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FOR THESE WE STRIVE:

THE PHILADELPHIA LIGHT HORSE AND AMERICAN IDENTITY

by

THOMAS BUCK MARSHALL

James Wood, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the

Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honorsin History

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

MAY 25, 2009

Acknowledgments

The idea for this work came during a lunch with Professor Michael Lewis, afriend and a mentor. We were talking about Frank Furness, an architect of iron and stone.The art critic Lewis Mumford described him as "a horsy, flashy, tweedy sort of man."

Furness had won the Medal of Honor for his bravery during the Civil War, where hefought alongside some members of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, a volunteercavalry troop and social organization founded in 1774 as the Philadelphia Light Horse.Our discussion eventually turned into this paper.

I thank my advisor, Professor James Wood, for his patience and support as Ifound my way through this process. I thank John Tulp, whose teaching and friendship hasmeant more to me than he could know. I thank Joseph Seymour and Dennis Boylan, twomembers of the First City Troop who opened the group's private archives to my studyand answered every question I had. Towards the end, I received some critical help fromDr. John Van Home, for which I am indebted. Finally, I thank my mom and dad, and mytwo grandfathers, who gave me an interest in history beyond watching the neon LibertyBell swing over the bleachers of Veterans Stadium when a Phillies ballplayer hit a home­run. lowe all of them a few bottles of Madeira-just the way the Troop would havethanked them.

T. Buck Marshall

Contents

Abbreviations iv

Illustrations v

Introduction 1

1. "Gentlemen of Fortune": The Founding of the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse 11

II. Amateurs to Anns: The Philadelphia Light Horse in the American Revolution 34

III. "The Horse! The Horse!":The Troop's Unconventional Roles During the American Revolution 49

N. A Seed in the Watermelon Anny: The First City Troop in the Early Republic 74

Conclusion 95

Bibliography 99

iii

Abbreviations

APS American Philosophical Society

Armory Armory Collection of Archival Material at the Armory. First TroopPhiladelphia City Cavalry

Donnaldson Donnaldson Narrative, Armory

HSP Historical Society of Pennsylvania

LCP Library Company of Philadelphia

WMQ William and Mary Quarterly

iv

Illustrations

FIGURE 1. Markoe Standard, 1775, Armory.

The first Captain of the Philadelphia Light Horse, Abraham Markoe, commissioned thisstandard for the Troop in 1775. The Philadelphia Light Horse carried it into battle and onparade. It survives today in the Armory of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry.

v

FIGURE 2. Scull and Heap, An East Prospect ofthe City ofPhiladelphia, engraving,1756, LCP.

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This engraved view of Philadelphia depicts merchant activity on the busy DelawareRiver, the Battery and the State House.

vi

FIGURE 3. The Paxton Expedition, Inscribed to the Author ofthe Farce, 1764, LCP.

This scene shows Philadelphia citizens turning out under Benjamin Franklin'sorganization to defend their city from the Paxton Boys, a group of frontiersmen who were

angry at the Quaker-dominated government's lack of military support for the frontieragainst American Indian attacks.

vii

FIGURE 4. William Faden, A Plan ofthe City and Environs ofPhiladelphia, 1777,reprinted by Thomas Fisher, 1847, LCP.

This survey by Scull and Heap, and engraved by William Fadden in 1777, also gives anelevation of the State House.

viii

FIGURE 5. A Representation ofthe Figures Exhibited and Paraded Through the StreetsofPhiladelphia, on Saturday, the 30th ofSeptember, 1780, engraving, printed in Anthony

Sharp's The Continental Almanac, for 1781, 1780, HSP.

This scene is of a procession through Philadelphia to denounce Benedict Arnold-thefonner Continental General who switched sides to the British in the middle of theAmerican Revolution. According to the diarist Samuel Rowland Fisher, the processionwas "escorted by abt. 20 ofthose called Militia & three of those call'd City Light Horseviz: James Budden, John Dunlap & Thomas Leiper."

ix

FIGURE 6. Banner of Philadelphia Tobacconists for Federal Procession, 1788, LCP.

Thomas Leiper, one of the twenty-eight founding members ofthe Philadelphia LightHorse, carried this banner to represent the Tobacconists in the July 4, 1788 FederalProcession. The Troop also paraded as a unit in this celebration ofAmericanIndependence and the new Constitution, which had been ratified by ten states includingPennsylvania. The tobacco plant's thirteen leaves and the thirteen stars over top of it aresymbols of national unity.

x

FIGURE 7. William Russell Birch, High Street, from the Country Market-placePhiladelphia: with the Procession in Commemoration ofthe Death ofGeneral George

Washington, December 26,1799, engraving, 1800, LCP.

The Troop, which had fought with George Washington in battle, served as his escort andhosted him for dinner, marched dismounted in "compleat uniform at the State House forthe purpose of paying their sad tribute ofveneration to the remains of their lateCommander-in-Chief."

xi

Introduction

On the fifth Monday of November, 1812, the American Daily Advertiser read,

"The first Troop of Cavalry will meet this morning at half past eight 0'clock, at Peter

Evans's, in Sixth-street, to attend the Funeral ofMI. JOHN DUNLAP, their late

Commander, by order of the Captain."l Dunlap was the printer of the Declaration of

Independence and the Packet and Daily Advertiser, a newspaper that George Washington

himself had delivered from Philadelphia to his estate at Mount Vernon.2 Dunlap had

emigrated to Philadelphia from Ireland with his family when he was around nine. He

immediately apprenticed to his uncle's small printing business in the city, eventually

buying it and growing it tremendously when his uncle left to become a clergyman. By the

end ofhis life, Dunlap had amassed a large fortune, including 98,000 acres of land in

Virginia-modem day Kentucky-and proceeds from the $100,000 sale of his mansion

and land in Philadelphia between Market and Chestnut, and Eleventh and Twelfth

streets.3 Among Dunlap's many possessions at his death was one item that his son took

special care in returning to the same Captain who had called out the Troop to attend his

father's funeral procession.

This item was a flag that the young John Dunlap, JI. had sent to Captain Charles

Ross, writing, "I hereby forward to you the Standard of76, and being convinced that it is

the inestimable property of that Old Troop I resign all private claim to it.,,4 Dunlap Sr.

1 Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 30 November 1812.2 George Washington to Clement Biddle, 5 March 1788, in "Selections from the Correspondence ofColonel Clement Biddle," The Pennsylvania Magazine o/History and Biography 48 (January 1918):338-39.3 Dunlap made this sale to the Philadelphia merchant Stephen Girard. John Dunlap, Estate Papers,1812, HSP.4 John Dunlap to Charles Ross, 18 February 1813, Armory. John Dunlap Jr. joined the Troop in 1807.

1

had been in possession of the "Standard of76" from his own earlier service as Captain of

the Philadelphia Light Horse, which later became known as the First City Troop. Dunlap

had contributed to the American Revolution both as a printer and a founding member of

the Philadelphia Light Horse, a volunteer cavalry troop that fought in the American

Revolution and served the Revolutionary Pennsylvanian and Continental governments.

On the Standard of76, or Markoe Standard as it was named for the Troop's first Captain,

thirteen blue and silver stripes alternate in the top left comer set against the flag's gold

background. In the center of the silk square, an Indian warrior and a winged angel flank a

shield and a horse's head. The warrior symbolizes liberty. He holds a bow in one hand,

and in the other, a pole with a liberty cap. The angel symbolizes fame. She blows a

trumpet and carries a wand. Beneath the warrior and angel reads the motto, For These We

Strive.

The Markoe Standard's symbols distinguish it from other early standards. Its

thirteen-stripe motif representing the thirteen American colonies is among the first known

depictions. The stripes connect the troop to a national identity, not simply a city or colony.

In contrast, the standard designed in 1775 for the Hanover Associators, a frontier militia

in Pennsylvania, forgoes the pageantry ofthe Troop's flag. It depicts a single rifleman

standing against a red background. He wears buckskin boots, a clean blue top and a

simple black-feathered hat. Beneath him is the motto: Liberty or Death. This sense of

laconic liberty and frontier individualism is distinct from the Troop's more embellished

symbolism and national consciousness.

The danger exists in interpreting too much from a standard-even one that the

Troop chose to carry proudly throughout the Revolution and Early Republic in battle and

2

on parade. The Troop's distinct standard, however, helped to inspire my study ofthe

Troop from its 1774 inception in Carpenters' Hall through its role in suppressing the

1799 Fries' Rebellion in nearby Pennsylvania counties. I tell this history in three parts:

first, of the rise to power of a more pragmatic Anglican and Presbyterian elite over the

Pennsylvania Quaker establishment; second, of that elite fighting for a Revolutionary

American government that would institutionalize its vision ofAmerican society; and

third, of that elite's mining the legacy of the American Revolution for meaning and

cultural identity.

Histories on Philadelphia, the Revolution and the Early Republic form the basis of

my questions and perspectives, as do letters, journals, Trooper Rolls and Trooper

Histories assembled in the Troop's archives at 22 South 23rd Street, Philadelphia. Before

I construct my argument, I will describe the foundations; before I outline my chapters, I

will describe my sources. My thesis contributes to the dialogue on the American

Revolution's role in transforming American society. Gordon Wood, in The Radicalism of

the American Revolution, introduces himself in opposition to what he defines as the

Progressive and Neo-Progressive Schools that interpret the Revolution as a more socially

conservative event. For Wood, the Revolution was indeed radical, "as radical and as

revolutionary as any in history."s For Wood, it was the transformative event.6 Jon Butler

gives another interpretation in Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776. 7 In

Butler's story, or history, the fundamental changes to American society took place before

the Declaration of Independence. Gary Nash's The Unknown American Revolution: The

5 Gordon Wood, The Radicalism ofthe American Revolution (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1992),5.6 lbid., 8.7 Jon Butler, Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 2000).

3

Unruly Birth ofDemocracy and the Struggle to Create America denies any reductionist

attempt to synthesize a single meaning from the Revolution.8 He sees American society

in this period as a crucible where the struggle for authority and an American vision is

central to the Revolution. The Troop's evolution as both a social and military institution

responds to questions surrounding the Revolution's role as an agent of change. My thesis

explores the vision of America for which the Troop fought and the conflicts its American

identity created with other American groups.

The Revolution has inspired many different, often conflicting, responses. A

chronological historiography of the Revolution and Early Republic will have exceptions

to any synthesis offered. These conflicting interpretations have only increased as

historical writing in America has multiplied in the second half of the twentieth century.

With this as a forewarning, post-World War II American military history has increasingly

focused on the militia and the citizen soldier. New types ofmilitary history emerged with

this and a shift to history from the bottom-up. In the 1960s, military history and historians

moved to extend "beyond campaign description and strategic analysis ... [to examine]

peacetime institutional development and policymaking, and connections between war and

society.,,9 In much the same way, my questions on the Troop as a military and social

institution during and following the Revolution place it in the context of this New

Military History. 10

8 Gary Nash, The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth ofDemocracy and the Struggle toCreate America (New York: Viking, 2005).9 Jerry Cooper, The Militia and National Guard in America since Colonial Times: A Research Guide(London: Greenwood Press, 1993),52.10 Examples of this history of the Revolution include: Lawrence Cress, Citizens in Arms: The Armyand the Militia in American Society to the War of1812 (Chapel Hill, NC: University ofNorthCarolina Press, 1982); Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army andAmerican Character, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); JohnShy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence

4

My historical analysis of the Troop is not Jesse Lemisch's call for history from

the bottom Up.II George Washington described Troopers as "gentlemen of fortune" in a

letter to the Troop, where he thanked its members for their "noble example of discipline

and subordination" and "spirit and bravery.,,12 Troopers were not farmers or

Philadelphian laborers and artisans; they were "professional men, ship owners, shippers

and importers-'traders in dry goods, teas, wines, silks and linens. ",13 All members were

wealthy enough to fully equip and support themselves and their horses throughout the

Revolution. Their status as gentlemen in Revolutionary society shaped their objectives,

actions and national ideology. Because these often conflicted with the loyalists-

Americans loyal to the Crown-and also fellow patriots of lower socioeconomic standing,

studying the Troop engages with history from the top and bottom of American society.

The Troop's status as a collection of urban gentlemen is, in part, what makes its

actions in the Revolution so compelling. Its twenty-eight founding members volunteered

their services to the Continental Congress, not to their local community. In addition to

participating in the Battles ofTrenton, Princeton, Brandywine and Germantown,

Troopers served as reconnaissance men, couriers, money and prison guards, escorts and

riot-busters. Steven Rosswurm, in Arms, Country and Class: The Philadelphia Militia

and 'Lower Sort' During the American Revolution, 1775-1783, writes, "the militia

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); David Martin, The Philadelphia Campaign: June 1777­July 1778 (Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 2003); David Hackett Fischer, Washington'sCrossing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).11 See Jesse Lemisch, "The Revolution Seen from the Bottom Up," in Barton J. Bernstein, ed.,Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York: Pantheon Books, 1968), 3­29.12 George Washington to Samuel Morris, 23 January 1777, Armory.13 Joseph Lapsley Wilson, ed., Book ofthe First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry (Philadelphia:Hallowell, 1915),2.

5

transfonned the laboring poor; the laboring poor transfonned the militia.,,14 In a similar

way, the Philadelphia gentlemen who founded the Troop went from military amateurs to

veterans and used their military service to wield power and enhance their status. Military

service was not merely a reflection of social and economic status, but a way to improve it.

The Troop's role in putting down insurrections in the Early Republic reveals this struggle

continuing after the American Revolution. It indicates the divisions between the urban

elite-merchants and professionals-and small land-owning farmers, as well as the city's

artisans and laboring poor. The Troop's interactions with Rosswunn's "lower sort" are

central to its identity.

The Troop's own recording and collection ofits history have helped to shape its

identity. Items like the Markoe Standard and the 1777 letter of thanks from George

Washington offer perspectives into the Philadelphia Light Horse. The very act of

preservation reveals a pride that the Troop took in its connection to the Revolution. In

1815, a committee of three Troopers examined the records of the Light Horse to establish

an early history and list of membership. It assembled papers and interviewed living

Troopers to detennine the Troop's actions before 1796, after which time, minutes had

been regularly kept and saved. One ofthe committee members, John R. C. Smith, would

rise to become Captain of the Troop. As Captain in 1823, he contacted John Donnaldson,

one of the seven surviving members of the Troop from the Revolutionary War, and asked

him to write his recollections. He compiled these with other existing documents to fonn

14 Steven Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and the 'Lower Sort' Duringthe American Revolution, 1775-1783 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987),75.

6

the Donnaldson Narrative "as an authentic book ofminutes from 17 November 1774 to

January 1796.,,15

Troop members continued to follow in this tradition. In 1856, a committee of five

Troopers selected some papers and letters from the Troop archive to be printed in a small

book. 16 In 1874 and 1915, members published two histories of their Troop. 17 These

histories provide the annals of the Troop from 1774 to 1914, also including appendices

with information on its meeting places and armories, its Captains and a list of its

members. In a similar style, Troopers published two later histories, the first in 1948 and

the second in 1991Y Each focuses on the Troop's actions in the years after the earlier

histories were published. These histories have helped point me to dates, letters and

individuals critical to my understanding of the Troop and its relationship with an

emerging American identity.

I structure my exploration of the Troop into four chapters where chronology is a

loose guide. The first chapter frames the Troop's 1774 association in a broader context,

emphasizing how the shift in Pennsylvania from the rule of a pacifist Quaker elite in the

Pennsylvania Assembly to that of citizens more willing to use military force enabled and

shaped the Troop's founding. The emerging non-Quaker mercantile and professional elite

made up the Philadelphia Light Horse. This group, in addition to artisans, laborers and

15 It is likely that Donnaldson and some of the other surviving members were with Smith for parts ofthe compilation process, as the account includes some narrative sections in different handwriting thanSmith and the use of the first person tense. Donnaldson himself was the first man elected into theTroop after their founding, becoming the twenty-ninth member in October, 1775.16 By-Laws, Muster-Roll, and Papers Selectedfrom the Archives ofthe First Troop Philadelphia CityCavalry, from November 17,1774, to March 1, 1856 (Philadelphia: James B. Smith and Co., 1856).17 First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, ed., History ofthe First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry,from Its Organization, November 17, 1774 to Its Centennial Anniversary, November 17, 1874(Princeton: Hallowell, 1875); Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915.18 History ofthe First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, 1915-1947 (Philadelphia: Hallowell, 1948);History ofthe First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, 1948-1991 (Philadelphia: Winchell, 1991).

7

farmers closer to the frontier, used the increasing importance of Pennsylvania's military

defense to assert their voice and claim power in Pennsylvania's government.

The second chapter follows the Troop's conventional light horse role during the

American Revolution, where it acted as couriers and reconnaissance men for the

Continental and Pennsylvania armies and governments. The Troop also participated in

the four major battles around Philadelphia: Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine and

Germantown. In these actions, the Troop fought to establish a Revolutionary American

government and society that would institutionalize its vision of American society-the

vision of the more pragmatic Anglican and Presbyterian elite that had seized power from

the Quakers.

To examine the nature ofthis vision, the third chapter explores the Troop's

nonconventional role as a light horse unit during the war. Troopers rode in and put down

a riot where militiamen had attacked a group of prominent Philadelphians, including

other Troop members, for opposing the price-fixing of goods. The Philadelphia Light

Horse strove to assert the authority ofthe Revolutionary government and maintain order,

serving as an early form of domestic police and helping the Pennsylvania government

negotiate terms with 2,500 soldiers who had revolted, demanding that their enlistment

contracts be met. In these actions, the Troop fought to establish an independent America

with a strong state and national government that would protect property rights and

contracts.

The fourth chapter shows the Philadelphia Light Horse continuing to defend the

authority of the American government and its laws. The Troop rode as part of larger

armies to stop two revolts in Pennsylvania that were directed at increased government

8

taxation-reflecting the lingering divisions in Pennsylvania. The Troop reinforced these

actions in its ceremonial roles. Through escorts and parades, the Light Horse tried to

foster patriotism and construct a national identity that would better establish the authority

of state and Federal government. In the 1790s, as citizens of the young nation split into

Republicans supporting states' rights and the primacy of the yeoman farmer, and

Federalists supporting stronger national government and the primacy of the businessman

and merchant, the Troop defended the Federalist order and tried to redirect the loyalties

of Philadelphians to this vision ofAmerica.

In my thesis, I treat meaning as a product ofmy present engagement with

documents and material artifacts of the past. My present, as constituted through my

memory and consciousness, guides my perspective. In a similar way, the Troop's

present-an ongoing present throughout its own history-shaped its engagement with the

Revolution. Ultimately, the Troop drew and formed its identity from the Revolution.

The Revolution itself is no longer the radical agent of change as seen by Gordon

Wood. Nor is the Revolution an event that did not impact the fundamentals ofAmerican

society following the War, or a conservative event that simply preserved the social

hierarchy. The power of the Revolution lives in its ongoing interpretation and impact. My

thesis explores the Troop as an agent and manifestation of change towards the

institutionalization of its vision ofAmerica, a vision of a powerful and independent

nation with a strong government to protect property rights and foster business growth­

what later came to be defined as Federalism. In the midst of political upheaval and war,

the Troop created its own symbols and myths from its service in the Revolution and

connection to national leaders like George Washington. The Philadelphia Light Horse

9

forged a legacy from the memory of the Revolution. Through public ceremony, the Troop

drew upon the collective war consciousness in Philadelphia to empower itself and its

members in the city and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

10

I. "Gentlemen of Fortune": The Founding of the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse

December 12 [1767]: The gentlemen hunters let a fox loose at Centre Woods, which afforded anagreeable ride after the hounds till dark. The fox ran up a tree on the Schuylkill side, and whenLevi Hollingsworth climbed up after him, it jumped down and was killed. l

Levi Hollingsworth lived in a Philadelphia mercantile and professional world where

social clubs, familial ties and church membership reinforced business and social connections.

The Hollingsworths were Quakers who, in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, had settled

in Pennsylvania. Levi Hollingsworth's grandfather and the rest of the family, however, would

convert to the Anglican Church in the early eighteenth century. With support and financial

backing from his family, Hollingsworth ran a shallop service transporting flour around the

northern Chesapeake during the French & Indian War. He then started two mercantile

partnerships with Philadelphia men before creating his own flour brokering firm in 1772. Family

connections remained central to the growth of his business-his correspondence and financial

ledgers reveal that he worked with a mercantile firm started in Baltimore by two of his brothers.2

Hollingsworth also belonged to two social and leisure clubs, the "Gloucester Fox Hunting Club"

and the "Colony in Schuylkill."

These clubs and three similar ethnic clubs connected the merchants and professional men

who founded the Troop. Nine of the Troop founders were members of the Gloucester Fox

Hunting Club in 1774, and twelve of them were members of "The Society of the Friendly Sons

ofS1. Patrick.,,3 The Troopers' socioeconomic networks in pre-war Philadelphia shaped the

1 Jacob Cox Parsons, ed., Extracts from the Diary ofJacob Hiltzheimer ofPhiladelphia. 1765-1798(Philadelphia: William F. Fell, 1893), 12 December 1767, 14.2 Hollingsworth Family Papers, 1748-1887, HSP. The Hollingsworth papers are focused between 1770-1825.They contain some correspondence to and from the Troop founder Levi, but are predominantly his financialrecords and ledgers surrounding his flour brokering business.3 For a history of the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club and membership roll, see William Milnor, Memoirs oftheGloucester Fox Hunting Club, near Philadelphia (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1830). For a history of the FriendlySons of St. Patrick, see John Hugh Campbell, History ofthe Friendly Sons ofSt. Patrick and ofthe Hibernian

11

founding of the Philadelphia Light Horse. The Troop was representative of larger patterns in the

development of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania-a shift in the colony's leadership from Quakers

and Quaker principles to those of a more diverse and strident professional and merchant class.

