Vermont Part 8

A "Declaration and Pet.i.tion," announcing the step taken and asking that the new State might be "ranked among the free and independent American States," was prepared and sent to Congress. The action of the people of the Grants was received in a not unfriendly spirit by the New England States; but New York at once made an earnest protest to Congress against it, and demanded the recall of the commission of Colonel Warner authorizing him to raise a continental regiment in the disaffected district, emphasizing the demand by reminding Congress of Warner's outlawry by the "late government." Considering the att.i.tude of Congress and all the colonies toward the royal source of the "late government" of New York, this seems an absurd argument for the recall of Warner's commission. Fortunately for the cause which that brave officer so faithfully and efficiently served, the insolent demand was not complied with.

The adjourned convention met at Windsor in June with seventy-two delegates from fifty towns. One of their earliest transactions was to relieve the young State from the ridiculous name which was first bestowed upon it. It was discovered that a district lying on the Susquehanna was already known as New Connecticut, whereupon the convention rechristened the infant State "Vermont." This most befitting name was suggested by Dr. Thomas Young of Philadelphia, a firm friend of the defenders of the Grants. In the previous April he had addressed a circular letter to them, advising them to act in accordance with a resolution of Congress pa.s.sed in May, 1776, which recommended to the respective a.s.semblies of the United Colonies, where no sufficient government had been established, to adopt such government as should appear to the representatives of the people most conducive to the happiness and safety of their const.i.tuents. He advised a general convention of delegates from all the towns to form a Const.i.tution for the State, to choose a Committee of Safety, and also delegates to Congress, declaring Congress could not refuse to admit their delegates.

"You have," said he, "as good a right to say how you will be governed, and by whom, as they had." Dr. Young's letter called forth another earnest protest from New York to Congress, and that body declared that the action of the people of the Grants was not countenanced by any of its acts. The pet.i.tion of Vermont was dismissed, the commission of Warner apologized for, and Dr. Young censured for a "gross misrepresentation of the resolution of Congress" referred to in his letter. Dr. Young recommended to the new commonwealth, as a model for a Const.i.tution, that of Pennsylvania, an instrument whose essential features originated in Penn's "Frame of Government" of that province.

His advice was followed, and a very similar Const.i.tution was adopted early in July, 1777.

When, for this purpose, after a short adjournment, the convention met at the Windsor meeting-house, all Vermont was in alarm at the British invasion which was sweeping upon its western border. Almost at first the attention of the delegates was called to the impending peril of Ticonderoga by an appeal for aid from Colonel Warner. This was at once forwarded to the a.s.sembly of New Hampshire, and such measures as seemed best, which elicited the warm thanks of General St. Clair, were taken by the convention for the relief of the threatened fortress. Some of the members, among whom was the president, the patriotic Joseph Bowker of Rutland, whose families were in exposed situations, were now anxious for an adjournment; but a furious thunder-storm came roaring up the Connecticut valley, and the storm-bound convention took up its appointed work, reading and adopting, one by one, the articles of the Const.i.tution amid the turmoil of the tempest.

To the first section of the declaration of rights, which announced that "glittering generality," the natural rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, this specific clause was added: "Therefore no male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years, nor female in like manner after she arrives to the age of eighteen years, unless they are bound by their own consent after they arrive to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like."

"Vermont was thus the first of the States to prohibit slavery by const.i.tutional provision, a fact of which Vermonters may well be proud,"

says Hiland Hall in his "Early History."

Religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, were also established. The form of government was thoroughly democratic. Every man of the full age of twenty-one years, who had resided in the State for one year, was given the elective franchise, and was eligible to any office in the State. The legislative power was vested in a single a.s.sembly of members chosen annually by ballot. Each town was to have one representative, and towns having more than eighty taxable inhabitants were ent.i.tled to two. The executive authority was in a governor, lieutenant-governor, and twelve councillors, elected annually by all the freemen in the State. They had no negative power, but it was provided that "all bills of a public nature should be laid before them, for their perusal and proposals of amendment," before they were finally debated in the General a.s.sembly. Such bills were to be printed for the information of the people, and not to be enacted into laws until the next session of the a.s.sembly. "Temporary acts" in cases of "sudden emergency" might, however, be pa.s.sed without this delay. Compliance with this article was found so difficult that nearly all laws were treated as temporary, and declared permanent at the next session. Bills could originate in the council as well as in the house of a.s.sembly; and in cases of disagreement between the two bodies upon any measure, it was usually discussed in grand committee composed of both, the governor presiding.

