The Amazing Military Adventures of John Viall

History Notes is a biweekly entry in the Sun Rise that features a passage from the Johnston Historical Society. This week’s story comes from July 2013.

One of the most fascinating and even amazing stories to come out of the Revolutionary War has to include the tale of John Viall of Johnston, Rhode Island.

To begin with, the spelling of his name must be addressed. Though the correct spelling is “Viall” (as is inscribed on his gravestone), most deed, census and tax records spell the name “Viol,” and some accounts spell the name “Vial.”

Different spellings of family names was somewhat common back in the day, but family histories confirm the name should be “Viall”; thus, his name will be spelled the proper way in this story, except when a particular document is being quoted.

Luckily for researchers, when a Revolutionary War veteran applied for a military pension, his war record and some personal details of his life were included in the pension application. In most cases, letters from past comrades and superior officers were obtained to corroborate the pensioner’s assertions. At the time the pension information was taken (1818 and 1820), Viall had moved from Johnston to North Providence, but more on that later. A letter on file at the United States Pension Office, in Pension Book No. 70, states that John Viall was born in Johnston on May 12, 1756.

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Pension Book states that Viall enlisted in April 1775, as a private in Capt. John Field’s Company of Col. Hitchcock’s Regiment, as part of the Rhode Island line of the newly formed Continental Army; he signed up for eight months’ service. An excellent article in the “William & Mary Quarterly” (July 1984, vol. XLI No. 3, pages 365-389) authored by David Chacko and Alex Kulscar, and entitled “Israel Potter” Genesis of a Legend,” sheds light on this very interesting part of Viall’s career.

It seems that Gen. George Washington, at the siege of Boston, devised a plan to outfit American vessels with cannon in order to blockade the British occupiers of the city. Two of the vessels were outfitted at Plymouth, and one of them (the Endeavor) was renamed the Washington; the pension records describe her as a “public armed brig.”

This particular vessel was to be solely manned by the Rhode Island troops, but as it turned out, men from other colonies were also brought on to round out the crew. The Washington was commanded by Capt. Sion Martindale; this information is confirmed in the pension records.

According to Chacko and Kulcsar, the vessel was practically a floating junk “…so badly rotted and decayed that she was unfit for sea.” Viall volunteered to serve aboard the ship. However, the Washington proved to be an unlucky vessel. On its first foray, it was chased back to port by an enemy frigate. On Nov. 29, 1775, the whole crew mutinied because of appalling living conditions; the insurrection ended with no punishment to the crew.

On Dec. 4, about three days after setting sail on her second voyage, the Washington was captured by the British frigate HMS Fowey and take to Boston. She surrendered without a fight. British Adm. Graves had the crew transported to England to stand trial for treason; they reached Portsmouth in early 1776. In his pension statement of April 2, 1818, Viall stated that he was “captured and carried to England as a prisoner, and kept 15 months, when I made my escape.” When reading the statement, I thought it quite astonishing that Viall was able to escape and make his way across the Atlantic back to America. However, there was an inconvenient secret behind the story.

According to Chacko and Kulcsar, the captured American sailors were impressed into the Royal Navy (Capt. Martindale and the other officers were sent to Nova Scotia to be exchanged for British prisoners). It would not have been convenient for Viall and the other sailors to admit, when applying for a war pension, that they had served for a time with the enemy’s navy.

Viall did make it back to America, but on a Royal Navy vessel; Chacko and Kulcsar state that he jumped ship off New York in 1777. A note concerning Viall in the Revolutionary War personnel records at the Rhode Island State Archives states that he escaped on March 4, 1777. On April 2, 1777, he appeared before the Rhode Island Council of War, claiming back pay.

Perhaps as an incentive for the fledgling government to pay him what he felt he was owed, or because he was very patriotic, John Viall decided to enter the fray once again. He rejoined the Continental Army and received an Ensign’s commission (an ensign being similar to an army non-commissioned officer – not a naval rank in this case). An interesting story concerning Viall can be found at the State Archives in the Book of Petitions to the General Assembly, vol. 19, page 37. In this document, Stephen Hammon, at the time of the story a Johnston resident, gives a deposition concerning two enlistees into the Continental Army:

“I Stephen Hammon … do testify and state that some time in the Spring of 1777, I was at Providence at the goal [jail] in company with Mr. John Beverly Esq. discoursing with said Beverly concerning some particulars of our own, and as we were talking together before the goal door, Col. Israel Angell came down the street and came to us where we were talking and we soon got into a discourse concerning the enlisting Continental soldiers and Col. Angell said he had got two very good soldiers a few days before in the Town of Johnston; said Beverly asked Col. Angell who they were and he replied and said John Vial and Robert Hanson and he said they both enlisted for the term of three years and Col. Angell further said that he took a very good liking to the said John Vial and he decided to get a commission for him if it was in his power, and accordingly I understand that said Vial was commissioned in his the said Col. Angell’s Reg’t and further saith not.’”

