Jacob Zimmerman, like Anna Myers, came from the frontier of settlement in the Mohawk Valley. He may, like her, have belonged to the original Dutch community or have been a German immigrant of the first or a later generation. By 1776 there were already sizeable communities of German immigrants in Pennsylvania and New York colonies, many of whom had left Germany for religious reasons.
Unlike Anna, who was claiming her husband’s right to a pension, which descended to her, Jacob claims in his own right. He was a soldier in, presumably, the militia of New York Colony, an organization that predated the revolution; it was, indeed, the constitutional colonial defence force. The units of the militia on the frontier had a long experience of fighting Indian raiders. They initiated punitive operations, often on their own account, and had played a major role in the wars between the French and British. George Washington had begun his military life as an officer of the militia of Virginia, under British command. It was as a Virginia militia officer that he had marched with Braddock to the Monongahela.
Jacob’s ordeal has a wider than American significance. The European powers enlisted local warlike peoples all over their empires, in India, Africa, Arabia and South-East Asia, as well as the Americas, sometimes to fight other locals, sometimes to fight Europeans in the struggle for imperial control. The European officers who managed or directly commanded such local, often called ‘tribal’, units attempted to impose European discipline and military ethics upon them, although with very varied success. They were often compelled to enter into a complicity with tribal military practices which would have been rejected with repugnance in the ‘civilized’ warfare of Europe itself. Native Americans — ‘Redskins’ — proved particularly difficult to discipline and French and British alike came to acquiesce in such habits of their allies as kidnapping, ritual torture and mutilation of the dead, even the wounded. After the disaster of the Monongahela, for example, French officers engaged in polite conversation with the British officers they had captured, while their Indian allies put the British private soldiers to slow and painful death.
Jacob’s account of the forest skirmish in which he was captured may therefore be taken as highly authentic. The Tories (white loyalists) obviously made no effort to prevent their Indian confederates scalping their victims, while the British officers to whom he was eventually brought clearly accepted that, as a prisoner, he had become the Indians’ property. He was lucky that one of them, Colonel Campbell, purchased his life for cash in Montreal. He was also lucky that the Indians spared his life after they found himwounded; had his wound been worse, they would undoubtedly have killed him as an impediment to their escape.
Jacob Zimmerman (ca. 1757 — 1835), a lifelong resident of Oppenheim, Montgomery County, New York, volunteered in the militia and served seventeen tours of duty on the New York frontier between 1776 and 1781. His narrative of service is long and repetitious, and only the last tour is published here.
While on a five-man scouting party traveling between Fort Zimmerman and Fort Walradt, 9 August 1781, he was wounded and captured. Although carrying a ball in his neck, he was taken by rapid forced marches to Swagotchie, now Ogdensburg, New York, and on to Montreal, where he was sold to a British officer. In spite of the excruciating pain and the privations of captivity, he provides an objective account of his Indian and British captors, free of the bitterness usually present in such narratives.
Zimmerman was returned by way of Boston in 1782. He applied successfully for a pension in 1833.
On the ninth day of August, 1781, he still belonged as a private in the company whereof Christian House was captain, in the regiment whereof Jacob Klock was the colonel. On said day he still resided in the said town of Oppenheim and was in Fort Zimmerman guarding same. He and about five others of said company, to wit, his lieutenant, John Zimmerman, his cousin Jacob Zimmerman, Adam Zimmerman, Peter Hellegas, and himself went from Fort Zimmerman on their way to Fort Walradt. He understood it was done by the order of Col. Marinus Willett, then stationed at Fort Plain in the town of Minden. The orders were that six men more from Fort Walradt were to go on a scouting party to see whether the traces of any Indians could be discovered in the neighborhood. On said ninth day of August, 1781, according to his recollection, they so started to go to Fort Walradt.
After going about a quarter of a mile or so from Fort Zimmerman on their way to Fort Walradt, they were fired upon by a large party of Indians and Tories who were concealed in the brushes, by which fire John Zimmerman, the lieutenant of said House’s company, and said [cousin] Jacob Zimmerman were wounded and killed and scalped by the Indians. [Two others] made their escape. He [i.e. the Jacob Zimmerman who is the subject of this extract] was badly wounded in his neck and throat. The Indians did not discover his wound at first. They took him a prisoner together with Peter Hellegas, and he saw the Indians tomahawk and scalp his said lieutenant and said (cousin) Jacob Zimmerman.
