The Continental Response to Huddy Hanging

As discussed in the previous article, Colonel David Forman personally presented materials on the execution of Joshua Huddy to George Washington on April 17 or 18, 1782. Forman had a long history with Washington, leading a regiment under Washington in the disastrous New York campaign of 1776 and then raising an “Additional Regiment” of Continentals in 1777. Forman guided Continental troops and met with Washington during the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778 and then testified against Washington’s rival, General Charles Lee, at Lee’s court martial. Throughout the second half of the war, Forman often sent Washington intelligence reports of British naval movements at Sandy Hook.

Washington was aware of Forman’s excesses (he had to relieve Forman of the command of his regiment) and gaps in judgment (including intrigues that skirted the law). But Washington also, no doubt, viewed Forman as a patriot who had risked his life and property for the Revolution and performed valuable services. So, when Forman rode into Washington’s camp, requested a meeting, and made an impassioned plea for retaliation for the death of Huddy—it was likely persuasive to Washington.

George Washington Considers Huddy’s Execution

Washington knew Forman was coming to see him. Forman and Colonel Asher Holmes, rivals before and after the Huddy hanging, had gone to Elizabethtown to meet the Prisoner of War commissioners and General Henry Knox. They met on April 16 and Knox notified Washington that Forman would visit him.

On April 19, following his meeting with Forman, Washington chose to query his senior officers on the appropriate next step. He sent a “general inquiry” to his senior officers:

The Commander in Chief submits the papers accompanying this, containing the case of Capt. Joshua Huddy lately hanged within the County of Monmouth in N Jersey State, by a party of the Enemy, to the consideration of the Gen. Officers and commanding officers of Brigades and Regiments. And thereupon requests from them, separately and in writing, a direct and laconic reply to the following queries: Vizt:

1st. Upon the state of facts in the above case, is Retaliation justifiable and expedient?

2d. If justifiable, ought it to take place immediately? Or should a previous representation be made to Sir Hy [Henry] Clinton, and satisfaction demanded from him?

3d. In case of representation and Demand, who should be the person or persons to be required?

4th. In case of refusal, and Retaliation becoming necessary, of what description shall the Officer be on whom it is to take place; and how shall he be designated for the purpose?"

Washington was apparently told that some Monmouth County leaders—particularly Asher Holmes—were conducting local prisoner exchanges outside of the process set up by the Continental and British Armies. Forman, who opposed these local exchanges because they encouraged Loyalist “manstealing,” likely informed Washington about the local exchanges. This caused Washington to make an inquiry. On April 20, Washington wrote Andrew Skinner, his Commissary of Prisoners:

I have been informed that a certain Col Asher Holmes of Monmouth County has been concerned in making partial exchanges, sending and receiving Flags, giving indulgence to People within the Enemy's lines, and obtaining Paroles in consequence for some of our People in the power of the Enemy; and that when questioned for so doing by the Executive of the State he attempted to exculpate himself by asserting he acted under proper authority derived from your Department. As I know you have frequently made complaints (and not without great occasion) respecting such irregularities; I request to be informed explicitly, whether Col Holmes has received any authority from you, or any Person acting under you, and in that case, of what nature, and under what limitations or restriction it was in order, that if anything improper has been done, it may be amended; or if otherwise, the report may be refuted.

Skinner replied two days later: "I know not how Colo. Holmes could assert that he acted under Authority from my department in the making of partial Exchanges; he has no such Authority from me and I have written to him on the Subject." In December 1780, Holmes wrote a letter to Governor William Livingston informing Livingston that the Governor had previously given him the authority to conduct local prisoner exchanges. Livingston did not challenge Holmes on the matter.