The final disposition of a measure was according to the pleasure of the house, but the advisory power of the governor and council was a strong check upon hasty legislation. In 1786 the provision for printing and postponing the pa.s.sage of laws was expunged, and the governor and council were authorized to suspend the operation of a bill until the next session of the legislature, when, to become a law, it must again be pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly. Judges of inferior courts, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and judges of probate were elected by the freemen of the respective counties, to hold office during good behavior, removable by the a.s.sembly on proof of maladministration. The mode of choosing judges of superior courts was left to the discretion of the legislature, and they were elected annually by joint ballot of the council and a.s.sembly.

When the Const.i.tution was revised in 1786, it was provided that county officers should be annually chosen in the same manner.

The Const.i.tution provided for an election, by the freemen of the State, of a Council of Censors, consisting of thirteen members, first to be chosen on the last Wednesday of March, 1785, and thereafter on the same day in every seventh year. It was the duty of this body to inquire whether the Const.i.tution had been preserved inviolate, and whether the legislature and executive branches of government had performed their duty as guardians of the people, or had a.s.sumed greater powers than they were const.i.tutionally ent.i.tled to. They were to inquire whether public taxes had been justly laid and collected, in what manner the public moneys had been disposed of, and whether the laws had been duly executed. The council was also empowered to call a convention, to meet within two years after their sitting, if there appeared to them an absolute necessity of any change in the Const.i.tution, the proposed changes to be promulgated at least six months before the election of such convention, for the previous consideration of the people. This provision of the Const.i.tution, though useless if no worse, was nevertheless a great favorite of the people of Vermont, and remained a prominent and unique feature of that instrument till 1870, when it was abrogated by the last convention called by a Council of Censors.

"This frame of government," writes Hiland Hall of the early Const.i.tution, "continued in operation long after the State had become a member of the Federal Union, furnishing the people with as much security for their persons and property as was enjoyed by those of other States, and allowing to each individual citizen all the liberty which was consistent with the welfare of others."

Such are the main features of the Vermont Const.i.tution established by the Windsor convention. An election of state officers was ordered to be held in the ensuing December, to be followed by a meeting of the legislature in January, and a Council of Safety was appointed to manage the affairs of the State during the intervening time.

CHAPTER XI.

TICONDEROGA; HUBBARDTON.

Notwithstanding all that Sir Guy Carleton had accomplished in driving the American army from Canada, and regaining control of Lake Champlain as far as Ticonderoga, his management of the campaigns had not fully satisfied the ministry. He was blamed for dismissing his Indian allies when he found it impossible to prevent their killing and scalping of prisoners; and he was blamed that, with a well-appointed army of invincible Britons, he had not in one campaign utterly destroyed or dispersed the rabble rout of colonial rebels. Consequently the command of the army in Canada, designed for offensive operations, was given to Sir John Burgoyne, a court favorite; while Carleton, the far abler general, was left in command only of the 3,700 troops reserved for the defense of the province.

In June, Burgoyne's army of more than 7,000 regular troops embarked at St. John's, and made undisputed progress up the lake to the mouth of the Bouquet. Here it encamped on the deserted estate of William Gilliland, who had bought an immense tract in this region and made a settlement at the falls of the Bouquet in 1765, but was obliged to abandon it during the war. At this place the Indians were a.s.sembled, Iroquois and Waubanakees gathered under one banner, and alike hungry for scalps and plunder. Burgoyne addressed them in a grandiloquent speech, modeled in the supposed style of aboriginal eloquence, exhorting them to deeds of valor, to be tempered with a humanity impossible to the savages, and was briefly answered by an old chief of the Iroquois.

Moving forward to Crown Point, the army briefly rested there before advancing upon Ticonderoga. The general issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, inviting all who would to join him, and offering protection to such as remained quietly at their homes, and in no way obstructed the operations of his army, or a.s.sisted his enemies; while those who did not accept his clemency were threatened with the horrors of Indian warfare.

Having delivered himself of speech and proclamation, Burgoyne continued his advance on Ticonderoga.

