CHAPTER 8: THE RENDING OF AN EMPIRE

1.Phinney, History of the Battle, 18–19; Clarke, Opening of the War; Munroe’s deposition, 1825.

2.Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 51, gives it. I have seen it in another contemporary source, but the reference is lost. The exchange here is assumed.

3.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; Lister, Concord Fight, 23; Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26.

4.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26.

5.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

6.Winship’s deposition in Force, 4:2:490. It is difficult to reconcile the incidents of how each prisoner was taken as reported by the British with those reported by the Americans.

7.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

8.Ibid. Wellington: Murdock, Late News, 16n; Phinney, History of the Battle, 19.

9.This whole section comes from Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. Cf. Reverend Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17.

10.Lister, Concord Fight, 23; Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26. Also, Simon Winship’s deposition in Force, 4:2:490.

11.New Manual and Platoon Exercise. The debris of 200 paper cartridges is noted in Munroe’s deposition, 1825, almost the exact number we should expect from six companies of thirty-two men each (or five companies of thirty-two men plus the marine company of forty-six men). See appendix 11; appendix 13.

12.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26; appendix 7.

13.Phinney, History of the Battle, 19; Clarke, Opening of the War; Munroe’s deposition, 1825. Was Parker in the tavern or the meetinghouse? Phinney, 18, says the former, 19 says the latter. Most sources say the tavern. (Where else could an annoyed Yankee sit to take the edge off? Cf. Coburn, Battle of April 19, 62.) Sutherland to Clinton, Apr 26, or to Gage, Apr 27, gives nothing of the Bowman episode, so probably he knew nothing of it. Apparently, Sutherland was no longer in the most advance position.

14.Revere to Belknap [circa 1798].

15.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 59, 62 (which gives his age and date of death), and his Muster Rolls appendix p. 5; Sylvanus Wood’s deposition, 1826, in Dawson, Battles, 22–23, also in Commager and Morris, The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 82–83.

16.Rev. John Marrett’s diary, Apr 19, in Samuel Dunster, Henry Dunster and His Descendants (Central Falls, RI: E. L. Freeman & Co., 1876), 84, which calls it cold, not cool. Belknap’s entry for the day calls it “fair, cool wind”, per the note in Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 55. Cf. the weather as noted in Mackenzie, Apr 5, 9, in A British Fusilier, 45, 46.

17.Munroe’s deposition, 1825; De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]. Cf. Sylvanus Wood’s deposition, 1826, in Dawson, Battles, 22–23, which gives: “formed us in single file…the whole number was thirty-eight, and no more.”

18.Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17; captured British Lieutenant Gould’s deposition in Force, 4:2:500–501. The former source reports sixty or seventy Lexington militia now mustered. Coburn, Battle of April 19, 166–68, reports seventy-seven of the 144 total Lexington militia were present. The Lexington Hist. Soc. website, http://lhsoc.weebly.com/frequently-asked-questions1.html (published on July 24, 2009; accessed on Apr 5, 2010), gives a slightly different list of participants, some eighty men, as identified by local historian Bill Poole and the reenactment company calling themselves the Lexington Minute Man Company, out of 146 total.

19.Munroe’s deposition, 1825, claims the front “platoon” consisted of eight or nine men. How can this be? If we assume the three-rank system (French, Concord, 137) is applied here, then as given in appendix 11, the 10th and the 4th companies were about thirty-two total, or about eleven wide by three deep. Perhaps Munroe’s memory was lacking when he gave that deposition fifty years after the fact? Or, perhaps this front “platoon” was Adair’s advance party, eight or nine strong (probably the case). Also see appendix 13.

20.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

21.Lister, Concord Fight, 24; Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 32.

22.Sanderson’s [Second or Lone] deposition, Force, 4:2:489.

23.Clarke, Opening of the War, Robbins’s deposition, Force 4:2:491, and Draper’s deposition in ibid., 495, all claim the British huzzahed as they charged onto the Green, not once they fanned out, as Willard’s deposition, Force 4:2:489–90, suggests. Captured British Lieutenant Gould’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:500–501, suggests the huzzahs continued throughout.

24.Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 32; echoed in Smith to Gage, Apr 22.

25.Murdock, Nineteenth of April, asks the same question on 23ff., where he muses whether or not Samuel Adams, known to be an instigator of violence, ordered Parker to stand there and provoke the British.

26.Clarke, Opening of the War.

27.Parker’s deposition, Force, 4:2:491.

28.Revere’s Deposition Draft, circa May 1775, at MHS. Old men that thought fifty years later of that order; in the 1825 depositions, in Phinney, History of the Battle, 31ff., remembered it as “Stand your ground! Don’t fire unless fired upon! But if they want to have a war let it begin here!” This line is of course completely out of character with the real Parker. See Coburn, Battle of April 19, 32 and the note.

29.French, Concord, 137.

30.Munroe’s deposition, 1825; Draper’s deposition, Force, 4:2:495. Willard’s deposition, Force, 4:2:489–90, gives eight rods (132 feet).

31.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. Adair was for a time in a chaise, per this source (French, Informers, 45). One can imagine Adair taking to a chaise, only to later be chastised for it by Pitcairn, for he could hardly set the pace in such a vehicle. Moreover, based on the evidence used in the following text, we are given no reports of a British officer in a chaise on Lexington Green. Perhaps Adair was one of those on a horse by then. The details remain murky.

32.Parker’s deposition, Force, 4:2:491.

33.Clarke, Opening of the War.

34.Munroe’s deposition, 1825.

35.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26. Cf. Smith to Gage, Apr 22, which suggests the hedge wall is on the left, though perhaps Smith meant only the militia dispersed to the left (to the south).

36.This is implied, as the grenadiers come up shortly after and remain on the road south of the Green. Though I tell elsewhere in these notes how Amos Doolittle’s drawings are not to be trusted in regards to the position of troops, I must here admit that Doolittle too shows the bulk of the troops continuing on the road, in his engraving Plate I: The Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.

37.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; Willard’s deposition, Force, 4:2:489–90.

38.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

39.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26.

40.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

41.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

42.Clarke, Opening of the War.

43.Willard’s deposition, Force, 4:2:489–90. Plenty of variations on these lines in the various depositions (see surrounding pages of ibid.).

44.Fessenden’s deposition in Force, 4:2:495–96, gives that they continued to huzzah until shots were fired. This is seconded by captured British Lieutenant Gould’s deposition in Force, 4:2:500–501.

45.Munroe’s deposition, 1825, admits that the Americans did fire shots from the tavern, though he denies these happened before the British fired first. Clarke, Opening of the War, denies that men fired from the meetinghouse, “unless after the dispersion of our men”, which proves he really did not know. Captured British Lieutenant Gould’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:500–501, gives it best (perhaps under duress): “which party fired first, I cannot exactly say”. The second account in Mackenzie’s diary, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 62ff., gives: “Shots were immediately fired; but from which side could not be ascertained, each party imputing it to the other.” However, several reliable British sources say the Americans fired first, while early American sources deny this. The personal theory of the present author is that some perhaps solitary American indeed fired first, without orders, likely from the sidelines. Consider the evidence. First, the American claims that the British fired first (the American depositions in Force, 4:2:486–501) also falsely suggest the Americans never fired at all (a few hint of it, but most ignore the Americans fired). Only the late American depositions, 1825, in Phinney, History of the Battle, 31ff., explicitly admit the Americans indeed fired (e.g., Munroe’s deposition, 1825), something always known from British accounts. Such a glaring omission or falsity places the reliability of those early depositions in question. Second, those first depositions were all taken days after the battle in an explicit attempt to paint the Americans as innocent victims, and were intended as propaganda for newspapers. Thus, given the agenda, how can we trust those early American depositions on such a crucial question? Yes, they were sworn depositions, but perhaps that is why they merely omit discussing the Americans firing. Certainly, the Americans had the most to gain from claiming the British had fired first. In contrast, the British accounts, all for private use and written shortly after the battle, seem to generally accept their role in the day’s later affairs (see note 145), even accepting that the they themselves (the British) were responsible at Concord. Why were they truthful about Concord but not about Lexington? They had nothing to gain by lying to their personal diaries or to Gage. Thus, the British accounts are more believable, and three such accounts (Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; Lister, Concord Fight, 24), all generally accurate in other known details, claim the Americans fired first, though they disagree on where exactly the first shot came from. Third, dozens of Lexington men testified under oath that some British officers ordered their men to fire, but there is far too much stronger evidence against this, including the British sources themselves—which, while perhaps having the potential for bias, were again accurate for the rest of the day’s events. What those Lexington men probably heard, over the din of the skirmish, was the British officers telling their men to NOT fire. So the Lexington men probably were not lying, they were just mistaken. But it again brings us to doubt the American claims. Fourth, the early American depositions describe only the actions of the militia company on the Green (they did not shoot first), and give us nothing about what some American spectator on the sidelines may have done to provoke the skirmish. Indeed, I agree with the American statements that “they” (those on the Green) did not shoot first. Finally, we must admit that some of the Lexington militia had been hanging out in the tavern, some drinking while awaiting the rumored British march. Thus, we cannot rule out that alcohol may have been a factor. In contrast, the British soldiers, while lacking combat experience, were not all young and untrained as so often is said, and therefore likely to follow orders (see Hagist, “How Old Were Redcoats?”). I expand on my theory, which is only a theory and can never be proven, in my article “Who Shot First? The Americans!” Journal of the American Revolution, Apr 16, 2014, http://allthingsliberty.com/2014/04/who-shot-first-the-americans/. Also, see the debate in French, Informers, 47ff., with all of the British evidence presented. Cf. Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17; Fischer, 194; French, Concord, 111ff.

46.Those muskets, even if kept in pristine condition (likely for those drilling regularly), were prone to misfire by virtue of their imperfect design.

47.Some dubious claims give that the Yankees thought the shots were only powder and no balls, used only as intimidation—they were of course wrong. Sylvanus Wood’s late deposition, 1826, in Dawson, Battles, 22–23, gives that he still thought this was the case, even fifty years after the fact. This sentiment echoed in Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 104. However, I have found no contemporary evidence to support this was the fear at the time.

48.Almost all of the early American depositions obstinately deny that the Americans shot at all. This is absurd, as Pitcairn’s horse was wounded, as was a soldier in the 10th. Later depositions, such as Munroe’s of 1825, finally admit that indeed the Americans did fire, though Munroe still insisted the British fired first.

49.Lister, Concord Fight, 24; Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26; and referenced in all the other British accounts. Fischer, 403n47, explains that no Johnson was on the muster roll for the 10th, but a Thomas Johnston was listed as transferred from another company of the 10th to the light infantry, effective Apr 24. He cites the 10th Muster Roll, WO, 12/2750, PRO, now part of the UKNA.

50.Ebenezer Munroe’s deposition, 1825, in Phinney, History of the Battle, 36–37.

51.Revere to Belknap [circa 1798].

52.Pitcairn to Gage, Apr 26; Rev. Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17; Munroe’s deposition, 1825.

53.Munroe’s deposition, 1825, at least gives a second fire, but from which “platoon” he is not specific. However, Robbins’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:491, for instance, says just one volley. Spectator Benjamin Tidd’s deposition, in ibid., 492, says “fired a volley or two”, and that of spectators Mean and Harrington, in ibid., 494–95, gives “several volleys”.

54.Clarke, Opening of the War; Munroe’s deposition, 1825; and various other depositions in Force, 4:2:490ff. All of these misunderstandingly claim Pitcairn was gesturing to fire, not cease fire. Stiles, Aug 21, in Literary Diary, 1:605, states secondhand information that Pitcairn “struck his staff or Sword downwards with all Earnestness as the signal to forbear or cease firing.” Fessenden’s firsthand deposition (Force, 4:2:495–96) states “he brandished his sword over his head three times”.

55.Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston 32.

56.Munroe’s deposition, 1825.

57.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

58.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

59.Ibid.

60.Smith to Maj. R. Donkin, Oct 8, in French, Informers, 62, original in Gage MSS. Maj. R[obert?] Donkin is, according to a letter signed by him of Sept 15 and dated Boston (also in Gage MSS), an aide-de-camp, probably to Gage. LGFO, 98, names Robert Donkin, later of the 44th Regiment.

61.Gage, Circumstantial Account, footnote.

62.Ebenezer Munroe’s deposition, 1825, in Phinney, History of the Battle, 36–37.

63.Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 32.

64.Phinney, History of the Battle, 21.

65.Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts … (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913), 1:153. Phinney, History of the Battle, 21, says he was killed on the field.

66.Clarke, Opening of the War. Another of the dead was Asahel Porter, captured earlier by the British column, who attempted to escape during the fighting.

67.Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 32. Cf. the second account in Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 62ff., which tells that Smith’s officers attempted to dissuade him of the expedition. This is unsubstantiated, and given the many other problems of the Lexington portion of this second account, as described in ibid., 65n1, it is dubious.

68.Note until they heard the alarm at Lexington Green, the light infantry had marched the entire expedition with guns unloaded. The grenadiers only loaded after they had balls whizzing by, per Gage, Circumstantial Account, footnote. The grenadiers’ first fire was at Lexington Green (see present text: Sutherland’s wayward horse was saved by them). It is logical to presume, as the British were genuinely attempting to avoid bloodshed, and as their men had just shown themselves out of control, that they emptied their muskets not as a show of celebration, but as a prudent measure to avoid further bloodshed as they proceeded farther into an enraged countryside. There are no reports of the British reloading their muskets on Lexington Green.

