The Second New Jersey Volunteers During the Monmouth Campaign

As discussed in prior articles, in July 1776, Monmouth County Loyalists established the 1st and 2nd battalions of the New Jersey Volunteers (often called “Greens” based on the color of their coats). While the 1st Battalion suffered defeats and the capture of its senior officers, the 2nd Battalion was, according to historian Todd Braisted, the most successful of the original five New Jersey Volunteer battalions and appears to have had a special relationship with a British artillery regiment. In fall 1777, the 2nd Battalion was one of a small number of Loyalist units selected to join the British Army on its campaign to take Philadelphia. The 2nd Battalion was still with the British Army when it quit Philadelphia and withdrew across New Jersey in June 1778.

The Second Battalion was commanded by Lt. Colonel John Morris, a former British Army lieutenant from the Seven Years War who lived on the shore, near Manasquan. Morris joined the British Army within days of its landing at Sandy Hook. He grew his battalion in 1777 to more than 200 men. According to a printed British troop return from February 1778, "Colonel Morris's regiment of Jersey Volunteers (with General Howe), green uniform" was 350 men—but this number is likely exaggerated.

With France’s entry into the war in February 1778, the British chose to consolidate forces in New York—which meant quitting Philadelphia. On May 20, as they prepared to march, the New Jersey Volunteers were told to switch from green to red-uniforms, but there were no new uniforms for Morris’ men. They were ordered only to "wear their new clothing when fitted."

It appears that Morris returned to New York without his men. With the march at hand and without their colonel, the officers of the 2nd Battalion increased discipline ahead of the march. On May 23, two deserters from his battalion, John McCue and John Conolly, were sentenced to 500 lashes—a sentence that likely would kill the men if carried out in full.

As the British Army marched across New Jersey, the New Jersey Volunteers actively recruited. One handbill that was printed and circulated promised a bounty and western land in exchange for joining:

Heroes… who are willing to serve his Majesty King George the Third, in defense of their Country, laws and constitution, against the arbitrary usurpations of a tyrannical Congress have now the opportunity of manifesting their spirit, by assisting in reducing to obedience their too long deluded countrymen, but also acquiring the polite accomplishments of a soldier, by serving only two years, or during the course of the war.

Enlistees would be rewarded "with 50 acres of land, where every gallant hero may retire, and enjoy his bottle and lass. Each volunteer will receive a bounty of five dollars, besides arms, clothing and accoutrements.” There is no evidence that recruiting efforts were particularly successful. The New Jersey Volunteers continued to recruit while in Philadelphia, but his efforts brought in only twelve new men, according to an April 1778 troop return.

The 2nd Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers during the Monmouth Campaign

The British Army chose to rest for a day at Freehold on June 27.  Officers turned a blind eye to plundering while compiling a "Return of Number of Men, Wagons, Women and Children Victualed at Monmouth."  The return included a line about the 2nd Battalion. Their numbers at Freehold: 129 fit & present men and 4 women. The unusually low number of women (most regiments listed at least 15 women) might have been because a number of Monmouth women, back in their home county, left the army to visit family.

That same day, the British Army convened a court martial of Chaddock Butler of Upper Freehold. Butler was arrested for stealing a British Quartermaster horse and "going directly the contrary way to that which the troops were marching." Butler claimed he was a Loyalist supporting Morris’ men:

On being advertised to the rebels, on account of carrying three men of Colonel Morris's corps to New York, he was obliged to leave his own habitation & come to his uncle's who lives on the road the Army had passed, & meant to go to the King's Army, which he had just joined.

Butler said he temporarily took the Quartermaster’s horse in order to pursue a rebel who rode off with one of his uncle's horses. "He took him [the horse] with the intention to return him & not steal him." Capt. Richard Robert Crowe (who captained a company of “Negro Pioneers” in the British Army) testified in support of Butler. Crowe said Butler was from a Loyalist family and "had been obliged to leave his father's on account of the situation of public affairs.” Butler returned the horse and was acquitted.

