“In free countries, the law ought to be king”

Next month sees the Sestercentennial of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, printed by Robert Bell in Philadelphia on 9 January (to judge by the first newspaper advertisement the next day) and then reprinted at the end of the month because of popular demand.

The New York Times has observed the occasion by publishing an appreciation by Boston University professor Joseph Rezek, “The Pamphlet That Has Roused Americans to Action for 250 Years.”

Rezek’s a literature scholar, so he pays particular attention to Paine’s rhetorical style. Here’s a taste:

The first section of “Common Sense” narrates the origins of government with a classic Enlightenment experiment, asking: What was it like in the state of nature, before governments were instituted among people? “Let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth” in a “state of natural liberty,” Paine wrote, sounding like a schoolteacher. Then kings arrive, like snakes in the garden.

“Mankind being originally equals,” Paine went on, their “equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance.” Look at the “present race of kings,” he declared, and “we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang.” Eager to make his ideas intelligible to readers who had never philosophized before, Paine used imagery he thought they could relate to.

Ripping up monarchy by the roots, he asserted that William the Conqueror did not establish an “honorable” origin for English kings when he invaded in 1066. “A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it.” This frank and gritty language is from the tavern, not the library.

Of course, it’s not just the lèse-majesté insults that made Common Sense powerful, as shocking as they probably were to some British colonists. It was how Paine wielded them in service of compelling political ideas, urging Americans to put their principles of liberty into practice. A monarchist could toss around epithets and still have no better argument than “Because the king said so.”

In 1776, Paine looked toward the future. Today, many Americans are looking to the past to help navigate what really does feel like “a new era for politics.” Right after Paine declared “the law is king,” he also qualified that statement: “In free countries, the law ought to be king.” Laws in the United States have often been unjust, and just laws have often been unequally enforced. Perhaps Paine understood that the idealistic political experiment he hoped to help launch would always be a work in progress.

Because there will always be snakes. Most of us know damn well they’re snakes, and most don’t get taken in.

Here’s the link.

New Foreword for Stark’s Loyalists of Massachusetts

American Ancestors has just reissued James Henry Stark’s The Loyalists of Masssachusetts with a new foreword by me.

I came across a copy of Stark’s Loyalists of Massachusetts in my local library when I was early in my research on eighteenth-century Boston. I was struck by its combination of detailed research on exiled families and apparently still-hot resentment at how the whole Revolution thing turned out.

One notorious detail of this book is an illustration of Paul Revere on horseback—complete with fringed buckskin coat, beard, and vicious snarl.

In researching the publication of The Loyalists of Massachusetts for this foreword, I realized that Stark didn’t commission that and the other full-page illustrations. He reused them from an earlier history of the Revolution. He did, however, change the captions to make their message more pointed.

Stark published through his own printing company, which he had cofounded with a former “spirit photographer.” That gave him the freedom to devote hundreds of pages to “The Other Side of the American Revolution,” as his subtitle said.

I also looked into the reception of the book in 1910. Some reviewers thought Stark, a childhood immigrant from Britain, was too harsh on the Patriots. The press magnified that controversy. The argument became a front-page story in newspapers well outside New England as editors enjoyed the spectacle of elite Bostonians arguing over their ancestors’ actions.

Another of Stark’s interests was yachting. In fact, he was on a cruise when the controversy over his book broke out. I think he’d be pleased that the cover of this new edition shows Sir Isaac Coffin, alumnus of Boston’s South Latin School and admiral in the Royal Navy.

The Burdicks after the Boston Massacre

In the year after the Boston Massacre, Benjamin Burdick became the proprietor of the Freemason’s Arms tavern—better known as the Green Dragon Tavern, owned by the St. Andrew’s lodge.

I imagine his wife Jane did a lot of the hosting since Benjamin remained Constable of the Town House Watch through 1774.

As the London government cracked down and war approached, the Burdicks moved out to Marblehead. Benjamin opened a “large, genteel, and commodious” inn opposite Jeremiah Lee’s mansion. Soon he was watching over auctions of captured goods and vessels. Later the inn hosted auctions of estates confiscated from absent Loyalists.

By 1786 Burdick had relocated to Danvers, at the Sign of the Flag, but that property was sold the next year. Jane was back in Boston when she died in 1791. I haven’t found a record of Benjamin’s death. (It doesn’t help that genealogists have intertwined him with a man of the same name from Westerly, Rhode Island.)

In 1778, the Boston merchant Samuel Phillips funded the opening of a new academy in Andover with Eliphalet Pearson as preceptor. The inaugural class of that school included Malcolm McNeil Burdick, born in Boston 1764—the Burdicks’ oldest son. (His first and middle name appeared with different spellings.) Malcolm was in his teens but for some reason listed as age ten in school records.

Later Malcolm M. Burdick went to sea, appearing in advertisements as master of the Minerva sailing from Baltimore to Liverpool in 1801 and of the John out of New York in 1807. By 1812 he had settled in Windham, Maine, where he advertised that someone else’s livestock had gotten onto his land.

Another of Benjamin and Jane Burdick’s sons, William, born in 1774, went into printing. In July 1795 he and Benjamin Sweetser cofounded a newspaper in Boston called the Courier. Soon that became The Courier, Boston Evening Gazette and Universal Advertiser. Burdick signed over his portion of the business to Sweetser in December, and it ceased publishing in March 1796 after a fire.

[ADDENDUM: From 1798 to 1800 William Burdick was the junior partner in publishing the Oriental Trumpet newspaper in Portland, Maine. He then returned to Boston.]

In 1809 William Burdick married Lucretia Sprague (1788–1849), daughter of Continental artillery veteran Samuel Sprague (1753–1844). According to her brother, the banker and poet Charles Sprague (1791–1895), their father was also part of the Boston Tea Party.

William Burdick reused the Boston Evening Gazette name for a new periodical in 1813. His printing office at Congress and State Streets was next to the Exchange Coffee House, and he bought stock in that jittery enterprise. The printer’s older brother Malcolm sold subscriptions up in Maine.