69.Clarke, Opening of the War; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

70.The product of residents clearing their farms of boulders that had littered their land.

71.Smith to Gage, Apr 22.

72.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. Perhaps two of these fired the warning guns that Smith saw, as noted below.

73.Smith to Maj. R. Donkin, Oct 8, in French, Informers, 62, original in Gage MSS.

74.Clarke, Opening of the War, gives 150–200, but he was not there. Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 gives they were 150 before sunrise (but possibly more at this point, two hours later), and that they were minutemen. Emerson’s diary in Emerson, Complete Works, 11:568, gives where they were from.

75.See note 76.

76.Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 32. The falling back of the militia is supported in the depositions in Force, 4:2:497–501. It would be interesting to know what flag they flew! In private correspondence with Mr. Peter Ansoff (July 2010), former president of the North American Vexillological Association, he provided a suitable argument against the tradition that there was a “Sons of Liberty” flag of red and white stripes at the time, if ever. Instead, the Concord flag may have been a British union flag or red ensign. In that era, such flags were considered the King’s property—not for use by private citizens—so to use one would be to express defiance.

77.Appendix 7.

78.Fischer, 209.

79.Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 32. These general events are supported by the depositions in Force, 4:2:497–501. These American depositions, however, suggest that the militia withdrew only after they saw the British detachment headed for North Bridge. This is unlikely, as Barker talks of the cutting down of the Liberty Pole as if he was there, and yet he went to North Bridge as well. The only way Barker could have witnessed both was if they occurred in the order given in the present text. Thus, the American depositions are either unclear or false: they did not give way merely because they anticipated the British going northward; they fled again before the redcoats. One must assume they lingered then somewhere north of town until they saw the British indeed marching for the North Bridge. Amos Doolittle’s Plate II: A View of the Town of Concord engraving shows Pitcairn and Smith at the burial ground. Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 suggests they departed with fife and drum, and the British also played theirs, together making “grand Musick”. But no other statement supports this, and Barrett’s was written fifty years after the fact. Instead, the British were still very much on alert and wary of bringing more militia to obstruct them or endanger them, and so undoubtedly they remained silent until their return to Lexington, as given later in the text.

80.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]; etc.

81.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

82.Barrett’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:499. See note 79.

83.There were ten light infantry total. Six were sent to the North Bridge, and as we shall see in the text, a seventh was sent for their support soon after. Remember too that Smith had previously ordered Pitcairn to march ahead with six light infantry companies to take the bridges, plural, per his orders from Gage (Orders in French, Informers, 31–32). So now Smith must have sent at least one, but no more than three, the number of light infantry companies unaccounted for, to the South Bridge. I have seen no contemporary account of the number sent, but we can suppose Smith kept at least one light company with him beside the one he would later send to the North Bridge. As there were no stores to seek out at the South Bridge, we might guess he sent few there. Mackenzie’s map in British Fusilier, facing 78, shows what appears to be two companies at the South Bridge. One might guess these were the 47th and 59th, two of the three lights not accounted for in our text, while the marines, being the largest company, were quite likely kept as the flankers over the town, also supported by Mackenzie’s map. Furthermore, if we read between the lines of Gould’s deposition, Force, 4:2:500–501, where he says that once the light infantry were on the hill, those detached to the bridges “were ordered down”, it suggests those lights that were not sent (or immediately sent) to the bridges remained on the hill, thus as a guard.

84.On the map in Smith’s hands, see French, Informers, 33.

85.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26.

86.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

87.French, Informers, 99; Gould’s deposition in Force, 4:2:500–501. Tradition gives also that this hill was one of perhaps several predetermined rally points for a militia alarm.

88.Ripley, History of the Fight, 19.

89.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26.

90.Multiple sources name the 4th, 43rd, and 10th, but the only source to name these and the 52nd, is Lister, Concord Fight, 25, who also mentions Kelly. The distance of the second detachment is given in Barker, Apr 19, in British in Boston, 33, and repeated in Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. The 38th is named in ibid., as is its commander, Captain Boyd. Laurie to Gage, Apr 26 names the 5th, and thus we account for all six companies. See French, Informers, 85ff., for more. Gould’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:500–501, confirms his command. French, Informers, 88n4, gives the first names of the commanders of the 38th and 52nd: Capt. St. Lawrence Boyd of the former, Capt. William Browne of the latter, not to be confused with Capt. John Brown, also of the 52nd (see note 103). Lister, 25, notes the 4th and the 10th were positioned “to Command the road he had to go”. That is, the two hills commanded the westerly road to Barrett’s Farm, though they also commanded the northerly road to Punkatasset Hill.

91.Smith to Gage, Apr 22.

92.Ibid.

93.JEPCM, 515ff.

94.Clarke, Opening of the War.

95.French, Concord, 180, gives that it was at Elisha Jones’s house, across from the Old Manse, but this was based on traditions of the town tied to misunderstood information. It was not until new evidence in the Gage MSS was discovered, as outlined in French, Informers, that proves such a tradition is false: for the troops near the bridge were on the west side of the Concord River, not on the east side by Jones’s home. Instead, the tradition probably has some merit, and I suppose that soldiers did indeed line up for water at some well, being famished and dehydrated from the long march, but this well could have been any of the number of wells in the town, as most homes had them. It is doubtful any troops lined up at Elisha Jones’s house, however, as his home was out of the way from any of the British positions that day.

96.Ripley, History of the Fight, 19; Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825, note.

97.Ripley, History of the Fight, 19; Abiel Holmes, American Annals (Cambridge, MA: W. Hilliard, 1805), 2:326n2, also in French, Concord, 177. The Holmes version predates the Ripley version—a good reason to use it perhaps, being closer to contemporary, while Ripley gives no source. However, the Holmes versions seems a bit of fictional dramatization.

98.Ripley, History of the Fight, 19–20.

99.Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17, gives sixty barrels, as does Emerson’s diary in Emerson, Complete Works, 11:568; Barker, British in Boston, 33, gives “about 100 barrels of flour”.

100.Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17; with extra details from Smith to Gage, Apr 22, and Barker, British in Boston, 33. A musket ball was about ¾" (1.905 cm) diameter, at a volume of 3.62 cm3 each. Most were made of lead, which weighs about 11.34 g/cm3, giving each ball a weight of about 41.0 g. Now, 500 total pounds of balls, or 226,796.185 total grams, equates to about 5,525 balls. Not counting spacing between the balls, together they made a volume of almost exactly 20,000 cm3, or about 20 liters, or 5.28 gallons. If we arbitrarily figure in a 10 percent increase for spacing, we have, in round terms, about 6 gallons or 22 liters. All of these could have fit into a single quarter barrel called a firkin (≈41 liters), but that one barrel would have weighed 500 pounds! Perhaps they were distributed to at least two separate quarter barrels?

101.Marquis De Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780–81–82 (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787, 2nd ed.), 2:218–221; French, Concord, 174–76. One contemporary heard a rumor that Pitcairn crowed over their discovery, declaring these three pieces alone made the whole expedition worth it (hardly!). Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17 is the “contemporary” I speak of, but he wrongly gives that there were just two 24s, while the Draft Instructions of Gage to Smith, Apr 18, in Gage MSS, republished in French, Informers, 29ff., states there were expected to be three 24s there in the prison yard. Smith to Gage, Apr 22, also confirms there were three pieces, though does not give their size. (Gordon claims the two 24s are the only cannon found.) By knocking off the trunnions, the cannon were rendered unmountable and unaimable.

102.Ripley, History of the Fight, 13–14.

103.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26. Capt. John Brown of the 52nd traveled with De Berniere through the countryside: note 90. Grant: also in Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; name from LGFO, 203.

104.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26.

105.Lister, Concord Fight, 25.

106.Ibid.

107.Barker, British in Boston, 33.

108.The actual company commander for the 10th was Parsons, while that of the 4th was apparently Capt. Nesbit Balfour (Fischer, 322). Balfour was on special assignment with a detachment to Marshfield, near Plymouth. Fischer, 402n34, which claims Balfour was indeed at the bridge, was based on Fischer’s logical assumption, not knowing of Marshfield. Gould’s own deposition, in Force, 4:2:500–501, confirms his command.

109.Lister, Concord Fight, 25–26. Lister erroneously wrote the 23rd, an obvious error here corrected.

110.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

111.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26. French, Informers, 101–4, gives a convincing theory that Sutherland was in the Manse field during the skirmish, along with two others, and that these three are who is depicted in Amos Doolittle’s engraving Plate III: The Engagement at the North Bridge in Concord. In that engraving, the three are depicted without horses. While we know Sutherland was mounted at the first encounter at Lexington, here he was perhaps not. Maybe he donated his horse to this urgent messenger. In any case, it seems that Robertson returned with Smith’s response rather quickly, certainly well before the grenadiers could march up; hence Robertson was certainly not on foot. Robertson’s name from Lister, Concord Fight, 26.

112.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26.

113.French, Concord, 184. Coburn, Battle of April 19, 80–81 (and appendix 14), with his valuable work with the muster rolls, gives 443 total men (if we arbitrarily assign a reasonable forty men per company to those companies whose size is unknown). Also, Robinson, Spring, Bancroft, Adams’s deposition and Gould’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:500–501. On the British, if we go back to our estimates in appendix 11, each company was about 32 men each, or 96 men, plus the 8 officers (see note 156), or 104 men. On the wall: Barker, British in Boston, 33.

114.See note 115 below.

115.Most of this section, especially Mrs. Barrett’s quotes from Ripley, History of the Fight, 20–21. On the cannon at the farm: Gage’s Instructions to Smith [Draft], in Gage MSS, republished in French, Informers, 29–31. Also, Emerson’s diary in Emerson, Complete Works, 11:568. On 140 troops: four companies times thirty-two men plus three officers per company, plus Parsons, Grant the artilleryman, De Berniere, about 143 total (see appendix 11). Additional sources: French, Concord, 179–80; De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

116.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825; Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 107.

117.Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17; with extra details from Smith to Gage, Apr 22, and Barker, British in Boston, 33. As given in note 101, Gordon was wrong in that there was only two 24s. It is thus conjecture, but he is probably also wrong that there were just two 24-pounder carriages.

118.Ripley, History of the Fight, 20.

119.Martha Moulton’s (of Concord) Petition, Feb 4, 1776, in Frothingham, Siege, 369–70. It is generally believed by modern historians that the British did not intentionally set fire to the courthouse, as Martha’s petition implies, nor did Pitcairn and other officers sit and sneer before she finally convinced them to begin a bucket brigade. Such action was contrary to the morals of the real-life British officers there, who deplored the idea of wanton destruction of private property as much as the Yankees did. Furthermore, they had positive orders from Gage to protect private property. And, as we have seen in his dealing with Graves, Pitcairn was an upstanding military officer. Rather, Moulton was looking for compensation for her service (she received £3), and her petition is flavored accordingly.

120.Depositions in Force, 4:2:497–501.

121.French, Concord, 183–88; Coburn, Battle of April 19, 169, 173, 177; Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 111.

122.French, Concord, 185–86; Emerson’s diary in Emerson, Complete Works, 11:569.

123.Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 111.

124.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26.

125.Lister, Concord Fight, 26. Also, Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

126.Ripley, History of the Fight, 23, attributes this to Davis and Buttrick, Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 111, makes it more general.

127.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825; James Barrett’s deposition in Force, 4:2:499.

128.We can perhaps forgive the other officers of their inexperience, but if Barker was wise enough to know what was proper and yet never acted upon it, then Barker is as much to blame as any other.

129.Solomon Smith’s dubious [First] Deposition, 1835, for instance, echoed by others, all of which are published in Adams, Address Delivered at Acton, 45–46, also in Adams, Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, 16–17 (which is no letter at all, but a booklet). On some of the theories why Davis marched first, see French, Concord, 188n1. One theory is that only the Acton men had bayonets, though I have seen no evidence to support this.

130.A late but unsubstantiated and dubious claim gives that a single Acton fifer and drummer near the van shrilled and beat the song “The White Cockade” as they marched. (More likely, the nonaggressive militia silently marched like regular soldiers down the hill, keeping their muskets unprovokingly at their sides.) This claim comes from Charles Handley’s deposition, 1835, in Adams, Address Delivered at Acton, 46–47, also in Adams, Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, 18–19, and is the only statement of its kind. That it was made sixty years after the event makes it utterly dubious. No contemporary source supports this claim, and it is strange that so many historians report it as fact. See D. Michael Ryan, “White Cockade: A Jacobite Air at the North Bridge?” accessed Dec 4, 2009, http://lincolnminutemen.org/history/articles/ryan_white_cockade.html.

131.French, Concord, 187–90; Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825. Barrett says they “marched 2 Deep”, while Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27, says they marched in “Divisions” (see French, Informers, 89n2). Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 111, calls this motion wheeling about, but to wheel is to pivot on one end of the line. They probably did a left face then marched in column with the head going north for a moment before turning to the right, 180º, onto the northerly road that led from Punkatasset back to the bridge, and there, meeting the westerly road that came from Barrett’s Farm, turned left (east), and so headed for the bridge.

132.Lister, Concord Fight, 27.

133.French, Concord, 189–90.

