The image of Washington crossing the Delaware looms large. No single day in history was more decisive for the creation of the United States than Christmas 1776, wrote award winning historian James McPherson. Samuel Cabell’s 6th Virginia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Mordecai Buckner and Brigadier General Adam Stephen crossed the icy river that night, marched miles through a winter storm, and then anchored the center of the Continental battle line at the Trenton, helping to defeat 1,500 Hessians.
Captain Samuel Cabell, however, was not with them. A week before the surprise attack, on December 18, 1776, General Washington had commanded him and other selected officers to undertake another mission, which the commander in chief considered just as essential to saving the army and the “Cause”. He sent them on a 3-month recruiting command back to their home states.
We know Samuel was one of these soldiers from his May 1777 pension record. While it states he was still part of the Virginia 6th Regiment, it notes “From 18 Dec 18 Mch on Command recruiting.” It does not say where. His father’s diary in February 1777 confirms Samuel was in Virginia during that period.
Washington sent the officers to recruit since he knew his army was on the brink of disappearing with most enlistments expiring at the end of the year. David Hackett Fischer writes in his Pulitzer Prize winning Washington’s Crossing, “So important was the new army thought to be that in December Washington sent some of his best officers and sergeants back to the states on recruiting duty at a moment when he desperately needed every man he could get on the Delaware.”
George Washington confided in a letter to his brother John Augustine Washington, dated December 18, 1776, his belief that British General Howe
“would make an attempt upon Philadelphia this winter. I see nothing to oppose him a fortnight hence, as the time of all the troops, except Virginia (reduced almost to nothing) and Maryland (equally as bad) will expire in less than that time. In a word my dear Sir, if every nerve is not strain’d to recruit the New Army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty near up.”
He complained to John of “the accursed policy of short enlistments, and accursed Evil of placing too great a dependence on the Militia.” He had been bitterly disappointed by the New Jersey militia’s lack of support on the recent retreat, and General Charles Lee’s delay moving his regulars in Morristown south to join him. Washington’s reference to this “New Army” conveyed all too clearly his awareness that in two weeks there would be nothing left of the “old army” to stop Howe taking Philadelphia. Recruiting was as important as a battlefield victory.
Given that Samuel Cabell was later described as “impetuous”, courageously leading from the front, by one of his former soldiers, it is not a stretch to think the young captain was disappointed to be taken away from the front line and his comrades and put on administrative duty. Three months later, Washington would reassign Captain Alexander Hamilton from his artillery unit to administrative service, as an aide-de-camp. His real-life frustration was reflected in the lyric in the musical Hamilton – “he wanted to fight not write”. Captain Cabell may have felt the same way, wanting to fight not recruit, but he obeyed and embarked on the mission.
He could have gone on horseback or by boat since the Delaware was firmly in Patriot control. He would have found Philadelphia to be a city in panic. The Congress had departed on December 12 to safety in Baltimore, leaving the Pennsylvania Statehouse vacant. Many inhabitants who could were trying to evacuate, given with the news that the British army was as close as Trenton. The day after Samuel started his recruiting command, Thomas Paine was in Philadelphia picking up the first printing of the American Crisis. As Samuel was heading south, the pamphlets were heading north to the army. Fischer writes “within a day of its publication it was circulating in the camps of the Continental Army along the Delaware.” James Cheetham noted at the time, “it was read in the camp, to every corporal’s guard, and in the army, and out of it had more than the intended effect.”
From mid-February to mid-March, 1777, William Cabell’s pocket ledger includes three references of payments to Samuel, not via courier, but apparently in person in Virginia:
17 Feb 1777, Paid Capt. Samuel Cabell £30 in part of 210 dollars.
24 Feb 1777, £4..12..6 due from Sam. Cabell to Thomas Evans on the Eastern shore.
11 Mar 1777, By Sam. Cabell 9/ for bushel salt let William Temple have. By ditto for Rich. McCary in account of Jo. Canterbury. Capt. Cabell set off on his way to Continental Army.
A Thomas Evans is noted 17 years later signing as a witness for the will of Henry Fletcher made out in Messongo, Accomac County, west of Chincoteague. Perhaps Samuel boarded with him while recruiting there, and then in late February, he arranged for payment of his bill by his father. The Virginia 9th Regiment drew recruits from the eastern shore. If William Cabell had meant the eastern shore of the James River, then Samuel may have been recruiting closer to home.
In whatever part of Virginia he was, it may have been a challenge for Samuel to meet his recruiting target. Contemporary accounts indicate a reluctance in Virginia to send local troops to join the Continental Army for fear of leaving the homefront vulnerable. In a letter of March 29, 1777, to General George Washington, Governor Patrick Henry opens “I am very sorry to inform you that the recruiting Business of late goes on so badly, that there remains little prospect of filling the six new Battalions from this State voted by the Assembly.” In order to make enlistment more attractive, Patrick Henry proposed to Washington more reliance on volunteer militia and shorter terms for soldiers enlisting in the Continental Army.
In a letter of April 13, 1777 Washington replied:
“the Volunteer Plan which you mention will never answer any valuable purposes, and I cannot but disapprove the measure. To the short engagement of our Troops, may be fairly and justly ascribed almost every misfortune that we have experienced…I can not countenance in the smallest degree, what I know to be pernicious in the Extreme. Short inlistments [sic] when founded on the best plan, are repugnant to order and subversive to discipline, and Men held upon such terms, will never be equal to the important ends of War.”
Given the value that Washington placed on longer enlistment and commitment, Samuel Jordan Cabell’s service in the Continental Army from 1775 to 1781 can be appreciated in a new light.
Despite enlistment struggles in Virginia in early 1777, Washington’s overall recruiting effort exceeded expectations. The officers which he sent back to several states on recruiting command were tasked to bring back 88 regiments. They delivered 119 total. This surge in enlistment was in part a response to recent success with victories at Trenton and Princeton. Thomas Paine’s American Crisis also strengthened feelings for the patriot cause. Captain Samuel Cabell did not cross the Delaware, but did do his part helping to deliver Washington’s “New Army” that was necessary to win independence.
Chapter 6 – Retaking New Jersey- The Battle of Trenton
Works Consulted
- David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 2004
- Col. William Cabell, Sr., Commonplace Books, 1777
- Continental Army Pension Records
- Letter from Governor Patrick Henry to General George Washington, March 29, 1777, National Archives
- Letter from General George Washington to Governor Patrick Henry, April 13, 1777, National Archives