That Boston Evening Gazette evolved into the the Boston Intelligencer in August 1816. Burdick sold the business the following January and died on 30 May 1817, under Dr. John Collins Warren’s care. He was intestate but solvent, so his widow Lucretia could settle the estate and live for three more decades. She was interred in the Sprague family tomb in Boston’s Central Burying-Ground, shown above.

“I can recollect something of their faces…”

As recounted yesterday, immediately after the Boston Massacre, town watchman Benjamin Burdick went up to the soldiers and examined their faces so he could identify them later.

That didn’t actually turn out to be helpful.

When he was called to testify at the soldiers’ trial in November, Burdick had this exchange:

Q. Did you see any of these prisoners in King street the night of the 5th of March?

A. Not that I can swear to as they are dressed. I can recollect something of their faces, but cannot swear to them.

When I came to King-street, I went immediately up to one of the soldiers, which I take to be that man who is bald on the head, (pointing to [Edward] Montgomery). I asked him if any of the soldiers were loaded, he said yes. I asked him if they were going to fire, he said yes, by the eternal God, and pushed at me with his bayonet, which I put by with what was in my hand.

Q. What was it?

A. A Highland broad sword.

John Adams’s notes on this exchange echo some details:

I went up to one that I take to be the bald man but cant swear to any. I askd him if he intended to fire. Yes by the eternal God. I had a Cutlass or high Land broad sword in my Hand.

In an earlier deposition Burdick said that the soldier he spoke to was “the fourth man from the corner, who stood in the gutter.”

However, multiple other witnesses agreed that Pvt. Montgomery was on the right end of the grenadiers’ arc (James Bailey, Jedediah Bass), and that the man in that position was the first to fire (Bailey, Bass, James Brewer, Thomas Wilkinson, Nathaniel Fosdick, Joseph Hiller). The watchman himself described the first shot coming from “the right hand man,” not the men closest to him. So the soldier Burdick spoke to wasn’t Montgomery, despite all his effort to memorize the men’s faces on King Street.

Burdick’s testimony does offer us some details about the soldiers in the courtroom. As defendants, those men were “dressed” differently from how they appeared on 5 March—differently enough for Burdick to say he could no longer recognize any of them with certainty. That suggests the soldiers were no longer wearing their full uniforms.

In addition, Montgomery wasn’t wearing a wig or hat since Burdick (who, incidentally, had been trained as a barber and peruke-maker) saw that he was “bald.”

“I wanted to see some faces that I might swear to”

For a new project I’ve been taking a deep dive into Benjamin Burdick’s accounts of the Boston Massacre.

Back in 2008 I pointed out that, while previous publications about the event didn’t make this clear, Burdick was a Constable of the Town House Watch. All his actions make sense when we consider that he was on King Street to keep the peace and enforce the law.

One of those actions was helping to carry away the bodies. As Burdick brought Dr. Joseph Gardner and David Bradlee to lift Crispus Attucks, the soldiers aimed their muskets again. Capt. Thomas Preston knocked the guns up, telling his men not to fire.

Burdick then boldly walked up to the soldiers. Here’s how he’s quoted describing that action in different sources.

Boston’s Short Narrative report, printing Burdick’s own deposition:

I then went close up to them, and addressing myself to the whole, told them I came to see some faces that I might be able to swear to another day—Capt. Preston, who was the officer, turned round and answered (in a melancholy tone) perhaps you may. After taking a view of each man’s face I left them.

Prosecuting attorney Robert Treat Paine’s notes on how Burdick testified at Capt. Preston’s trial:

I said I wanted to see a face I should sware to, Prisoner said in a Melancholly tone perhaps you may.

An anonymous spectator in the courtroom taking notes for Gov. Thomas Hutchinson:

After the firing I went up to the Soldiers and told them I wanted to see some faces that I might swear to them another day. The Centinel in a melancholy tone said perhaps Sir you may.

(This observer moved Preston’s words into the mouth of the sentry, Pvt. Hugh White. Or the transcriber mistook “Captain” for “Centinel.”)

Burdick’s testimony at the soldiers’ trial, as taken down by John Hodgson:

I went to them to see if I could know their faces again; Capt. Preston looked out betwixt two of them, and spoke to me, which took off my attention from them.

John Adams took notes on what Burdick said at the second trial, but not on that detail.

TOMORROW: Burdick identifying individual soldiers?

“Promised on receiving a bribe, to let a person bring out £240”

Along with the other reports on life inside besieged Boston that I discussed yesterday, on 17 Dec 1775 Capt. Richard Dodge reported this dastardly deed:

Morson Scotch menster took Bribe of A Sertain Genttelmen of 36/ Starling to Gett Out of Boston and 72/ to Let him Bring Out A trunk of £240 Pound in Cash Wich when he Had it in his Power sezd the Holl and Carreed it to Boston A Gain.

In more familiar spelling, the Rev. John Morrison, a Presbyterian minister from Peterborough, New Hampshire, who had come to the siege lines as a chaplain and then defected to the British, charged a man more than £5 to slip out of Boston with cash, but then confiscated the cash.

That story soon got to printer Benjamin Edes, as reported in his next issue of the Boston Gazette on 25 December:

That one Morrison, who officiates as a Presbyterian minister, being appointed searcher of those people who were permitted to leave the town, promised on receiving a bribe, to let a person bring out £240 sterling in cash and plate: but afterwards basely deprived him of the whole of it:—

That article was reprinted in the Pennsylvania Packet on 1 Jan 1776, and here on Boston 1775 in 2008.

One of Capt. Dodge’s informants, a ship captain named Nowell, then went home to Newburyport and told the same story for the 22 December Essex Journal:

That one Morrison a Scotch minister, was appointed to search the inhabitants upon their leaving the town, who received a bribe of two Johanneses to let a small trunk pass unmolested, yet notwithstanding his engagements, he opened the trunk and took out 2400 pounds in cash and a quantity of plate, which was all the trunk contained; what we suppose induced him to this, was, because the informer is intitled to one half of the plunder.