134.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26. Strangely, French in his Informers, 101, supposes the British could not possibly fan out in line formation across the road because of the wall. This wall was, like most in Concord that still exist today, only knee-high or so. So while a line formation would have been broken slightly with the wall cutting the line twice, on either side of the road, there is no reason they could not have formed in line formation. Whatever French’s logic, perhaps this is why, on 102, he supposes that the 43rd never did form up along the riverbank. It is true that Laurie’s letter only says this was his intent, to line the riverbank, but if French’s logic is correct, that the 43rd never moved there, then they blocked the way out front. Yet this cannot be, for the 43rd was the closest to the bridge and thus the first to cross. They could not have remained in front to block the retreat of the other two companies across the bridge. And yet their Lieutenant Hull is mortally wounded here, and thus he at least, if not his company, was nearer the bridge. This is best explained if we assume the 43rd did indeed take up the north side riverbank, and thus it was most likely they who fired the warning shots. We also know the 4th was the lead platoon on the road, blocking the bridge, from Laurie’s letter and Barker’s British in Boston, so the 43rd were not still on the road, between the two small rock walls, where Hull could be hit. Furthermore, we know from Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27, that only he and a few others went to the south of the road. Thus, we can logically conclude that, where Laurie tells in his letter that his intent was for the 43rd to line the riverbank, this was done, but out of confusion, only on the north side.

135.Barker, British in Boston, 34.

136.Ibid. One wonders if Smith marched up with the men instead of riding up on his steed. On Lumm: Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

137.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; Lister, Concord Fight, 26–27. Lister makes it sound as if they were fired upon even as they removed the planks, in stark contrast to other statements. Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 suggests the Americans only stormed the bridge because the British were removing planks, also in stark contrast to other evidence.

138.Barker, British in Boston, 34, which gives they “halted and fronted filling the road from the top to the bottom.”

139.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 suggests Buttrick says this earlier, before the march, which is impossible, as it is out of sequence with the events. Ripley, History of the Fight, 26–27, gives that Buttrick yelled something like this while on the march.

140.Ripley, History of the Fight, 27, suggests a quicker pace, though I have seen no contemporary evidence to support it.

141.On street firing: Lister, Concord Fight, 27, says so explicitly. See also French, Informers, 101ff., and his Concord, 194ff., which explains the maneuver thoroughly, drawing from Pickering, Easy Plan of Discipline, 119ff. (the source for the command I give as a possible quote for Laurie). French, Informers, 102–103, supposes that, from Laurie to Gage, Apr 26, Laurie meant to retreat in the street firing mode away from the bridge. I disagree. Laurie’s line, “I determined to repass the Bridge…retreating by Divisions” seems to the present author to describe only Laurie’s design to maneuver his men back to the opposite side. His letter then goes on to suggest he was making a defensive stand. In fact, no British account suggests they were attempting to make an orderly retreat, nor should they have. Theirs was the responsibility to secure the bridge in order to protect the return of the four advance companies. Instead, Laurie was hoping to hold his ground using the street firing method. He never intended to retreat.

142.Barker, British in Boston, 34. Barker states the three companies got behind one another, in contradiction with Laurie to Gage, Apr 26, which gives the 43rd were on the north side of the road, giving covering fire (note 134). Barker was in the lead company, thus in the confusion, so we can forgive his mistake. See also French, Informers, 101–104.

143.Sutherland to Clinton, Apr 26, gives the clearer account, vice to Gage, Apr 27.

144.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825; depositions in Force, 4:2:497–501. Some historians suggest the militia were not yet on the bridge, yet Amos Barrett clearly tells us he heard the balls hit the water off to his side. What is perplexing is: he says they hit on the right of him. Who was on the right to shoot them? It would have been unwise to use any of the front line defenders of the 4th to fire such shots, as it took too long for them to reload. The warning shots must have been on Barrett’s left (remember, he gave his statement perhaps around the 50th anniversary, like so many others). If so, these would have been fired from the 43rd on the north side of the road. Historians have usually felt the militia were not yet on the bridge when the firing began, because of Amos Doolittle’s engraving Plate III: The Engagement at the North Bridge in Concord, but that was based on a drawing made sometime late summer by an artist who did not witness the event—he merely conducted interviews. The terrain in those engravings is accurate, but the exact troop positions cannot be trusted. See further notes for another example where I choose not to trust Doolittle.

145.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26, supposes one of his men shot first (“afterwards killed”, perhaps immediately after, as in one of those killed by the American volley), “tho’ Mr. Southerland has since assured me, that the Country people fired first.” Barker, British in Boston, 34, states “The fire soon began from a dropping shot on our side,” whatever a “dropping shot” means. Historians love to quote this line, but none seem to have made sense of the terminology. Smith to Gage, Apr 22, reports a British soldier shot first, then an American volley, followed by that of the British. Lieutenant Gould’s deposition, in Force, 4:2:500–501, gives the British gave the first fire. Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 and the American depositions give no such first shot, but give three shots fired (only Barrett suggests they were warning shots), followed by a British volley, then the American volley. Emerson’s diary in Emerson, Complete Works, 11:569, claims there were three “volleys” before the Americans fired: possibly the three or so warning shots, then the single shot, then the actual volley. All of these then agree that the British fired first, though Barker (as cited) says the volley from each side occurred almost simultaneously, which they no doubt did. Lister, Concord Fight, is unclear, but it almost sounds as if he says the Americans fired first. The only definite disagreement is from Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27, as well as his similar letter to Clinton, Apr 26, which claim the Americans fired “3 or 4 Shot…which our People returned” in the Gage version, similar in the Clinton. Sutherland was by this time in the Manse field, as he says himself, and as he is the only one to claim the Americans fired first, one has to wonder if—with his back turned, running into position—he simply supposed and convinced himself that those three or four shots were from the Americans, though in fact those were the warning shots from the British. Gage, taking into account all of the information from his officers, reported generically in his Circumstantial Account that the Americans fired on the troops, which is true, but it almost implies that the Americans fired first, without any shot first from the British. Then again, Gage is not explicit. The truth is of course uncertain, but each contemporary probably reported the truth as they saw or supposed they saw it. But in all the confusion, there was bound to be error in their testimonies. If they had been all in agreement, it would perhaps signal a concerted conspiracy. The version as it is laid out in the text is the present author’s supposition on this uncertain matter.

146.Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Concord Hymn,” 1836.

147.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 (the quote); Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 112, gives generic locations (head and body) where the shots hit; Fischer, 406n40, gives that the bodies were exhumed in 1851 and gives this precise location of the shot to Hosmer.

148.Ripley, History of the Fight, 27.

149.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825. Ripple of “Fire!”: French, Concord, 191, citing Thaddeus Blood’s letter in Boston Advertiser, Apr 20, 1886.

150.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26.

151.Lister, Concord Fight, 27–28; Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 61. Lister states four men of the 4th were killed, but Gage’s official Circumstantial Account gives three (two at the onset, one left wounded and about to die a horrendous fate, as given below). More on Hull: Proc. of MHS (1878), 16:155–58; more on Gould: Evelyn to Reverend Dr. Evelyn, Apr 23, in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 53–55, and Gould’s deposition in Force, 4:2:500–501.

152.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. In the latter, Sutherland claims the two near him were killed, in contradiction to the information in note 151 above. The two men must have just been injured and hobbled off, as it is more likely the two killed outright were among the 4th, standing there in the deadliest position at the end of the bridge, not these two off in the field a little away from the fight.

153.Lister, Concord Fight, 27–28; Laurie to Gage, Apr 26; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; French, Informers, 101–4. Barker, British in Boston, 34, gives the next platoon, who should have fired, failed to do so because “there being nobody to support the front Compy. The others not firing the whole were forced to quit the Bridge”. In other words, perhaps they began to peel off with the first platoon. (But remember, Barker himself was confused of the maneuver, so perhaps here we should not rely on his testimony much.)

154.Lister, Concord Fight, 27.

155.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. Sutherland thought two of his soldiers were “dead on the Spot”, but then how did they get back to the bridge, where only three bodies were found? (More on this: see French, Informers, 109–10.) Perhaps we can excuse Sutherland: he was seriously wounded, losing blood, and much of his remaining details are incorrect or misleading.

156.Barker, British in Boston, 35, says four out of eight officers. French, Informers, 104n2, rightly considers there should have been nine officers (three to a company, see appendix 4), but Parsons of the 10th was ahead at Barrett’s Farm, though we can count in his stead Sutherland the volunteer. However, what French does not remember is that the 4th was missing their Captain Balfour, on special assignment to Marshfield. (See previous text, which draws on Mackenzie’s A British Fusilier. French edited Fusilier years before Informers: thus he knew but forgot this detail.) Hence, Barker’s number is correct: there were eight officers at the bridge, not nine. Barker also notes a wounded sergeant and “several Men”, but Gage’s Circumstantial Account explicitly lists, besides the three killed (two killed straightaway, one about to die) and four officers wounded, one sergeant and four privates, which I sum together in the text to call the five soldiers. The casualty toll given in Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 gives eight to ten wounded, counting the four officers, and so generally agrees. (Ibid. is the source of the quote.) The eight officers were: 4th: Lieutenant Gould, Lieutenant Barker; 10th: Lieutenant Kelly, Ensign Lister; 43rd: Captain Laurie, Lieutenant Robertson, Lieutenant Hull; volunteer Lieutenant Sutherland of a 38th battalion company.

157.Laurie to Gage, Apr 26; Barker, British in Boston, 34; Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825 (which gives only 200 ascended the hill across from the Manse, or about half). Mackenzie’s map (facing p. 78 of A British Fusilier) gives, it is supposed by French, Informers, 83, the location at which the fleeing British met up with the grenadiers, marked by four slashes on the road. I have no reason to doubt this interpretation. Lister, Concord Fight, 28, gives one was the 47th and suggests they were the only one, but Laurie to Gage, Apr 26, gives he was to receive two, though does not say if two was indeed how many he received. Gage, Circumstantial Account, gives there were indeed two.

158.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825.

159.Fischer, 216, advances this theory.

160.Many sources give this. On the bedding: Ripley, History of the Fight, 29, for instance.

161.Lister, Concord Fight, 28.

162.Emerson’s statement in Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17. French, Informers, 105–9 (especially see 106 for the deposition from the Gage MSS). Cf. the false deposition in Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 350, though perhaps this is not a deliberate lie but a mistake, as it suggests they buried two soldiers, making no mention of the third, the “scalped” soldier. On the “scalping”, Emerson’s statement gives: “as to his being scalped and having his ears cut off, there was nothing in it. The poor object lived an hour or two before he expired.” It seems hard to imagine the soldier survived this attack, and perhaps what is meant is that he survived an hour or so since his wounds before this event occurred. But while Emerson did not think the ears were cut off, he likely did not go see the corpse up close, and too many British reports from those coming back from Barrett’s Farm confirm the ear tops gone. On Ammi White, and late musings on the matter, see the brief discussion in Fischer, 406–407n49. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 71–77, goes into more detail on the subject. And for another discussion, see J. L. Bell, “British Corpses at the North Bridge,” Boston 1775 (blog), May 14, 2013, accessed Jan 25, 2015, http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2013/05/british-corpses-at-north-bridge.html, and the two posts following (newer). Bell also notes there may have been more than three dead at Concord’s North Bridge.

163.Lister, Concord Fight, 29.

164.French, Informers, 84.

165.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

166.See note 162. Lister’s quote from Concord Fight, 27.

167.Barker, British in Boston, 35.

168.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]. See appendix 7.

169.Lexington claims the war began there, while Concord claims it was at North Bridge. It is hard to argue with town pride, so I choose no side.

CHAPTER 9: A COUNTRY UNLEASHED

1.Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 28–29. On Hull and Gould, see chap. 8.

2.Emerson’s diary in Emerson, Complete Works, 11:569.

3.Barker, British in Boston, 35. Some evidence of the light’s technique is in Lister, Concord Fight, 29–30.

4.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

5.Edmund Foster to Daniel Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825 (the quote; but see note 6); Brooks’s statement [c. 1825?], in Sumner, History of East Boston, 355–56n2. Years later, Brooks would be a Massachusetts governor.

6.Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825; Brooks’s statement in Sumner, History of East Boston, 355–56n2. Foster claims the British fired first, but as described in the bibliography, information provided by old men in 1825 will not trump contemporary information. Unfortunately, no contemporary evidence exists. Lister, Concord Fight, 29 (the closest to contemporary, but written in late 1782), claims the Americans fired first here. To give corroboration, Brooks’s statement agrees. Brooks claims they were 20 to 30 rods (330 to 500 feet) away, in agreement with Lister’s claims that they fired from too far at first. Did Brooks know of the earlier skirmishes, or did he act on his own volition, contrary to the Whig policy to let the British begin the war?

7.Lister, Concord Fight, 29–30; Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825; Brooks’s statement in Sumner, History of East Boston, 355–56n2.

8.Sutherland to Clinton, Apr 26, is clearer in this case. I suppose, unlike French, Informers, 94, that Sutherland was drawn on a carriage lying headfirst. Thus, when he says the major attack was to his right, this is the British left, and vice versa.

9.Lister, Concord Fight, 29–30.

10.Appendix 14. The numbers given are the possible maximum, or the total militia enrolled, and do not account for those that did not attend, who were sick, etc. Coburn, Battle of April 19, 96–97, gives 1,534 as the possible high, but includes those that arrived at Brook’s Hill and Bloody Curve, and in any case, his total seems in error given the breakdown he provides.

11.Appendix 11: 786 or so, including Mitchell’s patrolmen.

12.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27; French, Informers, 94. The bulk of the Sudbury and Framingham men would not join the fight until the next major intersection.

13.Amos Barrett’s Letter of 1825. Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825, only gives two British dead and does not recall any American losses, while Brooks’s statement in Sumner, History of East Boston, 355–56n2, claims nine casualties total.

