The 3rd New York Regiment was authorized on May 25th 1775 and organized from June 28th to August 4th from the counties of Ulster, Dutchess, Orange and Suffolk under the command of Colonel James Clinton for five months service in Canada. The enlistments of the first establishment ended on December 31st 1775.
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General James Clinton, depicted in 1861.
The first colonel of the 3rd New York Regiment |
The second establishment of the Regiment was authorized on January 19th 1776, and was raised a third time in December 1776 under the command of Peter Gansevoort.
The regiment saw action in the Invasion of Canada, New York Campaign and Fort Stanwix, and was merged into the 1st New York Regiment on January 1st 1781.
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Peter Gansevoort 1794 - Gilbert Stuart.
Commissioned as a major in the 2nd New York Regt. in 1775,
serving under General Montgomery in Canada. Gansevoort was promoted
to colonel of the 3rd New York at the age of 28, distinguishing himself
at the siege of Fort Stanwix, and ending the war as a major-general of
New York militia |
At the Battle of Oriskany the British loyalists under Major Stephen Watts, wearing their coats inside out tried to penetrate the American lines by pretending to be reinforcements from the 3rd New York Regiment at Fort Stanwix. They achieved this by reversing their coats, revealing their grey lining and green facings which were the same as the 3rd New York.
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Battle of Oriskany, August 6th 1777 - Adam Hook, Osprey, Saratoga 177.
Men of Sir John Johnson's, King's Royal Regiment of New York, wearing green coats at the time, attempted to infiltrate Rebel lines by turning their coats inside out to look like men from the 3rd New York Regiment. |
It was Captain Gardenier of Visscher’s Regiment at the American rear which spotted the ruse when one of his men went out to greet these "friends” and was promptly captured. Gardenier, armed only with a spontoon and sword, rushed forward and killed his man’s captor, and desperate hand to hand fighting followed between the loyalists and the American militia, as Gardenier shouted "they are not our men - they are the enemy! Fire away!".
Both sides withdrew to recover, as three cannon shots were heard in the distance. Herkimer and his men knew instantly what this meant, that the 3rd New York at fort Stanwix had raided and sacked the loyalist camp; thus already demoralized by heavy losses, the threat to their possessions persuaded the remaining Iroquois warriors to leave, and with insufficient numbers to fight on, Sir John Johnson and the King's Royal Regiment of New York also decided to withdraw.
The 3rd New York Regiment that defended Fort Schuyler (Stanwix) against the British in 1777 had been reorganized and established from other New York Regiments on January 26th, 1777, with the regiment under the command of Col. Peter Gansevoort, and with Lt. Col. Marinus Willett as second in command.
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| Marinus Willett - painting by Ralph Earl |
The regiment initially consisted of eight companies, with the men primarily drawn from Duchess and Ulster Counties and the New York City area, and was mustered at Fishkill before its first posting to Constitution Island, opposite West Point.
The 3rd NY had its first taste of battle on March 22nd, 1777 when it helped drive off a raiding party of 600 British troops at Peekskill, suffering its first battle casualties, with two killed and four or five wounded.
The first detachment of the 3rd NY, under Major Robert Cochran, reached Ft. Schyuler on April 12th, 1777, and Col. Gansevoort took command of the fort on May 3rd, whilst the remainder of the regiment (200 men) under Lt.Col. Willett, departed Constitution Island for Ft. Schuyler on May 12th.
Willett's detachment travelled up to Albany on three sloops, then marched from Schenectady to Ft. Schuyler, escorting the regiment's baggage train of seven wagons up to the post; the detachment reaching the fort on May 26th, after having Capt. Dewitt's Company posted to Fort Dayton at German Flatts (this company remained at Ft. Dayton until July).
The regiment was engaged in the constant work of repairing and rebuilding the fort from May through August, and in August of 1777, the 3rd NY helped to successfully defend it in a 21 day siege by a British force of 2,000 regulars, Germans, loyalists, and allied Indians.
During this time, a detachment of the regiment under Lt.Col. Willett took part in a raid on the main loyalist and Indian camps to the south and east of the fort, and on the detachment's return to the fort, they skirmished with British troops attempting to cut off their retreat.
Cannon fire from the fort, combined with the detachment's own 3-pounder gun, finally drove the British off, and the raid destroyed the main loyalist and Indian camps, which resulted in the further capture of a great deal of equipment and severely cooled the Indian's desire for further fighting. During this raid, the regiment did not lose a single man.
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Sketch of the siege of Fort Schuyler, Presented to Col. Gansevoort by L. Flury. This map depicts the positions and movements at the 1777 Siege of Fort Stanwix (also known as Fort Schuyler). |
After the siege, the regiment continued to garrison the fort through December of 1778, when it was relieved by the 1st NY Regiment, and was sent down into the lower Mohawk-upper Hudson Valley area.
In 1779, the 3rd NY Regiment received a gift from Col. Gansevoort in the form of a regimental flag, and it was carried for the remainder of the war, later serving as the basis for the present day New York State flag.
On campaign, the regiment made up part of the troops committed to the various expeditions against British allied Six Nations settlements, and in April 1779, the light infantry company returned to the Mohawk Valley as part of a detachment sent from Ft. Schuyler to destroy the principle Onondaga Indian villages.
From August through September, the entire regiment was part of the Clinton-Sullivan expedition that destroyed the principle Cayuga and Seneca Indian villages in western New York, participating in the Battle of Newtown, which resulted in a major defeat for the Indians and the loyalist troops supporting them.
In September, the 3rd NY once again returned to the Mohawk Valley, having been given the task of destroying the Mohawk village near Fort Hunter and retrieving the expedition's baggage, and with the approach of winter, the regiment re-joined the main army under General Washington for the hard winter encampment of 1779-80 at Morristown, New Jersey.
Throughout 1780, the 3rd NY was engaged in garrison duties, with various detachments of the regiment posted to the Mohawk Valley, the upper and lower Hudson Valley, and West Point.
In December of 1780, the 3rd NY became part of the 1st NY Regiment, as the five New York regiments were consolidated into two for the remainder of the war, and as part of the 1st NY, the men of the 3rd NY Regiment took part in the siege of Yorktown in October of 1781.
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| The Final Assault on Redoubt No.10 at Yorktown - H. Charles McBarron. |
The New York Light Infantry companies made up part of the force that successfully attacked Redoubt Number 10, which helped bring about the British surrender, and after Yorktown, the New York troops went into winter quarters at Pomona, New Jersey.
In the spring of 1782, the two New York regiments went into final quarters at New Windsor, New York, as the war wound down, and in June, many of the men were furloughed home.
In November 1783, with the coming of peace, the men of the old 3rd NY Regiment were honourably discharged and became citizens of the new United States of America.
My interpretation of the 3rd New York sees them in the majority dressed in the classic grey-green faced coats that Mollo reports as the early incarnation of the look of the regiment in 1775, but that is followed by a second illustration showing a change to a blue faced green jacket only a year later.
My Continental regiments will never be turned out in a uniform manner to, I think, better capture the look of the reality that faced these units trying to work to a uniform with the limited resources available and the realities of the wear and tear of campaign, with hats and coats used as available with a good mix of civilian attire as required.
The figures are the plastic continentals from the Perrys, carrying the 3rd NY flag presented to the regiment by Colonel Gansevoort in 1779 beautifully rendered by GMB, all brought together on my low profile sabot bases from Supreme Littleness Designs.
More anon
JJ