Troopers, like other Pennsylvanian laborers, artisans and farmers, were willing to use martial

force to achieve their ends. With Quaker ideals of non-violence institutionalized into the

government and fabric of Pennsylvania, the transition to a more pragmatic Pennsylvania

increasingly guided by self-interest rather than religion created a conflict and power vacuum into

which Anglicans, Presbyterians and less dogmatic Quakers stepped.

In this chapter, I explore the increasing resistance to Pennsylvania's pacifist traditions

and the Quaker government that espoused them. I then look at how merchant resistance to British

regulations followed in similar patterns and further eroded the Quaker establishment. Merchants

and professionals, in addition to the city's laborers and artisans, formed private clubs and

associations outside governmental authority to assert their members' views and objectives into

society. I examine the ways in which these older clubs both connected the Troop and served as

models for its association. I finish by examining how Troopers' personal and professional lives

also shaped the founding of this group, further revealing the transition from a society dominated

by Quaker principles to those of an emerging Anglican and Presbyterian merchant and

professional elite.

Pacifist Traditions

Early Pennsylvania's Quaker traditions kept the colony apart from forms of required

military service used in other American colonies. Until the last quarter of the seventeenth century,

Society for the ReliefofEmigrants from Ireland: March 17, 1771-March 17, 1892 (Philadelphia: HibernianSociety, 1892).

12

European settlers living in the land that became Pennsylvania had employed a militia.4 However,

the idea of an institution that required the military service of all able-bodied males in a

community did not agree with Quaker principles ofpacifism. After King Charles II granted the

Quaker William Penn a twenty-nine million acre proprietary colony in 1681, the Quaker-

controlled government came into frequent confrontation with the Crown up through the mid-

eighteenth century over its refusal to directly support British military efforts and recruit colonial

militias to fight the Crown's wars in North America.

Opposition to the Pennsylvania Assembly's pacifist principles did not come from the

Crown alone. Lutherans, Presbyterians and Anglicans, men of the emerging professional and

merchant class, in addition to lower artisans and mechanics, all pushed against the Quaker peace

principle upheld by the Assembly. 5 While the more pietistic sects of German immigrants

supported the Quaker peace principle, during King George's War, which was fought in North

America as an extension of the War ofAustrian Succession, the internal demand for military

defense became louder. Those who opposed the Assembly's peace principle included even

William Penn's son Thomas Penn, who publicly advocated for Pennsylvania's adoption of a

system of defense. 6 The Society of Quakers, however, remained opposed. This opposition

continued through the Revolution when the Society disowned those Quakers, including Trooper

4 For further discussion, see the first chapter of Samuel Newland, The Pennsylvania Militia: Defending theCommonwealth and the Nation, 1669-1870 (Annville, PA: Pennsylvania National Guard Foundation, 2002).5 I define middling artisans as skilled manual workers whose average taxable wealth was above those classifiedas laborers-whom I later refer to as the laboring poor--on the Philadelphia tax lists of 1775. The averagetaxable wealth of a Philadelphia laborer in 1775 was £1.6, compared to the following groups that are includedin my definition of artisans: bakers, £18.7; skinners, £15.7; carpenters, £14.5; shopkeepers, £12.8; hatters,£12.2; smiths, £9.7; butchers, £9.2; tailors, £8.7; andjoiners, £7.5. As a profession's taxable wealth approachesthe common laborer, like porters, £5.6 and cordwainers, £4.9, the definitions increasingly overlap. The averagetaxable wealth of Philadelphia merchants in 1775 is significantly higher than all of these professions: £63.4.This information is taken from Tables A.3, A.5 and A.6 of Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 262-66. Heuses the County Provincial Tax Duplicate, 1775, Philadelphia City Archives.6 Governor Thomas Penn would convert to the Anglican Church in 1751, remaining steadfast in his support ofan established system of colonial defense.

13

Samuel Morris, who served in combat. But twenty-seven years before Morris and twenty-seven

other men would associate their Troop, another military group was started that established many

precedents for the Philadelphia Light Horse.

Benjamin Franklin's Associators were a voluntary and self-equipped military group

outside the direct control of any government. In November of 1747, during King George's War,

Benjamin Franklin published a popular pamphlet titled, Plain Truth: or, Serious Considerations

on the Present State ofthe City ofPhiladelphia, and Province ofPennsylvania. Franklin's Plain

Truth tried to scare his fellow citizens into action, reading, "Sacking the City will be first, and

Burning it, in all probability, the last act ofthe enemy....Confined to your houses you will have

nothing to trust to but the Enemy's Mercy.,,7 He then proposed, advertised and organized a

voluntary militia called the Associators. To do this, Franklin staged three meetings, speaking to

different cross-sections of Philadelphia. First, he addressed a group of around 150 tradesmen and

mechanics at Walton's Schoolhouse, then a group of gentlemen and merchants at Robert's

Coffee House, and then a group of shopkeepers, tradesmen and small farmers at the New

Building. This resulted in his first 500 signatures.8 Days later, Franklin advertised the

Associators in the Daily Gazette. It was a success: Franklin had signed up over 1,000 men,

entirely circumventing the Assembly. The pacifist ruling Quakers had grown out oftouch with

the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania citizenry.

The Associators operated outside the direct control of the colonial government. Like the

Troop, they supplied themselves. In the Daily Gazette, Franklin's advertisement stipulated that

members were required to supply themselves with "a good Firelock, Cartouche-box, at least 12

7 A Tradesman of Philadelphia [Benjamin Franklin], Plain Truth: Or, Serious Considerations on the PresentState ofthe City ofPhiladelphia, and Province ofPennsylvania (Philadelphia: 1747), 7-8.8Leonard W. Larabee, ed., The Papers ofBenjamin Franklin, January 1, 1745-June 30,1750 (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1961),4:184-86.

14

Charges ofPowder and Ball, and as Many of us as conveniently can, a good Sword, Cutlass or

Hanger, to be kept always in our respective Dwellings in Readiness and good Order.,,9 Franklin's

Associators were a more diverse group than the Troop would be, though each member still had

to possess the means to supply his own equipment, and like the Troop, the Associators self-

elected their officers, from ensigns to captains. Both groups shared a common core, as they were

formed as private military institutions defending their perceptions of the public good surrounded

by the rhetoric of danger from a European power. In both cases, individual Philadelphia citizens

felt it necessary to organize themselves and volunteer their services as an extralegal military

body in defense of their colony.

The organization of Pennsylvania's government gave the Associators room to maneuver.

They were able to seek support from the proprietor and governor, and not the more conservative

Assembly. The proprietor represented the owner of Pennsylvania, established through the King's

1681 charter. The proprietorship had passed from William Penn to John Penn to Thomas Penn by

1747.10 The proprietor possessed the sole right to appoint and remove the province's governor. In

the transition from governors in 1747, the President of the governor's Provincial Council agreed

to commission military officers elected by the Associators. ll

The Pennsylvania climate towards a military system of defense was changing. The

Associator concept spread quickly from Philadelphia to other counties. In 1748 and 1749,

Philadelphia and Philadelphia County combined to tum out twenty Associator companies;

9 The Pennsylvania Gazette, 3 December 1747.10 William Penn's second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, served as acting proprietor from 1712-1718, whenWilliam was sick until his death. At this point, the proprietorship was divided between their three sons. 50percent ownership went to the first son John, 25 percent went to the second son Thomas and 25 percent wentto the third son Richard. John died without children and Thomas inherited his 50 percent, giving him 75flercent ownersh~p in 1,;46. . . .. ".

Russell F. WeIgley, The Colomal MIlItIa, ill Uzal W. Ent, ed., The First Century: A History ofthe 28thInfantry Division (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1979), 21.

15

Chester County, twenty-six; Lancaster County, thirty-three; and Bucks County, nineteen. 12

Companies consisted ofbetween fifty and one-hundred men, and around ten Associator

companies made up a typical regiment. When King George's War ended with the peace treaty of

Aix-la-Chapelle on April 19, 1748, these companies were not disbanded, despite opposition to

them from both the Assembly and the Pennsylvania's proprietor, Thomas Penn. Penn disproved

of the Associators for other reasons, writing to the governor's Council in 1749, "If the people

had desired for their defense, they should have applied to you, their legal Governors for License

to do, when you would have formed them into Bodys proper for Service & issue such Orders as

would be from time to time necessary.,,13 Penn wrote that he wanted a permanent system of

defense run by the Council.

The Philadelphia Associators continued to function in a much-lessened capacity after the

news of Aix-la-Chapelle finally reached Philadelphia on August 24. Just a week later, they

improved the Grand Battery at Wicaco with additional cannon, one of two batteries built by the

Associators to protect Philadelphia from sea-born attack. 14 The Pennsylvania Gazette reported

that the Associators again added more cannons in September, 1750, and continued training

exercises and even recruitment through 1754.15 But in October, 1755, French-supported attacks

by the Algonquin tribes against western Pennsylvanian settlements would again motivate the

Associators into action. 16 Benjamin Franklin described the news of one of these attacks: "We

have this Day the bad News that the Enemy have last week supriz'd and cut off eight families in

12 Newland, Pennsylvania Militia, 40.13 Thomas Penn to the Council, 30 March 1749 ,in George E. Reed, ed., Pennsylvania Archives: Papers oftheGovernors, 1747-1759 (Harrisburg, PA: State ofPennsylvania, 1900),2:676-79.14 The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1 September 1748.15 The Pennsylvania Gazette, 27 June 1754; The Pennsylvania Gazette, 15 October 1754.16 The Algonquin tribes included members from the Delaware, Ottawa, Shawnee, Miami, Kickapoo, Illinois,Sauk-Fox, Potawatomie, and Ojibwa tribes.

16

this Province. Thirteen grown persons were killed and scalped and 12 Children, carried away.,,17

Still, the Assembly refused to raise a fully regulated militia. Increasing reports of attacks such as

the Gnaddenheutten Massacre, where a French-supported Shawnee war party killed all eleven

inhabitants of a pacifist Moravian mission, and the march ofhundreds of German farmers from

their homes in Cumberland, Lancaster and Berks counties to Philadelphia on November 25, 1755,

helped to change the Assembly's decision. IS Recently-elected Assemblyman Benjamin

Franklin's proposed bill, "An Act for Better Ordering and Regulating Such as Willing and

Desirous to be United for Military Purposes Within this Province," passed through the Assembly

on November 25. A companion act, the Supply Act ofNovember 27, also passed. While military

service remained voluntary, for the first time the Assembly had moved to raise a full-time

military unit and also build a system of frontier forts.

In 1756, the Quakers lost the majority they had always held in the Assembly. Ten

members resigned, and others refused to run for re-election. Only six of the thirty-six

Assemblymen belonged to the Society of Friends by the end of 1756. A statement signed by six

Quakers who retired in June summarizes their beliefs:

As many ofour constituents seem ofopinion that the present situation ofpublic affairscalls upon us for services in a military way which from a conviction ofjudgment aftermature deliberation we cannot comply with, we conclude it most conducive to the peaceofour minds, and the reputation ofour religious profession to persist in our resolution ofresigning our seats, which we now accordingly do. 19

Pennsylvania participated in the French & Indian War, but none of the Troop founders played an

active role. The men who associated the Troop in 17741eft this war to be fought for the

protection of the western counties by those living there and also the British. Military service was

17 Larabee, ed., Franklin to 1750, 6:231.18 Newland, Pennsylvania Militia, 68.19 Gertrude MacKinney, ed., Pennsylvania Archives: Votes ofthe Assembly, October 15, 1753-September 24,1756 (Harrisburg, PA: State Printer, 1931),5:564.

17

not yet a part oftheir lives. The Philadelphia Light Horse, however, would later include some

veterans of the French & Indian War as its membership expanded during the Revolution. War

service would play an increasing role in Philadelphia's social makeup as it threatened all of

Pennsylvania.

At this time, however, the western counties' direct exposure to attacks created a divide

between them and Philadelphia. In December, 1763, Matthew Smith and roughly fifty men from

the Paxton area killed six Conestoga Indians, members of a small and peaceful tribe, accusing

them of aiding hostile Indians. Two weeks later they killed the remaining fourteen whom

Governor John Penn had placed in protective custody. Over one-hundred Moravian and Quaker

Indians fled to Philadelphia under the protection ofthe government. The Paxton mob marched to

Philadelphia with designs to kill them. Franklin called for a new Association at the Governor's

request, and over 1,000 Philadelphians turned out.20 Franklin went just outside Philadelphia to

Germantown with a small delegation to try diplomacy with the Paxton Boys. Franklin agreed to

present their grievances to the Assembly, and the mob dispersed to their homes. Franklin wrote,

"The fighting face we put on and the reasoning's we used with the insurgents ...turned them back

and restored quiet to the city. ,,21 A group of frontiersmen had come close to rampaging through

the capital city to murder Quaker-converted Indians.

Pennsylvania was not the harmonious Quaker-principled society William Penn had

envisioned. In addition to the east-west tensions shown by the Paxton march, Pennsylvania was

coming into increasing conflict with the Crown. Before the French & Indian War, it was the

Assembly's refusal to establish a defense system or directly support colonial troop requirements

that created this. After that war, Pennsylvanians, including Philadelphians from merchants to

20 The Pennsylvania Gazette, 9 February 1764.21 Carl Van Doren, ed., Franklin's Autobiographical Writings (New York: Viking Press, 1945),310.

18

mechanics-the likes ofwhich were represented in the Associators-increasingly opposed

British legislation for governing the colonies. Philadelphia and its merchant class had shown that

it could contribute to and develop a private response to a larger public problem. It could make

dramatic moves around, and even in opposition to, the colonial government. The merchant

response to the Stamp Act further developed this pattern.

Merchant Resistance

Philadelphia merchants undertook coordinated and large-scale opposition to the Stamp

Act in October and November of 1765. On November 7,375 merchants, including twelve of the

twenty-eight Troop Founders, signed a Non-Importation Agreement to halt the purchase and sale

of all British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed. A more encompassing colonial merchant

mien is visible in the opening lines:

The Merchants and Traders ofthe City ofPhiladelphia, taking into theirconsideration the Melancholy state ofthe North-American Commerce in general,and the distressed situation ofthis Province ofPennsylvania in particular, dounanimously agree: That the many difficulties they now labour under, as a tradingpeople, are owing to the Restrictions, Prohibitions, and ill-advised Regulationsmade in several Acts ofthe Parliament ofGreat Britain, lately passed to regulatethe Colonies. 22

The merchants' agreement considers North American commerce as a whole, in addition to the

local situation. Merchants were aware that local, colonial and global forces all acted upon and

determined prices in the Philadelphia market. For example, British and West Indian food

shortages in the mid-eighteenth century increased demand for colonial foodstuffs and drove up

prices. This market force raised grain prices in Philadelphia, boosting business for Pennsylvania

farmers and flour merchants like Troop founder Levi Hollingsworth. While rising food prices

negatively affect the purchasing power of all those who consume food, the question becomes,

22 Non-Importation Agreement o/November 7, 1765, Pennsylvania Stamp Act and Non-ImportationResolutions Collection, APS.

19

how much is this offset by the increase in wealth for those connected to the production and sale

of foodstuffs? Even for a Philadelphia artisan paying higher prices to purchase the same amount

of food, the increased business flow to him spurred by the greater trade and wealth ofmerchants

and farmers could improve his lot. For the American colonies, rising prices for food did not

simply mean a redistribution ofthe wealth to enlarge the merchants' and farmers' shares. It

meant an increase in goods transferred to them from Britain, Europe and the West Indies. It was

not a zero-sum game.

British legislation governing colonial commerce in this period, however, was focused on

transferring wealth from the colonies back to Britain, making it a zero-sum game within the

Empire where London claimed a lion's share. The merchants described this legislation as

limiting the export of certain goods and increasing the cost of imports. They hoped that in their

actions, "their Brethren, the Merchants and Manufacturers of Great Britain, will find their own

interest so intimately connected with ours, that they will be spurred on to befriend us from that

Motive, if no other should take place.,,23 They stressed that the legislation not only hurt

themselves, but also Great Britain, by not allowing them the means to pay their debts to Britain

and continue in business with their British brethren.

Merchants and traders took matters of government into their own hands with the Non-

Importation Agreement. They described the Stamp Act as an "unconstitutional law," but did not

petition the Pennsylvania Assembly to make this request.24 Instead, they voluntarily formed and

created their own request, taking personal measures through their businesses to accomplish their

objectives. Private clubs and associations helped provide the model for this. The enforcement of

non-importation also relied on social and business networks, not any sheriff or law from the

23 Non-Importation Agreement, APS.24 Ibid.

20

colonial government. The Agreement was binding, agreed upon by the subscribers' "WORD OF

HONOUR." In a similar way, the Agreement "hopes that [by] their Example [the subscribing

merchants] will stimulate the good people of this Province, to be frugal in their use and

consumption ofall Manufactures, excepting those ofAmerica, and lawful goods coming directly

from Ireland, manufactured there, whilst the necessities of our Country are such as to require

it.,,25 Again, this indicates the merchants coming to view the individual colonies as part of a

whole, and starting to look out for the welfare not simply of their own province, but of America

as a country.

The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766 in response to strong resistance from all the

colonies except Georgia. The news of the repeal brought about celebrations in Philadelphia,

including a large banquet at the State House. The resistance of Philadelphia merchants and other

American colonials to the Stamp Act contrasts with the response of British colonies in the West

Indies. The environment of the British West Indies was markedly different from Pennsylvania.

These islands were dependent on slave labor, and each colony's enslaved labor force heavily

outnumbered the free whites. The fear of slave revolts was a real factor in creating a dependence

on the British army. Militias were difficult to support given the lower numbers of a white male

population and the distance between the large sugar plantations?6 A fear of slave revolts likely

also bred an environment inherently hostile to internal uprising. The significantly lower slave

population in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania made them more conducive to militia activity and

resistance to government authority.

25 Ibid.26 Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 34. Of the thirteen American colonies, only SouthCarolina had a larger population of slaves than free whites. South Carolina was the site of the largest slaverevolt in America, the 1739 Stono Rebellion, and unlike the other colonial governments, it did not expressopposition to occupation by the British anny in North America before 1768.

21

Unlike the American colonies and the Philadelphia merchants who comprised the Troop,

the British protectionist legislation was directly benefiting the British West Indies plantation

owners and traders. The Sugar Act of 1764 and the Revised Sugar Acts of 1766, replacing the

unenforced Molasses Act of 1733, essentially gave the British West Indies a monopoly on the

sugar, molasses and rum trade to the American colonies. The lower-priced French West Indies

alternatives were banned, and smuggling them, as had been done before, became prohibitively

expensive.27 While this British legislation helped their colonies' planters in the West Indies, it

hurt Philadelphia merchants and the Philadelphia economy, contributing to the resistance that

would result in the association of the Philadelphia Light Horse.

The colonial response in Philadelphia to further British legislation continued to be more

hostile than that of the West Indies. Philadelphia merchants opposed the Townshend Revenue

Acts of 1767, which placed special duties on common items like paper, paint, glass and tea, with

another non-importation agreement signed by over 300 merchants in March of 1769. This

response, however, took longer than their response to the Stamp Act. It was Philadelphian

mechanics and artisans who displayed the earliest and most adamant opposition to the

Townshend Acts. 28 In the press, the most vocal and consistent opposition to these acts came from

the Pennsylvania Journal, Pennsylvania Gazette and Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal

Advertiser. The Pennsylvania Chronicle that first published John Dickinson's "Letters from a

Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies." Dickinson, actually a

prominent lawyer, railed against the Acts, which he described as unconstitutional.

27 Ibid., 65.28 Theodore Thayer, Pennsylvania Politics and the Growth o/Democracy, 1740-1776 (Harrisburg, PA:Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1953), 144; Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible: SocialChange, Political Consciousness, and the Origins o/the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1979), chapters 11-12.

22

Opposition to British legislation led by Philadelphia citizens acting outside the colonial

government continued into the 1770s. For example, the 1773 Tea Act gave the East India Tea

Company a monopoly on tea trade with the colonies. Initially, some Philadelphia merchants had

agreed to import it; however, increasing public outcry initiated by mechanics and artisans

discouraged them. On December 25, a day after The Pennsylvania Packet reported the news of

the Boston Tea Party, where a large mob dressed as Indians dumped around 45 tons of East India

Tea into the Boston Harbor, Philadelphia's shipment of tea had landed at nearby Chester.29 A

delegation intercepted the ship, bringing her captain to the State House Yard. A large meeting

there soon convinced the captain to sail away with his cargo, never landing in Philadelphia.

Voluntary associations of citizenry operating without government mandate are central to

the origins of the Revolution. Bernard Bailyn stresses the importance of independently formed

and elected assemblies to understanding the background of the American Revolution, as they

became the focus of opposition to Britain, the forum for Revolutionary leaders and the

framework for the American cause.30 These new assemblies, more closely representing the

passions of the people than their predecessors, took away power traditionally held by the

legislatures and governors. They depended on strong social networks, reinforced by taverns,

newspapers and associations. For the merchants and professionals that made up the Philadelphia

Light Horse, these were the types of clubs that helped connect their social lives.

Social Organizations

Philadelphia clubs forged the social networks that later became cornerstones for

Revolution, and the cross-enrollment ofTroopers on them is high. Among these clubs, and

considered the oldest social club in America, was the "Colony in Schuylkill." Founded in 1732

29 The Pennsylvania Packet, 24 December 1773.30 Bernard Bai1yn, The Origins ofAmerican Politics (New York: Knopf, 1968),9-10.