But this time, the numbers got bigger.

(Shown above: Two Portoguese Johannes coins from the mid-1700s, courtesy of BrianRxm.)

Eight Runaway Men in a Boat from Boston

Capt. Richard Dodge was a Continental Army officer stationed in Chelsea during the second half of 1775. Like his regimental commander, Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin, he sent periodic reports to Gen. George Washington’s headquarters about what he saw in Boston harbor.

On 16 December, Dodge reported some exciting news: “Last Eveing Eight men Runaway in a bote from Boston to our guard at the farry.”

Following recently enacted protocol, Dodge sent those men to a local health committee who “Clensed them by Smooking them” against the smallpox.

Six (or seven, according to the 25 December Boston Gazette) of those eight men were “masters of Vassels” captured by the Royal Navy and brought into Boston over the preceding months.

One, Capt. James Warden, had sailed for the Philadelphia merchant Thomas Mifflin and was anxious to renew their acquaintance now that Mifflin was the army’s quartermaster general. Naval Documents of the American Revolution reports that Warden was commanding the schooner Tryal on 22 August when it surrendered to H.M.S. Nautilus under Capt. John Collins.

The Essex Journal of Newburyport identified another of those ship’s captains as named Nowell, possibly Silas Nowell (who wouldn’t have been held that long). He came out with a copy of the Boston News-Letter, the only newspaper still being published in the town, and the news that Gen. John Burgoyne had sailed for England.

On 17 December, 250 years ago today, Dodge wrote out a précis of what those men told him about life inside Boston. The prices for food were high. One escapee reported that “he Dined with a man that Dined with Lord parsey a feu Day ago upon horse beaff.”

Firewood was even scarcer with winter coming on. Gen. William Howe had ordered the Old North Meeting-House and empty houses torn down for fuel. We also know Howe told London that he might have to order wharves torn up next.

Citing Capt. Nowell, the newspapers added that “all the drugs and medicines in the town have been seized for the use of the army.”

TOMORROW: Tales of the searcher.

Call for Papers on Eyewitness Accounts of the Revolution in the Mid-Atlantic

To mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Historic Trappe, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and Ursinus College will convene a symposium about “Experiencing Independence: Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution” on October 2–3, 2026.

This symposium will explore the diaries, journals, letters, and material culture of people in the mid-Atlantic region of America from 1760–1790.

The organizers say:

We seek to convene panels that explore family dynamics in the midst of political upheaval, wartime experiences of soldiers and civilians, accounts from different religious perspectives, and new approaches to non-English sources on the American Revolution.

We invite papers from historians, museum curators, educators, conservators, tour guides, reenactors, and other experts who rely on these sources to interpret military engagements, domestic life, and political and cultural changes of this period. Scholars of all backgrounds, disciplines, and career stages are encouraged to submit proposals.

Participants in “Experiencing Independence” will be able to tour Historic Trappe’s sites, including:

• the home of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and his wife Mary (shown above), who moved in the week following the Declaration of Independence 
• the home of his son, Frederick Muhlenberg, which will open to the public in 2026 after a twenty-five-year restoration 
• the special exhibition “Window to Revolution: Pennsylvania Germans and the War for Independence” in the Center for Pennsylvania German Studies at the Dewees Tavern

Prospective presenters can submit a title and 250-word abstract along with a one-page C.V. by 9 Jan 2026 through this online form. Direct questions about the symposium to Emily Sneff, Historian and Consulting Curator at Historic Trappe, at emily@historictrappe.org.

The Northern Department’s Wagon Masters in 1778

On 21 Aug 1778, Morgan Lewis (1754–1844), deputy quartermaster general of the Northern Department of the Continental Army, wrote out a list of men working under him.

A copy of that document is now in Horatio Gates’s papers. It’s transcribed here as part of a New York State Museum web exhibit called “The People of Colonial Albany Lived Here.”

Lewis listed four men as wagon masters that summer, and Stefan Bielinski provided profiles of three of them:

• Jellis Winne (1732–1804).
• Frans Winne (1734–1797?).
• Samuel Bond.
• Christopher A. Yates (1739–1809).

All three identified men were residents of Albany, New York. They were of middling age, married with children, exempted from military duty. They owned property, held local offices, and could command the respect of their neighbors.

August 1778 was well over two years after Gen. Philip Schuyler sent his wagon master out to recruit teams of horses for Col. Henry Knox. Nonetheless, it would be worth looking at his papers from 1775 to see if he worked with any of these three men. Documents show that Schuyler interacted with other members of the Winne and Yates families after 1778, but of course Albany was a small society and Schuyler had lots of business.

As for Samuel Bond, Gen. George Washington’s general orders for 9 Sept 1778 state that at a court martial on 31 August (or ten days after Lewis made his list):

Samuel Bond Assistant Waggon Master was tried for 1st “Picking a Lock; breaking into a public store and taking from thence rum and Candles” which he appropriated to his own use, found guilty of the charges exhibited against him and sentenced to receive fifty lashes and to return to the Regiment from which he was taken.

The General remits the stripes & orders said Bond to return to the Regiment from which he was taken.

Bond thus appears to have been a regular soldier drafted to manage wagons, and then sent back into the ranks.

Deputy quartermaster general Morgan Lewis went on to become the third elected governor of New York, as shown above.

“I Enquired for the waggon master”

On 16 May 1776, Gen. John Sullivan was at Albany, New York, trying to organize the remnants of the Continental Army’s invasion of Canada.

