Chapter 6 Captivate, Kill, or Destroy
THE COMMANDER OF Castle Island was accustomed to spending evenings in the comfort of his home in the North End of Boston, away from the dreary harbor outpost that housed the Massachusetts Artillery Train. To the consternation of some, he would often be rowed ashore by his men at the end of the day in the Castle barge or whatever small vessel was available and spend time with his family and among the town’s people. One historian described him as “a military commuter who slept with his wife.”1 Paul and Rachel Revere would, in fact, have three more children during the period of 1776 to 1780.
When Revere finally received orders on June 26, 1779, to hold himself and his men in readiness for a planned attack on the enemy at Penobscot Bay, it was surely with a sense of ambivalence that he prepared himself for the hardships to come. Though it would be difficult to leave the comforting arms of his wife and family for the uncertainties of battle, his wholehearted loathing for the oppression that had led his comrades to war nearly overwhelmed him. He had confessed to Rachel while in Newport with his regiment the previous year, “. . . were I at home I should want to be here.”2 Finally, Revere mused, it was his turn to partake in the glories of war that had been, to that point, so unjustly denied him.
Reverend Murray’s castigation of the Massachusetts Council was but one of many notifications and pleas for assistance that would follow the British landing on Bagaduce Peninsula. Though Colonel Buck had fled the area like so many others who refused to swear allegiance to the Crown, he did travel south to Pownalborough to notify his regional commander, General Charles Cushing, of the size and scope of McLean’s force and its intended purpose. On June 19, 1779, Cushing forwarded the first official notice of the landing to the council. “Col. Buck is here . . . to inform your Honors of the arrival of the Enemy at Penobscot . . . ,” he wrote. “If the General Court should think proper to send a suitable force of shipping which with other assistance by Land—It is thought they might easily be dislodged.”3
Several days before Paul Revere and others would receive their embarkation orders, a committee of both houses of the Massachusetts General Court, appointed by Speaker John Hancock, grimly considered the British presence on the shores of Maine. Despite their traditional posture of indifference toward the territory, it was evident that unambiguous and determined action was now required. The committee, instantly realizing the threat posed to the region by the eastward stronghold, directed that all ships of war in Boston Harbor and its surrounding ports, including any private armed vessels in those ports, be prepared for a “cruize against [the] enemy . . .”4 Aware that the British were laboring day and night to construct their garrison, and fearing the arrival of reinforcements to aid in their defense, the committee set a date for the launch of the American expedition of just six days’ time.5
Hancock’s committee sent urgent dispatches to the counties surrounding Penobscot Bay urging “spirited exertions” by land and sea to assist in the dislodging of the enemy from the Maine coast, and new conscription efforts for Continental service were suspended to allow the manning of regiments for the undertaking.6 Though the inhabitants of many eastern counties lacked food, provisions, and armaments, they beseeched the government to intervene against the enemy, and they pledged whatever troops they could raise in the effort. They also informed the committee of British overtures to the Penobscot and Norridgawalk Indian tribes and pleaded for measures of friendship to be extended to those tribes. The specter of a foreign army enlisting Indians in a war against the colonists was too fresh in the minds of many to be borne lightly. The members of the council seated at Boston and led by its president, Jeremiah Powell, took careful note of every appeal and petition that arrived; and though it fully expected provincial militia units to cooperate with the provision of manpower for the coming expedition, it was clear that the primary contribution of officers, supplies, and finances would fall upon the Town of Boston.
As preparations for the Penobscot Expedition got under way, members of the council and the people of Boston at large brimmed with the confidence of ultimate victory, and all thoughts of a petition for assistance to the Continental Congress evaporated. “Such was their zeal and confidence of success,” wrote army surgeon James Thacher in his military journal, “that . . . the General Court neither consulted any experienced military character, nor desired the assistance of any continental troops on this important enterprise; thus taking on themselves the undivided responsibility, and reserving for their own heads, all the laurels to be derived from the anticipated conquest.”7 Indeed, neither General Horatio Gates, the adjutant-general of the Continental Army, nor George Washington himself, was consulted until well after preparations for the mission were under way.8
Despite the council’s reluctance to seek congressional assistance or troops for the expedition, the question regarding warships was an entirely different matter. In 1779 the Massachusetts navy consisted of only three armed vessels, the brigs Tyrannicide, Active, and Hazard, each equipped with fourteen guns.9 The overwhelming show of naval force that would be required to remove the British from Bagaduce Peninsula would, accordingly, have to be supplied by other sources.
