Continental Army. Newburgh Encampment

Manuscript journal signed, and evidently kept by Captain Ebenezer Smith, ca. March–November 1783, at Newburgh and West Point. 



105 pages (5 7/8 x 7 3/8 in.; 149 x 188 mm), mostly written recto and verso; some scattered staining, 2 leaves at end loose. Contemporary calf-backed pastepaper boards; a bit worn.

The Newburgh Addresses and the founding of the Society of the Cincinnati. The present journal provides a contemporary witness to the crisis that beset George Washington's Army at its winter camp in Newburgh, New York. The American officer corps was plagued by the financial anxieties that existed almost since the regular army had been authorized by Congress. Many officers had not been paid for nearly four years, and Congress had made no provision for providing any sort of pension or annuity for retired officers. On 10 March 1783, several inflammatory petitions were anonymously circulated throughout the officer corps. The petitions, which became known as the "Newburgh Addresses" implicitly invited a military coup and explicitly called for a meeting of officers the next day to formulate a plan of action. Washington forbade the meeting the following morning in his general orders for the day, and while a final crisis was averted, tensions ran high in camp for several weeks.

Smith's journal records all of the vital documents pertaining to the Newburgh Conspiracy, including the petition of 10 March; relevent extracts from Washington's general orders of 11 March; a second anonymous letter of 12 March; Washington's response of 15 March; and several other related papers, including recently approved resolves of Congress authorizing half-pay pensions for most Continental officers.

An outgrowth of the Newburgh Conspiracy was the founding, in May of that year, of the Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternity of Revolutionary officers. Working with a few cohorts, General Henry Knox drafted the constitution, or "Institution," of the Society, and Smith includes a very early copy of the Instutution and its three guiding principles: "An incessant attention to preserve inviolate those exalted rights and liberties of human nature," "An unalterable determination to promote and cherish between the respective States, that Union and National honor, so Essentially necessary to their happiness," and the rendering "permanant the cordial affection subsisting among the Officers."

This journal may have been kept by either of a pair of Ebenezer Smiths, both Continental officers and early members of the Society of the Cincinnati. The two had very similar service records. One was a private in the Lexington Alarm; a private and sergeant in Fellows' Massachusetts Regiment; an ensign in the 6th Continental Infantry, 1st January, 1776; rising by degrees to a captain in the Second Massachusetts. He served to 3 November 1783 and died in 1816.

The second Ebenezer Smith was a private and sergeant in a Massachusetts Regiment, September, 1775, to January, 1777; a first lieutenant in the Ninth Massachusetts, rising by promotion to captain in the Second Massachusetts. He served until 3 November 1783, but also saw service during the War of 1812 as a lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Infantry. He died on 4 September 1824.