Mohawk Valley Collection - Albany and Tryon County Militia

The work on the paint bench this month and part of February has been focussed on completing my first tranche of the Albany and Tryon County Militia that will form the core of my Rebel American army to oppose the Crown forces in my Mohawk Valley collection of AWI figures.

With a solid core of Crown forces completed, that has seen the build of the Kings Royal Regiment of New York, Butlers Rangers, British regulars and light infantry, Jaegers and the allied Mohawk Indian forces, I decided to shift the focus on to the American troops so that I could have a start to the collection that would allow some practice games, prior to doing something big with a much larger collection.

That work started last year with a few trial builds of some plastic and metal Perry options for American militia, but more thought was needed, together with some scratch building to complete the force I was looking to build.

With a lot of work put into the Age of Sail collection of model ships brought to a conclusion with the completion of the first part of the collection at the end of last year, I found myself with time to start work on my planned militia build that would see me constructing a force of some one hundred and forty four militiamen, to allow an eventual fighting of Klock's Field, perhaps one of the most significant engagements in this bloody conflict on the northern frontier of New York state in the AWI.

Obviously with this number of troops I was looking for the most cost effective and attractive option to build a militia army with character that would capture the look and spirit of the Rebel forces that formed the frontline defence in the Mohawk Valley in the 1780's and the idea of the Perry's to adapt their plastic Continentals for this option had a strong appeal, with plenty of scratch building options on offer, as covered in my post over Xmas and linked below.

JJ's Wargames - Mohawk Valley Collection American Militia Scratch Build

The Xmas work schedule also saw the completion of my Jaegers together with some metal militiamen to add even more variety to my plastics build, link below.

JJ's Wargames - Mohawk Valley Collection, Jaegers & Militia

In addition, if you are interested in seeing some of the other units built prior to this work, I did a summary post capturing the key build with a link also below.

JJ's Wargames - AWI Mohawk Valley Collection

So, back to the militia, and introducing the first twenty five percent of my militia army for the Mohawk Valley ready to take on my Crown troops and Indian allies.

On March 8th 1772 the Province of New York passed a bill for the establishment of organised militia in each county in the colony, and four years later with the start of the American War of Independence, the Tryon County militia had become an army of rebellion under the control of the Tryon County Committee of Safety, fighting in the Saratoga Campaign of 1777 at the Battle of Oriskany.

The Battle of Oriskany, August 6th 1777

The battle would herald the ongoing struggle between the rebels and loyalists of the Mohawk River valley in New York state, as the 800 strong Tryon County militia column of Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer found itself ambushed by a loyalist force of some 400 Iroquois Indians and 100 men of the King's Royal Regiment of New York led by Colonel Sir John Johnson, with the former marching to the relief of Fort Stanwix under siege by a British force under the command of Lt. Col. Barry St Leger, supporting operations by General Burgoyne, marching down the Hudson Valley.

The ensuing battle was a disaster for the Tryon County men losing some 465 casualties to just 28 on the loyalist side, with the survivors forced to flee under the pursuit of the vengeful Mohawks.

The Saratoga Campaign of 1777 - Map courtesy of Wikimedia
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burgoyne%27s_March_on_Albany,_1777.svg

Burgoyne's campaign ended in failure and his subsequent surrender in September brought France into the war and would see a change in leadership in British Canada as the forces there went over to the defence, until a lack of direct French involvement in the region prompted a more aggressive response in 1780 as the Mohawk Indians and Crown forces returned to the Mohawk Valley and beyond, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

The Champlain and Mohawk valleys would be the access routes of the loyalist columns and with the Continental Army otherwise engaged in operations around New York, Philadelphia and having to commit forces to defend the south, the defence of the New York, Northern Department fell on the shoulders of local leaders and local forces in the form of the five regiments of New York and two regiments of Massachusetts State Levies and the five regiment of Tryon and sixteen regiments of Albany County militia.

The Battle of Oriskany gave the militiamen an early inoculation to the shock of battle and the battles to come and I wanted my representation of these men to reflect their experience and better preparedness for the actions that followed in 1780 and 1781, with these men kitted out for the marches they had to conduct often in pursuit of enemy raiding columns.

Thus these soldiers carry the blanket rolls and packs more often seen on the regulars as part of that preparedness and in amongst the soldiers I have sprinkled a few rifle armed volunteers who can readily stand in as my Militia Ranger options, clad in hunting shirts and able to form into small skirmish groups.

In 1779 the Tryon County militia was combined with the Albany County militia and on March 20th 1780, Brigadier General Robert Van Rensselaer was given command of the second brigade and in 1781 Marinus Willett was appointed in overall command of New York militia.

Colonel Marinus Willett - Ralph Earl

By the time Willett was appointed to command the militia, the Mohawk Valley had been ravaged as part of Sir John Johnson's 'Great Raid' in September and October 1780, with supporting operations the previous May along the Champlain Valley; during which the militia had been given the run around suffering defeats at Stone Arabia and Klock's Field and failing to intercept and decisively defeat the invading columns, and leaving the Tryon County militia reduced from about 2,500 men to just over a thousand men at arms but with very low morale.

The state of affairs prompted Willett to remark on assuming command that 

"I don't think I shall give a very wild report if I say, that one third have been killed, or carried captive by the enemy; one third removed to the interior places of the county; and one third deserted to the enemy."

However in June 1781 the combative style of Willett took immediate effect with his leading an attack against Lieutenant John Doxstader of the Indian Department, himself leading a mixed force of seventy rangers and Indians on a raid up the Schoharie Creek, skirmishing with rebel militia on the march, and attacking property and livestock close to Corrystown.

After removing 120 cattle and horses, the raiders set fire to twenty homes in the area and the smoke from the attack alerted Colonel Willett at his headquarters in Canajoharie, who immediately set forth with 170 odd militiamen and getting in front of Doxstader laid an ambush.

However Doxstader was warned of his peril by a scout and he ordered his men to disperse and attack the ambush site, but recognising he was outnumbered called a retreat, getting his men clear and taking six prisoners but being forced to abandon the livestock captured earlier.

 

The autumn of 1781 was dominated by another large raid into the Mohawk Valley, this time to be lead by Major John Ross commanding the second battalion of the KRRNY and, with Sir John Johnson on leave in England to settle financial matters, commander of the expedition of 734 troops and Indians.

4 Companies, 2nd Battalion KRRNY             - 198 (Major John Ross)

8th Regiment                                                   - 36   (Lt. Thomas Coote)

34th Regiment                                                 - 76 (Capt. William Ancrum)

84th Regiment, Royal Highland Emigrants    - 36

German Jaegers                                               - 12

3 Companies Butlers Rangers                         - 167 (Capt. Walter Butler)

Indians, mixed tribes                                       - 109 (Capt. Gilbert Tice)

Indians from the Genesee River Country        - 100

Ross, a Seven Years War veteran, would lead his force on a similar route to that chosen a year earlier by Johnson but was destined to meet stiffer opposition and to find less to destroy than Johnson, with many people having left and those few remaining able to take refuge in nearby strong posts, with twenty four such places in the sixty-three miles between Schnectady and German Flatts.

Colonel Marinius Willett was in command of the defenders, himself based at Canajoharie, having abandoned Fort Stanwix and he had on call some 1,200 regulars and 800 militiamen.

The raiding force marched swiftly to enter Corrystown on October 24th but did not burn it this time to avoid alerting Willett and his defence forces and making use of the surprise to enter the Mohawk Valley before the rebels could organise a large enough force to meet them. 

Suspecting that the rebels may well guess his force would exit yet again along the Mohawk to Oneida Creek and discover his hidden cache of food and munitions ahead of his force, Ross decided to change his plans with a more direct withdrawal to Carleton Island via the Black River and making best use of his surprise crossed the Mohawk at one o'clock on the 25th October, with rain teeming down and rebel militia already gathering on the opposite bank, his troops and Indians skirmishing with the militia and attacking and burning property on their march to Johnstown.

However it became clear to Ross that he would not be able to outmarch the rebel pursuit column organised by Willett, and entering the woods east of Johnstown, he determined to make a stand.

Colonel Willett's advance party appeared and retreated when fired at, but with the main body close behind them Willett led the advance across an open field supported by a single piece of artillery.

Ross's men stood their ground and as the rebels wavered, Ross ordered an advance causing a running fight as Willett's men broke and fled abandoning their gun.