Hammon gave this deposition on May 31, 1782. Viall served in Capt. Shaw’s Company of Col. Israel Angell’s 2nd Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Line. It just so happened that Israel Angell, who commanded one of the two Rhode Island Line regiments during much of the war, was a resident of Johnston, living in the western part of town, near where Pippin Orchard Road meets Plainfield Pike.

Viall, who may have been an artilleryman, participated in the major battles of the New Jersey campaign at Red Bank (Oct. 22, 1777), Mud Fort (October/November 1777) and Monmouth (June 28, 1778). A deposition given by John S. Dexter of Providence on Jan. 20, 1818, who held the rank of Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment, stated: “… certified that John Vial … commissioned and served with reputation as Ensign, 2nd R.I. Regt., Col. Israel Angell, U.S. service, 1777 to 1778, in the battles of Red Bank & Monmouth, in which his conduct was gallant and meritorious …”

These battles in New Jersey were not to be his last, for he was also a participant in the only real action on his native soil, the Battle of Rhode Island.

American and British forces had been in a standoff on Aquidneck Island since the British seized Newport in 1776. Major General George Washington decided it was time to force a decision and end the occupation. Half of the state militia was called up, as well as other militia units from neighboring states. Contingents of Continental Line units also arrived from the middle Atlantic area, including Israel Angell’s 2nd Rhode Island Regiment.

The American forces were commanded by Gen. John Sullivan. In addition, the French fleet, under Adm d’Estaing, was to support the American forces. On account of the withdrawal of the French fleet to Boston to repair storm damage, an American council of war decided to life the siege of Newport and move their lines northward, straddling the whole of Aquidneck Island in a defensive position.

On Aug. 29, 1778, the British attacked the American line. The battle was a standoff, but Gen. Sullivan decided to evacuate the island, withdrawing to Bristol and Tiverton on the night of Aug. 30. The evacuation was well done and efficient, with the loss of hardly any equipment. But of course, no military operation ever goes totally according to plan. The story is taken up in one of the seminal early histories of Rhode Island, the “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the End of the Century: A History,” Vol. 1, 1902, edited by Edward Field.

The following is from page 502: “In all the accounts of these operations it is stated that the retreat was conducted so successfully that not a man nor piece of baggage was left on the Island, but the narrative of Lt. John Viall, of Johnston, who served gallantly through all the war, tells a different story, for he states that, ‘Being on piquet guard, they forgot to notify me at the retreat, and I fell into the hands of the British, and was kept for a long time in one of the prison ships in the harbor of Newport’; and Col. Israel Angell, in his diary telling of the events of that day, states that Viall and fourteen others were taken prisoners.” (It should be noted that the above story erroneously gives Viall’s rank as lieutenant.)

The unfortunate circumstance of being taken prisoner a second time put Viall in a kind of double jeopardy. In footnote No. 63 on page 387 of their work, Chacko and Kulcsar state: “During the Battle of Rhode Island, Vial was captured again by the British, who considered him a deserter and threatened to hang him. He was finally exchanged but was listed in Continental records as absent from duty during the period. John C. Calhoun tried to revoke Vial’s pension for this reason in 1820.”

Talk about bad luck! Why Calhoun tried to pursue this is unknown, because depositions taken two years earlier show that the subject had already been investigated. In a supplementary declaration of Aug. 27, 1818, Israel Angell himself stated: “Oct. 9, 1778, [Viall] was then a prisoner, taken last of August, and not exchanged till Oct. 15, was never absent without leave.”

A deposition by Ebenezer Macomber of Providence, who served as a Lieutenant in Israel Angell’s 2nd Rhode Island Regiment in 1778, stated that, “… John Viol belonged to the same Regiment as an Ensign, and Viol on guard one night on the east side of the island, and was taken prisoner by the British together with all of the guard except one, and about Oct. 15, Viol was exchanged.”

Possibly as a result of his stay on one of the infamous British prison ships, it is possible that his health was affected. The pension and Continental Army records indicate that his own request he asked to be discharged from service because of ill health. He was given an honorable discharge and taken off the army rolls toward the end of 1778.

But this was not the end of the war for John Viall; it seems as if he just possessed tremendous patriotism or a desire for more adventure. Chacko and Kulcsar briefly state that Viall served as a crewman on several privateers based out of Providence. This is confirmed by the Revolutionary War personnel records at the State Archives. A note states that John Viall of Johnston served as chief mate aboard the sloop Revenge, commanded by Solomon Jenckes.

On May 20, 1780, while bound for Providence the Revenge captured a British sloop commanded by Thomas Smith. On June 9, 1780, Viall was sent aboard the captured vessel to serve as prize master, presumably to sail her to Providence. It was poetic justice that after being himself captured twice, John Viall was able to turn the tables on the British towards the end of the war. It is possible that the continued serving on privateers right up to the end of the war in 1782.

Thus ends the rather amazing military career of John Viall, as far as existing records show. He was probably one of the few men who served almost from the first day of the War of Independence until its very end – a true Patriot. He is buried in Johnston Historical Cemetery No. 21, along Hartford Avenue.