Bell on “Dr. Benjamin Church,” 9 Nov.

As long as I’m discussing Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., here’s early notice of a talk I’ll give about him for the Historical Society of Watertown this fall.

Sunday, 9 November, 2:00 P.M.
Dr. Benjamin Church
Watertown Free Public Library

The society’s event description says:

Dr. Benjamin Church was a patriot activist who was exposed as a spy for British Major General Thomas Gage. The Massachusetts General Court held an inquiry into his activities from October to November 1775. November 2025 will mark the 250th anniversary of the legislature’s decisions. New details regarding Church's spying activities will be revealed. Attendees will also learn where the Massachusetts General Court held the Church inquiry.

J. L Bell is a writer who specializes in the start of the American Revolution in New England and is the proprietor of the popular Boston 1775 website. A Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and Colonial Society of Massachusetts, he authored the book The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War as well as a National Park Service study of George Washington’s work in Cambridge. He has written many articles, delivered papers to the Massachusetts Historical Society and appeared on a panel of the Organization of American Historians. Some of his lectures have been broadcast on the C-Span Networks and he has spoken at many historic sites around greater Boston and beyond.

This event will be free and open to the public. Parking in the Watertown library lot is free on Sundays. This historical society’s programming is funded by a 2025 grant from the Watertown Community Foundation.

“By Doctor Church I send”

As recounted yesterday, after returning from besieged Boston on 23 Apr 1775, Dr. Benjamin Church told Paul Revere that he’d been detained by Gov. Thomas Gage’s troops and kept in a North End barrack for most of his time in town.

Church’s Patriot colleagues accepted that story, probably even admired his daring. They chose him to travel to Philadelphia and consult with the Continental Congress, and the Congress in turn made him Surgeon-General of its army.

However, the documentary record I explored earlier this week casts doubt on Church’s story. While in Boston he was clearly communicating with relatives of his colleagues and offering to deliver letters for them.

On 22 April, Edmund Quincy gave Church two letters to carry out of town: to his daughter Dorothy and to her fiancé, John Hancock. The letter to Dolly Quincy refers to the “opporty (unexpected) by Doctr. Church” to communicate. There’s no apparent worry about Church being under the royal authorities’ control.

In addition, Edmund’s son Henry Quincy wrote a letter to the elder Dr. John Sprague in Dedham, shown here. That too stated: “Dr. Church Arrived here this PM. from Concord on Business with the General is Allowed in the Morning to Return.”

In further addition, Rachel Revere (shown above) wrote a short, undated note to her husband Paul. That began “by Doctor Church I send a hundred & twenty five pounds”—probably devalued Old Tenor currency.

All those documents are in the files of Gen. Gage. Did soldiers seize them from Dr. Church as he left Boston? That wouldn’t explain how those same files contain Dr. John Homans’s note to Dr. Joseph Gardner asking for surgical knives, which Church carried into town. 

When Allen French explored Church’s activities in General Gage’s Informers (1932), the letter from Rachel Revere was one of the prime pieces of proof that the doctor was cooperating with the royal authorities. I wrote about the Homans letter in an article for New England Ancestors in 2006. The Quincy letters add more evidence to that pile.

I wonder what Dr. Church told his colleagues when he arrived back in Cambridge, knowing that their relatives inside Boston would eventually mention that they’d given him letters to deliver. Presumably to maintain his cover the doctor spoke ruefully of having the big, bad soldiers take all his papers away. No one appears to have spoken of those missing documents as evidence of Church’s treachery, even after Gen. George Washington put him under arrest in October.

All the documents I’m speaking of remain in the Thomas Gage Papers at the Clements Library in Michigan. The library has just released digital scans of Gage’s correspondence in the weeks after the start of the war (along with poor computerized transcriptions which I’ve largely ignored). I’m sure there are some surprises to be found, as well as more evidence for what we already know.

“Are you serious, Dr. Church?”

In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap, Paul Revere recalled a dramatic moment on 21 Apr 1775:

The Friday evening after [the Battle of Lexington and Concord], about sun set, I was sitting with some, or near all that Committee [of safety], in their room, which was at Mr. [Jonathan] Hastings’s House at Cambridge. Dr. [Benjamin] Church, all at once, started up—

Dr. Warren, said He, I am determined to go into Boston tomorrow—

(it set them all a stairing)—

Dr. [Joseph] Warren replyed, Are you serious, Dr. Church? they will Hang you if they catch you in Boston.

He replyed, I am serious, and am determined to go at all adventures.

After a considerable conversation, Dr. Warren said, If you are determined, let us make some business for you. They agreed that he should go to git medicine for their & our Wounded officers.

He went the next morning; & I think he came back on Sunday evening.

As part of his medical mission, Dr. Church carried in a note from Dr. John Homans of Brookline to his mentor Dr. Joseph Gardner, asking for surgical knives.

Revere recalled speaking to Church after his return:

After He had told the Committee how things were, I took him a side, & inquired particularly how they treated him? he said, that as soon as he got to their lines on the Boston Neck, they made him a prisoner, & carried him to General [Thomas] Gage, where He was examined, & then He was sent to Gould’s Barracks, & was not suffered to go home but once.

In Igniting the American Revolution, Derek W. Beck guessed that the Gould of “Gould’s Barracks” was Lt. Edward Thoroton Gould, who on that day was a wounded prisoner of war outside of Boston. But I think the answer appears in a letter of merchant John Andrews on 11 January:

This morning the soldiers in the barrack opposite our house, left it, and took quarters with the royal Irish in Gould’s auction room or store—in the street leading to Charlestown ferry.

Bostonians often referred to barracks by the name of the local landlord who had rented those buildings to the army, making “Gould’s barracks” a big building on Back Street in the North End.

Robert Gould was a merchant who in August 1773 announced that the Boston selectmen had authorized him to set up as an auctioneer. He advertised heavily over the next several months (usually signing those notices “R. Gould”) before the Boston Port Bill hit. Renting his store to the army might have seemed like the best possible deal.

Robert Gould had also invested in Maine land along with Francis Shaw, Sr., a settlement that became Gouldsboro. He had trained Francis Shaw, Jr., in business, and newspaper ads in 1770 show that the younger man was selling ceramics out of “the store lately improved by Mr. Robert Gould.” In June 1776, Francis, Jr., and his wife Hannah had a boy they named Robert Gould Shaw. That man would pass the name on to his grandson, the Civil War hero.

Robert Gould remained in Boston after the British evacuation, but the Patriot authorities were suspicious of his dealings with the king’s army. The selectmen recommended detaining him for questioning, but the Massachusetts General Court decided to drop him from the list. Gould went back to advertising as a regular merchant in late 1776. But then he died unexpectedly, intestate and in debt, in January 1777, aged 57.

TOMORROW: The doctor’s documents.