Ross later wrote of the action,

'I lamented the want of a good Body of Indians, (few of those present venturing to engage), in which Had I been so fortunate, it would in all probability have crushed the Spirit of Rebellion on the Mohawk River, on our left the Rebels had planted a Field Piece with another Body of men, and in our following the enemy out of the Woods they kept up a brisk fire, the Troops advanced to attack, the very countenance of which made the rebels give way.'

It seems Ross's advance was brought short as his right flank was attacked by another 'body' of the enemy, and Ross ordered his own 3-pounder turned on them as the afternoon closed out to evening with this last rebel attack driven off and Willett able to disengage, whist Ross's men sheltered in the wood, destroying abandoned enemy ammunition before resuming their march north.

Ross reported that his men acquitted themselves well stating more than 1,200 rebels had pursued them, 400 of them Continentals, and his casualties as negligible whilst the enemy lost many officers and at least twenty men.

Willett pressed his pursuit of the Crown force and caught up with their rear-guard at West Canada Creek, with Ross having just got his column across at 2pm on the 30th October. He went on to report;

'Just as the Troops had all got over, the Rebels made their appearance, and fired upon our Rear, the fire was returned. Captain Butler who commanded the Rangers covering the Line of March was unfortunately killed, several men were also killed and wounded. The Enemy had greatly the advantage of Ground and their favourite object of firing at a distance, wherefore I ordered the Troops to move forward in order to take possession of the first favourable Spot that offered which was accordingly done, the sick and wounded were sent on.'

The Battle of Johnstown would be one of the last battles of the war in the north as news spread of the British surrender at Yorktown effectively seeing the running down of major operations, as the peace negotiations moved into full swing.

With a stiffening of regulars among their ranks the Albany and Tryon County militia proved they were a force to be reckoned with under the right leadership and with them not being asked to do more than their capabilities offered.

In time I plan to create a large force of these chaps, stiffened with the odd gun or two, some state levies and occasionally the odd group of Continentals with a refighting of Klock's Field a key objective.

I am really pleased with the way these plastics have turned out and I think readily provide a very cost effective and attractive alternative to building a large fore of rebel militia.

Sources referred to:

The Burning of the Valleys - Gavin K. Watt

King's Men, the Soldier Founders of Ontario - Mary Beacock Fryer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryon_County_militia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinus_Willett

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Butler_(Loyalist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_County_militia

Lot's more to come on JJ's as I'm off to club today to play in the follow up game of Maurice featured in my previous post, before setting off tomorrow for a short break in Yorkshire, where I am planning to visit HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool, the last surviving British Napoleonic Wars type frigate of the Leda Class and sister ship to HMS Shannon, and the second oldest warship afloat.

More anon

JJ

Mohawk Valley Collection - American Militia Scratchbuild

The Perrys provide the answer in getting more variation into my Rebel Militia

As mentioned in my last post looking at the Jaegers and militia that were added to the Mohawk Valley AWI collection, my attention would be turning to Rebel militia units and State Levee companies that formed the principle defence against attacks by Crown troops and Indian allies.

 

As anyone who has built a collection of AWI figures using the Perry range of miniatures will know, the range of militia offerings is somewhat limited given the range of civilian attire these chaps likely turned out in and the need for plenty of pose options to give that very irregular look of militia that you don't associate with regular troop types.

Which started me thinking about how to best represent these troops in my own collection and get those variations in the look I was after as I experimented with a few metal and plastic Perry figures while I concentrated efforts on my Crown forces.

Interestingly the Perrys faced a similar challenge when they were building forces for a planned AWI campaign they later ran and posted an article on their Facebook page that was just the solution I was looking for and I have posted the results of the first stages of that option, namely to create my militia from the AWI American Continental Infantry box set with the use of extra variation provided by the British Napoleonic Infantry plastic box set.

You can see an example of their build project in the header picture and is exactly the look I'm after for my Albany and Tryon County boys, and the other pictures show the various combinations I have come up with so far, using this idea, ready to be painted once I've finished Bob's ships which are in the shipyard as I write.

I added to the suggestions on how to build these chaps by, as directed removing the lace and shoulder wings from the British arms, but also carefully removed any show of the bayonet scabbards that would have been Continental apparel.

