Dutch
Navigate
Navigate
As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys - and St. Nicholas too:


Chapter 7: The Hurricane of War

By August of 1775, the war with Britain was clearly on. America had not yet laid down the gauntlet of declaring itself free, but the fighting was real and bloody, whether or not the war was considered official.

Enlisted as a Major of the third Regiment of Troops on August 2, 1775, it was 3 weeks before Major Henry Livingston, Jr. embarked from Poughkeepsie on a sloop. Two days later, on the 27th, he arrived at Albany and, from the 28th of August to the 15th of September, worked with the other officers to turn volunteers into semi-military types.(1) On September 23rd, Henry and his men began their march north to meet up with General Montgomery. It took them three days to reach Fort George, at the southern end of Lake George. From Fort Edward, it was another 40 miles by boat across the lake, and then a 3 mile march after that to reach Fort Ticonderoga. The group continued up Lake Champlain in a small flotilla of boats, sometimes stopping and setting up camp for the night, sometimes sleeping in the boats.

Montgomery was waiting at St. John when they arrived at noon on the 9th of October. Fort St. John, on Lake Champlain, was strategically important because it guarded the approach to Montreal, 25 miles to the north.(2) If that fort and one other fell, the way to Montreal was open.

Richard Montgomery, the son of an Irish baronet, had joined the British army and been sent to America, fighting at Ticonderoga and Montreal in 1765.(3) It was during that campaign that he first met Janet Livingston. In 1772, feeling that he had been passed over, Montgomery resigned from the British army and settled in New York. This time he married the girl. When war came, Montgomery was offered the military position of Brigadier General in the American army, to fight against men he had previously fought beside. And so, leaving behind his young wife, Montgomery joined his commander, Major General Philip Schuyler.

General Schuyler was intended by Congress to lead the mixed command of New York and New England militia up into Canada.(4) In part because of long years spent arguing state borders, a task led by Schuyler, there wasn't a lot of love lost between the two groups. What they did share was not likely to warm the heart of a military commander. Individuality was an American institution, and these citizen-soldiers saw no reason that they should be forced to give it up just because they had joined the army. They believed in democracy, not discipline. After all, that's what they were fighting for.

The area around St. John was generally unhealthy, and sickness had taken its toll. General Schuyler, who had been with Montgomery for the assault on St. John, directed operations from his bed for a week before he had to be sent back to Ticonderoga. What started out as a 1700 man force, was whittled down by sickness to 1100.

By some perverse coincidence of fate, the commander of Fort St. John, Major Charles Preston, was the British officer who had been given the promotion Montgomery had wanted, the loss of which had driven Montgomery to leave the army, settle in New York, and change allegiances.

The weather was good when Henry and the rest of Colonel Clinton's regiment arrived, and they immediately pitched tents. An exchange of cannon fire in the evening was the only indication that they had found the war. After another quiet day and evening, a report suddenly came into camp that the British were coming out of their garrison to attack the Americans. Clinton's whole regiment was immediately mobilized and marched out to meet the enemy in the blackness of night. The report was false, and the regiment had to turn around and march half a mile back to their camp.

With the new men added to his siege force, Montgomery decided to move a battery of guns that were not very effectively placed as a threat. The move would put the battery on the same side of the water as the fort, and closer to it. While Montgomery saw this as a good strategic move, the officers, who would have to man the battery and wait for the expected counterattack, were not as enamored with the plan. On October 11th, two days after Colonel Clinton's regiment arrived, General Montgomery called all his officers to his tent for a Council of War. He explained the plan, hoping to get support that would let the plan be effectively sold to the ones who'd have to carry it out. It didn't work. With great Yankee initiative, the officers put the plan up to a vote. Montgomery lost. Henry's diary describes the meeting:

A Council of War held at the Generals Tent at which only the Field officers of the army attended. The General recommended building a Battery west of the forts of St. John. But the motion was unanimously opposed by the Officers, who were of the opinion as one man that a Battery erected on the east side of the lake opposite the Forts would make a greater impression on our enemies.(5)

The officers did agree, however, that the battery could be moved closer, and Henry was the lucky choice picked to move the battery to its new position in a swamp. With two companies of his choice, Henry set off in seven small boats. From inside the Fort came a brisk firing of grapeshot, but the artillerymen overshot and Henry's men settled themselves uncomfortably into the woods for the night and, in the morning, set up their camp some distance back from where they'd be working.

Throughout the next day, Henry and the men were engaged in creating faschines, porcupine-like cylinders of tree trunk spikes that were used as barriers to slow down attacking ground troops. All through the night built the foundation and protection walls for the cannon. They spent the next day bringing up the heavy guns over the soggy ground and getting them into the prepared places, and bringing up a supply of powder and shot. The next night was spent clearing a line of fire from the newly installed batteries to the besieged Fort.

The following day, October 14th, Henry's exhausted troops rested while the new artillery began to fire. The Fort wasn't slow to respond, and Henry's men stayed close to the protection of the newly constructed batteries. And, though shells continually burst overhead or at their feet, no one was wounded. The fort defenders then decided to take a boat out, so as to get close enough to damage the battery, but it wasn't the Americans who got damaged. "We shot so many Balls thro her that next morning she lay careen'd so low that the water ran into her port holes."(6)

It was decided by Montgomery that two could play the Schooner game, and the Americans sent theirs to harass nearby Fort Chambly. Unfortunately, they forgot to notify the Americans entrenched around the fort, and the Schooner took a number of friendly hits, but no casualties, before they were able to convince the shooters that they were all on the same side.

For the next few days, cannon fire went back and forth to little effect.

On October 18th, on rumors that a force of British regulars and Canadians was heading for the Caghnawaga Indian Castle near Laprairie, a town near Montreal, Henry was ordered by General Montgomery to take 100 men and march to the Indians' support.

While the New York men were marching down the swampy night path in the light rain, two American ships with cannons snuck past the British and presented themselves to a surprised and pleased General Montgomery. They were immediately sent to attack Fort Chambly, the weaker fort, and the next morning Henry's troops heard the happy news of the fort's surrender.

It had been a long march for Henry and his men to Lapraire and, while they waited for the Indian representatives to arrive, Henry took some time to look around the French-Canadian town.

The Village of Lapraire contains abt 30 houses small and great. The former by far the most numerous, and here as in every other part of Canada that ever I saw (even in Montreal itself) every house is white, being rough cast with Lime & sand whether built of wood or stone...

The town is badly supplied with fuel. Firewood is as dear here as in New York, and the wood they have is bad being chiefly poplar. Mills are scarce in this part of the Country. Besides an old crazy windmill in Town there are but 2 in 10 miles round. The best of those belong to the Caghuawaga Indians & is 6 miles from Lapraire. ... The Canadians in General have good kitchen gardens; as their chief diet is soup it's necessary they should take particular care of them; Their Onions and Cabbages are especially large and fine, more so in gardens that lie on the banks of St. Lawrence where the soil is richer than farther back.

The urbanity of the peasants is very singular. The meanest of our soldiers that enter'd one of their houses was instantly regal'd with a large bowl of Bread & Milk or any other eatables their Houses afforded; and altho our soldiery seldom made them any gratuities, their kindness was still unremitted. But altho their hearts are good their Economy is by no means so. After a peasant's house is once built and the rain shut out, no more water ever touches their floors, save a little holy water every morning which follows a partial sweeping. A broad hoe supplies the place of a scrubbing. No house has more than one fire place which is only for cooking. In the room where the family resides, a stove in the center of the room keeps them, even in the coldest weather, as warm as they wish.

Just by the Bedside of each master of a Family is placed a crucifix, generally a foot or foot and a half long, some very coarse & Ill made, others gilt & pretty. I never saw a Bad bed in Canada. It seems as if they were resolv'd to lie well if they liv'd poor - many of them have two feather beds on each other. Their other furniture but so so. Everything that is made among them, very bungling and coarse indeed. Their Carpenters are far from being Sir Christopher Wrens. They carry on but very little manufactures among themselves, even the simple art of knitting not a woman in 20 understands. In general, I found the men and women much more dilatory and Idle than the people among us; to attain a bare subsistence seem'd to be the height of their wishes.

A land of slaves will ever be a land of poverty Ignorance & Idleness!

Among the common people all the learning is confin'd to the women, who are sent to school when young, which the men seldom or never are- not one in 30 of the latter can read.

