A SOLDIERS’ STORY: BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM WINDS

 

A SOLDIERS’ STORY:  BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM WINDS

 The descriptions of General William Winds[1] are extraordinary.  He was described as “a natural force of character,” “chivalric in his bravery,” and “the bravest of the brave.”  He was considered “a leader of the people” with “natural gifts” who served with “great influence in the community.”  He was quick to act with boldness, though sometimes hot-tempered and mercurial.  His personality was described as a “warm imperious temper,” “warm-blooded,” or a somewhat less flattering description, “imperious and petulant.”  Physically, he was described as a “large and powerful man” of “gigantic frame and strength,” with “great physical powers.”  Some even went so far as to call him “a giant, with a giant’s strength.”

But the most remarkable thing about William Winds was his voice.  Rev. Ashbel Green[2] called his voice “stentorophonic,” (definition:  loud, powerful, booming) and said that it “exceeded in part and efficiency (for it was articulate as well as loud) every other human voice I ever heard.”  A neighbor who lived more than a half mile away said that often she could hear him talking to the laborers in his fields.  There is a story that he frightened off a detachment of British soldiers by calling at the top of his voice, “open to the right and left and let the artillery through.”  But his voice was most notable when he sang in church, and parishioners would say that he drowned the voices of the whole congregation and would make the very building itself shake.  Church members would say that when Winds led in prayer, his voice was gentle and low until he began to pray for the cause of American freedom, when his excitement became explosive and his voice was raised until it sounded like “heavenly thunder.”  One time, a messenger interrupted a church service with news that the enemy was marching towards Morristown.  Winds, who never went to church without his arms, exhibited angry impatience because the minute men had come to church without their guns.  On this alarm he was so provoked that one witness said “he spoke, or rather bawled, so loud that I should think he might have been heard to the Short Hills.”

William Winds was born in Southold, Long Island in 1727 or 1728 and moved to Morris County as a young man, investing successfully in real estate.  He lived in what was then considered Rockaway, near the boundaries with Dover and Denville.

During the French & Indian War he received a royal commission as a captain and went on an expedition to Canada in 1758.  His troops fell under attack on their march in upstate New York (most likely related to the Battle of Carillon/Ticonderoga) and were forbidden by their commander to fire or offer any resistance.  Even though Winds was a subordinate, he challenged his senior officer, who then drew his sword at Winds.  Winds did not back down, and the commander fled for his life, leaving Winds to assume command.

 After the F&I war, he received a commission as one of the King’s Justices of the Peace for Morris County.  Soon after, the British imposed the Stamp Act of 1765 on the American colonies, which taxed paper used for legal documents and newspapers.  Winds found this to be intolerable oppression and resisted its enforcement.  To avoid the use of stamped paper, Justice Winds substituted birch bark for all his warrants, writs, bonds, and other legal documents.  As the situation became more tense, Winds served as a chairman of the Freeholders, who were responsible for selecting delegates to the First and Second Continental Congress.

When the Revolution broke out, Winds was commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel in the 1^st New Jersey Battalion of the Continental Army in November 1775.  While serving under Lord Stirling at Perth Amboy in January 1776, Winds was given the task to arrest New Jersey Governor William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin and staunch loyalist.  After receiving a letter from Franklin saying that he had no intention to “quit the Province,” Winds stationed sentries outside of Franklin’s home, greatly annoying Franklin.  In an interesting exchange of testy letters between Winds and Franklin, Winds said “As you in a former letter wrote noting but what was your duty to do as a faithful officer of the Crown; so I say, touching the sentinels placed at your gate, I have done nothing but what was my duty to do as a faithful officer of the Congress.”  A few days later, Winds was responsible for arresting Franklin and delivering him to Lord Stirling at Elizabethtown.

When Lord Stirling was promoted to Brigadier General, Winds took Stirling’s place and was promoted Colonel of the 1^st New Jersey Battalion on 7 Mar 1776.  Soon after, his unit marched north to protect the army’s retreat from Canada and defend the area of upstate New York. 

