11:32 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 13, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

John Adams called 1777 "The year of the hangman" because the three 7's evoked images of the gallows. Throughout the summer of that year Nathanael and Gen. George Washington were constantly baffled by British troop movements, and the lack of them. British and Hessian soldiers outnumbered American troops by more than 30,000 to less than 10,000.

The British commander in chief, Sir William Howe, had an embarrassment of riches under his command: 16,000 troops in and around New York City; 8,500 troops under Gen. John Burgoyne up in Quebec, waiting to spill down the Hudson River; and the troops under Gen. Richard Prescott in Newport, which peaked at about 6,000 men.

With barely 7,000 soldiers fit for duty at Morristown, and another 2,500 holding Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, the Americans could not press an offensive. They had to react to whatever Howe decided to do from his New York headquarters where he carried on a highly publicized dalliance with a blond married beauty named Elizabeth Loring. The affair provided fodder for much doggerel, including this ditty from a New Jersey congressman:

"Sir William, he, as snug as flea

Lay all this time a-snoring;

Nor dreamed of harm. As he lay warm

In bed with Mrs. Loring."

Waiting for Howe to make his move drove Greene to distraction. By some late Accounts from England we learn that Boston is to be attackt , he wrote to his wife in early May. The troops continueing so long at Rhode Island seems to favor the oppinion. General How[e] sill threatens Philadelphia. If he attempts it, it will be a bloody march. It is said [General] Carlton is crossing the Lakes [Champlain and George]. If that be true General How must be bound up the North River, notwithstanding all his Parade for the Southward.

With a wife and two children living on Narragansett Bay, Greene's attention often turned toward the British troops occupying Newport.

I cannot see how General How can Justify himself in keeping such a considerable detachment of his forces to hold such an inconsiderable island, Greene wrote to Rhode Island's governor, Nicholas Cooke. The importance of the place [Rhode Island] bears no proportion to the injury it does the service in the demunition [diminution] it does to their force, an excellent observation.

Rhode Islanders were among the most rebellious people in the former British colonies, and they were livid that up to 6,000 British soldiers were able to occupy their state without serious challenge.

That spring the state's ornery General Assembly declared it a disgrace that no attack "hath, as yet, been made against the enemy." The Assembly then set bounties on the capture of British soldiers, from $20 for a private to $1,000 for a general.

There was one man from Warren who opted to go after the big prize, a militia colonel named Billy Barton.

Waiting in Newport

William Barton worked as a hatter in Providence and was a captain with Rhode Island's militia when he hatched the audacious plan that would win him nationwide recognition, a promotion to colonel and the prize of "an elegant sword" from Congress.

What Barton had in mind was the capture of Gen. Richard Prescott, the officer in charge of the British and Hessian troops that occupied Newport -- which, in the summer of 1777, numbered about 4,000.

If the Americans could capture a British general, they would have a bargaining chip to win the release of their own captured general, the venerated if eccentric Charles Lee. In the days of the American Revolution it was common practice for armies to trade prisoners of equal rank -- in fact, Prescott had already been captured once, in Quebec, then was exchanged for Gen. John Sullivan, who'd been captured on Long Island.

Barton's plan was bold, so much so that it bordered on foolishness. Besides having 4,000 troops at his beck and call, Prescott was on an island, Aquidneck or Rhode Island, surrounded by a squadron of warships.

Barton, 29, knew the East Bay well; he'd grown up in Warren and lived for a time in Newport. He knew the lay of the land, and he still knew people in Newport who gave him good intelligence on British movements, including the comings and goings of Prescott.

Barton knew that Prescott liked to spend his nights about 4 miles outside of Newport on the West Road, staying at the house of a Mr. Overing.

British Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, who kept a meticulous diary during the Newport occupation, wrote that Prescott stayed so far from town because he liked to be near the British field camp on the northern end of Rhode Island just in case something happened.

But popular opinion held that Prescott liked to have liaisons with a local lady or ladies at Overing's farmhouse or, as one periodical put it, "he lodged there that night with some of his whores."

Billy Barton's brave men

William Barton's party of 38 men were brave to the point of being crazy. To succeed in capturing Prescott they'd have to row undetected beneath the cannon of warships then, ashore, steal past armed sentries, kick in a door, capture a general and somehow escape with him. Failure would be met with almost certain death, either through the obliterating roar of cannon or through a tortuous wasting away aboard rotting prison ships.

On July 9, 1777, the raiding party gathered at dark on Warwick Neck; they boarded five whale boats and with muffled oars silently pulled away.

They rowed through the gut between Prudence Island and Jamestown, then between two warships, the Chatham and the Diamond, anchored 5 miles apart.

After a row of about 8 miles they stepped ashore near midnight, about one-half mile from Overing's house on the West Road. Their feet smudged the dew in the fields as they hiked, crossing a creek then cutting through the edge of an orchard to avoid a guardhouse.

A sentry posted at Overing's door called: "Who goes there? Advance and give the countersign."

"We have none," Barton replied, according to an 1839 biography of him, "But do you see any deserters tonight?"

The sentry could not fire a shot as his musket was not loaded. The raiding party pinned his arms and warned "instant death if you make the least noise."

They kicked in the door and stormed into Prescott's chambers. In addition to the general and his aide, they took two silver cups and a coat, and smashed a large mirror. The raid took just 7 minutes; they were in such a hurry that Prescott had to leave without one of his stockings.

Barton and his raiders squired their partially barefoot general back over the fields, sat him in a whale boat and began rowing him back to Warwick Neck.

On Rhode Island, all was confusion. A dragoon staying above the kitchen at Overing's remained quiet till the raiding party was gone, then ran 300 yards to the guardhouse. He feared that the guards had been captured too, so he ran back to Overing's, rousted a black servant and sent him to the guardhouse.

The guard did not see the footprints that darkened the dew, and had no idea which way the raiders had gone. The dragoon mounted his horse and thundered off to camp at Fogland Ferry on the island's east side. The soldiers who turned out there assumed the rebels had come over from Tiverton and began scouring the island's east side.

Nearly two hours passed before two guns boomed and a rocket flared in the sky above Windmill Hill, a signal to British warships that something was wrong. By that time Barton and his men were already alighting on Warwick Neck with their captured general.

Even British Lt. Frederick Mackenzie gave grudging respect to Barton and his men for pulling off the capture:

"The Rebels certainly run a great risk in making this attempt; as a shot fired by the Sentry would have given the Alarm, and a Single boat falling in with them, would in all probability have frustrated their design. They however executed it in a masterly manner, and deserve credit for the attempt. It is certainly a most extraordinary circumstance, that a General Commanding a body of 4,000 men, encamped on an Island surrounded by a Squadron of Ships of War, should be carried off from his quarters in the night by a small party of the Enemy from without, & without a Shot being fired."

gcarbone@projo.com / (401) 277-7434

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