Likewise I have added in the hunting shirt options included in the Continental box set to add yet more variation to the coat and waistcoat sets, and a good mix of hats further helps add to the irregular look.

I really love the options that plastic figure sets offer the gamer and with a judicious mixing in of the odd metal figure from the Perry offerings I aim to have ten units of twelve figures in no time to complete my Rebel army for Klock's Field.

More anon, when I look at the plans at this and the other collections in my New Year's Eve annual review.

JJ

AWI Mohawk Valley Collection Additions - British Regulars, Mohawk Indians and Rebel Militia

The book 'The Valleys are Burning' is the inspiration for my Sharp Practice Mohawk Valley AWI collection of figures and I have enjoyed the last few weeks getting used to a new palette and a previous method of painting.

With the Trafalgar collection of 1:700th model ships completed and additional Franco-Spanish models now done, I decided to have a slight break from all things nautical and finish off a bunch of Perry Miniatures that have been seemingly glowering at me from the back of my painting table for the previous two years as I have worked away at various 1:700th men-o-war.

It's been a while since I reported on my AWI collection for the reason mentioned and looking back on previous posts it was May 2020 when I finished off my mounted officers and October 2019 when I finished work on my first groups of Butlers Rangers and Mohawk Indians.

JJ's Wargames - American War of Independence Commanders

JJ's Wargames - AWI Butler's Rangers & Iroquois Indians

These groups of British regulars, Mohawk Indians and American militiamen had been primed and sitting patiently on their paint sticks for two years when I carefully removed a layer of dust to begin working out the skills of painting a 28mm figure again.

'Those are Regulars by God!' 
My mixed company of British regulars representing elements of the 8th and 34th that served on the US-Canadian border during the Mohawk Valley Campaigns.

So first up are my mixed group of British regulars representing elements of the 8th and 34th Foot who added an element of solidity to many of Governor Sir Frederick Haldimand's expeditions down the Mohawk and Champlain valleys.

Osprey Men at Arms 39, British Army in North America 1775-83 - Gerry Embleton
This plate illustrates the look of British Mohawk Valley collection with regulars in short tailed cut down coats and slouch hats as seen worn by the officer above. As well as adding artillery, the next group will focus on the Hessian Jagers.

Alongside the 8th and 34th foot were the regulars from the 29th, 53rd and 84th Foot all operating from their bases in Quebec and Fort Niagara as well as soldiers from the 4th Battalion, Royal Artillery and I intend to feature these with additional British regulars from the Perry's metal range in a later post.

Of course the principle reason for focussing on these two regiments initially is that they formed an approximately one-hundred and fifty man unit as part of Captain Thomas Scott's (53rd Regiment) command at the Battle of Klock's Field on October 19th 1780 in the centre of Colonel Sir John Johnson's line and an action I'm quite keen to replicate at some time using Sharp Practice.

Map of the area around Klock's Field adapted from the scenario 'Drums Along the Mohawk' 
I played this scenario with my old 15mm collection of figures way back in 2012 using Maurice, but always intended coming back to it with a more suitable collection of figures and rules for this small scale action.

Captain Scott's force will eventually consist of two groups of eight regulars, a Royal Artillery light gun and crew and light mortar and crew, both of which ended up being left in the retreat of Johnson's little army, with the raid having successfully achieved its key objectives and with the extraction of his troops the last step to its completion, but necessarily needing to move fast to break contact.

In addition to my new group of British regulars I have added two more groups of Mohawk Indians which will eventually form a raiding force of seven such groups to work as a powerful force of Indian skirmish groups able to use the new rules to better replicate Indian style warfare using Sharp Practice.

The original Sharp Practice II sees Indians grouped in warbands of twelve warriors and models their combat methods similar to a Zulu Impi, but from my reading this does not model the methods of North American Indians of this era, with a preference to mass skirmish tactics demonstrated, happy to reinforce success, but just as happy to rapidly withdraw in the face of determined resistance only to return to attack a weaker point of the enemy line.

In addition this large Indian force has a much greater reliance on leadership to motivate the warriors to press an attack with more lower rank leaders bolstering the command of more senior chiefs, giving a solidity to the force but counterbalanced with a brittleness modelled with the ill effects of losing a senior commander.

