By the end of May, most of Washington's 8000 man army had taken position in
the Watchung Mountains along the Raritan Valley. To the south around New
Brunswick, Daniel Morgan's Virginians along with other small American units
lurked in the woods and fields attacking almost every British patrol or
outpost. Despite the constant skirmishing and the presence of
Washington' army, enemy troops continued to pour into the vicinity of
New Brunswick, eventually bringing the strength of the King's forces in the
area to almost 13,000 well trained soldiers.
In the American camp, uncertainty was prevalent. Were the British
going to try to advance west across Central New Jersey toward Philadelphia ?
Were they going to suddenly turn north and storm the mountains to directly
attack Washington's Army ? Only a 3 hour march separated the two
armies and strict
vigilance was required to protect the American position.
To guard the main encampment, Washington placed his two best armed
brigades in advanced positions securing strategic road passes across the
First Watchung Mountain. One of these brigades was commanded by
General Anthony Wayne. It was made up of four Pennsylvania Regiments
most of whom were armed with .69 caliber muskets recently imported from
France. Many of Wayne's men were veteran's of the Trenton-Princeton
campaign and the earlier operations in New York state. They were
widely recognized in the army as a first class fighting brigade and as such
were assigned a position of honor in advance of the main Army.
At Morristown, Wayne's brigade had consisted of the 1st, 2nd, 7th & 10th
Pennsylvania Regiments. As the army moved south toward Middlebrook,
Wayne's Brigade was augmented by a newly formed unit that had recently
arrived from Philadelphia. This new regiment had been authorized by
the Continental
Congress on January 12, 1777 and was to consist of 8 companies raised in
eastern Pennsylvania, eastern Maryland and Delaware. It was organized in
Philadelphia during the spring. Since the regiment had been authorized
by the Congress and was made up of men from three different states, it was
not originally assigned a number as a Pennsylvania Regiment. Instead
it was designated as an "Additional Continental" regiment and was
theoretically under control of General Washington and not the state of
Pennsylvania.
"Additional Continental" regiments bore no numerical
designations in the spring of 1777. Instead they were referred to by
the names of their commanding officers. Wayne's new regiment had 155
men and was lead by the former lieutenant colonel of the 6th Pennsylvania
Battalion. This experienced officer had been recommended to Washington
by Richard Henry Lee. Washington accepted the recommendation and
appointed Thomas Hartley to command. Thereafter his unit was to be
referred to as Hartley's Additional
Continental Regiment or more simply "Hartley's Regiment".
Thus the mystery of the "HR" button was solved. No others
were recovered from this camp and to the writers knowledge, these are the
only two known specimens. Some collectors have surmised that owing to
the lack of recovered HR buttons, they may have been worn only by an officer
or officers in the
regiment. Unfortunately there is very little information regarding the
uniforms of Hartley's men, therefore the exact usage of this button
remainsuncertain.
After leaving New Jersey, Hartley's Regiment had a fairly brief but eventful
life-span. The unit took part in the defense of Philadelphia in the
fall of 1777. Along with the rest of Wayne's Brigade, the regiment was
surprised and took heavy casualties during a nighttime British bayonet
attack at Paoli Pennsylvania on September 20, 1777. In early 1778, the
unit was assigned to defend the Pennsylvania frontier against hostile
Iroquois Indians. On January 13, 1779, the remnants of Hartley's
Regiment were consolidated with
Patton's Additional Continental Regiment and parts of Malcom's Additional
Continental Regiment. This new composite unit was designated as the
11th Pennsylvania Regiment. After only 731 days, Hartley's Additional
Continental Regiment ceased to exist.
Postscript - In 1999, the camp of Wayne's Brigade was the last remaining
1777 encampment of the American Army in the First Watchung Mountain range.
The discovery of the "HR" buttons along with other artifacts of
Wayne's Brigade helped convince the County of Somerset to purchase the
campsite from land
developers. The area is soon to be opened as a public historical park----
EB XRdsRev@aol.com
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All artifacts were recovered from
private property with permission of the landowner.
The following were used in the preparation of this
article....
1) Writings of Washington - "Washington's
Calculations of the Strength of His
Army, May 20, 1777"
2) "The Continental Army", by Robert K.
Wright Jr., Center of Military
History, United States Army, Washington D.C., 1986 |