23

for fishing and hunting, its members treated its grounds as their own small colony. Club tradition

holds that at an early meeting, the members held council in the forest with some chiefs of the

Lenni Lenape tribe, the tribe with whom William Penn made his treaty on the Delaware. These

chiefs granted the club the right to hunt and fish on the land.31 The Colony in Schuylkill elected

its own officers, including a governor, a five-member Assembly, a sheriff, a coroner and a

secretary-treasurer. The self-election process was a constant pattern in voluntary Philadelphia

associations. The Troop would follow in this, electing its officers and new members.

The Philadelphia Light Horse and the Schuylkill club had significant membership

crossover. Seven Troop founders were also members of the Colony in Schuylkill. A common

mindset ofmembers of the Colony in Schuylkill was represented by their interest in hunting and

fishing, and also politics. The gentlemen who joined this club overwhelmingly supported the

American cause over Britain's. Of the forty Schuylkill members from 1766, who in that year

unanimously elected future Troop founder Samuel Morris as governor ofthe Schuylkill club,

only one would become a Loyalist.32 Clubs built and reinforced the social network ofthese

professionals and merchants, and reflected certain shared beliefs.33

A year before the Colony in Schuylkill elected Samuel Morris a member in 1754, Morris

helped to found a similar club called the "Schuylkill Company of Fort St. David's." This club's

membership contained four Troop future founders. For their clubhouse, the members built a

31 Milnor, Gloucester;"The Restoration of the Schuylkill Gun to the State in Schuylkill," PennsylvaniaMagazine ofHistory and Biography (March 1884): 201. Whether this Lenape myth is simply club lore orbased on a factual occurrence is unclear, but the story is repeated in the club's histories.32 John F. Watson and Willis P. Hazard, Annals ofPhiladelphia, and Pennsylvania, in the Olden Time Being aCollection ofMemoirs, Anecdotes, and Incidents ofthe City and Its Inhabitants, and ofthe Earliest Settlementsofthe Inland Part ofPennsylvania (Philadelphia: E.S. Stuart, 1884),292.3 In addition to professionals like lawyers and doctors, top level Philadelphia craftsmen also made up themembership of this club and were part of this larger social network-indeed it would be very beneficial forbusiness to be on a persona11eve1 with clients. Among the craftsmen in the Colony in Schuylkill's foundingmembership of twenty-eight included its elected governor, clockmaker Thomas Stretch, and silversmiths PhilipSyng and John Leacock.

24

timber-fort on the eastern side of the Schuylkill River that was later burned down by Hessian

soldiers during the British occupation ofPhiladelphia of 1777-1778.34 The Colony in Schuylkill

demonstrated a similar martial mien with its gift of a 32-pound cannon to the Associators in

1747.35 The cannon was the largest of all the cannons at the two Philadelphia batteries. The

cannon was inscribed with the Unami Lenape motto, "kawanio che keeteru," which translates as,

"this is my right, I will defend it.,,36

Ethnic clubs were also important to the social networks of these men. "The St. Andrews

Society of Philadelphia" was founded in 1747 for Scotsmen and their descendents with the

purpose of active and charitable aid towards Scotsmen, their widows and minor children. This

was a club based upon loose common ancestry and dedicated not simply to fraternization, but

also to charitable acts for the common good. Three Troop founders were members, and four

other members of this society would become Troopers during the American Revolution. The

"Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick" was another ethnic club whose membership played

a large role in the Troop's founding. Nine of the twenty-five men who founded the Society in

1771 were founders of the Troop. Intended for Irishmen and Irish descendents, thirty Friendly

Sons were on the Philadelphia Light Horse roll at the close of the war.3? The overlap of these

two clubs with the Light Horse reveals that while ethnic identity was an important part of

eighteenth-century Philadelphian life, these ethnicities were not mutually exclusive. Four Troop

founders also belonged to the "Society of the Sons of St. George for the advice and assistance of

Englishmen in distress," associated in Philadelphia in 1772. The Troop demonstrates the mixing

34 Hazard, Annals ofPhiladelphia, 293.35 "Schuylkill Gun," 201.36 Ibid.: 214. This motto was known for its connection to St. Tammany's Day, named after an early Lenapichief considered the Pennsylvania Saint. It was later used by the 1775 Committee of Safety. Troop FounderSamuel Howell belonged to both the Committee and the Colony in Schuylkill.37 Campbell, St. Patrick.

25

ofthe Scots and Irish, predominantly Presbyterian, and the English, predominantly Quaker and

Anglican, occurring among Philadelphia professionals and merchants.

The club most connected to the Troop was the "Gloucester Fox Hunting Club."

Organized in 1766, it elected Samuel Morris as its first president that year, the same year he was

also elected governor of the Colony in Schuylkill.38 Nine Troop founders were members of the

Gloucester Fox Hunting Club in 1774, and twenty-three men would be members in both clubs by

1778. The Troop's uniform of a "dark brown short coat, faced and lined with white; white vest

and breeches; high-topped boots; round black hat, bound with silver cord; a buck's tail" was

inspired by, ifnot exactly the same as, Gloucester's: "a brown cloth Coatee with lapelled

dragoon pockets, white buttons, and frock sleeves, buff Waistcoat and Breeches, and a black

velvet Cap.,,39 Like the fishing clubs, Gloucester reinforced social networks through an athletic

leisure activity, but more importantly, it collected men who supported their own horses and could

ride well. When Philadelphia livestock trader Jacob Hiltzheimer described Troop founder and

Gloucester member Levi Hollingsworth dismounting on a fox hunt and climbing up a tree to

force the animal down, he was describing the same kind of athleticism and hardy spirit necessary

to make a successful cavalry man. Though fox-hunting was an English tradition tied to the

aristocracy, Troopers had taken these English customs and made them their own. Almost all the

Gloucester members would contribute directly to the American cause by fighting in the

Revolutionary War.

The ethnic and social clubs of Philadelphia's merchant and professional class helped to

connect the social network from which the Troop was born. The Troop followed in this tradition

of voluntary associations with its self-election of officers. Elements of the clubs to which

38 Milnor, Gloucester, 2-3.39 Minutes of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry. Philadelphia, Nov. 17, 1774, Donnaldson, Annory;Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 3; Milnor, Gloucester, 3.

26

Troopers belonged were also incorporated into the Light Horse. The emphasis on athletic leisure

activities, specifically horsemanship and shooting, developed through the Colony in Schuylkill

and Gloucester Fox Hunting Club, were critical to the Troop. Also important was the concept of

private contribution to the public good, seen in small ways through the charity of ethnic societies

and the donation of the Schuylkill cannon to the Associators. In all of these clubs, bonds were

based on not just shared ethnicity or religion, but common belief and practice.

Home and Business

Overlapping spheres of activity made up the Troopers' lives. Their social spheres

included the clubs and associations to which they belonged, and also their domestic life. They

operated in a Philadelphia society that was as rigid and oppressive for some as it was fluid and

opportunistic for others. The privacy of the home makes this difficult to access, but glimpses into

the Troopers' private relationships illuminate the breadth of Philadelphia culture and their

interconnected lives. In 1775, Troop founder George Campbell, Esq. was also Register for the

Probate of Wills for the City and County of Philadelphia, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

He reviewed and signed the will of Mary West, the wife ofTroop founder and merchant Francis

West. In it, she directed that, "my three Negro Slaves Dick, Judah, & Simon shall be liberated &

made free, in one month after my decease... and paid to them each five pounds." 40 She further

ordered that whatever remained of the estate left to her from her father be divided equally among

her five sons and three daughters. Here, Philadelphia's Quaker heritage does not isolate those of

its merchant and professional class from the institution of colonial slavery. The hierarchical

fluidity for Anglo-Welsh Quakers and Anglicans and Scots-Irish Presbyterians did not extend to

all those living in Pennsylvania.

40 Will of Mary West, West Family Papers, 1764-1893, HSP.

27

Another group facing discrimination in Pennsylvania was German immigrants. A letter

from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson after King George's War reflects the colonial leader's

concern that the German immigrants were not a part ofPennsylvania society and loyal to their

causes. He wrote that the Germans, "giving out one among another, and even in print, that ifthey

were quiet the French, should they take the Country, would not molest them.,,41 However, first-

generation German immigrant Jacob Hiltzheimer, who left Rotterdam at the age of nineteen and

apprenticed himself to a silversmith, shows that Philadelphia society could also be open. He

married a Philadelphia Quaker in 1761 and frequently fox-hunted and ate with Troop founders

Levi Hollingsworth and Samuel Morris in the 1760s and 1770s.42 This included at least one

dinner at the Colony in Schuylkill. Hiltzheimer was friendly with other Troop founders,

including Samuel Howell, who informed Hiltzheimer that the British ship carrying the East

Indian Tea had arrived at Chester.43 The strong pre-Revolution social networks ofthe Troopers

helped to foster a cultural identity and the communication of information.

The Troop's founding members were of Scots-Irish, English and Welsh descent; they

were Presbyterians, Anglicans and Quakers. First-generation immigrants made up some of the

Troop's founding members. Among them was Thomas Leiper, who came to America from

Scotland in 1763. He was eighteen years old, the youngest brother of four, and followed his

middle two brothers to America because only the first-born was to inherit the family's estate in

Scotland.44 His brothers helped set him up in the tobacco and snuff trade. Within ten years,

Leiper had become one of the principle merchants in the Philadelphia tobacco trade, also

acquiring at least five nearby mills often used for snuff production. Both Thomas Leiper and

41 Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 9 May 1753, in Larabee, ed., Franklin to 1750,4:485.42 Two of Jacob Hiltzheimer's sons would join the Troop in the 1790s.43 Parsons, ed., Hiltzheimer Diary, 25 December 1773,27.44 H. Simpson, The Lives ofEminent Philadelphians Now Deceased (Philadelphia: 1859),239.

28

John Dunlap had moved to America, and with family assistance and entrepreneurial spirit,

established their businesses. During the Revolution, both men continued to rapidly expand their

businesses after allying themselves with the American cause. Their social networks forged

during the pre-Revolutionary period better facilitated this.

Abraham Markoe, the man elected captain at the Troop's founding, was a different kind

of first-generation immigrant. He was a well-established Danish citizen when he settled in

Philadelphia in 1770 at the age of forty-three. Sugar plantations started by his grandfather in

Abraham's birthplace of Santa Cruz supported him. Samuel Morris, the second captain ofthe

troop, was descended from one of Pennsylvania's original Quaker families. Seven years younger

than Markoe, Morris was a Philadelphia merchant. Levi Hollingsworth, like Morris, was

descended from a Quaker family who had settled around Pennsylvania in the last quarter of the

seventeenth century, although Hollingsworth's grandfather and family converted to the Anglican

Church. Hollingsworth shared memberships with Morris in the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club and

Colony in the Schuylkill.45 As discussed earlier, social and familial connections helped to grow

his business.

The Troop was a combination of recent immigrants and men who had operated around

Philadelphia for multiple generations. Friendships through private clubs and associations

connected their Philadelphia business world, and so did the concept of family, both through

blood and marriage. While Dunlap married a woman who had just emigrated with her father

from England, Markoe, Morris and Hollingsworth all married daughters of established

Philadelphia merchants.

Private relationships and associations, both forms of social networking, played a crucial

role in pre-Revolution Philadelphia society. The English financial revolution that occurred in the

45 Hollingsworth Family Papers, HSP.

29

first half of the eighteenth century better allowed individuals, businesses and the government to

borrow the necessary capital to begin or expand investment ventures. In colonial America,

however, the role ofbanks as private lending institutions was often fulfilled by wealthy

individuals. Levi Hollingsworth's financial papers include promissory notes and checks

surrounding his mercantile operations, and also private loans. Philadelphia would not have its

own banks until the Revolutionary War, with the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Bank ofNorth

America, both of which relied upon large Trooper subscriptions in their foundings. Like

Franklin's Philadelphia Associators, the Philadelphia Light Horse supported the American

Revolution through their financial backing in addition to their blood and sweat.

The overlapping business and home spheres of the Troop founders reveals the fluidity

and emergence of the merchant and professional group. These men lived in William Penn's

gridded city, built upon the fertile soil where the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers meet.

Philadelphia's role as a port city connected its businessmen through trade directly with supply

and demand from not only the other American colonies, but also the West Indies, Europe and

Africa. This encouraged a more pragmatic mindset with a worldly view, not one simply attuned

to local goings-on. The Troopers' lives during the mid-eighteenth century exemplify this.

Public and private institutions alike depended upon the support of private individuals.

Gordon Wood writes that in American colonial society, "most public actions-from the building

of wharfs and ferries to the maintaining of roads and inns--<iepended upon private energy and

private funds. For the most part governments had only legal authority at their disposal.,,46 In

Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, public institutions and even defense, with Benjamin Franklin's

46 Wood, Radicalism, 82.

30

Associators, relied upon private energy and private funds. Troop members took an active part in

this Philadelphian pattern ofprivate involvement in matters of a larger scale.

To Revolution

A stricter legislative period for the American colonies came at the conclusion of the

French & Indian War, where Great Britain's army, colonies and allies defeated the French in

North America and the globe. This legislation, a string of acts passed by the Parliament intended

to more actively govern the colonies, marked a change in direction from a long period of salutary

neglect.47 As the colonies resisted these acts, tensions increased with Great Britain. From

September to October of 1774, fifty-five delegates sent by their colonial governments-all

except Georgia-met in Philadelphia to discuss ways to compel the British government to repeal

the legislation. This First Continental Congress resolved a Declaration of Rights and Grievances

to King George III, agreed to convene the next spring if their complaints were not addressed, and

established a boycott of British goods through non-importation. To better implement the boycott,

a Committee of Correspondence chosen by Philadelphia citizens met on November 17, 1774.

Later that evening, three men from this committee joined with twenty-five others and associated

as the cavalry troop under the name, The Light Horse of the City ofPhiladelphia.48

As the Troop served the Revolutionary Pennsylvania government, its members often

served in it. In addition to the Committee of Correspondence, that five Troopers ultimately

participate in, eight Troopers were members of the Committee of Safety. The Pennsylvania

Assembly had established this committee oftwenty-five in June of 1775 "for calling forth such

47 Salutary neglect was a tenn coined in 1775 by Edmund Burke in a speech in the British House of Commonsmarked for its support of the American colonies. The following is some of the legislation for governing theAmerican colonies passed by British parliament in London between 1763 and 1774: The Proclamation of 1763;the Sugar Act; the Stamp Act; the Currency Act; the Declaratory Act; the Townshend Duties; the Tea Act; thePort of Boston Act; and the Quartering Act.48 Donnaldson, Armory.

31

and so many ofthe Associators into actual service, when necessity requires.,,49 Pennsylvania's

militia law from the French & Indian War had expired before the Revolution, so unlike the other

colonies, Pennsylvania did not have an institutionalized militia system of obligatory service for

all white male inhabitants. Only after Pennsylvanian communities began to revive their defense

associations through the first half of 1775-including the Troop's independent association in

1774--did the Assembly finally pass the June, 1775 legislation allowing "the Association

entered into by the good people of this province for the Defense oftheir Lives, Liberty and

Property," and directing a Committee of Safety to oversee it.5o

Between May, 1774 and 1776, over 180 Philadelphians served on civilian committees. In

this expansion of power, emerging patriotic merchants like the Troop members better cemented

their status over the old Quaker guard and loyalist conservatives. The Council of Safety and the

Committee of Inspection and Observation each included three Troopers. Middling artisans also

asserted themselves, taking an active role and serving on these committees. Pennsylvania's new

Constitution, adopted on September 28, 1776, reflected this radical movement.51 It extended

voting rights to all taxpaying free men and replaced the proprietary rule, where the grandson of

William Penn had been governor of Pennsylvania, with a Supreme Executive Council to

administer the government. The city of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania's eleven counties each got

to elect one member to serve on the Council, and together with the Assembly-Pennsylvania's

49 Pennsylvania Archives: Votes ofthe Assembly, January 7, 1771-September 26, 1776. (Harrisburg, PA: State

Library, 1935),8:7247.50 In addition to the eight Troopers who served on the committee, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, JohnDickinson, and John Cadwa1ader were members. Ibid., 8:7245. For more on the relationship betweenPennsylvania's Constitution of 1776 and the militia, see Newland, Pennsylvania Militia, 131-32.51 For a closer analysis of this movement and how the committees of Philadelphia first reflected the transitionfrom Quaker leadership to a younger mercantile elite, and then a further extension, "which drew from theentire upper and middle ranges of Philadelphia society, but which finally centered on the aggressive, risingmen of the middle classes," see Richard Alan Ryerson, The Revolution Is Now Begun: The RadicalCommittees ofPhiladelphia, 1765-1776 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 190,65-88.

32

unicamera1legislative body-they elected the council's President. The Troop would serve in

these bodies and help establish their authority by fighting as a light horse unit in the American

Revolution.

33

H. Amateurs to Arms: The Philadelphia Light Horse in the AmericanRevolution

I take this Opportunity of returning my most sincere thanks to the Captain and to the Gentlemenwho compose the Troop, for the many essential Services which they have rendered to theirCountry, and to me personally, during the Course of this severe Campaign. Though composed ofgentlemen of fortune, they have shown a noble example of discipline and subordination, and inseveral actions have shown a spirit and bravery which will ever do honor to them, and will everbe gratefully remembered by me.!

-George Washington, 23 January 1777

The Philadelphia Light Horse would earn the respect of Continental generals for its

success as a conventional light horse, performing reconnaissance and acting as couriers during

and between battles. The Troop's founders, however, were military novices. Like most

Philadelphians, not one of its twenty-eight men had fought in the French and Indian War.

Washington's letter to Troop Captain Samuel Morris is full of praise for the Troop, while also

revealing that expectations for "gentlemen of fortune" were not high, even for Washington who

was a wealthy member ofVirginia's elite plantocracy.

This chapter explores the military methods by which the Philadelphia Light Horse

contributed to the defense of Philadelphia, of Pennsylvania and ofthe emerging nation. The

Troop's military support as a conventional light horse unit was critical to the success of the

Revolutionary army and the Revolutionary governments. As a whole unit and in small groups,

the Troop served a Continental army in need of light horse forces, fighting in the four major

battles around Philadelphia. While many members of Philadelphia's elite merchant and

professional class avoided militia service, the Troopers' more active role in the American

patriotic cause continued to propel their rise to power over the older Quaker establishment.

! George Washington to Samuel Morris, 23 January 1777, Armory.

34

Amateurs to Arms

The Troop began its military preparations the winter and spring of 1775, drilling together

several times a week. It employed a "Mr. Moffit," who had "belonged to a corps of Horse in

Ireland, to instruct them in the Horse and sword exercise, and as a rough rider to break in their

horses.,,2 Unlike the British Dragoons it encountered during the Revolutionary War, the Troop

was not a truly professional unit. The closest thing to military training its members had received

before their association was fox-hunting, and even during the War, the unit would only drill

together part-time, its members holding other jobs and positions. Despite this limited training,

the Troop functioned extremely well in its military capacities, holding its own and often winning

its engagements with the professional and highly trained British cavalry.

In the spring of 1775, as tensions increased between Britain and the American colonies,

the Troop drilled with increasing zeal. News of the Battle of Lexington reached Philadelphia on

April 24, 1775. A warning from "J. Palmer" of Worcester, Massachusetts' Committee of

Correspondence ran in the Philadelphia's newspapers: "To all friends ofAmerican liberty, be it

known, that this morning before break of day, a brigade, consisting of about 1000 or 1200 men,

landed at Phipp's Farm, at Cambridge, and marched to Lexington, where they found a company

of our colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation, killed six men and

wounded four others.,,3 Amidst this danger, and without an established militia, Philadelphia

returned to Franklin's Associator model.

The city's amateur armies rushed to prepare under war's looming shadow. Christopher

Marshall, a Philadelphian chemist, wrote in his diary entry of May 20, 1775, "the militia, light

2 Donnaldson, Annory.3 Pennsylvania Evening Post, 25 April 1775.

35

infantry, horse, and company of artillery, exercising every day, and some ofthem twice a day.,,4

On June 20, the Philadelphia Light Horse and around 2,000 other citizens of Philadelphia

classified as Associators under state law paraded in front of General George Washington. This

entire number had equipped and trained themselves voluntarily and without pay--only when

actually in the field would they receive money. In the war, the Troop would be one of two

Philadelphia light horse units. A second troop of light horse drawn from the boroughs outside

Philadelphia had begun to form but was not yet ready to drill. Modeled after the Troop, although

unable to attract the same number ofmembers, the Philadelphia County Light Horse also became

important to the Revolutionary Pennsylvania and Continental governments that depended upon

light horse to carry out varied military functions. 5

Light horse forces were an essential part of eighteenth-century European warfare. In his

authoritative 1778 "The Discipline ofthe Light Horse," the retired British Light Dragoon

Captain Robert Hinde described the "particular duties" of light cavalry:

They are to be employed in reconnoitering the enemy, and discovering his motions: andas often as officers are detached on such commands, all that will be required ofthem, is,to make their observations with certainty, so as not to deceive the commanding officerafterwards by false intelligence: they are also on such parties to avoid engaging with theenemy, as being sent out for a different purpose. Light Cavalry are also to be made use offor distant advanced posts, to prevent the army from beingfalsely alarmed, or surprisedby the enemy. 6

The purpose of light horse was not direct battle-engagement with the enemy, but to provide

communication and support through reconnaissance and skirmishing. The American and British

armies relied on their light horse to perform this essential supporting role. Both the Pennsylvania

4 William Duane, ed., Passages from the Diary ofChristopher Marshall, Kept in Philadelphia and LancasterDuring the American Revolution (Philadelphia: Hazard & Mitchell, 1849),20 May 1775, 30.5 The loyalists of Philadelphia would also contribute two troops to the British: the Philadelphia Light Dragoonsand the nearby Bucks County Dragoons.6 Robert Hinde, The Discipline ofthe Light Horse (London: 1778), 147.