“Pray the God of Armies to restrain Man”

John Hancock wasn’t the only person Edmund Quincy wrote to on 22 Apr 1775, just after the start of the Revolutionary War, as quoted yesterday.

Justice Quincy couldn’t very well write to Hancock and ignore the man’s fiancée, Dorothy Quincy, could he? After all, she was his daughter.

Thus, we have this second, shorter letter written inside “Boston (a Garison’d town)”:

Dear Dolly—

I’ve an opporty (unexpected) by Doctr. [Benjamin] Church, Just to tell you, that I’m kept from my intended Journey to L[exing]ton & [Lene’y?] by restraint of Princes—endeavors are using to obtain an opening but how soon, none know!

It’s ye. will of Heaven, that it should be thus—!—To His Will, let us learn Submission, thro’ all the Changing Scenes of a Short uncertain Life—I pray God we may all learn this profitable Lesson, that we may be reaping the advantage at all times, especially in a time of Sharp trials, to wch. we are in every State more or less liable

We are generally in good health—but as generally under great sorrow, for the loss of so many humane lives, Wednesday last: pray the God of Armies to restrain Man, from further Attempts of a Similar kind—

Your Bror. & family propose removal—to Providence—if the Gates are opened to us—your Trunk is here—if mine go, yours will also—

I condole with Madm. [Lydia] Hancock, & you, under present & late Circumstances of things—I hope to see you soon, if it please God

Interim recommending you to his protection, with. all your near-Connexions in this devoted Town—I am with my Sincere regards to Madm. H. Mr. [Jonas] Clark & Lady—, Dear Child, Your Affectionate Father & Friend
Edm: Quincy

[Postscript:] Your S[iste]r. [Esther] Sewall distress’d, with ye View she has of things

[Postscript vertical along left margin:] I hope Mr. H. is well on is Journey—you are happy in yo. being out of this town—tho’ ye. Govr. Speaks Fair He is much troubled himself

Esther Sewall was another of Edmund Quincy’s daughters, married to royal attorney general Jonathan Sewall. She evidently had a close-up “View” of the administration of Gen. Thomas Gage and was “distress’d” at what lay ahead.

TOMORROW: Going into the file.

“No Carriage from L. & if there was—no permiso. to pass”

On 22 Apr 1775, three days after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Boston merchant and magistrate Edmund Quincy sat down to write a letter to John Hancock.

Quincy wasn’t just a colleague of Hancock in the Boston Patriot movement. He was also the father of Dorothy Quincy, Hancock’s fiancée (shown here).

Earlier that month, Dorothy had taken the family carriage out to Lexington and then used it to flee with Lydia Hancock from the regulars on 19 April. That left her father stuck inside Boston as the siege began.

Justice Quincy wrote to Hancock:

Dear Sir,

Referring you to a Ltr. wrote the 8th. currt: [i.e., of this month] I’m now to enclose you one I had this day out of [ship captain John] Callihan’s bag:—32 days fro. Lond: into Salem pr young Doct. [John] Sprague—who tells me [captain Nathaniel Byfield] Lyde sail’d 14 days before them wth. Jo. Quincy Esq & other passengers—that some of ye Men of War & transports sail’d also before Callihan. As to ye times [?] at home—ye Doctr. is little able to inform us—youl probably have Some papers via Salem.—————

As to my Scituation here ye unexpected extraordy. event of ye 19th: of wch. Ive wrote my thots—) now & for days past impedes my leaving town[.] No Carriage from L[exington]. & if there was—no permiso. to pass ye lines—The people will be distress’d for fresh provisions—in a Short time—

The Govr: & Genl.—is very much concern’d about ye Provl. troops without—wch. probably will be very numerous ’ere long if desired—Dorchester hill—I’m just now told, is possess’d by our provls—& I hope its true, for Ive reason to believe, ye Genl. had ye same thing in Contemplation——

Here they say & swear to it all round, in excuse of ye Regulars, proceeding at Lexinton—that they were attack’d first & I doubt not many oaths of Officers & men are taken before J. G—ley [Justice Benjamin Gridley], to confirm it—but among others who contradict ’em—Lt. [Thomas] Hawkshaw yesterday near expiring thro. his bad wounds——Call’d Several Credible persons to him & told ’em as a dying man—that he was obliged in Conscience to confess—that the first Action of ye Whole at L. was done by the Kings troops—wr. they killd & wounded eight men—but doubtless you have sufficient proof of ye Fact & every Circumstance attending near at hand—

my advice is that the Whole Matter—be forwarded at ye province expence or otherwise wth. the Greatest dispatch—that so your Advices may be in London as early as GG’s——

If the people of G:B: are not under a political Lethargy—The Account of ye late Memorable Event, will excite them to consider of their own Close Connexion wth. America; and to Suppose at length, that ye Americans especially N. Englanders will act as they’ve wrote, & engag’d—A Blessed Mistake our prudent G[ag]e has indeed made, & ye Sensible part of his Officers & Soldiers own it—& are vastly uneasie—

I had been at L— days to pay my real regards to yr. good Aunt & Dolly—but wn. we shall have ye passage clear I dont [know] we are in hopes of effecting soon. But ye Gl. is really intimidated & no wonder wn. he hears of 50.000 men &c.—Much is Confess’d of ye intripedity of ye provinls. Im much Surpriz’d to hear that the Regulars abt. 1700—were drove off & defeated by near an Equal Corps only.—

Capt. [John] Erving, at his house yesterday Gave me ye Account of Hawkshaws Confesso.-proved to him at ye No: End yesterday to be real, he also says that from all he can gather from ye Circumstances of the people of Gt. Bn. they are by this day in a State of fermentation—if we could be so happy, as to get speedily home, the necessary advices—I doubt not a Flame would soon appear—& ere its quench’d, may it burn up ye heads of the Accursed Faction fro. whence ye present British Evils spring

Genl. Gage is thrown himself into great perplexity—Ld. Percy is a thorn in his side & its said has menaced him Several times, for his late imprudence—a Good Omen

I cant nor ought I to add, but my best regards—& Love respectively & that I am
Dr. Sir Your most affecto: Friend
& H. Servt.
Ed. Quincy

youl excuse erro. for Ive not time to correct em

There are a lot of interesting bits of intelligence in this letter—Gen. Thomas Gage hoping to seize the heights of Dorchester, Col. Percy criticizing his Concord mission, Lt. Hawkshaw saying the British soldiers had fired first. Quincy urged Hancock and his colleagues to send the Patriot side of events to London as quickly as possible.

How did John Hancock respond to seeing this letter? In fact, he never saw it.

TOMORROW: Diverted mail.

“A beautiful tribute to so many American heroes”

After the White House issued its letter illegally demanding control over the Smithsonian Institution, Donald Trump weighed in through his preferred method of communication: a rant on his Truth Social microblogging network.

