Harry Babcock’s “Distempered Mind”

Yesterday I described how Rhode Island removed Col. Henry Babcock (shown right, from a portrait by Joseph Blackburn) from command of its troops at Newport in April 1776 because, the legislature determined, he was mentally unstable. Unfortunately, the printed record doesn’t give us any juicy details.

Stephen Babcock’s 1903 genealogy of the Babcock family described the colonel’s infirmity this way: “In 1777 he had a severe fit of sickness which so affected his mind that he never entirely recovered.” But the records show people judged Babcock insane early in the previous year, and with hindsight George Washington recalled “Proofs...of a Distempered Mind” in December 1775.

Going back even before then, Babcock’s political loyalties might have been volatile. On 26 Dec 1774 a British officer in Boston wrote to a friend in Edinburgh about New England Loyalists:

You were right in your opinion, Brigadier General [Timothy] Ruggles of the Massachusetts, Colonel Babcock of Rhode-Island, and Colonel [Eleazer] Fitch of Connecticut, are staunch to Government

Was the second man Col. Henry Babcock? He was actually living over the border in Stonington, Connecticut, but closely associated with Rhode Island. I can’t find any other Col. Babcock.

Moving even further back, that Babcock genealogy is one of several books that describe this anecdote about Harry Babcock:

In 1761 he visited England, where he was treated with great respect. He was introduced to the Queen, and it is said that instead of kissing her hand, as was the custom of people in his rank, he boldly kissed her cheek, remarking that such was the “mark of politeness in America.” The correctness of this statement is doubted.

So was that behavior a sign of intermittent mania?

Certainly that diagnosis would fit with how Babcock reacted to being dumped from his Rhode Island command. On 28 May 1776, within a month of his official removal, he was writing to John Hancock with a bright new idea:

I should be extremely obliged to you if you would be pleased to lay before the honourable the Continental Congress the following proposals:

That I have leave to raise two battalions of marines, to consist of five hundred men each, and each battalion to consist of six companies, with a Captain-Lieutenant to each battalion, four officers to each company. Make not the least doubt, provided I have leave to name the officers, that I raise the men in two months. Would recommend the paying two months’ pay in advance, but that I leave to the wisdom of the Congress.

I should expect the rank of Brigadier-General, as the last war I had the rank of Colonel in the years ’58 and ’59, and one thousand in my regiment. . . .

I must desire, if the great load of cares which rests upon you will permit, that I may have the honour of a line from you next post. If the Congress adopt the scheme, which I believe would be of publick utility, [I] will immediately wait upon them.

Congress did not take up Col. Babcock’s offer.

“Wild conduct and insanity of our late commander”?

On 21 Apr 1776, less than two weeks after Col. Henry Babcock had helped to drive away the British warship Scarborough away from Newport, as I described yesterday, his fellow Rhode Island colonel, William Richmond, wrote to naval commander Esek Hopkins:

Before this can come to hand, you must have heard of the confusion we have lately been in, occasioned by the wild conduct and insanity of our late commander, who is now under an arrest at Providence, and, we judge, must be discharged from the service: in consequence of which, the command, at present, devolves upon me—a heavy task.

[ADDENDUM: Hopkins’s own letters on 16 and 17 April show that he thought Babcock ranked as a general. Was that the admiral’s mistake, or had the colonel written to him with that title?]

The General Assembly of Rhode Island met in Providence in early May 1776 and concluded:

Whereas, it hath incontestably appeared to this Assembly that Henry Babcock, Esq., Colonel of a Regiment in the service of this Colony, is at times deprived of the perfect use of his reason, and thereby rendered unfit to command; it is voted and resolved, that the said Henry Babcock be, and he is hereby dismissed from the command of said Regiment; and that office is hereby declared vacant.

On 7 May, Gov. Nicholas Cooke sent this act to Continental Congress delegate (and former governor) Stephen Hopkins, along with “an act discharging the inhabitants of the Colony from allegiance to the British King.” (The legislature wasn’t quite ready to use the term “independency.”)