He sent a letter to Gen. George Washington complaining of the Northern Department’s wagon master, among other things:

Early on the 15 Inst. to my Surprize I found three hundred Barrels (which I had Sent forward) Lying on the Beach without any teams to Carry them to Still water about twelve miles further

I Enquired for the waggon master & was Informed he was at his own House About Six miles off

I Immediately wrote him of the Necessity of his Exerting himself at this time

Two days later Sullivan sent off another complaint about the wagon drivers:

I found at Still water a Number of Barrells of Pork that the Waggoners had Tap[p]ed & Drawn off the pickle to Lighten their Teams. This pork must Enevetably be Ruin’d before it can reach Canada,

as Genl [Philip] Schuyler was Absent I Order’d the Commissary not to Receive any Such from the Waggoners & the Commissary at half moon not to receive out of the Boats any or Deliver out such to the Waggoners.

I order’d the Waggoners not to Receive any such as it would Eventually be thrown on their hands I then Directed the Commissary here not to Send any Barrels forwards that had lost the Pickle which would be only taking up Batteaus & Waggons to Cary Provisions which when brought to Canada Could not be Eaten.

By this Step I hope to prevent any further fraud in the Waggoners who (it is said) Learnt this piece of Skill in the Last War, for which Some of them were well flogged, and I hope Some of them may Share the Same fate—again.

Washington passed on word of those complaints to Schuyler, who responded a month later:

As to the Waggon master he is an Industrious Active and I believe an honest Man, But It is not in his Power, nor any Mans whatsoever to procure Waggons at all Times & at that Time It was peculiarly difficult both on Account of the Scarcity of Forrage the Badness of the Roads and the extravagant Abuses the Waggoners had met with from some of the Troops that preceded General Sullivan’s Brigade.

Neither general named the wagon master, which might reflect how he wielded authority over the teamsters but wasn’t at the level of a gentlemen. Their letters do offer some clues about the man: He had his own house about six miles from where Sullivan was in Albany. He was literate. He was independent.

Now that man in May 1776 wasn’t necessarily the same official whom Schuyler oversaw in December 1775. Nonetheless, he was clearly not one of Schuyler’s slaves.

TOMORROW: Names at last.

Was Gen. Schuyler’s Wagon Master One of His Enslaved Workers?

As quoted yesterday, on 29 Dec 1775 Col. Henry Knox wrote that Gen. Philip Schuyler “sent out his Waggon Master & other people to all parts of the Country” to hire teams of horses for transporting heavy ordnance to Springfield.

Back in 2016 Ian Mumpton at the Schuyler Mansion wrote:

It is unclear who the “Waggon Master” refers to, but as mentioned in a previous article, many of the men enslaved by the Schuyler family were skilled at driving carts and sleds. As there is no surviving record of Schuyler hiring a wagon master, it is likely that this person was one of the enslaved servants, possibly Lisbon or a man named Lewis who, five months later, was lent to Benjamin Franklin as a driver for a trip from the Schuyler’s home to New York City.

That previous article, also posted by Mumpton, analyzed a 1771 document which mentioned enslaved workers and said:

Lisbon and Dick are both mentioned in other Schuyler documents as carters or wagoners, conveying goods and people for the Schuyler family. Lisbon in particular is mentioned in at least four other sources, always in regards to his driving goods back and forth between Albany and Saratoga. These men’s ability to drive carts and sleds was a large part of their value to the Schuylers, as this was a specialized skill-set that involved being able to work with draft animals, manage tack and harness, and maintain the carts and sleds in their charge.

A comment noted another wagon driver named Anthony, Tony, or Tone.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Gen. Schuyler assigned some of his enslaved wagon drivers to the operation moving cannon toward Boston (and collected the same pay he was offering to other farmers for himself).

However, I’m not convinced that one of those men could have been Schuyler’s “Waggon Master.” That was an official designation within the Continental Army’s quartermaster department. On 9 August, Gen. George Washington appointed John Goddard of Brookline “Waggon Master General to the Army of the Twelve United Colonies.” (That count included Georgia but not Delaware, still officially a subset of Pennsylvania.)

In the fall of 1775 Schuyler had overseen preparations for Gen. Richard Montgomery’s invasion of Canada, an operation that probably required a convoy of wagons and thus an official to oversee them.

And that’s a crucial aspect of the job of wagon master. It required more than driving a wagon—indeed, the wagon master might not do any actual driving at all. The job involved making deals on behalf of the Continental Army with a large number of independent contractors and then overseeing a force of teamsters. The word “master” was even in the name. Did any enslaved man, however skilled, have the legal standing and social authority to do that job in 1775?

TOMORROW: Glimpses of Schuyler’s wagon master in spring 1776.

“After a considerable degree of conversation”

On Christmas 1775, Col. Henry Knox was making his way on horseback to Gen. Philip Schuyler’s mansion in Albany, New York.

Knox has just called off his deal with George Palmer of Stillwater to supply eighty pair of oxen to transport heavy cannon into Massachusetts.

Palmer was in his late fifties. Born in Connecticut, he had bought mills and other real estate in Stillwater in 1764 and become a big man in that town. He didn’t like being dismissed, as shown by the letter I quoted yesterday.

Since we have only one side of the correspondence, we don’t know if Knox had revealed that he’d canceled the deal on a direct order from Gen. Schuyler, who insisted he’d started making his own arrangements for moving the cannon.

Schuyler was in his mid-forties, scion of a family of Dutch landowners in Albany. He was a big man in the whole colony. He’d been elected to the Second Continental Congress and then appointed a general of the Continental Army in charge of the Northern Department.

In between those two local bigwigs was Knox, a twenty-five-year-old from Boston who hadn’t yet received his official commission as colonel. He was following orders direct from Gen. George Washington, but that mentor was very far away.

On the afternoon of 26 December, Knox reached Schuyler’s house. Evidently he persuaded the general to at least talk with Palmer. The next day Knox wrote in his journal: “Sent off for Mr Palmer to Come immediately down to Albany.”