The ball struck in his neck or throat. After going but a short way with the Indians, they discovered his clothes bloody and then saw his wound. They halted and ordered him to spit, to see, he supposed, whether he spit any blood and was dangerously wounded, and if so, to kill him also. As directed he did spit but not any blood, when they started off again on a hard trot, and he was obliged to keep up with them. In consequence, his wound gave him a great deal of pain. He several times began to feel faint and thought he should fall and be unable to proceed. His clothes were bloody. The Indians halted several times and made him spit, but as he did not spit any blood he was told he must go along. He suffered a great deal on the way. Peter Hellegas, who was taken a prisoner also, would dip up water with his hands on their way to give him to drink, as he could not stoop to drink at the brooks by reason of his neck being swelled and stiff. They traveled about a week through the woods until they got to a place commonly called Swagotchie, where was a British fort. On the way, he lived chiefly on roasted cornmeal with which the Indians mixed water, almost the only food he could swallow. When they came to a stream of water, he was not suffered by the Indians to wet his feet, but they would take him on their backs across the streams. The ball still remained in his neck. His right hand he could hardly raise to his mouth by reason of the swelling of his wound, and he suffered more than he can express. The Indians treated him well enough, as much so as he could expect. Some leaves the Indians found and applied to his wound, which eased the pain some.
When he arrived at the fort at Swagotchie, he saw some Tories he had been acquainted with before the war. They examined him as to the state of affairs at home and whether the people had anything left to eat. He told them that Colonel Willett commanded at Fort Plain and was an active and good officer, that the Indians had destroyed much of their grain, etc., but that those whose property was spared would give to those that wanted, and thus they got along well enough. Major Ross it was said then commanded the fort at Swagotchie. He told some of the Tories he knew he wished the ball to be cut out of his neck. They told him that unless the Indians consented it could not be done. The Indians, however, consented. He was taken to the room occupied by a surgeon. He was placed on a chair with his head held back over the chair by an Indian. The surgeon cut or extracted the ball, and who told him that a few days more he would have died of his wound if the ball had remained.
From Swagotchie he was taken to Montreal, where he saw many of his fellow soldiers or countrymen prisoners of war. Colonel Campbell at Montreal purchased him of the Indians. He saw said Campbell pay the Indians some money on said purchase. A Captain Jones at Montreal he became acquainted with, who was a captain in the British service and who, he thinks, had to see to the prisoners; to said Jones he had told the manner of his being taken a prisoner and his sufferings, etc. The Tories at Montreal wished him to enlist. He refused, telling them in substance he would rather perish on the spot than enlist among them. Captain Jones had previously informed him that the Tories dare not hurt him and he could freely express his mind to them. Captain Jones and his lady were kind to him. He would go often and see Captain Jones and ask him for a little tobacco, and he always got some, but once was refused when his lady told him, ‘Oh! Do give him some coppers,’ which the captain did, adding that he did not want to be troubled so much for tobacco and told him to go and buy some with the coppers.
From Montreal he was taken to Quebec, thence to Boston, and from Boston he traveled home on foot, to wit, to his own town of Oppenheim where he resided when he was taken a prisoner and has ever since his return from imprisonment. He returned home from his imprisonment about ten days before Christmas in the year 1782, that is, on the fifteenth or sixteenth day of December, 1782, according to the best of his recollection. He believes he has given correctly the time he was taken a prisoner and when he returned home but has stated same only from the best of his recollections, having no memorandum thereof. He was a prisoner as aforesaid from the time he was taken, as he considers, to the time he returned home, to wit, for one year, four months, and six days. A special law was passed by Congress allowing him a pension on account of his said wound as under which law he has received his pension up to the fourth day of March, 1833. He believes from information that Ogdensburg is now situated on or near the place called in that war Swagotchie or Oswegatchie. On reflection, he thinks that Captain Robenson commanded instead of Ross the fort.