36

and Continental annies suffered from a severe shortage of light horsemen in the first few years of

the war, and the Troop helped fill that gap.

The undersupply of cavalry came from both an inability to raise mounted troops when

needed and an inability to afford the large expense of feeding horses. General Washington did

not have enough light horse in his New York camp in the summer of 1776, but when the

Connecticut Light Horse appeared with some 500 men, Washington told them that he could not

afford to support them and that they needed to get rid of their horses. Washington instead

requested them to serve dismounted and dig fortifications with the rest of his army-something

these horsemen viewed as beneath them.? Washington explained his subsequent dismissal of the

unit to John Hancock, saying that though "their assistance is much needed, and might be of

essential service in case of an attack, yet I judged it advisable, on their application and claim of

such indulgences, to discharge them." Washington feared their refusal to do the common duties

of a soldier "would set an example to others, and might produce many ill consequences."s

Though the Connecticut Light Horse was the only large body of cavalry available to the

Continentals, Washington had needed their services as soldiers to help prepare the New York

fortifications. His dismissal of them indicated that the difficulty of supporting such a large group

of light horse-especially one that also carried morale concerns-was not worth the benefits.

The Philadelphia Light Horse better fit the Continental anny's needs. Already a small and

semi-independent body, Troopers typically operated in even smaller dispatches of a handful of

men rather than as a whole unit. This made them easier to supply. In August of 1776, six

Troopers were attached to Brigadier General Hugh Mercer's Continental troops in New Jersey

for four weeks, conveying intelligence and communicating messages. Afterwards, Mercer

7 David Hackett Fischer, Washington's Crossing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 85-86.8 George Washington to John Hancock, 17 July 1776, in Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., The Writings ofGeorge Washington (New York: George Putnam's Sons, 1889),261.

37

thanked the six "Gentlemen" for their "Services, which have always been performed with the

greatest Alacrity and Attention." Mercer had relied on them until more local New Jersey light

horse could be "properly posted.,,9 The Continental army depended on these regional light horse

units. Even at the New York fortifications, where Washington had rejected the Connecticut Light

Horse, he kept the forty men ofthe Light Horse Troop ofNew York City.

The need for light horse would become increasingly apparent to Washington and his

commanders. After British forces took New York and drove the Continental army southwards

that fall, General Washington wrote to Congress on December 11, 1776, "From the experience I

have had in this campaign of the utility ofHorse, I am convinced there is no carrying on the war

without them and I would therefore recommend the establishment of one or more COrps."lO Pre-

Revolution misconceptions about the applicability and necessity ofmounted troops in America, a

landscape more heavily forested and less open than Europe, were changing. Congress, however,

struggled to both raise and support a large enough Continental Corps of light horse, and this part

of the army remained undersupplied.

British and Continental forces both struggled to meet the demand for cavalry throughout

the war. Britain's 1i h Light Dragoons even took to advertising in colonial papers, seeking to

purchase horses from "any person who have such to dispose Of."ll The Continental army

struggled to feed what horses it could raise, especially pack horses and animals. During one six-

month encampment, it lost over 1,500 horses and mules to starvation and disease. 12 The Troop

9 Hugh Mercer to Benjamin Randolph, John Dunlap, James Hunter, John Lardner, Thomas Peters and ThomasLeiper, 26 April 1776, Armory.10 George Washington to the President of Congress [John Hancock], 11 December 1776, in Thaddeus Allen,ed., An Inquiry into the Views, Principles, Services, and Influences ofthe Leading Men in the Origination ofthe American Union, and in the Formation and Administration ofthe Government (Boston: Geo. W. Briggs,1849),353.11 Pennsylvania Ledger, 21 February 1778; Pennsylvania Ledger, 4 March 1778.12 This was at the Valley Forge encampment from the winter of 1777 through the spring of 1778. DavidMartin, The Philadelphia Campaign: June 1777-July 1778 (Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 2003), 176.

38

helped meet this undersupply and paid for the expenses of its horses when not in active service.

But whether it could successfully realize the capabilities of a light horse unit in battle against the

better trained and more professional British army would soon be seen.

Trenton and Princeton

As the British forces drew nearer to Philadelphia in the closing months of 1776, the

Pennsylvania government sent reinforcements to General Washington's army. The Troop and

three Associator battalions met with General Washington's army on December 2 in Trenton,

New Jersey. The Troop's payroll from this time lists twenty-two members who were "employed

in carrying confidential dispatches from the Commander in Chief to the commanding Generals

and in reconnoitering the enemy." They were then ordered to cover the rear and gather stragglers

as the American armies, a mix of state and Continental troops, crossed the Delaware River in

small boats to get to the Philadelphia side. The Troopers "had not reached the shore before the

advance of the enemy were on the opposite bank." They camped by Washington's headquarters

in Newtown, four miles from the river, continuing to deliver messages and conveying orders to

the various American camps stretched over thirty miles. 13

On the other side of the river, the British and Hessian garrisons were spread out in

seventeen posts from the Delaware to the Hudson River. Washington and his fellow commanders

saw an opportunity to strike back against William Howe's forces. Washington's adjutant, New

Jersey officer Colonel Joseph Reed, put forth the argument in a letter to Washington on

December 22, writing, "Weare all of the opinion my dear general that something must be

attempted to revive our expiring credit, give our Cause some degree of reputation & prevent total

depreciation of the Continental money which is coming on very fast." Times were dire for the

Continentals, and Reed urged that "some enterprise must be undertaken in our present

13 Donnaldson, Armory.

39

Circumstances or we must give up the cause.,,14 Washington held a council of war that day, and

on December 23, he sent out the secret orders for the surprise attack.

Approximately 2,500 men were to cross the Delaware River under Washington's

command and march south to surprise the British garrison of 1,400 troops, comprised ofHessian

mercenaries and twenty British dragoons. Under the cover of Christmas night, a flotilla of small

boats began to ferry Washington's men across the Delaware. For the Troop, "it was a very cold

and tempestuous night, with snow and sleet and the boats not being able to reach the shore they

had to use their horses belly deep and force them through the floating ice.,,15 Further down-river,

the conditions were so bad that Colonel John Cadwalader's force of 1,200 Philadelphia

Associators, who had planned to create a diversion for nearby British and Hessian troops, could

not even make it across. Washington's force was successful but alone. At four in the morning,

four hours behind schedule, the men, horses, artillery and ammunition began the march to

Trenton.

Washington's army, untrained compared to the British and Hessian troops, executed this

Christmas crossing and march to Trenton in extreme conditions. The Troop was not comprised

ofprofessional soldiers with years of training like the British 16th and 17th Light Dragoons, but

their standardized uniform and weaponry indicates an attempt to carry themselves as such.

Unlike many ofthe Connecticut Light Horse who had carried antiquated long-barreled fowling

pieces, the Philadelphia Light Horse came armed for battle. Each Trooper equipped himself with

a carbine, a pair of pistols, and a horseman's sword. 16 The Revolutionary army had maintained

14 Joseph Reed to George Washington, 22 December 1776, quoted in Fischer, Washington's Crossing, 513. Anadjutant is a position denoting a staff officer who assists his commanding officer with administrative affairs.15 Donnaldson, Armory.16 Alexander Graydon further described the Connecticut Light Horse as "old fashioned men, probably farmersand heads offamilies ...beyond the meridian oflife." Alexander Graydon, John Stockton Littell, ed., Memoirs

40

strict discipline in their march, quietly enveloping the Trenton garrison. They had occupied the

town's heights and set up their artillery while maintaining the element of surprise. 17

In a forty-five minute battle, the Hessian commander Colonel RaIl would be fatally

wounded before the Hessians would surrender. The Troop was mostly attached to General

Washington and witnessed the surrender of the Hessians near him, although during the battle a

detachment of Troopers was sent to take a group of Hessians who had fortified a bam. These

members of the Philadelphia Light Horse, led by its Comet, John Dunlap--the man who had

printed the Declaration of Independence just months earlier-surrounded the bam from a

distance while another dashed in close to the rear and demanded the Hessian party's surrender.

After some parley, the Hessians complied. 18 The Troop had performed well in its first action. It

was one of only two mounted troops in this campaign, the other being the newly designated 2nd

Continental Light Dragoons that had an estimated fifty men under Elisha Sheldon. 19

The success of the Troop and the American army was striking. Twenty-two Hessians

were killed, eighty-three seriously wounded, and 896 captured in the engagement. Washington

reported to Congress that the Americans had lost "only two officers and one or two privates

wounded.,,20 Although a larger and unknown number ofAmericans would suffer and die from

the exposure and starvation surrounding the battle, Trenton remained an overwhelming success

for the Continental cause. On the march back, the Philadelphia Light Horse was ordered to

remain on the New Jersey side and patrol the roads, finally crossing the river at midnight. The

ofHis Own Time, with Reminiscences ofthe Men and Events ofthe Revolution by Alexander Gradyon(Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1846), 155.17 For a detailed description of the battle, see Fischer, Washington's Crossing, 234-58.18 Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915,11.19 This infonnation is taken from the "American Order ofBattle Before the Attack on Trenton, December 22,1776" in Appendix F of Fischer, Washington's Crossing, 390-93.20 George Washington to John Cadwalader, 27 December 1776, quoted in Ibid., 406.

41

Troop had been "exposed two nights and one day without rest to the rigors ofthe climate." It had

proven its ability to function in a conventional light horse capacity under extreme duress. 21

Just days later, Washington and the Continental army would again depend on the Troop

when they attempted to follow up on their victory at Trenton. Colonel John Cadwalader and the

Philadelphia Associators, who had initially failed to cross the Delaware, made it over on a

second attempt the morning of December 27. With this surprising information, Washington and

his commanders decided in a council of war that night to attempt another attack into New

Jersey.22 After crossing the Delaware River on December 30 with the Continental army, a

dispatch oftwelve Troopers went on a reconnaissance mission the next day with Washington's

adjutant, Colonel Joseph Reed. Attempting to capture a British soldier as he passed unarmed

between a bam and a house, two Troopers moved in. When two more British soldiers appeared,

all twelve Troopers and Colonel Reed charged the house. Eleven British Dragoons inside the

house surrendered to them while a British Sergeant fled the scene. The Troop quickly marched

the prisoners back to their lines, riding double with a few of the prisoners mounted on their

horses to make it out of enemy territory. Through daring and martial vigor, the Troop had

advanced from military amateurs to an effective light horse unit that could equal and even

overcome the more professionally trained British Dragoons.23

The Philadelphia Light Horse's success comes in part because the conventional duties of

the light horse were unconventional. Performing reconnaissance in enemy territory and

21 Donnaldson, Annory.22 Fischer, Washington's Crossing, 264-65.23 Thomas Rodney, The Diary ofCaptain Thomas Rodney, 1776-1777 (Wilmington: The Historical Society ofDelaware, 1888),52; Donnaldson; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 13. A brief manuscript of Troopfounder Thomas Peters was found by his granddaughter, written inside his copy of the "By-Laws of the FirstTroop Philadelphia City Cavalry," which was printed in 1815. This manuscript, which further details theseevents, was reprinted in "A Scrap of 'Troop' History," The Pennsylvania Magazine ofHistory and Biography15 (1891).

42

delivering communications in battle or over long distances demanded a level of independence

and quick-thinking. During the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777, with Colonel

Cadwalader's Associators struggling under heavy fire, General Washington, accompanied by a

group of Philadelphia Light Horse and a few other troops, rode in to rally them. Boosted by the

deployment ofmore Continentals along the line, the American armies advanced. The British

troops broke, outnumbered and outflanked. Washington, revealing some ofhis own elite

background, called out, "It is a fine fox chase, my boys!,,24 And the Americans pursued the

British off the field. Trooper John Donnaldson nearly took this advice too far when, as the

Continental General James Wilkinson describes:

In the ardor ofthe pursuit he [Donnaldson] had separated himselffrom the Troop, and as theinfantry could not keep up, he found himselfalone and liable to be shot by any straggler oftheenemy who would not surrender, yet unwilling to slacken his pace, he mounted a Lt. Simpson ofthe foot, behind him who, whenever, a fugitive threatened to be refractory, jumped offand shothim, and in this manner three men, at different times, while taking aim at Mr. Donnaldson wereknocked down and his life saved, but he made a score ofprisoners whom he sent to the rear afterdisarming them. 25

Donnaldson's "ardor" had gotten him into trouble, but that same innovative boldness also saved

him. The roles of the light horse often required Troopers to operate in hostile territory where this

kind of daring made them successful.

After Trenton and Princeton, two victories in barely a week's time for an army that had

suffered a string of defeats, Washington moved the Continentals into winter quarters. The

Philadelphia Light Horse covered the rear of this march from Princeton, delaying an advanced

party of British horse and allowing Captain Joseph Moulder's artillery pieces to be saved. The

Troop continued to serve on reconnaissance missions and act as couriers until General

Washington discharged them. As partially quoted earlier, Washington wrote, "I take this

24 James Wilkinson, Memoirs ofMy Own Times, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: 1816), 1:145, quoted in Wilson, ed.,Troop History to 1915,12.25 Ibid.

43

opportunity of returning my most sincere thanks to the Captain and to the gentlemen who

compose the Troop, for the many essential services which they have rendered their country, and

to me personally, during the course ofthis severe campaign." The Troop's contributions as a

light horse unit in this campaign, which Washington describes as "essential services," were

critical to its success. Washington continued, "Though composed of gentlemen of fortune, they

have shown a noble example of discipline and subordination, and in several actions have shown

a spirit and bravery which will ever do honor to them, and will ever be gratefully remembered by

me." The Troop had moved beyond "gentlemen of fortune," displaying an honorable "spirit and

bravery." In this, it had transformed itself from silk-stocking amateurs to an effective light horse

unit. 26

Brandywine and Germantown

The American victories at Trenton and Princeton combined with New Jersey militia

groups' ongoing harassment to drive British and Hessian forces back to New York. Congress,

which had evacuated Philadelphia in early December of 1776, returned to the city from

Baltimore at the end of February. The Troop's reputation and influence were growing. It elected

eighteen new members in March of 1777, also showing the support for the Revolutionary cause

from Philadelphia's merchants and professional class??

The Troop's experiences in New Jersey during this time also highlight the Revolutionary

support from people in the countryside. Describing the Troop's patrols in New Jersey in January

after the two battles, the Donnaldson Narrative reads, "In this service they felt themselves pretty

secure, as the ill treatment the Jerseymen had received from the British had changed their whole

26 George Washington to Samuel Morris, 23 January 1777, Armory.27 All information on Trooper elections and resignations is taken and consistent with the muster rolls andassorted papers collected in the Armory and the Donnaldson in that archive, as well as the By-Laws, Muster­Roll, and Papers; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915; Troop History to 1991.

44

conduct, attached them to their country with great hatred to the British." Philadelphia Light

Horse detachments found that Jerseymen "would frequently join their parties" on patrol, and one

man offered Troopers two "quarter casks of Madeira wine" as a gift, one for General Washington

and one for the Troop. The Troopers "prepared a light wagon with two good horses & a few

young men ofthe neighborhood" at their camp and returned to their benefactor's cellar. They

had just sent the wagon off when "a party of British horse made their appearance but they kept

them in check until the wine was safe. ,,28

These examples indicate strong levels of support for the Revolutionary cause from

Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, but they do not tell the full story. When the first class of

Philadelphia militia was called up in July of 1777, only forty-three percent met the demands of

service, while twenty-seven percent paid a fine for avoiding service, twenty percent hired a

substitute, and nine percent could not be found. Of those who paid the fine, their average taxable

wealth in 1775 was £33 compared to £6.5 of those who served. 29 Many Philadelphians were not

in full support of the Revolutionary cause and were not willing to serve in a military capacity.

That the average taxable wealth of those paying fines was more than five times higher than those

serving indicates that the burden of support fell more on the laboring poor than the elite. The

Troop's record of service and commitment to the Revolutionary separates them from many other

members of Philadelphia's elite.

Philadelphian support for the Continental cause would drop further as the British threat to

the city increased later in the summer of 1777. British General William Howe had sailed with

15,000 troops from Staten Island, New York to stage an invasion of Philadelphia. On August 28,

28 Donnaldson, Annory.29 Information taken from Tables A.3 and AA in Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 262-64. A manserving in the Philadelphia Light Horse who had been called up would not be included in these categories-hewould be classified as a miscellaneous exemptions along with other Philadelphians serving in the artillery ornavy.

45

1777, a British engineer reported the landing at Elk, Maryland of "One thousand men under a

Colonel Paterson and the Philadelphia Light Horse fled from this town on our approach.,,3o This

retreating group destroyed a bridge to slow the British advance, but neither they nor

Washington's army could prevent the British from occupying Philadelphia in less than a month's

time. In the militia call-ups of September, 1777, only sixteen percent met the demands of service,

and the average taxable wealth of those paying a fine for avoiding service was twice that of those

who served.31 Again, the burden fell on the laboring poor to fight for the patriotic cause, while

those who were wealthier paid to avoid the fighting.

The Troop's record stands in proud contrast. In the beginning of September, as Howe's

army moved northward and battle was imminent, the Troop was so eager to join the Continental

army that it petitioned to be exempted from prisoner duty in Philadelphia. The Light Horse

attached itself to the Continental army in September, fighting in the battles of Brandywine and

Germantown during the failed campaign to defend Philadelphia. Twenty Troopers, along with

their trumpeter and a rough rider to care for their horses, performed conventiona11ight horse

duties through September and October.32 Troop detachments acted as couriers and performed

reconnaissance including the capture ofBritish soldiers for interrogation. Despite its limited

training, the Troop again served as an effective light horse unit.

In the September 10 defeat at Brandywine and its immediate aftermath, the Philadelphia

Light Horse performed both courier and reconnaissance roles for the Continental army. However,

this loss enabled the British to occupy Philadelphia, forcing the Troopers and other

Philadelphians to evacuate the city, leaving behind much oftheir property to be seized. Estimates

30 G. D. Scull, ed., The Montresor Journals (New York: New York Historical Society, 1881),28 August 1777,443.31 Information taken from Table A.3 in Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 262-63.32 Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 23.

46

vary, but around 12,000 people would flee, leaving approximately 23,000 in the city in addition

to the British.33 The desertion rate for the Philadelphia militia during this tour of duty was

around twenty-five percent. The majority of the 252 known deserters came from the rank and file,

although of the noncommissioned officers, seventeen sergeants and seven corporals left, and of

the commissioned officers, two lieutenants and one ensign left. Rosswurm asserts, "the actions of

these men should not be judged solely within a military context." 34 That is because two-thirds of

the deserters left between September 20 and September 27, right around the time when the

British occupied Philadelphia on September 26. This was less an indication of cowardice than of

concern for their families living in the city. Especially among the laboring poor who made up the

militia, families did not have savings enough to pay for the basic necessities of life.

To win back Philadelphia, the Continental forces and local militia attempted an attack at

Germantown under General Washington's direction. In this failed three-columned attack on

October 4, 1777, Troop detachments helped maintain communication between the columns and

provided reconnaissance during a confusing battle that took place on a morning "so dark from

the heavy fog from the river.,,35 Some Troopers relocated to York, Pennsylvania, as did the

Continental Congress; others moved to Lancaster, as did the Pennsylvania Supreme Council.

Troopers continued to perform courier services for these governmental bodies. Another group

stayed with General Washington at his headquarters and were issued letters permitting them "to

pass and repass at all times. By His Excellency's Command.,,36 The Troop remained committed

33 Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 149.34 Ibid., 143,45.35 Donnaldson, Annory.36 A military pass in the Annory archives issued on December 1, 1777, reads, "Pennit Mr. John Donnaldson ofthe Philadelphia Light Horse to pass and repass at all times. By His Excellency's Command. Tench TilghmanAid." Members also temporarily perfonned missions as part of other Continental annies, including the 4th

Continental Light Dragoons.

47

to serving in the Revolutionary cause independently as light horsemen. The members would

reunite to serve as a unit in the summer of 1778 after the British evacuation of Philadelphia.

Congress, in addition to General Washington, came to recognize light horse as "essential

to the operations of the army." In a 1778 resolution, Congress called for the "young gentlemen of

property and spirit" in each state to form troops of light cavalry "to serve at their own expence,

(except in the article ofprovisions for themselves, and forage for their horses) ....That it be

recommended to the government of the respective States to countenance and encourage this

design." 37 The Troop's model as a small and semi-independent body of regional light horse that

largely paid to equip itself had proven extremely useful to the Revolutionary cause.

From Trenton to Brandywine, the Continental army and the rebellious Americans

revealed their commitment to independence. In victory and defeat, they showed that they could

playa game of survival to outlast the British forces. The only Trooper to ever seek British

asylum had done so before any of these battles, in the summer of 1776 after the signing of

Declaration of Independence.38 With France's entry into the war, and the determined resistance

of the American forces, Britain changed its strategy. Under the threat of the French navy, British

forces withdrew from Philadelphia to reinforce New York. As the theatre of war moved away

from Philadelphia, the Troop would not fight again as a unit in any Revolutionary battle. Even

when not fighting, however, it had played an important role in the American Revolution. From

its beginnings, the Philadelphia Light Horse had served Congress and the Pennsylvania

government in essential but nonconventional ways.

