin, Philip Freneau: The Poet of the Revolution; a History of His Life and Times (New York: A. Wessels, 1901) ; p 103; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Samuel Burke;Jedidiah Huntington, New York Historical Society, Orderly Books Collection, reel 5. #60-61; Garry Wheeler Stone, "The Burning of Upper Monmouth Court House", Monmouth Battlefield State Park (map); Benson Lossing, The Battle of Monmouth Court House, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 57, 1878, June, p46; William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 375.