The Difficult History of the 1st Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers

In the days leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Elisha Lawrence, the Monmouth County Sheriff under the Royal Government, led approximately 60 men from Upper Freehold Township to the British base at Sandy Hook. There, they joined the British Army. They became the 1st Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers. Lawrence and his men went to Staten Island to drill and wait for the opportunity to be useful.

Historian Todd Braisted, who has comprehensively studied the New Jersey Volunteers, notes that the 1st Battalion saw its first action in October 1776 when it participated in repelling a Continental incursion into Staten Island. Sergeant Lewis Barber was killed in a guard boat off of Staten Island shortly after that—the battalion’s first combat death. In December 1776, Lawrence returned to Monmouth County and raised 200 Loyalist militia and recruits at Freehold, only to be routed by a regiment of Pennsylvanians on January 2, 1777. After that, Lawrence withdrew inside British lines.

The 1st Battalion spent the early months of 1777 at Woodbridge, New Jersey, helping to form the British perimeter that rimmed its encampment around New Brunswick and Amboy. These were hard months for the regiment. Lawrence recalled camping "at an outpost on the Raritan River, where he remained for six weeks until his party was reduced by deaths, prisoners & sickness to only 25 men fit for duty, owing to the exceptional duty & extreme cold weather."

When the British quit New Jersey, they returned to Staten Island (July 1777). This would be the battalion’s home for the rest of the war. The 1st Battalion defended the island from Continental attack, but were caught off-guard when attacked by John Sullivan’s Continentals in August 1777. In that action, Lawrence, several of his officers, and 80 enlisted men were captured (64 from his battalion).

While the 1st Battalion was the first and, initially, largest battalion, its character changed considerably over the course of the war—from a cohesive Monmouth County unit at the start of the war to a conglomerate of units and geographies by war’s end. Elisha Lawrence, himself, lost command of his battalion in 1778.

1st Battalion Guards Sandy Hook

Defeated and depleted, the 1st Battalion was relegated to guard duty on Staten Island and Sandy Hook for the rest of the war. Most of the time, only a single undersized company of New Jersey Volunteers was stationed at Sandy Hook; they would stay for a month at a time; to be replaced by another undersized company. David Forman described the defenses at Sandy Hook a year after it was fortified in July 1778 (when the French Fleet threatened New York):

The Hook at present is guarded by a Lieut and twenty of the new raised troops at the Light House - in the cedars are about 60 or 70 refugees, white and black... the enemy erected a battery at the point of the Hook; the works are now entirely out of repair, the cannon has long since been removed.

The British navy supported the New Jersey Volunteers by stationing a ship at Sandy Hook. But by the later years of the war, rebel privateers and raiding parties made Sandy Hook vulnerable. Accordingly, General Courtland Skinner’s orders to the commanding officer at Sandy Hook mandated caution:

You are to be careful that the men do not stroll about the Hook, but that they are always near the Light House & one half always within the stronghold during the day, & at night, the whole in the House, & a sentry always in the lantern by day… no expeditions with the refugees are to be made without permission.

The orders allowed the New Jersey Volunteers to admit deserters from the Continental Army and militia, but “women who have joined their husbands and child within the lines -- they are not to be committed... they are to be sent back."

Officers were also instructed to learn the geography of the Hook, including “the Gut,” a channel of water that, due to violent storms, made Sandy Hook an island during the winter of 1777:

You will as soon as you can view the Gut, Spermacity Cove and the Cedars and the grounds in your front, that you and your officers may have knowledge of the whole & should the enemy pass, you may be able to follow with a party. -- You will not pass the Gut at any other time than high water, lest the enemy, who can pass easily [onto the Hook] at low water should be concealed in the high Cedars on the opposite shore... Never follow the enemy at night.

The Monmouth militia was similarly interested in the Gut and widening it to prevent Loyalists from coming off the Hook, and opening Shrewsbury Inlet to sail vessels at present-day Sea Bright. Militiaman Peter Paterson recalled his company opening the channel in the summer of 1777:

He was moved with others by Genl. Forman to Shrewsbury Inlet which was then closed and was there some time -- three weeks at least, in opening said Inlet, and by that means depriving the British and Refugees of the facility they had enjoyed of coming over from the Hook and plundering the inhabitants.

Other Duty of the 1st Battalion

Beyond guard duty on Staten Island and Sandy Hook, the 1st Battalion participated in numerous raids against New Jersey including several into Monmouth County. The larger actions included incursions against Shark River-Manasquan (April 1778), Middletown Point (May 1778), eastern Middletown (April 17779), Tinton Falls, (June 1779), Middletown (June 1781), and Toms River (March 1782). One historian estimated that the New Jersey Volunteers (all battalions) participated in over 100 raids over the course of the war.

Actual raids mixed with rumored raids. In October 1778, for example, a Staten Island spy sent the following note an unnamed correspondent in New Jersey warning of a potential attack against Monmouth County:

Last night, I rcd [received] a letter from a corespondant in [New] York informing me that the Army was returning from the English naberhood and that the report in town was that they wair [were] to imbarck [embark] and land on Jersey at Shroesbury [Shrewsbury] or Mideltown [Middletown]. And directly after, I saw a number of flat boats coming up the Kill as was sent to take the baggage of the different ridgt [regiments] on Board.