George Washington Prepares for Retaliation

On April 20, Washington replied to Henry Knox about Forman’s presentation of the scandalous execution of Huddy. Washington was “convinced from the state of facts which has been exhibited that justice, expediency and necessity requires that satisfaction should be obtained for the murder of Captain Huddy.” Washington concluded that if Huddy’s murderer was not turned over, retaliation was in order:

I have in the first instance made a representation to Sir Henry Clinton and demanded that the officer who commanded the party [Richard Lippincott]... should be delivered up to condign punishment. In case of refusal, I have formed the resolution that retaliation should take place upon a British officer of equal rank, it therefore remains with the enemy alone to prevent this distressing alternative; for having formed my opinion upon the most mature reflection and deliberation, I can never recede from it.

Washington wrote Clinton that same day. He referred to Huddy as "most cruelly & wantonly hanged” and stated that “this instance of barbarity calls for retaliation." He sent a second stronger letter to Clinton on April 21 that was apparently for public consumption. It was printed in the Pennsylvania Evening Post:

Sir, The enclosed representation from the inhabitants of the County of Monmouth, with sentiments to the feat (which can be corroborated by other unquestionable evidence) will bring before your Excellency the most wanton, cruel and unprecedented murder that ever disgraced the arms of a civilized people. I shall not, because I conceive it altogether unnecessary, trouble your Excellency with any animadversions upon this transaction. Candor obliges me to be explicit: to save the innocent, I demand the guilty.

Capt. Lippincott therefore, or the officer who commanded at the execution of Capt. Huddy, must be given up; or if that officer was of inferior rank to him, so many of the perpetrators as will, according to the tariff of exchange, be an equivalent. To do this, will mark the justice of your Excellency’s character. In failure of it, I shall hold myself justified, in the eye of God and man, for the measure to which I shall resort.

I beg your Excellency to be persuaded that it cannot be more disagreeable to you to be addressed in this language than it is for me to offer it. But the subject requires frankness and decision.

The Evening Post’s report went on to state that Clinton "had been imposed upon by the Board of Refugees… on pretense of conveying him" for a prisoner exchange. And that "the menace in the General's [Washington's] letter… produced a spirited memorial from British officers" to give up the murderer, Richard Lippincott. This, in turn, generated a counter memorial from the Associated Loyalists "against the delivery of Lippincott." The report concluded that, "It is said the Lippincott has been delivered up" but there were a number of reports awaiting confirmation.

Congress Supports Retaliation for the Execution of Huddy

A week later, the Continental Congress considered the burgeoning “Huddy Affair.” Elias Boudinot, the former Continental Commissary of Prisoners now serving as a New Jersey delegate in Congress wrote of William Franklin “as head of the Refugees… by their particular order" hanged Huddy "in a very insulting manner under pretense of retaliation for a man who was shot in the act of running away from his guard - this made a great noise in our camp & throughout the State."

The Minutes of the Continental Congress record:

A letter of the 20th, from the Commander in Chief, together with a copy of a memorial from the inhabitants of the County of Monmouth, in the state of New Jersey, and sundry affidavits respecting the death of Captain Joshua Huddy; who, after being a prisoner for some days in New York, was sent out with a party of Refugees, and most cruelly and wantonly hanged on the heights of Middletown.

Congress then acted to support Washington’s threat of retaliation:

The Congress having deliberately considered the said letter and the papers attending it, and being deeply impressed by the necessity of convincing the enemies of the United States, by the most decided conduct, that the repetition of their unprecedented and inhuman cruelties will no longer be suffered with impunity, do unanimously approve of the firm and judicious conduct of the Commander in Chief in his application to the British General at New York, and do hereby assure him of their firmest support in his fixed purpose of exemplary retaliation.

Outrage at Huddy’s hanging spread. On May 1, James Madison of Virginia wrote about Huddy and retaliation in a letter to Edmund Randolph, also of Virginia. Madison wrote that “the refugees in New York have lately perpetrated one of the most daring and flagrant acts that have occurred in the course of the war.” Huddy had been “treated with every mark of insult of cruelty” and then and then “brought over to the Jerseys and in cold blood, hanged.” Madison then discussed retaliation:

A number of respectable people have, by a memorial, called aloud on the Commander in Chief for retaliation; in consequence of which he has, in the most decisive terms, claimed of Sir Henry Clinton a delivery of the offenders for justice as the only means of averting a stroke of vengeance from the innocent head of a captive officer of equal rank to the Jersey Captain.