37 Resolution of Congress, 2 March 1778, reprinted in Samuel Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives Selectedand Arrangedfrom Original Documents in the Office ofthe Secretary ofthe Commonwealth Confromably tothe Acts ofthe General Assembly (Philadelphia: Joseph Severns & Co., 1853),323.38 This was Troop founder Andrew Allen, whose father William Allen had been Pennsylvania's Chief Justiceunder the state's colonial government. Both left Philadelphia for political asylum under the British forces inNew York in the summer of 1776.

48

HI. "The Horse! The Horse!":

The Troop's Unconventional Roles During the American Revolution

Comwallis & the whole British army [were] compelled to lay down their arms by the Americans.

On the receipt of this glourious news, general rejoicing took place throughout the whole country

& The Troop procured a full band of music & escorting the British colours taken at York on thesurrender of Comwallis laid them at the feet of the Congress of the United States then sitting inPhiladelphia.!

-Donnaldson Narrative

On November 3, 1781, the Philadelphia Light Horse helped to lead the parade celebrating

the British defeat at Yorktown through the streets of Philadelphia. Eighty-three members took

part, including eleven of the group's founders who had retired to the honorary roll.2 The allied

American and French armies had successfully laid siege to the British army at the port of

Yorktown, Virginia. The British were trapped, surrounded even on water where the French fleet

under Admiral de Grasse, on its way to the West Indies, penned in the British from the sea. In

Philadelphia, news of Cornwallis's surrender led to parades, while in London, it led to the British

Parliament voting to end the war. The cessation ofhostilities was proclaimed on April 11 , 1783.

The Troop's laying of the captured standards at the feet of Congress symbolized the

larger change taking place-the recognition of Congress as the authoritative governing body in

the colonies. It was a ritual and a tradition performed by the Troop, a group that from its

inception had committed itself to serving Congress and establishing its hegemony. Troop

members had risked their property and their lives in the American Revolution, fighting against

the British. But more than just fighting against the British as a conventional light horse unit, the

Troop made central contributions to the American Revolution that went well beyond the

conventional European roles of light horse.

1 Donnaldson, Armory.2 Ibid. Again, the Donnaldson's list of rolls is compared to the Trooper histories and other assorted papers inthe Armory.

49

This chapter explores the Troop's unconventional methods of support. Congress and the

Pennsylvania government trusted Troopers to deliver money to their armies and to capture and

transport prisoners. In this, the Light Horse became an early form ofmilitary and domestic police.

This policing role would expand to include not only British agents and loyalists, but also

American deserters, mutineers and mobs. The Troop worked to confront and contain both

loyalist and radical concepts ofAmerican society. It was conservative in that it strove to preserve

a socioeconomic structure similar to pre-war Philadelphia, but radical in that it fought a

revolution to overthrow British power. The Troop sought to replace a king with a Congress and

the Quakers with the Protestants.

The Philadelphia Light Horse was a staunch defender of the Pennsylvania and

Continental governments throughout the Revolution. Its various methods of support, including

its more public and ceremonial role, reveal this. In this public role, it acted as an escort and

marched in parades. These efforts attempted to steer patriotic fervor into more authoritative

channels and build a national identity. By defending the Pennsylvania and Continental

governments, the Troop sought to institutionalize its conception ofAmerica-a country that

balanced a strong associational government with the protection of property rights, a country with

an elected Congress but also private clubs.

Money and Prisoners

Delivering money to the American armies and acting as a political police force had been

the primary duties of the Troop before the unit fought in its four major battles. These activities

were unconventional adaptations of the conventional light horse roles described earlier by a

British Dragoon in "The Discipline of the Light Horse.',3 To fit the needs of its Revolutionary

government, the Troop would deliver specie, not just messages; it would capture and guard

3 Hinde, Light Horse Discipline.

50

domestic prisoners, not just military ones. Early Troop experiences in these non-conventional

roles help explain their later success when attached to state and continental armies as more

conventional light horse. But the Troop's nonconventional roles had given the members more

than just experience for their later combat duties as these non-conventional roles were

themselves critical to the success of the Revolutionary governments and their armies.

Congress had relied on the Troop to deliver money even before it served in battle. As

early as October of 1775, Congressional President John Hancock had dispatched an escort of

four Troopers. The Journals of Congress reports the success of this mission, ordering sent to

"Levi Hollingsworth, for expenses of himself and three others, to Ticonderoga and back again,

who took with them a quantity ofmoney for general Schuyler, the sum of 128 dollars.,,4 Between

August and October of 1776 alone, at least seven different Trooper dispatches delivered money

for Congress.5 Depending on the sum of money and the urgency of time, these Troop dispatches

often included a wagon or servant.6 The Troopers traveled as far as Boston and Albany, and

never failed in their deliveries. Even when George Fullerton was killed by the accidental

discharge of one of his holstered pistols, the first Troop member to die, fellow Trooper William

Hall completed the delivery.7 These men were committed to the cause of establishing a new

government, and Congress put their trust in them in the form of extremely large sums of money.

4 Library of Congress Manuscript Division, ed., Journals ofthe Continental Congress, 1774-1789, vol. 3(Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905),25 November 1775, 370. The Troopers provided theirown equipment and donated their pay to the Pennsylvania Hospital after the Revolution.s Journals ofthe American Congress from 1774-1778. vol. 1 (Washington: Way and Gideon, 1823),3 October1776,477; 17 October 1776,522; 21 October 1776,525; 22 October 1776,525-526; 25 October 1776, 529; 12November 1776, 544.6 Though servants are not often mentioned in the records of the Philadelphia Light Horse or other Americantroops in this period, they were a typical part of a European style eighteenth century army, performinglogistical roles such as cooking and cleaning in the camps.7 Donnaldson, Armory.

51

Delivering specie to the American annies remained an important role for the Troop throughout

the American Revolution.

Just as the Troop expanded the conventional role oflight horse as couriers, it would

expand the conventional reconnaissance role. Troopers applied the skills and methods of military

reconnaissance to domestic threats. The reconnaissance role of a conventional light horse unit

involved capturing enemy combatants and bringing them back as prisoners for interrogation.

Acting at the behest of Congress and also Pennsylvania's government, its Revolutionary

committees and Supreme Executive Council, the Troop would capture and guard men who were

not British military. Council President Joseph Reed wrote to the Troop's Captain Samuel Morris,

"Infonnation having been given me that some Persons, under Suspicious circumstances, having

come up the River" were suspected to be "Spies upon some dangerous Errand....They are 2 lusty

men and a stripling, the latter supposed dressed in Blue." Reed recommended Morris use eight

Troopers to apprehend them and bring them before Reed for further examination.8 As spies,

these men were suspected to be working directly for the British as agents. But the Troop's

responsibilities for domestic defense extended deeper into Philadelphian society, making it a

kind of political police force that acted directly upon orders from Pennsylvania's Supreme

Executive Council, rather than enforcing a general set oflaws upon society.

The Supreme Executive Council and its committees, including the Committee of Safety,

wielded martial power to enforce its decisions through the Troop. Repeated examples ofmen

"detected in some hostile machinations" against the Pennsylvania government like Dr. Kearsley

and James Brookes, who "under guard of eight of the Light Horse left the city for the different

jails allotted them in the province," reveal the Troop as an effective tool ofthese bodies. 9 While

8 Joseph Reed to Samuel Morris, 14 June 1779, Armory.9 Duane, ed., Christopher Marshall, 24 October 1775,48.

52

acting upon the orders of these governing bodies, the Troop's actions were also a voluntary

service because its members chose to join the Philadelphia Light Horse-they were not drafted

and did not serve out of financial necessity. Troopers were independently wealthy men who

purchased their own equipment, including horses, and received only limited pay tied to their

direct expenses while in active service, pay they all eventually donated to the Pennsylvania

Hospital after the Revolution. Members could also resign at any time. The Troop's actions were

not the result of impressments; instead, they reveal the group's will to strengthen the authority of

the Revolutionary Pennsylvania government and contain elements of the population that opposed

it.

In an enormous step towards giving legal authority to crush any open British support

among the Pennsylvania citizenry, the Troop supported and enforced the Supreme Executive

Council's "Test Oath," passed in the early summer of 1777. It was "an Act obliging the male

white inhabitants of this State to give assurances of allegiance to the same," printed by Trooper

John Dunlap, and required the oath itself to be taken before July 1. The Supreme Executive

Council used the Troop to arrest two of the most vocal and influential opponents of this act. The

Council's Minutes from August 12 inform that "Mr. Penrose, Mr. Dunlap, Mr. Hall, and Mr.

Hunter, and other Gentlemen of the Light Horse," upon the Council's order, made Benjamin

Chew, Esquire and the Honorable John Penn, Esquire prisoners. lO These two had been among

Pennsylvania's most elite before the war: Benjamin Chew was the Chief Justice, and John Penn

was the former Governor of Pennsylvania and grandson ofWilliam Penn. The Council then

directed "an Officer and Six Gentlemen of the Philadelphia Light Horse to escort John Penn &

10 Minutes ofthe Supreme Executive Council ofPennsylvania from Its Organization to the Termination oftheRevolution. (Harrisburg, PA: Thea Penn & Co., 1852), 12 August 1777, 264.

53

Benja. Chew, Esq'rs, as Prisoners to Fredericksburg, in Virginia."ll Here was a new form of

justice, supported and executed by the Troop. By removing these men, the Troopers and

members ofPennsylvania's Revolutionary government helped to cement their own status as the

new elite.

Escorting prisoners was an important role for the Troopers, although they preferred

performing as a conventional light horse. On September 1, 1777, as the British army moved

towards Philadelphia, General John Armstrong, who was in command of the militia of

Pennsylvania, wrote to the Supreme Executive Council President that while the Troop was

necessarily engaged by the Council, he hoped they could be sent to the camp, "as I am

apprehensive that should they be totally exempted from Military Service they may be disgusted

as I am convinced that their highest Ambition is to act in the Field.,,12 Philadelphia needed the

Troop in its role as a domestic police force; but after application from the Troop, the Council

released it from the duty of guarding and moving "the disaffected persons and Quakers" who had

refused to take the Test Oath. 13 The Council delegated the responsibility of a domestic police

force to just two Troop members supported by a number of City Guards-another group directly

responsible for policing Philadelphia-allowing the rest of the Light Horse to serve

Washington. 14

The Troopers' willingness to fight for Washington's army and their sense of honor in

doing so set them apart from many wealthy Philadelphians. In September of 1777, as the Troop

petitioned for exemption from prisoner duty to join the Continental army, other Philadelphians

11Ibid., 13 August 1777, 265.12 John Annstrong to Thomas Wharton Jr., 1 September 1777, quoted in Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915,20. General John Annstrong was in command of the militia of Pennsylvania and Thomas Wharton Jr., wasPresident of the Supreme Executive Council13 Executive Council Minutes, 5 September 1777,298.14 "The Gentlemen of the Light Horse of this City, except two who are to attend to the prisoners now at theLodge to Reading on their march...do proceed immediately to Camp on a Tour ofDuty." Ibid.

54

continued to attempt to dodge military service. Only sixteen percent fully served their

commitments, while forty-five percent of those called for militia duty that month paid a fine for

avoiding service. A very large number, thirty-three percent, could not be found, indicating that

many were fleeing the besieged city; and five percent hired a substitute. IS

As observed earlier, militia service among Philadelphians was concentrated among the

lower sorts, as wealthier merchants avoided the fight more than the laboring poor. The average

taxable wealth of those who paid a fine for avoiding service was twice as high as the average of

those men serving, and the most common occupation for Philadelphians who paid a fine for

avoiding militia service was that ofmerchant. 16 Through their service to the Revolutionary

government, Troopers seized authority, as other wealthy merchants and Quakers who had made

up the pre-war establishment did not participate. In this way, members of the Philadelphia Light

Horse better established themselves as the new leaders ofPhiladelphia and Pennsylvania.

The Troop, in its direct service to the city and state governments, gave these bodies

greater authority. Its efforts better institutionalized the power of these bodies and promoted their

idea of order in the city. The British, in their occupation of Philadelphia, developed a similar

domestic policing role for their light horse. The Philadelphia Troop of Light Dragoons, a loyalist

light horse regiment raised from the Philadelphia population, brought in prisoners, including

militia officers, justices of the peace and others "on suspicion ofbeing active against

government.,,17 This indicates a fundamental change in the usage oflight horse in the American

Revolution where both the British and the Continental armies and governments recognized an

effective use for them as domestic enforcers. The Troop, like these other horsemen, struggled to

impose its kind of order on the city and carry out its perception ofjustice in the city. Troopers

15 Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 207.16 The average taxable wealth statistics are taken from 1775. Appendices A.3 and AA in Ibid., 262-64.17 kNew Yor Gazette and Weekly Mercury, 23 March 1778.

55

would soon find themselves in an extreme situation while performing this new but fundamental

role.

Fort Wilson

Though the supporters of the Revolution were allied in their cause against the British,

their many different conceptions of order and justice also brought them into conflict with each

other. The Troop fought for a more conservative social order than sought by members of the

laboring poor. An anonymous broadside posted on Elizabeth Drinker's door on August 29, 1779

reflects the swelling anger against Philadelphia's elite merchant class: "The time is now arrived

to prove whether the suffering friends of this country, are to be enslaved, ruined and starved, by a

few overbearing Merchants, a swarm of Monopolizers and Speculators....your opponents are

rich and powerful, and they think by their consequence to overawe you into slavery, and to starve

you in the bargen." The writer urges the people to "Rouse! Rouse! Rouse and COME ON

WARMLy.,,18 This was populist anger directed not at loyalists or the British, but at the wealthier

and more successful merchants. This was a call in Philadelphia for social, not just political,

revolution.

Philadelphia's poor had suffered the greatest burden during the war. The inequities of

service in 1777 noted above continued through later years. The average taxable wealth of those

who served in the Philadelphia militia through October 1, 1779, was £8.49, while those who paid

fines to avoid service averaged £30.69. 19 This difference was even greater than in September,

1777. Increases in the prices for essential goods during this period also exacerbated the suffering

of the urban poor who were already struggling to feed and clothe themselves and their families.

With demand from the Continental army, the French fleet and speculators, in addition to reduced

18 Quoted in Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 206.19 Ibid., 208.

56

supplies caused by the war, wholesale prices for the essential goods of common flour, beef, sugar

loaf and molasses rose continually from July, 1778 through 1780. This included dramatic

increases like the 254 percent rise in December of 1778 and the 493 percent spike in February of

1779.20 In the spring, militia activities increased dramatically against suspected Tories and

speculators, wealthy men who were considered to profit from the war while the poor suffered.

Militiamen had actively involved themselves in Philadelphia's defense from the British

army and also in protecting the city's domestic order. Whereas the Philadelphia Light Horse and

the City Guards arrested prisoners under the direction of the Supreme Executive Council and the

city's committees of defense, in May of 1779, the militia seized men that it alone decided were

enemies. Elizabeth Drinker described the activities of this "Mob" in her diary. For May 24, she

wrote, "Richard Wister and Levi Hollingsworth put in Prison-have not yet heard on what

pretext....Men with clubs, have been to several stores, obliging ye people to lower their

prices.,,21 Many of the men seized were wealthy merchants accused ofboth Toryism and price

gouging, but Levi Hollingsworth was a member ofthe Philadelphia Light Horse. Hollingsworth,

a veteran ofTrenton and Princeton, had been captured by the British in the occupation of

Philadelphia. He had been brought as a prisoner to the city where he was released on parole,

presumably by taking the King's Oath. In 1779, controversy surrounded his flour selling and the

high prices charged.22 He would be released soon afterward, along with most others who the

militiamen had arrested.

The jailing of Hollingsworth indicates the large gulf between the laboring militiamen and

the wealthy merchants, where the militiamen were demanding a more radical social and

20 Ibid., 168.21 Henry Biddle, ed., Extracts from the Journal ofElizabeth Drinker (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company,1889),25 May 1779,116.22 Hollingsworth Family Papers, HSP; Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 23.

57

economic revolution. Important in this was that the Philadelphia Light Horse did not directly

intervene on Hollingsworth's behalf when he was seized in May, although he was still a member

of the Troop. The Philadelphia Light Horse did not seek to protect through force one of their

members from unauthorized seizure. Instead, they allowed time for the militia outburst to settle,

and for Hollingsworth to be released through the courts. A resolution of the Supreme Executive

Council on May 28 shows some support for the activities of these groups of radical militiamen

and laborers, but also an attempt to reign in their activities and bring them under the Council's

authority. The resolution reads, "divers persons of Suspicious Characters...have lately been

restrained in their liberty." To put the matters more closely under its authority, the Council

ordered the Sheriff and other officers to transmit to the city magistrates the list of people in their

care "other than those committed in the ordinary course ofjustice," acknowledging that the

seizures had taken place outside their justice, but also that the courts would now investigate these

men, not simply release them. The resolution continues, "this Board do most earnestly

recommend to the faithful & good Subjects ofthis State to give all needful assistance &

information....& to acquiesce in the decisions & determination ofthe said Justices in the

premises, as they tender the Honor & Safety of Government, would avoid giving the Common

Enemies of our Liberty & Country grounds to rejoice & bring reproach on public authority.,,23

The Council put the authority in the hands of the justices to make the decision and urged the

people of Pennsylvania to do the same. It attempted to unite people under public authority by

compromising between the militia's action and its own authority.

A less militant but equally radical response to the food crisis also emerged at the end of

May. A price-fixing committee met throughout the summer, comprised ofthe middling

leadership of Philadelphia's popular movement, and tried to force merchants to sell their goods

23 Executive Council Minutes, 28 May 1779, 8-9.

58

at regulated prices that were significantly lower.24 The price-fixing activity in Philadelphia

reveals a debate between property rights and imposed sacrifice for the greater good. The

Committee on price fixing defended its views, reasoning, "the social compact in a state of civil

society...requires that every right or power claimed or exercised by any man or set ofmen,

should be in subordination to the common good.,,25 A group of eighty "merchants and traders,"

including at least seventeen Troop members, declared themselves against the Committee's

activities. They defended their views, writing, "The limitation of prices is in the principle unjust,

because it invades the laws of property, by compelling a person to accept less in exchange for his

goods that he could otherwise obtain, and therefore acts as a tax upon part of the community

only.,,26 To them, it would act as a discriminatory tax levied specifically on merchants and

traders that would hinder the forces of free markets to ultimately deliver the most goods to

society.

Troop members had committed strongly to the defense of private property and to

allowing merchants to set their own prices, even as the laboring poor continued to suffer. Troop

members would not submit to any price controls dictated to them by any price-fixing committees

that represented the middling and laboring people of Philadelphia. The Troop submitted to the

authority of the Revolutionary Pennsylvania government. Troop members did not accept pay for

many of their services during the Revolution, and also risked much of their property and credit in

support of the Revolutionary cause. They did not, however, believe in the principles-or the

people-behind price-fixing. The Donnaldson Narrative reads, "About the middle of September

24 Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 181.25 Pennsylvania Packet, 10 September 1779.26 Troop members among the eighty signers of the agreement are: John Lardner, Joseph Cowperthwait,Thomas Moore, Isaac Cox, David Lenox, David Conyngham, John Donna1dson, John Mease, James Mease,Alexander Nesbitt, Samuel Morris, Cadwa1ader Morris, Samuel Caldwell, James Caldwell, Patrick Moore,William Pollard, and David Duncan. Pennsylvania Packet, 10 September 1779.

59

a committee appointed at a town meeting had regulated the prices of rum, salt, sugar, coffee,

flour which was much opposed by the importers. Robert Morris, Blair McClenachan, John

Wilcocks and a number of other staunch Whigs had a quantity of those articles in their stores

which they refused to part with at the regulated prices.',27 Trooper Blair McClenchan, among

others, refused to obey this extralegal body. The price-fixing committee announced its failure in

late September, but more radical militiamen would take up the cause, bringing themselves into

an open conflict with the city's conservatives that would also lose them the support of less

militant radicals.

Militiamen gathered on the morning of October 4 at the city commons by Bums' Tavern

upon request from the Committee of Privates?8 Three militia radicals who had been asked to

lead the group arrived at Bums' Tavern, and before leaving, unsuccessfully tried to convince the

crowd from marching out and making seizures. This included Alexander Boyd, a member of the

May 25 and August 2 price-fixing committees. The militiamen, without any leadership from

these more middling radicals, had already determined their purpose. It seems these men had been

asked to lead in name only. Without them, the crowd left Bums' Tavern to seize five men they

had identified as Tories. They succeeded in finding the four wealthy ones and parading them as

prisoners "about ye streets with the Drum after them, beating ye Rogue's March."z9 The

militiamen had adapted the tradition of the Rogue's March, usually played at a soldier's

dishonorable discharge, and also the public parading of prisoners by city officials. Rosswurm

writes, "These rich men had become the symbol for their continuing grievances during the

27 Donnaldson, Annory.28 The Committee of Privates was a radical group comprised of one man chosen from each company of thePhiladelphia Associators.29 Henry Biddle, Extracts from the Journal ofElizabeth Drinker (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company,1889),4 October 1779,121.

60

war.,,30 The militiamen co-opted tradition to give their actions greater authority. City authorities

made no attempt to stop these actions.