With the use of Tomahawks and Buck and Ball rules, it should make these warriors a formidable foe when it comes to 'fisticuffs'.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how a large group of Mohawks can go about their work on the table and the ability to add in the odd group of Butler's Rangers or British light infantry seems to me to offer the Crown player a really interesting and different light infantry raiding force.

 

Once the Crown forces are complete, I will turn more fully to building a strong force of American militia representing the various companies of the Albany and Tryon County Militia.

I am still working through my ideas on how best to capture the look of these troops, representing men of military age not on active service with the Continental Line or State Levies, but who were expected to enrol in their County Militia Regiment.

Here I have added a couple of Perry metal 'Northern Militia Firing Line' options to the plastics I had put together for another project and I quite like the mix.

I will paint up the other four figures, some in cocked hats, to see how these units of ten figures will look, with a plan to build ten such groups to represent the Rebel army of General Robert Van Rensselaer at Klock's Field.

In addition to the metals I have an idea to copy the Perrys idea of adapting their plastic Continentals mixed with a few hands and hat options from their British plastics to produce yet more variety in my militia forces.

The American player will have the options of fielding Raw, Experienced and the odd Veteran militia force to represent the local forces that attempted to resist the Crown raids.

Once the bulk of the militia force is completed I also intend to add a couple of eight figure groups to represent the State Levies of New York who will add a semi-regular stiffening to the Americans and will complete the collection with a few cameo groups of American civilians defending their farms and homes and some camp followers and wagons for those scenarios needing those elements.

I also have a large collection of Sarissa MDF North American buildings to work on that will provide my raiding targets and I have my eye on a very nice frontier fort/stockade,  so there are lots of ideas to complete the collection and with a trip to Warfare at Ascot later this year, an opportunity to get some of the models still required.

Finally I am really pleased with my low profile sabot bases from Supreme Littleness Designs

Michael Scott has come up with some really unique sabot offerings with the irregular shaped edges, slightly less so and more squared off for the eight man regular offering and the great commander sabots that allow the number of the officer to be clearly but discreetly displayed, but best of all, with card base to the mdf sabot giving an excellently discreet multiple figure base which, to my eye, is much less clunky and noticeable than with some other offerings available.

The key word for me is discreet as I am aiming to minimise any distraction to the eye from the figures themselves and theses sabots are excellent at doing that.

So next up on JJ's, I'm concluding my reading of an excellent book on the Roman conquest of Britain and will post my thoughts soon, plus the next painting projects are underway with a 28mm Viking group of figures waiting to be done for Steve M and back to the ships with some additional small vessels including Schooners and Cutters, before I get on with the two outstanding Spanish first-rates for Cape St Vincent.

More Anon

JJ 

Hobilars

Whilst awaiting reinforcements for the 1:700th Age of Sail naval project, I have embarked on some outstanding work that has been on the to-do list which saw my AWI collection getting some further attention and to follow, work promised on some medieval light cavalry for my mate Vince as part of a contribution to a game we had planned up at Chez Chas in June this year that now looks likely to be postponed.

However as evidence of another case of faith triumphing over experience and on the hope we might still get together to do our game in the not too distant future, and with my commitment to get these done outstanding, I sat down two weeks ago and put a dozen Perry Miniatures plastic late medieval light cavalry together.

The briefing for these chaps was to keep them fairly generic types as they will be playing the role of Turcopoles in our intended game but could easily turn out for one of our club WOTR games as well as lining up for an Italian Wars set to, hence no specific liveries or banners.

Perry's figures are a class above in terms of detail, design and horses that look like horses, and these plastics offer the usual flexibility to turn out very personalised miniatures that are a joy to paint.

I have three boxes of these of my own, as part of a massive Wars of the Roses collection I have still to get stuck into, and so messing about with these figures for Vince gave me a chance to see how they fit together and the combinations of weapons, helmets and other accouterments that make every unit individual.

It has been really fun getting back into some figure painting for a while and this excursion into medievals only added to that, so I hope you like them Vince and here's looking forward to seeing them in action on the table.

However I'm returning to the sea with a couple of models of a 38-gun frigate and 74-gun ship of the line, I'm doing for another mate, Bob, whose invested in a similar collection as my own, and these are intended to act as exemplars of the rigging set-ups for British and other nations ships.

Following that I may well be heading off to the dark ages, depending on whether the Spanish navy has turned up.