In June 1776 the legislature reimbursed Capt. Benjamin Peirce for expenses in traveling from Newport to Providence “for the Trial of Col. Henry Babcock.” Alas, I haven’t been able to find records of that trial with details of what had caused the colony to remove Babcock from his command.

But here’s a weird clue. Gen. George Washington got the news of Babcock’s arrest in early April, and he wrote back to Gov. Cooke from New York on 28 Apr 1776:

Colo Babcock's misfortune is truly pitiable. the incontestable Proofs which he has given at Cambridge and since, of a Distempered Mind, must to every one acquainted with him, shew how unfit he must be to Command the forces of your Colony.

So Babcock had given “incontestable Proofs...of a Distempered Mind” when he was in Cambridge, seeking the post of brigadier-general under Israel Putnam. Yet Washington had both passed on Putnam’s recommendation to the Congress and, when Babcock was leaving Massachusetts on 7 Dec 1775, gave him letters to carry to Cooke. All I can think is that Babcock’s breeding, intelligence, and major fawning skills made Washington overlook signs of his irrationality.

TOMORROW: Clues to Babcock’s mental problems.

“The Clamor made against him of Insanity”

Yesterday I noted how in early 1776 the Rhode Island legislature appointed Col. Henry Babcock, a veteran of the French & Indian War, to oversee the defense of Newport from the Royal Navy. (Click on the thumbnail to the right for a closer look at a 1776 map of the town, courtesy of the Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.)

Though Babcock was living across the border in Stonington, Connecticut, he was son of a former Rhode Island chief justice and speaker of the assembly, so he was well known in the colony. Col. Babcock had reportedly spent some time training at the Royal Artillery’s Woolwich Arsenal in the early 1760s, and therefore seemed like a good choice to strengthen and manage the town’s shore batteries.

The first obstacle to overcome was Babcock’s issues with his fellow officers. The Rhode Island legislative records indicate that he had a dispute with another colonel over seniority in February 1776. Then in March the assembly decided it was “highly expedient for restoring peace to the Brigade, and for the Public Good, to give the said Henry Babcock some Instructions and Directions for his Government.” Very specific instructions.

Finally, there were objections from Newport itself. The town didn’t particularly want to be defended, apparently preferring to remain neutral and busy trading with both sides of the war. But Rhode Island insisted, and in early April 1776 Babcock arrived with troops and cannons (perhaps the same cannons that had been pulled back to Providence in late 1774, to keep them out of royal government hands).

And none too soon. As the 19 Apr 1776 New London Gazette reported, on the evening of 11 April four ships under control of the Royal Navy entered Narragansett Bay:

• the warship Scarborough, with twenty guns, coming north from Georgia.
• a smaller transport ship called the Cimitar, with sixteen guns.
• a brig and a sloop laden with provisions, captured along the coast.

The locals decided to take back those prizes and their cargoes.

Rhode Island had commissioned two “Row Gallies,” the Spitfire under Capt. John Grimes and the Washington under Capt. John Hyers. Powered by both sails and oars, they had top mobility within the bay. Hyers’s ship fired at the Scarborough while Grimes “boarded and sent off the Brig and Sloop.” Then the battery at Brenton’s Point, under Babcock’s command, fired on the Scarborough and forced her to move off. The newspaper declared:

This bold Action, of taking two Vessels close under the Stern of a 20 Gun Ship, may possibly convince our Enemies that the Yankies are not such Dastards, as the Tories in this Country have represented them.

The newspaper added this passage, supplied “by one who was present”:

We are bound in justice to say that the Disposition on Shore, made by Colonel Babcock, was very Soldierlike, and, notwithstanding his Indisposition, he was on Horseback great part of the Night, fired one of the 18 Pounders from the North Battery himself and hulled the Scarborough, and behaved in so cool and composed a manner as made even the Tories fear him.—

The Sons of Liberty take this Opportunity of returning Colonel Babcock their particular Thanks for the Discipline he has established in the Brigade under his Command. Notwithstanding the Clamor made against him of Insanity, we think him perfectly in his sober Senses.