As usual, Trump’s presentation of the situation was more bombastic and expansive than actual policy, or actual facts:

The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of “WOKE.” The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made. This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the "HOTTEST" Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.

This produced a lot of responses, many pointing out how the complaint about museums portraying “how bad Slavery was” matches the Trump administration’s moves to honor Confederates, remove African-Americans from positions of authority, and roll back programs to remedy the effects of historic racism.

Others noted the ridiculousness of complaining that history museums should be more focused on “the Future” and less on the past.

Politifact rated Trump’s claim that the Smithsonian Institution museums include “nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future” [capitalization corrected] as “Pants on Fire.” Its analysis said in part:

A walk through the [African-American history] museum’s six levels reveals its overwhelming focus on Black Americans’ resilience, strength and success. . . .

Smithsonian museums are also chock full of patriotic items and exhibits celebrating American culture. . . .

As for "brightness," it’s hard to ignore the nonpartisan pop culture icons at the American history museum, from Kermit the Frog to "Star Wars" droids and basketball legend Michael Jordan.

Author Jonathan M. Katz wrote on Bluesky:

The funny thing about this is that the Smithsonian African American History Museum is built around the exact "Success" narrative Trump claims to want. You climb through the Middle Passage, slave cabin, Jim Crow train, etc, and come out into Oprah's studio and Obama.

But we have to wonder if success for African-Americans counts as success for Trump.

The Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin offered further analysis on Substack:

The Smithsonian and National Park Service are not leaders in the direction of historical interpretation and trends in public history. They largely reflect changes that have already taken place. More broadly, these institutions reflect cultural and societal shifts that have already been established.

Another way to make this point is to say that if you are a young activist, committed to instilling Americans with radical leftist ideas, the last place you will want to work is at the Smithsonian or National Park Service. Such a career move promises a lifetime of disappointment and frustration.

Levin also noted that Trump visited the National African American History Museum around the time he first entered public office in 2017 and came out saying, “This museum is a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes.”

According to a Washington Post article from 2019, based on Smithsonian director Lonnie Bunch’s memoir, that visit was more fraught behind the scenes.

The incoming president wanted to come on the holiday commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., according to the memoir. The administration also asked that the museum be closed to the public during the visit. “The notion that we could shut out visitors on the first King holiday since the opening of the museum was not something I could accept,” Bunch writes. Another day was chosen. . . .

Before the president-elect arrived, his aides told Bunch that Trump “was in a foul mood and that he did not want to see anything ‘difficult,’ ” Bunch writes. Nevertheless, Bunch started the tour in the history galleries, which begin with the global slave trade.

“It was not my job to make the rough edges of history smooth, even for the president,” he writes. . . .

“The president paused in front of the exhibit that discussed the role of the Dutch in the slave trade,” Bunch writes. “As he pondered the label I felt that maybe he was paying attention to the work of the museum. He quickly proved me wrong. As he turned from the display he said to me, ‘You know, they love me in the Netherlands.’ All I could say was let’s continue walking.”

“There is little I remember about the rest of the hour we spent together. I was so disappointed in his response to one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history,” he continues. “Here was a chance to broaden the views and the understanding of the incoming president and I had been less successful than I had expected.”

It looks like Trump now has no memory of that visit.

Also, for the record, the Dutch, like most people around the world, had a negative view of Donald Trump. In 2017 the Pew Research Group reported that Dutch confidence that the U.S. President would do the right thing had gone down 75 percentile points in the shift from Barack Obama (92%) to Trump (17%). As of June 2025, the same global survey reported that 63% of the people in the Netherlands have no confidence at all that Trump will do the right thing as President.

“The right of all Americans to learn about our history and culture”

The American Council of Learned Societies is a federation of more than eighty scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences, founded in 1919.

This week it issued a statement about the Trump White House’s attempt to dictate the work of the Smithsonian Institution:

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) stands in firm opposition to the latest directive by the White House forcing Smithsonian Institution museums to subject their presentation of American history to government review. This supersedes the oversight of professional scholars and makes the museums tools of the presidential administration. . . .

The Smithsonian was established in 1846 to advance knowledge through research and to make knowledge accessible to all through museums, education programs, and public outreach. Many steps are required to make knowledge part of public understanding. Scholars and scientists start with evidence—a worm-eaten page in an archive, an artifact found in an archaeological dig, a book written in a rarely studied language, and all sorts of familiar objects and texts—and only after careful study, writing, editing, informal and often formal peer review do we make the results public. These steps are where expertise is tested and where academic freedom is expressed in real time.

The historical materials at the Smithsonian Institution museums are intended to paint a full and accurate picture of the American experience; by forcing them to edit their exhibits at the administration’s command, the White House is engaging in authoritarian censorship. It is taking another step toward divesting in professional expertise and dismantling principles of academic freedom.

The genuinely patriotic thing we can all do in this moment is to speak out on behalf of the scholars who have dedicated their lives to helping us understand our nation, and for the right of all Americans to learn about our history and culture free from government intrusion.

On the one side, we have this long collective effort to develop, explore, and share knowledge. On the other hand, we have an executive branch in thrall to a man whose conviction for fraud was just upheld, reaching past what the law allows.

“Whittled down to a couple of dozen notables”

I started this week planning simply to pass on the Professor Buzzkill podcast’s analysis of the “We must hang together, or separately” remark.

But then I looked into the evidence myself to be sure. I found holes in the record, and more questions. I went in a different, and more prolix, direction.

Nonetheless, I do commend this analysis of how we remember the Revolution as time passes:

As the revolutionary generation started to die out and become part of the early written history of the young United States, the vast number of people involved in the revolution and the development of the new government was gradually whittled down to a couple of dozen notables in popular memory and history. I call this “the Mount Rushmore effect.” You can’t possibly talk about the hundreds or thousands of people directly involved in something important, so people concentrate on leaders and on the famous.

As time rolls on, and more and more events become part of the “American story,” the number of individual historical figures well-known in the popular mind continues to go down. We forget about all the second- and third-level people who do most of the work for which political and military leaders get all the credit. And that’s not even mentioning the hundreds of thousands of, if you will, “foot soldiers” on the ground. Archaeologists (perhaps alien archaeologists) thousands of years from now will find Mount Rushmore, and assume that the four men depicted there were responsible for most of American history.

Plus, of course, Benjamin Franklin.

“Grant they may all hang together”

Was “We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately” (or the shorter form “We must all hang together, or separately”) an established saying by 1776?

Other phrases we often now attribute to a particular Founder, such as “Facts are stubborn things” and “A penny saved is a penny earned,” turn out to have been common aphorisms.

The hallmarks of such sayings seem to be:

• There’s a standard wording, with only slight variations.
• That wording shows up multiple times in the written record.

