Thomas Paine’s account of the time he, George Washington, Benjamin Lincoln, David Cobb and some other soldiers set fire to a river.
In the fall of the year that New York was evacuated (1783), General Washington had his headquarters at Mrs. Berrian's, at Rocky Hill, in Jersey, and I was there; the Congress then sat at Prince Town [Princeton]. We had several times been told that the river or creek that runs near the bottom of Rocky Hill, and over which there is a mill, might be set on fire, for that was the term the country people used; and as General Washington had a mind to try the experiment, General Lincoln, who was also there, undertook to make preparation for it against the next evening, November fifth. This was to be done, as we were told, by disturbing the mud at the bottom of the river, and holding something in a blaze, as paper or straw, a little above the surface of the water.
Colonels Humphreys and Cobb were at that time aides-de-camp of General Washington, and those two gentlemen and myself got into an argument respecting the cause. Their opinion was that, on disturbing the bottom of the river, some bituminous matter arose to the surface, which took lire when the light was put to it; I, on the contrary, supposed that a quantity of inflammable air was let loose, which ascended through the water and took fire above the surface. Each party held to his opinion, and the next evening the experiment was to be made.
A scow had been stationed in the mill dam, and General Washington, General Lincoln and myself, and I believe Colonel Cobb (for Humphreys was sick), and three or four soldiers with poles, were put on board the scow. General Washington placed himself at one end of the scow and I at the other; each of us had a roll of cartridge paper, which we lighted and held over the water about two or three inches from the surface when the soldiers began disturbing the bottom of the river with the poles.
As General Washington sat at one end of the scow and I at the other, I could see better anything that might happen from his light than I could from my own, over which I was nearly perpendicular. When the mud at the bottom was disturbed by the poles, the air bubbles rose fast, and I saw the fire take from General Washington's light and descend from thence to the surface of the water, in a similar manner as when a lighted candle is held so as to touch the smoke of a candle just blown out the smoke will take fire and the fire will descend and light up the candle. This was demonstrative evidence that what was called setting the river on fire was setting on fire the inflammable air that arose out of the mud.
Benjamin Walker was also aide-de-camp to Washington at this time but he like David Humphreys was sick and did not participate in the experiment.
Thomas Paine believed that some sort of miasma in the gas from the river may have been the cause of yellow fever. We now know that yellow fever is spread by mosquitos.
