Not Your Father's Founders (5 page)
Read Not Your Father's Founders Online
Authors: Arthur G. Sharp
Amesbury, Massachusetts
November 21, 1729âMay 19, 1795
New Hampshire's One-Man Delegation
For a young man from rural New Hampshire, a large city like Philadelphia in 1776 must have seemed like a foreign country. The entire population of New Hampshire at that time was around 80,000 people. There were 30,000 in Philadelphia. Yet Josiah Bartlett had the courage and credentials to travel to the big city alone and take his seat at the Continental Congress that year for the sake of independence. Bartlett was not the rural bumpkin stereotype that people in more culturally advanced places such as Boston pictured. He knew Latin and Greek, was a physician, a colonel in the militia, and a justice of the peace. Bartlett was a well-rounded man, just the kind New Hampshire needed to represent it at the Continental Congress. He had a reputation as a principled individual and legislator who was willing to defy pro-British authorities such as the royal governor. He did not disappoint the people of his state.
Josiah Bartlett began his political career in the tiny frontier town of Kingston, New Hampshire. There were few families living there, and he was the only doctor in the area. Since he was well educated, people looked to him for guidance in political and health matters. It was not surprising that they elected him to the Colonial Assembly in 1765.
Bartlett was married on January 15, 1754. There is some question about whom he married. Local records show that he was married to a Mary Bartlett. Genealogy documents at the Harvard Library list his wife as his cousin, Hannah Webster. Either way, he and his wife had twelve children, three of whom became doctorsâas did seven of their grandsons.
As the colonists began to express their dissatisfaction with British policies, Bartlett became more vocal about his Whig views.
Whigs were anti-king and Parliament. They were opposed by the Tories. Bartlett's views put him on a collision course with New Hampshire's royal governor, John Wentworthâa course that would end well only for one of them. It was not Wentworth.
Like many of his patriot brethren, Bartlett got his start in the Continental Congress through the Committee of Correspondence, which he joined in 1774 while serving in New Hampshire's Assembly. Wentworth learned that year about the formation of a committee of correspondence appointed by the assembly to promote independence for New Hampshire and coordinate its efforts with similar groups from other colonies. Consequently, he dissolved the assembly. Undeterred, the disbanded delegates formed their own Provincial Assembly.
It was common among the colonies at the time for members of dissolved general assemblies to form their own legislative bodies in defiance of their governors. Then, the rogue, extralegal assemblies would select delegates to the Continental Congress.
The New Hampshire Provincial Assembly immediately appointed Bartlett as one of its two delegates to the First Continental Congress. He turned down the assignment “to spend more time with his family.” (That much-loved excuse is older than you may think!) However, it's possible that Bartlett stayed in New Hampshire to protect his family; his home had burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1774. The Tories were prime suspects. By a strange coincidence, the home of the other delegate, John Pickering, also burned down that same year.
Political bickering in New Hampshire came to a head in 1775. Patriots expelled Governor Wentworth, but he did not leave without a fight. One of his final acts was to revoke Bartlett's commissions as justice of the peace, colonel, and assemblyman. It was a desperate act by a disappointed man. The Provincial Assembly responded by appointing Bartlett to represent the colony at the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776.
1775 was a difficult year for Bartlett. He was the only delegate from New Hampshire at the Second Continental Congress for a while. Because Congress preferred that each of its committees include at least one representative from each colony, Bartlett was kept very busy serving on the committees considered most important: safety, secrecy, munitions, marine. If there was a committee of significance, Bartlett was on it.
Finally, Bartlett wrote home in desperation to ask for help. The Provincial Assembly dispatched John Langdon and William Whipple to complement Bartlett. Whipple was back the next year to sign the Declaration of Independence, along with Bartlett and Matthew Thornton.
Once Bartlett's workload decreased, he threw himself into the congressional committee activities in Philadelphia to the point that both his mental and physical health weakened, although he recovered quickly.
Josiah Bartlett was the first delegate asked whether independence from Britain was a good idea. The Second Continental Congress accorded him that honor when it decided to begin the polling with the northernmost colony and proceed geographically to the southern delegations. He answered yes. In that same vein, when the delegates to the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, Bartlett was the second signer, after John Hancock.
After the Congress concluded its mission, Bartlett returned to New Hampshire, but his work was far from done.
As a reward for his hard work, the New Hampshire Assembly reelected Bartlett to another term with the Continental Congress. This time he abstained. His wife, who had managed the family farm and raised the children in his absence, was as tired as he was. He served one more term in the Continental Congress in 1778 and then returned to New Hampshire to retireâsort of.
Dr. Josiah Bartlett applied his medical skills at the August 16, 1777, Battle of Bennington. Even though it was named for a town in Vermont, the battle actually took place at Walloomsac, New York, ten miles west. Other than that one battle, Bartlett did not participate in the war.
Bartlett could not sit around. He held almost every political office in New Hampshire while continuing his medical practice. He served as the chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Courtâeven though he was not a lawyerâand governor. The state legislature selected him to serve as a U.S. senator, but he turned down the position because it required him to leave New Hampshire.
But Josiah Bartlett could not go on forever. His dual medical and political careers took their toll on his health. He resigned from the governor's chair in 1794 and died a year later.
Bartlett, like so many of his cosigners, is remembered via the names of towns and streets in New Hampshire. But there is no more vivid memory of him than his signature on the Declaration of Independence. That was a big honor for the man from the small colony of New Hampshire.
