John Morris and Jacob Wood

Irregular behavior by militia officers in Monmouth County and elsewhere is well documented. Similarly, the Continental Army, particularly in the early years of the war, was also hamstrung by the irregularity of officers who engaged in self-serving and unprofessional conduct. The short tenure of David Forman’s Additional Regiment provides abundant examples of improper arrangements and controversial practices in Monmouth’s County principal army unit.

While the terrible behavior of the British Army at Freehold prior to the Battle of Monmouth proves that British units also suffered breakdowns, it is nonetheless presumed that British officers were usually rule-bound in their conduct. While this may have merit as a generalization, there were certainly cases of British officers engaging in irregular conduct. The quasi-pardon of the deserter, Private Jacob Wood, by Lt. Colonel John Morris, is an excellent example.

As noted in prior articles, John Morris was a junior officer in the British Army during the Seven Years War. After that war, Morris stayed in America and settled on a plot of land near Manasquan. When the Revolutionary War began, Morris assembled 58 Loyalists and marched them to Sandy Hook where they joined the British Army. Under Morris, these men and subsequent recruits became the 2nd Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers, a provincial corps of the British Army. The 2nd Battalion was the best-performing of the five original battalions of the Volunteers and the only one selected to join the British Army in the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777 and Monmouth Campaign of 1778.

The campaigns were hard for Morris. He lost several men to death and desertion, and recruiting efforts in 1778 produced disappointing results—only eight new men. At the end of the Monmouth Campaign, Morris wrote letters to British generals calling for reforms that might curb plundering by British troops. While British regulars left New Jersey via Sandy Hook in July 1778, Morris and his men stayed on the Hook, coming off to gather intelligence and horses left by the army. They had to kill many of the horses, so that they would not become useful to the Americans—a task that could only have been dispiriting.

Morris and his men spent the month of July on Sandy Hook lacking water and provisions, and frantically making preparations for a climactic battle with a heavily armed French fleet that anchored four miles away. Morris sent intelligence reports to British high command and worried about the safety of the garrison at Sandy Hook which might be attacked by the French fleet from the sea and an American army from the land. He wrote, “Great threats are made, I find, against us on every part.” (The battle never happened because the French admiral, based on advice from American pilots, determined that his largest ships sat too deep in the water to enter the channel north of Sandy Hook.)

The Court Martial of Jacob Wood

It was at Sandy Hook that Jacob Wood, who had deserted from Morris’ battalion five months earlier, was arrested for desertion. According to court martial papers and testimony, Wood “deserted from thence February last, with two other men of the same detachment." His former captain, Cornelius McClease (also from Monmouth County), said Wood deserted because "he received a letter from his wife, who lived in New Jersey, acquainting him that she was in distress." Morris refused Wood’s request for leave. Although not stated by Wood, his desertion coincides with the arrest of John Wood—who was jailed at Freehold and was sentenced to death at the 2nd Court of Oyer and Terminer in June 1778. John Wood was among the first Monmouth County Loyalists to be hanged.

With his wife in distress and kinsman facing dire punishment, Jacob Wood deserted and went to his home on the Jersey shore, where he stayed several weeks. Wood then “carried his wife and family to Sandy Hook about the first of May last." There, Wood became a fisherman, living among other Loyalist refugees who fished off Sandy Hook.

At his court martial, Wood testified about being discovered at Sandy Hook by his old battalion and resuming contact with its officers:

Lt. Parker [Josiah Parker] of the same regiment came down and he immediately went upon the sloop, where he [Wood] was desired that he would acquaint the Colonel that he was there, and begged that he would obtain leave to stay; that Lieut. Parker went up to New York and upon his return told him the Colonel said he might stay there till he went for him; that Colonel Morris himself was backwards and forwards to and from the Hook, and he (the witness) used to constantly supply him [Morris] with fish; that he also got a pass from him [Morris] to go into Jersey, where he stayed a week, and whilst he was there, the French erected a work on a hill, and were watering their fleet near Shrewsbury; that one of his neighbors desired him to go and give General Clinton [Henry Clinton] intelligence of it, and he accordingly set out for New York, and Colonel Morris went with him to General Clinton’s and afterwards returned to the Hook, in the same sloop with him, and supply’d him with fish as usual.

Wood then testified that, “having affronted the Colonel by going fishing without his leave,” Morris “ordered Captain McClease to take him up.”