On the morning of June 28, many of the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers guided the regiments guarding the British baggage train toward Middletown. The Battle of Monmouth was fought behind them. A German officer, Capt. [?] Heindrich, wrote of leaving Freehold before 6 a.m. with the "Jersey Volunteers." The baggage train was attacked by Monmouth militia and state troops led by Joshua Huddy. Heindrich wrote that "various attempts were made to capture the baggage, but these failed." That evening, while the British Army waited on the battlefield, the baggage train’s guard "encamped below Middletown."

Although they were from Monmouth County, the 2nd Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers were not used as guides during the Battle of Monmouth. A British troop return noted the presence of 89 “Refugees” and 17 men from “Skinner’s corps” besides Morris’s men. Many of these men were Monmouth Loyalists who served as guides; two of whom died on the battlefield. Burlington County’s Colonel Israel Shreve of the New Jersey Line wrote his wife shortly after the battle:

What is most pleasing, they had two guides, Sam Leonard and Thomas Thomson, who both lived in this neighborhood, and both killed in the first action; Leonard was lying down, took with a cannon ball in the left shoulder and came out his belly.

Another guide was Chrineyonce Van Mater, jailed for his role in the capture of Richard Stockton and John Covenhoven in 1776. The New Jersey Gazette noted: "the enemy, in their late passage through Monmouth County, released Van Mater; who, having piloted them through the neighborhood, went off with them to New York."

The 2nd Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers continued to pilot the front of the British Army toward Sandy Hook, their departure point. A return of Loyalist regiments on the Monmouth Campaign was compiled on July 10. It listed the 2nd Battalion as having four men killed, six captured, and one deserted during the march. The four fatalities occurred on June 27 and June 28, suggesting the men were lost in skirmishing, quite possibly against Monmouth militia. Other Loyalist regiments on the march did not lose as many men: the West Jersey Loyalists and Maryland Loyalists each had one man killed; the First Battalion of Pennsylvania Loyalists had no fatalities.

The men in Morris’s battalion captured during the march across New Jersey were William Rogers, Vincent Swem, Roger Wilson, Richard Marigson, Jacob Fagan, and Joseph Grooms. All were taken in Monmouth County, June 26-28. They were jailed in Morris County until August, when they were transferred to the Monmouth County jail. The most noteworthy of the captures was Jacob Fagan. Fagan was indicted twice for larceny before the war before becoming a Loyalist and joining the New Jersey Volunteers. After his capture, he must have escaped jail. He then led an infamous Pine Robber gang. He was killed by a militia party in October 1778; his body gibbeted and hung on a public road.

The 2nd Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers after the Battle of Monmouth

After the Battle of Monmouth, the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers marched to Middletown where it appears John Morris rejoined them. A July 1778 Muster Roll demonstrates that the Monmouth Campaign was hard on the 2nd Battalion. The data below demonstrates the battalion’s diminished size and strength:

John Antill (Maj.) 

2 Officers

4 NCOs

3  Other 

32 Privates

 9 Fit and Present

15 On Command

Cornelius Wardell

2 Officers

5 NCOs

0 Other

27 Privates

6 Fit and Present

15 On Command

John Colden (Maj.)

3 Officers

5 NCOs

0 Other

31 Privates

11 Fit and Present

8 On Command

Cornelius McLease

3 Officers

5 NCOs

0 Other

29 Privates

8 Fit and Present 

8 On Command

Norman McLeod

3 Officers

5 NCOs

0 Other

35 Privates

15 Fit and Present 

11 On Command

A full battalion had eight companies with 50 or more privates in each. Loyalist battalions rarely reached this size, but Morris’ five quarter-strength companies were small by any standard. Two additional desertions—Oliver Talman and Peter Miers—were noted on July 10. The term “on command” was a catch-all term for assignments outside of camp. Half of the fit men were on assignment—probably at Sandy Hook and the Navesink Highlands—where Morris was salvaging horses and supplies left by the British Army prior to its evacuation to New York.

While the British Army returned to New York on July 5, Morris and his men stayed on Sandy Hook and the Navesink Highlands. A July 11 document lists “Navesink” as its location. On July 20, General Henry Clinton noted Morris’ location in Monmouth County, relaying intelligence on the French fleet which arrived off Sandy Hook on July 11.