On 28 December Knox recorded the result of that meeting:

Mr Palmer Came Down & after a considerable degree of conversation between him & General Schuyler about the price the Genl Offering 18/9. & Palmer asking 24/. P[er] day for 2 Yoke of Oxen the treaty broke off abrubtly & Mr Palmer was dismiss’d

It seems clear from the way Knox described that long conversation as between Palmer and Schuyler that he was left out—perhaps he even wanted to be left out. We don’t know what price he had offered Palmer and thus how that fit into this conversation. Did Schuyler bargain Palmer down, or did Palmer insist on sticking to the original deal?

Authors describe Knox scrapping his initial plan to use Palmer’s oxen as purely a matter of cost. That makes the situation seem entirely reasonable, especially on the part of the men commemorated with statues—Schuyler and Knox. But Schuyler had told Knox to dismiss Palmer more than a week before this sit-down, before he knew anything about prices.

That suggests Schuyler made his decision on something besides 5s.3d per day. He and Palmer might have been rivals for influence in the county. He might have assumed Palmer wouldn’t offer the best price. He might have felt he’d sunk too much money into his own preparations to stop now. The general might simply have wanted more control.

Whatever his motivation, on 29 December Schuyler sent his wagon master and other agents “to all parts of the County to immediately send up their slays with horses,” as Knox wrote. The price would be “12/. P[er] day for each pair of horses or £7. P[er] Ton for 62 miles.” At the end of the year the wagon master brought back a list of 124 teams. That number of horses would cost £74.8s. per day.

In contrast, Palmer had offered 80 yoke of oxen. Knox wrote that he ultimately quoted 24s. per day “for 2 Yoke of Oxen.” If that’s correct, using Palmer’s oxen would have cost £48 per day, considerably less than Schuyler’s arrangement. However, if Knox really meant that price to apply to each yoke of two oxen (the usual way of calculating), then Palmer was indeed asking for more than Schuyler.

There might well have been other costs and factors involved, such as the number of teamsters needed or how quickly the animals and equipment could be assembled. But whatever the details, it seems clear that Schuyler was making the decisions at this point, not Knox.

Indeed, Knox confided some worries about the final arrangement in his journal, meant for himself and perhaps for showing Gen. Washington later. On 31 December he wrote about the “Slays which I’m afraid are not Strong enough for the heavy Cannon If I can Judge from the sample Shewn me by Genl Schuyler.”

Nonetheless, those sleighs and those horses were what he had to work with.

TOMORROW: The wagon master.

“You will therefore Countermand any directions you may have given Mr. Palmer”

As discussed back here, as of 13 Dec 1775 Col. Henry Knox and George Palmer of Stillwater, New York, had agreed on how to transport heavy ordnance to Springfield.

Knox wrote to Gen. George Washington about those arrangements on 17 December:

I have made forty two exceeding strong sleds & have provided eighty yoke of Oxen to drag them as far as Springfield where I shall get fresh Cattle to carry them to Camp.

This is the letter in which Knox promised “to present to your Excellency a Noble train of Artillery,” a phrase authors still use to describe the guns.

On the same day, Knox wrote to Gen. Philip Schuyler (shown above) in Albany. He had thought Schuyler had gone south to Philadelphia, so he might have made decisions thinking that he didn’t have to clear them with his superior officer. Knox told Schuyler:

I have agreed with Capt. Palmer of Stillwater to get proper Conveyances for them from hence to Springfield— . . . I expect Capt. Palmer up with the Teams on Tuesday & on Wednesday or Thursday I hope to move as far as Saratoga if the sleding continues as at present from thence we must wait for Snow—

The next day, Schuyler wrote back:

I am happy to hear that all the Military stores you had in charge to bring from Ticonderoga are arrived at Fort George,— I have taken Measures to forward them to Boston as soon as we shall be favoured with a fall of Snow— but I am Informed that you have Applied to Mr. Palmer to Construct Carriages for the purpose, this is a very unnecessary Expence as there are a Sufficiency of Carriges Suitable for the purpose in this County Sufficient to Carry ten times the quantity, you will therefore Countermand any directions you may have given Mr. Palmer on this head.

Note how Knox referred to Palmer as a captain, probably a militia rank, while Schuyler called him only “Mr. Palmer.”

Having received a direct order, Knox wrote to George Palmer saying that his services were no longer needed.

Palmer had been making arrangements with his network of farmers around Stillwater. He didn’t take this news well. On 25 December he responded to Knox:

Since your Departure from this I have an oppertunity with Many of the inhabitants with whom I have Contracted for the Removal of the artillery and Stores, I find all Determined To A Man to fulfill on their Part & that I Shall on mine or Be answerable for the Consequences of A Disapointment which is More than I Shall be able to Do,

Depend Sir the People (& Not only those Employed in Service But others General) are Not indifferent, they are Sensible of the importance of the Grand Cause

they are Sensible To the Minutest Degree of the insult offered in Counteracting your Measures, I take this Earliest opportunity To inform you of the Disposition of the People among whom I Live with whom I am Concerned Particularly in this afair,

your Penetration will Easily Dissern the Consequences that will follow Disapointing Such A Number of People So Resolutely Determined as you may Depend Those are, with Regard to what you mentioned of our Carrying the heavy [space] they are Determined Since there is Such an they are Determined Since there is Such an attempt made To Supplant them To fulfill the whole Contract

I am Sir with all Possible Respect your most obedient hume. Sert/.

I get the impression that Palmer no longer had complete respect for young Col. Knox.

TOMORROW: A sit-down in Albany.

Recording of “The First Commander Remembered” Panel

The Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library has shared the video recording of last week’s panel discussion on “The First Commander Remembered: Washington’s Legacy in Cambridge.”

This event was organized by a group of local historical organizations and moderated by Christopher Beagan, site manager of the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

The first part of the event is my fast analysis of why George Washington was in Cambridge from different perspectives: how that town became the headquarters of the provincial and then Continental army, why the Continental Congress chose Washington to lead that army, what he thought his mission was, what he really learned during his months in Cambridge, and how historians of the nineteenth century portrayed his work.

Then Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, discussed how the city has commemorated Washington, particularly the long life, death, and latter-day commemoration of the Washington Elm.