As word of the enemy’s landing arrived at the Massachusetts statehouse, three serving Continental ships of war, the thirty-two gun frigate, Warren, the twelve-gun sloop, Providence, and the twelve-gun brig, Diligent, were moored in Boston Harbor.10 The council quickly informed the Continental Navy Board stationed in Boston of the emerging plans to dislodge the British from Maine and, in an effort to generate a “Superior Naval Force,” petitioned the board for use of its three vessels on the expedition.11 On the same day, the board readily agreed to the request, assuring the council “that no exertions of Ours shall be wanting on this Occasion.”12 The flagship Warren would lead the expedition to Maine.
As Boston worked with the navy board to prepare its Continental ships for battle, officers of the Massachusetts Board of War, charged by the council with the responsibility of acquiring the private and state naval force for the expedition, adroitly canvassed the harbors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire and implored the holders of all available armed vessels to contribute their ships to the Penobscot Expedition. In the coastal village of Newburyport, Massachusetts, the owners of four private vessels—the twenty-gun warship Vengeance, the twenty-four-gun warship Monmouth, the sixteen-gun warship Sky Rocket, and the fourteen-gun brig Pallas—willingly offered their vessels for use in the expedition on the promise of the state to incur the cost of manning, equipping, and insuring the ships against loss.13 In Boston the Board of War “engaged” the twenty-gun ship Charming Sally and the six-gun sloop Charming Polly “upon the same Conditions as have been offered by the General Court for the Penobscot Expedition.”14 And in Salem, a committee of the council conferred with owners of the armed ships Hector, Hunter, and Black Prince, and under the threat of forced seizure, successfully “endeavored to impress upon their Minds the Importance of these Vessels being engaged . . .”15
Where gentle persuasion failed to achieve the desired result, the council did not hesitate to exert its legislative power to impress naval assets into service. On July 2 it ordered the sheriffs of Suffolk County to impress the armed ship General Putnam, then moored at Boston Harbor with its compliment of twenty guns, “for a Two Months Cruize” to Maine,16 and in New Hampshire, Governor Meshech Weare seized the twenty-two gun privateer Hampden and offered her to the Massachusetts Council to oppose the British at Majabigwaduce.
By the first week of July, the council and the Massachusetts Board of War had amassed an imposing armada of twenty Continental, state, and privately owned warships that had been either donated or impressed from the coastal ports of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, together with a compliment of twenty-one unarmed transports, comprised mostly of sloops and schooners.17 Equipped with a total of 324 guns of various scale,18 the State of Massachusetts Bay had assembled “the strongest and finest naval force” of the Revolution.19
With the issue of naval equipment firmly resolved, the problem quickly became one of manpower. Few incentives existed for a Rebel soldier or sailor to enlist for service on a state or Continental vessel, when a position on a privately owned ship could offer an inviting share in the “plunders” of war well in excess of any government-paid wage.
Privateering, as it was known, flourished along the shores of New England during the Revolution and was aimed not at military or naval victory, but at pirating the valuable freight of wealthy merchant ships. “It was easy to slip into almost any [bay or harbor] with a prize, by men familiar with every inlet; and it was equally easy, also . . . to spring out upon their unsuspecting prey,” wrote one historian.20 These “little wasps,”21 as they came to be known, shared in the profits generated by their efforts and operated with the sole purpose of personal gain, with little thought of service to country. Though the private vessels employed for use in the Penobscot Expedition were to sail under the color and authority of the Massachusetts government, their owners and crews would be entitled to retain the fruits of any plunder and profit derived on the mission; and though bound by public duty to fulfill official orders, these men remained driven by speculation.
For those unwilling to undergo the personal risk of boarding the private vessels bound for Maine on the Penobscot Expedition, other opportunities for speculative profit still existed. Widespread confidence in the coming mission prompted the formation of private syndicates, whose investors purchased shares in private armed vessels with the hope of taking part in the gains to be derived through the labors of the captain and crew. Public auctions of captured and plundered goods—cannons in particular—would be advertised in Boston newspapers; and after the payment of expenses, the gains would be divided in proportion to the investments made.22 Private opportunities thus would cloud the ultimate objective of the Penobscot Expedition and place the state in a disadvantaged position in the manning of its public vessels.
Time was becoming a critical factor to the council, and it was now clear that its six-day target for the commencement of the expedition would not be met. The Warren alone required a crew of nearly one hundred men, and sluggish recruitment severely hampered the process. With the meager wages of the state and Continental navies competing against the financial opportunities presented by twelve private vessels, enlistment on the government ships came to a standstill. In a classic “carrot and stick” proposition, on July 3 the council issued two resolutions designed to solve its conscription problem. First, it relinquished all public right to the expected spoils of the expedition, reserving such claim to any crew members who victoriously captured such prizes,23 and failing that measure, it simultaneously authorized the sheriffs of each county to “seize & impress any able-bodied Seamen, or Mariner to serve on board any of the Vessels . . . employed in the proposed expedition to Penobscot.”24 With these measures in place—together with the posting of armed guards at the docks and ferries of Boston Harbor to prevent the escape of sailors—an additional sixty men were cajoled into service on state and Continental ships, thus completing their need.25
Recruitment efforts for the undertaking within the regional militia units were not going much better. In Maine, some men concealed themselves to avoid conscription, while others joined under force or threat. Major Jeremiah Hill, adjutant-general of the Maine Militia, wrote of the call to arms: “[S]ome sent Boys, old Men, and Invalids . . . [T]hey were soldiers whether they could carry a Gun, walk a mile without crutches, or only Compos Mentis sufficient to keep themselves out of Fire & Water.”26
Colonel John Brewer of Penobscot, who was part of the initial delegation sent by the local inhabitants to treat with General McLean, had been provided a full view of the British encampment and later recommended to the Massachusetts Council that at least three thousand men be sent to dispossess the enemy from Majabigwaduce.27 With the relentless tug of Continental enlistment and lucrative privateers swallowing up the available pool of soldiers, it would be a challenge for the state to raise half that number.
The captain of the frigate Warren sullenly trudged upon the ship’s deck and peered across her bow to the maddening commerce and activity of Boston Harbor beyond. He watched with mounting resentment as privateers with pirated wealth came and went, always anxious to avoid the watchful eyes of the county sheriffs who patrolled the docks in search of sailors attempting to evade naval impressment. The captain would be glad when the Massachusetts embargo on commercial shipping went into effect, as a further measure to encourage seaman to join the coming expedition. He had spent a portion of his capable yet undistinguished naval career as a privateer himself, and he had assumed command of several Continental vessels during the Revolution, yet Boston and her busy trade seemed to irk him.28
A native of Connecticut and a son to a prominent and wealthy New London family, Dudley Saltonstall had been appointed as an officer of the Continental Navy, less for his seamanship than at the urging of his brother-in-law, Silas Deane, a member of the Continental Congress. Thickly set and of modest height, the forty-two-year-old Saltonstall was a dour and obstinate presence among his men. A fellow captain described him as “a Sensible indefatigable Morose Man,”29 and the renowned John Paul Jones, who served with Saltonstall on HMS Alfred, would comment that he “behaved toward inferiours indiscriminately as tho’ they were of a lower species . . . [H]e was a sleepy gentleman—ill-natured and narrow-minded.”30
As Jeremiah Powell and the members of the Massachusetts Council teamed with Speaker of the House John Hancock and Board of War member Samuel Adams, who had returned to Boston after recently chairing the Marine Committee in Congress, to work through the process of manning the Penobscot Expedition, local military officers began receiving appointments for the prominent and critical leadership roles of the mission. The Continental Navy had graciously consented to the use of its three warships stationed at Boston, but it was made abundantly clear that the intractable captain of the Warren was to be included in the compact—Massachusetts could not have the Continental fleet without its commander.31 In the opening days of July 1779, Dudley Saltonstall received a dispatch from the council chamber appointing him as commodore of all armed vessels for the expedition to Penobscot. “We wish you a Prosperous Cruise & sincerely pray that all your Exertions in the Cause of your Country may be attended with a Divine Blessing,” the order observed.32
Perhaps in recognition of Saltonstall’s prickly disposition, the council opted to divide authority for the mission between two leaders, asking each to “promote the Greatest Harmony, peace and concord . . .” among the infantry and sea divisions.33
To the post of commander for American land forces, the council turned to one of its own. Solomon Lovell was a longtime representative for the Town of Weymouth in the Massachusetts General Court and had been active in state and local politics for most of his adult life. A successful agriculturalist by trade, Lovell also had served under Richard Gridley during the ill-fated Crown Point expedition in the Seven Years’ War, where he first made the acquaintance of Paul Revere.
While carrying on his promising political career, Lovell steadily rose through the ranks of the Massachusetts State Militia, and in 1777 he was elected by the council to the venerated post of brigadier general for Suffolk County. He served creditably in the Newport campaign in the summer of 1778 and later stood in command of one thousand militiamen in defense of Boston.34 Yet, for all the admiration from his political contemporaries in the General Court and the lofty positions of command granted to him, the forty-seven-year-old Lovell was largely untested in the ways of actual warfare. The man whom the Council had chosen to conduct the perilous ground assault against General McLean and his Scottish regiments at Majabigwaduce was, in truth, a gentleman farmer and a career politician.35
As one of Lovell’s men would soon lament, “Our general was said to be a very good sort of man, but these good sort of men seldom make good generals.”36
“Captivate Kill or destroy” the enemy, came the council’s clear and unequivocal order to both Saltonstall and Lovell.37
Through the first days of July 1779, Boston hummed with activity in preparation for the coming expedition. Vast supplies of food and munitions were gathered, and the impressment of seamen and militiamen continued in Massachusetts and throughout the coastal counties of Maine. Though Adjutant-General Hill had reported widespread problems in recruitment around Cumberland County, and continued difficulties in the manning of Boston’s warships led to alarming delays in the start of the mission, one dispatch from William Frost in Falmouth, Maine, boasted, “We can’t but flatter ourselves, that from the Active Zeal & Spirited Exertion of our worthy Brethren in the Eastern part of the State, the Army will be rais’d & in such force as may effectually crush this daring attempt of the presumptuous foe, & render [Majabigwaduce] as brilliant in the annals of the United States as Saratoga or Charlestown.”38
On June 26, the council issued orders to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere to hold himself and one hundred matrosses under his authority in readiness to embark for Maine on the Penobscot Expedition. The council’s demand for peace and harmony among the forces would be immediately tested, however, when Revere, the appointed commander of the artillery for the expedition, learned with dismay that Captain William Todd, his vexing nemesis from Castle Island, had been named by General Lovell as one of his brigade majors for the operation. Outraged by the appointment, Revere sent an emissary of officers from his regiment to Boston to meet with Lovell in an attempt to dissuade him from including the captain on the mission. One of the general’s underlings assured the men that Todd would, in fact, be omitted, and they returned to Castle Island to inform their commander of the good news. Shortly thereafter, General Lovell engaged William Todd as he had always intended.
Revere was incensed. At once, he crossed the harbor and personally called on the general at his makeshift headquarters in the state house, informing him of how “very inimical to the Corps of Artillery”39 was William Todd. “He would do everything in his power to hurt them,”40 Revere insisted. Despite this haranguing, however, Lovell persisted in his decision, refusing to involve himself in the personal quarrels of his men. Revere’s response was one of derisory pettiness: “I represented to the General how disagreeable [Todd] was to me, and my Officers, and that I should never speak to him but in the line of my duty.”41 It was surely a harbinger of a systemic and pervasive problem of leadership that would plague General Lovell throughout the coming weeks.
“The expedition is a matter of much speculation here . . . ,” wrote Seth Loring, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, to his superior, General Heath. “I imagine it will not be so easily accomplished as many of our sanguine citizens suppose.”42