The news of what had happened at Lexington and Concord
energized everyone in the colonies who wanted to resist Britain’s efforts to
subjugate them. This was followed by a request to the Lower Counties from the
representatives of the Colonies meeting at Philadelphia to raise a regiment to
support the Continental Army. As a consequence, the Delaware Council of Safety
had done just that in January of the New Year and appointed Colonel John Haslet
to command it.
2 A few days later, Jenethan Harney joined the
regiment and was assigned to Captain David Hall’s company as a Lieutenant. “I’m
going too!” his younger brother, Joshua, announced to the family after Jenethan
had told them about joining the regiment.
3 By April, Haslet had put together a formidable
looking group of men. They wore blue jackets trimmed in red with guilt or
pewter buttons (depending on the soldier’s rank), white waistcoat and buckskin
trousers. Indeed, the Blue Hens looked like soldiers, and they had already
developed an esprit de corps that did not exist in most other units.
4 More importantly, their military skills matched
their professional appearance. Haslet drilled his soldiers over and over again
to ensure that they would be ready for battle. Delaware’s contribution to the
cause might be small, but it would be significant.
5 In the meantime, General George Washington had
forced the British to evacuate Boston and had turned his attention to the
defense of New York. He arrived there in early April and began to personally
supervise the preparations to secure the city against a British attack. The
task would be almost impossible, but the situation demanded some kind of effort
to demonstrate that the Continental Army would not willingly concede any
territory or advantage to the British Army.
6 In July, the “unanimous Declaration of the thirteen
united States of America” was published, and Colonel Haslet ordered Jenethan
Harney to read it aloud to his troops (General Washington was doing the same
thing in New York). The young man cleared his throat and began to read: “When
in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among
the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation.”
7 The men were silent and attentive. Jenethan paused
for just a moment as the weight of their concentration washed over him.
8 Then he cleared his throat and resumed reading the
document. Indeed, his voice seemed to grow stronger as he read: “We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness.” When he had finished, there wasn’t a dry
eye among the soldiers standing there.
9 A little over a week later, Congress asked them to
join General Washington’s forces in the defense of New York. “We are very
pleased to see you and your men,” General Washington greeted Colonel Haslet. “I
hope that you can appreciate how vital it will be to the success of this
enterprise that we all work together to defend this city against the enemy, and
I hope that you will only allow yourself to consider the honor and success of
this army going forward,” he continued.
10 “Of course, Sir, we will do all that we can to
assist you in defending this place,” Colonel Haslet replied. The General nodded
and smiled. “You have been assigned to Lord Stirling’s Brigade and will report
to him at your earliest convenience for further instructions,” Washington
concluded.
11 The British, however, had not been idle while the
American’s were busy preparing for them. Admiral Richard Howe and his brother,
General William Howe, had amassed over thirty thousand troops on Staten Island.
The Redcoats and their Hessian allies were spoiling to teach the rebels a
lesson they would not soon forget.
12 The clouds of war were gathering, and nature seemed
to mimic the human preparations on the ground. On the evening of the
twenty-first of August, a great storm erupted over New York. For three hours,
the city and its environs were inundated with lightning, thunder and near
torrential rain.
13 The following morning, the British invasion of Long
Island began. The clear blue sky and bright sunshine lifted the moods of men in
both armies, but the memory of last night’s violent storm was still fresh in
their minds as well. Like the weather of the last twelve hours, both armies
were a mix of confidence and trepidation that morning.
14 Washington had just placed General Israel Putnam in
command of all the American forces on Long Island. “The Heights of Guana (a
wooded ridgeline that separated the two armies on Long Island) must be defended
at all hazards,” the Commander-in-Chief demanded. “It is very important that
you prevent the enemy from passing through it and approaching these works,”
Washington explained as he pointed at the map.
15 “Stirling’s men are watching the Gowanus Road,
General Sullivan’s men are guarding Flatbush and Bedford Pass, and we have a
few officers keeping an eye on Jamaica Pass,” Putnam reported. “Good,”
Washington responded.
