Todd Braisted will discuss a Revolutionary War regiment comprised of men from Gloucester, Cumberland and Salem counties.
Local historian and author Todd Braisted will discuss the history of a Revolutionary War regiment that fought for the other side at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at the Mullica Hill library.
The group was comprised of redcoats primarily from Gloucester, Cumberland and Salem counties who fought against the Colonists and remained loyal to England. Despite that loyalty – Braisted will emphasize in his talk – they were still Americans.
“To be sure, these were Americans, not British,” he explained of a conflict that was viewed by some as a civil war. “(It) was Americans versus Americans. Other parts of the state had already raised six battalions of a corps known as the New Jersey Volunteers.
“Combined, this constituted the largest Loyalist regiment to fight for the British in the Revolutionary War.”
The unit was first formed in January of 1778, during the British occupation of Philadelphia. Within two months, it was tasked with guarding Fort Billingsport, on the Delaware River in Paulsboro. In February of the same year, the unit was also involved in two skirmishes that took place at Mantua Creek, the body of water from which the township got its name.
“Yesterday,” noted a report in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on Feb. 3, 1778, “about 20 West Jersey loyalists crossed the Delaware, from this city, in order to assist some of their friends, who had expressed a desire of taking refuge here, to avoid the horrid tyranny and implacable persecution of the rebels.
“At the mouth of Mantua Creek, they fell in with a party of the enemy, whom they soon repulsed, advanced into the country, and took one … prisoner, who was a committee man, and – it is said – very active in distressing the friends of government.”
The British were eventually driven out of Philadelphia and regrouped in New York. The loyalists went with them.
“Due to losses and removed from their area of best recruits,” Braisted said, “there was no hope of completing the corps, and in September, the men were drafted into other loyalist units – primarily the New Jersey Volunteers – with whom they served until the end of the war.”
The Pennsylvania Evening Post report is one of many that can be found on the website of the Online Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies, of which Braisted is a member. The institute is dedicated to documenting the history of loyalists during the war, as well as the part they played in American Colonial life.
Registration is required in advance on the Gloucester County Library System website. The lecture is one of many the library is hosting to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary.
