Anna Warner Bailey: Patriotic Petticoat and Tavern

Anna Warner Bailey: Patriotic Petticoat and Tavern

Groton, Connecticut

Heroine of the Revolutionary War & War of 1812

Anna Warner Bailey

HER HEADSTONE READS:

IN

Memory of

Anna Bailey

Relief of

Capt. Elijah Bailey

who died

Jan. 10^th, 1851

Age 92 years & 3 mos.

Mrs. Bailey having passed through some trying scenes of the Revolutionary War.  The patriotism of those times became a prominent trait of her character, which so conspicuously manifested itself during the second war with Great Britain, as to give her a wide celebrity.  Honored with the rich and respected attention of some of the Presidents of the Republic and of many distinguished citizens, she was no less endeared to the more humbled by her persistent action to charities.

Headstone of Anna Warner Bailey in Starr Burying Ground Cemetery, Groton, Connecticut, as seen in 2016. (Photograph by Lisa Saunders).

INTRODUCTION

by Lisa Saunders

Red may or may not have been the color of Anna Warner Bailey’s famous petticoat, but no one denies she removed it in the middle of the street before onlookers during the War of 1812. It was needed as flannel wadding at Fort Griswold in Groton, Connecticut, to fire cannons at the British in an expected imminent attack. Anna had already witnessed what the British would do to her fellow countrymen during the American Revolution in the massacre led by traitor Benedict Arnold on September 6, 1781. She would not let that happen again.

The Daughters of the American Revolution named their Groton, Connecticut, chapter after Anna Warner Bailey. As a member, I attend their meetings held at the Fort Griswold Museum, which displays some of her belongings in addition to artifacts from the massacre. When I enter the main meeting room, I often gaze at Anna’s portrait in search of clues to her thoughts of our work to keep history—and her memory— alive.

Why did our Chapter name itself after her—against the wishes of its first regent, Abby Day Slocomb? When I learned about Anna’s dramatic, proven role in the American Revolution and the War of 1812, I not only agreed with those first chapter members, but I thought Anna deserved a book of her own. Thankfully, those who know more about Anna and her tavern agreed to collaborate with me so you can understand why this lady was celebrated by American presidents and why her tavern is so important to the history of Groton.

One can still visit Fort Griswold, the scene of the massacre that set Anna’s heart on fire. You can walk around the ravelin (a v-shaped mound of dirt), which protected the fort, and through the mysterious tunnel passageway. You will see plaques marking where leaders Montgomery and Ledyard met their ends and get a sense of what Anna’s world might have looked like the day she found her uncle laying mortally wounded on the floor of the Ebenezer Avery House, which now stands at Fort Griswold State Park.

The blood stains have long since faded on the floor boards of the Avery House, and although traitor Benedict Arnold is still burned in effigy in New London, the British and Americans mended their wounds and moved forward as friends. But they were not friends at the time of Anna Warner Bailey’s legendary act during the War of 1812.

TRAITOR BENEDICT ARNOLD AND THE MASSACRE AT FORT GRISWOLD

The massacre at Fort Griswold, led by traitor Benedict Arnold in 1781, changed Anna’s life forever—as it did all who witnessed the carnage or had to live with the results.

When Col. William Ledyard surrendered the fort to the British, the fight went from a battle to a massacre. Ledyard was rammed through with his own sword after stepping forward with it pointing toward himself in an act of surrender. When Ledyard’s nephew and others moved to avenge their commander’s death, all were stabbed repeatedly by bayonet—one as many as 30 times. Colonists hiding at the fort were tracked down and bayoneted to death.

One of the injured, Stephen Hemstead, recounted the battle, Ledyard’s death by his own sword and the ensuing massacre in a letter to the Missouri Republican 45 years later in 1826: “The enemy landed in two divisions, of about 800 men each, commanded by that infamous traitor to his country, Benedict Arnold, who headed the division that landed on the New-London side, near Brown’s farms; the other division, commanded by Col. Eyre, landed on Groton Point, nearly opposite…

Col. Ledyard, seeing the enemy within the fort, gave orders to cease firing, and to throw down our arms as the fort had surrendered. We did so, but they continued firing upon us crossed the fort and opened the gate, when they marched in, firing in platoons upon those who are retreating to the magazine and barrack rooms for safety. At this moment the renegado Colonel commanding cried out, who commands this garrison? Col. Ledyard, who was standing near me, answered, ‘I do sir, but you do now,’ at the same time stepping forward, handing him his sword with the point towards himself. At this instant I perceived a soldier in the act of bayoneting me from behind. I turned suddenly round and grasped his bayonet, endeavoring to unship it, and knock off the thrust—but, in vain. Having but one hand, he succeeded in forcing it into my right hip, above the joint, and just below the abdomen, and crushed me to the ground. The first person I saw afterwards, was my brave commander, a corpse by my side, having been run through the body with his own sword, by the savage renegade. Never was a scene of more brutal wanton carnage witnessed, then now took place. The enemy were still firing upon us  in  platoons, and in the barrack rooms…All this time the bayonet was ‘freely used,’ even on those who are helplessly wounded and in the agonies of death... After the massacre, they plundered us of everything we had, and left us literally naked.”

In the meantime, Benedict Arnold ordered New London burned. Arnold, a native of nearby Norwich and former general in the Continental Army, used his knowledge of the American gun firing code to trick the colonists at Fort Griswold and New London into thinking the approaching vessels were American. More than half of the 160 vastly outnumbered colonists against the 800 British soldiers at Fort Griswold were killed, or some would say murdered, in the massacre.

Of those taken prisoner, many were never heard from again. The wounded unable to walk were loaded into an artillery cart for transport to the Thames River. The cart was let loose and careened out of control toward the River until it ran into an apple tree. Stephen Hemstead continued his account of the massacre: “The pain and anguish we all endured in this rapid descent, as the wagon jumped and jostled over rocks and holes, is inconceivable; and the jar in its arrest was like bursting the cords of life asunder, and caused us to shriek with almost supernatural force. Our cries were distinctly heard and noticed on the opposite side of the river, (which is a mile wide) amidst all the confusion which raged in burning and sacking the town.”

British soldiers took the badly wounded defenders to the Ebenezer Avery House then located and left them unattended and bleeding on the wooden floor boards. Hemstead recalled that first terrible night: “None of our own people came to us till near daylight the next morning, not knowing previous to that time, that the enemy had departed…Thirty-five of us were lying on the bare floor—stiff, mangled, and wounded in every manner, exhausted with pain, fatigue and loss of blood, without clothes or any thing to cover us, trembling with cold and spasms of extreme anguish, without fire or light, parched with excruciating thirst, not a wound dressed nor a soul to administer to one of our wants, nor an assisting hand to turn us during these long tedious hours of the night; nothing but groans and unavailing sighs were heard, and two of our number did not live to see the light of the morning, which brought with it some ministering angels to our relief.”

One of the first to find the wounded was Anna Warner who had come in search of her uncle.