The post was not in the best condition for defense, as General Schuyler, now commanding the Northern Department, discovered when visiting it while Burgoyne was airing his eloquence at the Bouquet. The old French lines had been somewhat strengthened, and block-houses built on the right and left of them. More labor had been expended on the defenses of Mount Independence, a water battery erected at the fort, and another battery half way up the declivity. Communication between the forts was maintained by a bridge thrown across the lake, consisting of twenty-two piers, connected by floats fifty feet long and twenty wide. On the lower side, this bridge was protected by a boom of immense timbers fastened together by double chains of inch and a half square iron. To garrison these extensive works, General St. Clair, now the commander of Ticonderoga, had but few more than 2,500 Continental troops, and 900 poorly armed and equipped militia. He had been unwilling to call in more of the militia, for fear of a failure of supplies.

But a danger more potent than the weakness of the garrison lurked in the silent heights of Sugar Loaf Hill, now better known as Mount Defiance, that, westward from Ticonderoga, and overlooking it and all its outworks, bars the horizon with rugged steeps of rock and sharp incline of woodland. Colonel John Trumbull, of Revolutionary and artistic fame, had suggested to General Gates the advisability of fortifying it, saying that it commanded both Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. The idea was ridiculed, and he obtained leave to test the truth of his a.s.sertion. A shot from a twelve-pounder on Mount Independence struck half way up the mountain, and a six-pound shot fired from the glacis of Ticonderoga struck near the summit. Yet the Americans did not occupy it then, nor now, though a consultation was held concerning it. It was decided that there were not men enough to spare for the purpose from the fortifications already established. St. Clair hoped, moreover, that Burgoyne would choose rather to a.s.sault than besiege his position, and an a.s.sault he thought he might successfully repel.

The General Convention now sitting at Windsor sent Colonel Mead, James Mead, Ira Allen, and Captain Salisbury to consult with the commander of Ticonderoga on the defense of the frontier. While this committee was there, General Burgoyne advanced up the lake, and during his stay at Crown Point sent a force of 300, most of whom were Indians, to the mouth of Otter Creek to raid upon the settlers. The committee was refused any troops for the defense of the frontiers, but Colonel Warner was allowed to go with them, and presently raised men enough to repel this invasion.

On the 1st of July Warner wrote from Rutland to the convention that the enemy had come up the lake with seventeen or eighteen gunboats, two large ships, and other craft, and an attack was expected every hour; that he was ordered to call out the militia of Vermont, Ma.s.sachusetts, and New Hampshire, to join him as soon as possible, and desired them to call out the militia on the east side of the mountain, and to send forty or fifty head of beef cattle for Ticonderoga. "I shall be glad," he writes in conclusion, "if a few hills of corn unhoed should not be a motive sufficient to detain men at home, considering the loss of such an important post might be irretrievable." In view of the impending invasion of the British, the convention appointed a day of fasting and prayer, but this pious measure had no apparent effect on the movements of the enemy, and Burgoyne continued to advance.

His army moved forward on either side of the lake, the war-craft to an anchorage just out of range of the guns of Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. The Americans abandoned and set on fire the block-houses and sawmills towards Lake George, with which the communications were now cut off.

On the 2d of July a British force of 500, commanded by Frazier, attacked and drove in the American pickets, and, the right wing moving up, took possession of Mount Hope. St. Clair expected an a.s.sault, and ordered his men to conceal themselves behind the breastworks, and reserve their fire. Frazier's force, not perceiving the position of the Americans, screened as it was by bushes, continued to advance till an American soldier fired his musket, when the whole line delivered a random volley, followed by a thunderous discharge of artillery, all without orders, and without effect but to kill one of the a.s.sailants, and raise a cloud of smoke that hung in the hot, breathless air till the a.s.sailants had escaped behind it out of range.

The possibilities of Mount Defiance had not escaped the eyes of the British engineers, and they were at once accepted. General Phillips set himself to the task of making a road up the rocky declivities, over which heavy siege guns were already being hauled. When, on the morning of the 5th of July, the sun's first rays shot far above the shadowed valley, they lighted to a ruddier glow the scarlet uniforms of a swarm of British soldiers on the bald summit, busy in the construction of a battery.

St. Clair called a council of his officers, and it was decided that it was impossible to hold the place, and the only safety of the army was in immediate evacuation. This was undertaken that night. The baggage, stores, and all the artillery that could be got away, embarked on 200 batteaux, set forth for Skenesborough under the convoy of five galleys.

The main army was to march to Castleton, and thence to Skenesborough. At two o'clock on the morning of the 6th of July, St. Clair moved out of Ticonderoga. Sorrowfully the Green Mountain Boys relinquished, with almost as little bloodshed as two years before they had gained it, the fortress that guarded the frontier of their country.

