More Researching Family Stories, "Is it True?"

(Our guest author this week is again Dr. Ted Bainbridge, who has written a series of articles on what he has learned from researching his wife's and his own family stories. We published his first article in November 2017. If you missed it, be sure to look in the archived files you will find on the right side of the StLGS News Flash home page at stlgs.blogspot.com/. We hope you pick up some good ideas for your own quests based on what Dr. Bainbridge has written.)

Researching a Family Tradition about the Revolution

by Ted Bainbridge, Ph.D.

When Benedict Arnold betrayed the Revolution by giving military information to the British, the army officer who received the information from him was Major André. The major was caught, court-martialed, and hanged as a spy. A family tradition says one of our ancestors ordered the hanging.

“English” was my mother’s maiden name. Shortly after beginning to research our family tree, one of Mom’s distant cousins sent me this in a letter:

Another interesting thing is when Benedict Arnold gave the plans to Major Andrea the Man who was Presiding Officer at the trials was our relation. He Was Brevet Gen. Alexander English who ordered Major Andrea Hanged––He is Buried in West Point cemetery. I visited his grave Many times when I was stationed at the “Point” in 1924 to 1928.

Let’s see how many of those claims we can prove or disprove.

1. Googling “major andre court martial” without quotes produced a hit list of 289,000 items. Near the top of the list was this item:

 

Proceedings of a board of general officers respecting Major John ...

https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofboa00andr‎

Proceedings of a board of general officers respecting Major John André ... André, John, 1751-1780, Trials (Espionage), Courts-martial and courts of inquiry.

The title sounded targeted to my search, and archive.org is a collection of documents. Selecting the item showed it to be a book, described as follows:

Originally published: Proceedings of a board of general officers held by order of His Excellency Gen. Washington, commander in chief of the Army of the United States of America respecting Major John André, adjutant general of the British Army. Philadelphia : Francis Baily, 1780.

The André incident took place in 1780, so this item was prepared very near the time of the incidents it describes. The website offers full-screen images of the booklet as well as downloads of the document in several formats. The prefatory material includes the cover letter used to transmit these proceedings to the Congress. That letter says the major was hanged on 2 October 1780. After the prefatory material, the first page of the booklet names the members of the court martial board. (See image). So we see that the presiding officer was not named English or anything like that. There was no such person on the board, and so he could not have ordered the hanging.

2. The Daughters of the American Revolution Patriot Index shows no English or any name like that with a rank above lieutenant. There WAS no Brevet General Alexander English.

3. The proceedings end with a report to General Washington that Major André, “ought to suffer death.” That recommendation was followed by the signatures of every member of the board. Thus, the board as a body recommended the execution to George Washington. That he accepted the recommendation and ordered it to be carried out is proven by the fact that André was hanged. George Washington ordered the hanging in spite of the major’s request that he be shot. (That request letter is transcribed in the appendix material following the proceedings.)

4. Our relative said he visited that grave at “the Point,” meaning West Point, which is in New York. Searching the website, Find a Grave, for Alexander English, buried in New York, produced a hit list of three names. Only one is buried at the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery, which is West Point. He died in 1840, aged twenty-three. So he was born in 1817, which was thirty-seven years after André was hanged. He did not participate in the André incident. The tombstone does not say he was a general, and that is highly unlikely for a man only twenty-three years old. [Editor's note: A photo of Alexander's tombstone is on Find a Grave. You can see it by clicking here.]

So we discovered that: (1) The presiding officer of the court martial board was named Greene, not English. (2) There was no Revolutionary officer named English or anything like that above the rank of lieutenant. (3) The board recommended death and Washington ordered the hanging. (4) The man buried at West Point did not participate in any events related to Major André. (5) Every claim in this family tradition has been proven false!