14.Edmund Foster to Daniel Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825.

15.Lister, Concord Fight, 29–30.

16.Smith to Gage, Apr 22.

17.Barker, British in Boston, 35.

18.The second account in Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 65–66.

19.Appendix 14; Coburn, Battle of April 19, 96–97.

20.Edmund Foster to Daniel Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825. Fischer, 408–9n69, gives plenty of details on the lay of the land, etc.

21.Loammi Baldwin’s journal, Apr 19, in Hurd, History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 1:447.

22.Ibid.

23.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 100.

24.Across on the field: Fischer, 410n84.

25.Appendix 14; Coburn, Battle of April 19, 104.

26.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]; appendix 14; Coburn, Battle of April 19, 104.

27.Edmund Foster to Daniel Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825 (which suggests, unsupported, that Pitcairn’s arm was broken). It says this rider was with the troops “rising and passing over Fiske’s hill”, so with the light infantry. As to the horse, the militia soon caught it, and some stories (Coburn, Battle of April 19, 107n1) say it had a pair of pistols belonging to Pitcairn that were sold at auction. The purchaser later offered the pistols to George Washington, but after he declined, they were given to Israel Putnam, who would carry them throughout the war. They are today at the Lexington Hist. Soc. (Hancock-Clarke House), and a picture of them are in Fischer, 231. But recent research suggests the crest on them belongs to the family of Capt. William Crosbie, an officer of the 38th Grenadiers there that day. Thus, the story of the pistols is in doubt, though they could have been given to Pitcairn to pay some debt (gambling?). Regardless, the officer on the horse is likely Pitcairn, not Crosbie. First, there is no indication that captains on the march had horses (though some junior ranking advance scouts did). But even if Crosbie acquired one later, it is also unlikely he would have been storming the woods with the light infantry. He was, after all, a grenadier, and his place was with his company on the road. See J. L. Bell, “Where Those Pistols Really Came From,” Boston 1775 (blog), Mar 18, 2009, accessed Jan 26, 2015, http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2009/03/where-those-pistols-really-came-from.html.

28.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

29.The second account in Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 65–66; De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]. When exactly he was shot is unclear, but about at Fiske Hill seems likely, based on the context of the first source. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 51–52, supposes the same. See further discussion on this in Fischer, 410n84.

30.Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27. It is unclear exactly when this occurred, but he claims he rode all the way from Lexington back to Charlestown after this event. As there seems to have been few casualties once the British force had their rest on the east side of Lexington Green, this last skirmish before reaching the Green seems the most probable point at which this event occurred.

31.Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825.

32.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]. Sixteen miles assumes the land route back to Boston, see appendix 8.

33.Ibid.

34.Appendix 14. To know how many militia were at any given point is almost impossible. We can guess that many that had so far joined the fight continued to harry the British rear, but as given in the text, many did not stay with the fight all day long. On the British numbers, see appendix 11. Seven hundred ninety comes from the original 766 plus the twenty mounted patrol that had now joined up with them. Of course, the actual numbers for both parties were now less due to casualties left behind along the running battle.

35.Barker, British in Boston, 35.

36.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 108–9. The militia were probably from Fiske Hill and the like, circling back to get ahead of the column once more.

37.That Percy was probably horseless: see an extract from a letter of Percy’s mother to Percy, 1770, in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 21. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 87, doubts Smith was still on horseback, as Doolittle engraved in his Plate IV: A View of the South Part of Lexington, given his leg injury. The engraving also depicts Percy on horseback. (Cf. Lister, Concord Fight, 31, which claims Smith was walking but took a horse from a marine officer, apparently sometime after the retreat from Lexington.) See Ron Aylor, “British Regimental Drums & Colours,” Mar 23, 2003, accessed May 22, 2010, www.fifedrum.org/crfd/drums.htm, which depicts most of the standards present.

38.On the numbers present, see appendix 11. The troop disposition is unknown. (Cf. Fischer, 245, which disagrees with his own map on p. 252, where it makes explicit positions for the troops without reference. I suspect he drew their positions from a misinterpretation of Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27, which gives a similar relative position of the men as they marched in column back toward Boston.) Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 54–55, gives us small hints of the disposition, and tells us that his 23rd’s left was blocked somewhat by a “Morassy ground” (echoed by Richard Pope, see Murdock, Late News, 31). From this, we might guess that the 23rd was south of the road, along the shallow heights there, their left somewhat near the modern day Upper Vine Brook and its surrounding marsh. The same source claims the line formation was not as regular as it might have been due to the topography and the rock hedges. The second account in Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 66–67, tells us little more. Doolittle’s Plate IV: A View of the South Part of Lexington shows the troops in column formation, still on the road, when they met with Smith, despite evidence to the contrary, proof once more that Doolittle’s drawings are not reliable for positions. Doolittle’s accuracy of the troops is dubious, as his engravings, based on the sketches by Ralph Earl, were made based on walking the land and taking interviews months after the fact. On this: Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 87–88.

39.Stedman, History of the Origin, 1:118.

40.Barker, British in Boston, 35–36.

41.Appendix 7; Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 52–53; Letter from Boston, July 5, 1775, in Detail and Conduct of the American War, 9–10. About that same time, an unconfirmed tradition gives that a Boston schoolmaster, hearing the rumors of fighting, boarded up the school and declared, “War’s begun and school’s done,” then quietly departed to join his militia company. This from French, Concord, 228. Had it not been for the first blunder, the British reinforcement may have departed shortly after Smith’s messenger arrived at five o’clock, joining up with Smith just outside of Concord center. But even with the first, had the second not occurred, the reinforcement would have passed Lexington just after half past noon, and would have met the retreating expeditionary force somewhere west of Fiske Hill or near the site of Parker’s Revenge. See appendix 7. The first supposition: if the British departed at about 5:00 a.m., it would have taken about 7:40 hours (at 3 mph) to travel the about 23 miles (see appendix 8) through Roxbury, Cambridge, Menotomy, Lexington to Concord, placing them in Concord at about just after half past noon. Smith’s force departed about noon, so the two would have met about midway between Concord and Meriam’s Corner. The second supposition: as given in appendix 8, the distance the reinforcement actually traveled to east of Lexington Green, about 15.8 miles, would have taken about 5:15 hours (at 3 mph). Had they departed at 7:30, they would have been east of Lexington Green about 12:45, just as Smith’s force was leaving Brooks Hill. The two would have then met midway between Brooks Hill and the position Percy ultimately took up east of Lexington Green, at a point somewhere between Parker’s Revenge site and Fiske Hill’s north face.

42.Percy to Duke of Northumberland [his father], July 27, 1774, in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 27–30; and see 81. Brandy in his canteen: Letter from a Private Soldier in the Light Infantry, Aug 20, 1775, in Margaret Wheel Willard, ed., Letters on the American Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), 197–200.

43.Percy to Rev. Thomas Percy, Oct 27, 1774, in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 40–41. The recipient may be distantly related, see Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 25n. On his promotion, etc., see previous text.

44.Appendix 8.

45.Scull, Journals of Montresor, 120. Cf. French, Concord, 230.

46.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 52–53.

47.Stedman, History of the Origin, 1:117n.

48.Gould and Percy: Evelyn to Reverend Dr. Evelyn, Apr 23, in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 53–55, and Percy to Gage, Apr 20 [Draft], in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 51n. Hull: see previous text and Proc. of MHS (1878), 16:155–58. (More on him later.) Rooke: Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 59, which names him one of Gage’s aides-de-camp, but this seems unlikely given his rank.

49.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 52–53. Gould and Hull: see note 48 and Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 28–29.

50.It is supposition here that he took his horse across the ferry. We only know he was on horseback after he left Charlestown. It is also supposition that he took his fusil: see note 90 for the argument.

51.French, Life and Times, 456–57, citing an unknown “Manuscript letter of Mr. [John R.] Adan.”

52.Appendix 7; French, Life and Times, 457–59; JEPCM, 515–16. Black Horse Tavern no longer stands, but according to private correspondence between myself and Ms. Doreen Stevens of the Arlington Hist. Soc., it stood on a site at modern Massachusetts Avenue, between the streets of Foster and Tufts.

53.French, Life and Times, 456–57, gives three interesting but unlikely incidents Warren experienced along the way, as given by an unknown manuscript of a Dr. Welch of Charlestown. In two of the stories, Warren supposedly encountered straggling soldiers of Percy’s reinforcement, and in the other, he attempted to circumnavigate the reinforcement itself, as he was making his way to Menotomy. Now, if we are to believe he did indeed leave at 10:00 a.m. from Charlestown on horseback, to travel from Charlestown to Watson’s Corner and then on to Menotomy was about 6.5 miles, and had he kept his horse at a modest four-mile-an-hour walk, he would have arrived in Menotomy about 11:30 a.m. Meanwhile, the British reinforcement had not left until 8:45 a.m. and had to travel 9.1 miles to reach Watson’s Corner, the first point where Warren could have met Percy’s reinforcement. At our usual three-mile-an-hour march, Percy would not have been at Watson’s Corner until about 11:45. By this time, Warren should have already been ahead of Watson’s Corner, in Menotomy 1.4 miles up the road. More likely, Warren was not leisurely riding his horse to Menotomy, but was cantering if not galloping, “riding hastily out of town” as one source gives (see appendix 7), covering the distance in less than half an hour, reaching Menotomy by 10:30 a.m. (The meeting was to begin at 10 a.m.) In any case, he was well ahead of the column, not behind it, and thus could not have experienced the three incidents Welch so nostalgically gave. Unfortunately, because the Welch source is now unknown, we are unable to give it more scrutiny as to its reliability. It was instead probably not until two hours after Warren arrived in Menotomy that he saw the British reinforcement pass by. See appendix 7 for timeline details and appendix 8 for distance calculations. Houses shut up: Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 52–53.

54.JEPCM, 515ff., gives nothing of their meeting, but Heath, Memoirs, 7, claims they did meet.

55.Many sources call Heath a general already, but his promotion is confounding. JEPCM, 65 (Dec 8, 1774), gives that he was chosen as general (along with John Thomas), and ibid., 90 (Feb 9, 1775), shows the Provincial Congress resolved to appoint him general, but the journal continues to call him colonel through Apr 18 (ibid., 515ff.) and beyond, to at least May 18 (ibid., 240). And yet, John Hancock to the Comm. of Safety, Apr 24, calls Heath a general (ibid., 527–28). Then, on June 17, the Provincial Congress resolved to reconsider Heath as brigadier general, as “he has not yet received his commission” (ibid., 350). (But see the confounding resolution of June 16, ibid., 347. Is the reference to him here as “Mr.” indicative of something more?) Perhaps he refused the first attempt to promote him, and the journals fail to record this. As given in the text later, he is eventually promoted to major general in the Mass. service, but it was short lived. By late July, the Continental Army was forming, and he would be put back to the lower grade of brigadier in the Continentals (see following text). Heath, Memoirs, 3–4, in contrast, claims he was indeed promoted on Feb 9, citing the evidence already given, but ignoring the further evidence above. See also French, First Year, 753–54.

56.Heath, Memoirs, 7; French, Life and Times, 458.

57.Elias Boudinot, Journal or Historical Recollections of American Events During the Revolutionary War (Philadelphia: Frederick Bourquin, 1894), 1–2, also in Commager and Morris, The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 90–92. A copy, Joseph Palmer to Capt. Philip Mortimer, Watertown, Wednesday Morn: Near 10 oClock [Apr 19, 75], without the timekeeping as Bissell reached various towns (unlike in the sources above), is in the Gold Star Collection of the Clements. It is odd that Joseph Palmer of the Comm. of Safety signed this document from Watertown, while the Comm. of Safety seems to have met in Menotomy, given the evidence presented in the text. (Some of that evidence is traditional, to be sure, but JEPCM, 515–16, gives explicitly a plan to reconvene at Black Horse Tavern in Menotomy at 10:00 a.m. on the 19th.) If the Boudinot source is an accurate transcription of the original journal, the whereabouts of which are unknown, then perhaps Palmer was indeed at Menotomy, but then he traveled to nearby Watertown specifically to find the trusted Mr. Bissel and from there set him on his ride.

58.Appendix 7.

59.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 54–55.

60.Appendix 14. No more than about 2,000 ever engaged the British (see following text).

61.Plate IV: A View of the South Part of Lexington depicts three houses burnt; the American depositions in Force, 4:2:497–98, give that three houses, one barn and one shop were burned; and Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17, gives that in fact two shops were burned, one of which was adjoined to one of the houses. Also see Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 89–92. Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 56, clearly states after leaving Lexington, no other homes were burned, though he thought there should have been, had there been time.

62.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 54–55.

63.Ibid.; Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 89–90; Loammi Baldwin’s journal, Apr 19, in Hurd, History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 1:447.

64.Extract of [Lt.] Colonel Cleaveland’s letter in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 98ff.; Lister, Concord Fight, 30, where Lister adds, “had we had plenty of that commodity [of cannon shot] they would have been of the greatest use to us”.

65.French, Concord, 230, claims Percy left his baggage train to repair the bridge, despite the evidence in the extract of Cleaveland’s letter in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 98ff., which tells of the wagon he had prepared being refused, and also the evidence, as given above, of Montresor repairing the bridge. Fischer, 243–44, subscribes to the wagons being sent separately, and gives the various traditional but dubious accounts. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 100–101, gives more on it.