I haven’t found evidence of those things when it comes to the “hang together/separately” wordplay. As I noted yesterday, as early as 1681 two British playwrights penned lines that played off the double meaning of “hang”—but in different forms.

I couldn’t find further examples in a search of colonial American newspapers. Now I might not have hit on the right wording, but that suggests the wordplay hadn’t cemented itself in the language yet.

I did find jokes using the “hang together” phrase, but not in the context of a warning for unity. For example, on 14 Sept 1779 the Norwich Packet reprinted an essay from the Connecticut Courant that included this passage:

But that Congress should be ass-riden with a junto, is a matter that wants proof. This junto, by your account of it, is as full of wonders as the beast in the Revelations is of horns, and near as powerful. It consists, you say, mostly of New-England men; who we know are elected not without regard to their religion as well as their politics: Yet they are here combined to vote alike in all cases, let oath and conscience go where it will, and let the public interest go where it will. They are to take care of themselves and connections, and at all events hang together; and if all this is true they ought all to hang in one halter; and I should have no objection, Sir, if you crave the jobb, to your being hangman.

On 8 Sept 1785 the New-York Packet printed this “BON MOT.”:

A SCOTCH Parson in the Rump-time, in his prayer, said, Laird bless the grand council, the parliament, and grant they may all hang together.

A country fellow standing by, said, Yes, yes, with all my heart, and the sooner the better; and I am sure it is the prayers of all good people.

But friends, said Sawney, I don’t mean as that fellow means, but pray they may all hang together in accord and concord.

No matter what cord, replied the other, so it is but a strong cord.

That joke appears to blame the Scottish clergy, or Scotsmen in general, for supporting the ongoing Long Parliament of 1648–1653. In fact, Scotland was politically wary of that English Parliament and its policies, and Oliver Cromwell invaded the kingdom to keep the Scots from providing a haven for Charles II. However unfair, that joke was reprinted in other American newspapers for years afterward.

A variation appeared in The Paragon Jester; Or, The Polite Wit’s Museum, published in Southwark, London, in 1798:

Hugh Peters being to preach a sermon to one of the companies of London, and desired therein to exhort them to love and unity; he concluded his sermon with a wish that they might be all joined in concord, accord, or any cord, so that they might all hang together.

This version lampooned an English preacher who supported the Puritan Parliament, Cromwell, and the execution of Charles I. The Rev. Hugh Peter was himself executed for treason in 1660, making him a safe target for this joke a century later.

In sum, while eighteenth-century British and American writers did craft jokes using the double meaning of “hang together,” there doesn’t seem to have been a pithy saying with that phrase. In particular, we don’t have evidence of the phrase being used with the political alternative of hanging separately.

Two people who were in Philadelphia in 1774 and 1775 (Alexander Graydon and John Adams) later said Richard Penn came up with the resonant witticism, and Carter Braxton wrote it down (crediting “a Wit”) in 1776. So that looks like the origin of the joke, even if Benjamin Franklin ended up with most of the credit.

“According to Dick Penns bon Mot”

As quoted here, in April 1776 Carter Braxton wrote home to Virginia from the Continental Congress: “It is a true saying of a Wit—We must hang together or separately.”

Was Braxton referring to a generic “Wit,” or had he heard this remark from a specific person, or attributed to a specific person? His letter didn’t say.

Editors of the Benjamin Franklin Papers suggested that Braxton might have been alluding to Franklin. But given how Alexander Graydon credited the remark to Richard Penn speaking in 1774 or 1775, Braxton might have been referring to that lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania instead.

Graydon didn’t publish his Memoirs of His Own Time until 1811, however. While that’s decades before anyone attributed the remark to Franklin, it’s also decades after Penn allegedly spoke. Is there any closer evidence?

Indeed, there is. In April 1786, John Adams wrote home from London to his brother-in-law Richard Cranch. At the time Britain and the new U.S. of A. were trying to sort out their trading arrangements, and states were starting to compete with each other.

Charles Jenkinson (1729–1808, shown here) was the new president of the Council for Trade and Plantations overseeing British overseas commerce. Jenkinson had served in the administrations of Lord Bute, George Grenville, and Lord North, and Adams viewed him as part of a cabal inimical to America. (Later in 1786 Jenkinson became Baron Hawkesbury, and in 1796 the first Earl of Liverpool.)

Adams wrote:

Mr Jenkinson, I presume, has, by his late Motions in Parliament, all of which are carried without opposition, convinced the People of America, that they have nothing but a ruinous Commerce to expect with England.

Our Crisis is at hand, and if the states do not hang together, they might as well have been “hanged Seperate,” according to Dick Penns bon Mot in 1784.

Did Adams write the wrong date, meaning 1774 instead of “1784”? That would be in accord with Graydon’s memory and Braxton’s 1776 mention of “a Wit.” Penn left Pennsylvania for Britain in 1775, carrying the Olive Branch Petition, and I don’t think he returned during the war (contra Graydon). Or did Adams hear Penn voice or repeat this remark in London in 1784?

TOMORROW: Looking for eighteenth-century uses.

“Hang Together” on the Restoration Stage

Yesterday I alluded to a Professor Buzzkill podcast as my spur to look for the statement “We must hang together or separately” in a letter by the Virginia politician Carter Braxton.

That same episode from 2022 stated that the “hang together” wordplay can be traced further back to “John Dryden’s 1717 book, The Spanish Fryar, where it is referred to as a ‘Flemish proverb.’”

Dryden (1631–1700) produced his play The Spanish Fryar, or The Double Discovery in 1681, and it was reprinted often after that. In Act IV, Scene 1, one character says, “I’ll not hang alone, Fryar,” and Friar Dominick eventually replies, “in the Common Cause we are all of a Piece; we hang together.”

Dryden wasn’t the only playwright to play on the phrase “hang together” in 1681, however. Aphra Benn (1640–1689, shown here) wrote this exchange in The Round-Heads; Or, The Good Old Cause (Act III, Scene 1):

Fleet. My Lords and Gentlemen, we are here met together in the Name of the Lard———

Duc. Yea, and I hope we shall hang together as one Man—a Pox upon your Preaching. [Aside.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Samuel Johnson chose Dryden over Benn to demonstrate the use of “hang together” in his dictionary.

As for Professor Buzzkill’s remark about a “Flemish proverb,” I can’t find any mention of that phrase in three early editions of Dryden’s Spanish Fryar. Perhaps that was an annotation by the editor of a later edition based on the 1717 text. Or perhaps separate references to a “hang together” saying got muddled together.

It would be striking if the “hang together” witticism came from another language because double meanings of that sort are often hard to translate. Indeed, the Rev. E. O. Haven’s 1869 textbook on Rhetoric uses Edouard Laboulaye’s unsuccessful attempt to render the saying (credited to Benjamin Franklin) in French as evidence for his warning “Puns usually Untranslatable.”

