4
Livingston, of the Additional Continentals,1 who commanded at both Verplanck's
and Stony Points. It complained of a violation of a flag of truce the day before.2
When the letter was shown Arnold, the handwriting of course showed him that
his correspondent | Anderson " was aboard the vessel. Having previously had his
own barge go up Canopus Creek, above Peekskill, and bring thence to Crom
Island, in Haverstraw Creek, a rowboat, he was now ready to have Andre and
Robinson 8 brought ashore. To do this required a third person, as confidant.
Such an one he had found not long before, in Joshua Hett Smith, of Haverstraw.
This man's character is of great interest. He was very well connected, rich, if not wealthy, intimate with prominent patriots, and was a lawyer by profession, as were also two of his brothers.4 He was born May 27, 1749, being a brother
of William Smith, the Chief Justice of New York, and in 1770 married Elizabeth
Gordon, of Belvedere, South Carolina.6
When General Robert Howe turned over the command of West Point to Arnold, the previous third of August, he recommended Smith to him as a man
who could be very useful in securing important news of the enemy's plans.
Having secured his consent to aid in the desired interview, Arnold gave him
an order on Major Kierse6 for the rowboat, furnished him with the necessary
passes, and left him to get the two rowers for the boat. Two tenants of his
own, the Colquhoun brothers, Samuel7 and Joseph, were asked to serve. Refusing
at first, Arnold threatened them with arrest as persons disaffected to the
American cause, and they reluctantly yielded.
1 James Livingston, not Henry B., as Lossing says. (See Washington's letter to Lamb, Chap. II.) He
is also found as Colonel of the First Canadian regiment, and was with Montgomery at Chambly and
Quebec. He was born in Canada, March 27, 1747, and died in Saratoga County, N. Y., November 29, 1832.
Washington, after these events, wrote him: " I am gratified that the post was in the bands of an officer so
devoted as you were to the cause of your country.' Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is his granddaughter.
2 To this occurrence a good deal of invention attaches, with the necessary result of confusing history. A
careful examination of all authorities leads me to summarize it thus : On the 20th, Moses Sherwood and
Jack Peterson (a mulatto soldier of Van Cortland's—the 3d—regiment of Westchester militia, who had been
a prisoner in the Jersey ship, and who died at 103, in Tarrytbwn), concealed in the underbrush at North
Point, fired on a boat—presumably a flag—from the Vulture.
On this one fact a mass of traditionary and legendary romance has been built. As a specimen : So practical a
man of business as Freeman Hunt {Letters about the Hudson) states that the event was on the 22d; that
the boat was filled with men, but that they had only one musket among them (!) ; that it was to take
aboard Andr€, who, soon after its repulse, came down near the shore, but had to go back to Crompond (!!)
where he spent the night at the house of Mr. Smith (!!!)
Such is history " as she is wrote," even forty years nearer Andre1 than are we to-day.
The firing of Livingston's cannon, on the 22d, was an entirely separate affair.
8 There is no doubt he expected and wished to see Robinson.
* While previously living in New York, he is said to have been one of the "Sons of Liberty," with Marinus
Willett and other Whigs. Jones (iV. Y. in the Revolution) says Smith was one of the mob which, in
1775, tried to seize Rev. Dr. Myles Cooper, President of King's (now Columbia) College, and maltreat
him for his Tory sympathies. In 1776 he and his brother-in-law, Colonel Hay (of whom more hereafter),
were members of the New York Convention, which drafted the State Constitution. He always asserted
his ignorance of Arnold's designs, but Dr. Thacher {Military Journal) says he "had long been suspected
of a predilection for the British interest." Compare Lamb's opinion of him, post.
6 They had three children—Joshua Gordon, Sarah and Laura Sophia (the latter by his second wife, see Chapter
V.). Sarah married Thomas Hay, probably son of Colonel A. H. Hay. Laura married — West, and
a daughter of Thomas Smith (Joshua's brother) married John C. Spencer, Secretary of the Navy in 1842,
and became the mother of the unfortunate Midshipman Philip Spencer, of the brig Somers.
Dr. Thacher, who had met her at West Point, at the house of Major Bauman, says: "Mrs. Smith was an
accomplished and interesting woman." 6 Major and Quartermaster, \
1 Samuel had previously,