66.Ripley, History of the Fight, 35–36, which unfortunately paraphrases this valuable part of the lost letter from Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825, though he otherwise quotes the letter in full; also Munroe’s deposition, 1825. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 114–18, thoroughly discusses, and in the opinion of the present author, satisfactorily debunks the claim that the lame man was gunned down in cold blood as the British departed, though he clearly died that day, perhaps, as he was a militiaman, in battle. Reading Munroe’s deposition carefully, he never claims the lame man was gunned down outside the tavern, and his deposition supports the theory provided by Murdock. Murdock also debunks calling the tavern “Percy’s headquarters.”

67.Lister, Concord Fight, 30–31. Simms is named in Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

68.Appendix 7; Percy to Gage, Apr 20. Per appendix 8, the route, through Roxbury, was 15.8 miles.

69.Four horses for a 6-pounder: Spring, With Zeal, 195, citing Burgoyne.

70.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 55.

71.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]; Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27 (source of the quote, which also gives the flanking positions); appendix 11. Query: was the protection of these flankers around the beleaguered expeditionary force what some (e.g. Stedman, History of the Origin, 1:118; “English Account of the Battles…from ‘The Historical Record of the 52nd Regiment,’” in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 57) would describe as Percy’s “square” formation around them?

72.Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17. This was probably the first time the British played music since departing Boston, despite late 1825 claims to the contrary (see chap. 8, n. 79).

73.Second account in Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 67.

74.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

75.Barker, British in Boston, 36.

76.Second account in Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 67. A similar story exists of an old man on a white horse, the “white horseman,” often retold, but it seems more legend than truth. For an account of the white horseman, see Henry Smith Chapman, History of Winchester, Massachusetts (Winchester, MA: Published by the Town, 1936), 104–5, available in the database Heritage Quest Online.

77.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 56.

78.Percy to Gage, Apr 20.

79.Lister, Concord Fight, 31–32.

80.Ibid. 32; Hunter, Journal, 9. It should be noted here that almost all of Hunter’s remembrances of Apr 19 are incorrect, as evidenced by sources used throughout this volume. This remembrance is plausible, however, and so given here.

81.Appendix 14; Coburn, Battle of April 19, 133–35.

82.Barker, British in Boston, 36–37; Heath, Memoirs, 7–8; Heath’s note in Proc. of MHS (1860), 4:294.

83.Both quotes from Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 56–57.

84.Stiles, May 12, in Literary Diary, 1:552; Percy to Gen. Harvey, Apr 20.

85.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

86.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 56; echoed by Barker, British in Boston, 36. See also Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 104ff.

87.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 138–40, which claims the twelve men dead (Russell and eleven others) included the “seven men from Danvers”, which was probably a separate incident nearby. See text below and note 89. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 129–31, claims Russell was aided by Essex militia, but gives no more on the discussion. Later that day, after the fight had moved on, Russell’s wife and children returned and found him dead at their doorstep, pierced multiple times.

88.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 57.

89.Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825, who states he did not witness it, but received word of it on good authority. He claims eight (not seven) Danvers men died. Also, Daniel P. King, An Address Commemorative of Seven Young Men of Danvers… (Salem, MA: W. & S. B. Ives, 1835), 12–13 (which also gives the claim that three or four were in fact murdered after surrendering: dubious because it was not reported until 1835). Also, Fischer, 256. Some (e.g., French, Concord, 248) suppose this event and that of Jason Russell are linked, and are one in the same, which may be true, but seems not.

90.French, Life and Times, 462, citing the eulogy of Perez Morton. There is no proof Warren carried his fusil on this day (as he did at Bunker Hill: e.g., Swett, History of the Bunker Hill Battle, 25). But given that he was in the heart of danger, that others thought he did great service (Life and Times as cited), and that he later used his fusil at Bunker Hill (proving he was willing to fight), it seems highly likely he was in the Menotomy fight with a weapon as well. Conversely, it is rather difficult to imagine he was merely standing there defenseless while others around him did the work, which is much out of his character as found of his service later at Bunker Hill, not to mention incredibly dangerous. Finally, read again the quote cited in the main text. It claims he fought with the men, and served as a soldier. If true, he had a gun.

91.Heath’s note in Proc. of MHS (1860), 4:294. Cf. Heath, Memoirs, 7–8.

92.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 141–42; Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 127; Columbian Centinel, Feb 6, 1793, p. 3. Fischer, 257.

93.Percy to General Harvey, Apr 20.

94.I have not found primary sources for this, but it is in all the secondary sources, such as French, Concord, 248.

95.Heath’s note in Proc. of MHS (1860), 4:294, and Heath, Memoirs, 7–8 (which clarifies who died—the soldier, but makes it sound as if Downer fought at Watson’s Corner, not Menotomy on the “plain,” as the first source gives). The Plain, according to Ms. Doreen Stevens of the Arlington Hist. Soc., is “in general the gently sloping lands of Arlington Center and East Arlington, which flattens toward Alewife Brook and the Charles River. This relatively flat land is in contrast to the hillier terrain between Lexington Center and Concord, which continues into current-day Arlington until nearly Arlington Center, the junction of Pleasant Street/Route 60 and Massachusetts Avenue.”

96.Eggs as an ingredient were not added until the late 1800s, and beer was eventually removed as an ingredient.

97.Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 125–29; the Coopers’ 1775 deposition in Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 351.

98.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 57–58.

99.Hannah Adams’s 1775 deposition in Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord, 350–51, leaves one to wonder how she could have left her four other children in the house with the soldiers. Though I generally ignore late evidence, it is only with such that we can make sense of Hannah’s deposition. The relevant late evidence is outlined in Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 121–25.

100.Totals from appendix 14 (not counting the Salem men); Coburn, Battle of April 19, 159, gives 3,733. He spent considerable time poring over the muster rolls. Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 60, guessed about 4,000 total, and he was quite right, particularly when we add in the about 300 Salem men. Perhaps this point lends to his credibility as an unbiased primary source. Too many of the British contemporary sources grossly overestimated the Americans, especially Sutherland to Gage, Apr 27.

101.Compare appendix 11 with the casualties noted in appendix 4.

102.Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 105–12, gives a thorough discussion on this subject. That Fischer, 414n69, calls Murdock an Anglophile for his honest consideration of the atrocities seems, to the present author, unwarranted.

103.Rev. William Gordon of Roxbury, not an eyewitness, later wrote, “The people say that the soldiers are worse than the Indians; in short, they have given the Country such an early specimen of their brutality as will make the inhabitants dread submission to the power of the British Ministry, and determine them to fight desperately rather than have such cruel masters to lord it over them.” This ignores the British perspective, the “scalping”, and the tactics necessary, but makes for good propaganda. From Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17.

104.One unearned atrocity: of the seven Danvers men, caught between the flankers and the main body, a story gives that three or four were actually surrendering before the British gutted them—a claim that is surely false, instead steeped in postwar propaganda. They would have had only seconds to surrender in this quick action. It seems dubious. Propagandists also seized on the story of bedridden Hannah Adams with her baby, forced to flee her home. This one is debatable, but her home was just as likely to become a sniper haven as all the others already were. Consider too that the British did not harm her or her children. See note 89.

105.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 58.

106.Barker, Apr 25, in British in Boston, 39.

107.Gage’s Official Casualty Report, Apr 19, 1775, in Coburn, Battle of April 19, 158–59.

108.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 58. Mackenzie gives just one or two “more” killed, but only five prisoners are reported in the end (see present text around note 134).

109.Fischer, 251, supposes this, and I agree.

110.Gage’s Official Casualty Report, Apr 19, 1775, in Coburn, Battle of April 19, 158–59; Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 61. The 23rd did not suffer the worst: this distinction went to the Marines, followed by the 4th.

111.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 56–57.

112.Ibid.

113.Now at the modern and nondescript intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Rindge Avenue.

114.Appendix 14; Heath, Memoirs, 7–8 (who adds Dorchester to the list). We must not count the Watertown men, 134, who should have been at the Great Bridge. They probably came up to give battle once the British turned off the road to Cambridge though.

115.Heath, Memoirs, 7; appendix 14.

116.Percy to Gage, Apr 20 [Draft], in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 51.

117.Heath, Memoirs, 8; Foster to Shattuck, Mar 10, 1825.

118.Percy to Gage, Apr 20 [Draft], in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 51.

119.Appendix 8; Percy to Gage, Apr 20 [Draft], in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 51.

120.Mackenzie, Fusilier, 56–57.

121.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 153–54; Heath, Memoirs, 8–9; appendix 14. Pickering’s conduct was under scrutiny because he had not come sooner. See Fischer, 260, 414n74.

122.Percy to Gage, Apr 20; Mackenzie, Fusilier, 58. Little of the boy is known, but the origin is a petition of Jacob Rogers, in Frothingham, Siege of Boston, 371–72. Murdock, Nineteenth of April, 120–21 gives little more on the boy. Coburn, Battle of April 19, 154, gives a bit more, calling him Edward Barber, son of a sea captain named William. In appendix 7, we note that civil twilight ended at 7 p.m., just as the British were coming up on the Neck.

123.Percy to Duke of Northumberland [his father], Apr 20, in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 54–55; appendix 7.

124.Heath, Memoirs, 9.

125.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19]; Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 59.

126.Graves, Conduct (Apr 19), this portion published in part in NDAR, 1:193; HMS Preston’s journal, Apr 19, in ibid., 1:195. See Philip Stephens to Graves, Jan 28, 1775, in Graves, Conduct (Apr 14), which gives that Graves had just, days earlier, received positive orders to give up as many marines as he could spare (thus he was not being generous here, he was following orders from the home government). More on Graves later.

127.Graves, Conduct (Apr 19), in part in NDAR, 1:193. As Conduct was completed over a year later, one wonders if some of this was just flavored telling by Graves, given the later events in Boston.

128.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 59; appendix 7.

129.The list in Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 61, lists Parsons as “Arm.—Contusion”, but Lister, Concord Fight, 33, gives “a contusion on his knee” and says nothing of his arm. Which was it? His arm, his knee, or both? Or does Mackenzie tell us he was wounded in the arm (by gunshot) and also had a contusion? The answer is unknown.

130.Lister, Concord Fight, 33.

131.Ibid., 34–35ff.

132.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

133.Strangely, the flèche is not on any of the contemporary Bunker Hill maps, though it was still there during the Battle. Its construction is hinted at in John Andrews to William Barrell, Apr 19, in Proc. of MHS (1866), 8:403–405, and Barker, British in Boston, 36–37. The details of the crossing, and the timeline are in Mackenzie, British Fusilier, 59, expanded upon in appendix 7.

134.Coburn, Battle of April 19, 156–57, 159; appendix 14. Present historians are indebted to this author for his considerable time spent with the muster rolls while conducting his research. On the prisoner exchange: it was June 6, more on this later (also noted in Clarke, Opening of the War).

135.“Murray” was considered significant enough to be noted by name in the hasty letter of a surgeon [Dr.] “J H” to Dr. Jos[eph] Gardner, Apr 22 (see chap. 10, n. 40). This was Samuel Murray, the Tory guide from Worcester, son of Mandamus Councilor Col. John Murray, as noted in JEPCM (Apr 28), 166, and “Letter from Weathersfield, Apr 23”, in New-York Gazette, May 1, 1775, p. 2. Daniel Murray was Samuel’s brother, but despite some secondary claims (e.g., Fischer, 127), he seems to have not been a guide that day. Thank you to John L. Bell, author of the blog Boston 1775, for his private correspondence in helping me sort this out.

136.Gage’s Official Casualty Report, Apr 19, 1775, in Coburn, Battle of April 19, 158–59. Note there are slight variations: De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19] lists 273 casualties; Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 61, reports 274. Both give slightly different mixes of dead versus wounded, some of which can be explained by the eventual deaths of some wounded. The exact number is probably of little importance, as they all generally agree. Cf. Richard Pope, in Murdock, Late News, 31, which fails to give the missing, but reports a total 271 killed and wounded. One outlier is Gage to Lord Dartmouth, n.d., in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 53n, which gives 62 killed, 157 wounded, 24 missing (without a breakdown by rank), a total of 243—a number much lower than any other. This letter is not in the Gage MSS, nor in Carter. The quote it gives on Percy resembles that of Gage to Lord Barrington, Apr 22, in Carter, 2:673–74, which in turn claims to have enclosed a casualty list, but the reported enclosure is not in Gage MSS, nor Carter. It is not worth tracking down among the British archives, however, as the list in Coburn, Battle of April 19, is official.

137.Appendix 8.

138.Mackenzie, A British Fusilier, 59.

139.Gage’s quote: Gage to Lord Dartmouth, Apr 22, in Carter, 1:396–97, endorsed received on June 10; Drummond’s quote and mention that Percy lodged at Province House in Lord Drummond [to Lord Dartmouth], Whitehall, [June 9], in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 53–54n.

140.Barker, British in Boston, 37.

141.Smith to Gage, Apr 22.

142.Evelyn to Reverend Dr. Evelyn, Apr 23, in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 53–55.

143.Percy to Harvey, Apr 20. The last word of the quote is “so”, replaced here with an ellipsis for clarity.

144.Ibid.

CHAPTER 10: AN EMBOLDENED PEOPLE

1.Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward, 27, 127, refers to the calculus, as do many other sources, but on ibid. 89 he calls it a bladder stone, without reference, probably an assumption. “Calculus” must mean either renal calculus (kidney or bladder stones) or gallstones. I have found no definitive original source to clarify what form of calculus it was. Ward apparently suffered frequently from it, causing debilitating pain. In old medicine, stones were simply endured. It was even an explicit prohibition of the original Hippocratic oath to not attempt procedures on stones, as they should be left to “specialists.” The procedures at this time were considered quite risky. Because Ward’s problem is chronic, it is perhaps more likely that it was a gallstone, as kidney or bladder stones tend to pass, though in some cases can become lodged. We cannot be certain. In either case, the symptoms are similar.

