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From: "Clark Whelton" <> (by way of "Bonnie S. Dannenberg" <>)
Subject: [CLOUGH-L] Major Alexander Clough
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 07:58:05 -0400


Does anyone know to which branch of the Clough family

Major Alexander Cough (see below) belonged?



Clark Whelton



Baylor Massacre

History: While the British and Continental Armies continuously passed
through Bergen County,

New Jersey, during the Revolution, the Baylor Massacre was one of the few
military actions to take place.

George Baylor was born in 1752 in Virginia. A member of an aristocratic
family, his birthplace -

New Market Plantation - is still owned by his descendants. When the
Revolution began, he

offered his services to George Washington, who made him an aide-de-camp.
Baylor distinguished

himself during the Battle of Trenton and was given the privilege of taking
the news of

Washington's victory to the Continental Congress in Baltimore. The grateful
Congress rewarded

Baylor with the command of a regiment of dragoons. This was the 3rd
Continental Light

Dragoons, one of four such regiments. Each had about a hundred men.
Baylor's troops came

mainly from Virginia and Maryland. While officers were usually aristocrats,
the soldiers were

often of lower classes, often teenaged and illiterate. Because Baylor's
dragoons often escorted

Martha Washington, they were often called "Lady Washington's Guard."



Much of Baylor's time was spent raising troops and equipping them with
horses, uniforms and

weapons. He finally joined his troops at Paramus on 22 September 1778. He
had about 125 men

and a dozen officers under his command. Baylor's second-in-command was
Major Alexander

Clough, Washington's chief intelligence officer and by all accounts an able
officer.

In early September, British General Cornwallis occupied the southern part
of Bergen County with

five thousand men. Washington stationed his army in a wide arc around the
British to contain

them. Cornwallis had his headquarters in Englewood, with the Hackensack
River forming the

dividing line between the two armies. Baylor's men at Paramus were to
observe and report all

British movements to Washington.



On 27 September, Baylor moved 104 of his men to River Vale (then called
Harringtown or

Herringtown) to keep a closer eye on the British. Close by in Tappan, New
York were four

hundred militiamen under the command of General Anthony Wayne.

Loyalists alerted Cornwallis to the presence of Baylor's dragoons and
Wayne's militia, and

Cornwallis decided to attack both. He divided his force into three groups.
He marched one force

up the Schraalenburg Road to attack the militia at Tappan. A second force
under the command of

the brilliant Major Patrick Ferguson sailed up the Hudson to land and move
westward to Tappan.

The third force under the command of General Charles "No Flint" Grey marched up

Kinderkamack Road to attack Baylor and the march to Tappan to entrap the
militia. Grey earned

his nickname because he ordered his troops to remove the flints from their
guns during night

attacks. This insured that they didn't fire their weapons accidentally and
alert the enemy, a tactic

used with good effect against General Wayne's men at Paoli in Pennsylvania.

Baylor placed his men in six barns located along Overkill Road (now River
Vale Road) from the

Old Tappan Bridge to present-day Prospect Avenue. The officers were
sleeping in at least one

house and possibly three others. One of these houses in the modern home of
Mr. And Mrs. Victor

Hart, the only period building in River Vale associated with the massacre
that still stands. Baylor

posted a guard at the bridge crossing the Hackensack River, and this force
was also posted with

patrolling the southern portion of River Vale Road. Baylor placed no other
pickets to guard

against other approaches to his camp.



General Grey arrived after nightfall and divided his troops into two units.
Half marched down

Piermont Avenue and turned onto River Vale Road, where they killed or
captured the guards at

the bridge. The others, led by local Loyalists, passed over footpaths in
what is now Edgewood

Country Club. They surrounded the barns and houses and attacked at 2 AM.

Sleeping in the barns, Baylor's men were surprised without warning. The
British used their

bayonets and gun butts to stab and club the dragoons. The troops were
ordered not to take any

prisoners, but several British officers allowed some of the dragoons to
surrender. Baylor and

Clough, hearing the noise and realizing what was happening, attempted to
hide. They did so by

climbing up a chimney in a house that stood on the former site of the River
Vale Manor rest

home. The British found their hiding place and wounded both men. Clough
died of his bayonet

wounds the following morning.



It took only minutes for Baylor's regiment to be destroyed. Eleven members
of the unit were

killed immediately. Five were fatally wounded (including Clough), though
there are indications

that as many as 22 men may have ultimately died of their injuries. Eight
officers (including

Baylor) and 33 soldiers were captured, most wounded. The captured soldiers
were held prisoner

for a month, the officers as long as a year before being exchanged for
their British counterparts.

Only two officers and 37 soldiers managed to escape, most of these also
being wounded. The

British did not linger in River Vale. They gathered their survivors and the
captured dragoon

equipment and marched north on River Vale Road to Orangeburg Road. There
they attempted to

link up with Cornwallis' force at Tappan. Fortunately for Wayne and his
militia, they had le ft

Tappan the day before, just in time to avoid the trap.



When the Bergen County militia arrived on the scene, they buried the eleven
dead dragoons.

Fearing the return of Grey's soldiers, they had to do so hurriedly. Nearby,
on the land of

Cornelius D. Blauvelt, was an abandoned tannery. The militia placed the
bodies of six of their

dead comrades into the shallow tanning vats and covered them with earth. No
marker indicated

their resting place except for the abandoned millstone. The resting place
of the five other

dragoons remains a mystery.

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