Newspapers that would not have routinely reported on local events in New Jersey reported on Huddy’s hanging. Two examples are below:

The Maryland Gazette, May 2:

[Huddy] was brought on shore by a party of murderers and hung, his will was found in his pocket, and a paper purporting the occasion of their executing him was in retaliation for a refugee, who, being under guard, attempted an escape, our people had shot. Arouse Countrymen! Let not this black act pass with impunity, but let full atonement for his hapless life be made on those hell hounds we have in our possession.

The Boston Independent Gazetteer, May 4:

General Washington, we hear, has written to Sir Henry Clinton, insisting that the perpetrators of the deliberate and horrid murder committed on Capt. Huddy should be given up, and that nothing should expatiate the diabolical deed, but a retaliation on the murderers, or on some other British officer now in our custody.--This spirited demand has occasioned great contention between British officers and the Refugees--the former are for complying with it, but the latter are for rejecting it.

With a national consensus building for eye-for-an-eye retaliation, Washington embraced it. On May 3, he wrote General Moses Hazen, commanding the Continental Army prison camp in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Washington informed Hazen of the “barbarous line of Conduct” of the Loyalists who “have lately most inhumanly executed Captain Joshua Huddy.” Washington had therefore:

Written to the British Commander in Chief, that unless the Perpetrators of that horrid deed were delivered up I should be under the disagreeable necessity of Retaliating, as the only means left to put a stop to such inhuman proceedings. You will therefore immediately on receipt of this designate, by Lot for the above purpose, a British Captain who is an unconditional Prisoner.

The British officer selected for retaliation would be Charles Asgill, who was to be sent to Philadelphia and put under the direct care of the Continental government. Washington recognized the ugliness of the order and asked Hazen to treat Asgill well: “I need not mention to you that every possible tenderness, that is consistent with the Security of him, should be shown to the person whose unfortunate Lot it may be to suffer." The fate of Asgill is the subject of another article.

As Washington moved toward retaliation—the punishment of an innocent for an atrocity committed by another person—the British looked to defuse the situation. They could not accede to Washington’s request to turn over Huddy’s executioner (Richard Lippincott), but they did convene a court martial to try Lippincott for murder. That is the subject of the next article.

Caption: James Madison, serving in the Continental Congress in 1782, like many Americans, was shocked by the hanging of Joshua Huddy. He and the Congress supported hanging a British officer in retaliation.

Related Historic Site: Camp Security (York, Pennsylvania) (in progress)

Sources: George Washington, General Inquiry, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw240157)); George Washington to Andrew Skinner, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw240160)); George Washington to Henry Know, Richard J. Koke, "War, Profits, and Privateers Along the Je sey Coast," New York Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 41, 1957, p 337; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 171, item 152, vol. 10, #475;  Library of Congress, Early American Newspapers, Pennsylvania Evening Post; Journals of the Continental Congress, p217-8 (www.ammem/amlaw/lwdg.html); To George Washington from James Robertson, 1 May 1782,” Founders Online, National Archives (http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-08307, ver. 2013-09-28); James Robertson, The Twilight of British Rule in Revolutionary America: The New York Letter Book of General James Robertson, 1780-1783 (New York: New York State Historical Association, 1983) pp. 243-4; James Madison to Edmund Randolph, Letters to Delegates of Congress, vol. 19, p186 (www.ammem/amlaw/lwdg.html); Elias Boudinot, Journal of Historical Recollections of Events During the Revolutionary War (Phila: Frederick Bourquin, 1894) p60-1; George Washington to Moses Hazen, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw240230); David Library of the American Revolution, Independent Gazetteer, n2, May 4, 1782.