This faulty warning of an upcoming raid came while a large British-Loyalist raid, involving the 1st Battalion, was occurring against the Little Egg Harbor area. This raises the possibility that the warning was a deliberate deception aimed to keep the Monmouth militia from marching against the raiders.

Long periods of inactivity filled the time between short periods of action. It is likely that the majority of men, separated from families, likely hated camp life. Roughly one third of the men brought their wives with them. A May 1777 British Commissary report from Staten Island noted the need to supply rations to 582 men and 179 wives (drawing 1/2 soldier rations). The troops and their camp-followers did not farm or fish in any great amount and were dependent on British support. In 1778, the New Jersey Gazette noted that “they [the New Jersey Volunteers] have no provisions or stores of any kind, but what are drawn of N. York.” Shortages of military supplies were also acute at times. An inventory of James Nealon’s company showed that the company had only half a full complement of ammunition: “Ammunition in Possession - 768. Ammunition Wanting - 752.”

With Lawrence captured and his battalion decimated, the battalion fell on hard times. According to a November 1777 muster roll, the battalion had 64 men held as prisoners and was 391 “wanting to complete.” An undated muster roll, likely late 1777 or early 1778, lists only 92 men “fit & present.” Other New Jersey Volunteer battalions were also under-strength. Lawrence was pushed out of his command while a prisoner—as the 1st, 5th and 6th battalions were combined in July 1778 into a new consolidated 1st battalion. Command given to Sussex County’s Joseph Barton, leader of the 5th battalion. Lawrence was retired on a half-pay pension without his consent.

Braisted noted that resentments ran high between the original Monmouth County officers, who remained loyal to Lawrence, and the new Sussex County senior officers. This led to various quarrels between the officers, exacerbated by General Skinner, who remained friends with Lawrence. Lawrence returned as a staff major and was loaned a company from his battalion to lead a raid against a Continental detachment at Manasquan in April 1780. All of the squabbles and intrigue hurt the effectiveness of the 1st Battalion. It marched with British regulars and participated in the Battle of Springfield in June 1780, but was otherwise not requested to join with British regulars in formal battle.

As noted by Braisted, the battalion continued to diversify, but with little success. An attempted absorption of a company of Gloucester County Loyalists led to most of the Gloucester-men deserting within weeks of the attempted integration. Continental Army deserters joined the battalion but these men were not committed Loyalists and most quickly deserted. New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians and Marylanders drifted into the battalion. In 1781, Barton was cashiered from service and replaced by Stephen DeLancey, a New Yorker. The original battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers was no longer led by a New Jersian.

The 2nd Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers, raised from Shrewsbury and the Monmouth County shore, was comparatively more successful. Led by John Morris, a career British officer who settled along the Monmouth Shore in the 1760s, the 2nd Battalion was judged worthy of campaigning with British regulars. It fought at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. Later in the war, it sent companies with the British Army into the Carolinas and fought at Eutaw Springs and King’s Mountain. Morris did not last as battalion commander. In fall 1780, he was listed on a New Jersey Volunteer muster roll as a “cripple.” Morris finished the war on a half-pay pension in New York.

Caption: Re-enactors in the uniform of the 1st Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers. Raised from Monmouth County in 1776, the battalion would re-organize and lose cohesion as the war went on.

Related Historical Site: Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Sources: New Jersey State Archives, Adjutant General's Loyalist Manuscripts, Muster Rolls of New Jersey Volunteers, microfilm; Linda Grant-DePauw, FORTUNES OF WAR: NEW JERSEY WOMAN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION New Jersey's Revolutionary Experience (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975) pp. 25-6, New Jersey Volunteers, Troop Return, Library of Congress, MMC - Courtland Skinner, box 5; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930; Strangely Contaminated: The Loyalists of New Jersey; New York State Library, https://www.njstatelib.org/strangely-contaminated-the-loyalists-of-new-jersey-program-recap/ ; Braisted, Todd, A History of the 1st Battalion, New Jersey Volunteers, http://www.royalprovincial.com/military/rhist/njv/1njvhist.htm#:~:text=Led%20by%20the%20young%20and,grow%20in%20size%20and%20activity; Rutgers University, Special Collections, Loyalist Compensation Applications, Elisha Lawrence, Coll. D96, PRO AO 13/110, reel 10; John Vanderhoven, Intelligence, in The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 17, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. 412–416, note 2; Nealon’s Troop Return, Clements Library, U Michigan, MacKenzie Papers, March 11, 1780; Monmouth County Historical Association, Diaries Collection, box 2, John Stillwell's Diary (photocopy); Return, New Jersey Volunteers, New Jersey State Archives, Dept of Defense, Military Records, Revolutionary War Copies, box 29, #14; Courtland Skinner, orders, David Library of the American Revolution, Great Britain Public Records Office, British Headquarters Papers, #4481; Spermacity Cove, the cedars and the ground in front so as to be able to follow should the enemy pass" -- BF Stevens, Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain (London: Mackie & Co, 1906) v2, p468; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Peter Paterson; Michael Adelberg, Biographical File, at the Monmouth County Historical Association.