Be that as it may, the idea that a “Flemish proverb” was the seed of this American quotation has taken hold and now appears several places—all apparently after 2022. I welcome any earlier reference.

TOMMOROW: A post-Revolutionary reference.

“It is a true saying of a Wit”

In 2014 and again in 2016, I noted that the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor Richard Penn was the first Revolutionary figure credited with this remark:

An evidence of this was the pleasantry ascribed to him, on occasion of a member of Congress, one day observing to his compatriots, that at all events “they must hang together:”

“If you do not, gentlemen,” said Mr. Penn, “I can tell you that you will be very apt to hang separately.”

More recently, the Professor Buzzkill podcast called my attention to a letter the Virginia delegate Carter Braxton wrote on 14 Apr 1776:

Upon reviewing the secret movements of Men and things I am convinced the Assertion of Independence is far off. If it was to be now asserted, the Continent would be torn in pieces by Intestine Wars and Convulsions. Previous to Independence all disputes must be healed and Harmony prevail. A grand Continental league must be formed and a superintending Power also. When these necessary Steps are taken and I see a Coalition formed sufficient to withstand the Power of Britain, or any other, then am I for an independent State and all its Consequences, as then I think they will produce Happiness to America. It is a true saying of a Wit—We must hang together or separately.

Less than three months later, Braxton voted for independence.

Did Braxton have a particular “Wit” in mind? Alas, he didn’t say.

TOMORROW: Flemish roots?

Opposing “authoritarian control over the national narrative”

The Organization of American Historians has issued a statement on the White House attempt, discussed yesterday, to dictate the operation of the Smithsonian Institution:

No president has the legitimate authority to impose such a review. Established by Congress in 1846 as a unique and independent agency, the Smithsonian Institution is not, and has never been, under the authority of the Executive Branch. It is an independent statutory agency, led by the Secretary and governed by a bipartisan Board of Regents as established by law. This legal structure is ignored by the letter, as the stated goals of the review are to “ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

The White House’s effort to assert control over the Smithsonian’s staff, archives, donors, public-facing content, curatorial processes, exhibition planning, and collection use constitutes an alarming infringement on the autonomy and integrity of this 179-year old distinguished institution. Moreover, it asks the hundreds of professionals who work at the Smithsonian to violate their ethics and their dedication to free and open historical inquiry.

The effort as outlined is divorced from the realities of an evidence-based, comprehensive telling of the U.S. past, and is part of an aggressive push to flatten American history into a narrowly conceived, unrepresentative, and simplified story. Historians, scholars, or subject-area experts will not be conducting this mandated review—and certainly not those whose exhaustive research, reviews, and consultations preceded the public staging of exhibits—but rather it will be undertaken by presidential appointees aligned with a specific political agenda. This is exactly what the architects of Smithsonian independence sought to avoid.

The end result of this process will be the opposite of a fulsome presentation of the history of the United States that reflects the Smithsonian’s mission for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Instead, the review and the method used to compel it, will undoubtedly be in service of authoritarian control over the national narrative, collective memory, and national collections.

It is particularly distressing to see this effort of historical censorship and sanitizing tied to the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—what should be a moment for thoughtful reflection about and celebration of the American experiment with all its tragedies and triumphs. Together, these moves threaten to weaponize our shared past to serve political imperatives of the present and an imagined future. They politicize the artifacts, recorded stories, and historical experiences that belong to the American people and that help to bring a full, unvarnished picture of our democracy into public view not for indoctrination, but for education.

Full statement here.

(James Smithson, founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, was a younger half-brother, born out of wedlock, of Col. Earl Percy.)

“To ensure alignment with the President’s directive”

On 12 August, White House officials sent a letter to the Smithsonian Institution stating that it “will be leading a comprehensive internal review…to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

This political incursion into the operation of an independent establishment was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which stated:

The White House plans to conduct a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to ensure the museums align with President Trump’s interpretation of American history.

The Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin responded:

First, let’s stop referring to Trump’s “interpretation of American history.” He doesn’t have an interpretation of anything remotely related to history. What Trump has is an authoritarian agenda that demands control over how Americans remember history as a means to justify its current political and ideological agenda and claim to power.

This most recent act of censorship is right out of the authoritarian playbook and one we have already witnessed in reference to the National Park Service.

At the Bulwark, Grand View University professor Thomas Lecaque took particular issue with the letter’s demand that “our national museums reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story”:

We uncover new sources; we apply new methodologies; we have new lenses to look at sources and new contexts. Languages, databases, technologies, viewpoints—we don’t rewrite history as we learn but rather ask new questions about the texts we already knew. Historians of every generation have new issues that they are interested in, that they read the texts and find are important. When today’s historians write about the historical effects of climate change or about the ways pandemics shape societies or about the lives of trans people in centuries past, we’re not “inventing” these things, we’re just paying new attention to things that have been there all along, and seeing them with fresh eyes.

I’ll tell you what the Trump administration is inventing, though. That line about “Americanism” in the Trump letter, focusing on the country’s “strength, breadth, and achievements”? That invitation to imagine a flawless nation making an unbroken string of progress is really just a bedtime story for children. White children. It’s not history; it’s not reality; it’s propaganda to allow Trump and his followers to sleep at night before they get up for another day of brutalizing people of color.

My perspective is that Donald Trump cares about what gratifies his ego. Sometimes that touches on history, such as when he promotes a false story about his golf course property being important in the Civil War or when he insists he’s outdone all previous Presidents on some measure. But studying history depends on respecting facts, and Trump has never done that—not in history, not in business, not in politics, not in his personal life.

The Smithsonian Institution is popular and widely respected. So is the National Park Service. So are our schools, universities, and libraries. All are under attack. We the people need to protect our historical and scholarly institutions from trumpery, and from the ideologues and sycophants who are pushing it.

Thomas Jay McCahill Fellowships for 2026–27

The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire, in partnership with American Revolution Institute in Washington, D.C., and the American Independence Museum in Exeter, is offering two Thomas Jay McCahill III Fellowships for researchers in the 2026–27 academic year.

The announcement says:

The McCahill Fellowship will provide up to $75,000 for a one-year period to support the cost of research, travel, housing and per diem expenses for one or more scholars to undertake advanced research on a topic germane to American history in the colonial and revolutionary periods. Fellows will have sustained access to collections and professional staff in a quiet study room at the American Revolution Institute’s headquarters, Anderson House, in Washington, D.C.

The McCahill Fellowship is open to graduate students and advanced and independent scholars who are conducting research that may benefit from various primary resources, with an emphasis on the collections of the American Revolution Institute and/or the American Independence Museum.