As the militiamen made these seizures, men who had refused to obey the price-fixing

committee, including Trooper Blair McClenachan, gathered together with "30 or 40 of their

friends determined to defend themselves [and] took post" in the sturdy brick home of James

Wilson, Esq. "They paraded themselves with arms and considering it a more secure place of

safety than their own houses." Wilson, a signer of the Declaration ofIndependence, had come

under criticism from Pennsylvania radicals for representing Tories in court and supporting the

merchants against price fixing. As the group prepared to defend itself, many Troopers, "being

appraised of what was going forward and anxious for the safety of their fellow citizens,

afterwards at their stable a fixed place of rendezvous, agreed to have their horses saddled and

ready to mount at a moments warning. Notice was to be given to as many as could be found: a

part was to assemble in Dock below second street and to join the party at the stables.,,3! The

sides were set-radical militiamen on the one, conservative merchants and professional men on

the other. Both groups included war veterans who had fought together against the British, and

both groups were prepared to use force against each other.

"About two o'clock the mob stopped before Wilsons house with drums beating and

members with arms in their hands.,,32 Who fired first is unclear, but shots were exchanged

between the mob outside and Captain Robert Campbell inside Wilson's house.33 The situation

30 Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 213.31 Donnaldson, Annory.32 Ibid.33 Rosswunn mistakenly calls him "Captain George Campbell," confusing Captain Robert Campbell withTroop member George Campbell. Both men were inside Wilson's house during the riot, although GeorgeCampbell would survive the day and live until 1810. Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 174; Simpson,Eminent Philadelphians; Horace Edwin Hayden, ed., Reminiscences ofDavid Hayfield Conyngham, 1750­1834 (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Wyoming Historical & Geological Society, 1904),32-34.

61

escalated immediately as Campbell, who had earlier lost his arm in the campaign against the

British at Staten Island, was shot and would die. Two others inside the house were also wounded,

but the mob, soon finding it could make "no impression on the house" with their shooting,

attempted to force an entry. At a nearby blacksmith's shop, some militiamen found a "sledge and

crowbar and were in the act of forcing the door, when fortunately the Horse made their

appearance.,,34 Two Troop detachments, along with Supreme Executive Council President

Joseph Reed and two of Colonel Baylor's Continental Horse, charged the mob as the cry "the

Horse! the Horse!" was raised. The mob gave way and men from inside Wilson's house--what

became known as Fort Wilson-came out to assist the horsemen. Troop Captain Samuel Morris,

who had been inside during the attack, was shot in the arm, and sources tend to agree that three

others from inside Fort Wilson were wounded. Estimates on the militiamen vary, but around five

were killed and fourteen wounded.35

Trooper patrols were sent through the city, putting "several into prison," and Trooper

David Conyngham "remembers large stones and bricks thrown down upon us" and being

"insulted everywhere.,,36 Animosity towards the Troop and the importers remained, as evidenced

by the reaction in the streets against Troopers. The Light Horse helped to maintain order were

"patrolling ye streets.,,37 Activity continued the next night, when a mob surrounded the house of

Trooper Private David Lenox, who had rode in with the Troop at Fort Wilson. The crowd

stopped trying to force an entrance after he assured them he would open the door to them at

daylight. Meanwhile, he sent out a woman who was living with his family to his fellow Troopers

for assistance, and the Philadelphia Light Horse rode in and dispersed the crowd.

34 Donnaldson, Armory.35 Ibid.; Hayden, ed., David Conyngham, 33; Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 217.36 Donnaldson, Armory; Hayden, ed., David Conyngham, 37, 34.37 Biddle, ed., Drinker, 4 October 1779, 122.

62

Before Fort Wilson, the Troop and the Pennsylvania government had avoided direct

opposition to patriotic crowd and mob activity. During the militia seizures of May, 1778, the

Executive Council tried to direct this activity into its own authoritative channel instead of

stopping the seizures and arrests from taking place. However, at the Fort Wilson Riot, when a

mob had chosen to confront a group of prominent Philadelphians who had gathered inside a

house to protect themselves, they forced a response from the government and their fellow

citizens of Philadelphia. The militant action drew a backlash and price-fixing did not receive as

h . 38muc support agam.

Fort Wilson was a victory for the city's conservatives. Ronald Schulz writes, "At Fort

Wilson a line was drawn through the working community across which no sentiment or activity

unauthorized by the Constitutionalists and radicals was allowed to pass....the rough, course

behavior of the crowd was judged improper; the world of the laboring poor was cut away from

view.,,39 On October 6, the Supreme Executive Council, headed by Reed, issued a call for all

those involved-both the men outside and the men inside--to tum themselves in and account for

what happened. On October 10, the Assembly resolved to let the judiciary determine who was to

blame, but later proposed and finally passed on March 10, 1780, an "Act of Free and General

Pardon and Indemnity.,,4o Forgiving all those involved was an act of compromise, the kind that

neither the merchants nor the radical militiamen had been willing to make.

Through compromise, the Pennsylvania government preserved and extended its own

authority. The Executive Council did not go after the militiamen in the courts, preventing an

explosion of anger from the laboring radicals, nor did it seek to punish the horsemen, who along

38 For further discussion, see John K. Alexander, "The Fort Wilson Incident of 1779: A Case Study of theRevolutionary Crowd," WMQ 31, no. 4 (October 1974): 589-612.39 Ronald Schultz, The Republic ofLabor: Philadelphlia Artisans and the Politics ofClass, 1720-1830 (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1993), 6l.40 For further discussion, see Ibid., 60-68.

63

with President Reed, had killed and wounded members of the mob as they dispersed the attack.

Instead, it called all parties involved to tum themselves in and describe the events, and later the

Assembly issued a general pardon. Like the Revolutionary government, the Troop had balanced

action with inaction. It did not engage against general crowd and mob activity, including the

seizure ofTrooper Levi Hollingsworth in May. On the morning of October 4, when the first four

wealthy men were seized, the Troop did nothing. Only when the lives of some thirty prominent

Philadelphians were threatened, including fellow Troop members, did they ride to put the mob

down.

The militiamen had exerted self-will, acting without orders from above or the leadership

ofmiddling radicals, and the Troop had exerted its own. Where typically the Philadelphia Light

Horse acted on orders from the Pennsylvania government, in this crisis, its members voluntarily

rode into a dangerous situation. They sought to maintain order in the city and prevent the

possible deaths of a number of prominent Philadelphians in an attack. They succeeded as a result

of their military experience and training.

Policing and Pomp

The Fort Wilson Riot, which revealed expansive divisions between the city's

conservatives and laboring radicals, was an exception to the normal policing role of the Light

Horse. More routine was the importance ofmaintaining its public reputation in Philadelphia.

Troopers often made choices that indicated a consciousness of their reputation and also the

sentiments of fellow Philadelphians. The Philadelphia Light Horse reinforced its actions as a

light horse unit and sought to channel patriotic fervor through the ceremonial roles of escorting

and parading. Escorting put the Troop on display to the people, emphasizing the importance of

the figure it chose to accompany and also acting as his or her bodyguard. In this public role, the

64

Troop had associated itself with the Congress and the Continental army from its inception. On

June 23, 1775, the Troop left with General Washington just after his appointment by Congress to

take command of the army at Massachusetts Bay. They escorted him through New York. The

Troop then escorted Washington's wife Martha when she came into the city on her way to visit

him at Cambridge, Massachusetts in November. The Troop connected itselfto both prominent

American and European figures. For Don Juan Mirailles, the ambassador from the High Court of

Spain, the Troop "made a very grand cavalcade.,,41 The Troop put on its uniform and took itself

seriously in these roles.

Escorting could also carry negative implications. The Troop, in its expensive uniforms,

made a fine show for European ministers. The Philadelphia Light Horse escort for the French

minister was essential to Executive Council President Reed, who wrote to Troop Captain Samuel

Morris, "The Chev de Luzerne, the present Minister, is every Way deserving out utmost Respect

& Attention.,,42 But when Washington entered the city without any escort, he was praised for it.

The Pennsylvania Evening Post reports, "Too great for pomp, and as if fond of the plain and

respectable rank of a free and independent citizen, his Excellency came in so late in the day as to

prevent the Philadelphia troop of militia light horse, gentlemen, officers of the militia and others

of this city, from shewing those marks ofunfeigned regard for this good and great man.,,43 This

reveals a certain American taste for simplicity. The Troop had to balance paying proper respect

and celebration with this emerging American concept of virtuous Republican modesty.

The Troop's role as an escort was similar to its role in parades in that both were public

and attempted to elevate a person or situation. Just as George Washington would become a

41 Nathanael Greene to Isaac Coxe, 27 April 1779, Annory.42 Joseph Reed to Samuel Morris, [nd] , Annory. This letter was likely sent around mid-April, 1780, as theChevalier de la Luzerne arrived with his Troop escort in Morristown on April 19, 1780. Wilson, ed., TroopHistory to 1915, 30.43 Pennsylvania Evening Post, 28 December 1778.

65

public figure who inspired national unity, the Fourth of July would become a day for this.

Congress had chosen this day to celebrate the Independence ofthe United States, and the Troop

participated in creating a tradition around it. On July 4, 1777, the Troop participated as "several

troops of horse" marched and were reviewed by Congress. That evening, "a grand exhibition of

fire works (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) [was staged] on the commons, and

the city was beautifully illuminated.,,44 These were all celebratory actions meant to unify the

people of Philadelphia. But with radical outbursts against the city's conservatives being an

important part of political life, Troop members also involved themselves in a different kind of

parade.

A few Troopers led a parade through the streets of Philadelphia in 1780 to denounce

Toryism and a common enemy-Benedict Arnold, the former Continental general and hero who

had switched sides to the British. Samuel Rowland Fisher, a conservative Quaker, described the

event in his diary, writing, "another exhibition thro the City of an Effigy of Arnold placed on a

Wagon....behind him a figure representing the Devil in a Clergyman's Gown, on the head a pair

of Goat's horns, One holding a Purse of Money & the other an Iron called Tormentors. Arnold

was represented with two faces & his head continually moving.,,45 Fisher continued, "I should

not have troubled myself...but because it appear'd not as a frolick of the lowest sort of people

but as the Act of some of the present Rulers here, it being escorted by abt. 20 of those called

Militia & three of those call'd City Light Horse viz: James Budden, John Dunlap & Thomas

Leiper.,,46 Here was the Light Horse leading the noisy parade along with members ofthe city's

militia. The artist, radical and Philadelphia Associator Charles Willson Peale had made the

44 Pennsylvania Packet, 8 July 1777.45 "Journal of Samuel Rowland Fisher, of Philadelphia, 1779-1781," The Pennsylvania Magazine ofHistoryand Biography 41 (1917): 314.46 Ibid.

66

effigies. This demonstrates cooperation between the groups that did not exist in the months

leading up to Fort Wilson.47

The Philadelphia Light Horse's parading, policing and military roles continued to overlap

and reinforce each other. On June 9, 1780, with a British force advancing from New York

through Elizabethtown, New Jersey, Executive Council President Reed sent three letters

concerning the emergency to Troop Captain Samuel Morris. The first two directed the Troop to

be ready at short warning, as General Washington would likely need "re-enforcement from this

State & especially of Cavalry, in which he is very weak.,,48 The third letter moved the Troop to a

policing role. Reed wrote, "The very Critical Situation of General Washington's Army, destitute

of horses to remove his artillery & valuable stores, had made it necessary to send forward,

without delay, a number of horses, which cannot be obtained otherwise than by taking them from

the disaffected, accordingly, orders have issued to seize them." Reed directed the Light Horse to

patrol the roads and bridges and "stop all persons leading horses," as he suspected "many will

attempt to get them out oftown," and then deliver them to the forage yard on Walnut Street

"with the name of the Person to whom they are said to belong.,,49 Reed's use of the Troop for

this mission indicates the utility of horses to both the army and to the Executive Council itself for

quickly carrying out its orders. Reed trusted the Troopers and their judgment "not to interrupt

Market People going or coming-& in every Respect, secrecy is to be observed previous to

entering on Business."so The Troop was the effective tool of the Council's authority.

47 See Figure 5. Peale himself had been one of the three men asked to lead the crowd ofmilitiamen at Bums'sTavern on the morning of the Fort Wilson Riot. He failed to convince them to stop and did not participate inthe day's events. For further discussion ofPeale, see Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 209-11.48 Joseph Reed to Samuel Morris, 9 June 1780, Armory. This quote is from the first letter sent by Reed toMorris.49 Joseph Reed to Samuel Morris, 9 June 1780, Armory. This quote is from the third letter sent by Reed toMorris.50 Ibid.

67

The British military threat was considered such a great danger that the Council and the

Troop were willing to violate property rights to preserve their new government. At Fort Wilson,

however, the Pennsylvania government and merchants had refused to compromise with the

extralegal price-fixing committee that was trying to bring essential goods to the suffering and

even starving laboring poor of Philadelphia. Reed himself then rode in with the Troop to put the

Fort Wilson Riot down-although the government later compromised by pardoning all involved.

Revolt ofthe Pennsylvania Line

The memories of Fort Wilson and the societal divisions it exposed did not disappear in

the months ahead. The Donnaldson Narrative describes that in January, 1781, the Troop was

"again called into service by Governor Reed by that of the most threatening and distressing

appearances, to contend with their own citizens."Sl The Pennsylvania Line, numbering around

2,500 men, had been in their winter quarters at Morristown. Many who had enlisted in 1776 and

1777 correctly insisted their terms of service were over. Their pay was many months overdue,

their clothes were rags and some were close to starvation. The Donnaldson Narrative continues,

"Their active bravery and their blood had been devoted to the cause, they had suffered much and

received no pay, at length the spirit ofmutiny broke forth." A captain was killed and several

officers wounded in trying to restrain the revolting men who quickly organized themselves under

their non-commissioned officers and began a march to Princeton.

The Donnaldson Narrative describes the men in sympathetic terms. These men of the line

had suffered a much different experience while fighting in the Continental army than the

Troopers had. Extreme supply shortages of food, shoes, clothing and blankets led to high death

and disease rates among the Continental army. Among the worst periods was the winter of 1777

to 1778, when 3,000 of the 12,000 Continental Troops at Morristown perished during the six

51 Donnaldson, Annory.

68

month encampment. 52 In May of 1778, over 4,000 men were on the sick roles ofthe Continental

army. The Troop's ability to properly supply itself is shown in that not a single Trooper died of

disease or starvation during the American Revolution. While the reconnaissance role of light

horse was dangerous, the only Trooper to die was George Fullerton from the accidental

discharge of his own pistol while delivering specie. The Troop was committed to the American

Revolution, but its physical suffering did not approach that of the rank and file of the Continental

army.

In the Revolt of the Line, the government and officers of the Continental army could

again trust the Philadelphia Light Horse to support their actions as they called upon the Troop to

serve in its many functions. Council President Reed wrote to Troop Captain Morris, "I presume

you are informed of a most dangerous and unhappy Meeting in the Pennsylvania Line, in which

two valuable Officers have lost their Lives. The last account was that they were in full March for

the city, but I hope this will not be the Case." He directed three Troopers to "accompany General

St. Clair & the Marquis de la Fayette" and for the rest of the Troop to be in "Readiness.,,53 On

January 5, twenty Light Horse were then requested to escort representatives from Congress and

members of the Supreme Executive Council including President Reed to New Jersey so that they

could enter into discussion with the mutineers.54 The Troopers observed that a "complete order

pervaded the whole camp" and even sentinels were posted with regular relief. 55 In addition to

keeping strict order while in revolt, the Pennsylvania Line also seized some emissaries that

British forces in New York had sent. The men remained loyal to the Revolutionary cause against

the British, and simply wanted their terms of agreement with the Continental army honored.

52 Martin, Philadelphia Campaign, 176.53 Joseph Reed to Samuel Morris, 3 January 1781, Annory.54 Timothy Matlack to Samuel Morris, 5 January 1781, Annory.55 Donnaldson, Annory.

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In the Fort Wilson Riot, Joseph Reed and the Pennsylvania government had

compromised to help restore their authority. In the Revolt of the Pennsylvania Line, they would

fully yield to the demands ofthe soldiers. On January 7, proposals authorized under Reed as

President ofthe Council of Pennsylvania were distributed to the soldiers and non-commissioned

officers of the Pennsylvania Line offering terms: first, no soldiers would be kept in service

beyond the period for which they had voluntarily enlisted; second, $100 was to be paid from

Congress to soldiers who had enlisted or re-enlisted for three years; and third, a pair of shoes, a

shirt and overalls were to be delivered to each soldier. "The Governor hopes that no Soldier of

the Pennsylvania Line will break his Bargain, or go from the Contract made with the public-

and they may depend upon it, that the utmost Care will be taken to furnish them with every

necessary fitting for a Soldier." 56 In this, the proposal tacitly admitted the government's failure

to provide its soldiers with everything necessary. It used the language of civic sacrifice to

encourage the soldiers to stop their revolt.

The proposal was accepted and the dispute ended. No mutineer was to be brought to trial

or censured for his action. A committee of four was appointed to carry out its provisions and

handle the pay issues. Troopers again played a central role as its Captain Samuel Morris and

Private Blair McClenachan served on the committee. The Troop, in its commitment to the cause

of independence, had firmly committed itself to the success of the Revolutionary Pennsylvania

and Continental governments. For the Troop, establishing order in a society during a revolution

meant balancing compromise with martial action. As the Donnaldson Narrative describes, "The

dangerous policy of yielding even to the just demands of soldiers made with arms in their hands

was soon illustrated-the Success of the Pennsylvania line inspired a part of the Jersey [brigade]"

S6 "PROPOSALS Made to the non commissioned Officers and Soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line at Princeton,January 7, 1781," Armory.

70

to make similar demands a few weeks later. This time, however, General Washington sent

General Robert Howe immediately with 1,500 troops and "instructions to make no lessons with

them & to serve a few of the most active leaders & execute them on the spot. These orders being

promptly performed the Jersey mutineers were soon compelled to return to their duty."s7 Order

was to be upheld.

Compromise and pardon were important tools in that they could bring a revolting group

back under the authority of the government. Conservatives in power hesitated to use them in

ways that would simply inspire more militant radical activity. Just as the militiamen of the Fort

Wilson Riot had a threshold where their anger towards the speculators drove them to radical

action, so too did Washington where he would not be pushed by radicals that threatened to derail

conceptions of duty. At Fort Wilson, the Troop, which had not attempted to stop the militia's

seizures before, experienced that threshold when the militiamen attacked a group of prominent

citizens, including some of the Troop's own, who had joined together in a man's house for

protection. But importantly, at the Revolt of the Pennsylvania Line, Troopers understood the

justice behind the cause of these men of the line, and the power that 2,500 revolting men held

with a British army in New York trying to take advantage of the situation. A compromise was

struck whereby these men accepted what they had been promised and conceded to not hold out

for more, and the governing authorities agreed to make no attempt to later punish them for their

revolt. A compromise was struck, and a country was forged.

"Virtuous Citizens"

The Troop's most essential contributions to the Revolution were not only as members of

the Philadelphia Light Horse. As Colonel Stephen Moylan wrote to the Troop,

57 Donnaldson, Annory. Forty-eight members are listed in the "Pay Roll of the Troop at the Revolt of thePennsylvania Line, 3 January 1781," Annory.

71

I have it in commandfrom the Commander in chiefto thank you and the gentlemen ofyour corpsfor your spirited intentions to join the Army-His Excellency is very sensible ofthe importantavocations which at present regain the attention ofthe citizens ofPhiladelphia, and as the enemyhave left this state, he would not wish to deprive that Capital ofthe assistance which so manyvirtuous citizens must naturally give to the laudable exertions now prosecutingfor the publicgood. 58

Troopers had actively served on the committees that helped to run Pennsylvania and guide them

into the war. As discussed in the first chapter, eight Troopers were on the Committee of Safety,

five on the Committee of Correspondence, three on the Council of Safety, and three on the

Committee of Inspection and Observation. Because the Philadelphia Light Horse did not demand

its members to be constantly in the field, it was not an exclusive institution, allowing its

members to take an active role in both the civil and military affairs of the Revolutionary cause.

Troop members made significant military contributions outside the confines of the

Philadelphia Light Horse. Some ofthe early members resigned to the Honorary Roll to become

officers in the Pennsylvania and Continental army, and members performed necessary

bureaucratic roles in the army like acting as pay-masters.59 The Troop also elected members who

had already served in the Revolution. Twenty-six Troopers held military ranks in addition to

theirs from the Philadelphia Light Horse. The highest-ranking members in the army included a

brigadier-general, three colonels, two lieutenant colonels, four majors, and four captains. Many

of these men were elected between 1779 and 1782, including Samuel Miles, who unlike the

Troop founders had fought in the French & Indian War and would later become Captain of the

Philadelphia Light Horse. Four Troopers would also contribute to Pennsylvania's naval defense

58 Stephen Moylan to Samuel Morris, 25 June 1780, Annory.59 Among the Troop founders do this was James Mease, who was appointed Pay-master and Treasurer to theContinental Anny in 1775 and Clothier-General to the anny in 1777, William West, Jr. who was a Captain inthe 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment in 1776--later a Major in the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment-and deputy to JamesMease, Samuel Caldwell who was Paymaster and Treasurer to the Continental Anny in 1775, and JamesHunter who was Pay-master to the 4th Pennsylvania Battalion in 1777. Trooper rolls and remarks printed inTroop History to 1991, 210-12; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 305-07.

72

as Captains, and Troop founder Andrew Caldwell was commodore in command of

Pennsylvania's provincial fleet naval.