We then discussed themes of memory and answered questions from the audience. Though this event happened on a night with a somewhat gloomy weather forecast, there was a robust and curious crowd.

I think my favorite part was getting the inside story of how William Dawes’s ride through Cambridge came to be commemorated through the unique bronze horseshoes in the sidewalk at Harvard Square rather than a conventional equestrian statue.

Though I suppose an equestrian statue might have been unconventional, too, if it were really modeled after the description traced back to Dawes’s cousin Josiah Waters, Jr.: “mounted on a slow jogging horse, with saddle bags behind him, and a large flapped hat upon his head, to resemble a countryman on a journey.”

The recording of the series’s first event, “From Revolution to Remembrance: Memory of the American Revolution” with Michael Hattem, Nikki Stewart, and Beth Folsom is also available for viewing.

Reenacting Tea Meetings in Faneuil Hall and Old South

Bostonians had lots of public debates over what to do about the East India Company’s tea, both before and after persons unidentified destroyed it in the harbor on 16 Dec 1773.

Some of the meetings before that event lasted hours and attracted so many people that the crowd had to gather in the Old South Meeting-House instead of Faneuil Hall.

In 1774, after Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, the town meeting had more sessions devoted to discussing whether the town or any of its citizens should pay for the tea.

Families can sample the arguments at those meetings in two ways this season, both within the buildings where Bostonians actually gathered to debate.

Saturday and Sunday, 13 and 14 December, 1 P.M.
252nd Boston Tea Party Anniversary Town Meeting
Boston National Historical Park
Faneuil Hall

In early 1774 Parliament responded to the destruction of over 90,000 pounds of property by closing the port of Boston until the East India Company was compensated for its loss. In May, Bostonians gathered in the Great Hall in Faneuil Hall to vote on their response. Should they pay for the destroyed property, either officially or by private subscription, and reopen the port? Or should they endorse a boycott of British goods and continue protesting Parliament?

At 3 P.M. on each day, the same space will host the “1873 Women’s Tea Party,” a rally by the New England Women’s Suffrage Association. Leading suffragists argued that they were inheritors of the legacy of the American Revolution.

All these programs at Faneuil Hall are free and open to the public for all ages. They last 30-45 minutes. Sign up to attend here.

Tuesday, 16 December, 5 P.M.
Reenactment of the Meeting of the Body of the People
Revolutionary Spaces
Old South Meeting House

Commemorate the 252nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party with a live reenactment of the Meeting of the Body of the People—held in the very room where it all began.

Feel the tension rise as fiery patriots debate the fate of the East India Company’s tea before thousands of restless colonists. Hear the shouts, the arguments, and the call for action that set a revolution in motion. Watch history come to life as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and others grapple with the decision to take bold action, ultimately leading to the dramatic event that became known as the Boston Tea Party.

(The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum will not host a reenactment of the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor this year.)

Ticket prices for the Old South reenactment range from $60 for V.I.P. seating to $25 for members of Revolutionary Spaces. Order tickets through this page. Doors will open at 5 P.M., and the reenactment will start at 6:15.

Examining the American Attack on Québec

Even as Col. Henry Knox was moving cannon south from Lake Champlain, Gen. Richard Montgomery was besieging Québec.

The American Revolution Institute is offering two online events about that invasion this week, two hundred fifty years later.

Tuesday, 9 December, 6:30 to 7:30 P.M.
The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony
Mark R. Anderson

Anderson examines the American colonies’ efforts to bring Quebec into the Continental confederation and free Canadians from British “tyranny.” He offers new insight into the key political and military factors that ultimately doomed America’s first foreign war of liberation and resulted in the Continental Army’s decisive expulsion from Canada on the eve of the Declaration of Independence.

Mark R. Anderson is a retired U.S. Air Force officer, having earned his M.A. in military studies from American Military University, with a concentration in early American land warfare. He is the author of several books, including The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America’s War of Liberation in Canada, 1774–1776 (2013), The Invasion of Canada by the Americans, 1775–1776: As Told through Jean-Baptiste Badeaux’s Three Rivers Journal and New York Captain William Goforth’s Letters (2017), and Down the Warpath to the Cedars: Indians’ First Battles in the Revolution (2022).

Anderson will be speaking at the American Revolution Institute in Washington, D.C. Register for the livestream of his talk through this webpage.

Friday, 12 December, 12:30 to 1 P.M.
The Revolution’s First Winter: Loyalist Thomas Ainslie’s Account of the 1775 American Assault of Quebec
Thomas Lannon

With unrest spreading in the southern colonies, British leaders worried rebellion might cross into Canada. That fear was justified, and Canada figured prominently in the American strategy for an opening campaign in the Revolution. Congress authorized the invasion in 1775, with the expectation that French Canadians would embrace union with the colonies.

At the center of this Lunch Bite presentation is a letter authored by Quebec’s Collector of Customs, Thomas Ainslie, preserved in the institute’s collections. Ainslie’s recollections provide a reliable day-to-day record from inside Quebec City during the American siege until British reinforcements arrived. The presentation will also explore the crucial role Loyalists played in defending the city, the uncertain loyalties of French Canadians, and the constant British fear that revolutionary fervor might spill over the border.

Lannon is the institute’s library director. Sign up to hear his virtual presentation here.

Following the Knox 250 Trail through New York, 13–14 Dec.

On the weekend after my 11 December talk at the Saratoga battlefield park, many local historic sites and communities in New York will host commemorations of Henry Knox’s mission to transport more ordnance to the siege of Boston.

The first leg of that journey involved floating and dragging heavy cannon and mortars south on Lake George and then to greater Albany in December 1775.

The Saratoga 250 website lists these celebrations.

Saturday, 13 December

• Washington County Knox Parade
• The Noble Train Arrives at Hudson Crossing Park in Saratoga County
• Knox Fest 250 in Fort Hardy Park
• Candlelight Concert at the Arts Center on the Hudson in Mechanicville

Sunday, 14 December

• Procession and Wreath-Laying Ceremony in Waterford
• Arrival on Van Schaick Island

The celebrations appear to culminate in this event.