The McCahill Fellow’s research is expected to be on one or more of the following periods:

• the Revolutionary War
• colonial British America, preferably for research leading in some way to an issue of the revolutionary period
• the early American republic, preferably for research leading in some way to an issue of the revolutionary period.

Applicants should submit the following:

• Curriculum vitae, including educational background, publications and professional experience.
• Brief outline of the research proposed (not to exceed two pages), along with an expectation of how the fellow might use the research library and collections of the American Revolution Institute.
• Writing sample of 10-25 pages in the form of a published article, book excerpt, or paper submitted for course credit, which can be submitted in Word or P.D.F. format.
• Budget for proposed research project to include a schedule and related costs for housing and travel.
• For current graduate students only: Two confidential letters of recommendation from faculty or colleagues familiar with the applicant and his or her research project. Note: If letters are to be mailed independently, please include the names of recommenders when submitting the application.

The deadline for application is 31 October 2025. Applicants will be notified of the selection committee’s decision by the end of January 2026.

The upcoming year’s McCahill fellow is Prof. Christine DeLucia of Williams College, writing on “Land, Diplomacy, and Power in the Revolutionary Northeast.”

“The Revolution belongs to all Americans”

Johann Neem, author of Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts, Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, and other historical studies, is a forthright critic of today’s political trumpery.

The New Republic just published Neem’s essay “Unfit to Lead: Trump Is the Enemy of the American Revolution.”

Here are some passages:

Today, as we approach the Declaration of Independence’s semiquincentennial, Donald Trump and his allies claim the Revolution for themselves. They have made fealty to the American Revolution part of their culture war against “woke” progressivism. The Revolution has become a pawn in Trump’s politics of retribution against the country’s supposed cultural enemies. Trump and his allies claim to be patriots while regularly violating the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and undermining the government established by our Constitution. . . .

For Trump, [Chief Justice John] Roberts, and their allies, the actual principles of the Revolution matter less than its capacity to signify tribal loyalty by distinguishing “real Americans” from domestic enemies. Trump conflates respect for the Revolution with loyalty to him. The gross spectacle of Trump hosting a military parade on his birthday—as do kings and dictators—and connecting it to the birth of the Continental Army illustrates all too well that he seeks to legitimize his own rule by wrapping himself in the Revolution.

To our Founders, there was a causal relationship between legislative consent and liberty. Today, we often think freedom is the ability to do what one wants. To our Founders, in contrast, freedom was a collective possession, not a private one. Freedom was only possible in a free state in which the people or their representatives actively made the rules that govern their shared life. . . .

Trump’s violations of the Constitution are too long to list here, but among them are illegally suspending laws and violating court orders. He has sought to dominate the other two branches of government by encouraging extralegal violence against legislators, judges, and their families. He has weaponized the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. He threatens the media, universities, and other civil society institutions that dare to question his edicts. Indeed, he seeks to destroy any person or institution that checks his will. . . .

Trump and his allies distort the past to convince their followers that respecting the American Revolution is somehow compatible with supporting a tyrant. They want to turn the Revolution into a symbol for tribal loyalty, but the Revolution belongs to all Americans. The United States was born from a revolt against lawless tyranny and arbitrary power. Today, future generations of Americans are counting on us to protect the republic. Like those who sacrificed so much to secure our freedom two and a half centuries ago, once again we Americans must pledge our sacred honor to uphold the legacy of the American Revolution from those who invoke it only to betray it.

The New Republic article on the web has links to show some of the events Neem refers to.

“Praising and glorying in Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom”

In July 1898, The Spirit of ’76 magazine devoted much of its front page to a poem by Mary M[elissa]. Durgin Gray (1848–1939).

The poem was illustrated by a photo of Betsey Folsom Durgin, as shown here. She was the poet’s grandmother and herself the granddaughter of the poem’s subject.

Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom.

GRANDMOTHER dear, in the picture there,
With snowy cap and silvery hair,
Delighted to talk of the days of yore
And the part her honored grandsire bore,
First, in the great battles under the King,
And subsequently in the following
Of Washington and the heroes bold
Of the Revolution, and ever told
With a touch of pride her grandsire’s name,
Lingeringing [sic] slightly over the same,
Lieut. Jonathan Folsom.

Grandmother, in truth, was really quite small
When he died, at her father’s, his looks to recall;
Her big brother Isaac had doubtless instilled
In her mind the facts which their grandsire drilled
Into his; and her stories, eagerly learned
By me, (while my spirit with strong ardor burned)
Familiar as even the Bible tales grew;
I felt as if I had known Jonathan, too.
In school, the word lieutenant being given
To define, I, by artless child-logic driven,
Made answer, Jonathan Folsom.

His brother Nathaniel, more widely known,
To rank of Colonel rose under the Crown;
In General Congress, with Washington
And others, fame for sagacity won;
Then, after Lexington’s bloody affray—
Became Major General early in May.
Full due for his bravery Grandmother paid
Nathaniel, and praise, yet greater stress laid
On her grandsire’s service at famed Bunker Hill;
A volunteer, crippled—yet calling him still
“Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom.”

That Bunker Hill service!—Grandmother thrilled
My soul as she talked of the brave soldiers killed
Around him—her one-legged grandsire brave—
As he toiled in the fray, his loved country to save.
How, firing the mortar, of which he had charge,
Sending bombs on the deck of a man-of-war large
In the harbor, he caused her at last to retire.
(Had they known the projector, how great were their ire.)
The Stamp Act’s repealing, some nine years before
He had sought to announce with an old cannon’s roar;
It burst, and one leg was forever despoiled;
Yet think you his work for his country was foiled,
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom’s?

Do you think that a man who, when scarce twenty-two
(Commissioned Lieutenant) the French to subdue,
Engaged in the siege of Louisburg when
The untutored troops against disciplined men
Small chance had of winning, (yet they did.
Though their work ’neath the boast of the Red-coats was hid);
Do you think such a man could abide in the rear
When he saw his old comrades gathering near,
When those Louisburg drums (after Lexington’s fray)
Were used in the battle on Bunker Hill day;
When Gridley who Pepperell’s batteries laid
Likewise the intrenchments at Bunker Hill made,
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom?

At Duquesne, Crown Point and Niagara, you
See the War Rolls record him and Nathaniel, too.
Historians tell how the Exeter men
The French force defeated again and again.
Brave Jonathan, shot through the shoulder, yet bore
His part in the capture of prisoners and store;
Therefore, when Nathaniel was given command
Of the troops in this region, could Jonathan stand
Inactive because he was minus a leg?
Ah no, he had gotten a fine wooden “peg,”
And he strayed into the battle, enlisted or no,
Performing his part in routing the foe;
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom.

