Why Must Margaret Gage Be the “One Person Only”?

As I wrote a couple of days back, since 1881 authors have discussed whether Margaret Gage might have divulged her husband’s plan for the April 1775 march to Concord to the Patriots, allowing them to send alerts into the countryside.

And the strongest piece of evidence for that hypothesis has remained an anecdote published in 1794, about Gen. Thomas Gage saying he’d revealed his plan to “one person only” before Col. Percy.

Why did it take a century for authors to interpret that story as pointing to Mrs. Gage? Why did it take another century before a major author argued that the story was more than jealous army officers sniping unfairly at the general’s wife?

One factor in the rise of this hypothesis might be Henry W. Longfellow’s publication of “Paul Revere’s Ride” in 1860. That poem was an enormous success, turning Paul Revere into a household name and making a fictionalized version of his activity on 18-19 Apr 1775 into a national myth. Details of that ride, including who alerted the Patriots to Gage’s plan, came to appear more significant.

Another factor was a shift from celebrating collective action to spotlighting individuals. Earlier histories of the Revolution took groups as their heroes: the Tea Party (at first a set of men, not an event), the Minutemen on Lexington common and at the North Bridge, and so on. Thinking of dozens of anonymous Bostonians observing clues about the British troops and combining that information fit the picture of collective action. But when our stories focus on crucial individuals, people want to know the identity of those individuals.

Most important, I now think, was the effect of feminism. The model of the companionate marriage promoted the assumption that a husband and wife would discuss important matters, even if those fell within the traditional male or female sphere of action. As the push for women’s rights and suffrage gained steam over the 1800s, it became clear that women were interested in politics. Even people who opposed granting women the vote described them as able to express themselves through discussion with their husbands, whose vote represented the whole family.

That environment meant there seemed to be a clear answer to the question of who the “one person only” Gen. Gage had discussed his secret plan with. Who else would that be but his wife Margaret? Who else could Percy and Charles Stedman, the former army officer who recorded that story, have been implying it was? The general’s closest confidante in all things, even military and political, must have been Margaret Gage.

In fact, we know people can have close, loving marriages and yet avoid sharing professional secrets. Today hundreds of thousands of people are preserving the confidentiality of their clients and patients when they tell their spouses about their workday. Lots of people toil deep in national security and other sensitive fields and don’t discuss details of their work at home, their loved ones understanding that that’s part of the job. Why must the Gages have been different?

Indeed, given what we know about expectations of male and female roles in the eighteenth-century British society, it was probably quicker for Thomas Gage to assume he wouldn’t discuss military strategy with his wife, and easier for Margaret Gage to accept that, than it was for authors of the late nineteenth century and later to picture such a relationship.

Furthermore, assuming that Margaret Gage was the only person Thomas discussed his expedition with requires believing he developed that plan and made all the arrangements for it without any staff help. The march to Concord involved 800 soldiers from eleven different regiments, supplemented by over a dozen scouts on horseback, equipped and supplied for a full day’s march, moved out of Boston in coordination with the navy. Did Gen. Gage write all those orders by himself?

We know that Gage didn’t tell his second-in-command, Gen. Frederick Haldimand, about the upcoming march; Haldimand learned about it the next day while being shaved. We know Gage didn’t tell his third-in-command, Col. Percy, until the evening of 18 April. But what about his adjutant, or chief administrative officer, Maj. Stephen Kemble (shown above)? That man’s job was to help the general carry out his military plans. What about Gage’s personal secretary, Samuel Kemble?

If that surname looks familiar, that’s because the Kembles were Margaret Gage’s brothers. The fact that the general gave his brothers-in-law high positions was one thing junior army officers complained about. But for Gen. Gage, keeping those arrangements within the family probably felt more secure. Stephen Kemble had worked closely with Gage since 1772, even traveling with him to Britain the following year. It looks like Samuel Kemble was a more recent addition to the staff, having been a merchant in New York.

In Spies, Patriots, and Traitors, Kenneth Daigler argues that the Kemble brothers’ positions actually support the idea that Margaret Gage was the most likely leaker. Even if the general’s “one person only” was one of those aides, Daigler writes, that Kemble could have told his sister, who could have told the Patriots. I think that skips over the more obvious suspects.

Let’s line up the usual points that people use to accuse Margaret Gage and consider all the Kemble siblings in Boston at the time.

• Born and raised in America—Margaret, Stephen, Samuel
• Expressed regret at the strife in North America—Margaret
• Said to exercise too much influence over Gen. Gage—Margaret, Stephen, Samuel
• Involved in making military plans—Stephen, maybe Samuel
• Estranged from Gage after the war began—no one (Margaret had two children and a long married life with the retired general; Stephen remained on duty in America but maintained a very friendly correspondence with his former boss)
• Settled in the U.S. of A. after the war—Stephen

That’s four items pointing to Stephen versus three to Margaret.

To be clear, I think it’s likely that Gen. Gage worked with Lt. Col. Stephen Kemble to prepare the march to Concord, but I don’t think Kemble informed the Patriots about that planning. I doubt the Boston Patriots needed a high-level source in the general’s household. They had been on edge about army raids for weapons since September 1774, and that April they were also already worried about arrests. It was impossible for the army to hide all its preparations for an expedition inside the crowded town. And out in the countryside Gage’s advance scouts, army officers dispatched to prevent alarm riders from getting through, ended up actually alerting locals along the march route that something was up.

Nonetheless, I am going to identify someone described as a crucial intelligence source in 1775.

COMING UP: The earliest source.