All their religion consists in going very regularly to Church every Sunday and as regularly Horseracing, Boxing, wrestling, & gaming between services; Sunday with them is the merriest day in the week. Sincere piety and rational devotion is but too little known among them. Yet I never saw people so generally old & young, attend divine service, or more solemnly go thro the round of follies their absurd religion calls upon them to attend. I enquired if there was not some protestants in this part of the country but could not hear of a single family. There liv'd at Lapraire Two Ministers. One an old Jesuit & Rector of the parish, an Arch Villain & a Tory. The other a fat Jolly thing of a Curate who did all the preaching and praying, and a thorough Whig. ...

They were very much averse to the Act of parliament enforcing the French laws-and hated Governor Carleton with perfect hatred. It appeared amazing to me how he would have the effrontry to tell the Ministry or their Master that he could arm & bring into the field 10,000 Canadians when, at the same time, he must have been sensible he could not arm & produce 10 willing men in all Canada.

Some considerable time before our troops invested St. Johns, Mr. Carleton endeavored to assemble the militia companies about in the Country, and altho he gave a Dollar gratuity to each man who appeared in Arms, very few came indeed; in the large district of Lnpraire not one man would appear. At Longuiel but 7 or 8 came, & so more or less in the rest of the parishes. As during the whole stay of our Troops among them, they were regularly paid for every article they furnished us with, and had a good deal of attention shown them. It was visible our conduct had a good effect, for whenever our officers required a supply of carts etc., they were always ready at the smallest notice to oblige us. But when carts were wanting to convey the regular prisoners' baggage from Lapraire to St. Johns, they produced them with great reluctance.

The regular officers, seeing their backwardness, advis'd us to cuff and kick them well about, & they would be much more obliging. From that, I concluded it was no uncommon thing for the poor Canadians to suffer abuses from the regulars. Nor any wonder that they so heartily joined us against those tyrannical slaves to tyrants.(7)

Two days after Henry's unit reached Laprairie, the Caghnawaga chiefs arrived. Henry's Livingston and Schuyler ancestors and relatives had long been involved in Indian affairs, so he was familiar with the neighboring tribes and comfortable with them. Colonel Peter Schuyler, Henry's great uncle, was known to the Six Nations as "Quidor"(8). Long after Peter's death, the authorities in Albany were always called Quidor by the Indians. And when Congress came to negotiate with the Six Nations for their neutrality during the Revolutionary War, they introduced themselves as, "We, the representatives of the Congress and the descendants of Quidor." In 1710 Peter Schuyler took four Mohawk chiefs to England to impress them with the power of the country. They were the sensation of the London season.

Had the honor of dining with the chiefs of the Caghnawaga nation, 6 in number, and 20 others but whether they were people in office cannot tell, rather think they were not. I had an elegant Dinner provided for them at one Mr Killips, a Tavernkeeper in Town. I had sent for them as soon as I came in Town, to know whether they wanted us at their Castles or not. The chiefs told me that General Montgomery had been imposed on by some of their meaner people who had been frightened at nothing. That they feared no invasion from Mr. Carleton at all, & that if he did attack them they thought themselves able without assistance from abroad to defeat him, or at least hinder him from landing. That however they were highly oblidg'd to the General for his readiness to assist them; & faithfully promis'd to transmit to me all the Intelligence they could get of the motions & designs of our Enemies.

In compliance with their custom I opened my business with them in a set formal speech, which was interpreted by a One ey'd Chief who understood English very well- & they answered me with all that deliberation, firmness & seriousness peculiar to the Indians.

All this was done before dinner & it was well it happend so- for after drinking 18 bottles of Claret I question whether they would have talked as rationally as they did. I cannot help doing justice to the keenness of the Caghnawaga Gentrys' stomachs. I took especial care that each one had a full plate continually - Soup - Beef - Turkey -Beans, potatoes - no matter how heterogeneous the mixture it was equal to them & all went down.

They seem'd highly pleased, and told me that Mr. Carleton had often sent them belts and made speeches to them- But had never din'd with them. The General had given me directions to treat the Indians with much attention...

By all the observations I could make I have reason to believe that the Caghnawagas were sincere in their professions of Friendship. I am told that they have a fine Church at their village- & I took notice myself that they were good Catholics by their frequent crossings and short prayers at particular times of the day. The Indians have generally horses to ride about on, & what I could not help noticing was that they all had saddles, whereas not one Canadian farmer in 30 has any at all, but do all their riding on a Bearskin girted on.

The Indians frequently brought me down Cows for sale but they were almost always so poor that the soldiers would not eat them- from thence I concluded pasturage is not so good with them as abt Lapraire and Longeuiel. Their Castle lies 9 miles west of Lapraire, the road running all along upon the banks of St. Lawrence is exceeding pleasant. The Chiefs told me that they could muster 300 fighting men.(9)

For the next 15 days, Henry stayed in Laprairie. Fears of the sudden arrival of British forces produced false alarms in outlying American positions, and Henry was kept busy sending out and bringing back men to reinforce these positions. There was one real attack from General Carleton, the commander of Montreal, on troops two miles away from Laprairie, but it was surprisingly ineffective and wasn't repeated. This military dance was cut short by the arrival of General Montgomery, who had used the stores captured at Chambly to raise the spirits of his troops enough to make a new attempt on St. John. After 55 days of siege, Major Preston surrendered the fort, freeing Montgomery to move his troops forward to Laprairie.

For three days Montgomery's forces gathered at Laprairie. With 500 men, the General crossed the St. Lawrence, putting them only a mile and a half from Montreal. Governor Carleton, defending Montreal, was well aware the city was indefensible, and evacuated the town by boat. He was almost caught when his ship was stalled by adverse winds but, dressed as civilians, he and his aides managed to escape.

On November 13, General Montgomery entered Montreal. The next day Henry and his men arrived to join them.

For some time, there had been dissatisfaction in the ranks. The citizen soldiers saw their service as being a contract between themselves and the new government. One of the promises in that contract was the payment of a bounty for joining, and a monthly wage. Since large families were frequently left behind while their breadwinners went to war, these weren't monies that could be casually ignored. The initial enlistments were for six months and, when those months were over, the troops felt that they had fulfilled their side of the contract.

Generals Montgomery and Schuyler were squeezed in the middle between Congress and the troops. They had accepted the short enlistments, but hadn't the foresight to make contingency plans for what would happen if Montreal was not taken on schedule. They could ask Congress for funds, as generals would throughout the entire war, but they were dependent on Congress sending them the funds. To professional soldiers, the important thing was the mission. To the citizen troops, it was the contract. The pride of democracy filled the population, and the new government had not yet come to grips with how to ask men to fight for democracy in the totalitarian environment of the army.

On November 15th Henry, normally verbose, wrote in his journal only that, "A Council of War held by the General at the India House."(10) Two days later he added, "Left Montreal on my return home in Company with Coll'o Waterbury & best part of his Regiment."(11)

The National Archives Papers of the Continental Congress give the other side of the story in Montgomery's letter to General Schuyler. "I have had great difficulty about the Troops. I am afraid many of them will go home. However, depending on my good Fortune, I hope to keep enough to give the final Blow."(12)

Henry's journal again became expansive as he described Montreal and the inside of Fort St. John, which had been seized by Montgomery while Henry and his men were building batteries across the river. "November 27. At 3 in the afternoon we arriv'd under the Fort [Ticonderoga] & saluted it with 13 guns, landed & waited on General Schuyler." Although Henry didn't elaborate on the meeting with Schuyler, we do have the letter which Schuyler wrote that same day to John Madison, President of the Continental Congress, about the enlistment problem and the men's underwear.

I may be asked why Warner's Regiment were suffered to come away & some other of the Troops of this Colony, as the Form for which they were engaged would not expire until the last day of the next month: The unhappy cause is this. At St. John, those Connecticut Troops were so very importunate to return home that General Montgomery was under the necessity of promising that all those that would follow him to Montreal, should have leave to return home. ...

I find it is the intention of the New York Congress that the Troops raised in that Colony should pay for the under clothes that were given them. I cannot learn that the Troops expected to have any thing stopped out of their wages on that account. The greatest Part of them are now in Canada, & I fear that few of them will remain in the Service if it should be the Case.(13)

On November 28th 1775, within a day of leaving General Schuyler, Henry was struck down with the same high fever and illness which had taken such a toll on the troops. The trip was hellish. Open boats, horseback and carts. He was able to buy a horse, but couldn't keep up with the others and had to let them, and his luggage, go on without him. He made it to Fort Edwards, south of Fort George, and then as far as General Schuyler's, where he was able to stay with the General's wife and daughters. General Schuyler was Henry's 2nd cousin, and his wife, Catharine Van Rensselaer, Henry's 3rd.

The next night Henry made it as far as Parson Graham's at Stillwater, but was so ill that he stayed with his family's old tutor for the next two weeks while recovering. It took five more days of traveling for Henry to reach home, and the family he had missed so much.

But back in Albany, Gen. Schuyler was finding more to worry about than wool skivvies.

Albany January 13th 1776

Within this half Hour, Mr. Antill arrived with the unfortunate Account contained in the enclosed. My amiable and gallant Friend General Montgomery is no more, he fell in an unsuccessful Attack on Quebec on the 30th Ult. My Feelings on this unhappy Occasion are too poignant to admit of Expression. May Heaven avert any further woes.(14)

Though the homes of the widow of Robert R. Livingston at Clermont, and that of her son, the Chancellor, were both burned by the British, the only direct damage for the Poughkeepsie clan was a cannon ball(15) fired by Sir William Wallace from a ship sailing up the Hudson River in October, 1777.(16) The collateral damage, however, was much greater. Reverend John Henry Livingston, staying with his parents at the time, along with his new wife and baby, burned his personal journal for fear that it might provide something of use to the wrong people. Given the rich source of information that the young man left behind in a subsequent journal, this was a significant tragedy for our understanding of the Poughkeepsie Livingstons.(17)

Not knowing what would follow the shelling of their home, the whole Livingston family hurriedly packed up the kids, the parents and the wagons and headed out of town. Henry Sr., fearful for the records he maintained as Dutchess County Clerk, took them along as well, an act that must earn him the grateful thanks of later historians. The family stayed only a few weeks in either Sharon, Connecticut or Amenia before deciding it was safe to return.

It's surprising, in fact, that more damage wasn't visited on Poughkeepsie. Not only had the state government moved to Major Henry's town, but half a mile north of his father's home, on property belonging to his Uncle James Livingston, was a shipyard used to build the frigates, Congress and Constitution.

As the years following the war's end passed, the conflict took on almost a mythic memory, and General Montgomery became an American legend. His wife, Janet Livingston, had never remarried, though General Gates did propose to her. When, on February 27, 1818, his body was returned to the United States for burial, Governor Clinton informed Montgomery's widow when the boat containing his mahogany casket would pause in front of her Hudson River mansion and the band would begin to play. She told her family and friends that she would wait alone for "her soldier." When the ceremony was over and the ship had passed, and Janet had still not rejoined the group, they went to see if anything was wrong. The seventy-four year old widow lay in a faint on the veranda. Her husband had finally returned from the war.(18)

All along the Hudson River, crowds lined the shore to watch the barge pass by. Only the funeral of George Washington surpassed this event in moving the passions of the people. With his home on the river, and with the memories of his commander still alive in the shape of Henry's son, twenty-two year old Sidney Montgomery Livingston, Henry must have been there, too. He was seventy years old now, and we can only imagine his thoughts as he watched the acting out of his own long-distant words, written at the death of his cousin, Gilbert Cortlandt.

The renovated vessel will be seen;
Transcendent floating on the silver stream!
Its joyful ensigns waving in the air,
The tides propitious and the zephyrs fair!
'Til safe within the destin'd port of bliss,
Each sail is furl'd, and all around is peace.(19)

Henry never published the journal he wrote forty-three years before, but he did publish the journal of another soldier.

For the New-York Magazine
Journal of an Asiatic Expedition attempted by me,
Alexander the son of Olympia,
(and perhaps the son of Philip.)

446th Olympiad, June 23. Eight o'clock in the evening. Confoundedly tired with marching through this sun-burnt oriental country. A puddle of fresh water is a natural curiosity, and my canteen is half full of sediment. But the hope of filling our knapsacks with Persian gold keeps us from repining. I mean to measure my mattress in less than an hour, and if that slut Thais keeps me in bed till six o'clock to-morrow morning, I'll know why. There is no campaigning with or without these trollops.

24th. Ten in the morning. Just finished reviewing my troops -- Adjutant-general Parmenio is as formal as his old maiden sister -- to receive and return the salutes of a thousand fellows is worse than to be engaged in a decent skirmish. I ever hated ceremony. Give me a girl, a bottle, and a battle, sans souci.

25th. Three in the afternoon. My scouts have this moment come in and inform, that I can easily reach the banks of the Granicus in two hours; and that the Persians, gay as gems and gold can make them, and numerous as locusts, line the eastern shore as far as the eye can reach. My men expect a scratch, but I and Darius's general perfectly understand each other. I have promised him a province when I shake his hand at Babylon, and I know the coward will rely upon me. I am to make the onset with great play fury, and he is to retreat as ostentatiously as he pleases.

--Seven o'clock. Well, the farce is over, and we Invincible Macedonians have got the Granicus in our rear! My opponent behaved pretty well; although he ought to have pretended resistence a little longer than he did. I believe the rascal thought more than once that we were in earnest. I will give one of the half starved poets that hang upon me, a pistareen and mug of grog, to describe this days' bustling as a battle of amazing magnitude: Paint Bucephalus as plunging thro' the foaming current, and bearing me resistless at the head of thirty thousand veterans on a foe, valiant, tho' unequal -- describe the eagle of victory hovering over my helmet -- and the Fates fainting on the shore. The fools of posterity perhaps may read the nonsense and believe it.

26th. I could not get down my bohea and mulcovado this morning for vexation -- Poor Bucephalus has got the wambles most furiously -- I feared some mischief might befall, when I lent him last night to that pimp Hephestion, to ride to a watermelon frolic. I am confident that the varlet tied him up to a post without a morsel to eat, while he was cramming fruit and cutting capers with the girls. I will punish the puppy by keeping on scout for a fortnight altogether -- he hates fatigue almost as much as he does fighting.

[Here a roll or two appear to be missing.]

April 10th. Huzza! the battle of Arbela is over, and I have got, with the Persian empire, an exquisite bevy of bona-robas; thanks to my good friend Darius. A betrothed wood-chuck would have defended his oney-doney more magnanimously than this Asiatic poltroon did his Haram. I will treat the high-mettled dames very ceremoniously by day -- they have already hinted that they will be perfectly accommodating by night.

14th. Of all the bamboosing bouts I ever was in, that of last night exceeds. Thais, and I, and Parmerio, and Antipater, Hephestion, Philtas, and every mother's son and daughter of us as drunk as so many Kickapoos. Persepolis in flames served as a flambeau to light us to our paviloons -- Glorious prerogatives pertain to us heroes, and we generally are careful not to neglect their exercise -- To-morrow it seems I am to make what they call my triumphant entry into Babylon. I ever did, and ever will, abominate parade and fuss.

15th. Eleven at night. The rary show is past, and I am as tired as a carman's horse. The flattering rascals called me the son of Jupiter, at the very time that I felt like a puppy, the son of a bitch. I could, with good will, kick the cringing Persians to the devil -- the avaricious Macedonians after them -- burn this metropolis of the world -- and turn farmer at Wethersfield and raise onions. R




Chapter 8: The Hurricane of War
Continue





Chapter 7 Notes:


1. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], "Journal of Major HENRY LIVINGSTON of the Third New York Continental Line," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Washington, D. C., April 1898.

2. W.J. Wood, Battles of the Revolutionary War, Da Capo Press, New York, 1995.

3. Hal T. Shelton, General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution, New York University Press, New York, 1994.

4. Bayard Tuckerman, Life of General Philip Schuyler 1733-1804, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1905.

5. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], ibid.

6. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], ibid.

7. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], ibid.

8. Bayard Tuckerman, ibid.

9. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], ibid.

10. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], ibid.

11. Gaillard Hunt [Ed.], ibid.

12. Montgomery's letter to Schuyler, National Archives

13. Schuyler's letter to Montgomery, National Archives

14. Schuyler's letter to Congress, National Archives, January 13, 1776.

15. In 1937, the cannon ball was in the museum at Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, and the doorframe in which the ball had been embedded was in the D.A.R. museum in Poughkeepsie, now the Clinton House.

16. J. Wilson Poucher, "Dutchess County Men of the Revolutionary Period -- Henry Livingston" (Year Book Dutchess County Historical Society, Volume 23, 1938) p.48.

17. Gunn, Memoirs of Reverend John Henry Livingston, p.252

18. Hal T. Shelton, ibid, p.179.

19. Henry Livingston, Jr., "On the late Mr. Gilbert Cortlandt, deceased," Country Advertiser and Poughkeepsie Journal Dec 6, 1786; by R-. [Written for his first cousin, the son of Henry's aunt Joanna and General Pierre Van Cortlandt, the poem is based heavily on the one written for Henry's wife Sarah].








        
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