The Story of Lieutenant James Moody of Barton's Regiment by James Grant

The exploits of this adventurous but forgotten Scot, who nearly perished miserably on an American scaffold, like Major André of the Cameronians, surpassed in some respects even those of Captain Colquhoun Grant, the famous scouting officer of Wellington, so extolled by Napier in his 'History of the Peninsular War.'

During the progress of the strife with our revolted colonists in America, he rendered himself famous by the skill and audacity with which he intercepted many of their mails and brought them into New York, then the British headquarters after the Battle of Long Island. In May, 1780, when an ensign, with four trusty soldiers he penetrated into New Jersey, for the purpose of surprising Governor Livingstone, who cruelly oppressed the royalists, but failing to achieve his capture, his next idea was to blow up the magazine at Suckasanna, which also proved abortive, as he found it guarded by above one hundred bayonets. On being joined by a few soldiers who had been taken with Burgoyne at Saratoga, he entered the mountainous county of Sussex, in the principal gaol of which, he learned, several prisoners were confined for their loyalty, and among them a poor soldier of Burgoyne's, who had been doomed to death; merely for being a royalist. Moody determined on achieving the release of this man and all the other prisoners.

Selecting six men he came to the gaol door late at night, and his business was demanded by the keeper from an open window.

'I have here a prisoner to put into your custody,' he replied.

'Is he one of Moody's fellows? ' asked the gaoler, at a venture.

'Yes, exactly so,' replied the ensign, giving the name of some noted Tory in the neighbourhood, and desiring the keeper to come for him.

The latter declined, saying that 'Moody was about, and he had orders to admit no man after sunset.'

'I am Ensign Moody,' said that officer sternly; 'I have a strong party with me, and if you do not surrender your keys, I will blow the place about your ears!'

His men now imitated the Indian war-whoop, and shouted, 'The Indians -- the Indians have come!'

On this the gaoler, his assistants, and even many of the townspeople, fled to the woods. Moody then burst into the gaol through the window, and found the condemned soldier in his cell fast asleep.

'There is no possibility,' says Moody's Narrative (now out of print), 'of describing the agony of this man when he saw before him a man in arms, attended by persons he was utterly at a loss to recognise. The first and only idea that occurred to him was, that, as many of the friends of the government had been privately executed in prison, the person he saw was his executioner!'

Moody released and carried off with him all the prisoners, including the soldier, who, by a strange freak of fortune, was afterwards taken again during the war, and hanged in the same prison, and in virtue of the old sentence, though we are told that his only crime was 'an unshaken allegiance to his sovereign. ' This seems barely probable, as another soldier, a Scotsman named Robert Maxwell, was executed at the same time for robbery and plunder.

On the 6th of March, 1781, when Moody was still an ensign, the Adjutant-General, Oliver de Lancy, of the 17th Light Dragoons, successor in office to the ill-fated André, proposed 'an expedition into the rebel country, for the purpose of intercepting the despatches of Mr. Washington. ' Moody instantly undertook the task, and marching his party twenty-five miles that night, concealed them in a morass; but the guide lost heart, which so enraged Moody that he would have shot him, but for the sake of his wife and family, and was compelled to return to New York. Colonel de Lancy was much disappointed; the guide was made a prisoner, and on the 11th of the same month Moody set forth again, and reached the Haverstraw Mountains, which overlook the Hudson, amid a snow-storm, and by the 15th he captured the despatches and their bearer; but so great were the hardships undergone that some of his men perished of cold and hunger. For this, Moody, who had been one year a volunteer, and three an ensign, was promoted to a lieutenancy.

About the middle of May the adjutant-general, being in want of intelligence, suggested to Moody the capture of another 'rebel mail; ' and on the night of the 15th he set forth with four well-armed men, and after proceeding many miles, he found himself beset on three sides by a considerable number of the Colonial troops, who, having secret intelligence of his movements from New York, were then in ambush awaiting him.

On the fourth side lay a ridge of cliffs, so steep and rugged that to escape by it seemed impossible. There was no alternative now but to surrender and die, or leap down the cliffs, and in the dark. Calling on his men to follow him, the daring Moody sprang down, and as the soil was soft at the base, they were all unhurt, though seriously shaken. They now crossed a swamp, only to find themselves before a still stronger party of the enemy when day was breaking. To advance was impossible, as there was no doubt that they had been betrayed. They contrived to creep away unseen, and travelled till they gained the North River within four miles of New York. Just when Moody conceived they were out of all peril, a party of seventy men, under arms, issued from a wayside house, and opened fire upon him. 'He received one general discharge, and thought it a miracle he escaped unwounded; the bullets fell like a storm of hail around him; his clothes were shot through in several places; one ball pierced his hat, another grazed his arm. Without at all slackening his pace, he turned round, discharged his musket, and killed one of his pursuers; still they kept up their fire, each man discharging his piece as fast as he could load; but gaining an opportunity of soon doubling upon them, he gave them the slip, and in due time arrived once more safe in New York. '*

* 'Political Magazine,' vol. iv.