“Major Brown Is in Posession of My Horse”: Managing Prisoners from St. Jean
Anstruther’s Letter
Posted on November 11, 2025
“Major Brown Is in Posession of My Horse”: Managing Prisoners from St. Jean
When Fort St. Jean fell to American forces on November 2, 1775, the terms of surrender that British Major Charles Preston was forced to accept stated that “The Garrison must go to Connecticut, or such Other Province as the Hon’ble the Continental Congress shall direct, there to remain till our Unhappy Differences shall be compromised, or till they are exchanged.”
Taking the garrison prisoner was a wise strategic move, but it created logistical challenges for the American army. The prisoners and their baggage had to be transported south to captivity in the American colonies. The first groups of prisoners were taken to Connecticut, but the Continental Congress later decided that prisoners should be sent to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Transporting prisoners and their effects was complicated, chaotic work, and some prisoners lost things in the process.
250 years ago today—November 11, 1775—Lieutenant Philip Anstruther of the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) applied to General Philip Schuyler for help. Anstruther, who had been part of St. Jean’s garrison, wrote a letter from the “North End” of Lake George near Ticonderoga. He explained, “I am informed that Major [John] Brown is in posession of my horse which I left at Fort Chambly.” The horse had been captured when Fort Chambly surrendered; now that Anstruther was also a captive, he hoped Schuyler could reunite him with his horse.
This was not Anstruther’s only misfortune during his time in North America. A year later, on November 26, 1776, he was still a prisoner in Pennsylvania. A letter from Cumberland County’s Committee of Inspection informed the state Committee of Safety that Anstruther, “by Reason of his Indisposition”, was unable to travel with other officers as they were moved to Trenton, NJ. He had been given permission to instead “travel by the Way of Philadelphia, to Consult Physicians there.” It is not known whether Anstruther made this journey on the horse he had lost at Chambly or whether the two had been separated forever by war.
Learn more about Anstruther’s letter (object ID MS.2067) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/30077