The 1st Virginia at Fort Lee, N.J., September 1776

On September 22, 1776, Col. Isaac Read’s 1st Virginia Regiment arrived at Fort Constitution, high on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River and Manhattan Island. Soon, they would join the war’s most famous campaign.

Read was the regiment’s third colonel, but he wouldn’t last much longer. Patrick Henry first commanded, but resigned when he was passed over for advancement. Frontiersman William Christian took over but resigned in August to lead the campaign against the Cherokee and Read was promoted from the 4th Virginia to command. Everyone wanted to be there on the day they reached the main army, and Read was no exception. But he was sick, maybe with malaria.

In fact, the men of the 1st Virginia had been dropping like flies for months. After cheerfully reconstituting itself under the army’s first three-year enlistments that summer, 120 stragglers and new recruits from the 8th Virginia were attached to make the regiment whole before its march north. A walking disease incubator, the regiment left groups of sick men behind in every town along the way: 28 in Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Alexandria, Baltimore, and Trenton. Read’s second-in-command, Lt. Col. Frank Eppes was so sick he never left Virginia. Though Read was among the sick officers who showed up for the Fort Constitution arrival, Major John Green of Culpeper County was in day-to-day command.

The march from Williamsburg took more than a month. Fort Constitution was under the command of Gen. Nathanael Greene, but would soon be renamed Fort Lee after General Charles Lee to celebrate the latter’s June 28 victory in Charleston. Fort Washington sat across the water on the highest point of Manhattan. Together, the forts were charged with maintaining patriot control of the strategically critical waterway.

Sergeant William McCarty, one of the attached 8th Virginia men, recorded their arrival. After ferrying across the Passaic River they “marched to the fort, which we came by several camping places and camps on top of a high hill by the North [Hudson] River.” They “halted in sight of the fort and river till Colonel Read went to speak to General Greene.” He “returned shortly” and “ordered us to march back up the hill a piece, where it was late when we pitched camp.”

For the next few days, the regiment rested and celebrated after their long march. They were issued flour, beef and rum. They got paid for the first time. On the third day there, McCarty wrote “We lay there and our men drunk very hard as they had plenty of money.”

However, Things soon turned serious. The day after their arrival, soldiers across the river were assembled to witness the execution of a man for cowardice. He was bound, blind-folded, and kneeling. Washington gave him a last-minute reprieve, counting on the drama to serve as a sufficient warning. At Fort Lee, the 1st Virginia men learned that the Hessians and Scottish Highlanders had given no quarter at the Battle of Long Island the month before and had shot as many as seventeen Americans in the head after they had surrendered at Kip’s Bay. They now understood that there was no romance in war.

Four days after their arrival, still atop the Jersey Palisades, they watched British maneuvers in the river below. McCarty wrote, “The force heard the cannon fire very brisk from the shipping of the English, and we could see them land. We could easy see their camps and every turn they would make.”

Their stay at Fort Lee was brief. Jonathan Grant, another detached 8th Virginia man, attested that they traveled through the Jerseys “to fort Lee on the North River & thence crossed the River to Fort Washington. The enemy at that time was in New York.” Similarly, Private Henry Gaddis recalled that they traveled “to Fort Lee, then we crossed over the North river to Fort Washington.” They joined the 3rd Virginia to form a small, temporary brigade commanded by Col. George Weedon. Now part of the main arm, they were thrust into battle—first at White Plains and then at Trenton. In January, only 21 1st Virginia men were still well enough to participate in the victory at Princeton.

The site of Fort Lee and its surrounding camps and artillery emplacements have been partially preserved. Judging purely from McCarty’s account it appears that much of the camping area has been blasted away to make room for the George Washington Bridge. Some of what remains has been preserved as Fort Lee Historic Park. The visitor center and its displays date from the 1976 Bicentennial and, though a bit worn down, still tell the story well. The massive bridge and surrounding skyscrapers have radically changed the areas appearance, but the reconstructed buildings and artillery batteries are enough to combine with the imagination to suggest the original scene. The position of the actual fort is in the middle of the town of Fort Lee and called Monument Park. An sculpture there records the presence of the fort and the events that occurred there.

Fort Lee was abandoned during the retreat through New Jersey; a retreat the fort’s namesake pointedly did nothing to assist with.