Major Platt Bayles

Major Platt Bayles (1733 to 1777) is a first cousin six times removed.  He was born in Jamaica, New York on Long Island and his extended family removed to New Jersey in 1744 when he was eleven years old.  At the time of the Revolution he enlisted in the New Jersey Militia, first as a Captain and later as a Major.  

His regiment was made up of men from Somerset and Hunterdon counties (where he and his family lived) under the brigade command of General Nathaniel Heard and the regimental command of Philip Johnston.  

New York, among the colonies, had perhaps the highest proportion of Loyalists who were dangerous to the Patriots both as manpower for the British Army and as spies on American movements and conditions.  Long Island in particular was rife with Loyalists.  As a consequence, the Continental Congress requested that New Jersey send troops to suppress the Loyalist activities.  They sent General Heard's Brigade, including Major Platt Bayles.  From New Jersey Militia

New York State, probably the most Loyalist state in the colonies, furnished 15,000 men to the British army and another 8,000 to local militias, according to one historian, and Long Island contributed undocumented thousands to these numbers. Seven of the military units that operated on Long Island, and especially harassed the heavily Patriot Suffolk County residents, were composed of Loyalists, rather than British soldiers.

Alarmed at Hempstead's refusal to support the Patriot cause, the Continental Congress in early 1776 ordered Col. Nathaniel Heard to take 500 or so of his New Jersey militia and disarm every dissenting Loyalist. Heard and his men cut a wide swath through Jamaica, Hempstead, Jericho and Oyster Bay, forcing 500 Tories to sign a loyalty oath and collecting a wide assortment of muskets, blunderbusses, swords and cutlasses.

The foray into Queens resulted in a famous piece of Loyalist doggerel making fun of Heard, sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle'':

Colonel Heard has come to town

In all his pride and glory.

And when he dies he'll go to hell

For robbing of the Tory.

Later, Heard's Brigade was in the thick of the Battle of Long Island.

The American plan was for Putnam to direct the defenses from Brooklyn Heights, while Sullivan and Stirling and their troops would be stationed forward on the Guan Heights. The Guan (hills) were up to 150 feet high and blocked the most direct route to Brooklyn Heights. Washington believed that, by stationing men on the heights, heavy casualties could be inflicted on the British before the troops fell back to the main defenses at Brooklyn Heights. There were three main passes through the heights; the Gowanus Road farthest to the west, the Flatbush Road slightly farther to the east, in the center of the American line where it was expected that the British would attack, and the Bedford Pass even further to the east. Stirling was responsible for defending the Gowanus Road with 500 men, and Sullivan was to defend the Flatbush and Bedford roads where there were 1,000 and 800 men respectively. Six-thousand troops were to remain behind at Brooklyn Heights. There was one lesser-known path through the heights called the Jamaica Pass, farthest to the east, which was patrolled by just five militia officers on horseback.

[snip]

Five minutes after leaving the tavern, the five American militia officers stationed at the pass were captured without a shot fired, as they thought that the British were Americans. Clinton interrogated the men and they informed him that they were the only troops guarding the pass. By dawn, the British were through the pass and stopped so that the troops could rest. At 09:00, they fired two heavy cannons to signal the Hessian troops below Battle Pass to begin their frontal assault against Sullivan's men deployed on the two hills flanking the pass, while Clinton's troops simultaneously flanked the American positions from the east.

[snip]

The Hessians, in the center under the command of General von Heister, began to bombard the American lines stationed at Battle Pass under the command of General John Sullivan.[64] The Hessian brigades did not attack, as they were waiting for the pre-arranged signal from the British, who were in the process of outflanking the American lines at that time. The Americans were still under the assumption that Grant's attack up the Gowanus Road was the main thrust, and Sullivan sent four hundred of his men to reinforce Stirling.

Howe fired his signal guns at 09:00 and the Hessians began to attack up Battle Pass, while the main army came at Sullivan from the rear. Sullivan left his advance guard to hold off the Hessians while he turned the rest of his force around to fight the British. Heavy casualties mounted between the Americans and the British, and men on both sides fled out of fear. Sullivan attempted to calm his men and tried to lead a retreat. By this point, the Hessians had overrun the advance guard on the heights and the American left had completely collapsed. Hand-to-hand fighting followed, with the Americans swinging their muskets and rifles like clubs to save their own lives. It was later claimed, Americans who surrendered were bayoneted by the Hessians. Sullivan, despite the chaos, managed to evacuate most of his men to Brooklyn Heights though he himself was captured.

Major Bayles would have been in the immediate proximity of one of the Thermopylae moments of the American Revolution, when the Maryland 400 or Washington's Immortals engaged with the British to stem the tide while the rest of Washington's army made its escape.

Stirling ordered all of his troops to cross the creek, except a contingent of Maryland troops under the command of Gist. This group became known to history as the "Maryland 400", although they numbered about 260–270 men. Stirling and Gist led the troops in a rear-guard action against the overwhelming numbers of British troops, which surpassed 2,000 supported by two cannons. Stirling and Gist led the Marylanders in two attacks against the British, who were in fixed positions inside and in front of the Vechte–Cortelyou House (known today as the "Old Stone House"). After the last assault, the remaining troops retreated across the Gowanus Creek. Some of the men who tried to cross the marsh were bogged down in the mud and under musket fire, and others who could not swim were captured. Stirling was surrounded and, unwilling to surrender to the British, broke through their lines to von Heister's Hessians and surrendered to them. Two hundred fifty six Maryland troops were killed in the assaults in front of the Old Stone House, and fewer than a dozen made it back to the American lines. Washington watched from a redoubt on nearby Cobble Hill (intersection of today's Court Street and Atlantic Avenue) and reportedly said, "Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose."

Major Bayles survived the Battle of Long Island.  While he had enlisted in the New Jersey Militia it appears that about this time they had been absorbed into the Continental Army.  

After the Battle of Long Island, we know that Major Platt Bayles was likely one of the defenders of Fort Washington.  He was documented as being in the Fort on October 22nd, 1776, just before the Battle of Fort Washington which occurred on November 16th, 1776.  

From there, the paper trail grows cold.  

The late 1776 campaign, a fighting retreat from Manhattan and then south through New Jersey ultimately to Valley Forge outside Philadelphia is recounted in 1776 by David McCullough.  As fall turned to winter the conditions became harsh in the extreme.  The retreat took them through the middle of New Jersey which had a goodly scattering of Baylesses, especially in the vicinity of Maidenhead and Princeton in the center of the state.  In particular, he would have passed close to his grandfather, father and several aunts and uncles as he moved through Kingston and Princeton.  

What role, if any, was played by Major Bayles in the Battles of Princeton and Trenton is not yet known.  I will continue to research.  

What is known is that he died of smallpox on December 1, 1777 in Valley Forge, leaving a wife and eight children, the youngest of whom was four years old.  

UPDATE:  In a fitting tribute to his service and sacrifice, it appears that at least two lines of the family, Dickerson and Walker, maintained the tradition of naming a son with the given names of Platt Bayles(s) at least through the 1900s and it appears that the name is still extant in at least one branch in the 2000s.