St. Paul’s Memorial

Part II: War & Occupation

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The history of the Revolution is something that has been written and rewritten many times, and the struggle to control the past began even as the cannon still fired.

Here at St. Paul’s Chapel you can see the first national memorial, to Major Gen. Richard Montgomery, an unlikely symbol of the American cause. The stonework on the central face of the building honors a former British officer and Irishman who only moved to North America in 1773 and died three years later in the failed attempt to conquer Canada.

St. Paul's Memorial

  • Juxtaposed with his martyrdom is his partner in that invasion, Benedict Arnold. An early hero of the Revolution, Arnold became its greatest villain when he switched sides in 1780 and took up residence in British New York. Arnold was disgusted by the refusal to negotiate a peace settlement three years before the war’s formal end, and horrified by the rebels’ alliance with France, an “absolute” (illiberal) Catholic monarchy.

    By considering these divergent stories, we explore how Americans saw the Revolution, and how its meaning changed over time. Both portrayals, of heroism and villainy, obscured far more complicated realities.

    And they remind us that during the war colonists of all hues and rank switched allegiances fluidly. Colonists weighed the odds and bet on the British or the rebels as the contest seesawed, concentrating on their own economic and physical well-being. New York was in the best position to widen appeal for the British / Loyalist caused, as its protected headquarters for seven years. Yet support collapsed here, too, as nearly everywhere else.

    What these histories reveal is a seldom-remembered contest for hearts and minds, greatly shaped by material conditions — like so many wars and revolutions. While subsequent generations presented the colonials as monolithic, they were more divided than united. Loyalists fought in 576 of the Revolution’s 772 battles and skirmishes, making it quite literally the nation’s first civil war. And throughout it, colonists provided help, supplies, and information to both sides, one of the reasons Arnold believed his efforts at “peace” would be well-received.

Margaret Corbin

Margaret Corbin was born on the western Pennsylvania frontier, and grew up during the Seven Years War. The local Delaware and Shawnee, backing the French, attacked her settlement to reclaim stolen land, killed her father, and kidnapped her mother.

At 24 years old, she became one of perhaps 20,000 camp followers in Washington’s army, leaving Virginia when her husband joined the rebels. During the Battle for New York in 1776 she cared for the wounded and other soldiers at the last rebel defense in Manhattan, Fort Washington, in today’s Washington Heights. After Hessians killed most of her husband’s regiment, she took over, halting the advance — her cannon the last to fall. But she suffered debilitating wounds from grapeshot, leaving her unable to dress and feed herself.

  • Three years later, after caring for the injured at West Point, Congress granted her a lifelong pension, the first woman to be officially recognized for military service. But she was compensated just half the male rate, and because of her “gruff manner” (drinking and smoking, preferring the company of soldiers and working-class men), early historical societies and governmental institutions shied away from memorializing her. She died impoverished, buried with a crude stone marker in the Lower Hudson Valley.

    But locals kept her story alive. And in the early 20th century, she was re-interred with full military honors, and included with a plaque dedicated outside Fort Tryon Park. After more than a century of neglect, she is now remembered as one of the many wives and daughters who helped gain the nation’s independence — often still known, confusingly, by the unspecified nickname soldiers gave these camp followers, “Molly Pitcher.”

Here in the center face of St. Paul’s Chapel, you’ll find the first monument commissioned by the Continental Congress. The church is the oldest in New York, and even though it served as the main house of worship for Loyalists and the British during the Occupation, its graveyard contains several notable rebels — including Gen. Montgomery and John Holt, the famous “Liberty printer” of Hanover Square.