16 Joshua, along with a good many other men, had been
ill for several days and was still recovering within Fort Stirling at Brooklyn
Heights. Jenethan was in Lord Stirling’s camp with the other still healthy men
from their unit. “I wonder what those devils are up to,” Jenethan thought as he
bedded down for the evening. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.
17 It was now the twenty-sixth of August, and the
British put their plans into motion that very night. Generals William Howe and
Henry Clinton, with the main body of their troops, began marching toward the
lightly guarded Jamaica Pass. Early the next morning, General James Grant
marched out to confront the defenders of the Gowanus Road. Likewise, the
Hessians pressed toward the passes that General Sullivan’s men were guarding.
18 General Putnam stormed into camp before dawn and
awakened Lord Stirling. “The British are attacking us at the Narrows!” he
reported. “You will proceed immediately to repulse them from the Narrows and
hold the Gowanus Road,” Putnam added.
19 Soon, the entire camp was awake and gathering
rifles and ammunition. “This is it!” Captain Hall shouted. “My God, Colonel
Haslet is still in New York serving on a court-martial,” Jenethan thought as he
rushed into the line of soldiers preparing to march.
20 They had marched about two miles out of camp when
they spotted the advancing Redcoats. Stirling had the men form their lines and
ordered them to get ready. “Hold your fire until they are within fifty yards of
our position!” he shouted.
21 At about two hundred yards distance, the British
stopped and fired their cannons and muskets into the rebel army. Two men fell
near the place where Jenethan was standing. Nevertheless, Stirling’s men held
their ground, and the British did not attempt to come any nearer to their
lines.
22 “We stopped them!” Lieutenant Enoch Anderson
shouted. Stirling ordered his men to return fire. Jenethan took aim and fired.
A Redcoat dropped across the way. “Did I kill him?” he wondered. Lieutenant
Anderson was wondering the same thing. “General Grant said that he could
conquer America with a few thousand men!” Stirling reminded them with a wide
grin on his face.
23 It was, of course, only a diversion. They had no
way of knowing at the time that Generals Howe and Clinton would soon be
attacking them from the rear. During the night, the generals had marched the
soldiers under their command through the Jamaica Pass and were rapidly
approaching the American lines from the other side. Indeed, they had already
overwhelmed Sullivan’s men to the east.
24 Then, suddenly, General Grant’s soldiers advanced.
Hessians swarmed in at them from the east, and more Redcoats approached them
from behind. They were surrounded! Watching through a spyglass from Brooklyn
Heights, Washington sighed. “My God, what brave men I am losing today!” he
exclaimed.
25 “Do what you can for yourselves!” Lord Stirling
shouted. The American lines began to break. Men were running in all directions.
Some headed for the swamps, while others attempted to surrender to the British
officer nearest their position.
26 Bewildered and disoriented, Jenethan saw that his
commander and some of the troops from Maryland were charging toward the
Redcoats at their rear. Suddenly, he was surrounded by Hessian soldiers. One of
them lunged at him with his bayonet, but Jenethan quickly turned aside and
narrowly averted being stabbed in the stomach. Instead, he felt a sharp pain in
his left leg and looked down in time to see a red stain begin to spread across
his buckskin breeches.
27 He had been captured by the enemy! “You will follow
me, Lieutenant,” one of the British soldiers had demanded. He was feeling faint
now, and the thought of being a prisoner terrified him. Someone wrapped a piece
of linen around his leg, and then he joined several other of his countrymen who
had been captured in the battle.
28 Their immediate destination was the barn of a Tory
farmer. “You rascals shoulda been run through with a bayonet!” the farmer’s
wife shouted as the men were ushered into the barn. “Ya ought to be ashamed of
yourselves taking up arms against your rightful king!” her husband agreed.
29 Jenethan, along with several other men who had been
wounded, had struggled to keep up with the other captives and were the last
ones into the barn. One of the British soldiers hit him on the back of the head
and knocked another man to the ground before closing the door behind them.
30 Jenethan and another man lifted the man who had
been knocked down from the dirt floor and placed him on a bed of straw in one
of the empty stalls. When he released the man, his hands felt wet and sticky.
