Chapter 12 “Dearer to Me Than Life”

EVEN AS THE committee began deliberating on the volumes of testimonial evidence that it had adduced during its inquiry, petitions from the people of eastern Maine continued to pour into Boston. With the Rebel forces vanquished from Majabigwaduce and with the fishing and lumber trades completely in enemy hands, destitute families looked to the Massachusetts Council for relief. Samuel Burgess, a longtime resident of Lincoln County and one such victim of the British incursion, forwarded his dire remonstration to the government and pleaded for assistance. “Cruel Enemies of these American States,” wrote Burgess, “Invaded Penobscot and Destroyed your Petitioner’s House and Stripped him and his Family of all that he had in the wide world, so that he and his family are by their merciless cruelty reduced to the utmost distress Poverty and want.”1

Burgess’s appeal was typical of the region, and the suffering was not confined to Maine—nor was it limited to individuals or families. In Boston, the Board of War informed the Massachusetts General Court of the “difficulties and embarrassments inextricable, and without . . . immediate interposition, totally insurmountable” that it found itself in as a result of the “unfortunate Expedition” to Maine.² The financial and emotional impact to the region would prove staggering.

Amid this turmoil Paul Revere anxiously prepared his own plea—his closing argument—for presentation to Artemas Ward and his fellow panel members. He had intended to deliver this epistle to the committee prior to its adjournment but found that the sheer breadth of the document detained him past the deadline. Shortly after the inquiry, a rambling letter of defense—nearly three thousand words in length—­arrived in the Council Chamber and was added to the mass of evidence to be weighed by the Committee.

“It lays with You in a great measure,” Revere’s letter began, “from the evidence for and against me, to determine what is more dearer to me than life; my character.”3 He explained that certain “prejudices” against him as expressed to the committee were, in fact, the result of “stories, propagated by designing men to my disadvantage.” Accordingly, urged Revere, a little history of his predicament was in order.

Referencing the reduction of the Massachusetts Artillery Train in early 1779 and the resulting resignation of many of its officers, including William Todd, Revere insisted that his assumption of power and rigid manner of authority had created enemies in the regiment. “I accepted the command, (which was by desire of the Council) and did all in my power, to hinder the men from deserting . . . ,” wrote Revere. “And because I would not give up my Commission, the same way the other officers did, some of them propagated every falsehood Malice could invent in an underhanded way.”⁴ Here, according to Revere, was the genesis of the conspiracy.

With Todd named as an integral member of General Lovell’s camp on the Penobscot Expedition, Revere pointed out “what a situation I was in, with such an inveterate enemy in the General’s Family.” He explained to Lovell how “disagreeable” Todd had been to him, and he vowed that he would never exchange words with him on the expedition unless required by duty. This fact, according to Revere, explained why he may not have been seen at the general’s camp on Majabigwaduce as often as other officers had been.

Revere insisted that he nonetheless met with the general during the expedition at least twice a day. “He saw me often,” wrote Revere. “Yet he never gave me the most distant hint that he thought I omitted or neglected any part of my duty.”

Revere’s letter then focused on the allegations of William Todd. “I have not the least doubt,” wrote Revere, “but . . . Todd procured the [orders and allegations against me].” One by one, Revere addressed the charges leveled by Todd and his surrogates.

“He swears that I did not land [during the assault on the cliffs] in time, and insinuates it was done with design.” Though the testimony on this point was contradictory at best, Revere, relying on the statements of several militia officers, baldly concluded, “[T]o his confusion, [this charge] was proved to be false.”

That Todd had heard General Wadsworth avow an unwillingness to rely on his artillery commander with orders if the siege had lasted “seven years,” Revere directed the committee to Wadsworth’s own denial of ever making such a statement.

To the allegation that he was frequently on board the transports “by which [my accusers] would insinuate that I went there to keep out of the way,” Revere relied on the testimony of James Brown, captain of the Samuel. “I never came on board, but to do something for the Service . . . and when I was on board, I was anxious to git on shore, for fear I should be wanted.”

And as to the charge that he had failed to move upriver after the retreat as ordered by General Lovell, Revere pointed to several officers who had informed the committee that he was, in fact, seen as far north as Grant’s Mills, twenty miles upriver. “I stayed there, the whole of that day . . . ,” insisted Revere, “and did not leave the River till I was assured they would burn the Ships next morning.”

Revere then turned to the formal complaint lodged by Thomas Carnes, upon which his arrest by the council had been based. “I expected,” wrote Revere, “he would have endeavored to have proved [each charge], one by one; But when he found his witness failed He was suffered to appear as an evidence Himself; I say suffered; for it was the first instance I ever heard of, in Matters of this sort; (in Military affairs), that a man should be accuser and evidence.”

Revere queried with a hint of sardonic scorn, “After all, what does he swear to; First that I stayed on the Beach with my men, and did not go up the Steep till the Marines and Militia had got possession of the Heights. 2nd That I carried all my men on board the Transport and that they lodged there. And that the Sailors got my Cannon on Shore.”

Each allegation, he insisted, had been disproved by the evidence. As to the first, he stated that General Lovell himself had sworn that Revere was close in the rear of the assault. He denied that he and his men had stayed aboard the transport until ordered on shore, and he directed the committee to his officers’ testimony in support. “That the Sailors got my Cannon on Shore is true in part,” he wrote. The sailors did haul the eighteen-­pound guns on shore, but he insisted that his artillerymen had towed and positioned the twelve-­pound howitzer and heavy fieldpiece into place. “You find,” wrote Revere, “all my Officers swear they and the men were assisting the whole time.”

Revere next turned to Carnes’s charge that he had, on several instances during the Penobscot Expedition, disobeyed orders. To refute this allegation, Revere reminded the committee of General Lovell’s statement that he knew of no such instance other than Revere’s refusal to proceed up the river on August 15. “I think it is amply proved,” stated Revere, “that I did go up the River, 20 miles . . . If the General did not see me there it was not my fault.”

To Carnes’s unabashed allegation of “unsoldierlike behavior during the whole expedition to Penobscot, which tends to cowardice,”5 Revere chose to ignore the testimony of his detractors and simply wrote, “If to obey Orders, and to keep close to my duty is unsoldierlike; I was Guilty. As to Cowardice, During the whole expedition, I was never in any Sharp Action, nor was any of the Artillery; but in what little I was, no one has dared to say I flinched. My Officers all swear, that when ever there was an alarm, I was one of the first in the Battery; I think that’s no mark of Cowardice.”

Perhaps the most volatile charge against Revere—and one for which he was promised an immediate arrest—was his alleged refusal to release the Castle barge to General Wadsworth for the rescue of the disabled schooner during the upriver retreat.

Wadsworth had testified in detail regarding the event before the committee, and Carnes had included it as a specific allegation in his complaint. In his letter of defense, Revere admitted that his personal baggage, including his linen, some instruments, and other items of value, had been stored on the barge, and that when Wadsworth demanded its use to rescue the men, he had balked. “I refused at first,” confessed Revere, “but afterwards Ordered her to go, and she did go.”

On Carnes’s final allegation that Revere essentially had abandoned his men during the retreat, he brusquely protested, “The . . . charge is Malicious and false as has been proved by all my Officers,” and mentioned nothing further of it.

But Revere wasn’t finished. He was determined to address every charge and incrimination that had been leveled against him at the hearing. His character and his reputation demanded no less.

He insisted that Wadsworth had contradicted himself by stating that he had not seen Revere as often as he expected, while at other times acknowledging his presence, and he scolded the general for using Revere’s record of adverse votes at the various councils of war against him. “I never before now ever heard, that an Officer was called to account for Actions at a Council of War. I believe for the future, that Officers will be careful how they attend Councils,” he wrote. He then pointed out that, of the seven councils he had attended, five had produced unanimous votes.

Revere then felt compelled to address why he had slept on board the transport after the Rebel landing on Majabigwaduce. “The reason,” wrote Revere, “. . . was merely for convenience. (Those who Judge it was from fear, Judge from their own feelings not mine) . . . [T]he Vessel was handy to the shore and all our Baggage on board, and a boat to fetch and carry us, we could have been to our duty much sooner than if we had lodged in the woods.”

At the committee hearing, General Lovell affirmed that after the defeat he had written to the council requesting that Revere be given a “severe reprimand” for leaving the army without orders.6 “That I came home without his Orders is true,” conceded Revere in his letter of defense. “[W]here could I have found either the General or Brigadier [Wadsworth], if it had been necessary to have got Orders?” Then, in an astonishingly legalistic exercise, Revere referred the committee to his orders from the council that required him to obey General Lovell and his superior officers “during the Continuance of the Expedition.”

“Surely,” continued Revere, “no man will say, that the Expedition was not discontinued, when all the shipping was either taken, or Burnt, [and] the Artillery and Ordnance Stores all destroyed.”

With that, Paul Revere concluded his letter and placed his fate in the hands of the committee members.