Lt. Coll Morris is busy in collecting intelligence of the position of the French Guard upon their Watering Parties. He means, I find, to be more particular in his Inquiries; as from the matter he has already collected, it seems practicable to make a successful attempt upon their Post.

The next day, Morris met with Admiral Richard Howe, commanding the British fleet. Howe wrote:

He has shown me the position the French had taken on Waddel’s Hill, from whence I conclude it is totally impracticable to make any attempt upon them. I conceived yesterday, that they were posted on this Side the Neversunk River. Our only caution on this side seems confined to any design that should be meditated, by the Neck, on Sandy Hook. Great threats are made, I find, against us on every part.

Despite demonstrating his value to the British High Command, Morris was apparently becoming dispirited. He criticized the British Army’s plundering during the Monmouth campaign. He wrote General James Pattison to request standing orders that no British party leave camp without an officer in order to limit plundering. Pattison was not swayed:

With respect that an officer must always be detached with men, I should imagine that upon reconsideration of the matter, you will see how incompatible it is with the rank of a commissioned officer to be sent with detachments of four or six men.

Pattison acknowledged that Morris was ill and expressed hopes that his "lameness" would improve. Morris also lapsed in disciplining his men. He permitted one of his privates, Jacob Wood, to desert and live as a fisherman at Sandy Hook in exchange for supplying him with fresh fish. The arrangement was exposed in a court martial that must have embarrassed Morris.

Braisted noted that Morris was insubordinate to Courtland Skinner (the general commanding the New Jersey Volunteers) in 1779, and retired from active service. His battalion would be consolidated with other undersized New Jersey Volunteer battalions. It would lose its special relationship with the British artillery regiment and the commanding officer who made it the most successful of the original five New Jersey Volunteer battalions. The demise of Morris and his battalion is discussed in greater detail in another article.

Related Historic Site: Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Sources: Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, 1778, vol. 40, p 91; Troop Return, William Drummond, Library of Congress, MMC - Courtland Skinner, box 11; New Jersey State Archives, Dept. of Defense, Loyalists Collection, New Jersey Volunteers, box 1, 2L; Troop Return, NJ State Archives, Adjutant General's Loyalist Manuscripts, microfilm; Oliver DeLancey,  "Orderly Book of Three Battalions of Loyalists," Collections of the New-York Historical Society (1916), vol. 6, pp. 75, 84; Israel Shreve to Polly Shreve, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Dreer Collection, Series 52:2, vol. 4; Stephen Kemble, The Kemble Papers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 2009) vol. 1, p 585; Van Mater’s release is described in William Dwyer, The Day is ours! - November 1776 January 1777: An Inside View of The Battles of Trenton and Princeton (New York: Viking Press, 1983) p 34-5; Philip Katcher, Encyclopedia of British, Provincial, and German Army Units 1775-1783 (Harrisburg PA: Stackpole Co., 1973), p 78; Troop Returns, Library of Congress, MMC - Courtland Skinner, box 6; Troop Return, Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Battle of Monmouth files: folder - British Sources; Court Martial records, Great Britain Public Record Office, War Office, 71/86, #151-8. (Photocopies from Don Hagist.); Bruce Burgoyne, Journal of the Hesse Cassel Jaeger Corps (New York: Heritage Books, 1987) p43-7; Troop Return, Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Battle of Monmouth files: folder - Loyalist Forces; Troop Return, National Archives of Canada, RG 8, “C” Series, Volume 1854, page 20; Muster Rolls of New Jersey Volunteers, Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies, www.royalprovincial.com; National Archives of Canada, RG 8, “C” Series, Volume 1854, page 20; Clements Library, U Michigan, Henry Clinton Papers, 6/28/78, Return of Persons Victualed at Monmouth; Troop Return, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office, CO 5, v93, reel 4, #226; Henry Clinton to Richard Howe, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Naval History Foundation: Washington DC, 2018) vol 13, p 445; Richard Howe to Henry Clinton, Naval Documents of the American Revolution (Naval History Foundation: Washington DC, 2018) vol 13, p 467; Troop Return, William Clements Library, Henry Clinton Papers, vol. 68; James Pattison to John Morris, Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Battle of Monmouth files: folder - British Sources; A History of the Second Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers, http://www.royalprovincial.com/military/rhist/njv/2njvhist.htm.