Sunday, 14 December, 1 to 5 P.M.
Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery Layover at Albany
Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, Albany

In the early afternoon, the ceremonial linstock will arrive at Gen. Philip Schuyler’s home. Historical reenactors and 18th-century refreshments will be on hand. This outdoor event will be free and open to the public.

From 2 to 4 P.M., visitors with tickets can go inside the mansion for guided dramatic tours. Witness Knox’s stay at the mansion, his impact on the household, and Schuyler’s role as host and facilitator of the wagon train’s passage through Albany and over the Hudson River. Space is limited. Purchase timed tickets through this site or by calling 518-434-0834.

The Knox Trail 250 events will pick up again in January.

“Knox’s Mission to Lake Champlain” in Saratoga, 11 Dec.

On Thursday, 11 December, I’ll be in Saratoga, New York, to share thoughts on “Myths and Realities of Col. Henry Knox’s Mission to Lake Champlain.”

Our event description:

In November 1775, Gen. George Washington gave Henry Knox a mission to travel to New York and bring back cannons for the Continental Army. Knox was a 25-year-old bookseller with no military rank. His trek back to Cambridge has become a beloved part of the American saga. This talk digs deeper into that story, examining such questions as who first had the idea to fetch cannon from Lake Champlain, how Knox had contributed to the Patriot movement, the ways weather affected the mission, and how much those cannon changed the British army’s plans.

This talk will take place in the Saratoga National Historical Park visitor center starting at 6:30 P.M. It is free, but because seating is limited, the park asks people to make reservations by email to SARA_Reservations@nps.gov. The Friends of Saratoga Battlefield supports this and other fall lectures at the park.

The Saratoga battlefield park is within the town of Stillwater, New York. Exactly two hundred and fifty years before the date of this talk, Knox wrote in his diary, he sent a man from Fort George “to Squire Palmer of Stillwater to prepare a number of Sleds & oxen to drag the Cannon presuming that we should get there.”

According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s abstract of Knox’s letter to Palmer, the colonel asked for forty sleds. Since he would soon refer to “eighty Yoke of oxen,” that meant he was planning to use four beasts per sled. (The institute also says that letter was dated 12 December, so it’s possible Knox was off by a day in his journal.)

George Palmer (1719–1809) was a local bigwig, more than twice Knox’s age. According to Stillwater’s website, he had “at his own expense equipped a company of militia which marched to Crown Point and Ticonderoga, arriving just after Ethan Allen had taken the fort.”

Palmer came to Fort George on 13 December and “agreed to provide the necessary number of sleds & oxen & they to be ready by the first snow.”

COMING UP: Making other plans.

Sentence Analysis

The next step in the Continental Army’s punishment of Pvt. John Short, Pvt. John Smith, and Owen Ruick was to send them to Simsbury, Connecticut, to be locked up (or locked down) in the colony’s new underground prison, later dubbed “Old New-Gate.” 

As quoted back here, on 11 Dec 1775 Gen. George Washington wrote to the committee of safety in that town, stating:

the prisoners which will be deliverd you with this [letter] haveing been tried by a Court Martial & deemd to be Such flagrant & Attrocious villains, that they Cannot by any Means be Set at Large or Confined in any place near this Camp

That letter is often quoted in connection with Loyalists, thus implicating Washington in the persecution of political prisoners.

The Old New-Gate Prison no doubt did hold some Loyalists during the war, but the courts-martial which sentenced those three men to that prison in December 1775 show that they weren’t brought up on political charges. Short was convicted as a deserter from the Massachusetts army and a thief, Smith as an attempted deserter, and Ruick as a “transient” who had encouraged Smith to desert.

The legal record shows us some other things as well.

Short and Smith were convicted of violating the Massachusetts articles of war, approved by the provincial congress back in April (shown above, as published by Samuel and Ebenezer Hall in Salem). The privates had enlisted in the colony’s army under those terms.

In contrast, during this same season Gen. Washington and his staff were wrestling with how to deal with Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., detected in a more serious “correspondence with the enemy” than John Short. Church’s commission came from the Continental Congress, so he was bound by the Continental articles of war. That document limited his potential punishment. (The military authorities thus showed their wish to be fair; they felt they that legally they had to follow the rules in place when the accused acted, not rewrite those rules later.)

That said, these sentences show the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut working together in the new Continental structure. Ordinarily one colony couldn’t sentence men to imprisonment in a neighboring colony. But this was a Continental Army ruling, and Washington promised that Connecticut wouldn’t have to pay the cost of imprisoning those men.

The stated sentences of two years for Short and one year for Ruick appear to have been minimums. The court-martial said both men could be confined “for as much longer as the present contest between Great Britain and the American Colonies shall subsist.” (There was no such proviso recorded for Smith, yet in practice he remained in the prison for longer than six months.)

We know now that the war would last seven more years. I don’t think anyone at the time anticipated it would take so long. But the court-martial didn’t want Short and Ruick to be free while it was still going on.

To be sure, those men’s fates could have been worse. As the American press had reported critically, the British army executed deserters on Boston Common. For theft, Short was sentenced to the Massachusetts army maximum of 39 lashes (Art. 30). In contrast, British soldiers could be subjected to hundreds.

By eighteenth-century standards, the Continental Army court-martial’s sentence to (open-ended) incarceration instead of execution, the limit on lashes, and even Connecticut’s underground prison were all reforms to the prevailing systems of crime and punishment.

COMING UP: Accounting for the prisoners.

“After the first five Stripes Never Said one word”

A couple of Continental Army diaries from the siege of Boston record what happened after the courts-martial that I recounted back here.

Pvt. Samuel Bixby was a soldier from Sutton stationed in Roxbury in 1775. The Massachusetts Historical Society published his diary a century later.

