02:32 PM EDT on Friday, June 30, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

On Oct. 22, 1777, Gen. George Washington ordered about 400 Rhode Islanders into Fort Mercer, a large earthwork of 14 cannon, barracks and a few outbuildings. About a third of these Rhode Island soldiers were 16 years old or younger.

And that day they made history.

Fort Mercer stood at a place called Red Bank on the New Jersey shore of the Delaware River; directly across from it, on Mud Island, stood Fort Mifflin. Together these two forts represented Washington's last hope of driving the British out of Philadelphia, then America's largest city.

After two months of marching and fierce fighting at Brandywine and Germantown, the British now held Philadelphia. But the Americans held the water approaches to it -- the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers. If the British could not soon evict the Americans from those forts controlling the rivers, they would have to quit the city. As it was, troops and civilians in the city were miserably off because they could not ship in supplies. With control of the rivers, Washington had reasonable hopes of starving the British out.

In ordering the Rhode Island soldiers into the fort at Red Bank, Washington wrote to their commander, James Varnum: "Upon the whole, sir, you will be pleased to remember, that the post with which you're now intrusted is of the utmost importance to America."

With winter coming, British Gen. William Howe could wait no longer to clear the Delaware of the American forts. A Hessian officer, Carl Emil Kurt von Donop, practically begged for the assignment of attacking the 400 Rhode Islanders in the fort. Von Donop's Hessians had been humiliated in the Christmas Day attack on Trenton; he wanted revenge.

On that day, Oct. 22, 1777, von Donop led four battalions of Hessian veterans, some 2,000 in all, on a march toward Fort Mercer.

A roster of the names inside that fort sounds like a street map of present day Providence: Col. Israel Angell, a cooper (a maker of wood barrels) from Providence; Maj. Simeon Thayer; Asa Potter; and Stephen and Jeremiah Olney.

Greene's young confidant, Samuel Ward Jr., now a veteran of the Canadian campaign, was also there. All were under the command of Col. Christopher Greene, Nathanael Greene's third cousin. Many of these men had drilled on the parade grounds of East Greenwich as Kentish Guards with Private Nathanael Greene.

As 1,200 of the Hessians advanced on 400 Rhode Islanders, Col. Christopher Greene strolled along the top of the fort's earthen walls, peering through his pocket spyglass at the enemy's elaborate uniforms.

"Fire low men," he said; "they have a broad belt just above their hips -- aim at that."

Around 4 p.m. a Hessian drummer came forward beating for a parlay. Behind him walked an officer with a flag. Jeremiah Olney, then a lieutenant colonel, went out of the fort to meet them.

The Hessian officer said, "The King of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down their arms, and they are warned that if they stand the battle, no quarter whatever will be given them."

Olney responded: "We shall neither ask for quarter, nor expect it, and shall defend the fort to the last extremity."

The 400 Rhode Islanders would make their stand against 1,200 battle-tested Hessian soldiers.

As soon as Olney returned to the fort, the Hessians opened fire with 12 cannon. Stephen Olney recalled: "their first general discharge was tremendous. It made the gravel and dust fly from the top of our fort, and took off all the heads that happened to be in the way."

Col. Christopher Greene had drawn his men to the fort's inner core, leaving the fort's first trenches unmanned. When the Hessians found these works empty they thought the Americans had abandoned them in retreat. They broke into a trot, buoyed by the belief they were chasing defeated, demoralized defenders.

When they were at the walls the waiting Rhode Islanders opened fire, aiming at the enemy's wide belts. The shot cut down the Hessians like wheat. Von Donop himself fell, a ball of hot lead lodged in his hip.

The Hessians regrouped and stormed the fort again; again they were dropped by heavy fire at close range. After 40 minutes of disastrous assaults the Hessians retreated, their ranks thinned by more than 400: 50 captured; 153 dead; 200 wounded, many fatally, including von Donop who while dying, Nathanael Greene noted, lamented his folly in being concerned in the American war.

The Rhode Islanders that day saw 14 killed, including Asa Potter, who was hit by friendly fire, and 23 wounded.