2.Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward, 89–90. Documents of the Comm. of Safety from Apr 20 onward are dated Cambridge, likely meaning the Hastings House. They are in JEPCM, 518ff. Revere to Belknap [circa 1798], explicitly tells they were at Hastings House when Church determined to go to Boston, which, as Revere notes, was the Friday after: Apr 21.

3.Thomas’s rank was probably brigadier general, but I have found no explicit proof. He was promoted to colonel on his last promotion, promoted at the same time as Col. William Heath, who definitely later became brigadier. His selection to “general” (which must mean brigadier) is in JEPCM (Dec 8, 1774), 65, and (Feb 9, 1775), 90. See notes on Heath’s convoluted promotion in chap. 9, n. 55. Thomas’s exact arrival and taking command is unclear. He was born in 1724, but when is unknown, so he was either 50 or 51. More on Thomas in Lockhart, The Whites of Their Eyes, 144ff.

4.French, First Year, 80–82.

5.Daniel Putnam to Bunker Hill Assoc., Aug 1825, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:231.

6.Livingston, Israel Putnam: Pioneer, 192–95; French, First Year, 83–85.

7.Washington to George William Fairfax, May 31, in PGW.

8.Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery, 4:168. On the time it took, I rely on the illustration in Fischer, 272.

9.Graves, Conduct (Apr 22).

10.Barker, Apr 24, in British in Boston, 38, claims ten or twelve thousand, while Stiles, Apr 21, in Literary Diary, 1:537, gives “yesterday there were assembled 16 or seventeen Thousd Provincials of which 7000 were at Cambridge, 4000 at Charlesto & 4000 at Roxbury.” The numbers are difficult to pinpoint, and the American force was constantly growing and shrinking on the whims of its volunteer force. It was probably at its peak days after Apr 19. On the British force: appendix 4, counting artillerymen and latest casualties.

11.Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17.

12.Barker, Apr 24, in British in Boston, 38.

13.De Berniere to Gage [circa Apr 19].

14.Mackenzie, Apr 20, in A British Fusilier, 69. The detachment of the 64th presumably went back to Castle William straightaway.

15.Graves, Conduct (Apr 20).

16.Graves to Philip Stephens, Apr 22, in Graves, Conduct. Also, Graves’s Jan List, in NDAR, 1:47. Asia’s journal in ADM 51/67, UKNA, reports she took up this new position on Apr 23. By early May, Asia was sailing to New York.

17.Gage to Graves, Apr 20, and the reply of the same date, in NDAR, 1:201–2. Marshfield: see chap. 5; 110 men (not counting officers): Mackenzie, Jan 23, in A British Fusilier, 31.

18.Barker, Apr 24, in British in Boston, 38.

19.Ibid.

20.Graves, Conduct (Apr 22).

21.JCC (May 10), 2:11 gives the delegates; John Hancock to the Comm. of Safety, Apr 24, in JEPCM, 527–28, gives they were in Worcester as of this date, detained for two days.

22.JCC (Oct 22, 1774), 1:102.

23.Quotes from Adams’s Autobiography, part 1, “John Adams” through 1776, sheet 18 of 53 [electronic edition] p. 3, in PJA. A similar quote is Adams, The Works of John Adams, 4:8. It comes from a conversation between Adams and Jonathan Sewall in 1774, where the latter attempted to assert the rights of Parliament, to which Adams replied, “that I knew Great Britain was determined on her system, and that very determination determined me on mine; that he knew I had been constant and uniform in opposition to all her measures; that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon; swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, was my unalterable determination.”

24.JEPCM (Apr 20), 518, also in French, Life and Times, 466. I have corrected one use of “county” to be “country,” and one “meet” to be “met,” both probably mistakes in JEPCM, not in Frothingham.

25.Warren to Gage, Apr 20, in French, Life and Times, 467, also in Force, 4:2:370–71.

26.Ibid.

27.Ibid.

28.Revere to Belknap [circa 1798].

29.Ibid.

30.Ibid.

31.Warren signs this as chairman: Warren to the Boston Selectmen, Apr 22, in Gage MSS, also in JEPCM, 521.

32.I have been unable to find the original source. I quote French, Life and Times, 502–3.

33.Ibid.

34.JEPCM (Comm. of Safety Journals, Apr 21), 519–20.

35.Revere to Belknap [circa 1798], which gives the whole story.

36.Warren to Gage, Apr 21, in Gage MSS.

37.Evelyn to Reverend Dr. Evelyn, Apr 23, in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 53–55, claims Gould was attended by a surgeon, implying it may have been a British surgeon, under the arrangements proposed by Warren.

38.Gould’s deposition, Apr 25, in Force, 4:2:500–501; Evelyn to Reverend Dr. Evelyn, Apr 23, in Scull, Memoir and Letters, 53–55.

39.Proc. of MHS (1878), 16:155–58. Note that while Rev. Dr. David McClure visited Hull, he seems to have not been Hull’s physician. Per Williams, Apr 20, in Discord, 15, Hull was guarded by three deserters from his own regiment, one of whom threatened to shoot him in his bed for having previously brought him to a court-martial. NB: This is secondhand, as Williams was not in Boston until June. More on Hull in main text below.

40.[Dr.] “J H” to Dr. Jos[eph] Gardner, Apr 22. This letter ended up in the Gage MSS. “J H” might refer to Dr. Jonathan Hunt (see Swett, 50), a physician who later served at Bunker Hill. More likely, it was recent Harvard graduate and physician apprentice John Homans, whose mentor was Dr. Joseph Gardner. This evidence was provided courtesy of Dr. Sam Forman, in private correspondence (Jan 2010). Forman is the author of Dr. Joseph Warren. Forman’s deduction makes sense: if an apprentice required surgical tools, he would have asked for them from his mentor, and Forman was able to verify that Homans was indeed an apprentice to Gardner.

41.Besides those of Warren and “J H” as noted, there is one other in the Gage MSS of Edm. Quincy to Dolly, Apr 22, which states explicitly that Dr. Church was its bearer.

42.Revere to Belknap [circa 1798]. It is almost certain that Revere did not learn of this opinion until the final revelation of Church’s treachery, and such an opinion may in fact be flavored by that final outcome.

43.The letters in note 41 are all now in the Gage MSS. They all appear to be the originals, not copies.

44.Cane’s role: evidence later in the present text. Who was Cane is uncertain. A Lt. Col. Maurice Cane appears on the List of Army Officers, 1 Jan 1775, with additions to 1779, WO, 64/15, UKNA, but this Cane belongs to the 6th Regiment of Foot, not on station in Boston.

45.Revere to Belknap [circa 1798]. According to Revere, Caleb Davis did not give this anecdote until after the final revelation of Church’s treachery.

46.Ibid.

47.Rachel Revere to Paul Revere [circa Apr 22 or 23, 1775], in Gage MSS (filed between April and May).

48.JEPCM, 147.

49.JEPCM (Apr 23), 148–49.

50.French, First Year, 67ff. French goes into exhaustive detail of the enlistment process by colony throughout his book, particularly chap. 4–7.

51.On their birth in Sept 1774, see chap. 4.

52.Warren to the Boston Selectmen, Apr 22, in Gage MSS, also in JEPCM, 521, and Force, 4:2:374. Perhaps this letter also crossed the British lines by way of Dr. Church.

53.Selectmen to Dr. Warren, Apr 23, and the enclosures, in Force, 4:2:374–77.

54.The complete list is in the Twenty-Ninth Report: Boston Records: Miscellaneous Papers, this volume titled A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of Boston, Containing Miscellaneous Papers (Boston: Municipal Printing Office, 1900), 321ff. Cf. JEPCM (Apr 28), 526, which is the source for the quantity of bayonets. Also, Thomas Peck to Gage, Apr 24, in Gage MSS. His cannon do not appear on the list just cited.

55.In Gage MSS, there are at least four depositions of this kind. Three are dated Apr 24, one of which is that of a Mr. John Noble, from which I draw, while a fourth is dated Apr 26. They all basically give the same point.

56.Robert S. Rantoul, “The Cruise of the ‘Quero’: How We Carried the News to the King,” in Essex Inst. Hist. Coll. (1900), 36:13–14; Dartmouth to Gage, July 1, in Carter, 2:199–202; Proc. of MHS (1876), 14:350. Sukey commanded by one Captain Brown, per London Chronicle, May 30–June 1, 1775, Issue 2883, p. 2.

57.Depositions in Force, 4:2:489ff. They are all dated Apr 23–25.

58.JEPCM (Apr 26), 159; Rantoul, “Cruise of the ‘Quero,’” 36:3–4ff. (see the note).

59.Dr. Warren to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, Apr 26, in Force, 4:2:487–88.

60.Dr. Warren to Benjamin Franklin, Apr 26, in Force, 4:2:488. The letter Warren to Arthur Lee, Apr 27, is in French, Life and Times, 471.

61.JEPCM (Apr 27), 159, or 523, without the postscript; Rantoul, “Cruise of the ‘Quero,’” 36:3ff.; ibid., 19; Hutchinson, May 29, in Diary and Letters, 1:455.

62.Hutchinson, May 29, in Diary and Letters, 1:455; Rantoul, “Cruise of the ‘Quero,’” 36:11–13.

63.Sparks, Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold, 3–11.

64.The Richelieu River was sometimes called the Sorel River, particularly the length beyond St. Johns.

65.Gage to Carleton, Mar 16; Feltham to Gage, June 11 (in French, Ticonderoga, 42ff.). In Gage to De la Place, Mar 8, Gage warned Fort Ticonderoga to be on guard. All three documents in Gage MSS. The engineer Montresor had recommended rebuilding Crown Point: see chap. 4.

66.Agreement of Apr 24, in Force, 4:2:383–84, which says 50 men; Sparks, Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold, 8–13, which says 60 men.

67.Parsons to Capt. Joseph Trumbull, June 2, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:181–84.

68.Ibid.; Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:165–68. Noah Phelps and Bernard Romans were the first party, sent to Salisbury, CT, there to raise men. Edward Mott and five others were sent a day later to overtake and join them.

69.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, Apr 30, in JEPCM, 695, also 529.

70.John Brown to Mass. Comm. of Corr., Montreal, Mar 29, in Force, 4:2:243–45. It is unknown when the letter arrived, and it is supposition here that it reached Cambridge by Apr 30, when Arnold was giving his plan.

71.Warren to New York Comm. of Safety, Apr 30, in JEPCM, 695.

72.Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:167–69ff.

73.Letters between Boston Comm. and the Mass. Comm. of Safety, in Force, 4:2:391 (Apr 25) and 424–25 (Apr 27).

74.Lord Dartmouth to Gage, Jan 27 [Secret], in Carter, 2:179–83. He would declare it a month later, see text below.

75.French, First Year, 122–28, and appendix 11. French apparently was unsure who Col. James Robertson was, but he is listed as the barrack master general in Gage to Richard Rigby, July 8, in Carter, 2:687–89 (see the enclosure). Also see the letters between Boston Comm. and the Comm. of Safety, in Force, 4:2:424–25 (Apr 27), 449–50 (Apr 30), 461 (May 1).

76.John Andrews to William Barrell, June 1, in Proc. of MHS (1866), 8:406–408. Italics as in the original.

77.John Andrews to William Barrell, May 6, in Proc. of MHS (1866), 8:405–406.

78.Ibid. (see the postscript). The same claims half of Boston left. Also, letters between Boston Comm. and the Comm. of Safety, in Force, 4:2:424–25 (Apr 27), 449–50 (Apr 30), 461 (May 1), imply a timeline for the passes: probably Apr 28–30 was the main exodus. A census taken on June 24, given on a list dated Oct 9, 1775, in the Gage MSS, gives 6,247 Bostonians.

79.Trumbull’s letter (Apr 28), in Force, 4:2:433–34; Gage’s reply (May 3), in ibid., 4:2:482–83. It is unclear if the envoy met with the Provincial Congress before or after they met with Gage. Lockhart, The Whites of their Eyes, 99, suggests these two envoys were staunch Tories, sent to Boston to allow the Whigs in Connecticut to easily move in support of Massachusetts.

80.Provincial Congress to the Connecticut Delegation, May 2, in JEPCM, 179–80.

81.Warren to Governor Trumbull, May 2, in French, Life and Times, 475–76, also in Force, 4:2:473–74, and JEPCM, 532–33. Underlining as in the original, per the first source.

82.Trumbull to the Mass. Congress, May 4, in JEPCM, 196n. A further reply by Mass. Congress, May 5, in ibid., 193–94. Was Trumbull’s envoy really just a political tactic, in case the rebellion was squashed and Trumbull had to again make peace with the British government? Possibly.

83.I refer here to the ordering of a Continental Army under a single commander in chief. But it could also be argued that unification was not truly achieved until enlistments were required for the full duration of the war, which was not implemented until late 1776 and only began to yield real results in 1777.

84.Warren to Gage, Apr 30, in Gage MSS; Proc. of MHS (1878), 16:155–58; Barker, May 4, in British in Boston, 42. Mackenzie, Apr 19, in A British Fusilier, 61, reports Hull died May 2, while Barker, as cited, reports he was buried on the fourth.

85.JEPCM (Comm. of Safety), 530–31; affirmed by the Mass. Congress in ibid., 185. Ibid. gives this event occurred before the Comm. of Safety reading of Warren’s letter to Trumbull, but Warren still could have written the letter earlier. In any event, Warren had met with Trumbull’s envoy the day before, so he at least had a sense of what he was going to write, even if he had not yet done so. Thus, there is little doubt the Trumbull incident had some influence in Warren’s decision on Arnold’s mission. Dr. Sam Forman, my trusted colleague and author of Warren’s latest biography, notes that John Hancock was already pressing Warren to attack Boston, citing Hancock to the Comm. of Safety, Apr 24 Evening (which urges an attack against Boston; in ibid., 170). Dr. Forman also notes that the supplies given to Arnold for his expedition ultimately proved unnecessary, and so might have made a bigger difference to the Americans in the coming Battle of Bunker Hill had they not been given to Arnold.

86.JEPCM, 534, gives the orders. The whereabouts of the original commission is unknown. However, a blank commission that fell into Gage’s possession and is now at the end of the Gage MSS was signed by Dr. Warren. Perhaps then, Warren also signed Arnold’s.

87.JEPCM, 530–31, gives the supplies.

88.Livingston, Israel Putnam: Pioneer, 196; Daniel Putnam to Bunker Hill Assoc., Aug 1825, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:232.

CHAPTER 11: THE SPREADING FLAMES OF REBELLION

1.Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America 2v. (2nd ed., original printed in 1810) 1:168–69, republished in Transactions and Coll. of the American Antiquarian Soc. (Worcester, MA: Printed for the Society, 1874) v. 5–6.

2.Boardman, Peter Edes: Pioneer Printer, 8; Peter Edes’s diary, Aug 4, in ibid., 99.

3.It was issued circa May 5. A copy is in MHS, and a digital version is on their website, www.masshist.org/revolution/doc-viewer.php?item_id=467 (accessed Jan 22, 2010). On the author: Fischer, 273.

4.Gale/Cengage Learning’s Archive of Americana online database shows the Boston News-Letter (a.k.a. Massachusetts Gazette) went from a weekly four-page publication to an erratic two-page paper that waffled until the British Evacuation, issuing its last paper on Feb 29, 1776. The Boston Post-Boy (a.k.a. Massachusetts Gazette too) published on Apr 10, 1775, but missed its regular Monday issue on Apr 17, never to publish again. Also see Fischer, 277–79.

5.In the Gage MSS are the letters, all identical, addressed to the 13 other royal governors, dated Apr 29. (This dates the A Circumstantial Account broadside, as these letters are but a cover page for a copy of such.) The cover letter to Trumbull with the entire Account is in Force, 4:2:434–36. The Account is also in JEPCM, 180ff. (notes) and 679ff. Since the Account was not available until Apr 29, it was not completed in time to be sent with Nunn aboard the Sukey to London.

6.One of the copies of A Circumstantial Account at MHS was originally in the Warren MSS. The copy was pulled from the Warren MSS and put into a Broadside file, and the ownership of it was forgotten in the process. However, in the Warren MSS is a note stating that a copy was removed from there, and that it had a note in the margin. Of the copies of the Account presently at MHS, only one had such a note in the margin, and thus the one quoted here must be that of Dr. Warren. Furthermore, having examined every Warren letter at both MHS and Clements, I am convinced the handwriting on this Account is his. The footnote mark is in the left margin next to the line “them who had jumped over a Wall, then fired four or five”. MHS has conveniently placed an image of this exact copy, with the footnote visible, on their website. It is at www.masshist.org/revolution/doc-viewer.php?item_id=498 (accessed Jan 22, 2010). Warren to Arthur Lee, May 16, in French, Life and Times, 488–90, reiterates his opinion that British fired first.

7.Percy to Harvey, Apr 20, in Bolton, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy, 52–53.

8.JEPCM (May 10), 212–13, an original in Gage MSS.

9.Warren to Gage [Private], May 10, in Gage MSS.

10.Warren to Samuel Adams, May 14, in French, Life and Times, 483–85. JEPCM (May 8), 203, gives the order to appoint surgeons, thus Warren kept open a slot for six days.

11.Rev. William Gordon to a Gentleman in England, May 17, in Force, 4:2:631.

12.See Gage’s short take on the debacle in his letter to Lord Dartmouth, May 13, in Carter, 1:397–99. Some would continue to receive passes, but very few. Probably most of these were Tories, granted permission to sail away to more peaceful provinces such as Nova Scotia or Quebec. On this, see the two updates to a census of the town on a list dated Oct 9, 1775, filed under Oct 8, in the Gage MSS.

13.JEPCM (May 5), 192–93; Gage to Lord Dartmouth, May 13, in Carter, 1:397–99.

14.Thomas Allen to Maj. Gen. Seth Pomeroy, May 9, in Rev. David Dudley Field, A History of the Town of Pittsfield, in Berkshire County, Mass (Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany, and Burnham, 1844), 75–76; Sparks, Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold, 15.

15.Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:168–70. Thirty-nine gives the combined total. Jericho must be Jericho Valley, now part of Williamstown, MA.

16.The name Katherine comes courtesy of private conversation with Ms. Carol Greenough, Director of the Skenesborough Museum in Whitehall, NY (Jan 26, 1775). Its length and tonnage are unknown. Allen supposed the sloop was “about twice as big as the Schooner”, per Allen to Trumbull, May 12, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:178–79. On the settlement: Nelson, Benedict Arnold’s Navy, 23–24.

17.Allen, Narrative, 9, calls Seth Warner a colonel, but as it was written four years after, it must refer to his later rank. Warner was a captain, per Allen to Trumbull, May 12, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:178–79; Mott to the Mass. Congress, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557–60; and Feltham to Gage, June 11, the enclosure in French, Ticonderoga, 51. (As given later, Warner was soon made lieutenant colonel.)

18.Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:170–71; Mott to the Mass. Congress, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557–60.

19.Ibid.

20.Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:171–72.

21.Allen to Gen. Richard Montgomery, Sept 20, in Force, 4:3:754.

22.Once a controversial topic, it has long since been settled, and is described at length in French, Ticonderoga, 28ff., 85–87, and in Feltham to Gage, June 11, in ibid., 42ff.

23.Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:171–72.

24.U.S. Navy’s Sun and Moon Calculator. Fort Ticonderoga is not in their database, so the coordinates 43° 50' N 73° 23' W are used (but for simplicity, one could use Albany, NY). On May 9, sunset was 7:05 p.m., end of civil twilight was 7:38 p.m., and the moon was a waxing gibbous with 68 percent of its disc illuminated, with its lunar transit near end of twilight, 7:46 p.m.

25.Each account is different; see French, Ticonderoga, 79–81.

26.“De la Place” or “Delaplace”? Contemporaries often use “Delaplace,” such as Feltham to Gage, June 11, as transcribed in French, Ticonderoga, 42ff. (I did not examine the original). The copy of Gage to Lord Dartmouth, May 17, as it appears (in copy) in Gage MSS, gives “Delaplace,” but the transcription of the original, in Carter, 1:400, gives “De la place.” Yet the copy of Gage to De la Place, Mar 8, in Gage MSS, names him “De la Place.” So while French, Ticonderoga, 10n2, claims he found two signatures of the captain for each variation, in my own research in the Gage MSS, I have only found his name as “De la Place” in each of the five letters and three returns authored by him or his secretary. Thus, while secondary sources have apparently settled on “Delaplace,” “De la Place” seems to be proper.

27.Feltham to Gage, June 11, in French, Ticonderoga, 42ff. and esp. the enclosure in ibid., 55. A return enclosed in Captain De la Place to Gage, Jan 31, (the return dated Feb 1), in Gage MSS, gives the Fort Ticonderoga garrison as twenty rank and file, plus him as the lone officer, with a sergeant and a drummer (twenty-three total). De la Place to Gage, Apr 19, in Gage MSS (NB there are two such letters), reports a Major Dunbar, three matrosses and nine men (thirteen total) came in on Apr 18, which Feltham’s letter confirms. However, Dunbar then left, for Feltham’s letter does not give him among those captured, nor does any other source. Instead, Feltham’s letter reports the following were captured: thirty-five rank and file, one captain, one lieutenant, one sergeant, one drummer, one artillery conductor, one artillery corporal, three matrosses, one commissary, a total of forty-five souls. Now Feltham reported he brought ten men himself (eleven total), thus between his men and the original (twenty-three) plus Dunbar (thirteen), a total of forty-seven, we find that Dunbar must have left earlier with one other, probably a rank-and-file man. Perhaps he went back to Quebec to fetch additional men, as Feltham’s letter implies more men may have been expected with a Lieutenant Wadman. Dunbar is shortly after captured, however, according to Gage to Carleton, May 20, in Gage MSS.

28.Mott to the Mass. Congress, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557–60, or Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:170. At almost 23 miles away, assuming they were marching at an average 3 miles per hour, it would have taken them near eight hours just to get there. And with the Skenesborough party not originally supposed to depart until the day after the Castleton war council in the afternoon, thus late on May 9, it is strange that this party was intended to bring boats from there back to Shoreham on the same night of May 9–10, in time for the crossing to take the fort, a forty-six-mile round-trip.

29.U.S. Navy’s Sun and Moon Calculator. Moonset was 2:22 a.m. See note 24.

30.Mott’s journal in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:170.

31.Lucius E. Chittenden, The Capture of Ticonderoga, in Proc. of the Vermont Hist. Soc. (Montpelier, VT: Tuttle & Co, Oct 8, 1872), 41–42; J. Smith, 1:133–34. The original source for the tradition seems to be Rev. Josiah F. Goodhue, History of the Town of Shoreham, Vermont, (Middlebury, VT: A. H. Copeland, 1861), 13–14.

32.Easton and Brown’s participation: Allen to Mass. Congress, May 11, in Force, 4:2:556. Douglas may have also been there: ibid., 4:2:1250. There are various claims of the total that crossed (French, Ticonderoga, 80–81), but tradition has settled on 83, per Allen, Narrative, 6, roughly agreed to by Brown’s Statement, May 20, Force, 4:2:623–24, and Easton’s Statement, May 18, Force, 4:2:624–25.

33.U.S. Navy’s Sun and Moon Calculator (see note 24). Dawn was 4:33 a.m.; civil twilight began at 4:01 a.m.

34.Allen, Narrative, 6 references it (amid his likely fictional harangue to his men), as does Brown’s statement in Force, 4:2:623–24. See the layout in Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book, 1:118, which gives the fort as it stood in 1758.

35.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 11, ibid., 4:2:557, and “Veritas” in Force, 4:2:1086–87, give Arnold was first (though the latter also says Allen and Arnold together led the men to the gate). The author “Veritas” was likely Benedict Arnold himself, as noted in French, Ticonderoga, 88–90. Allen, Narrative, 7–8, gives the same story of “Veritas,” but here Allen takes the credit as first. Yet Allen to Albany Comm., May 11, in Force, 4:2:606, in typical fashion, contradicts his own Narrative, giving “Colonel Arnold entered the fortress with me side by side.” Allen’s Narrative seems too often filled with exaggeration to be trusted, particularly when other contemporary accounts give differing statements.

36.Most statements agree it was dawn: Allen, Narrative, 6; “Veritas” (Force, 4:2:1086–87); Brown (Force, 4:2:623–24), Allen to Mass. Congress, May 11, (Force, 4:2:556), etc. Also, French, Ticonderoga, 82.

37.Brown’s Statement, May 20, in Force, 4:2:623–24.

38.Easton’s Statement, May 18, in Force, 4:2:624–25. Cf. Allen to Albany Comm., May 11, in Force 4:2:606, which claims the sentries fled. Allen, in his Narrative, 7–8, gives a slightly different account.

39.Allen, Narrative, 8; strongly supported by Lt. Jocelyn Feltham to Gage, June 11. Because of noted contradictions in Allen’s Narrative (in note 38 and especially note 35), where Allen’s Narrative flatly contradicts other statements and even himself, and because it seems a bit too much the hero story that Allen always sought to make of himself, it was tempting to dismiss this statement from the present volume. Only then did I discover that Feltham’s letter gives strong support for it. French, Ticonderoga, 83, missed this point. I say perhaps the officer near Allen was slightly injured only because other evidence, given below, says no American was injured.

40.Easton’s Statement, May 18, and Brown’s Statement, May 20, both in Force, 4:2:623–25. Brown says nothing of the huzzahs.

41.Feltham to Gage, June 11.

42.Hand-to-hand: evidenced by the lack of anyone seriously wounded and none killed, and that Feltham was waiting to hear a volley. (See later main text.)

43.Lt. Jocelyn Feltham to Gage, June 11.

44.Ibid.

45.Ibid.

46.Brown’s Statement, May 20, in Force, 4:2:623–24.

47.Feltham to Gage, June 11.

48.Allen, Narrative, 8. Though his Narrative has been exaggerated and unreliable, it is just this sort of haughty reply that we might expect from the glory-seeking Allen, and so might be quite true. In any event, he or Arnold replied something to Feltham’s question.

49.Feltham to Gage, June 11. Allen, Narrative, 8, agrees with the sword incident.

50.“Veritas” (probably Arnold), in Force, 4:2:1086–87.

51.Lt. Jocelyn Feltham to Gage, June 11; Allen, Narrative, 9.

52.Lt. Jocelyn Feltham to Gage, June 11.

53.Mott to the Mass. Congress, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557–60.

54.Easton, Mott, et al. to Mass. Congress, May 10, in Force, 4:2:556.

55.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557.

56.Lt. Jocelyn Feltham to Gage, June 11.

57.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557.

58.Allen, Narrative, 9–10, gives the general idea, but claims 100 men, or about half the men there. As that source has proven unreliable in its details, as noted above, it is best to use the fifty men cited in Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557. (NB: The letter Arnold refers to dated May 10 was never received by the Mass. Congress, and its contents are therefore lost, per JEPCM, 698.) Also see Allen to Trumbull, May 12, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:178–79. On the garrison there: Feltham to Gage, June 11, the enclosure in French, Ticonderoga, 55. Note the word choice: north was down lake, while south was up lake!

59.JCC (May 10), 2:11.

60.Mott to the Mass. Congress, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557–60.

61.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 11, in Force, 4:2:557.

62.Enclosure to Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46.

63.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 14, in Force, 4:2:584–85. Cf. enclosure to Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46, which gives 111, not 114 total.

64.Enclosure to Knox to Washington, Dec 17, 1775, in PGW. Cf. enclosure noted in last note.

65.For instance: Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 14, in Force, 4:2:584–85.

66.Feltham to Gage, June 11; French, Ticonderoga, 61ff.

67.Clearly, they did not march together. From Allen to Trumbull, May 12, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:178–79, Allen still has no idea if Warner had taken Crown Point.

68.Allen to Trumbull, May 12, in ibid., wrongly states they had also captured Skene. Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 14, in Force, 4:2:584–85, also claims Skene was captured, as does Dr. Joseph Warren to John Scollay, May 17, which is enclosed as an attachment to Gage to Lord Dartmouth, May 17, in the Gage MSS (attachment not in Carter, 1:400). In fact, they had captured Skene’s son, Andrew (Nelson, Benedict Arnold’s Navy, 23). Maj. Philip Skene was in London, petitioning to be made the first lieutenant governor of the Fort Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga region. Gage and the Ministry knew his petition was coming: Lord Dartmouth to Gage, Aug 26, 1773, in Carter, 2:158, and the reply of Dec 1, 1773, in Carter, 1:354. Instead, Philip Skene was not captured until he returned circa August, just off Philadelphia’s coast (see Gage to Lord Dartmouth, Aug 20, 1775 [Secret], in Carter, 1:412–13; the story detailed in full in Nelson, Benedict Arnold’s Navy, 23–24). He is examined by a committee of the 2nd Continental Congress: JCC (June 8), 2:82.

69.Ethan Allen to Governor Trumbull, May 12, in Coll. of CHS (1860), 1:178–79; Allen, Narrative, 10. The name Betsey: De la Place to Gage, Apr 19, in Gage MSS (NB: There are two such letters), which gives her master is a Captain Friend.

70.There is no explicit Resolve electing him, but on May 10, he took over the duties as such, and signed many documents thereafter as chairman. See JEPCM, 541, 543, 548. However, a letter Comm. of Safety to Moses Gill [of the Comm. of Supplies], May 14, in French, Life and Times, 482–83, is signed again by Warren as chairman. Another reference, in ibid., 500–501, claims Warren again signed as chairman on June 4 (the quote there is incomplete and difficult to trace to the original). Neither of these two references in Frothingham appears in JEPCM. Perhaps Warren and Church alternated, depending on their availability. Neither signed as “acting chairman.” At least once when Church was in Philadelphia (see below), Benjamin White signed as chairman: JEPCM (June 18), 571. As there are no clear appointments of any chairman after Warren, it suggests a nebulous command structure.

71.Gordon, History, 1:339. This author ascribes the impossibly low number of 700 to the Roxbury camp. Barker, May 9, in British in Boston, 44, gives the number, which agrees with Stiles’s 4,000 at the start of the siege (Stiles, Apr 21, in Literary Diary, 1:537), and shows the British were not duped.

72.Judge Prescott’s account in Proc. of MHS (1876), 14:73.

73.Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward, 102–3; the order also in JEPCM (May 10), 541.

74.Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward, 103–4. Was it just a mistake? Maybe. The letter was addressed “To General Thomas of Plymouth”, but Thomas was indeed of Plymouth County. French, Informers, 161–62n2, suspects it was indeed a mistake.

75.An interesting quote often wrongly attributed to Warren appears in a Mar 7, 1774 letter of a Tory pamphleteer. It reads: “One of our most bawling demagogues and voluminous writers is a crazy Doctor, whom some years ago they were going to banish out of Town, for professing himself an Atheist.” The original source is a Tory writer under the pen name “Sagittarius,” and it appears in John Mein, ed., Sagittarius’s Letters and Political Speculations: Extracted from the Public Ledger (Boston: Printed by Order of the Boston Selectmen, 1775), 9. It is often quoted in many secondary sources, often without reference, almost always without the crucial end of the sentence. It is from the end of the sentence that we can draw our conclusions. Warren was never known to be at risk of banishment nor ever known to be an atheist. He seems to have been just as religious as most average Bostonians. Though French, Life and Times, 157, is one of the many secondary sources that quote this without the crucial ending, he does note the Tory may have been referring to Dr. Thomas Young. From private correspondence with Sam Forman (cited above), Dr. Young was accused (not professing himself) of being an atheist, and Samuel Adams helped defend him. Ultimately, following repeated death threats, Dr. Young did leave Boston, late in 1774.

76.Letter of Henry Hulton, June 20, in Hulton, Letters of a Loyalist Lady, 97–100. An excerpt appears in Commager and Morris, The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 136–37, wrongly attributed to his sister, Anne Hulton, the author of most of the letters in Hulton’s Letters of a Loyalist Lady.

77.Lord Rawdon to Earl Huntingdon, June 20, in Report on the Manuscripts of the Late Reginald Rawdon Hastings, 3:154–55, also in Commager and Morris, The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 130–31.

78.Warren to Mercy Scollay, May 10. The original is lost. But it can be largely reconstructed by comparing Item 5445 in Libbie & Co., Catalogue of Autographs, Letters, 224, and the “Fourth Letter” in Celebration by the Inhabitants of Worcester, 136. Also see the details cited in chap. 1, n. 37.

79.Brown’s Statement, May 20, in Force, 4:2:623–24, certainly gives no indication the two men were the same. In fact, that statement and other references to this Brown always call him John, not Jonathan, and call him a mister and an esquire, not a captain. Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46, deliberately calls him “Jonathan” and a captain.

80.Oswald’s journal, May “11” (really 12), May “13” (really 14), in NDAR, 1:312, 327, citing the original in the New England Chronicle (a.k.a. Essex Gazette), June 1, 1775. Oswald’s dates must be used with caution. The second entry as cited gives May 13, Sunday. But that Sunday was May 14, throwing into question all of the other dates. To pinpoint the error, let us consider Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46, which explicitly gives that they arrived 30 miles south of St. Johns on May 17. Oswald’s journal, May 16, in NDAR, 1:344, gives the same event. Thus, Oswald is accurate in what day of the week he gives (Sunday, etc.), when he gives one, but incorrect in what day of the month he gives (14th, etc.). In his May 11 entry, he does not give a day name, but given that the error seems perpetuated throughout the beginning of the journal, we might safely guess that the May 11 entry was really for a departure from Skenesborough on May 12, and that his May 13 entry for his arrival at Fort Ticonderoga was really May 14. Captain Sloan: Oswald’s journal, May “15” (really 16), in NDAR, 1:340; the name is also referenced in a payroll statement in the U.S. Archives, reproduced in Morton’s Birth of the United States Navy cited below.

81.Arnold’s Regimental Memorandum Book, May 14, in Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum (Summer 1981), 14:71.

82.Sparks, Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold, 15, 18; Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 14 and May 19, in Force, 4:2:584–85, 645–46. It is quite clear from these letters that Arnold sent his men to Skenesborough to fetch the schooner. What is not clear is when he gave this order. Did they come first to Fort Ticonderoga? If so, when? Given the distances and the timeline, with the recruits coming from Stockbridge far to the south, it seems most likely Arnold sent an express back to his traveling recruiting officers, redirecting them to Skenesborough. Another element is unclear: what happened to Capt. Samuel Herrick? Did Arnold send his men to Skenesborough to take command? Did Herrick and his men get absorbed into the crew of the schooner? The answers to these questions remain unknown. Perhaps Herrick and his men brought the bateaux that were perhaps found at Skenesborough (they suddenly appear without explanation in the original source material; see below). Cf. Doris Begor Morton, Birth of the United States Navy (Whitehall, NY: The Whitehall Independent, orig. 1982, 2nd. ed. 2007) pamphlet, which unfortunately lacks citations, graciously provided me by Ms. Carol Greenough, Director of the Skenesborough Museum in Whitehall, NY. It claims Herrick’s men joined with those of Arnold. This is also the source of Skene’s family, corroborated by Gage to Lord Dartmouth, May 17 [Separate], in Carter, 1:400, a copy of which is also in the Gage MSS and includes the attachment Dr. Joseph Warren to John Scollay, May 17, reaffirming the details (but see note 68).

83.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 14 and also of May 19, in Force, 4:2:584–85 and 645–46; Allen, Narrative, 10 (source of the quote). Arnold’s experience in seamanship: Sparks, Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold, 8–9. On the bateaux, see note 82, perhaps brought in by Captain Herrick. Arnold to Mass. Comm., May 19, reports Allen had 150 men, but Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358, reports four bateaux and 90 men. Allen’s own account gives us nothing more.

84.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 14, in Force, 4:2:584–85.

85.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46; Allen, Narrative, 10; Oswald’s journal, May “14” (really 15), in NDAR, 1:330 (see note 80). Cf. Extract of a Letter from Crown Point, May 19, in NDAR, 1:367, which claims they departed May 14.

86.U.S. Navy’s Sun and Moon Calculator, using 44° 52' N 73° 20' W for Isle La Motte, VT. Sunset was 7:17 p.m.; end of civil twilight was 7:52 p.m.

87.Oswald’s journal, May “15” (really 16), May “16” (really 17), in NDAR, 1:340, 344 (see note 80); Arnold’s Regimental Memorandum Book, undated May 16–18 entry, in Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum (Summer 1981), 14:71–72; Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46.

88.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46; Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358 (source of the quote). U.S. Navy’s Sun and Moon Calculator (see note 86). On the 17th, the waning gibbous had 92 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Sunrise on the 18th was 4:21 a.m., while the moon did not set until 7:29 a.m., assuring them a bright path throughout their night journey.

89.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46; Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358, which reports fourteen prisoners total.

90.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46.

91.Ibid. Using the builder’s measure (bm) equation for tonnage presented in appendix 5, and assuming the length of the keel for tonnage (k) is about 82 percent of the length of the gun deck (l), and assuming a breadth (b) of 28 percent the length (l), on par with other ships cited in that appendix, we can calculate that, in order for the ship to be 70 tons, it must be about 60' in length (l) and 17' in breadth (b).

92.Allen, Narrative, 10–11, and Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358, for example, do not count them among the prisoners taken. Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force 4:2:645–46, gives there are seven, but says not if they were impressed.

93.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46; Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358. Extract of a Letter from Crown Point, May 19, in ibid. 1:367, seems to parallel Arnold’s May 19 letter, almost as if the author is the same. However, Extract of a Letter from Crown Point reports five bateaux destroyed, five taken, in contrast with Arnold.

94.Allen, Narrative, 10–11, which suggests he met Arnold after he had come back to Liberty, but then contradicts himself by saying he was within miles of St. Johns. Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46, claims he came upon Allen 5 leagues, or 17 miles, south of St. Johns, and thus before they returned to Liberty. Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358, gives it was six miles south of St. Johns. Thus, the last three accounts agree it was before they came to Liberty, though they disagree on how far along.

95.Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46; Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR, 1:358.

96.Oswald’s journal, “Thursday” May 18, in NDAR 1:358; Carleton to Gage, May 31, in Gage MSS. Arnold to Mass. Comm. of Safety, May 19, in Force, 4:2:645–46, warns of an expected detachment.

97.Oswald’s journal in NDAR, 1:513 (this entry strangely marked May 23 in ibid. but “Saturday, [May] 19” in the original in New England Chronicle, a.k.a. Essex Gazette, June 1, 1775, p. 3). Also, Nelson, Benedict Arnold’s Navy, 53.

98.Carleton to Gage, May 31. Gage has already written of the news to Carleton, May 20, but his letter was not yet received in Montreal. Both letters are in the Gage MSS.

99.Mass. Congress learns of Taking of Fort Ticonderoga: JEPCM (May 17), 233. Mass. Congress learns of taking of St. Johns, etc.: Warren to Comm. of Safety, May 25, in French, Life and Times, 494, original in Mass. Archives, SC1/ser. 45X, Mass. Archives Coll. 193:241. Mass. Congress responds on that latest victory: JEPCM (May 27), 263. Gage learns of the taking of Fort Ticonderoga the same day the Mass. Congress did (May 17): Dr. Joseph Warren to John Scollay, May 17, intercepted by the British and attached to Gage to Lord Dartmouth, May 17, in the Gage MSS (this attachment not in Carter, 1:400). Church also reported the taking of the fort: Intelligence, May 24, in Gage MSS (more on this in French, Informers, 147ff.).

100.Carleton to Gage, May 31. In Carleton to Gage, June 4, Carleton adds that one Indian tribe had now pledged its support. However, the Indians ultimately do little. Instead, they mostly remain on the sidelines for the 1775 campaigns, despite British attempts to rouse them. (Both letters in Gage MSS.)