Years have passed—all these patriots lie in their graves;
The banner of Liberty over them waves;
For Freedom they fought and in Freedom they died;
The country they gave us is glorious and wide;
Their memory many essay to revive;
Societies vieing in keeping alive
Accounts of their deeds and the fields where they fought,
And I, in the wave of enthusiasm caught,
The record of Jonathan hastened to find,
Because, I confess, it was more to my mind
To enter the line with a title, though slight;
(Another great grandfather gave me a right.)

He with Stark, as a private, to Bennington went;
But in Jonathan’s name my papers I sent;
What though as a private I found him enrolled?
By epaulets only is bravery told?
His previous record and service proclaim
The man, and I quote, “What’s there in a name?”
But Grandmother, low in her far-away grave?
Did she know that her hero, her grandsire brave,
As “Jonathan, private,” recorded had been
All those years she was praising and glorying in
Lieutenant Jonathan Folsom?

Most of this poem is a retelling of the family lore about Jonathan Folsom, as discussed yesterday—and a depiction of how that story was passed down and embedded in younger generations’ minds.

The phrase “To enter the line” clearly places this composition during the period when it was new and fashionable to join the Daughters of the American Revolution and Sons of the American Revolution. Gray made clear she was eligible for membership (“Another great grandfather gave me a right”).

However, the last stanza takes an amusing swerve into how Jonathan Folsom is not listed as a lieutenant on any rolls from the Revolutionary War. How embarrassed Gray’s grandmother might be to learn her grandfather was a mere private in 1777!

Except he wasn’t. The Jonathan Folsom in the poem had a son of the same name, much more eligible for emergency militia service against the Burgoyne campaign than a one-legged, fiftysomething retired lieutenant. Indeed, that younger Jonathan Folsom was Betsey Folsom Durgin’s father, so she probably knew about his short Revolutionary service.

Lt. Jonathan Folsom was unquestionably an officer in one of the North American colonial wars. The General Society of Colonial Wars had been founded in 1893, making some of his descendants eligible for membership—but the National Society Daughters of Colonial Wars wouldn’t arise until 1917.

On her death, Mary M. Durgin Gray was described by her daughters as an “author of children’s stories.” I’ve found two poems attached to that name in the Granite Monthly in 1900 as well as a sketch in the Boston Home Journal. Those magazines also published some items credited to Mary M. Gray in a similar style, so I bet those are hers, too. But I can’t find any published stories for children.

“He hobbled into battle on his wooden leg”

Jacob Chapman’s 1882 Genealogy of the Folsom Family: John Folsom and His Descendants, 1615-1882 devoted an apprendix to Jonathan Folsom, sharing this bit of family lore:

when the Revolutionary war commenced, he set out for another campaign, and found his way to Bunker Hill. Here he hobbled into battle on his wooden leg, and took charge of a mortar

It is said that at the second shot he threw a bomb upon the deck of a British man-of-war, which led her to draw off as soon as possible into safer quarters.

There’s no supporting evidence for this story. No other American account says the provincial forces at Bunker Hill had a mortar. (They had six four-pounder cannon, though only one trained gun crew at the height of the battle.)

No American veterans described a man with one leg amputated above the knee joining the fight. Nathaniel Folsom didn’t mention his brother in the letters he sent back to New Hampshire.

No British naval sources complained about provincial mortar fire or blamed a shell for pulling back from the battle.

One source for this tale, if not the only one, was Jonathan Folsom’s granddaughter Betsey, born in 1792. She could have known her grandfather directly since he died around 1800. Betsey Folsom married a man named Daniel Durgin and then outlived him by three decades, dying in 1878. Her son Mark William Franklin Durgin of Medford appears to have been one of Chapman’s sources on the family.

After the Chapman book, the story of Jonathan Folsom firing a mortar at Bunker Hill appeared in a few publications of the Sons of the American Revolution. Though Lt. Folsom’s service in the French & Indian War was well documented, descendants joining that organization needed to say he fought in the next war as well.

TOMORROW: Versifying.

“Having loaded a Swivel that had lain buried near 25 Years”

Last month I quoted in passing how “Ensign Jonathan Folsom was shot through the shoulder” in the Battle of Lake George in 1755.

According to some family historians, this Jonathan Folsom (1724–1800?) had also served in the Louisburg campaign ten years earlier.

However, the man of that name was already a lieutenant in 1744, and he was listed as “Decd.” on 20 Jan 1745 in New Hampshire records. So I think that was probably a relative.

By 1758 the former ensign Folsom had recovered from his shoulder wound enough to be serving as a first lieutenant. (His younger brother Nathaniel Folsom rose much higher in provincial military rank.)

The 2 June 1766 Boston Post-Boy ran this article:

We hear from Exeter, that great Rejoicings were made there on Monday last, upon receiving the News of the Repeal of the Stamp-Act, by Ringing of Bells, Firing of Cannon, Illuminations, Fireworks, &c.

The following Accident happened last Monday at Newmarket, to Lieut. Jonathan Falsom of that Town—he having loaded a Swivel that had lain buried near 25 Years, it burst in Pieces, one of which struck him in the Breast and several others in one of his Legs which split the Bone thereof to Pieces, on which the Surgeons thought proper to cut it off above the Knee.

The first paragraph was the summary of an item in the 30 May New-Hampshire Gazette from Portsmouth, the second a word-for-word transcription of a later paragraph from that paper.

The timing strongly suggests that Folsom decided to fire the old swivel gun (a small cannon designed to be mounted on fortification walls or ship rails) to celebrate the Stamp Act repeal. And that turned out to be a poor decision.

That history wasn’t always transmitted accurately, though. One genealogy for this family, Nathaniel Smith Folsom’s Descendants of the First John Folsom (1876), said the accident happened during “rejoicings over the recent capture of Louisburg.” Everything pointed back to Louisburg.

TOMORROW: More Folsom family lore.

“Bell led a small band of the historically curious through Lexington…”

Early on Friday morning, I got a text alerting me that I was on the front page of the Boston Globe’s Metro section.

The photo by Josh Reynolds above appeared alongside an article by Brian MacQuarrie, long in the works, about hard-core history fans attracted to Massachusetts by its Revolutionary past.

The story begins:

As the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution unfolds, hundreds of history buffs from around the country will descend on Boston this weekend for a busy, immersive gathering where the present will focus on the past.

They’re coming for History Camp Boston — amateurs and academics, neophytes and experts — to partake of a smorgasbord of 50 diverse presentations, from an early American sex scandal to a deadly Lawrence mill collapse, on a day-long menu of simultaneous presentations Saturday at Suffolk University Law School.

History Camp Boston took place yesterday, organized by The Pursuit of History. I spoke about Henry Knox and attended sessions on the British army, battlefield archeology, digital recreations of historic landscapes, researching Revolutionary veterans, and more. This History Camp was the biggest yet, and it still sold out.

To report this story, MacQuarrie was embedded in this spring’s Pursuit of History Weekend on “The Outbreak of War.” He reported:

Earlier this year, Bell led a small band of the historically curious through Lexington, Concord, and along the trail of the bloody British retreat to Boston following the “shot heard ‘round the world.”

At one stop in Lexington, they trudged up Belfry Hill to view a replica of the bell tower that warned the town’s militia of the British advance on April 19, 1775.

They did it in the rain. Cheerfully. Stepping carefully. And listening to sound bites of local history connected with the start of the Revolutionary War.

Months later, the article appeared during the Pursuit of History Weekend on “The Siege & Liberation of Boston.” Which also sold out all its slots.

So I guess one additional piece of news to take away from this story is that you want to join the crowd intensively exploring Revolutionary events through the Pursuit of History offerings, you should sign up early.

“Lt. Coll. Walcott now excuses it”

As I’ve been discussing, a British army court-martial ordered Lt. Col. William Walcott to be reprimanded on the Common in front of the second brigade of British troops in Boston on 17 Apr 1775.

Part of that ceremonial punishment might have been for Ens. Robert Patrick, the young officer Walcott had yelled at and struck, to draw his hand across the regimental commander’s face, thus making things even.

Though a couple of other young officers, Lt. John Barker and Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, wrote the long court-martial verdict into their diaries, neither man described seeing that embarrassing punishment. And Mackenzie was in the second brigade, so he would have been on the Common.

Perhaps that detail was too small to mention. Or maybe it never happened, and the sources from the early 1800s are wrong.

We do know there was another wrinkle in Lt. Col. Walcott’s penalty. He was supposed to be “Suspended for the Space of three Months.” However, Gen. Thomas Gage’s orders for 18 April state:

The Commander in Chief is pleas’d to take off the Suspension ordered upon Lt. Coll. Walcott from this Day inclusive; It having Appeared thro’ the course of the tryal, that Ens. Patrick did behave disrespectfull to his Commanding Officer, but it not being inserted in the Crime, the Court did not proceed upon it, & Lt. Coll. Walcott now excuses it, And will not bring it to a Tryal; but the Commander in Chief thinks proper to Warn Ensign Patrick to behave with more respect for the future to his Commanding Officer.

Thus, although the court martial acquitted Ens. Patrick of “Quarrelling,” “giving a blow,” and “giving…a Challange to fight,” he could still have been brought up on charges of being “disrespectfull.”

But Lt. Col. Walcott decided to let that charge lie. Maybe the family relationship between the two men reported by Lt. Mackenzie was a factor. Maybe this forbearance let Walcott show he was behaving as a proper officer again.

As for Gen. Gage, he was about to send 700 or so soldiers to Concord that evening, with another 1,200 to follow them a few hours later. He needed all his regiments working as efficiently as possible, and that meant keeping Lt. Col. Walcott on the job.

The 5th Regiment took casualties on 19 April, and more at Bunker Hill. Ens. Patrick was promoted to lieutenant on 22 November. He was still at that rank in the 1778 Army List.

Lt. Col. Walcott continued to command the regiment as its official colonel, Earl Percy, handled higher responsibilities. In January 1777 Gen. Sir William Howe gave him responsibility for negotiating exchanges of prisoners of war with Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, Robert Hanson Harrison. In October, Walcott was wounded at the Battle of Germantown, and he died on 16 November.

“Ordered to draw his Hand across the Face of his Lieutenant Colonel”

As quoted yesterday, on 15 Apr 1775 a court-martial sentenced Lt. Col. William Walcott to be reprimanded in front of the entire second brigade of the British army in Boston.

Walcott had struck a young officer in his regiment, Ens. Robert Patrick. The military court deemed that behavior “unmilitary & ungentleman like.” Regimental commanders weren’t supposed to slap down that far.

Another possible detail of the sentence didn’t make it into Gen. Thomas Gage’s general orders, however. Some sources say that the court or the brigadier who both presided over it and commanded the brigade, Gen. Robert Pigot, told Ens. Patrick to swipe his hand across Lt. Col. Walcott’s face in return for the lieutenant colonel striking him.

The earliest I’ve found that detail mentioned is a book published in Bristol in 1806: The Singular and Interesting Trial of Henry Stanton, Esq., of the 8th. (or King’s) Regiment: On Charges for Unofficer-like Behaviour, as Preferred Against Him by Lieutenant Colonel Young, Commanding the Said Regiment. Tried by a General Court-Martial Held at Doncaster, August 14, 1805, and several subsequent Days.

In the course of the arguments, someone stated:

Lieutenant Colonel Walcot, of the 5th. Regiment of Foot, encamped in Boston, North America, in 1775, was suspended for Six Months, for striking Ensign Patrick, of the same Regiment; who was ordered to draw his Hand across the Face of his Lieutenant Colonel, before the Whole Garrison, in return for the Insult he received. Notwithstanding he had challenged Colonel Walcot.

This was tried before an Honourable Court Martial, Brigadier General Pigot, President.

Those words appear between quotation marks, but I haven’t found their source.

Ten years later, E. Samuel published An Historical Account of the British Army: And of the Law Military, as Declared by the Ancient and Modern Statutes, and Articles of War for Its Government with a Free Commentary on the Mutiny Act, and the Rules and Articles of War; Illustrated by Various Decisions of Courts Martial.

That book stated in a footnote:

A remarkable instance of this kind occurred in the late war in America. Lieutenant-Colonel Walcot, of the 5th regiment of foot, while encamped near Boston, was so unfortunate, in a hasty and intemperate moment, to be moved to strike a subaltern (Ensign Patrick) under his command; and notwithstanding the latter had challenged him, the lieutenant-colonel was brought to a court martial, of which Brigadier-General Pigot was president, for the offence, when the court, after due consideration, suspended him from pay and allowances for six months, and was further pleased to order that Ensign Patrick should draw his hand across the face of the lieutenant-colonel before the whole garrison, in return for the insult he had received.

Samuel’s publication was authoritative enough that the anecdote appeared in several more histories of the British army, the 5th Regiment, dueling, and courts martial over the next century.

As I said above, the detail of Ens. Patrick touching Lt. Col. Walcott’s face does not appear in the general orders describing the outcome of the case. Furthermore, the court martial officially acquitted Patrick of challenging Walcott, contrary to the later descriptions of the punishment.

Neither of the British army officers who followed this case in their diaries—Lt. John Barker and Lt. Frederick Mackenzie—described seeing Ens. Patrick carry out this action. But perhaps another contemporaneous source will surface.

Paradoxically, this alleged detail of the Walcott case has gotten more discussion in print than the verdict in Gen. Gage’s official announcement. It’s in the literature as an unusual but still precedented measure the British army has taken to encourage good behavior in officers.

TOMORROW: Suspended.

(The picture above shows an officer from an Irish volunteer regiment being manly about 1780.)