The Uncertain Revolution

John Cunningham is a New Jersey living treasure.… His lively writing makes The Uncertain Revolution easy to read…. A dramatic tale that is well worth reading. — Recorder Newspapers

Legendary historian John T. Cunningham explores New Jersey's pivotal role in the Revolutionary War…. Vivid and enjoyable history. --The Star-Ledger

An “oft-untold story of how the brutally harsh winters in New Jersey affected the American Revolution… Highly recommended addition to American Revolution history shelves.” — Midwest Book Review

“Notable” — Eric Hoffer Book Awards

From the Inside Flap:

Every American is familiar with the image of a somber George Washington on horseback, huddled in his cape, while around him ragged soldiers stand outside log huts in the snow. It's Valley Forge, of course, the most famous winter encampment of the Revolutionary War, a symbol of American endurance.

In reality, that winter was a reasonably mild one — that is, compared to the difficult winters in New Jersey that may well have saved the American Revolution. Four of the war's harshest winters saw Washington's troops camped in the "geological fortress" of New Jersey's Watchung Mountains.

In The Uncertain Revolution, John T. Cunningham tells the story of those forgotten winters in Middlebrook and Morristown and of their critical importance to the course of the war.Geographically, the Watchungs made an excellent defensive position, hiding from the British the disarray of the American army and the horrific conditions. Reports of the strength and numbers of American troops fluctuated wildly as Washington and his officers tried to stave off desertion and mutiny.

Washington's army survived a small pox epidemic at Morristown, a season of short supplies at Middlebrook, the most brutal winter of the war in 1779-80, and the war's most dire mutiny on New Year's Day 1781. There's drama — including the cat-and-mouse game played with the unpredictable British general, George Clinton, and treachery — with one of his favorite officers, Benedict Arnold. There's also the fierce performance of the New Jersey militia in defense of their homes and farms. In The Uncertain Revolution Cunningham makes the case for the importance of Morristown and the mountains to an understanding of the war itself.

Just as the history of those winters has long been neglected, so were the physical places over time. The soldiers huts in the mountains at Jockey Hollow disintegrated, and the houses that had served as Washington's headquarters were almost lost to neglect and development. The author's account of their reclamation and eventual incorporation into the country's first National Historical Park in 1933 is a fitting conclusion to his story of Washington in the Watchungs.

INTRODUCTION: A Mighty Fortress

Victory in the American Revolution was insured more by a series of fiery, volcanic eruptions 150 million years ago than by the military genius of George Washington or the valor of his often uncertain soldiers. The eruptions sent several waves of molten lava streaming across barren land to form what are now New Jersey‚s Watchung Mountains, the American Revolution‚s most formidable natural bulwark.

The two outer Watchung ridges, like the outer walls of a tremendous fortress, rise as high as 879 feet above sea level, just north of what is now Paterson. Elsewhere along the top of the basaltic formation the ridges are between 450 and 600 feet high. Considering that sea level is less than eight miles from the outer ridge, the rise of the formation is precipitous, and in places, cliff-like.

Geological time also saw an ancient ancestor of today‚s Passaic River carve out a deep gap in the ridges, midway on a straight line between Morristown and the lower tip of New York. The location of the gap is uncanny, considering the role it was destined to play in American history.

There were lesser gaps to the south, but none offered an easy or convenient passage through the ridges. The major gap, usually known as the Springfield Gap, could be defended easily by sharpshooters or light artillery posted on the top of either side of the opening. The British made only two anemic efforts to pass through the opening, in the autumn of 1777 and at the end of the Battle of Springfield on June 23, 1780. Both were quickly repulsed.

Immediately behind the gap were widespread, irregular marshlands, forming what might be considered an „inside moat." The most important fen, known even in colonial days as the Great Swamp, was fearsome to anyone on foot. (Today this is part of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.)

It should be evident that the emerging United States could only be conquered by which–ever side controlled or neutralized New York and Philadelphia. The corridor and roads linking the cities ran for a considerable distance within easy view of the Watchungs. The country–side as far away as Sandy Hook could be monitored from heights in the southern part of the mountains.

The Watchung ridges were a perfect refuge and vantage point as long as the British com–mand maintained its headquarters in New York. The British left only once during the war, in 1777, when General William Howe took his army to Philadelphia for the winter. Washington immediately broke camp to follow the enemy south, eventually wintering at Valley Forge.

Historians disagree on why Washington took his army north after the electrifying triumphs at Trenton and Princeton at the end of 1776 and the beginning of 1777. It is true that he had little other recourse, but his many civilian years as a surveyor and his reliance on map makers surely made him aware of the strategic value of the Watchung Mountains. He did not command by whim.

The mountain ridges offered the safety and security Washington needed for winter quarters, which he established within or close to the formation. He set up winter camps twice in Morristown and a third time on one of the Watchung's southern slopes, about fifteen miles due south of Morristown.

Then, for the winter of 1780-81, while he spent the winter in New Windsor, New York, Washington sent 2,500 men, a substantial force — about half his main army — back to Morristown for yet another winter. No other area of the infant United States, from Savannah to Boston, came close to the Watchungs in constant military importance.

Washington's obvious strategy throughout the war was to avoid extended direct open field conflict with the enemy. Even the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, for all their brilliance, were "hit and run" affairs. The cautious tactics shielded the precious troops and earned Washington the unseemly sobriquet of "the master of defeat and retreat."

The commander's armies were at least elusive and often evanescent, particularly in winter when many men drifted away from camp The three major winter camps behind the Watchungs were replete with suffering, despair, desertion, thievery, indifference and open mutiny.

Soldiers at Middlebrook faced an indifferent public; farmers sold produce mainly to those offering the highest profits and if that meant the British so be it. The American troops were starving, freezing, barefoot, and angry.

The winter of 1779-80 at Morristown tested the army in nearly every conceivable way. The fifth snow of the season was falling on December 1, when the first soldiers reached Morristown and marched south about three miles to begin building log huts for themselves in Jockey Hollow.

Twenty-eight snows fell that winter, and a blizzard in early January 1780 left drifts more than four feet high on the roads. A regimental clothier wrote that some troops were "as naked as Lazarus" and Washington wrote that with respect to supplies, the situation of the army was "beyond description."

Continental money was virtually worthless. Desertions were numerous. Washington had to order farmers to sell food to the army at fair prices or face having grain and beef cattle seized by armed soldiers. Serious mutinies erupted at Jockey Hollow in Morristown in the spring of 1780 and on New Year's Day in 1781.

The desperation of woefully abused American soldiers is a basic theme of this book — and nowhere was the suffering or congressional indifference worse than during the horrific winter of 1779-80 at Morristown.

Congress became so annoyed by Washington‚s endless stream of letters describing the evils of that winter that it sent a committee to study the situation, with instructions to cut the numbers of troops and reduce the army budget much as possible. It just couldn't believe that things were as bad as the general painted them.

Ten days after it arrived in Morristown, the committee sent one of its members galloping to Philadelphia with a report meant to shatter the complacency of congress. In short, the committee said conditions at Jockey Hollow were far worse than Washington had been reporting.

The construction of present day Route 24 to connect interstate routes 78 and 287, via the original gap, has all but obliterated any evidence of this once-vital passageway. Huge amounts of fill have brought the highway‚s pavement close to the top of the gap. While the road is steep, it hides the old formations that baffled British and Hessian forces throughout the war.

A century and a half, and millions of dollars later, huge machines blasted new gaps through the Watchungs — near Paterson, on Eagle Rock Avenue, along Route 280 at West Orange, and the cuts which speed Route 78 traffic through the column-like formations common to basaltic ridges.

It is hard for the modern visitor to imagine the Watchungs as a defensive barrier. In the late 1700s, behind those towering walls, through swamps and across a broad river, the American army endured for longer periods than anywhere else in America. Despite desperate suffering in the ranks, Washington's army survived in their mountain stronghold, and rose again and again to find victory.

The two outer Watchung ridges, like the outer walls of a tremendous fortress, rise as high as 879 feet above sea level, just north of what is now Paterson. Elsewhere along the top of the basaltic formation the ridges are between 450 and 600 feet high. Considering that sea level is less than eight miles from the outer ridge, the rise of the formation is precipitous, and in places, cliff-like.

Geological time also saw an ancient ancestor of today's Passaic River carve out a deep gap in the ridges, midway on a straight line between Morristown and the lower tip of New York. The location of the gap is uncanny, considering the role it was destined to play in American history.
(Copyright © John T. Cunningham and Down The Shore Publishing)