Just as the Troop independently functioned to support the Continental cause, the

merchants ofthe Troop independently supported the Continental naval efforts through

privateering. These ships operated outside direct government control but significantly damaged

British commerce. Privateers in commission in 1776 that were at least partially owned by

Troopers included the Industry, owned by Blair McClenachan, the Speedwell, by John Maxwell

Nesbitt and David Conyngham, and the General Putnam, by Matthew Irwin.6o Among

McClenachan's many vessels that had received letter-of-marque commissions to capture British

merchantmen and their cargo was "that mischievous American, the Holker.,,61 The Holker,

which had a maximum crew of 130 officers and men, took the appropriately named Friendship

and three sloops off the coast of Jersey, and even joined together with two other American

privateers to take a large British ship sailing from Barbados. Troopers, as wealthier merchants

connected to the shipping trade, could outfit privateers. The Troop provided essential

nonconventional support for the Continental cause, both in its capabilities as a unit of Troopers

and outside of them.

60 Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 2; Paul B. Silverstone, The Sailing Navy, 1775-1854 (New York: CRCPress, 2006), 18.61 Pennsylvania Packet, 10 January 1782, quoted in "That Mischievous Bolker: The Story of a Privateer,"Pennsylvania Magazine ofHistory and Biography 79 (January 1955): 27.

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IV. A Seed in the Watermelon Army: The First City Troop in the Early Republic

Trooper John Donnaldson wrote to his Captain John Dunlap in 1803, "You know in

Reed's administration many attempts were made to break us up--and yet we stood the torrent of

the faction and afterwards were of signal service in saving our City from being plundered when

Wilson's house was attacked."! Conflict had been a part ofthe Troop's identity since its

association. Its members were united in purpose, battling against the British and standing against

other factions in Pennsylvania society to establish a stronger social order. The Troop's active

military and civic participation in the American Revolution had cemented its prominence in the

Early Republic. Troopers succeeded in both business and government, and its ranks included

both Philadelphia mayors and Pennsylvania Assembly representatives. The Troop attracted new

members, drawing from Revolutionary War officers and the sons of prominent Philadelphians.

America, however, did not emerge from the War ofIndependence as a unified nation­

the thirteen colonies had won their independence but would remain under a loose confederation

until the United States Constitution was passed in 1789. The increasingly powerful Federal

government of the 1790s was a vision for which the Troop had fought. But it was not a vision

shared by many other Americans who had contributed to the Revolution. The Troop would twice

muster out and ride as part of a larger army to put down Pennsylvanian insurrections that had

targeted Federalist taxation policies. The Troop's military purpose from the Revolution through

the Early Republic was continuous.

I begin this chapter by exploring the divisions in Pennsylvania revealed by the Troop's

military role and how its members sought to preserve the Federalist order for which they had

fought in the Revolution. I look at how the Troop's public and ceremonial role attempted to

1 John Donna1dson to Captain John Dunlap, 6 August 1803, Armory.

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lessen these divisions by fostering a sense of national unity. Through escorts and parades, the

Troop participated in building a national culture for a newborn country out of symbols from the

Revolutionary War. The Troop drew on its Revolutionary heritage to embolden its identity and

assert its vision.

The "Insolent Mutineers" of1783

After the cessation ofhostilities with Britain on April 11, 1783, the Continental army

began to disband. A small insurrection broke out in Lancaster, Pennsylvania when eighty men

from the new levy of the Pennsylvania Line revolted against their officers in June. They

proceeded to Philadelphia to list their complaints to the Supreme Executive Council. Their

numbers increased to around 300 as some disgruntled Continentals quartered in Philadelphia

joined them. They marched in "military parade, with fixed bayonets, to the State House where

Congress and the Executive Council of the State were then sitting.,,2 These bodies refused to

meet them, and the troops marched back to their barracks. Congress resolved that "the authority

ofthe United States had been grossly insulted by the disorderly and menacing appearance of a

body of armed Soldiers" and adjourned to Princeton because of the threat. 3 Negotiations with the

Council took place through June 24, when Council President Dickinson met a few leaders of the

"mutineers" at his house on Fifth and Market and persuaded them to disperse "with some threats

of the consequences." 4 Philadelphia militia units had gathered under arms in the area, with the

Troop stationed on Sixth Street; more importantly, General Robert Howe was approaching

Philadelphia with 1,500 Continentals.

The anger in the Donnaldson Narrative directed towards this "handful ofmen,

contemptible in numbers and equally so in point of service, who were not worthy to be called

2 Donna1dson, Annory.3 Resolution of Congress, 21 June 1783, reprinted in Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, 329.4 Donna1dson, Annory; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 47.

75

soldiers" is very different from its respectful description of the men in the Revolt of the

Pennsylvania Line of 1781. The actions of these "insolent mutineers" were reprehensible

because,

At the same time, those officers and soldiers, the veterans who had bourne the beast ofburden ofthe war, patiently endured hunger, nakedness and cold and suffered and bled without a murmur,having real cause ofcomplaint, had retired quietly to their homes without a settlement oftheiraccounts or afarthing ofmoney in their pockets.5

The Donnaldson Narrative focuses on the sacrifices of the "veterans," men who had "real cause

of complaint." Their ability to quietly endure was considered virtuous. Troopers had sincere

respect for these veterans, knowing that the rank and file soldiers had suffered far worse than had

the Philadelphia Light Horse during the war. The "new levies," however, had "disgraced

themselves by insulting the authorities of the United States & oftheir own State.,,6 The Troop's

commitment to the authority of both the state and Federal government defined them.

The Philadelphia Light Horse helps to reveal the change in the culture of Pennsylvania

government. The Commonwealth had passed a militia law during the French and Indian War,

only to let it expire. Not until March of 1777, when a more radical Revolutionary government

was in place, would Pennsylvania pass a militia act that made its citizens' military service

obligatory. The Troop, which had organized along the older volunteer associational model,

served the Revolutionary government throughout the war. While most of the military, like the

"insolent mutineers" of Lancaster, were disbanded after the American Revolution, the military

had become institutionalized in Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Light Horse continued to muster

for exercise in the l780s to meet the militia law requirements. In 1788, it was further "authorized

and established" by law as a troop oflight dragoons in an act of the Assembly that also

5 Donnaldson, Armory.6 Ibid.

76

recommended and detailed the organization of a second troop from Philadelphia.7 The

Pennsylvania government considered the Troop's model successful and essential, even in peace.

The military and the Troop played central roles in Pennsylvania after the Revolution and

were closely connected to the Commonwealth's government. Immediately after the United States'

new constitutional government took effect, Pennsylvania ratified its own new constitution in

1790--0ne that was more conservative than the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. Rosswurm

largely attributes this to the legacy ofthe Fort Wilson Riot, writing, "the congruence ofvalues

and political economy between the middling sort and those above, which the former came to

recognize in the wake of Fort Wilson, splintered the urban and rural sections of the

Constitutionalists in the 1780s.,,8 This Constitution was more socially conservative, but it

continued the trend ofmilitary institutionalization into the Commonwealth. It allowed the

Governor to act as the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy ofthe Commonwealth, and

of the Militia except when they be called into the actual service of the United States," which also

made a strong commitment to national defense. It declared, "The Freemen of this

Commonwealth shall be armed and disciplined for its defense.,,9 The Revolution had

transformed Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.

The Whiskey Rebellion and the Watermelon Army

The Revolution's transformative role in Pennsylvania's military culture had not erased

older divisions between urban Philadelphia and some of the Commonwealth's western counties.

A tax levied by the Federal government in 1791 on distilled spirits had inspired strong opposition

in western farmers from Pennsylvania to Virginia who saw it as both invasive and discriminatory.

7 This became known as the "Second City Troop," and William Jackson, who had been a Major in theRevolutionary War and had joined the Philadelphia Light Horse, would become its First Lieutenant.S Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class, 256.9 Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790, quoted in Newland, Pennsylvania Militia, 146.

77

Whiskey, which many farmers distilled from grain, was their primary commodity and bartering

good, as it was easier to transport, preserve and sell.

These protests spiked in the summer of 1794. In July, Federal Marshal and Troop

member David Lenox, joined by John Neville, the supervisor of the excise collections in that

region, delivered a court summons to an Allegheny Country farmer and distiller. The next day, a

group of militiamen showed up at Neville's house, but he had armed his slaves, and in a skirmish,

several of the militia were wounded and one would die from these wounds. In the ensuing

escalation, Lenox was seized by a group ofmilitia, only to be released, and soldiers from Fort

Pitt would be injured defending Neville. Washington, as President of the United States and

Commander-in-Chief ofthe Army, issued a proclamation in August requesting several quotas of

militia totaling over 12,000 men from the governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and

Virginia. Buildings had been looted, mails robbed, and court procedures stopped-a peace

commission returned news of the continuing rebellion. Washington moved to re-establish the

authority and law ofthe Federal govemment,lO

During the American Revolution, the Troop had committed itself to serving Congress and

took pride in its personal attachments to Washington. In a Troop meeting at the City Tavern on

September 10, 1794, the twenty-four Troopers present ''unanimously resolved that the Captain be

authorized to offer the Troop as volunteers under the late request of the President of the United

States."ll It would again take up its role of service to Washington, and it did so unanimously.

This support from the merchants and professional men ofPhiladelphia contrasts with the

reluctance from other regions in Pennsylvania, where the Commonwealth had to offer bonuses

10 For further discussion of these events see Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue tothe American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 177-84; Newland, Pennsylvania Militia,154.11 Donna1dson, Armory.

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and pay raises on top of the federal pay to recruit enough men. Describing Philadelphia,

Rosswurm writes, ''until the formation of the Democratic-Republic Society in 1793, the middling

sort, particularly the artisans, aligned themselves with the mercantile interest.,,12 The Whiskey

Rebellion and the formation of the Republican Party, or Democratic Republican Party, in

opposition to the Federalists' foreign and economic policies revealed the underlying tensions that

never went away after the American Revolution.

Republican Party principles stressed states' rights and a limited Federal power,

conflicting with much of the Troop's purpose. Thomas Jefferson, who founded the Republican

Party with James Madison, later described to Troop Founder Thomas Leiper his concern that

Federalist doctrine goes "to the calling all our people from the interior to turn merchants, and to

convert this great agricultural country into a city ofAmsterdam."13 Republican rhetoric elevated

the yeoman farmer over the merchant and businessman. The founder of the Federalists,

Washington's Secretary ofthe Treasury Alexander Hamilton, had devised the excise tax on

whiskey to help pay for funding the national debt left over from the Revolutionary War. In the

Whiskey Rebellion, the Troop continued its commitment to establish and preserve a distinctly

Federalist order.

The Troop and its members supported the President's decision and the Pennsylvania

governor's request for militia. The men could have avoided service and hired a substitute if they

were drafted-the members, who still supplied their own equipment and horses, could have

afforded it. Instead, they volunteered. The Troop also dramatically increased its size at this time,

showing the Troop's recognition of the necessity oflight horse in this expedition as well as the

support for the war among Philadelphia's elite. On September 10, the Troop elected seven new

12 Rosswunn, Arms, Country, and Class, 256.13 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Leiper, 21 January 1809, quoted in Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 191-92.

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members, and on September 12, it elected seventeen more. Before this, the Troop had a

membership of forty-six effective members, and nine more on the active roll who were beyond

the age of required militia service. 14 The new membership boosted the effective strength of the

Troop to seventy men.

On September 19, fifty-three Troopers, along with two trumpeters, some servants and

wagon drivers "took up the line of march against the insurgents of the Western counties of the

State of Pennsylvania who had opposed the excise law.,,15 They served under the same pay and

were subject to the same articles and rules of the militia, even as volunteers. Showing the army's

recognition of the important role oflight horse, two other troops were raised from Philadelphia,

totaling approximately 160 men. 16

Two classes made up Washington's citizen army: the laboring poor who were militia

draftees and the men hired as substitutes by wealthier draftees, and the officers who "came from

the ranks of the creditor aristocracy in the seaboard cities."I? William Hogeland writes of the

latter class as "gorgeously uniformed" men, noting that "State governors spent precious hours

trying to salve acrimony among young men over personal snubs and outraged dress sense."

Furthermore, "when preferences could not be satisfied, many adventurers refused, at the last

minute, to participate, and those who did serve brought extreme personal touchiness, along with

happy dreams ofvengeance, to the western march.,,18

14 These nine members, including five founders of the Light Horse, "being superannuated & beyond the agerequired by the militia law for active duty, did not join the expedition." Donnaldson, Armory.15 Donnaldson, Armory; By-Laws, Muster-Roll, and Papers, 27-28. Two of the twenty-four men elected inSeptember and fifteen of the forty-six effectives who had been elected before this time did not join the Westernexpedition. The two who were elected in September and did not join march out were Robert Bickley andBenjamin F. West.16 The other two troops were under Captain McConnell and Captain Singer. General Order from JosiahHarmer, 17 September 1794, Armory; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 54.17 William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 211.18 Ibid.

80

The Troop matched Hogeland's descriptions in some ways. The group he calls "the most

trim and gleaming of the eastern urbanites" had indeed put money into their uniform, updating it

in May, 1794, to "a blue Coat, faced with red, the edging for the commissioned officers silver

cord, and for the non-commissioned officers and privates white edging-for the Horse a white

Saddle cloth with blue edging.,,19 This reflects the Troopers' pride in their status as Philadelphia

gentlemen and their wish to appear both refined and professional. However, the Troop did not

seem to express these "happy dreams ofvengeance."

The three Philadelphia cavalry troops arrived in Carlisle after a ten-day march under the

command of the Troop's Captain Dunlap, who had been elevated to the rank ofMajor. There he

issued the following order: "To acknowledge and applaud the conduct ofthe Troop under his

command....Their strict attention to orders, their decent and gentlemanly deportment towards the

inhabitants and that spirit of harmony and accommodation which they uniformly displayed."

Dunlap singled out the Troop's treatment of the Western Pennsylvanians it encountered on this

"patriotic cause." The goal, as Dunlap wrote, was the "punishment of the guilty violators of the

laws of our Country and Submission to them by all descriptions of Citizens--on which depend

the Peace, Liberty and Safety of the People.,,2o Dunlap stressed the respect for authority as

central to the success of both the Troop and the nation. All citizens must submit to the law, and

the Troop must submit to the orders of the government it was defending.

The danger of a soldier not appearing to submit to the same laws that he was upholding

was clear to the leaders of the Watermelon Army. 21 After the accidental deaths of two civilians

19 DOlU1a1dson, Annory.20 Jo1m Dunlap to the First Troop of Philadelphia Light Horse, 29 September 1794, Annory.21 The term Watermelon Anny came from a satirical essay told from a frontiersman's perspective that deridedthe New Jersey farmers who were to fight in the Whiskey Campaign as men who were better off farmingmelons and warring with the crabs and oysters around the Capes of Delaware than doing any real fighting. Formore explanation, see Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 272.

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caused by two soldiers, President Washington directed the soldiers to be turned over to state

magistrates, although the judge released the men. Alexander Hamilton wrote to Pennsylvania

Governor Thomas Mifflin, "It is a very precious and important idea that those who are called out

in support and defense of the laws should not give occasion or even pretext to impute to them

infractions of the laws.,,22 Establishing and preserving order through authority, central to the

Troop's purpose during the Revolution, remained important during the Whiskey Rebellion.

The Troop was connected to its Revolutionary past on this campaign by more than the

importance of authority. Of the Troop founders at the Carlisle camp, Dunlap was then the

Captain, David Lenox the First Lieutenant, Thomas Leiper a Second Lieutenant, William Hall

the Comet, John Donnaldson the Quarter-Master, and Samuel Howell a Sergeant. Many of the

other men present had also fought in the American Revolution, both with the Troop and with the

Continental and Pennsylvania armies. This connection reveals a continuation in purpose and

culture between the Troop of the Revolution and the Troop of the l790s.

The Troop's actions on the campaign further connected it to the Troop of the Revolution.

Washington recorded in his diary for October 14, "I found a detachment of the Philadelphia light

horse ready to receive me and escort me to Carlisle 17 miles away.,,23 The Troop not only

performed the same courier and reconnaissance role it had in the Revolution, but again even

escorted Washington. Trooper Sergeant Conyngham wrote, "General Washington, Commander-

in-Chief and President of the United States, riding alongside me, expressed warmly his respect

for the First Troop; that he could scarcely convey how much he had always felt himself indebted

to the Troop, for their services during the Revolutionary War, and also their services on the

present expedition; that such gentlemen turning out, was the means of inducing other troops to

22 Letter from Alexander Hamilton to Thomas Mifflin, 10 October 1794, quoted in Slaughter, WhiskeyRebellion, 206.23 Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 55.

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march more cheerfully.,,24 Washington was both a man and a myth to the Troop, which took

pride in its personal interactions with him.

Washington, after reviewing the army of around 1,000 cavalry and 14,000 infantry at

Bedford, returned to Philadelphia, where Congress was to assemble, and left the command to

General Frelinghuysen. The Troop served in the advanced corps of the right wing of the militia

army, where Dunlap commanded the three Philadelphia troops oflight horse and one from New

Jersey.25 The insurrection had largely dispersed when confronted with this overwhelming

number of forces, and the cavalry was used to capture some of the suspected leaders. The Troop

seized a number ofmen in Washington County, including a justice of the peace and a Baptist

clergyman. As Governor William Findley describes, "to drag men, unexpectedly and unprepared,

from their wives and children, from bed-time til morning, is an exertion that shocked humanity,"

but he conceded that "Captain Dunlap and his party, while they behaved with the greatest

dexterity in taking the prisoners, treated them with as much politeness and attention as their

situation would admit of, and engaged their gratitude by accompanying unavoidable severity

with humanity.,,26 Not one of the suspects was injured or killed in these captures, demonstrating

that Dunlap and the men under him were not acting as adventurers with dreams of vengeance.

The Troop was successful in the Whiskey Rebellion campaign, where its members were

in active service for one-hundred days and played an important role as a light horse. It returned

to Philadelphia along with Captain McConnell's and Captain Singer's light horse troops, where

Elizabeth Drinker records in her journal: "Dec. 13. Three Companies of Light-Horse passed by

our door before dinner; the first were in blue uniforms, the second in green, the third blue and

24 Quoted in Ibid., 56.25 The New Jersey Troop was under Captain McKinney.26 William Findley, History ofthe Insurrection in the Four Western Counties ofPennsylvania in the Year 1794with a Recital ofthe Circumstances Specially Connected Therewith, and an Historical Review ofthe PreviousSituation ofthe Country (Philadelphia: Samuel Harrison Smith, 1796), 201-02.

83

cuff.,,27 Dunlap oversaw all three, and his leadership on the campaign had stressed the authority

oflaw. His humane treatment of the men he had captured, where he" had them comfortably

lodged and provided with victuals, previous to his taking refreshment himself," was the same

kind of compromising that the Revolutionary Pennsylvania government had made following the

1779 Fort Wilson Riot and the 1781 Revolt ofthe Pennsylvania Line. 28 Likewise, Washington

pardoned the men arrested, although one would die in jail before he could return home, and the

other men were merely fined. The insurrection itself demonstrated that the divisions in

American society did not end after independence from Britain. Thomas Slaughter writes that in

the Revolution, "conflict among Americans was at least as important a part of the story as

cooperation against the common enemy.,,29 Conflict remained central through the Early Republic,

with the Troop fighting for a more conservative America and a stronger national government.

The Troopers in the Whiskey Rebellion were not typical of a militia unit-Troopers had

never been. The Troop's function as both a light horse militia unit and a type of elite men's club

gave it a unique membership among Philadelphians who would have held higher ranks if serving

in another unit. As The American Daily Advertiser describes, "there might be seen as private

troopers, some ofthe principal officers of the State government, officers who had commanded

regiments in the continental service, merchants of the most respectable characters, lawyers of

eminent talents and property.,,30 These were not adventurers with dreams ofvengeance, but

established Philadelphians or younger men on the rise who were committed to serving the

authority of their government and its laws.

27 Biddle, ed., Drinker, 13 December 1794, 251.28 Findley, Western Insurrection, 201.29 Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York:Oxford University Press, 1986), 4.30 American Daily Advertiser, 14 October 1794.

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A Quasi- War and a Rebellion

The need for the Troop to police a Federal order in Philadelphia continued with the

increasing partisanship between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. In 1795,

Federalist chief negotiator John Jay had made a treaty with Great Britain whose terms angered

the Democratic Republicans who favored France. Elizabeth Drinker recorded, "Threats had been

thrown out of burning John Jay's effigy before the President's door; the Light Horse were

parading all day.,,3! This was not the celebratory parading of the Troop, but one that relied on its

reputation and the threat ofmartial force to preserve order and keep the peace. Jacob Hiltzheimer

described "a crowd of people in a riotous manner" burning the effigy of John Jay, and wrote that

during dinner on July 5, "George Lauman came in and gave us an account ofthe affair in

Kensington. He is a member of Captain Dunlap's light horse, and their number being so few,

they were unable to disperse the mob.,,32 If the Troop had directly engaged the protestors, the

situation could have escalated into violence. Instead, both the protestors and the Troopers

asserted their views within accepted cultural standards.

The Troop's actions in 1798 and 1799 indicate a stronger commitment to a general

conservatism and social order than found in strict political Federalism. In the wake of Jay's

Treaty, French privateers increasingly seized American ships trading with Britain. Philadelphians

were divided in their support between the French and the British. Jacob Hiltzheimer wrote: "May

10.-Last evening there were some disturbance in the streets, occasioned by men of the Black

Cockade and those ofWhite Cockade, and some arrests were made. The Light-Horse were called

and they paraded the streets.,,33 British supporters wore black cockades, and French supporters

wore white ones. As Carey's United States' Recorder warned, "Instead of that mutual

31 Biddle, ed., Drinker, 6 July 1795, 272.32 Parsons, ed., Hiltzheimer Diary, 4 July 1795, 215; 5 July 1795,215.33 Ibid., 10 May 1798,255.

