The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-07-06
PATRIOTIC CELEBRATION
lcontlnued from Second Page.l


 have been a raider by nature. Wher- ever property was to be destroyed, or towns to be burned by quick dash and as quick retreat, General Tryon seems to have been selected as suited to the work, Before the Revolution, when as colonial governor of North Carolina, he negotiated their boundaries with the Cherokees, they, to distinguish his cru city and craft, bestowed upon him the name of Great Wolf" and the sharp Indian sagacity was not at fault It was to meet such an invader and raider that a handful of patriots gathered on both sides of the harbor. Probably twenty-five or thirty only met the enc my when they landed on this side Of the harbor. Thirty country farmers and fishermen against fifteen hundred disciplined troops. It reads like page taken from the romance of chivalry
 The fact that they were but as one to fifty did not for moment deter them in their resistance. They seemed to have had a literal faith In the scrip ture promise that lone should chase thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight" I doubt if the disparity Of numbers ever occurred to them or any of them The invader was on their soil and resistance was their duty and pleasure I think they enjoyed the fight. We little know how wrought up to intense action were the citizens Of those days. Very probable it is that they did not think out results, that they were scarcely conscious of what they were fighting for, but they knew in some undefined way that liberty was at stake, and that the British were their deadly foes. The fight from the land- ing at what is now Lighthouse Point, to the top of this hill, and from West Ha- ven green all along the road and fields to the Ditch corner, is not as memora- ble as that at Lexington and Concord, but resembles that conflict In many in stances The spirit was the same. It was the establishment of liberty at Lexington, 1t was it's defense at New Haven. The Rev. Dr. Daggett rushing to the front riding furiously upon his old black mare" and discharging his fowling piece as the enemy advanced, had his prototype in Rev. William En- erson, who at Concord with musket in hand, powder horn and ball pouch slung over his shoulders, marched in front of the minute men, Jacob Thorpe, who declared that he would not run another step for all Great Britain, and was riddled with bullets in front of the Townsend house, did but emulate the brave example of Jonas Parker 'fthe strongest and best wrestler in Lexing- ton,' who promised never to run from the British troops and who was bayo- neted at the post which he took in the morning "The beating and finally cutting out the tongue of, and then killing distracted man" reminds us of the wanton shooting at Cambridge of an idiot who seated on a fence. was looking on the British retreat. The minute men who were called out at Lexington were no greater lovers of liberty than the New Haven patriots whose bodies were left along the road side from the landings to the city.
 Whether the heroic resistance against overwhelming odds saved the city from complete destruction has been ques- toned Dr. Bacon, than whom no one has given more intelligent study to the history of the event, believed that it did, for in a letter which he addressed to the common council of New Haven SuSSGSllIl6 d CcllLCliIlctt 10CO5l1llOli Ol the day, he expressly states that ''the patriotic resistance of citizens saved the city from destruction;" and looking at all the circumstances of the raid, cannot but think New Haven would have been totally destroyed had it not been for the determined resistance to the march of the British towards and into the city. That the object of the ex- petition was plunder and wanton de- struction is made certain by the burn ing of Fairfield and Norwalk, and that New Haven was place where it was thought the greatest damage could be done appears from the instructions of Sir Henry Clinton to General Tryon to '.begin there" That the Great Wolf should have fought his way into the place only to retreat is hardly explica- ble upon the theory that Tories resi- dent there besought him not to burn houses lest their property should be de- stroyed, or the supposed aesthetic sen timent of General Garth who, as it is rumored, thought it "too pretty a place to burn" That 1t was General Garth's E purpose to set the city on fire as soon as his retreat by Neck bridge was known to be secure is clear from Gene ral Tryon's report, in which referring to General Garth, he says s'that the col lection of the enemy in force on advan- tageous ground and with heavier can- non than his own diverted the general from that passage" The original in- tention I think must have been a hur- ried landing, a quick and supposed un. obstructed march to the city, confla. grafton and retreat to the ships the same evening. The resistance and con- sequent delay in reaching the city made it impossible to fire the city and safely retreat Hundreds of militiamen were pouring in from the surrounding towns and the patriots had gathered "ir force" to dispute the retreat over Neck bridge Indeed General Garth had taken up the bridge blanks to prevent crossing of the patriots to attack him
 fighting was in progress at the Ditch corner, and the boats were aground iI the harbor The danger of a retreat from such expeditions had been learned by Major General Tryon from the his tory of the war all the way from Lex. ington to Danbury. He had had a taste of the spirit of New Haven's defenders on the advance, he feared what might happen on the retreat, and seems there. fore, instead of burning the city at once to have held out the threat to burn fl if further molested as cover to his re.