In the dim light that filtered through the cracks in the walls, Jenethan could
see that his hands were covered in blood.
31 “It is hard to die like this,” the man whispered.
“Don’t say that, Captain,” the other man pleaded. Jenethan’s leg was throbbing,
and he couldn’t watch this man die. He turned away and walked to the other side
of the barn.
32 That evening, the British soldiers opened the door
and marched their prisoners to the water’s edge and loaded them onto some
waiting boats. They were then rowed out to one of the ships anchored off of
Long Island and placed unceremoniously in its hold. It appeared that they were
to be treated as cargo. The smell of the prison ships was nauseating, but it
would get much worse before it would get better.
33 Jenethan’s leg had finally stopped bleeding, but he
was so weak and sick now that he began to despair of surviving his captivity.
“I hope that Joshua is safe,” he whispered to himself. “I may never get to see
him or my mother and father again,” he thought. He wept, but there was no one
there to comfort him.
34 In the meantime, Joshua had insisted on leaving his
bed when he heard about what had happened at the Narrows. “Have you seen my
brother?” he asked several of the refugees from his company who had managed to
return from the battlefield.
35 “I saw one of those damned Hessians bayonet him,”
one man told him. Joshua's heart sank. “I think he was captured,” another man
said. In the midst of such confusion, one thing was clear: Jenethan wasn’t
there.
36 Joshua couldn’t return to his bed. Instead, he
reported for duty. “Are you well enough?” Colonel Haslet demanded. “I can’t
rest while my brother…” He choked on the words. “Well, get your rifle then,
soldier,” the Colonel told him.
37 Joshua ran to join the other soldiers who were
manning the defensive positions surrounding Brooklyn Heights. They waited for
hours, but the British did not come. For some unknown reason, the enemy had
stopped. The stragglers and wounded continued to approach the lines throughout
the evening, but there was still no sign of Jenethan.
38 The next morning, General Washington ordered more
troops from Manhattan to cross the East River and reinforce the soldiers
defending the Heights. Nevertheless, it was rapidly becoming apparent to
everyone (including the Commander-in-Chief) that the American Army was in
danger of being annihilated if they continued to occupy the Heights. If the
wind shifted, the British could cut off their only avenue of retreat across the
East River.
39 That afternoon, a cold front moved in and the rain
began. It continued through the night and all of the following day. There was
no sleep, no cover, and there were no fires. The soldiers’ misery over their
defeat was multiplied by the unrelenting weather, and the knowledge that the
British could attack them at any moment.
40 Then the spell was broken. “Prepare yourselves for
a night attack!” the officers shouted at their troops. Joshua got his pack,
picked up his rifle and joined his comrades in line.
41 Even so, to Joshua’s surprise, they did not march
out to meet the British. Instead, they were marched to the ferry landing on the
East River and loaded into small boats and rowed across the river to Manhattan.
42 They were told that fresh troops would replace them
on the Heights, but Joshua noticed that the boats kept coming across the river
loaded with troops and returning to Brooklyn empty. “Washington is evacuating
the Heights,” observed one of the men who was standing next to him.
43 The Commander-in-Chief was conducting an orderly
withdrawal under the most difficult of circumstances. It continued throughout
the night and into the following morning. “The light will reveal this
enterprise to the British!” Washington gasped.
44 God or fate, however, intervened. A thick fog
settled over Brooklyn and continued to conceal the evacuation from the British.
The American Army would live to fight another day.
45 Now these are the generations of Thomas Harney:
46 Thomas Harney married Hannah Mills, and they had
children: Selby, Mary, Jenethan, Joshua, Hannah, Nancy, Thomas, Mills and
Sarah.
47 Thomas Harney III married Margaret Hudson, and they
had children: Benjamin, John, James Thompson, Robert, Thomas, Eliza, Margaret
and William Selby.
48 James Thompson Harney married Mary Ann Frailey, and
they had children: Susan Rumsey, James, Julia, Elizabeth, Mary, Harriett,
Adeline, Robert, Jane, Lucy and Edward.
49 Susan Rumsey Harney married Johnathan Reynolds, and
they had two children together.