General William Shepard: An American Patriot

By John D. Leary Jr.

* Commissioned a 2nd Lt. in British Army during French-Indian War by King George II.

* Commanded an American regiment in 7 major battles during Revolutionary War.

* Crossed the Delaware River with George Washington to attack the Hessians at Trenton.

* Acting commander of the brigade at Valley Forge

* Commissioner dealing with two Indian Treaties.

* Stopped Shayss attack on Springfield Armory.

* Served in fifth, sixth and seventh Congress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491815748

Book preview

AuthorHouse™ LLC

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2014 John D. Leary Jr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/15/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1572-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1573-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1574-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918048

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Chapter 1   Genealogy Of William Shepard

Chapter 2   French Indian War

Chapter 3   Battles Of The Revolutionary War

•   Roxbury to Pell’s Point

•   Battle at Pell’s Point and Retreat to White Plains

•   Battle at Trenton

•   Battle of Princeton

•   Battle of Saratoga

•   The Convention Army

•   Valley Forge

•   Battle at Monmouth

•   Battle at Newport

Chapter 4   Military Service After Newport

Chapter 5   Town And State Service

Chapter 6   Treaties With Indian Nations

Chapter 7   Shays’s Rebellion

Chapter 8   Shepard’s Congressional Service

Chapter 9   Retirement From Public Service

Chapter 10   William Shepard’s Chronology

Footnotes

Bibliography

I dedicate this book to my son, John P. Leary,

for his support and encouragement

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am deeply indebted to: Ralph Melnick, until recently the Asst. Library Director at the Westfield Library, for serving as a voluntary editor for the first draft of this book.

Dr. Robert Brown, retired history professor from Westfield State University, for his assistance in my research.

Betty Lou Shepard and Rosalind Gwozdz for reading the text and alerting me to a few errors.

INTRODUCTION

For most of my life, I passed by the statue of Major General William Shepard that was erected on a small green during Westfield’s 250th Anniversary.

During those many years, all I knew about Gen. Shepard was the information inscribed on the pedestal that the statue rested upon.

One afternoon, I went to the Westfield Athenaeum to get a book about the life of Westfield’s most illustrious citizen. Finding that a biography of Shepard had never been written, I sought out books that pertained to Shepard’s military record inscribed on the pedestal of the statue.

Fortunately, a few books dealing with the history of Westfield mention Shepard, and in the library’s archives are some of Col. Shepard’s correspondence and personal memorabilia.

The most informative single source written about Shepard is Rev. John Lockwood’s: The History of Westfield During The Years 1669-1919. These two volumes give a comprehensive view of the development of the institutions that make up the community’s life and the influence of the town’s citizens throughout its colonial life.

Rev. Lockwood’s two volumes focus on the overall history of Westfield, and only give a general sketch of the many diverse endeavors undertaken by William Shepard. I needed to research a great number of other sources to learn the significant influence of Shepard as a town, state and federal legislator, as a participant in both the French-Indian War, and Revolutionary War, and twice as a commissioner appointed to resolve land issues with an Indian Nation. This research uncovered many very interesting and lesser known events in Shepard’s life.

I found that many historians will not mention the name of any officer below the rank of Brig. General in describing a particular battle.

One of the few places where Col. Shepard’s name appears is during the battle at Pell’s Point. Here Shepard’s regiment participated in the fiercest fighting of that day. The regiment, although greatly outnumbered, was able several times to stop the advance of British and Hessian troops, and give Gen. Washington the time to safely extricate the American army to White Plains, NY.

Thus, to follow Col. Shepard and his regiment into battle, I needed to track the involvement of the brigade that Shepard was assigned to during all the battles. This unit was the First Massachusetts Brigade commanded by Brig. General John Glover. I am indebted to historian George Billias biography of Gen. Glover; this book gives much information not found in other sources.

While researching a particular battle, I on occasion found significant contradictions by different historians in their description of the same event.

For example, in the second battle of Saratoga, known as the battle at Bemis Heights, historians Scheer and Rankin wrote that a part of Gen. Glover’s brigade joined Gen. Benedict Arnold in an attack upon Hessian fortifications and during this engagement suffered many casualties. On the other hand, historian George Billias using the account of Ebenezer Wild, a sergeant in Glover’s brigade, wrote that on that day no one from Gen. Glover’s brigade joined Gen. Arnold in attacking the Hessian fortification. I wrote in detail the accounts of the differing historians, and have left it to you the reader to determine which account is accurate.

Only Rev. Lockwood wrote a general but incomplete sketch of Rep. Shepards’ participation in the 5th, 6th, and 7th Congress. Shepard was a member of the House of Representatives during all four years of John Adam’s administration and the first two years of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.

I have spent many hours reading Rep. Shepard’s speeches and votes recorded in the Congressional Record. Rep. Shepard’s speeches delivered on the floor of the House of Representatives illustrate his strong passion for the Federalist principles, and often draw on his military experience. All his speeches are directly taken from the Congressional Record and the congressional scribe uses ‘he’ to refer to Shepard.

The six foot, 200 lb, solid frame citizen from Westfield was among the original founders of the brotherhood of Continental Officers known as the Society of Cincinnati. In 1890, J.M. Bugbee delivered a memorial to the Massachusetts Society of Cincinnati