The troops fled across the bridge in silence to the eastern sh.o.r.e, and an hour later the garrison of Mount Independence began moving out. So far, the doleful work of evacuation had progressed with such secrecy that the British were unaware of any movement. Just then a French officer of the garrison, zealous to destroy what he could not save, set fire to his house. The sun-dried wooden structure was ablaze in an instant, lighting up with a lurid glare all the works of the place, the hurrying troops, the forest border with ghastly ranks of towering tree-trunks, the bridge still undulating with the tread of just-departed marching columns, and the slow throb of waves pulsing across the empty anchorage and breaking against deserted sh.o.r.es.

All was revealed to the British on the heights of Mount Defiance, and this sudden discovery of their movements threw the Americans into great confusion, many hurrying away in disorderly retreat. But about four o'clock Colonel Francis of Ma.s.sachusetts brought off the rear in good order, and some of the other regiments were soon recovered from the panic into which they had fallen.

At Hubbardton the army halted for a rest of two hours, during which time many stragglers came in, then St. Clair with the main body pressed on to Castleton, six miles distant. On that same day Hubbardton had already been raided by Captain Sherwood and a party of Indians and Tories. Of the nine families that composed the entire population of the town, most of the men had been taken prisoners, and the defenseless women and children left to whatever fate might befall them in their plundered homes, or to make their forlorn way through the wilderness to the shelter of the older settlements. To Warner was again committed the covering of a retreat. He was here put in command of the rear-guard, consisting of his own, Francis's, and Hale's regiments, with orders to remain till all stragglers should have come in, and then follow a mile and a half in the rear of the main army.

When the retreat of the Americans was discovered, General Frazier set forth in hot pursuit with his brigade, presently followed by General Riedesel with the greater part of the Brunswickers. Frazier kept his force on the march all through the hot summer day, in burning sunshine and breathless shade of the woods till nightfall, when, learning that the American rear was not far in advance, he ordered a halt till morning. Pushing forward again at daybreak, he came up with his enemy at five o'clock, and advanced to within sixty yards of the American line of battle, formed across the road and in the adjacent fields. Colonel Hale of New Hampshire, with Falstaffian valor, had prudently withdrawn his regiment, leaving Warner and Francis with not more than 800 men, to bear the brunt of the impending battle.

The action began at seven with a volley delivered by these two regiments upon the British, who returned it as hotly. The men of the Ma.s.sachusetts border and the mountaineers of Vermont had no lead to waste in aimless firing, and held rifle and musket straight on the advancing columns of the enemy. Trained to cut off a partridge's head with a single ball at thirty yards, they did not often miss the burly form of a Briton at twice the distance, and their volleys made frightful gaps in the scarlet line. It wavered and broke. Warner and Francis cheered on their men, Francis still leading his regiment after a ball had struck him in the right arm. The British line closed up, and charged upon the Americans, throwing them into disorder till Warner rallied them, and checked the British advance. While the fluctuating chances of the fight favored the Americans, Francis fell, pierced by a bullet in the breast, and, seeing him fall, his men faltered and began to retreat. When Warner saw them scattering in disorderly flight, he was overcome with wrath. He dropped upon a log, and poured forth a storm of curses upon the fugitives.[71]

But it did not stop them, nor, if it had, would it have availed to avert defeat. Riedesel came up with his Brunswickers, who had toiled onward in the burning heat for nine hours as bravely as if they were conquering the country for themselves. They at once engaged in the action, and the Americans were everywhere routed, fleeing across a little brook, and scattering in the shelter of the woods beyond it.

Collecting most of his regiment, with his accustomed cool intrepidity, Warner retreated to Castleton. The others made their way to Fort Edward.

Hale in his retreat had fallen in with a small detachment of the enemy, to which he surrendered with a number of his regiment without firing a shot. Learning that he was charged with cowardice, he asked to be exchanged, that he might have an opportunity to disprove the charge, but he died while a prisoner on Long Island. St. Clair sent no a.s.sistance to his friends. Writing to General Schuyler of the affair, he said, "The rear-guard stopped rather imprudently six miles short of the main body,"

when in fact Warner remained at Hubbardton as ordered, while St. Clair himself advanced beyond supporting distance.

In this first battle of the Revolution on Vermont soil, the Americans lost Francis, an officer whose bravery was acknowledged by friend and foe, and whose early death was mourned by both. In killed, wounded, and prisoners, their loss was 324. The loss of the British force,--about 2,000 strong,--in killed and wounded, was not less than 183. Ethan Allen, in his narrative, sets the enemy's loss, as learned from confessions of their own officers, at 300. Among these was the brave Major Grant, who, while reconnoitring the position of the Americans from the top of a stump, was picked off by a Yankee rifleman. "I heard them likewise complain that the Green Mountain Boys took sight," Allen tells us.