Two Monmouth County officers, Lt. Parker and the battalion’s surgeon, Dr. James Boggs, testified at Wood’s court martial. Parker testified that he saw Wood several times at Sandy Hook and warned him “that he believed that the Colonel would hang him, and the prisoner answered that he meant to re-join the Regiment” but, for the time being, was willing to “run the risk of it.” Parker also admitted that he “bought clams from him” at Sandy Hook, demonstrating that Parker was tolerant of Wood’s fisherman status. Boggs testified that he spoke “very warmly against him [Wood] for deserting” but also admitted that “Colonel Morris bought some fish of him [Wood]” and that no arrest was made after various exchanges between Wood and his former officers.

While desertion was a grave offense in the British Army punishable by dozens of lashes or even death, testimony was given at the court martial that Wood and Morris worked out an arrangement in lieu of arrest. Wood would "constantly to supply him [Morris] with fish, [and] that he [Wood] also got a pass from him [Morris] to go into Jersey." The arrangement worked for a while, but Wood was arrested by Captain McClease on August 3 after "having affronted the Colonel."  McClease testified to “finding the prisoner on board a fishing boat at Sandy Hook on the 3rd instant, and knowing him to be a deserter from the regiment of which he (the witness) belonged to, he apprehended him.”

Morris did not testify at the court martial, claiming "indisposition" and being unable to attend the court.  The court found Wood guilty of desertion, but noted that his arrangement with Morris "implied a pardon." The court declined to impose a punishment.  The unusual verdict read:

The Court having considered the evidence for and against the prisoner, Jacob Wood, together with what he had to offer in his defence, is of the opinion that he was Guilty of the crime laid to his charge, in breach of the 1st article of War of the 6th section; but having given himself up and been afterwards employed on different occasions by Lieut. Colonel Morris, instead of being immediately apprehended and brought to trial, the Court is of further opinion that this implied a pardon, and gave the prisoner reason to regard it as such; that they therefore cannot under these circumstances proceed to sentence or adjudge the prisoner any punishment.

John Morris’ health was declining. He would be listed as “lame” and “invalid” in later documents. In 1779, he ceased commanding his battalion and retired to New York on a military pension. Wood apparently stayed at Sandy Hook. He is noted as captured on a Loyalist list compiled in 1779. His fate is unknown after that.

The Wood Family of Shrewsbury Township

The Wood family of Shrewsbury Township well illustrates the disaffection that was rampant along the Monmouth shore. Beyond Jacob and John Wood, there were several other Loyalists in the family. Joseph Wood joined the Associated Loyalists, a British-tolerated Loyalist military group that raided New York and New Jersey. In 1780, he was captured at Long Branch and died mysteriously while under the care of guards. Benjamin Wood was also an Associated Loyalist; he settled in Canada after that war. Obadiah Wood and Stephen Wood served in the New Jersey Volunteers. Stephen is listed as dead on a 1777 troop return but is then listed as serving again on a later return. George Wood also served in the New Jersey Volunteers and is listed as dead on a 1777 return; but a man named George Wood is listed as serving in the Shrewsbury Township militia later in the war.

Three men in the Wood family never served in Loyalist units—Aaron, Matthew, and Nathaniel Wood. Aaron Wood enlisted in the Continental Army in early 1777 but deserted within a year. His whereabouts after that are unknown. Matthew Wood served with a Virginia Continental Army unit while it was stationed in Monmouth County and also served in the militia. But he was twice indicted for misdemeanors (likely illegal trading with the enemy). He appears in the 1784 tax rolls as a “single man,” demonstrating he was poor at war’s end. Nathaniel Wood is listed on a 1780 Shrewsbury militia roll—as a “delinquent” (he skipped his service).

Families like the Woods continually caused headaches for Monmouth County’s fragile government throughout the war—they evaded militia service and tax collection, traded with the enemy, and drifted between feigned allegiance to the new government and active opposition to it. It was families like the Woods that populated the Pine Robber gangs of the lower shore and the vigilante Associated Loyalists.

Related Historic Site: Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Sources: Court Martial of Jacob Wood, Great Britain, Public Record Office, War Office, Class 71, Volume 86, pages 405-9; Adelberg, Michael, Biographical File, on file at the Monmouth County Historical Association.