 Many enlistments of the Jerseymen expired in November 1776, and Winds pressed for the regiment to leave Fort Ticonderoga to return home to honor his promise to the soldiers.  In a very public humiliation, General Sullivan wrote a general order expressing his hearty thanks to the officers and soldiers of the 1^st Jersey Battalion who remained with the army “for the honor and public spirit they shew in distaining to follow the infamous example of their Colonel and the deluded soldiers who followed him.  The General would inform them that the drums were beat by his order in derision of the few who had the baseness to quite their posts in this time of danger.” 

This episode instigated the end of Winds’ service in the Continental Army, though it did nothing to diminish his passion for the Revolutionary cause, nor the confidence of the solders and citizens of New Jersey.  On 3 February 1777 he was elected Colonel of the Western Battalion of the Morris County Militia, and only weeks later in March he was elected Brigadier General of the New Jersey State Militia.  He continued to serve bravely during the Forage Wars of the winter of 1777, at battles and skirmishes at Bound Brook, Elizabethtown, Woodbridge, Quibbletown, and Strawberry Hill.  In 1778 he fought several skirmishes in the areas of Elizabethtown and Hackensack, served at the Battle of Monmouth, and led an expedition to Minisink on the Delaware against the Native Americans. 

He demonstrated his boldness regularly.  In one of many British attempts to attack Morristown, they reached as far as the Passaic at Chatham.  The British officer sent word to Gen. Winds that he would take dinner at Morristown the next day.  The General sent word back, “If you dine in Morristown to-morrow noon, you will sup in hell to-morrow night.”

General Winds resigned his commission on 10 June 1779, yet he still supported the Revolutionary cause actively.  He participated in the Battle of Springfield in 1780.  In 1781 he commanded a detachment of men who supported Lafayette’s efforts to distract the British as Rochambeau’s troops passed through on their way to Yorktown.  In 1788, General Winds was one of those elected by Morris County to the New Jersey State Convention to ratify the new Constitution of the United States.

On 12 October 1789, General Winds died of “dropsy of the chest” on his farm at the corner of today’s Cooper Road and Franklin Road in Denville.  Deeply supportive of the Presbyterian Church in Rockaway and contributing liberally to the church’s expenses and funding its first meeting house, he continued to offer financial support even in his death.  In his will signed the day before he passed, he gave a portion of his estate to the church to build a parsonage.  He was buried at the church’s burying yard with the honors of war.  His gravestone reads,

Under this monument lies buried the body of Wm. Winds, Esq., who departed this life, Oct 12^th, 1789, in the 62d year of his age.

 

His natural abilities were considerable, which he improved for the good of his fellow-men.  Whenever the cause of his country and liberty called, he ventured his life on the field of battle.  As a civil magistrate he acted with integrity, and also sustained the office of Captain, Major, Colonel, and General, with great honor.

 

He was a provident husband, a kind neighbor, a friend to the poor, and a good Christian.  Blessed are the dead that die on the Lord.

 

                                                             

Find-a-Grave Memorial #15970710

 

Sources

Crayon, J. Percy, Rockaway Records of Morris County, N.J. Families, Rockaway NJ:  Rockaway Publishing Company, 1902

Munsell, W.W. & Co., History of Morris County, New Jersey, 1882, pp. 299-301

Tuttle, Rev. Joseph F., “Biographical Sketch of General William Winds,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, Vol. VII No. 1, May 1853, pp. 14-37

_____, 1^st New Jersey Regiment, wikipedia.com

_____, “William Winds:  A Revolutionary General,” Researching New Jersey History:  A Companion Site to WPU Digital History, newjerseyhistory.wordpress.com

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[1] A natural assumption is that his last name is pronounced with a short “i,” like the word “wind” as in a breeze.  However, in the phonetic spelling of the day, many soldiers who served under General Winds spelled his name “Wines.”  This suggests that his name might have been pronounced with a long “i,” like the word for winding a clock.

[2] Rev. Ashbel Green was a local Presbyterian minister, son of the well-known Rev. Jacob Green of the Presbyterian Church of Hanover, president of The College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives.