“The troops quitting the town was a beautiful sight”

From yesterday we continue with Robert Woolf’s reminiscence of being a teen-aged businessman caught in the siege of Boston in the spring of 1775:

I had not been many days settled with the family of a gentleman in the custom house when, early on the morning of June the 17th (1775), we were awakened by a smart cannonade from one of the ships of war!

This was no less than the prelude to the famous and bloody battle of Bunker’s Hill, so well recorded in all the public documents of the time that it requires no comment. I, however, lost a valuable friend, Major [John] Pitcairn, killed on the field, and the cries and groans of the great number of wounded brought into the town, as they passed our house, were heart-rending.

Affairs now remained quiet until the following year, the town strictly blockaded by the Americans, the troops and remaining inhabitants suffering many privations up to the beginning of March, 1776. Then began a heavy cannonade and bombardment, many of the shot falling so close to my quarters that we were obliged to remove to a more distant part of the town, and soon afterwards orders were issued by the Governor [actually Gen. William Howe] for the troops and loyal inhabitants to evacuate the place.

This was accordingly done without molestation by the enemy, and all embarked safely in transports provided for the occasion. The troops quitting the town was a beautiful sight, the whole coming off at one and the same time by signal!

I hadn’t seen anyone praise the British soldiers’ departure that way before. In fact, contemporaneous sources are clear that the some troops went on board ships days before others. Perhaps Woolf was remembering one particular day, such as the last embarkation on 17 March, and all the redcoats left in town at that time.

All then proceeded to Halifax, Nova Scotia, which, being a small place, caused no little confusion. The troops, however, remained but a few days [more like weeks] and then proceeded to attack the Americans at New York, leaving two battalions in Halifax, with whom I was stationed, and became one of the mess of the second battalion, and there I remained for two years, thus having an opportunity of exploring some parts of that wild and (at that time) unsettled country, the extensive and impenetrable woods coming within two miles of the town.

At last we embarked for England with part of the marines, and after a most boisterous passage (at one time being five days unable to carry any sail, or to cook any victuals) we landed safely at Plymouth, where I remained a week, and then, proceeding to Portsmouth, a few days more saw me safely set down again in London! October, 1778.

By 1779 Woolf moved on to India, eventually becoming accountant-general for the East India Company. He married Anna Maria Smart, whose father painted the miniature of her shown above. They had nine children.

In 1848 a granddaughter of the couple moved to the province of New Brunswick, bringing some family papers and art. That’s why the portrait is in the National Gallery of Canada and Woolf’s memoir was published by the Women’s Canadian Historical Society despite having no mention of women.

“On our arrival at Boston we were surprised to find the town blockaded”

Here’s an account of the siege of Boston first published in 1909 by the Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Toronto.

It’s said to be “From the Diary of Robert Woolf,” later a high official in the East India Company, and bears the date of October 1778 at the end. However, internal clues show Woolf wrote down this reminiscence later in life, so that date refers only to the last event he described.

Woolf began:

In April, 1775, although only nineteen years of age, I was intrusted by a London merchant (Sir George Wombwell), in whose counting-house I had been placed, with a sum of £4,000 (four thousand pounds), to proceed to Boston, Mass., U.S., to pay some part of the King’s troops there. I accordingly embarked at Portsmouth on the frigate Cerberus, and found Generals [William] Howe and [Henry] Clinton, with their aides-de-camp, were also passengers.

Gen. John Burgoyne was on the same ship but didn’t rate a mention.

The Parliamentary Register for 1776 states that £400 sterling was entrusted to Woolf to pass on to Capt. John Chads of H.M.S. Cerberus “for his extraordinary expences occured in the passage” with those three generals. Here’s the receipt for that sum, signed by Chads, Wombwell, and Woolf, from Gen. Thomas Gage’s papers.

I can’t find any mention of the amount of £4,000 or any other reference to Wombwell supplying money for the British army in America. (Later he victualed the garrison at Gibraltar.) So Woolf might have misunderstood, misremembered, or exaggerated his mission. Even so, sending a teenager across the Atlantic to reimburse one ship captain seems like a big investment. Was this trip supposed to insert Woolf and his employer into the business of supplying the British military?

Some of that £400 probably went to nice food and liquor on the ship—not that young Woolf got to enjoy it.

The captain of the frigate apologised for thus not being able to accommodate me at his own table, and placed me with the lieutenants, one of whom was afterwards the late Admiral [James] Burney [shown above about fifteen years later], who also accompanied Captain [James] Cook on his voyage round the world; and I carry the remembrance of that gentleman’s musical skill on the violin, frequently dissipating, as it did, the melancholy occasioned by the monotony of the voyage.

Nothing remarkable occurred worthy of observation beyond the swiftness of our frigate’s sailing, compared with that of other vessels with which we fell in, and the extremely thick fog on the banks of Newfoundland, with the astonishing abundance of fine codfish caught there by the sailors.

On our arrival at Boston we were surprised to find the town blockaded and surrounded by the rebels (as they were then called), cutting off all communication with the country, and the town nearly deserted by its inhabitants; those who remained with the King’s troops thus deprived of all supplies, with reason to dread an approaching famine, which would in all probability have occurred had not the approach by sea been kept open.

A first and severe action had taken place a few weeks before in the neighbourhood, when several lives were lost on both sides. This unexpected state of affairs threw me into much perplexity, from which I was partly relieved by Captain [Christopher] Horsfall, of the Welsh Fusiliers, to whom I had letters. He kindly took me to his quarters and gave me both board and lodging. I also received very friendly attention from Major [John] Pitcairn, commanding the second battalion of marines on shore.

Young Woolf has arrived in a besieged town, but he’s recovered from his surprise and found protectors. What was left to worry about? 

TOMORROW: A more severe action.

More Gilt in the Oval Office

Last year Boston 1775 passed on the news stories about President Donald Trump demanding that the Declaration of Independence be brought to his office, and about his inability to explain what it says.

Earlier this month, Trump posted this photo of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani posing beside the copy of the Declaration now hanging in the Oval Office.

I was struck with how the document’s setting had changed from a year ago, as shown in the May 2025 photo here. Its frame is now gilded. A gilt Presidential seal is glued onto the wall below.

What’s more, there are strange golden furbelows on either side of the Declaration, and a table bearing busts of Abraham Lincoln has been moved away to display more golden furbelows.

In the spring of 2025 newspapers noted how Trump was adding more golden decorations to the office, in contrast to his republican predecessors.

That trend has continued. As shown by this image from a recent event, there are now even more and bigger gold loving cups and participation trophies on the mantelpiece—nine in all. And even more golden furbelows and gold-framed pictures over every patch of the walls.

This man is working out a lot of gilt.

“Alarmed in Lexington” in Lexington, 21 Mar.

Evacuation Day over, so it’s time to look ahead to another Patriots Day season. 

On Saturday, 21 March, the Lexington History Museums will host two performances of Alarmed in Lexington, a series of three short plays by Debbie Wiess about events in the Hancock-Clarke House on 19 Apr 1775.

The audience will take in these three vignettes while moving through the house in small groups (including going up and down stairwells).

As the action begins, it’s shortly after midnight and Paul Revere and William Dawes have just left after bringing news of approaching British regulars. The vignettes dramatize the responses of the town minister, the Rev. Jonas Clarke, and his granddaughter Lucy; Massachusetts resistance leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams; and Hancock’s fiancée, Dorothy Quincy, and his aunt, Lydia Hancock. Those conversations take place in the same rooms where those people were living in 1775.

The performances are scheduled for 4 and 7 P.M. Tickets are limited and cost $40, or $30 for Lexington History Museums members.

“The gratifycation of being selected to carry the American flag”

Ens. Samuel Richards had a unique perspective on the Continental Army’s entrance into Boston after the British evacuation on 17 Mar 1776.

The young Connecticut officer was chosen (I don’t know how) to lead the troops in with his regiment’s flag.

He recorded his memories for his family many decades later:

By the enemies inactivity for several succeeding days we concluded they had abandoned the idea of attacking our fort. This comparative inactivity continued untill the 17th of the month when the whole of our troops were paraded and commenced our march into Boston, it being announced that the enemy were evacuating it. I had the gratifycation of being selected to carry the American flag at the head of the column which entered from the Roxbury side.

When arrived in the town numerous incidents crouded upon our view: I can particurize but few of them. The burst of joy shown in the countenances of our friends so long shut up and domineered over by an insulting enemy: the meeting and mutual salutations of parents and children and other members of families having been seperated and continued seperated by the sudden shuting up of the town after the battle of Lexington: the general delapidation of the houses: several churches emptied of all the inside work—and turned into riding schools for their cavalry [that actually happened in only one church, the Old South Meeting-House]: all the places which had been previously used for public resort torn to pieces: and at the stores around the wharves groceries—particularly salt—were in a state of destruction.

As I had no particular command I rambled at my pleasure—and being the carrier of the flag attracted some attention, was almost constantly pressed with invitations to “call in and take a glass of wine with me”

I saw the last boat of the enemy put off and proceed to the shiping.

Richards did some sightseeing, first visiting the fortifications left behind in Charlestown.

The next day I went and viewed the works on Castle island, the enemy had endeavored to blow up every usefull part of the works; in many instances they had succeeded, in others but partially, they had broken off the trunnions of all the heavy cannon, and in addition had spiked them up. In general every thing was mutilated and rendered useless.

I was invited to take lodgings at the house of a respectable widow lady Mrs. C. and treated with the utmost hospitality during the few days of my stay in the town.

On the 25th of the month the troops began their march by regiments toward New York, and by the 4th of April 21 regiments had moved on, ours being one of the number: five regiments being left to garrison the town…

Richards remained in the Continental Army through the year 1780, becoming a captain. He returned to Farmington and worked as the postmaster for two decades. In retirement he followed a daughter to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he died at age eighty-eight.

“The next morning presented to the view of the enemy a regular fort”

Samuel Richards (1753–1841) came from Farmington, Connecticut. In May 1775 he marched north with his town’s company to the Boston siege lines.

According to the memoir he wrote for his family decades later, Richards went as a gentleman volunteer, not in the ranks, and in Roxbury, Gen. Joseph Spencer offered him a post as private secretary.

However, contemporaneous records show that the young man was a sergeant in Capt. Noadiah Hooker’s company from May to December 1775. Perhaps Richards preferred his family to consider him as always of genteel class. 

Those sources agree that when the Continental Army was enlisted for a second year, Samuel Richards signed on as an ensign—the lowest rank of officer.

Ens. Richards’s regiment served on the southern side of the siege. For a while they camped on Gen. William Heath’s family farm in Roxbury, then in barracks as close to the Neck as possible.

Richards and his company were part of the reinforcement that went onto the Dorchester peninsula on the morning of 5 Mar 1776 to prepare for an expected British counterattack. He left this account of what followed in his memoir, published in 1909:

the next morning at 8 oClock a relief was sent on—of which I was one—in passing the neck the tide having overflowed it I found my boots filled with mud and water, but we had no dry clothes with us, nor any time or opportunity for changing. . . .

I found a redoubt considerably advanced in a position well calculated for defence. Outside the parapet were casks filled with sand and so placed that a slight touch would set them rolling down the hill which was very steep on every side, and thus break the ranks of the enemy on their advance.

Those barrels had prompted a lot of discussion.

On the afternoon of the 6th we very plainly saw the enemy in motion in the town: dense columns of troops moving down the main street to the wharf and embarking on board the ships which moved down the harbor and formed in a kind of crescent at considerable distance from the hill.

most of the next day [still 6 March] was spent by those ships in beating up nearer to our post—the wind being a head:

we continued our work incessantly in compleating the redoubt, being urged to exertion by a full expectation of being attacked by the enemy’s troops we had seen embark on board the ships; we had no time to spare for reflecting on and counting the cost of the issue of the expected battle, we did not work litterally with arms in our hands, but they were lying by our sides, and it is presumed that every one ardently wished for the opportunity of shewing the enemy what freemen would do when contending for their just rights. No one needed stimulating to the performance of his duty as every one possessed the inclination.

As night approached an uncommonly severe South East rain storm came on with very high wind, and in that elevated situation, surrounded by the sea, it was felt in all its force, but the severity of the storm did not stop our work, which we pushed forward with the utmost alacrity. The next morning presented to the view of the enemy a regular fort, far advanced to completion—and to our view their ships below apparently in a very disorderly condition: the day passed without any thing worthy of particular notice.

In looking back, Ens. Richards skipped over the couple of days that passed before the next action.

At evening we broke ground on Nook, or Nuke point, a small hill very near the water oposite South Boston. The enemy could plainly hear the sound of our entrenching tools, on which they opened and continued an incessant cannonade with a general direction towards this point. I counted the number of discharges up to about 1500 during half an hour and then left off counting; this firing was continued through the night, and the morning shewed a novel sight; the ground all around where the work had been carrying on appeared as if it had been plowed irregularly, and a very great number of cannon balls were picked up: but strange as it may seem there was but a surgeons mate and two privates killed during the night.

Contemporaneous sources say a doctor and three Continental privates were killed.

TOMORROW: Marching into Boston.

(Richards’s portrait, as copied for another family member around 1890, appears above. It was auctioned in 2020.)

“This Convinced me that they were Actually fled”

Gen. John Sullivan of New Hampshire wrote this description of how experienced the end of the siege of Boston for John Adams:

We Saw the Ships under way about 8 in the morning and the River full of Boats with Armed Soldiers. This gave an Alarm as Some Suspected they were about to Land at Dochester but having a full view of them with a Glass from Plowed Hill I found they were going on board the Ships.

I then took my Horse and Rode Down to Charlestown Neck where I had a Clear view of Bunkers Hill. I Saw the Sentrys Standing as usual with their Firelocks Shouldered but finding they never moved I Soon Suspected what Regiment they belonged to and upon taking a Clear view with my Glass found they were only Effigies Set there by the flying Enemy. This Convinced me that they were Actually fled for if they meant to Decoy us they would have taken away Every appearance of Men.

By this time I was Joined by Colo. [Thomas] Mifflin who with my Brigade Major [Alexander Scammell] agreed to go up[;] Sending two persons Round the works to Examine whether there was any of them in the Rear of the works while we went up in the front. I at the Same time Sent for a Strong party to follow us on to the Hill to assist us in Running away (if necessary).

We found no persons there and bravely Took a fortress Defended by Lifeless Sentries. I then brought on the party to Secure what we had So bravely won and went Down to the other works where we found all Abandoned but the works not Injured in any part.

We hailed the ferry Boat which came over and Informed us that they had abandoned the Town. We then gave Information to the General who ordered me with the Troops under my Command to take possession of Charlestown and General [Israel] Putnam with 2000 men to take possession of the works in Boston

Samuel Hall’s New-England Chronicle for 21 March offered the public this account of the action at the other end of Boston on the Neck:

About the same time General [Artemas] Ward, attended by about 500 troops from Roxbury, under the command of Col. Ebenezer Learned, (who unbarr’d and opened the gates) entered the town on that quarter, Ensign [Samuel] Richards carrying the standard.

The command of the whole being then given to General Putnam, he proceeded to take possession of all the important posts, and thereby became possessed, in the name of the Thirteen United Colonies of North-America, of all the fortresses in that large and once populous and flourishing metropolis, which the flower of the British army, headed by an experienced General, and supported by a formidable fleet of men of war, had, but an hour before, evacuated in the most precipitate and cowardly manner.

That’s rubbing it in, don’t you think?

TOMORROW: Ens. Richards’s perspective.

“Very lucky for us that we got possession of Nook Hill”

On 16 Mar 1776, 250 years ago today, Abigail Adams wrote from Braintree to her husband John in Philadelphia:

There has been no firing since Last twesday [12 March], till about 12 o clock last Night, when I was waked out of my sleep with a smart Cannonade which continued till nine o clock this morning, and prevented any further repose for me

That cannon fire from the north was prompted by the Continental Army moving again onto Nook’s Hill on the end of the Dorchester peninsula nearest Boston.

As related back here, the Continentals had started to fortify that strategic ground on 9 March, but the British artillery forced them back with the loss of four men. A few quiet days followed before Gen. George Washington became impatient with the speed of the British departure and ordered another try.

The next day, Adams was able to report more details she’d heard about the operation:

It was very lucky for us that we got possession of Nook Hill. They had placed their cannon so as to fire upon the Top of the Hill where they had observed our people marking out the Ground, but it was only to elude them for they began lower upon the Hill and nearer the Town. It was a very foggy dark evening and they had possession of the Hill six hours before a gun was fired, and when they did fire they over shot our people so that they were coverd before morning and not one man lost

Meanwhile, the British inside Boston would have been happy to be outside Boston. They were staying in town despite every effort to leave. On 15 March, Capt. John Barker wrote in his diary:

The Wind being fair at 12 oclock in the day, the Troops were order’d under Arms in order to embark; but after waiting some time returned to their Quarters, the Wind having shifted.

And then on the 16th: “Still detained by the Wind.”

Abigail Adams saw the new position on Nook’s Hill as forcing the British out: “the enemy no sooner discoverd [that fortification] than Bunker Hill [in Charlestown] was abandoned and every Man decamp’d as soon as he could.” But as with the entire siege, Gen. William Howe was responding to weather conditions as much as or more than his enemy’s maneuvers.

“After Evacuation” in Cambridge, 19 Mar.

On Thursday, 19 March, I’ll speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site on the topic “After Evacuation: What Came Next for General Washington and the American Colonies.”

Back in January I spoke in that same space about Col. Henry Knox’s “Fine Train of Artillery” and the end of the siege of Boston. Here’s the video of that presentation. This talk will pick up when that left off.

Here’s our event description:

On March 17, 1776, the British military pulled out of Boston, giving General George Washington his first victory of the Revolutionary War. Already, however, he was positioning the Continental Army for the redcoats to return. Meanwhile, the political atmosphere had changed, sending the thirteen colonies in a new direction. This year’s annual Evacuation Day talk explores how much changed during the siege and what lay ahead as the Washingtons left Cambridge.

One detail I haven’t decided whether to include is the honorary doctorate that Harvard College conferred on Washington on 3 Apr 1775, as discussed back here. This was the first time the college gave an LL.D. degree.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper wrote in his diary about signing the handwritten diploma on 4 April. Then Cooper went to Cambridge to say farewell to the general and presumably help to deliver that document, only to find that Washington was already on his way south. No word about how the diploma eventually made its way to the man.

To reserve a seat at my talk on Thursday, or learn about how to look in online, go to this page.

Events on Dorchester Heights, 14 and 17 Mar.

The National Parks of Boston reopened the Dorchester Heights monument this year and will welcome visitors to two commemorations there of the end of the siege of Boston this week.

Saturday, 14 March, 11 A.M. to 2 P.M.
Artillery Encampment

See authentic cannons up close and learn about the British evacuation in 1776. This hands-on, family-friendly program offers a vivid look at the technology and teamwork that helped change the course of American history. Visitors will also have the opportunity to climb the newly restored Dorchester Heights Monument for sweeping views of the harbor and city skyline.

Cannon firing demonstrations will take place at 12 p.m. and 1 p.m.

This year the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day parade is on Sunday, 15 March, for those who celebrate.

Tuesday, 17 March, 11 A.M. to 3 P.M.
Evacuation Day 250

This event is both a formal rededication of the monument and a commemoration of the day when British troops embarked from Boston and Continental troops marched into the town. It’s also the culmination of the Knox Trail events and of the Boston campaign for this Sestercentennial year. As such, I expect there will be speeches from lots of officials of different sorts.

The ceremony is scheduled from 11 A.M. to 1:30 P.M., and seating will be first come, first served. The monument will remain open for visitors until 3 P.M.

A Council of War in Roxbury

Early on the morning of 13 Mar 1776, 250 years ago today, Gen. Artemas Ward received a note from Stephen Moylan, muster-master general of the Continental Army, who was acting as an aide to George Washington, commander-in-chief.

Moylan wrote:

His Excellency the General, wants to Consult with you, General [John] Thomas, & General [Joseph] Spencer upon many matters & as he does not think it prudent at this time, that you all Should be So far as Cambridge from your posts, I have it in Comand to inform you that he will Call at your house or General Thomas’s this day at ten ôClock, where he will expect to meet you & them

I imagine a bit of a scramble that morning as the generals on the southern wing of the Continental siege lines prepared to receive their boss.

(It’s notable that Moylan didn’t mention Joseph Frye, a colonel ranked as a brigadier under Ward. The commander didn’t much like Frye. He had served in the summer of 1775, gone home when he didn’t get a Continental commission, and come back in February 1776. On 7 March, Gen. Washington told Joseph Reed that Frye “has not, and I doubt will not, do much Service to the cause—at present he keeps his Room, & talks learnedly of Emeticks Catharticks &ca. For my own part I see nothing but a declining life that matters him.”)

When Gen. Washington came to Roxbury, he brought Gens. Israel Putnam, William Heath, John Sullivan, Nathanael Greene, and Horatio Gates—all the generals present at the siege. They held a council of war in Ward’s headquarters. (The picture above shows that house in the mid-1800s after a lot of modification.)

The record of that council shows that Washington asked for advice on three questions:

• Should he order part of the army to head to New York to guard that city in case the British military struck there next?
• If the British evacuated Boston, should he leave part of the army there to guard the town?
• If the British lingered in Boston, should he order the army to try fortifying Nook’s Hill, as they had on 9–10 March (with the loss of four men)?

The council of war concluded:

• The rifle battalion should march immediately to New York, to be augmented by militia troops from that and neighboring colonies.
• There would be no need to leave Continental troops in Boston since the Massachusetts militia could guard it.
• If the British troops were still in Boston on 14 March, the army would go back onto Nook’s Hill.

Once again, the siege was over, and yet not over.

“Without the leave of the Governor”

Earlier this month the Journal of the American Revolution ran an article by Ray Raphael about colonial Massachusetts’s constitution and how the royal government tried to curtail it.

Here’s a taste:

Of the four punitive acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party, closing the port of Boston receives most attention in textbooks today—but at the time, with 95 percent of the colony’s population living outside Boston, it was “An Act for the Better Regulating the Government of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay”—known today as the Massachusetts Government Act—that sparked the people’s fury and led them to cast off British rule.

Under the 1691 Charter, “freeholders” could call a town meeting whenever they saw fit—but no longer: “Whereas a great abuse has been made of the power of calling such meetings, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been misled to treat upon matters of the most general concern, and to pass many dangerous and unwarrantable resolves,” the 1774 act declared, “no meeting shall be called by the Selectmen, or at the request of any number of freeholders of any township, district, or precinct, without the leave of the Governor, or, in his absence, of the Lieutenant Governor, in writing, expressing the special business of the said meeting.”

Likewise, on the provincial level, power was wrested from the people. No longer would the incoming “general court or assembly” choose the Governor’s Council:

Whereas the said method of electing such counsellors or assistants. . . hath been so far from contributing to the attainment of the good ends and purposes thereby intended, and to the promoting of the internal welfare, peace, and good government of the said province, or to the maintenance of the just subordination to, and conformity with, the laws of Great Britain, . . . the said method of annually electing the counsellors or assistants . . . should no longer be suffered to continue . . .

Be it therefore enacted . . . that the council, or court of assistants, shall be composed of such of the inhabitants or proprietors of lands within the same as shall be thereunto nominated and appointed by his Majesty.

All other officers would also be appointed by the governor, who could remove them at will…

The voters of Massachusetts didn’t like to see Gov. Thomas Gage implement the new law. Soon they were protesting against it—and shutting down the colonial government to do so.

The next courts were scheduled for Springfield, shiretown of Hampshire County, two weeks later, on August 30—but some 1,500 citizens made sure they did not sit. One eyewitness, Joseph Clarke of Northampton, gave a vivid account: “The people of each town being drawn into separate companies marched with staves & musick . . . The trumpets sounding, drums beating, fifes playing and Colours flying, struck the passions of the soul into a proper tone, and inspired martial courage into each.”

The judges and justices of the peace offered no resistance to “the body of the county,” as Clarke called the men who marched with their town’s militia companies. When a committee asked them “whether they meant to hold their commissions and exercise their authority according to the new act of parliament for altering the constitution of the province,” they all said they would not.

One corrective for the article: The Boston Port Bill went into effect on 1 June 1774. The Massachusetts Government Act may have been drafted to start at the same time, but the final language said it took effect on 1 August. And then the text didn’t arrive in Salem until a few days after that.

In other words, it took only about two weeks from the start of the law for people in western Massachusetts to organize major protests and shut down a branch of the royal government. That’s how much people wanted to maintain their constitution.

Events about Washington in Boston and Cambridge

Here are two events accessible online in the next two days that explore the start and peak of George Washington’s national career.

Wednesday, 11 March, 6 to 7 P.M.
The Siege of Boston: An Ending and Beginning
online via the Boston Public Library

National Park Service rangers will explore the siege of Boston—its origins, impacts, and conclusion—and how the departure of the British military from Boston would influence the pivotal year of 1776 and the rest of the Revolutionary War. Register here.

Thursday, 12 March, 6 to 7:30 P.M.
Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy
Cambridge Public Library in-person and online

Retrace President Washington’s post-inaugural journeys and explore how he sought to unite a fragile new nation, featuring:

• Peter Drummey, Chief Historian of the Massachusetts Historical Society (ret.) 
• Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, along with many other New York Times bestselling books

The public is welcome to attend this event in the library auditorium or register to watch online through this page.

“He must not fire upon the Town of Boston tonight”

On 10 Mar 1776, 250 years ago today, Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, Robert Hanson Harrison (shown here), sent this order to Gen. Artemas Ward in Roxbury:

By his Excellency’s command I am to inform you that It is his desire that you give peremptory Orders to the Artillery Officer commandg at Lams Dam, that he must not fire upon the Town of Boston tonight unless the Enemy first begin a Cannonade, and that you Inform the Officer at Dorchester heights that he is not to fire from thence on the Town—

If they begin, and we have any Cannon on Nuke Hill, his Excellency wou’d have the fire to be returned from thence among the Shipping and every damage done them that possibly can.

Notwithstanding the accounts received of the Enemy’s being about to evacuate the Town with all seeming hurry & expedition, his Excellency is apprehensive that Genl [William] Howe has some design of having a brush before his departure and is only waiting in hopes of findg us of our Guard, he therefore desires that you will be very vigilant and have every necessary precaution taken to prevent a Surprize and to give them a proper reception in case they attempt anything

This conditional order summed up the Continental commanders’ dilemma. On the one hand, they didn’t want to waste gunpowder and cause unnecessary damage to the town if the British army was leaving. On the other hand, they still didn’t fully trust the British commander to leave.

Around seven o’clock that evening, Gen. Horatio Gates sent another message to Ward with a similar mix of optimism and paranoid preparation:

The Motions of The Enemys Fleet, Strongly intimate their intention of Abandoning The Town of Boston tomorrow,

His Excellency Generel Washington is therefore Anxious to take every Possible Advantage of their precipate Retreat; & desires you would Order all the Troops at Roxbury, & Dorchester Heights, to be paraded at their Several Alarm Posts, half an hour before day tomorrow morning; it is not possible for His Excellency to give any Particular directions as to the manner of Distressing the Enemy, or assisting Our Friends in The Town, as there is no foreseeing the Circumstances that will accompany the departure of [the] Ministerial Army: a very exact Observation will be taken from hence of all The Enemys Motions at Sun rise.

the General desires the like attention may be paid on Your side, & wishes you to Communicate every half hour all extraordinary Occurrences; you may be assured of receiving the like minute Accounts from hence

Meanwhile, inside Boston Gen. Howe’s orders were all about preparing to sail, though he did add that “Upon Ringing the Church Bells at Night the Troops are to get under Arms.” Because he wasn’t entirely sure there would be no Continental attack, either.

Capt. John Barker summed up the situation inside the town this way: “Nothing but hurry and confusion.”