Traitor Benedict Arnold, Battle of Groton Heights, and Fort Griswold, Groton, Conn.

 

Excerpt from Mystic Seafarer's Trail 
by Lisa Saunders

The massacre at Fort Griswold, led by traitor Benedict Arnold in 1781, is no secret. But what continues to puzzle historians is the whereabouts of British Major William Montgomery’s headless body.

Thrust through with long pikes when leading a charge over the fort wall, Montgomery was quickly avenged by his regiment who swarmed over the wall after him. When Col. William Ledyard surrendered the fort to the British, the fight went from a battle to a massacre.

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After the massacre, the living and dead were plundered of their possessions, including their clothes.  In the meantime, Benedict Arnold ordered New London burned.

Benedict Arnold, a native of nearby Norwich and former general in the Continental Army, used his knowledge of the American gun firing code to trick the colonists at Fort Griswold and New London into thinking the approaching vessels were American. More than half of the 160 vastly outnumbered colonists against the 800 British soldiers at Fort Griswold were killed, or some would say murdered, in the massacre. Of those taken prisoner, many were never heard from again. Those unable to walk were loaded into an artillery cart for transport to the Thames River. The cart was let loose and careened out of control toward the Thames River until it ran into an apple tree. One of the wounded, Stephen Hempstead, recounted his ride 45 years later in a letter to a newspaper: “The pain and anguish we all endured in this rapid descent, as the wagon jumped and jostled over rocks and holes, is inconceivable; and the jar in its arrest was like bursting the cords of life asunder, and caused us to shriek with almost supernatural force. Our cries were distinctly heard and noticed on the opposite side of the river, (which is a mile wide) amidst all the confusion which raged in burning and sacking the town.”

British soldiers took the badly wounded defenders to the Ebenezer Avery House and left them unattended and bleeding on the wooden floor boards. Hempstead recalled that first terrible night: “None of our own people came to us till near daylight the next morning, not knowing previous to that time, that the enemy had departed…Thirty-five of us were lying on the bare floor—stiff, mangled, and wounded in every manner, exhausted with pain, fatigue and loss of blood, without clothes or any thing to cover us, trembling with cold and spasms of extreme anguish, without fire or light, parched with excruciating thirst, not a wound dressed nor a soul to administer to one of our wants, nor an assisting hand to turn us during these long tedious hours of the night; nothing but groans and unavailing sighs were heard, and two of our number did not live to see the light of the morning, which brought with it some ministering angels to our relief.”

When Anna Warner, who wanted to enlist to fight the hated British herself, learned her uncle Edward Mills lay at the Avery House mortally wounded, she ran home for his infant son and placed him in his dying arms. Now she hated the British even more.

One Mystic girl recorded an account she read of the massacre in her diary: “There were more than forty women of the Congregational Church in Groton who that day were made widows, and no man was left at the next communion to pass the bread and wine.”[i]

Legend has it that Major Montgomery was buried sitting up inside the ravelin (a V-shaped mound of dirt), which protected the gate of Fort Griswold. Other British soldiers were buried in the ditch outside the ravelin. According to Jonathan Lincoln, Park Supervisor of Fort Trumbull State Park Management Unit, the British later exhumed their dead for proper burial. Yet when Major Montgomery’s niece came from England to claim her uncle’s body, all she retrieved from his grave was his skull.

In 1985, when ground penetrating radar was used to do an archeological survey, no bodies were found. Since digging is not allowed, I thought I’d try my handy dandy EMF detector despite my promise to myself not to use it again. Maybe his bones would emit some sort of electromagnet frequency. No luck—not even when I slipped through the tunnel-like passageway located under the mound where he was slain.

Although one can visit Fort Griswold to see the ravelin, the sword used to murder Col. Ledyard and the plaques marking where Montgomery and Ledyard met their ends, this once blood-soaked ground refuses to give up the rest of Major Montgomery’s body. Could the spirit of Anna continue to hate the British so much she is preventing the discovery of Montgomery’s headless bones?

Later marrying a veteran of that battle, Elijah Bailey, Anna Warner Bailey became famous in the War of 1812 for removing her red flannel petticoat in the middle of the street when soldiers needed wadding to load their muskets in anticipation of a British attack. Anna and her husband had no children and became inn keepers. She died in her 90s when a spark from the fireplace landed on her clothes while she slept.

Although the blood stains have long since faded on the floor boards of the Avery House, the home still speaks to visitors at Fort Griswold State Park. Inside is featured the very table where Lt. Ebenezer Avery had his last breakfast before getting killed that day on September 6, 1781. Although traitor Benedict Arnold is still burned in effigy in New London, the British and Americans have long since mended their wounds and moved forward as friends and allies. Perhaps the spirit of Major Montgomery has been invited to dine by the spirit of Lt. Avery at his table until Montgomery’s body is recovered and reunited with his head back in England. If the spirit of Anna Warner Bailey has been invited to dine there as well, who knows when that will be. (Acidic soil could have dissolved the bones, but that’s not as interesting to contemplate.)

Another possibility is that colonist Captain Shapley is hiding Major Montgomery’s bones until his name is featured on the plaque marking the site where Montgomery met his end. History states that Jordan Freeman killed Montgomery, yet in Stephen Hempstead’s account of the battle, he wrote that Major Montgomery was killed “having been thrust through the body whilst in the act of scaling the walls at the S.W. bastion, by Capt. Shapley." Did I just discover something that could change a few words in a history book? I asked Jonathan Lincoln, Park Supervisor, about the discrepancy.

Lincoln replied, “We did a little investigating. One of the other contemporary accounts of the Battle of Groton Heights by George Middleton states that Capt. Adam Shapley and Jordan Freeman killed Major Montgomery with long pikes. Rufus Avery’s account does not mention the manner of Major Montgomery’s death at all. Stephen Hempstead’s narrative is the only one that only mentions Capt. Shapley in the killing of Major Montgomery. I think it is safe to say that both participated in the death of Major Montgomery.”

I don’t blame Captain Shapely if he is annoyed his name didn’t make it on a plaque after doing something historically significant. If I ever do something for the history books, I’d want a plaque too!

The Daughters of the American Revolution named their Groton-based chapter after Anna Warner Bailey. As a member, I attend their meetings held at the Fort Griswold Museum. When I enter and leave the main meeting room, I often take a moment to gaze at Anna’s portrait in search of clues in her expression. Does she hold the secrets to this sacred ground?

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[i]  (Clarke, 1997, p. 168)