The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1892-04-02

10 tne contrary, ueueFdi washington .
opinion of the Massachusetts soldiers in the
Revolution was thus stated in letter to
Lund Washington under date Of Cam
bridge, August 20, 1775: "The people of
this government have obtained a character
which they by no means deserved, their of
fieers, generally speaking, are the most in
different kind of people ever saw. | have
already broke one colonel and five captains
for cowardice and for drawing more pay
and provisions than they had men in their
cempanies-there are two more colonies
now under arrest, and to be tried for the
same offences.
ain short, they are by no means such
troops in any respects, as you are led to
believe of them from the accounts which
are published. # s. They are excee /
ingly dirty and nasty people. Had they
been properly conducted at Bunker's Hill
Ton June II, } or those that were there prop
erly supported, the regulars would have
met with shameful defeat. :: =; = 1t was
for their behavior on that occasion that the
above officers were broke. j. y = | dis
charged a regiment the other day that had
in it fourteen rank and file fit for duty on
", and several that had less than fifty. In
short such is my situation, that if | was to
wish the bitterest curse to an enemy on this
side of the grave, [ should put him in my
stead with my feelings. $ & | am
worried to death all day with variety of
perplexing circumstances, disturbed at the
conduct of the militia. whose ill-behavior
and want of discipline has done great in
jury to the other troops who never had of
ficers except in few instances worth the
bread they eat.
A GREED FOR GAIN.
In another letter written September 30,
1776 Washington said: "The Massachu-
sets people suffer nothing to go by them
that they can lay hands upon"
1t seems that the Massachusetts, patriots
of 1776, like some of their descendants,
in the war of 1861-'5, considered that the
purest patriots were those who could make
the most money out of their government in
the shortest space of time.
After the battle of Long Island in the
Revolution, and when General Howe in
vaded Westchester county, New York, the
farmers were robbed indiscriminately, not
only by the camp followers and the privates
of the American army, but by the officers,
including field officers; and in that work of
plunder the records aresingularly ample in
their evidence that the plunderers were al
most exclusively men and officers of the
Massachusetts and Connecticut Lines. At
later period even a major general from
Massachusetts was confederated with SINH
lar thieves, and gave orders on the paymas-
tars of the army for payment of the trans
portation of the plunder from the scenes of
the thefts to the homes of the thieves and
of their accessories, of high or low degree,
in the neighboring State of Connecticut.
The eminent historian, Henry B. Dawson,
of New York, says the regiment of Massa-
chusetts Artifcers, commanded by Colonel
Brewer, and the regiment of Connecticut
troops, commanded by Col. Charles Webb,
were especially notorious as thieves.
THE sACKING OF WHITE PLAINS.
In 1776 a body of Massachusetts, troops,
commanded by Major Austin, entered the
village of White Plains after it had been
abandoned by the British and Hessians, and
the following description by Mr.. Dawson OF
their ''patriotic" services reads much like a
description of one of General Hunter s
plundering expeditions in the Valley of
Virginia during the late civil war, MIR.
Dawson says the major and his men enter
ed house after house as they went down
the roadways leading through the village,
carry from each such articles as pleased
their cupidity, fastening the occupants
from the houses without suffering them to
dress the children, where there were chill
dren, but drove them out of doors naked,
carrying the sick and helpless outdoors on
their beds, and leaving them exposed to
the rigors of that November night, insult
ing the females with i'll language and
threats in the presence Of the major, and
then setting fire to the houses.
"The courthouse, the Westinghouse of
the Presbyterian church, and the greater
number of the dwellings, including that Of
Dr. Graham, together with all, of furni-
ture, and provisions, and clothing, which
the rapacicus enemy had spared for the use
and support and protection of the helpless
inhabitants, unless such portions of each
which the newcomers had taken away to
the majors marquee or elsewhere were
thus wantonly and criminally destroyed.
Nothing whatever was unacceptable to the
thieves, and the bags of feathers and un-
manufactured wool, the desks and tea ta-
bles and chairs, the bookcases and books,
the andirons and brass and copper kettles,
the linen curtains and looking glasses, and
women's hats, the churns and washtubs,
the sets of sleigh harness and skips Of bees,
which appear recorded among the articles
which were stolen by the soldiers of Massa-
chusetts and Connecticut sent into the
army, very clearly indicated that while the
horses of the farmers of Westchester coun-
ty were stolen for the supplying of the
stables of the thieves, at their respective
homes, the household furniture belonging
to the same farmers, and the clothing of
their wives, and the unmanufactured wool
and feathers, and their bees, were all stolen
for the purpose of enriching the homes and
the work-rooms and the gardens of those
- =ftiItIr;is, 2ltiu lIIs;
wardrobes of their families" These out
RACES inflicted on the inhabitants of West
chester county called forth the denuncia-
ton Of General Washington, in the general
orders of the army, and those of the COM
mittee of safety of the State.
"ARIsToCRATs AND MACARoNIs."
'The Eastern troops were stigmatized,
says Mr.. Dawson, "as generally nothing
else than mass of specializing poltroons,
for which, very often, there was abundant
reason and they reciprocated the ill-feeling
of those from the Middle and Southern
States, by branding them as 'aristocrats'
and 'macaronis the former of the two So
biquets in allusoin to tho distinctions of
rank which were maintained among those
troops, so different from the practice of
the New Englanders; the latter, in con-
tenptuous reference to the regiments from
! Al i