Another Captive; Another Route - "Surprised By Colonel Brown"

On September 18, 1777, British Ensign Thomas Hughes of the 53rd Regiment of Foot noted in his diary that he and a detachment of two other officers and 50 men stationed about a mile outside Fort Ticonderoga in New York were "Surprised by a party of 600 men, under a Col. Brown." [1]  Hughes was not only surprised, but captured and held for a year as a prisoner of war in Massachusetts, then paroled to New York City until he was released and allowed to sail to England in June of 1781.

Hughes was captured in what is known as "Brown's Raid", the topic of an article in the on-line Journal of the American Revolution by friend and colleague Mike Barbieri.  In mid-August of 1777 the 53rd Regiment was detached from Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne's expedition from Canada to garrison Fort Ticonderoga and the landing on Lake George, of which Hughes says "I was unfortunately station'd here. ...".  At some point prior to September 18th, he and those captured with him were pulled back to the landing on Lake Champlain, a mile or so from Fort Ticonderoga. [2] 

Hughes and his fellow captives were captured well north of where Burgoyne would surrender.  They were first taken to Lake George, and held in silence for two hours in a barn that ironically they had used to hold American prisoners, before being marched to Skenesborough (present-day Whitehall), New York, with "What we could carry on our backs...". [3] 

British officers captured in Brown's Raid traveled separately from their men to Boston, Massachusetts.  The route that Hughes took to Boston was not either of the two routes taken by the Convention Army a month later.  As was the case with the British column of the Convention Army though, his journey took him from New York through Vermont and across Massachusetts, and lasted two and a half weeks.  

From Skenesborough Hughes and his fellow captives traveled east into Vermont, to Castleton, arriving on September 20th.  A day later they traveled south to Pawlet, Vermont, (where the expedition that led to their capture had set off from) and remained there for a day due to rainy weather.  From Pawlet they traveled south to Manchester, and then Bennington, where they learned on the 24th that Major-General Horatio Gates had paroled them to Boston.  On September 27th they crossed into Massachusetts and stayed in Williamstown, less than a month ahead of the British element of the Convention Army.  Hughes and his comrades appear to have traveled east rather than south from Williamstown when they left on September 29th, and traveled through Northampton and Hadley to Amherst, arriving on October 1st.

Hughes and his comrades also took a different route to Boston, after crossing the Connecticut River.  Rather than traveling east to Brookfield, then on to Worcester, on October 2nd they went to Hardwick (home of the oldest agricultural fair in the country, begun in 1762 and now celebrated with displays of farm animals, garden produce and vintage farm equipment such as seen here in the tractor parade), where they stayed two nights, before traveling to Rutland on October 4th.  Hughes and his companions likely traveled south to Worcester from Rutland, and from there followed the route that would be taken by the Convention Army on to Marlborough.  Hughes and his fellow officers arrived in Boston October 6th, reuniting that day with the soldiers who were captured with them, but taken on a different route.

His travels as a prisoner were far from over.  A day later, Hughes and his fellow captives were initially imprisoned on a ship in the harbor, rather than the barracks in Charlestown that would house the Convention Army.  Two weeks later, he and others officers were paroled to the town of Pepperrell, Massachusetts, on the New Hampshire border, thirty-five miles northwest of Boston.  There, on November 7th, he would first hear the news that Burgoyne had surrendered, but would not believe it until the 12th.

Hughes would be imprisoned in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from mid-December 1777 to mid-January 1778 for violating the limits of his parole.  In September of 1778 he would be paroled to New York City, sailing there from British held Newport, Rhode Island. [4]

Some question what impact the raids launched from Pawlet had on Burgoyne.  I would agree they did not disrupt Burgoyne's logistics, as he had already cut his lines of communication back to Fort Ticonderoga.  That said, the troops sent out by Major-General Benjamin Lincoln accomplished what they were sent to do, that is to "divide and distract the enemy ... by diversions".  In addition, they acted in coordination with Gates, who on September 8th stopped retreating and advanced his army to Stillwater, New York, to fight the remainder of the Saratoga campaign. [5]  

Burgoyne began his campaign with confidence, issuing Hughes recalled "... the extraordinary order that the army was not to retreat" . [6]  Any sense of security Burgoyne's men may have had at the start of the campaign would have been impacted by his initial reaction to Brown's raid.  Rumors that elements of the 53rd had been captured reached Burgoyne and led to a reminder in the general orders to his army on September 28th that: "Till circumstances are more authentically known, it would be unjust to accuse any of so great a fault as suffering a surprise, but the occasion cannot be overlooked of repeating to Officers in general the necessity of vigilance and unremitting alertness upon their posts, and warning them that no distance of the Enemy or situation of ground is security or excuse, if they are found off their guard." [7]  

In addition, at a time when Washington was struggling to obtain militia support to defend Philadelphia, news across New England of Stark's victory at Bennington, and then Lincoln's raids on Ticonderoga, Mount Independence and Skenesborough that resulted in the release of American prisoners and capture of British and Germans, could only help in the recruitment of additional forces to assist in stopping Burgoyne.  Washington would write on October 27, 1777, that "... Genl. Gates was reenforced by upwards of 12000 Militia who shut the only door by which Burgoyne could Retreat... How different our case!"  A lack of enthusiasm for the patriot cause in Pennsylvania, "the disaffection of great part of the Inhabitants of this State", had been a challenge for Washington throughout his fall campaign. [8]

For Ensign Hughes at least, Brown's Raid changed his life, interrupting his career as an officer with the British Army until he returned to service in 1784.  

[1] Hughes, p. 12.  "Brown's Raid" was one of three simultaneous attacks launched by Massachusetts Militia forces operating under the command of Major-General Benjamin Lincoln out of Pawlet, Vermont.  A second attack, against Mount Independence in Vermont, was a diversion led by Colonel Samuel Johnson.  The third attack, under the command of Colonel Benjamin Symonds, was to take Skenesborough, New York, to cover Brown's retreat.

[2] Hughes, pp. 11-12.

[3] Hughes, pp. 13-21.

[4] Hughes, pp. 30, 39-45.

[5] Burgoyne, Expedition From Canada, Review of the Evidence, p. 143.  Hoyt, Edward A. and Kingsley, Ronald F., The Pawlet Expedition, September 1777, Vermont History, Vol. 75, No. 2, 2007, pp. 76 and 85.

[6] Hughes, p.7; Burgoyne Orderly Book, Crown Point, June 30, 1777, p. 17; and quoted by Burgoyne in Expedition From Canada, "Narrative", p. 11.

[7] Burgoyne Orderly Book, p. 122.

[8] Writings of George Washington, Vol. 9, p. 453.  Not all of the Massachusetts Militia were there of their own free will.  Some were marched under guard to Pawlet.  Hoyt and Kingsley, p. 79.

Next Week: How Many Routes Were There - "I Divided Them Into Two Divisions"

For more on the Convention Army's 1777 march from Saratoga to Boston, see:

1777 March Blog Home          Overnight Stopping Points          Towns and Villages Along the Way

 Annotated Bibliography