Augusta, Virginia
1745âAugust 22, 1781
A Campbell Created by a Committee
Brigadier General and political leader William Campbell's role in the Revolutionary War was like a cameo in a movie. Few people recognize his name or his role. He and his troops defeated a Tory army at Kings Mountain, North Carolina, on October 7, 1780, in a relatively obscure battle that had a large impact on the outcome of the war and the country's future. He was a symbol of the virtually unrecognized men and women who stepped up during the war and made contributions that did not seem important at the time, but that altered the course of history.
Campbell was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (the colony's legislature, which was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America), like his brother-in-law Patrick Henry, a patriot who despised British rule.
On January 20, 1775, Campbell, along with twelve other representatives of Fincastle County, Virginia, signed a resolution to be forwarded to the colony's delegation at the First Continental Congress. It stated that they would resist the Intolerable Acts (punitive laws of the Britishâsee
Appendix A
for more information). They swore they would fight to their deaths to preserve their political liberties. The document became known as the Fincastle Resolutions.
Campbell was willing to do more than sign resolutions. He was ready and willing to fight the British, wherever and whenever. He was especially eager to punish Tories for their misguided allegiance if the chance arose. It did.
Campbell was not fond of Tories. He earned the nickname of the “bloody tyrant of Washington County” for his harsh treatment of people who remained loyal to Britain during the war.
State militias in the southern part of the United States were busy between 1778 and 1781. The British invaded the region because they believed the numerous Tories in the area would flock to their side. They did not reckon on the strength and cunning of the patriots, who fought an unconventional battle at Kings Mountain, North Carolina, just west of Charlotte.
The Battle of Kings Mountain, which is omitted or glossed over in many history books, is considered by some historians as the turning point in the Revolutionary War. The patriot militia's victory destroyed the left wing of General Charles Cornwallis's British army and forced it to abandon its operations in North Carolina. Cornwallis moved his army to South Carolina to await reinforcements. While he waited, American General Nathanael Greene increased his own forces, which were ultimately successful in driving Cornwallis out of South Carolina as well.
The Battle of Kings Mountain did not involve regular British troops. It was fought between patriot and Tory militia units. The Tories were led by Major Patrick Ferguson, a Scottish officer in the British armyâand the only regular army officer on either side at the battle.
The American forces that convened at Kings Mountain included about 900 troops led by Campbell, John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, Benjamin Cleveland, Charles McDowell, and James Williams. They combined their forces when they arrived for the battle, but they did not have a chief commander. They put the matter to a vote. Campbell became the overall commander of the patriot forcesâin other words, a leader created by a committee.
Major Ferguson's little army included about 1,125 Tories defending a mountain about one-quarter mile long at an elevation slightly above 1,003 feet. He was confident in his ability to ward off any patriot attack. Ferguson was wrong. The patriots were determined to drive the enemy off the mountainâif any of the Tories were still alive after the battle.
Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
“H
E WAS ON
K
INGS
M
OUNTAIN, THAT HE WAS
K
ING OF THAT MOUNTAIN AND THAT
G
OD
A
LMIGHTY AND ALL THE
R
EBELS OF
H
ELL COULD NOT DRIVE HIM FROM IT
.”
âC
OLONEL
I
SAAC
S
HELBY, DESCRIBING
M
AJOR
P
ATRICK
F
ERGUSON
Some of the patriot leaders were veterans of Lord Dunmore's War in 1774 against the Shawnee and Mingo Indians and they had developed unconventional battle strategies as a result. At about 3
P.M.
on the day of the battle, the patriots attacked in a four-column formation. Campbell led one of the interior columns. Their years of hunting in the mountains and fighting Indians paid off. They fired from behind trees and rocks, a style of warfare that flustered Ferguson and his troops. The patriots decimated their enemies and killed Ferguson.
The Tories tried to surrender to the patriots' leader, but they could not find him. Campbell had removed his coat and was fighting in an open-collared shirt. No one could single him out as the elected commander. Finally, the slaughter abated of its own accord.
The Battle of Kings Mountain lasted about one hour. Casualty figures show how one sided it was. There were 225 Tories killed, 163 wounded, and 716 captured. Not one of them escaped! Only twenty-eight patriots were killed and sixty-eight wounded.
The unheraldedâbut historically significantâbattle all but ended the war in the South.
Allegedly, the patriots stripped Major Ferguson's clothes from his body and urinated on his remains before burying him near where he fell.
After General Cornwallis heard about the outcome of the Battle of Kings Mountain, he withdrew his troops from North Carolina and assembled them near Winnsboro, South Carolina. But it was too late for him.
Within a few months the Continental Army and their militia counterparts chased Cornwallis out of South Carolina, the South in general, and the United States. Campbell had earned himself a place in history, but he did not live long enough to realize what he had accomplished.
The Virginia Assembly commissioned William Campbell as a brigadier general in 1781. It was his last promotion. In June of that year, Campbell joined the French military leader Marquis de Lafayette in eastern Virginia to continue the campaign against the British. On August 22, 1781, he suffered an apparent heart attack and died.
The assembly granted 5,000 acres of land to his young son, Charles Henry Campbell, to express its appreciation for his father's distinguished service.
The “Campbell created by a committee” had driven a lethal nail into the British army's campaign to defeat the American enemy. More importantly, he had shown that some of the biggest heroes in the war for independence were not Founding Fathers: They were often everyday Americans, whose numbers formed the biggest committee of patriots in the country.