“He who would free from Envy pass his Days,
Must live at Ease, & never merit Praise.”
BRUTUS & CASSIUS

That dispatch from Newport concluded by saying, “Our bay is now free from pirates,” and that on 14 April Col. Babcock and Col. William Richmond had “joined their two regiments and marched into this town.” Still, it’s never a good situation when your supporters have to publicly proclaim that you’re sane. Within six weeks, Babcock was removed from his position.

TOMORROW: What was Babcock’s problem?

Scandalous Conduct of the Connecticut Troops?

Rebellion in the Ranks, the book by John A. Nagy that I described yesterday, lists two mutinies within the Continental Army during the siege of Boston. One was a brief attempt by a Pennsylvania regiment to free a couple of their comrades from military jail, as chronicled two days ago. The other appears in a letter from Gen. Israel Putnam (shown here) to Gen. George Washington dated 1 Dec 1775:

I shall esteem it a particular favor if your Excellency will be so obliging as to recommend my worthy friend, Colonel Henry Babcock, to the Honorable Continental Congress, to be appointed to the rank of Brigadier-General in the Continental army. I have been upon service with him several campaigns in the last war, and have seen him in action behave with great spirit and fortitude when he had command of a regiment. He has this day been very serviceable in assisting me in quelling a mutiny, and bringing back a number of deserters.

Putnam was trying to get a brigadier-general to help manage his division. Babcock (1736-1800) was an old comrade from the French & Indian War. Born the son of Rhode Island’s chief justice, he had graduated from Yale in 1752 at the top of his class. At this time he was making his home in Stonington, Connecticut.

What did Putnam mean by “mutiny” and “deserters”? That becomes clear in Washington’s report to Congress on 4 December:

The scandalous conduct of a great number of the Connecticut troops has laid me under the necessity of calling in a body of the militia, much sooner than I apprehended there would be an occasion for such a step.

I was afraid some time ago, that they would incline to go home when the time of their enlistment expired. I called upon the officers of the several regiments, to know whether they could prevail on the men to remain until the 1st of January, or till a sufficient number of other forces could be raised to supply their place. I suppose they were deceived themselves. I know they deceived me by assurances, that I need be under no apprehension on that score, for the men would not leave the lines.

Last Friday showed how much they were mistaken, as the major part of the troops of that colony were going away with their arms and ammunition. We have, however, by threats, persuasions, and the activity of the people of the country, who sent back many of them, that had set out, prevailed upon the most part to stay. There are about eighty of them missing.

In other words, those troops were mutinying and deserting by leaving for home “when the time of their enlistment expired,” which was on 1 December. Even though their officers had asked them nicely not to! (Well, one reading of the Connecticut militia law had their enlistments ending on 10 December, but commanders were asking those men to stay through the end of the year.) All but one of the Connecticut regiments tried to leave, so this “mutiny” wasn’t the bright idea of a few hotheads.

Prof. Fred Anderson’s article “The Hinge of the Revolution: George Washington Confronts a People’s Army, July 3, 1775” suggests that this dispute reflects a particular regional understanding of military service. As he developed the idea in more detail in A People’s Army, Anderson posits that Calvinist New Englanders viewed their service in the mobilized militia as a “covenant” with society, its parameters defined like a contract. In practice, New Englanders were perfectly willing to do their militia service, but insisted on going home at the end of the stated terms.

In contrast, Washington and his top officers, like the British commanders in the French & Indian War before them, felt that soldiers should continue to serve if the situation required them. By that light, militiamen who left at critical times were “deserters” even if the letter of the law was on their side. The commander-in-chief stopped most of the Connecticut men from leaving and had other units guard their camp for the rest of the year.

As for Putnam’s recommendation of Henry Babcock, Washington passed it to Congress with a note that said, “I know nothing of this gentleman, but I wish the vacancy was filled, as the want of one is attended with very great inconveniences.” But Congress didn’t commission Babcock in the Continental Army. Instead, in February 1776, the Rhode Island legislature put him in charge of defending Newport.

TOMORROW: And then Babcock went mad.