Stephen Kemble: A Jersey Boy in the British Army

           Stephen Kemble, the fifth child of Peter Kemble and his first wife, Gertrude Bayard, was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1740.  Related to influential and politically powerful families of New York, the Kembles remained loyal to the British during the Revolutionary period.  Stephen attended college in Philadelphia and accepted an ensign commission in the British Army, joining the 44^th Regiment of Foot in 1757.  The following year his sister, Margaret, married a British lieutenant on the rise – Thomas Gage – who had been recruiting for the British Army in New Jersey.  

           After fighting with William Howe at Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War, Kemble was promoted to captain of the First Battalion of the 60^th Regiment.  In 1759, Thomas Gage, was promoted to general, and after the surrender of the French, Gage was named military governor of Montreal. In 1761, Gage was promoted to major general, and, after the Treaty of Paris ended the war, Gage was informed he would act as commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. Kemble would profit from the rise of his brother-in-law. 

 In 1772, Kemble was named Deputy Adjutant General of the Forces in North America. Now a major in the British Army, Kemble was at the side of one of the most powerful men in North America. Kemble traveled to England the following year, meeting with King George. In 1774, Gage was named governor of Massachusetts, arriving in Boston in May.  Relatively well-received by the people of Boston initially, Gage’s vigorous defense and enforcement of the series of British laws passed to punish the people of Boston and Massachusetts quickly made him an enemy of the people.  Kemble was with Gage in Massachusetts when the opening shots of the war were fired in April 1775.  Gage was replaced by William Howe in the fall, and Kemble was demoted, though he remained loyal, due to his close relationship with Howe and his familial connections. 

Kemble continued to serve under Howe, and then General Henry Clinton, in New Jersey and Philadelphia, in 1776 and 1777. In June 1778, shortly before the British Army evacuated Philadelphia, Kemble was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the 1st Battalion of the 60th Foot.  He resigned his position in October 1779, however, when Clinton refused to promote him. 

Kemble was not out of service for long.  He soon resumed his position as Lieutenant Colonel of the First Battalion of the 60^th Regiment, and fought in the Caribbean and Central American against the Spanish, where, at one point, he held a temporary command of brigadier general. After an attempt in Nicaragua ended in disaster, Kemble went to England, where he was promoted to Colonel in 1782 and sent to Grenada.  In 1786, after being placed under the command of an officer of inferior grade at Quebec, Kemble retired from the British Army. 

 In 1788 he returned to New Brunswick, New Jersey, for a short time, but soon returned to England.  In 1805 he sold his property in England and returned to live in his old home in New Brunswick, where he remained until his death in 1822.  He is buried at Christ Episcopal Churchyard in New Brunswick.

Source: The Kemble Papers, vol. I, 1773-1789. Collections of the New York Historical Society, 1883.

For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 12

1797 - 1801

“I think of you and dream of you and long to be with you. But I Suppose this must not be yet.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams from Philadelphia, January 11, 1797 (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence)

The country found out in December 1796 that John Adams had defeated Thomas Jefferson by a whisker for the office of President of the United States.  The highest office in the land now belonged to, arguably, the United States’ leading patriot.  The duty he performed in the name of his country, the sacrifices he had made since the 1770s, the many travels, propelled John to the position he had been aiming for, despite his writings to the contrary.  The victory for Adams meant that he would have to spend time away from Abigail once more, but she did not mind.

John was in Philadelphia, while Abigail remained in Quincy because she was in ill health.  In early January, John wrote home, “I am, with anxious desires to see you, which I fear cannot be gratified before July.”  Abigail wrote almost at the same time, “The Cold has been more severe than I can ever before recollect. It has frozen the ink in my pen, and chilld the Blood in my veins, but not the Warmth of my affection for Him for whom my Heart Beats with unabated ardor through all the changes and visisitudes of Life” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 14 Jan 1797, 15 Jan 1797).  The time away from each other affected John and Abigail as much as it did when John was in Europe.

