From Farm House to the White House - 912 Freedom Library

Farm House to the White House, by William M. Thayer 153
It was finally determined to put General Putnam in command at New York, and he was hurried away, with all
the troops in Boston but five regiments, and instructions to complete the fortifications commenced by General
Lee. Two or three months before, in consequence of the appearance of a British fleet, under Clinton, in the
harbor of New York, and the secret plottings of Governor Tryon and the Tories, Washington placed General
Lee in command there. Lee at once arrested leading Tories, and sent them to prison, threatening all the rest, in
his fiery way, with similar punishment if they continued to aid the enemy. Governor Tryon fled to a British
man-of-war in the harbor, accompanied by several of his political advisers, and from those new headquarters
he continued secret intercourse with the Tories. New dangers soon arising farther south, General Lee was
transferred to the Southern Military Department, with headquarters at Williamsburg.
Such was the state of affairs in New York when General Putnam took command, with not more than eight
thousand available troops in the town and vicinity.
Washington ordered three thousand militia to go to his aid from Connecticut, and as soon as he could arrange
affairs in Boston he himself hastened to New York with his body-guard, where he arrived on the thirteenth
day of April.
Before this time he had learned that General Howe proceeded to Halifax, to await large reinforcements from
Great Britain; that his brother, Admiral Howe, with his naval fleet, would join him there, and then the great
army would sail for New York.
He did not know, however, at that time, what the British Government was doing "to crush the rebels in North
America." He learned afterwards that the king, stung to madness by the failure of his army in Boston, resolved
to avenge the defeat by a terrible blow upon New York. He hired seventeen thousand Hessians to join the
army, paying them liberally for their services, and these hirelings would swell the invading army to startling
proportions.
Notwithstanding the evacuation of Boston, the cause of the patriots never seemed more hopeless than it did
when the British army, under the two Howes, appeared below New York.
"Our army in Canada is beaten and shattered," Washington said, "and our cause is lost there. Here it is
difficult to tell friend from foe. It is claimed that half of the people in New York are Tories, and what
communications they may have with the British army, through Tryon, it is impossible to tell. We have not half
the men absolutely required to hold this position, and what we have are poorly clad and equipped, and not half
fed. Then we have reason to suspect that the enemy will come with greater inhumanity to man, and that fire
and sword will do a more fearful work than ever. What some of the British officers are capable of doing in the
way of fiendish devastation was shown in Boston, when the burning of every town between that city and
Halifax was ordered, and Portland was laid in ashes."
Washington wrote to his brother:
"We expect a bloody summer in New York and Canada; and I am sorry to say that we are not, either in men or
arms, prepared for it. However, it is to be hoped that, if our cause is just, as I most religiously believe, the
same Providence which has in many instances appeared for us will still go on to afford us its aid."
Congress was in session at Philadelphia, and Washington went thither to confer with members concerning the
summer campaign, and to plead for aid. Through his influence, Congress added twenty-three thousand militia
to the army, including a flying camp of ten thousand.
In the midst of these troubles a conspiracy of startling magnitude was discovered. "A part of the plot being,"
says Sparks, "to seize General Washington and carry him to the enemy." Rev. John Marsh of Wethersfield,
Conn., wrote and published the following account of the affair: