Chapter 4 Seeds of Discontent

AS THE WARY and tattered British regiments reeled east from Concord and Lexington, an alarmed and agitated countryside watched their every step and laid ambush from stone walls, trees, and fences. “The ‘promenade’ to Concord had been a ghastly failure,” wrote Esther Forbes. “Gage had lost one in nine of the number he had sent out.”1

With the first shots of the American Revolution, the Whig leaders of Boston fled to the surrounding towns and villages, while Tories and British Loyalists poured into Boston in droves and faithfully submitted to the authority of General Gage. Immediately following his return from Lexington, Revere met with Joseph Warren at the Jonathan Hastings House in Cambridge. Warren was then serving as president of the Committee of Safety, an organization that launched and coordinated the military and propaganda response to British aggressions. Warren engaged Revere “to do the out of doors business”² for the committee and prudently avoid the Town of Boston and the watchful eyes of British officials. He initially stayed in Charlestown and sent for Rachel and the children to join him, with the exception of his fifteen-­year-­old son, Paul Jr., who would stay and look after the family house. “It is now in your power to be serviceable to me, your mother and yourself,” Revere wrote to the boy.³

Aware that most of his time would now be devoted to service of country, Revere’s role as messenger for the Committee of Safety would become as much a commercial enterprise as it was a display of patriotism. As early as December 1773, following the Boston Tea Party, Revere was asked to courier messages throughout Massachusetts and beyond, and he promptly began submitting bills of five shillings per day for services rendered to the colony. Though no evidence exists that he ever charged a fee for his ride to Lexington on the night of April 18–19, he did submit bills for all future official trips. If the committee was going to call on him to neglect his prosperous business in favor of public service, Revere would insist that he be paid for it. Interestingly, Revere’s daily rate was deemed excessive by the committee and promptly reduced to four shillings.4

With the authorities in Boston under General Gage heated and unfriendly to Whig leaders, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress reconvened at the meetinghouse at the corner of Common and Mill Streets (now Mount Auburn Street) in nearby Watertown, which for a period of time served as the capital of the Patriot effort in the colony. Here Dr. Warren worked tirelessly to coordinate the government in Massachusetts and to raise an army to defend it, while Hancock and both Adams served as Massachusetts delegates to the First Continental Congress, convened at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia in September, as a first response to the Intolerable Acts.

Warren constantly called on his friend Revere, and others, to summon legislative meetings and to deliver messages to Congress, but it was during this period that Revere served the colony and his country in another equally important way. With little financial means to pay for a growing local and federal army, both Massachusetts and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia commissioned him to engrave plates for the printing of notes. Practically worthless on its face, this “paste-­board currency of the rebels,”⁵ as the British called it because of the absurd thickness of the paper, was seen as an absolute necessity in a time of a dwindling public treasury. Again, however, an audit committee of the Provincial Congress questioned Revere’s bill for services rendered and subsequently reduced it as excessive. “[T]he Committee of the House ordered the paper to be made & did not agree for the price,” he wrote.⁶

While General Gage solidified his defenses in Boston with the arrest of known and remaining Whig activists, the confiscation of weapons, and the limitation of travel out of the town except via a “pass,” Revere watched with mounting resentment as the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts pondered the selection of officers to lead the revolutionary forces and to oversee an eventual attack on the occupying army in Boston. Two veterans of the Seven Years’ War, Richard Gridley and William Burbeck, both tested and able artillerymen, were appointed as chief engineers of a newly raised artillery regiment and, along with the members of the Provincial Congress, were charged with the task of selecting military officers for the defense of the American continent. Though Revere had served with Gridley during the Crown Point expedition of 1756, and though Gridley and Burbeck were both fellow Masonic brothers, neither man chose Revere to serve in the vaunted position of army ­officer.

Despite Revere’s indispensable service to Massachusetts and the country at large, with a growing sense of personal frustration he would find himself consistently bypassed for the prominent and coveted role of an officer in the Continental Army, even as friends and acquaintances received such appointments. His dissatisfaction about the perceived snub was unmistakable. “I did expect . . . to have been in the Continental Army,” he wrote to his friend John Lamb in April of 1777.7 Samuel Adams would later chide Revere for his display of ambition: “We are contending, not for Glory, but for Liberty Safety & Happiness of our country,” Adams wrote.⁸

During this period Revere would be described by historians as conscientious, intelligent, and resourceful.⁹ He was an active member of the Sons of Liberty and had courageously participated in nearly every critical phase in the lead-­up to the American Revolution; yet despite this proven record of loyal patriotism, members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the Continental Congress viewed him, perhaps, as lacking in the attributes required of a Continental officer. At the time, the process of making military appointments was often fraught with politics and nepotism, and Revere had not attained the level of education, wealth, and the status of a “gentleman” deemed necessary for positions of military leadership by General Washington and others in command.¹⁰ His military service in the Seven Years’ War was unremarkable; and though he had exhibited courage and agility as a mounted courier spreading word of the Crown’s tyranny, there is no record of Revere reaching for a musket at Lexington to oppose the coming Redcoats as others had, nor of him heeding the call to arms on June 16, 1775, on Breeds Hill, where his friend Dr. Warren heroically would lose his life. “Paul Revere was a good many things,” wrote Forbes, “but not a soldier.”11

Had he burned with an eager desire to fight for the independence of his country, Revere could easily have volunteered in any number of local regiments that were raised around Boston in the spring and summer of 1775.¹² There is no indication that he did so. He may have learned through his limited military experience just enough to realize that life as an enlisted foot soldier was not for him. His eyes were, nonetheless, fixed on the prospect of a high-­status post as an officer in the Continental Army.

An earlier rift with William Burbeck also may have alienated Revere from his Masonic brother and possibly blocked an appointment in Gridley’s prestigious artillery company.

In 1764 the two men were involved in a complicated set of transactions centered on the purchase of the Green Dragon Tavern by St. Andrew’s Lodge for its use as a Masonic meeting place. The title was taken in Burbeck’s name on behalf of St. Andrew’s, and he agreed to advance all costs and expenses of the lodge for a ten-­year period, after which time he would reconvey the property and be reimbursed for his expenditures.¹³ At some point during his ownership, however, Burbeck apparently felt insecure in his investment, and he unilaterally seized possession of the St. Andrew’s charter and held it at Castle Island, where he served at the time as keeper of the ordnance. Burbeck may have taken his action less for his own personal benefit than as a tool to shield the lodge from the zealous political leanings of Paul Revere, who he feared would seek the partition of St. Andrew’s from its parent, the Grand Lodge of Scotland, as the percolating revolution came to life.¹⁴ Whatever the cause, Burbeck still refused to relinquish the document even after he was repaid the monies due to him.

Revere became the point man in the lodge’s quest for its charter and repeatedly warned his fellow Mason of the consequences of continued defiance. Finally, on May 13, 1773, Burbeck was suspended from the lodge until such time as he could provide satisfactory reasons for detention of the charter. None were given, and it would be forty years before the charter was finally returned to the lodge.¹⁵ The rift between Revere and Burbeck, however, would stifle Revere’s military career and, in coming years, impact his reputation throughout Boston.

Despite the influence of John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren in matters of military appointments, there appears to have been little they could do for Paul Revere. Even as several of his contemporaries received (and sometimes turned down) commissions in the federal army, General Washington and the Continental Congress had many other capable names from which to choose, and the ambitious Revere simply did not carry the military clout and political weight required for serious consideration. Though he was unquestionably “a person in good Circumstances . . . [having] many friends at Boston and other places on the Continent,”16 as his cousin John Rivoire observed in 1775, Revere would be “obliged to be contented” with local service to the Town of Boston and the Colony of Massachusetts during the Revolution, leaving the enviable Continental Army commissions to his friends and acquaintances.¹⁷

On April 10, 1776, Revere finally received a commission as a major with the Massachusetts State’s Train, a local militia regiment consisting of ten companies formed for the defense of Boston and its harbor. His assumptions about the lack of prestige of the local militias, however, were quickly validated. Though he would swiftly rise to the position of lieutenant colonel—a rank he would hold for the duration of the war and a title he would use for the rest of his life—Revere soon would find himself stationed with the train of artillery, amid the familiar isolation of Castle Island. The post was a far cry from the vaunted status of an officer in the Continental Army.

Working under the command of Colonel Thomas Crafts Jr., with whom he had served as an ardent member of the Sons of Liberty, Revere adjusted to his diminished role in the service to his country. He drilled his troops as a forward defense of Boston in the event of attack, and he duly showed the colors and fired salutes to passing ships of war. He endlessly marched and exercised his men and, on occasion, readied the fort to receive prisoners. He presided over numerous courts-­martial for deserters and others engaged in such egregious offenses as drunkenness and playing cards on the Sabbath,¹⁸ yet he humanely issued pardons as often as he doled out the punishment of “Lashes on . . . [the] Naked Back with a Cat of Nine Tails.”19 Revere maintained a tidy and disciplined regiment with officers, gunners, and matrosses (artillery soldiers who assisted the gunners) dressed clean and powdered, and on July 4, 1777, the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he fired the island cannon and prepared his men for a parade to Fort Hill in a “Grand Salute.”²⁰ In short, life at Castle Island proved repetitive and uneventful. The ennui of the tedious routine and lack of military engagement ultimately would make it difficult for Revere to maintain order and make his duties as company officer frustrating and often confrontational.

With General Howe’s army vanquished from Boston and the focus of British operations turned south to New York and Rhode Island, the interest and dedication of Revere’s men continued to wane. The laurels of war seemed to pass Revere’s company by, and boredom and discouragement permeated its ranks. “Non Commissioned Officers and Matrosses have almost lost every Idea of Military Subordination and Discipline, and . . . many of them Totally Neglect their Duty and make the miserable Plea of Forgetfulness there [sic] Excuse,”²¹ complained Colonel Crafts.

By June of 1777 General John Burgoyne had led the British army south from Canada seizing Fort Ticonderoga in pursuit of his plan to split off New England from the rest of the colonies. As the summer progressed, Burgoyne began to meet heavy colonial resistance; and on August 16 General John Stark and his militia unit of some two thousand men from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont routed one of Burgoyne’s detachments near Bennington, taking nearly seven hundred prisoners. The victory was absolute and its significance to colonial forces overwhelming. The “steam roller”²² Burgoyne had, at last, been stalled. To Paul Revere and his men, however, the American triumph finally would provide an opportunity to assume a more useful role—minor as it may have been—outside of Castle Island.

On August 27, “five Drums & five fifes, one Hundred & twenty Sergeants, Corporals, Bombardiers, Gunners & Matrosses,”²³ all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere, were ordered to march for Worcester to take custody of the British prisoners who had been captured in the Battle of Bennington. At the commencement of the expedition, Revere admonished his men, “As Strict Discipline, and Good Order is the life & Soul of a Soldier, the Lieutenant Colonel expects that there will be the best Order observed on the March . . .”24 Despite the fanfare of Revere’s orders, the greatest challenge that he faced on the mission still appeared to be containing the overly exuberant conduct of his men, who were only too happy to escape the monotony of daily life at Castle Island.

Once arrived in Worcester, Revere and his men quartered at the county courthouse and, four days later, took possession of Burgoyne’s captured troops, comprised of mostly Hessians, and escorted them back to Boston without incident.

The following month, Colonel Thomas Crafts issued orders to Revere and his artillery regiment to take part in what would be the first futile attempt to dislodge the British from Newport, Rhode Island. With the British occupying New York and parts of Rhode Island, there was a continual danger of attack on Boston from the south, and this effort to dislodge the enemy was welcome news to Massachusetts—and perhaps even more welcome to Revere and his men, who yearned for an opportunity to engage the enemy.

On September 27, the artillery regiment began its trek to Newport and by the first few days of October was stationed about four miles from the enemy readying itself for battle. General Joseph Spencer, chosen by Washington to command the mission, faltered when violent weather and a change in British defenses delayed the attack. As the morale of the troops began to wane in the coming days, Spencer abandoned the attempt. The “secret expedition,”²⁵ as Colonel Crafts described the mission of his artillery regiment in Newport, encountered no enemy hostilities and returned safely to Boston without a serious conflict or casualty.²⁶ On November 3, however, ignoring the futility of the effort, Crafts issued compliments to Revere and his men for “their extraordinary Military & Soldier-­like behavior on the Rhode . . .”²⁷

With the Revolutionary War being waged seemingly in his absence, Revere felt sadly removed from the march of the new nation. The Continental Army fought at Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Stillwater, and General Washington at first floundered and then regrouped at Valley Forge. The momentous American victory at Saratoga in October of 1777, and the resulting surrender of General Burgoyne, would seal the alliance with France, and soon Boston would be protected by new French fortifications at Hull, relegating Castle Island to near obsolete status.28 Revere eventually would be appointed full commander of Castle Island and, from time to time, Hull, Long Island, and Governor’s Island, with responsibility for an ever-­discontented company of men.²⁹

Nearly a year after the first failed attempt to dispossess the British of their positions at Newport, George Washington once again turned his attention to the island stronghold. General John Sullivan, joined by an armada of French warships, attacked the enemy in a joint naval and land assault that would mark America’s initial act of military cooperation with France in the Revolutionary War. The call would go forth throughout New England to man the campaign at Newport, and Revere’s artillery regiment once again would return south to assist in the battle. “You have heard this Island is the Garden of America,” he wrote to his wife Rachel. “[B]ut those British savages have so abused and destroyed the Trees . . . that it does not look like the same Island.”³⁰

Initial optimism over the siege of Newport was high. Sergeant Major William Russell of Revere’s regiment wrote, “We have almost surrounded the Enemy by Land, and the French by Water . . . In a few days by the Blessing of God we shall be in Newport and Masters of it.”³¹ On August 12, however, a gale brewed over the Atlantic—“the most severe N. East Storm I ever knew,”³² wrote Revere—frustrating the plans and maneuvers on both sides of the conflict. The French fleet would retreat to Boston, and the second Newport campaign would end in confusion and failure, again with little opportunity for Revere or his men to confront and engage the enemy.

By the winter of 1778–79, British operations had turned to the southern states in an effort to create new bases from which the rebellion in the north could be quelled. With the surrender of Burgoyne the previous year, the situation in and around New York had deteriorated into a standoff of surgical raids and petty attacks, which were carried out by both sides to little advantage.

In Boston, circumstances for Revere and his men continued to be uneventful and difficult. They were short on provisions and blankets, and pay was sporadic. Poor conditions and lack of meaningful activity often led to petty squabbles and desertions, and Revere petitioned the Massachusetts Council for assistance. The previous summer Thomas Harrison, a soldier in an adjoining regiment, had been found guilty of “the Agravated Crime of Desertion” and was sentenced to be shot to death. Even as the roar of musket fire signaling Harrison’s execution echoed through Castle Island, General William Heath, in charge of the Continental Army in Massachusetts, admonished all the local militia units to “learn from this example” that such a crime “will not escape a punishment Adequate to the Infamy of the Offence . . .”33

As the tension and tedium among the men at Castle Island steadily increased, Revere began to intensify his grip of authority on the garrison. Despite the harsh treatment of regimental deserters, the lure of Continental service and the lucrative bounty of privateering proved too much of a temptation for many of his men.

In March of 1779, fifteen of the train’s enlistees boarded, without authorization, the frigates Providence and Boston moored in the harbor. The ships’ commanders had actively recruited from the ranks of the Castle Island artillery regiment, and Revere had been justifiably angered by their brazen enticement of his men. Upon the failure of the captains to relinquish his men on demand, Revere sent a dispatch to the Massachusetts Council prudently seeking legal assistance. “I lay these matters before Your Honors, hoping something may be done . . . ,” he wrote. “For it is in vain for us to Recruit men, if the Marine Officers may take them from us.”³⁴ Immediately, the Council ordered the return of the deserters to Castle Island and instructed Revere to prevent the passage of the ships until the men were duly surrendered.

In the coming days, the tensions escalated, and the Providence finally approached the island. Revere, shouting through a bullhorn, ordered his men to alight the ship. When only ten of the fifteen acquiesced, and after a heated exchange between Revere and the ship’s officers, Revere ordered the Castle Island cannon to fire upon the Providence. The remaining five men quickly rowed ashore, but the event served only to anger the regiment and heighten already tense feelings toward the commander. It was now clearly understood that Paul Revere was a man who would not hesitate to fire even on American ships in the interest of preserving order and decorum.35

By early 1779, the Castle Island artillery regiment had become neglected and relatively depleted. With provisions scarce and pay sporadic, the lure of Continental service and the profits of privateering led to rampant desertions, and soon the Massachusetts House ordered a reduction of the regiment to three companies. With the resulting diminished need for regimental officers, several of the commanders, including Captain William Todd, Captain Winthrop Gray, Lieutenant John Marston, and even Colonel Thomas Crafts himself, all of whom served with Revere in the state militia, offered their resignations by petition to the Council. Revere, however, refused to join in the petition. Though perhaps meant as an admirable assumption of patriotic duty in the face of a restructured force, his rivals viewed his unwillingness to relinquish control, while others had, as a sign of selfish ambition.³⁶

The malevolent feelings of some militia commanders toward Revere after the reduction of the artillery unit would quickly result in an angry rejoinder. William Todd and Winthrop Gray, both infuriated over Revere’s unwillingness to relinquish his command as they had, called on General Artemas Ward, who was serving at the time on the executive council of the Massachusetts General Court. Todd and Gray bitterly complained about Revere; and then, in a private room of the legislative chamber, Todd informed Ward that Revere on occasion had drawn rations at Castle Island for thirty more men than were present and posted in the regiment and that the charges could be easily proven. The implication, of course, was that Revere had appropriated these rations for his own use and profit.

Several days later, Revere was served with an order to appear before the Council to answer to a petition signed by Todd, Gray, and others that formalized their allegations. “I appeared at the appointed time and they never produced a single article against me,” Revere bitterly recalled. “Ever since they have done everything in their power to hurt me, by insinuations: Though none of them ever charged me to my face.”37

Those charges would not be long in coming.