On March 4, 1797, John Adams was inaugurated second President of the United States of America.  Abigail was not there, although she was no less proud of her husband.  Less than two weeks after the inauguration, John began writing to Abigail about how he missed her.  First, he wrote, “I can not live without you till October,” which was when Abigail was supposed to arrive in Philadelphia.  Days later, he wrote, “I never wanted your Advice and assistance more in my Life.”  At the beginning of April he became more desperate in his pleas.  “I have written you before and have only time now to repeat that I pray you to come on,” he wrote.  Two days later he urged her, “I pray you to come on immediately.  I will not live in this State of Separation.  Leave the Place[. . .]to any body or nobody.  I care nothing about it – But you, I must and will have” (qtd. in Gelles 128).  He continued with this request every few days in letters to Abigail. 

It would be late April before Abigail began her journey to Philadelphia.  She wrote to John from Springfield, Massachusetts as she was on her way, “I come to place my head upon your Bosom and to receive and give that consolation which sympathetick hearts alone know how to communicate.”  John responded to her before she arrived, without concealing what lay ahead, “You and I are now entering on a new Scene, which will be the most difficult, and least agreable of any in our Lives. I hope the burthen will be lighter to both of Us, when We come together” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 30 Apr 1797, 4 May 1797).  John would face many struggles over the next few years, and Abigail would be there beside him through the grueling times, defending her husband along the way.

In March 1798, John found out about the French attempts to bribe American diplomats.  The events, which became known as the XYZ Affair (the French agents were initially known as X, Y and Z), led to a quasi-war with France.  In May, with fear of a general war breaking out, Adams proposed the creation of a Department of the Navy to Congress.  Congress approved the plan, and the Navy became one of John’s proudest achievements.  The Affair and Adams’ response to it, however, created some animosity in the nation.  The press published scathing columns against Adams.  This angered both Abigail and John, who felt John should be above such commentary because of his patriotic track record.  Adams charged that French agents in the United States were behind such reports and that they were hoping to tear the new nation apart.  With Abigail’s support, John signed the Alien and Sedition Acts.  This decision was probably the worst made by Adams in his political life. 

The acts, intended to prevent criticism of the government, were seen by many as unconstitutional.  Most likely, the Acts cost Adams re-election to the Presidency in 1800.  Despite that, John and Abigail stood together behind the decision.  With Abigail back in Quincy for the winter, they exchanged letters on politics.  “With respect to what is past,” Abigail wrote at the end of the year,

all was intended for the best, and you have the Satisfaction of knowing that you have faithfully served your generation, that you have done it at the expence of all private Considerations and you do not know whether you would have been a happier Man in private, than you have been in publick Life. The exigencies of the times were such as call'd you forth. You considerd yourself as performing your duty. With these considerations, I think you have not any cause for regret. (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 28 Dec 1798)

Abigail stood by John and his decisions until the end of his political career, which was fast approaching.

            Most of the years 1799 and 1800, John and Abigail would spend together, attending to the business of the President and First Lady.  On November 1, 1800, John Adams became the first President to live in the President’s House in the new city of Washington.  The word city is used lightly, as most of the federal buildings, including the President’s House were not yet completed, housing scarcely existed, and shacks housing workers were all over the city, including on the President’s front lawn.  Abigail joined John in the middle of November, but their time in Washington would be short-lived. 

In December, John found out that he had been defeated for the Presidency.  Thomas Jefferson won the election and Aaron Burr finished second in the voting, making him Vice President.  In a final controversial move, John appointed members of his party to judicial posts in January and February, before Jefferson came into office in March.  Four years later, Jefferson wrote Abigail that he considered those appointments “personally unkind.”  Abigail, as always, defended her husband by informing Jefferson that the appointments were perfectly legal and were “not intended to give any personal pain of offence” (Cappon, I. 270, 271).  John left Washington the night before Jefferson’s inauguration on March 4, 1801.  He and Abigail would finally get to spend time together, with John out of politics and able to concentrate his time and energy on his family and farm.  John, in fact, had written to her in January, “I must be farmer John of Stoneyfield [his farm] and nothing more (I hope nothing less) for the rest of my life” (qtd. in McCullough 559).  Despite some difficult times, John Adams had served his country for over twenty-five years. 

For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 6

1776 - 1777

“O the fatal Ideas which are connected with the sound [of cannon]. How many of our dear country men must fall?”

--Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 4, 1776 (Butterfield, I. 353)

            The new year would be a significant year for the American Colonies and John was a big part of that.  In July, the Colonies declared themselves independent from Great Britain in a document that John assisted in drafting.  He was directly involved in the creation of the country which he loved.  The highs of the first part of 1776 - the evacuation of the British from Boston and the signing of the Declaration of Independence among them - were dampened by military defeats in the field in the second half of the year.  Military victories by the Americans in the last week of 1776 and early 1777 raised the spirits of the country again, but the ups and downs would continue for both the country and John.  In July 1777, Abigail gave birth to a stillborn child and in September John and the rest of the Congress had to evacuate Philadelphia with the British on their heels.  The Americans had another substantial military victory in October, but the British still occupied the capital of Philadelphia.  Through all of the events, John remained in the service of his country and in communication with his wife.

 John left Braintree on January 21, 1776 and arrived in Philadelphia on February 8^th.  Abigail’s letters to him, as usual, would be filled with details of family and friends, small amounts of intelligence and accounts of events.  From March 2^nd through the 4^th, there was much action surrounding Dorchester Heights, just outside of Boston.  Abigail again went up to Penn’s Hill to “hear the amazing roar of cannon” and “see every shell which was thrown” (Butterfield, I. 353).  The British would leave Boston Harbor shortly thereafter.

            The victory confirmed to John that he was doing the right thing.  “My own [interests] have never been considered by me, in Competition with theirs [his fellow Citizens],” he wrote to Abigail after Dorchester Heights.  “My Ease, my domestic Happiness, my rural Pleasures, my Little Property, my personal Liberty, my Reputation, my Life, have little Weight and ever had, in my own Estimation, in Comparison of the great Object of my Country” (Butterfield, I. 363).  John was never in doubt that he was making the right choice in serving his country, and the victory reaffirmed that sacrifices were required in order to secure the freedom of the country, however long it might take.

Abigail was having a hard time, however, without John.  She missed him and did not think she was competent enough to handle all of the chores related to the farm, land, and household and whatever items of John’s that needed to be cared for (Butterfield, I. 375).  Abigail, however, never asked John to quit his public life and return to his private.  In her letters, she now signed herself “Portia” after the long-suffering wife of Brutus, the ancient Roman statesman (McCullough 26), implying that just as Portia bore all of Brutus’ fortunes, good and bad, Abigail would likewise do with John.

            John was appointed to a committee that would draft a “declaration of independency.”  Despite the many hours John spent in Congress, he thought often about Abigail, sometimes writing while working.  “Is there no Way for two friendly Souls, to converse together, altho the Bodies are 400 Miles off?–Yes by Letter–But I want a better Communication.  I want to hear you think, or to see your Thoughts,” he wrote to her.  “Instead of domestic Felicity, I am destined to public Contentions.” (Butterfield, I. 400, 399).  Abigail, never at a loss for words, replied, “All domestick pleasures and injoyments are absorbed in the great and important duty you owe your Country.”  And never forgetting to let John know how much she missed him, she added, “Thus do I supress every wish, and silence every Murmer, acquiesceing in a painfull Seperation from the companion of my youth, and the Friend of my Heart” (Butterfield, I. 402).

            Although Abigail was usually more sentimental and showed her love for John in words more often than he did, he was not short on his expressions of love for her.  “Among all the Disappointments, and Perplexities, which have fallen to my share in Life, nothing has contributed so much to support my Mind, as the choice Blessing of a Wife,” he wrote to her at the end of May. “This has been the cheering Consolation of my Heart, in my most solitary, gloomy and disconsolate Hours.”  John let her know how often he thought of her and how he wanted to be with her and the children.  “I want to take a Walk with you in the Garden–to go over to the Common–the Plain–the Meadow.  I want to take Charles in one Hand and John upon my left, to view the Corn Fields, the orchards, &c.” (Butterfield, I. 412, 413).  Such emotion shown by John in his letters delighted Abigail.

            The letters meant so much to each of them, and with events changing rapidly around them, John purchased a blank folio book at the store of William Trickett, a stationer on Front Street in Philadelphia, and began to make copies of all of his letters (Butterfield, Book 135).  Abigail had already been saving all of John’s letters, and John had been saving all of Abigail’s, but with the outbreak of war, the post would not be as reliable, and John did not want to lose a single letter.  The letters had intense sentimental value, but John and Abigail may have also sensed that they were in the process of watching and making history.

            After the Declaration of Independence was signed in July 1776, John wrote a letter home to Abigail letting her know the good news.  Abigail wrote back, “Tho your Letters never fail to give me pleasure, be the subject what it will, yet it was greatly heightened by the prospect of the future happiness and glory of our Country.”   She also informed him that she and the children were sick from the smallpox inoculation they had received (Butterfield, II. 46).  John was upset at the news.  He did not like that Abigail did not inform him of the family receiving the dangerous inoculation and he was not happy that he was not there with his family.  He could not leave, though, and he let her know that now, more than ever, he was needed in Philadelphia for the good of the country.  Abigail would understand and would explain that was why she did not tell him sooner (Butterfield, II. 50).  Again, John and Abigail both sacrificed for their country, but their commitment to each other remained as strong as ever.

            The time away wore on each of them.  Abigail spent stormy days reading old letters John had sent her.  She spent her nights before falling asleep thinking about John and when they could be together again.  John, for his part, also reflected on time he spent with Abigail.  Month after month he would write of the sadness he had of being away from her, especially leaving her in January, knowing she was pregnant again (John). “When I reflect upon the Prospect before me of so long an Absence from all that I hold dear in this World[. . .]it makes me melancholy,” John wrote in February.  And his feelings continued into March; “I want to wander, in my Meadows, to ramble over my Mountains, and to sit in Solitude, or with her who has all my Heart, by the side of the Brooks” (Butterfield, II. 153, 176). 

            By summer, John was at a loss.  He missed home and he felt as if he was accomplishing nothing in Philadelphia. “Next Month completes Three Years, that I have been devoted to the Servitude of Liberty.  A slavery it has been to me, whatever the World may think of it,” John wrote.  “To a Man, whose Attachments to his Family, are as strong as mine, Absence alone from such a Wife and such Children, would be a great sacrifice.  But in addition to this Seperation, what have I not done?  What have I not suffered?  What have I not hazarded?”  (Butterfield, II. 153, 276-277).  Furthermore, he was to find out that Abigail was sick again.  John wrote her again, expressing his concern and wishing he could be near her, even if he could only say a few kind words.  He wished that he could relieve her of all her pain.  He wanted to be at her side.  Bad news would follow again, less than a week later.  On July 16, 1777, John received a letter from Abigail explaining that she was okay, but the child had been stillborn.  John was grateful that Abigail had made it through, but was devastated at the loss of their child.  Still, John did not leave Philadelphia and his country, and Abigail did not ask him to do any such thing.

            As sorrow struck their lives and things were becoming more intense in the Colonies, John wrote to Abigail as much as to future readers. “Posterity!  You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom!  I hope you will make a good Use of it” (Butterfield, II. 153, 224).  He kept Abigail informed on the events surrounding him, and she did the same.  Letters between the two included their usual expressions of love for each other, but also contained military maneuvers, politics, and news about friends, family and other important people.  Their relationship and their country were woven into their letters.

            In September, the Congress was forced to evacuate Philadelphia to York, as the British moved in and occupied the Colonial capital.  John, in his letters, as he had always done, reported to Abigail the layout of towns he passed through and the people that inhabited them.  October marked thirteen years of marriage for John and Abigail, three of which they spent apart.  Reflecting on this, Abigail wrote to John that she has only endured the separation because she believed John was doing the right thing in serving his country.  She hoped the present generation would see his sacrifices and that future generations would understand what he was doing and why he was doing it.  This was why she was willing to give him up for so long.  Neither was aware that soon he would be much further away for a much longer time.

For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 5

1775 - 1776

“Oh that I was a soldier!–I will be.–I am reading military Books.–Every Body must and will, and shall be a soldier.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 26, 1775 (Butterfield, I. 207)

            From May 1775 to October 1776, John was home for a total of about two months.  He spent the rest of his time at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia where he was among the few men who were trying to decide the future of the American Colonies.  Abigail served her country these years as well, mostly assisting soldiers in the area.  In a letter that John wrote to Abigail he noted that his health, as well as her health, should be hazarded for the cause of the country (Butterfield, I. 213).  Abigail did not disagree. They both knew that either one of them, or both, at any moment, might face the prospect of death.  At the same time, they must do what was their duty to their Country. 

On April 19, 1775, British soldiers and Colonial militiamen exchanged shots on Lexington green, about thirty miles to the north of the Adams home in Braintree.  Later in the day, the militiamen chased the British from Concord, two miles further up the road.  Congress was to meet in May.  “I wish you was nearer to us,” Abigail wrote despairingly on the 24^th of May.  “We know not what a day will bring forth, nor what distress one hour may throw us into” (Butterfield, I. 206).  In June, while John was proposing that George Washington be chosen as Commander of the Continental forces, Abigail wrote him requesting that he be as careful as he possibly could while doing the duty that he owed to his country, “That consideration alone prevailed with me to consent to your departure, in a time so perilous and so hazardous to your family” (Butterfield, I. 217). 

            On June 17^th, Abigail could hear a battle in the distance.  She and her son, John Quincy, went to the top of nearby Penn’s Hill where, at about twelve miles distant, they could clearly see the smoke of war and men rowing in the harbor between Charlestown and Boston.  They were watching the Battle of Bunker Hill.  She could not see the many casualties, but when the reports came in, she reported them in a letter to John, who, in turn, informed the Congress, using the report to argue that it was now time for the Colonies to break from England (Coit 3).  Abigail would continue to update John about events, always assuming that he would have better and more up-to-date information from other sources.  “Your Description of the Distresses of the worthy Inhabitants of Boston, and the other Sea Port Towns, is enough to melt an Heart of stone,” John would reply back in the beginning of July.  To which he added,

Our Consolation must be this, my dear, that Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored.  Liberty once lost is lost forever.  When the people once surrender their share in Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it. (Butterfield, I. 241)

John was willing to lose everything - his possessions, property, even entire cities and towns in his beloved country - in order to maintain liberty and freedom.  He feared if the Colonists lost even a small part of their rights they would never get them back.

            This, of course, was no consolation for Abigail.  “I have not ventured to inquire one word of you about your return.  I do not know whether I ought to wish for it,” she wrote.  She was always hoping for his return.  “I wish I could come and see you.  I never suffer myself to think you are about returning soon.  Can it, will it bee?  May I ask?  May I wish for it?” (Butterfield, I. 232, 240).  This would be her recurring thought any time John was away.  She knew he had to go and never tried to hold him back, but once John was gone, Abigail always wanted him back immediately.  It hurt her even further when John wrote infrequently.  Abigail sent him letters sometimes complaining of the short and unsentimental letters she had received from John, although she knew he was busy.  John would return shortly in August (for about two weeks), after a three-month absence, but it would be for only a short time, as Congress was to meet again in September.

            In the time John was away, Abigail allowed the local militia to practice movements in her yard.  She provided food and drink, and even melted down her pewter utensils to form into musket balls (John).  Abigail sacrificed her personal possessions and her time to do what she thought was her duty to her country.  When John was preparing to leave for Phialdelphia at the end of August, Abigail wrote to Mercy Otis Warren, “I find I am obliged to summons all my patriotism to feel willing to part with him again” (Butterfield, I. 276).  She loved John so much that she did not want him to leave.  She had to remind herself that although John would be absent from her at home, he would be doing his duty by serving his country.  Adams’ biographer, David McCullough, wrote that being apart under these circumstances was the paradox of their lives.  Though they would never become comfortable being apart from each other, neither would have it any other way; they each knew John must do whatever he could for their country (144).  John was truly torn between the two throughout his life, however, because Abigail never once asked John to choose between her and the country, his conflicting emotions were somewhat eased.

            As the second Continental Congress was winding down in Philadelphia, John wrote to Abigail that he would never leave her to go to Philadelphia again, but would go if she came with him. This, they probably both understood, was a lie.  John wrote to her, “Whom God has joined together ought not to be put asunder so long with their own Consent” (Butterfield, I. 332).  Of course, he was being somewhat dramatic.  At any time he could have turned down his election to Congress and stayed with his wife.  That would not be fulfilling his duty however.  Abigail understood, writing to John, “I hope the publick will reap what I sacrifice,” about three weeks before he was to arrive back in Braintree, where he would stay for a month. (Butterfield, I. 329).  These early years that John and Abigail spent apart found both of them wanting each other’s company, but also wanting to serve their country.  It was during this time that they received a window into what they would face over the next decade.