Meanwhile Burgoyne was busy on the lake. By nine o'clock on the morning of the evacuation, the unfinished boom and the bridge were cut asunder; the gunboats and the two frigates pa.s.sed these obstructions, and, with several regiments on board, went up the channel in rapid pursuit of the American vessels. At three in the afternoon the gunboats got within range of the galleys, not far from Skenesborough, and opened fire upon them. This was returned with some warmth till the frigates were brought into action, when the galleys were abandoned, three were blown up, and the other two fell into the hands of the enemy. Having neither the men nor defenses here to offer any effectual opposition, the Americans set fire to the fort, mills, and batteaux, and fled up Wood Creek toward Fort Anne. They were pursued by Colonel Hill with the Ninth British Regiment, upon whom they turned, and attacked furiously in front with part of their force, while the other was sent to a.s.sail his rear. Hill withdrew to an eminence, whither the attack followed so hotly that his complete defeat seemed almost certain, when a large party of Indians came up. They made the woods ring with the terrible warwhoop, which the British answered with three l.u.s.ty cheers, and the uproar of rejoicing convinced the Americans that a strong reinforcement was at hand; whereupon they drew off, and, again marking the course of their retreat with conflagration by setting fire to Fort Anne, retired to Fort Edward.

On the 12th, here also St. Clair joined the main army under Schuyler, after a weary march over wretched roads.

England was exultant over the fall of famous Ticonderoga. The king rushed into the queen's apartments, shouting, "I have beaten them! I have beaten all the Americans!" and such was the universal feeling in the mother country. In America was as universal consternation, which only found relief in storms of abuse poured upon St. Clair and upon Schuyler, who, as commander of the northern army, received his full share of blame, though both had done the best their circ.u.mstances permitted.

Yet it proved not such a disaster to the Americans, nor such an advantage to the British, as it then appeared to each. Burgoyne was obliged to weaken his army by leaving an eighth of it to garrison a post that proved to be of no especial value to him, when, after a rapid and an almost unopposed advance to the head of the lake, he began to encounter serious hindrances to his progress.

For some days he continued at Skenesborough, and issued thence a second proclamation to the people of the Grants, offering to those who should meet Colonel Skene at Castleton "terms by which the disobedient may yet be spared." Schuyler addressed a counter proclamation to the same people, warning them that, if they made terms with the enemy, they would be treated as traitors; and he continually urged them to remove all cattle and carriages beyond reach of the enemy.

Schuyler had two brigades of militia and Continentals busily employed in destroying bridges, and obstructing roads by felling huge trees across them, and, in all ways that expert axemen and woodsmen could devise, making difficult the pa.s.sage of an army. Having accomplished this, Schuyler abandoned Fort Edward, which was in no condition for defense, and fell back to Stillwater, thirty miles above Albany.

When Burgoyne began to advance toward Fort Edward, his progress was slow and tedious. The obstructed channel of Wood Creek was cleared to Fort Anne, roads cleared and repaired, and forty bridges rebuilt, before, at the snail's pace of a mile in twenty-four hours, he reached Fort Edward. When, on the 30th of July, he established his headquarters here on the Hudson, there was great rejoicing in his army; for now it was thought all serious obstacles were past, and the safe and easy path to Albany lay open before them.

The fall of Ticonderoga and the almost unchecked invasion of their country created a panic among the settlers of western Vermont.

Burgoyne's threat of turning loose his Indian allies upon the obdurate incensed most and alarmed all who were exposed to the horrors of such cruel warfare. A few half-hearted Whigs, who became known as Protectioners,--a name but little less opprobrious than Tory,--availed themselves of his proffered clemency, and sought the protection of his army; and a few Tories seized the opportunity now offered to take the side to which they had always inclined.

All the farms in the exposed region were abandoned, the owners carrying away such of their effects as could be hastily removed on horseback and in their few carts and wagons, and, driving their stock before them, hurried toward a place of refuge. The main highways leading southward--at fords, bridges, and the almost impa.s.sable mudholes that were common to the new-country roads--were choked with hors.e.m.e.n, footmen, lumbering vehicles heavily laden with women, children, and house-gear, and with struggling and straying flocks and herds.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] Chipman's _Life of Warner_.

CHAPTER XII.