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The Captain Huddy and Captain Asgill affair...
The Captain Huddy and Captain Asgill affair...
Item # 705508
July 16, 1782
THE LONDON CHRONICLE, England, July 16, 1782
* American Revolutionary War
Page 3 has a nice accounting of the controversial hanging of American patriot Capt. Huddy and the resulting Asgill Affair including: "...Capt. Lippencot (the executioner of Capt. Huddy) was under trial of a court martial...that he would be condemned & punished; for it has been proved that he deliberately, & without any order, took the unfortunate sufferer, Capt. Huddy...and carried him to the Jersey shore saying he was there to be exchanged, instead of which he was hanged upon the first tree they reached..." with more on this, and then: "...Although the situation of Mr. Asgill is not a pleasant one, there is every reason to suppose it not dangerous...General Washington...is well known to possess too humane a heart to suffer any mischief to Captain Asgill." And then over one-third of a page is taken up with more great content on the Huddy/Asgill Affair including a letter from General Clinton to General Washington.
"American News" has reports from Savannah, Ga. concerning a battle with the Creek Indians at New Hope Plantation.
A wealth of fine content.
Eight pages, never bound nor trimmed, 9 by 12 inches, very nice condition.
AI notes: The Huddy–Asgill Affair of 1782–1783 was a tense and dramatic episode during the American Revolutionary War that arose after the capture and extrajudicial execution of American Captain Richard Huddy by Loyalist forces in New Jersey, who hanged him in retaliation for his raids against British and Loyalist troops. In response, the Continental Congress, under pressure to demonstrate justice and deter further such killings, ordered the selection of a British officer to be executed in reprisal, and Captain Charles Asgill, a young officer captured at Yorktown, was chosen by lot. Asgill’s plight sparked an international outcry, with French officials, including Queen Marie Antoinette, appealing to Washington and Congress to spare him, emphasizing the humanitarian and diplomatic implications. The episode created a moral dilemma for General George Washington, who grappled with the ethics of retaliatory execution, and after several months of tense negotiation and debate, Asgill was ultimately released in November 1782, narrowly avoiding death. The affair underscored the brutal realities of wartime reprisals, the precarious status of prisoners, and the role of diplomacy in protecting human life, leaving a lasting mark on Revolutionary War history.
Category: Revolutionary War
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