Monmouth Soldiers Participate in Campaign against Iroquois

As described in another article, spring 1779 was a hard time for the New Jersey troops in the Continental Army. The state was unable to properly pay or provision its men. So, the soldiers of the New Jersey Line were in poor condition and foul disposition when they received orders to march west into Pennsylvania and campaign against the Iroquois Indians. Six Monmouth Countians—Captain John Burrowes, Lieutenant William Barton, Sergeants Michael Errickson, Moses Sproule, Thomas Roberts, and Privates Benjamin Paul and Henry Johnson—kept journals or wrote letters during parts of the campaign. This article highlights their documentation of the campaign.

Before the Campaign

Thomas Roberts of Middletown Point (serving under Captain Burrowes) recorded that his company left its camp at New Brunswick on May 29 and reached Easton on June 5. That day, the Army hanged three soldiers for desertion and made a fourth run the gauntlet. After spending a few days at Easton, the company marched further west. Michael Errickson of Freehold wrote of additional discipline on June 12: "three men hanged in presence of our troops and a great multitude of inhabitants, for murder & robbery."

Lieutenant Barton of Allentown wrote his father, Gilbert Barton, from the village of Wyoming, Pennsylvania on June 22:

Very few Indians seen near here lately – they supposed to be spies only… This place is composed of a few log huts and a fort on the river Susquehanna, which is a beautiful river. Our living is tolerable good as the woods abound with wild hogs of which the soldiers kill numbers.

Barton complained of the “horrid roads” and inactivity: “We are laying here doing little or nothing, but hope soon to go on from this place.”

A week later, Sergeant Roberts compared Wyoming favorably to Middletown Point: "The land is very good for wheat or anything that is put in the ground, the shad lay on the river and on the shore as thick as most bunkers on the Middletown shoar [sic]." But Roberts also noted damage from Indian raids, "the buildings is destroyed on both sides of the river for 20 miles." Errickson also noted the destruction, writing on June 27 that he "marched nineteen miles in the shadows of death."

The New Jerseymen stayed put through July. On July 22, Lt. Barton wrote again from Wyoming:

We have been retarded here much longer than was expected on account of some part of our provisions that was intended for us being entirely spoiled and unfit for use… The Genl says he is determined to march in a few days or he will not go... We are to march the first for a place called Tioga, to which place we can take our provisions in boats, but from there up on horses – thirty days flour and all of our baggage as there is no other way of conveyance. It appears that we shall return when that is exhausted.

Barton also took a swipe at two Monmouth County officers who were apparently ducking service: “The savages have very lately been doing some mischief at Minisink, for particulars I refer you to Mr. Rhea [David Rhea] and Capt Combs [John Combs], they seem to avoid this place with great caution.” Other Monmouth officers were also getting excused from the campaign. On July 1, General John Sullivan, leading the Continental Army in northeast Pennsylvania, granted leave to Lt. Colonel David Brearley of Allentown, "Lt Col Brearley having business of importance which calls him to New Jersey has leave to retire from the Army." Brearley would become New Jersey’s second Chief Justice. On July 5, Errickson recorded that "Captain Burrowes set off this evening for Philadelphia on public business."

Private Henry Johnson of Middletown wrote his father from Wyoming on July 22: "The Injenes [Indians] have done a great deal of mischief here, but we lie undistressed by them. We expect to march in about a week after the Injenes, when we return I know not." Sgt. Roberts recalled finally marching to the frontier line on July 29 where he saw "buildings were burnt by the savages.” Barton wrote of leaving Wyoming that same day:

Upwards of one hundred boats arrived the day before yesterday with stores & a like number of wagons yesterday from Easton, which will enable us to proceed. I am wanted to remain at this garrison but believe I shall not. If I do, shall endeavor to get home before long.

The Iroquois Campaign

About August 1, Sullivan’s troops entered Indian County. Sgt. Sproule of Englishtown wrote of frequent transportation challenges. On August 2, he wrote, "several of the packs consisting of ammunition & provisions was lost on account of a [steep] defile & darkness." On August 3, the men had to "lay still this day to collect the cattle & c. which had strayed during the last night." A few days later, "three bullocks was lost when they fell down a defile." At the end of the month, Sproule wrote that "the roads being so bad that the baggage wagons overset at different times, which retarded the march."

Despite the challenges, the soldiers soon came upon Iroquois settlements. On August 12, Sgt. Roberts noted that the troops were ordered to be ready for combat; the first skirmish occurred the next day. Roberts recorded that as the men fired a village, they skirmished with an Iroquois party-- killing seven and wounding eight before the Indians fled. There were two more skirmishes in the next three days. Sproule wrote of entering an Iroquois village on August 13, where he "found the enemy had abandoned the town in great confusion… the army then went to destroying corn" and razing the village.

After days of advancing, Errickson wrote on August 17 the "troops was weary, very fatigued.” That same day, the Iroquois exacted some revenge, sneaking into camp, killing three cattle, and scalping a sentry. Not coincidentally, Lt. Barton wrote a melancholy letter to his father that day:

I have undergone a long and fatiguing march and retain my health perfectly as I ever did in my life. Yet I must confess time passes on but tediously in this horrid Indian country where there is nothing to cheer & divert one’s mind--unless it is barely thought of against returning to Jersey after reducing those infernal savages. God grant it may not be too long they meet the destruction they justly merit.

The next day, Barton wrote again, describing the court martial and lenient punishment of Upper Freehold’s Isaac Robins:

He was sentenced to have ten lashes only, and had he not been favored surprisingly, it would have been one hundred. Richard Jobs was ordered to flog him and to favor him likewise, which he did, for you could hardly perceive that he had been whipt at all.

Errickson wrote of more court martials being held on August 22, including a court martial of a Sergeant Wilson who was "reduced in rank" and forced to run a gauntlet. Errickson wrote that this "made me very sorry, by all accounts he was not guilty."

By late August, Captain Burrowes, had returned from Philadelphia and rejoined his men. On August 25, he wrote of the need to quit campaigning: "The season of the year is advancing when we should begin to think about winter quarters, as the men are poorly clothed and not above one in 12 have a blanket, and the nights here are already very cool." Despite his worries, General Sullivan and the campaign went forward. Burrowes wrote on August 27 of the men feasting at an Iroquois field:

We got this night to a large flat… where corn grows such that cannot be equaled in Jersey… contains about 100 acres of beans, cucumbers, simblens, water-melons and pumpkins. We sat until between one and two o'clock feasting on these rarities.

Indeed, the men ate so well that General Sullivan cut the men’s rations on August 30 and, according to Burrowes, “it was agreed and answered with three cheers." Burrowes noted that "the men find a good deal of plunder in every town and settlement we come to... the savage villains continue flying before us and generally leave their villages a few hours before we enter them."

While Burrowes showed contempt for Iroquois fighters, he was impressed by their agriculture and villages. On August 30, he wrote: “The land exceeds any I have ever seen, some corn stalks measure eighteen feet, and a cob one foot and a half long.” Then, he wrote of an ample fruit orchard at the next settlement. And a week after that, Burrowes wrote of the Iroquois village of Cashong: “The houses new and built very neat and appeared that they were whites that lived there.”

More often, Burrowes wrote about the difficulties of the campaign. On August 31, he wrote that "the country is very mountainous, makes our march very tiresome" and the next day the men marched "through a most horrid swamp." A week later, Burrowes worried that food was now scarce, "Living is already hard. We eat meat twice in three days & bread once in four or five. The country abounds with corn and beans which we live solely on, salt is very scarce."

According to Errickson, there was frequent skirmishing. The New Jerseyans battled with Iroquois and Loyalist allies on August 28 and 29. Among the enemy killed on 29th were "one Tory, one Neggar." Having scattered the resistance, the New Jerseyans fired on the fields on August 30, took “plunder of all kinds” and scalped four Indians. Meanwhile, Sproule recorded that on August 28, "the troops went to destroying the corn & c., with which this place abounded." On August 30: "this day was spent destroying corn." On August 31, he was sent "to destroy what crops of corn they could find."

The brutality of the campaign worsened. Sgt. Thomas Roberts wrote on August 30: “Found four Indians and scalped them and brought them into camp . . . besides a great deal of plunder of all kinds.” The same day, Lt. Barton wrote, “Toward noon they found them and skinned two from the hips down for boot legs; one pair for the Major and the other for myself.”

The next day, the New Jersey troops captured two Indians and "skinned their legs & dressed them for leggings." Sproule recorded that two weeks later, the New Jerseyans found two soldier corpses "mangled in a most inhuman and barbarous manner, having pulled the nails out by the root, tied them to a tree and whipped them with prickly ash, threw darts at them, stabbed them with spears, cut out their tongues & off their heads." Captain Burrowes also reported on two corpses (possibly the same men):

We find Lieut. Boyd and one of the men... their heads cut off and scalpt [sic]. They had been whipped horribly. Their body's are spread all over and Boyd's partially skinned. Such is the barbarity of these savage villains.

The campaign continued through September. Errickson wrote that on September 8, the New Jersey troops burned an Indian village and the surrounding fields which Erickson estimated at “50 acres of corn, 50-60 houses.” Errickson recorded that on September 6 "most of the day was employed in destroying the corn & c., and collecting the cattle" and on September 8, 400 men went to raze an Indian village.

On September 15, Errickson wrote: "the whole of the troops this morning, with great cheerfulness, went about destroying the corn & c. at this post." The same day, Burrowes estimated the destruction: "It is judged we have burnt or destroyed about sixty thousand bushels of corn and two or three thousand of beans." The destruction continued. Errickson wrote that on September 23: "most of the day was taken up destroying the scattered towns & c. within two or three miles around this town."

Benjamin Paul, a private from Monmouth County, recalled an encounter at an Iroquois village. The soldiers found one old squaw remaining. She refused to serve as a guide or leave, so the men gathered her a basket of provisions and then "all the rest was destroyed.” Paul personally “cut down a large apple orchard and assisted to destroy fields of corn, beans and Indian towns.” The men also rescued a hostage: “We also took a white woman and kept her until we returned to Wyoming, where she had been taken."

None of the journals lists a specific date that the Continentals ended the offensive and turned around, but the campaign was over by early October. Lt. Barton and his company returned on September 30. He wrote his father:

I am very well & arrived the 30th of Sept. at this place with very little loss on our side, but total destruction of the Indian Country, which we have penetrated about three hundred miles, burning everything before us & supposed by some to have destroy’d one hundred thousand bushels of corn, but others think a much larger quantity… Mr. Rhea [David Rhea], who will be the bearer, is in great hurry. Tomorrow morning, the Army marches for Wyoming; when we arrive there, I shall apply for leave to come home.

Captain Burrowes also returned and was safe enough on October 9 to spend the day hunting with Captain Jonathan Forman. The New Jersey troops were all back in Wyoming by October 12.

After the Campaign

It is impossible to know exactly how many Monmouth Countians participated in the Iroquois campaign, but one hundred is a reasonable estimate. There two company commanders—Burrowes and Jonanthan Forman—from Monmouth County and recruits were typically raised from the captain’s locality. Burrowes had 35 men in 1779 and Forman likely had a similar number. By mid-1779, the New Jersey Line companies had been jumbled by drafts and consolidations making it likely that Monmouth Countians were serving beyond these three companies and vice versa.

The viciousness of the Iroquois campaign went beyond anything seen in Monmouth County to that point. The brutality of the local war in Monmouth County surged in 1780 as both sides formed active vigilante groups—the Association for Retaliation and the Associated Loyalists—that sought to punish the enemy beyond military objectives. It is probable that the brutality of the Iroquois Campaign influenced this lurch toward greater brutality. Veterans leaving the Army after three years of army service likely brought these tactics into Monmouth County’s local war.

Related Historic Site: The Iroquois Museum

Sources: Thomas Roberts, Letter, Journals of the Military Expedition of Maj John Sullivan Against the Six Nations of Indians, 1779 (NY: Knapp, Peck, & Thomson, 1887), p245-6; John Sullivan to David Brearley, National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, M247, I41, Memorials to Congress, v1, p475; Thomas Roberts Journal, Journals of the Military Expedition of Maj John Sullivan Against the Six Nations of Indians, 1779 (NY: Knapp, Peck, & Thomson, 1887), p240-5; Library of Congress, Michael Errickson, Diary; William Stryker, The New Jersey Continental Line in the Indian Campaign of 1779, (1885) pp. 8, 13, 62-3; John Burrowes, Journals of the Military Expeditions of General John Sullivan Against the Six Nations of Indians (Auburn, NY: Frederick Cook, 1887) p 42-50; John Burrowes is quoted in John Rees, Supply Shortages, Suffering Soldiers and a Secret Mission During the Hard Winter of 1780, Military Collector & Historian, v52, n3, Fall 2000, p100-7; John Burrowes Journal, Frederick Cook, Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations (Auburn, N. Y.: Knapp, Peck and Thomson, 1887), pp. 8, 42-51, and 244; Johon Burrowes Journal, Frederick Cook, Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations (Auburn, N. Y.: Knapp, Peck and Thomson, 1887), pp. 42-51; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Benjamin Paul; Sproule, Moses. "The Western Campaign of 1779: The Diary of Quartermaster Sergeant Mosts Sproule of the Third New Jersey Regiment in the Sullivan Expedition of the Revolutionary War, May 17-October 17, 1779" Edited by R. W G. Vail, pp. 11-34; Letters of Lt. William Barton, son of Gilbert Barton, 1777-1779, American Revolution Institute, Society of the Cincinnati, 13 A.LL.S., Washington, DC; Henry Johnson’s letters in Monmouth County Historical Association, Collections Alphabetical, Letters 1770-1779.