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forbearance which ought to subsist among men and christians, instead of calm and sober

discussions of the public concerns, attempts are making to inflame citizen against citizen which

will, ifnot speedily checked end in blood.,,34 The Troop strove to support order, assuming its

familiar policing role.

The Troop actively sought to meet the crisis that would become known as the Quasi-War.

It elected twenty-two new members in a May 12 meeting at the "Fish House near Schuylkill,"

the State in Schuylkill sporting club whose membership had always overlapped with that of the

Troop.35 The Troop continued to parade, keeping order, as American negotiations with France

fell apart. Congress then called to raise a provisional army for the impending war. In a circular

letter sent to the officers of the Commonwealth's militia, Pennsylvania Governor Thomas

Mifflin requested assistance in carrying out Congress' call. The Troop, which had always relied

upon unanimous elections to make its decisions, did not make this commitment. Instead, it

allowed individual members to make their own choice. At the meeting on July 10, 1798, thirteen

Troopers asked permission to temporarily withdraw from the active Troop roll to raise a new

cavalry corps to be part of the provisional army. They were to be attached to the McPherson

Blues-the infantry militia with whom they had marched in the Whiskey Campaign. They were

granted permission with "full approbation of the Troop and as soon as the service in which they

engage expires, such members shall be received into the Troop on the first vacancies without

being balloted for.,,36

The Troop supported its members who chose to fill Congress' call for a provisional army.

It also prepared itself for the possibility of war, as that summer it hired Thomas Swann and "John

Walker, an English Light Dragoon" to better instruct Troopers in the use ofthe broad sword and

34 Carey's United States' Recorder, 10 May 1798.35 Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 59.36 Ibid.

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the cavalry maneuvers three times a week from five to seven in the morning.37 The Troop itself,

however, did not commit to serving at this stage. This is a marked difference from the American

Revolution, where the Troop offered its services to Congress in November of 1774.

In the short-lived Quasi-War, the Volunteer Cavalry directed by Captain Robert Wharton

performed traditional Troop roles. When a group of French prisoners "under a small guard, have

exhibited proofs of an unruly and mutinous spirit," and fearing they would "overpower" their

guard, ten to twelve ofWharton's Troopers were requested to bring the prisoners to Lancaster.38

After their commitment was over, Wharton and six other Troopers who had withdrawn to serve

in his Volunteer Dragoons rejoined the Troop in October, 1801.

While the Quasi-War was taking place, a new Federalist tax-this one on land and

housing-was again a lightning-rod of resentment among Pennsylvanians. As Paul Douglas

Newland writes, the revolters' concerns were not simply about the tax but about "local control,

economic liberty, and national independence.,,39 John Fries, a man who had served in both the

American Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion, was a key organizer of resistance to the tax.

He used rhetoric that seized upon lingering resentment from the Revolution: "All those people

who were Tories in the Last War mean to be the leaders, they mean to get us quite under, they

mean to makes us Slaves!,,4o After Fries had marched with a few hundred armed men to the town

of Bethlehem to free prisoners who had been arrested for tax resistance, President John Adams

issued a proclamation ordering the rioters to disperse. He called upon Pennsylvania Governor

Thomas Mifflin to use the militia to restore order.

37 Ibid., 60-61.38 Benjamin Hudde1 to Robert Wharton, 26 July 1798, Armory.

39 Paul Douglas Newman, Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004),39.40 Quoted in Ibid., 15. Newman claims that Fries made this warning to the Lower Milford Militia under hiscommand on March 7, 1799, however, his only source is the Deposition ofPhillip Schlough before JudgeRichard Peters on April 15, 1799, making the quote indirect.

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Unlike in the Quasi-War, the Troop fully committed to preserving the domestic order and

putting down the insurrection. Troop Captain John Dunlap responded to the Pennsylvania

Militia's Adjutant-General's request within an hour of receiving it, writing, "With pleasure I tell

you, that when the laws and government of this happy country require defence, the First Troop of

Philadelphia Cavalry wants but one hour's notice to march.,,41 The Troop's commitment to the

"laws and government" remained its central purpose. Along with the regular militia and infantry,

the Troop was called out with eight other Cavalry commands-five from neighboring

Pennsylvania counties and three others from Philadelphia.

In a quick campaign of seventeen days, forty-seven Troopers, accompanied by two

trumpeters and seven servants, set out with the three other city troops.42 Using small scout parties,

similar to the reconnaissance roles the Troop had performed during the Revolution, Fries was

quickly captured along with a number of other suspected leading insurgents. The captured men

were brought back to Philadelphia; after trial, many were convicted, and Fries and two others

sentenced to be hung. But President Adams pardoned all of them with a proclamation of general

amnesty on May 23. Merging the threat of overwhelming force with amnesty in meting out

justice preserved and restored the government's authority. The Troop had been involved in this

delicate balance of force and forgiveness since the Revolution.

Troopers were committed to the Federalist order, but more centrally to a general

conservatism and societal order. One of the four Philadelphia light horse troops was an

independent one led by former Trooper Thomas Leiper. A staunch Democratic Republican and

friend of Thomas Jefferson, he had resigned from the Troop in 1794. In response to the cockade

demonstrations and the Quasi-War with France, he formed a Republican troop of light horse. He

41 Peter Baynton to John Dunlap, 20 March 1799, Armory. Baynton was then Adjutant-General of the Militiaof Pennsylvania.42 "Pay Roll, March 20 to April 25, 1799," Armory.

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retained his attachment to Republican ideals throughout his life, even casting a vote in the

Electoral College for the Democrat Andrew Jackson, but that never outweighed his commitment

to the kind of authority and order he had sought from his earlier days as a founder of the

Philadelphia Light Horse, evidenced by his contributions in putting down Fries' Rebellion.43

Unity

The Troop's military and domestic policing actions preserved the government's authority

through force and the threat of force. The Troop's ceremonial roles also instilled this order. By

helping to build traditions and myths around the American Revolution, the Troop created a

unifying culture that sought to overcome deep divisions in the Philadelphian and Pennsylvanian

societies. In the war and the Early Republic, the central figure was "WASHINGTON, our

victorious and illustrious commander-in-chief. ...May the crown of glory he has placed on the

brow ofthe genius of America, shine with untarnished radiance and luster. ...WASHINGTON

THE SAVIOR OF HIS COUNTRy!,,44 In the Troop's escorts and parades, it contributed to his

myth and celebrated its own association with him.

From its 1775 escort of the recently appointed commander-in-chiefthrough New York on

his way to Boston, the Troop strongly connected itself to Washington. As a delegate from

Virginia to the Constitutional Convention, Washington recorded his arrival to Philadelphia on

May 13, 1787, where the "the City Light Horse, commanded by Col. Miles met me and escorted

me in by the Artillery Officers who stood arranged & saluted as I passed.,,45 The Pennsylvania

Packet further noted, "The joy of the people on the coming ofthis great and good man was

43 John Russell Young, ed., Memorial History ofthe City ofPhiladelphia from Its First Settlement to the Year1895 (New York: New York History Company, 1898), 155-57.44 Pennsylvania Journal, 26 November 1781; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915,44.45 George Washington quoted in William Spohn Baker, Washington after the Revolution: 1784-1796(Philadelphia: lB. Lippincott, 1898), 74.

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shewn by their acclamations and the ringing of the bells.,,46 The delegates unanimously chose

Washington as the President of the Convention that May, and the Electoral College unanimously

elected him as President of the United States in both the elections of 1789 and 1792-the only

United States President to be elected unanimously.47 Washington was a unifying figure for the

Troop and the colonies that had fought in the Revolution.

The Troop continued to participate in creating unifying traditions around both men and

days. During the Revolution, Congress had designated July 4 for the celebration of the

Declaration of Independence. The large July 4, 1788 celebration in Philadelphia co-opted this

tradition to elevate the Constitution and channel the national pride of Independence Day to

support its ratification. At the time, the Constitution had been ratified only by ten ofthe thirteen

states. "The Troop took the lead marching at the head of the procession," with civil and military

officers, judges and gentlemen of the bar, the clergy of different churches, and representatives

from all the cities trade groups, among many others, all taking part. They had started at in the

morning at half past nine on South and Third, arriving upon the Union Green just after noon.48

Troop members participated in the parade both within the Light Horse and outside of it.

Three Troopers were chief marshals of the procession, and two others marched with their

respective trade group. Thomas Leiper carried the flag of the Tobacconists. The tobacco plant

represented on the nearly five foot square silk banner has thirteen leaves with the top three small,

and still forming. Symbolism of national unity was present throughout, and the states that had

made the strong commitment to the country were celebrated: "Ten gentlemen, representing the

States that had ratified the Federal Constitution" paraded, each bearing a flag with a state's name

46 Pennsylvania Packet, 14 May 1787.47 The electors cast ballots with two names on them, and each ballot contained Washington's name as one ofthe choices. In both elections, John Adams had the second most votes and served as Washington's VicePresident.48 Donnaldson, Armory.

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printed in gold lettering-Trooper Christian Febiger carried Virginia's.49 Communicating a

message of national unity through symbols had been a part ofthe Philadelphia Light Horse since

its 1775 Markoe Standard.

The Troop's ceremonial role as an escort to the President of the United States reveals its

commitment to a distinctly Federalist identity. While in the office of President, Washington

received four Troop escorts. Hiltzheimer records the first on April 20, 1789, "Heard the great

guns fire in Philadelphia to welcome his Excellency George Washington, President of the United

States, from Wilmington. He dined at the City Tavern with the principal gentlemen of the city

and members of the troop oflight-horse. At night fireworks were exhibited.,,5o Upon

Washington's death in 1799, Troopers marched dismounted in "compleat uniform at the State

House for the purpose of paying their sad tribute ofveneration to the remains of their late

Commander-in-Chief.,,51 The Troop also escorted Federalist President John Adams, who had

been Washington's Vice President, in November, 1797, and November, 1798. The Troop did not,

however, serve as an escort for the next two Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison,

who were Democratic Republicans. While the Democrat and former Trooper Thomas Leiper's

light horse would participated in the military parade for Jefferson's inauguration, the Troop itself

remained absent in the ceremonies and pageantry ofboth administrations.

Though the Troop did not participate in escorting Jefferson or Madison, it did volunteer

its services in defense of the nation to fight Britain in the War of 1812. Its support contrasts to

the reaction of staunch New England Federalists, whose similarly aligned newspapers widely

discussed secession. The Troop's central purpose was American success, not political loyalty. Its

49 Donna1dson, Annory; Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 49.50 Parsons, ed., Hiltzheimer Diary, 20 April1789, 152.51 Notice sent to Troopers quoted in Wilson, ed., Troop History to 1915, 63.

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non-commitment to the Federalist-waged Quasi-War, compared to its full support in suppressing

Fries' Rebellion, shows a commitment to American order over American politics.

A larger American identity with unifying symbols from the Revolutionary War

overlapped with smaller political identities. The Troop's martial and celebratory roles imply its

Federalist vision for America, but this Federalism was built upon the shared ideal of a successful

and ordered America. The Troop asserted this more unifying patriotic culture not just by the act

ofparading, but in the very uniform it displayed while doing so. The Pennsylvania Herald

recorded in 1787, "the City light horse commanded by Col. Miles unanimously resolved to wear

leather breeches. The Patriotism ofthe measure is the subject of general discourse and

commendation.,,52 Eleven days later the Pennsylvania Herald described a Light Horse parade,

reporting, "they held out in the part of their uniform a patriotic example, which does them honor

and is highly worthy of imitation: Their vests and breeches for the most part were of white thin

buckskin, the production and manufacture of our own country.,,53 Through its public and private

roles, Troop sought to foster this sense of American pride.

The Troop's more private celebrations further indicate its shared ideals and sense of

patriotism. It was not simply a show for the public, but central to the Troop's identity. After the

July 4, 1788 parade, the Troop gathered and "American porter, beer and cyder were the only

liquors" used in the many toasts.,,54 The act of drinking itself was part of the Troop's culture, as

the Troop's more private connection to Washington reveals when it hosted a dinner for him at

the City Tavern. 55 The caterer's account for September 14, 1787, shows more than twice as much

52 Pennsylvania Herald, 14 April1787.53 Donna1dson, Armory; Pennsylvania Herald, 25 Aprill787.54 Donna1dson, Armory.55 Washington records in his diary, "September 14, 1787. Dined at the City Tavern at an entertainment givenon my acct by the City light horse." "Extracts from Washington's Diary, Kept While Attending the

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spent on the fifty-four bottles ofMadeira wine and sixty bottles of Claret than the "55

Gentlemens Dinners & fruit Relishes Olives &c." The bill also includes forty-two bottles of

American cyder, porter and beer. 56

Dinners like this were a celebration ofAmerican success and increasing power. In

February, 1796, the Troop hosted a dinner for Major-General Wayne and his officers to celebrate

his frontier victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers over an American Indian confederacy led by

the Shawnee and Delaware tribes. Their toasts, which were reprinted in the newspapers, reveal

patriotic legacies from the successes of the American Revolution overpowering factional

political loyalties. They drank toasts to both John Adams and the Republic of France, Alexander

Hamilton and the Marquis La Fayette, and to "THE PEOPLE-May they always distinguish

between Patriotism and Faction, and banish those formidable Foes to Liberty-Licentiousness,

Sedition, and Fickleness." General Wayne then toasted "the First Troop of Philadelphia

Dragoons; may their Patriotic exertions and those of other worthy citizens who composed the

late Volunteer army produce a conviction to the world that the Constitution and Laws of the

United States cannot be resisted with impunity.,,57 The Constitution and laws of the nation took

primacy over all else. The Troop sought to foster this patriotic unity.

The Troop's vision had largely been institutionalized into the government. At the close of

the Revolution and into the 1780s, three Troopers served on the Supreme Executive Council,

better realizing their political action that had started on the more radical committees and also in

Constitutional Convention of 1787," The Pennsylvania Magazine ofHistory and Biography, (Philadelphia:Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1887): 302.56 The bill also includes money for "Decanters Wine Glass & Tumblers Broken &c," indicating that the manybottles of alcohol and bowls of punch were drunk. In addition, the Troop paid for "16 Musician & Servantdinners" and purchased an additional sixteen bottles of Claret, five bottles of Madera, and seven bowls ofpunch for them. "Caterer's Account for the Light Troop of Horse, to Edwd Moyston," 14 September 1787,Armory.57 Claypoole's Daily Advertiser, 20 February 1796.

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service to the Council during the war. Four Troopers would also be elected the Pennsylvania

Assembly. While the Troop itself retained a more Federalist identity, two of its most successful

members, Thomas Leiper and Blair McClenachan, became Democrats, with McClenachan

serving as a member ofthe Pennsylvania Assembly and later the U.S. Congress. Many stayed

involved in trade and banking--one of the Troop founders was appointed Commissioner of the

U.S. Bank in 1791 by President Washington. The Troopers' ultimate commitment, however, was

ensuring the success and defense of the nation, as retired Trooper Samuel Miles showed when he

became the first "faithless elector." He wrote that in 1798 he was "nominated by the federalists

but...thought it my duty to vote for the man that appeared to me would be most useful for the

Public Good, without any regard to party." Believing that "both the Gentlemen [Adams and

Jefferson] were real republicans...with a view to the good & independence ofthe country," but

fearing the Federalists would be more likely to bring the United States into a war with France, he

voted for Jefferson. 58 Compromise and a commitment to the overall success of the nation

defined the members of the Philadelphia Light Horse.

58 Samuel Miles, Brief Autobiographical Sketch [MS], 4 February 1802, in Samuel Miles Papers, 1776-1802,APS.

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Conclusion

Friends and Fellow Soldiers. We are met to commemorate the thirty sixth anniversary since theformation of your Corps, organized for the purpose ofprotecting our rights, the brightest boonHeaven ever gave to man.... To You the warwom remnant of this ancient band who transmitted itto us its fame unsullied, believe us when we say-whilst life's purple stream plays round ourhearts our best endeavours shall be used to transmit the fair inheritance to our successors-norshall your venerable bosoms heave a sigh for the conduct of your sons-the bright example youhave set shall be our polar star to guide us in the path ofpolitical rectitude and self devotion to thesacred cause of our country.!

-Troop Captain Robert Wharton

In the middle ofWharton's speech to the Troop, the Captain took out the letter written to

the Troop from the "sainted hero" George Washington, held it up for his men to see, and read it

to them? Wharton looked to the past of the Light Horse to build a myth and a culture around it.

As F. R. Ankersmit writes, "we no longer have any texts, any past, but just interpretations of

them.,,3 Wharton and the Troopers endowed this letter with meaning as they engaged with the

memory of the Revolution.

Meaning is made through interpretation. The legacy ofWashington's letter, like the

legacy of the Revolution, was not inherent for Wharton and the Troop. The Revolution was

neither conservative nor radical-it does not have a singular Truth. Gary Nash, who attempts to

reclaim the Revolution's "true radicalism," where radicalism is the Revolutionaries' "wholesale

change and sharp transformation," is more in the act of reforging than reclaiming.4 Like Wharton,

he brings his own perspectives to a past whose meaning is constantly captured and recaptured,

shaped and reshaped. This is not to say that meaning is lost in transmission and translation, but

rather, meaning is added.

! Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 22 November 1810.2 Ibid.3 F. R. Ankersmit, "Historiography and Postmodemism," History and Theory 28 (1989): 137.4 Nash, Unkown American Revolution, xvii.

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Gordon Wood writes, "We Americans like to think of our revolution as not being radical;

indeed, most the time we consider it downright conservative."s Which Americans? Progressive,

Realist, Neo-Progressive, Conservative, Idealist; Constitutionalist, Federalist, Democratic-

Republican-schools of thought under changing names have been grappling with the

Revolution's meaning since the day the Revolution begun. And no one can even decide when

that day was. The Troop might choose November 17, 1774, when twenty-eight merchants and

professional men gathered in Carpenter's Hall and unanimously volunteered their services to the

Congress. Or it might choose July 4, 1776, the day Congress designated for the celebration ofthe

Declaration of Independence during the American Revolution, when it strove, along with the

Troop, to build a unifying tradition around it. The Troop might also choose Washington's

birthday-a day that the current members of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, a

Pennsylvania guard unit, still celebrate with an annual dinner. What day might a member of the

Pennsylvania Line choose? Or one of the militiamen who marched to James Wilson's house to

make the wealthy merchants sell their goods at prices everyone could afford?

My study of the Philadelphia Light Horse is a study ofthe divisions in Revolutionary

Pennsylvania and also the compromises and sacrifices that forged a nation. Nash described the

Revolution as a "seismic eruption from the hands of an internally divided people.,,6 If these

hands had always remained divided, the Revolution would have been a failure. A shared

commitment to fight off the British and assert an American authority, however, brought these

disparate forces together. The competing visions of America and authority often clashed, with

the Troop fighting to assert a more Federalist establishment, while at the same time

understanding a flexible and local community ethic and community boundary. The disorder and

5 Wood, Radicalism, 3.6 Nash, Unkown American Revolution, xviii.

96

danger of the Revolution loosened the boundaries of this moral framework, where militiamen

could seize a few wealthy merchants they labeled as Tories and price-gougers, and where rank­

and-file soldiers, who had suffered too much and been too deceived in their contracts, could

mutiny to force their agreements to be met. But basic and enforced community understandings of

morality remained, lashing back against militant radicals who went too far and threatened the

overthrow of the entire social order. After the war, authority became increasingly

institutionalized, and what was tolerable radicalism in the uncertainty of the Revolution became

criminal in the Early Republic.

The Troop helped achieve its vision of a unified nation, independent from Britain, with

an institutionalized social order that allowed business and trade to grow-and it did grow. Its

members helped achieve this through conventional and nonconventional military roles, and also

by understanding and cultivating national unity. "Resistance, manly resistance, or unconditional

vassalage was our only altemative--the choice was soon made ....The die was cast, to retrace our

steps was impossible; it only remained by firm perseverance, to secure the future."? Their legacy,

like that of the Revolution, is what remains to be secured and defined by each future generation.

Amidst the 2008-2009 economic crisis, amidst bailouts, bonuses and bankruptcies that

have led Americans to question the nation's role as a financial and business power, we ask if our

nation should be Main Street or Wall Street. This same question has divided America since the

Federalist Alexander Hamilton and the Democrat Thomas Jefferson, since the merchants and

officers inside Fort Wilson and the militiamen outside. America's Revolution was fought by

merchants and laborers, professionals and artisans. Only through the compromise of a common

American code, one built upon basic property and contract rights balanced with the knowledge

of when enough is enough and a commitment to shared sacrifice, did these disparate forces

7 Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 22 November 1810.

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defeat the British and win independence. In a similar way to the Troop's parading to redirect

sentiments towards a patriotic Federalist order, Americans now need to make a concerted effort

to redirect the social ethics of the business and professional world away from insatiable greed

towards common sense and a sustainable ethic, to create a sense of "self devotion to the sacred

cause of our country," not just one's own bank account.8 But if the history of the Troop and early

America teaches us anything, it is that the violation of contract and property rights, however

unfair they may be, cannot achieve this. It risks a backlash, as these have been understood to be

basic American rights since before the Revolution. Only by convincing those at the top of society

to voluntarily put bounds on their winnings-be it sincerely motivated by a social code or simply

to avoid an angry mob-can the nation move forward with this commitment to shared sacrifice.

And what is a call to compromise in a society that, despite its divisions, understands a basic

American moral framework? It is a call to common sense, the common sense of a shared

American identity.

8 Ibid.

98

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