Adding to the rout, a British ship of 64 guns sent to bomb the fort grounded in the Delaware River. The next morning, Americans across the river fired hot cannon shot at it, setting the ship afire. Its powder magazine exploded with a boom heard for 30 miles. The British themselves torched a second ship that had run aground for a total loss of two ships and 400 men.

Ebenezer David, a chaplain to the Rhode Island regiments, wrote: "It is the Opinion of Gen. Green[e] who was a Spectator from the Pensilvania shore that there never was more noble defence in America."

In his memoirs of the war Connecticut Private Joseph Plumb Martin wrote that at Red Bank "brave Rhode-Island Yankees" fought "as brilliant an action as was fought during the revolutionary war, considering the numbers engaged, Bunker-Hill 'to the contrary notwithstanding.' But why it has not been more noticed by the historians of these times I cannot tell."

Stubborn Rhode Islanders

After Red Bank the Howe brothers -- Gen. William Howe and Adm. Richard Howe -- decided to bring all of their power to bear on clearing the American presence from the Delaware River.

With Nathanael Greene skulking about dangerously close to their works to gather intelligence, the British fortified an island with nearly three dozen cannon. On Nov. 10 they opened a barrage on Fort Mifflin, across the river from the stubborn Rhode Island regiments ensconced at Red Bank. Some of them moved over to Fort Mifflin, under Thayer's command, to relieve the forces there.

On Nov. 14, 1777, following four days of bombardment, Greene reported to Washington: The flag was flying at Fort Mifflin at sunset this evening.

Now it was a waiting game: which would break first, the forts or the British will to remain in a besieged city?

Greene wrote to Washington: The enemy are greatly discouraged by the forts holding out so long and it is the general opinion of the best of the citizens that the enemy will evacuate the city if the forts hold out until the middle of next week.

Private Martin, 16, was in Fort Mifflin enduring day after day of British bombardment: "I saw men who were stooping to be protected by the works, but not stooping low enough, split like fish to be broiled. . . . Our men were cut up like cornstalks; I do not know the exact number of killed and wounded, but can say it was not small."

On Nov. 14, Fort Mifflin fell. Now the Howe brothers could focus all of their naval and land forces on Col. Christopher Greene and his Rhode Islanders in Fort Mercer. They sent Lord Cornwallis with nearly 5,000 troops to march on the 500 Rhode Islanders at Red Bank.

As the British advanced, Col. Christopher Greene and Gen. James Varnum ordered men to strip the fort of any guns, balls and food that they could carry off; when the fort was empty, they blew it up. The British now controlled the Delaware and Hudson Rivers; they owned the cities of Philadelphia, New York and Newport.

Gen. Howe made one last attempt to kill off Washington's army at Whitemarsh, but when Washington stood his ground Howe left after a skirmish.

With winter coming on, Howe sent to New York for his mistress, Mrs. Elizabeth Loring. She came to Philadelphia with the assent of her husband, who held a lucrative sinecure as superintendent of prisons, including the prison ships full of sick, dying soldiers in New York Harbor.

Howe made comfortable quarters for himself and his troops in Philadelphia; Washington's troops, barefoot, half of them without breeches, the whole near starvation, marched off to find winter quarters at Valley Forge.

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

A continuing series.

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Sources for today's installment:

"A Rhode Island Chaplain in the Revolution: Letters of Ebenezer David to Nicholas Brown." Black, Jeannette D., and Roelker, William Greene, ed. The Society of the Cincinnati: Providence, 1949.

Boatner III, Mark M. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1994.

Clipson, William J. and Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution. The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, Inc.: Mount Pleasant, S.C., 1986.

Greene, George Washington. The Life of Nathanael Greene, Vol. 1. New York: Hurd and Houghton. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1871.

Martin, Joseph Plumb. A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier. Signet Classic, Penguin Group Inc.: New York, 2001.

Showman, Richard K., ed. The Papers of Nathanael Greene, Vol. II. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1980.

Williams, Catharine R. Biography of Revolutionary Heroes. Published by the author: Providence, 1839.