That diary includes these entries:

Dec. 7th, 1775. Thurs: Capt. [Peter] Ingersoll was tried by a Court Martial for spreading false reports about the Country, tending to defame the General. He was fined £8, and dismissed the service.—

8th. Friday. The same Court fined one man £8.7s., and sentenced him to two years imprisonment in the New Gate Prison in Simsbury [Connecticut], for stealing & deserting; and another man, John Smith, for similar offences, was fined £8, and sentenced to six months at Newgate.

Bixby didn’t record the name of defendant John Short, and his figure for John Smith’s penalty misstates the fine as eight pounds instead of eight shillings. But his officers would no doubt have been pleased that Bixby was paying some attention to these examples of military justice.

Sgt. Henry Bedinger of Virginia was also stationed in Roxbury and also keeping a diary, eventually published by Danske Dandridge in Historic Shepherdstown. He recorded these scenes:

7th. John Short, a Soldier in Coll. [Theophilus] Cotton’s Regiment Tryed by a Gen’l Court Martial for theft, Desertion, & Divers other Crimes. The C’t Sentenced him to have 39 Lashes on his Bare Back & Suffer two Years Imprisonment In Simsberry Mines in Conecticut,

he Rec’d his Corporal punishment about 4 OClock this Evening, & after the first five Stripes Never Said one word Untill he had his Due—

This Day a C’t Martial was held over some Riflemen Composed of Rifle officers the first Time

9. Two of Cap’t [Moses] Rawling’s men & one of Cap’t [Thomas] Price’s men Tryed by the above C’t Martial for Divers Crimes were Sentenced to be Whipt, accordingly the Three Companys were Drawed up, Formed a Hollow Square, (the men) were Tyed to an apple Tree, & Rec’d their Corporal punishment

TOMORROW: Shipped to darkest Connecticut.

“The said Short is a midling sized man”

During the siege of Boston, Benjamin Edes published the Boston Gazette out of Watertown. His main competition was the New-England Chronicle that Samuel Hall printed in Cambridge.

Geography put Edes’s print office closer to the Continental camp in Roxbury. On 13 Nov 1775, and for the next two weeks after, the Boston Gazette carried this advertisement:

DESETED [sic] from Capt. Earl Clap’s company in Col. Theophilus Cotton’s regiment, on the 12th of June last, and taken up on the 9th of this inst. [i.e., this month] at Cambridge, John Short, and in conveying him to Roxbury he ran-away again.

The said Short is a midling sized man, goes a little stooping, fresh looking, lately had the small pox, with a scarr on the right side of his face, and dark complection: Had on when he was last taken a blue coat, wash leather breeches, a surtout of a greyish colour, small brim’d hat with a white ribbon round the crown, and boots on.——

Whoever will take up said run-away, and secure or return him to the regiment he deserted from, shall receive four Dollars reward and all necessary charges paid by me.

Roxbury, Nov. 10, 1775. EARL CLAP.

“Wash leather” meant a form of chamois.

Short was evidently caught in late November or early December since the ad stopped appearing and he was court-martialed on 4 December, as recounted yesterday.

In addition to running away twice, as the ad described, Short’s trial record says he’d gotten Capt. Clapp to pay 36 shillings “for a former theft.” No wonder the army was ready to throw the book at him.

Part of Short’s sentence was to repay Clapp that sum plus £1.16s. for the “expense of advertising and apprehending him.” Most of that was probably the $4 reward, then pegged at £1.

TOMORROW: Witnessing the punishment.

“From his own incoherent stories”

On 4 Dec 1775, Col. Jonathan Ward of Southborough convened a court-martial in the Continental Army camp at Roxbury.

Col. Ward presided over a board of officers that included four captains and seven lieutenants.

Pvt. John Short of Rochester was one defendant in that proceeding. He had marched under Col. Theophilus Cotton and Capt. Earl Clapp (represented above by his shoe buckles) during the Lexington Alarm and then enlisted under them for the rest of the year.

Short was charged with “desertion and theft.” He pled not guilty. The record of the court-martial published in American Archives states:

On hearing the evidence brought to support the charge, the Court are unanimously of opinion the prisoner is guilty. It likewise appears very clear to the Court, from sundry papers that were found with him, and from his own incoherent stories, that he is guilty of a breach of the 27th and 29th, and also the 3d article of the Rules and Regulations of the Massachusetts Army.

[Those articles forbade corresponding with the enemy, leaving one’s post to plunder, and provoking mutiny, respectively.]

According to said rules, the Court adjudge the following sums of money to be paid out of his wages and effects, viz:

To Captain Earl Clapp, the sum of 1£.16s., for expense of advertising and apprehending him; also, 36s., that said Clapp paid, at said Short’s desire, for a former theft.

To William Cowing [also listed as Cowen], a soldier in Captain Clapp’s company, 36s.10d., that he carried away with him when he deserted.

To Daniel Crawford [also Croxford], in said company, 4£.16s., for the damage done him by stealing his clothes.

Likewise adjudge him to be whipped thirty-nine stripes on the naked back, and suffer two years imprisonment in Newgate Prison, in Symsbury [Connecticut], and as much longer as the present contest between Great Britain and the American Colonies shall subsist.

The court then turned to Pvt. John Smith, a soldier in Capt. Peter Harwood’s company of Col. Ebenezer Learned’s regiment. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors includes many pages of John Smith entries, of course, but this information matches a man from Brookfield who had enlisted on 12 June.

Smith was charged with “attempting to desert to the enemy.” He pled guilty. The court sentenced him to “pay the sum of eight shillings to Brigadier-General [John] Thomas, to defray the expense of bringing him back to camp, and suffer six months imprisonment in Newgate Prison, in Symsbury.”

Finally the officers considered “Owen Resick, a transient person,” for “aiding, advising, and assisting John Smith to desert to the enemy.” He denied the charge. (Based on other sources, I now think this man’s surname should have been transcribed as Ruick.)

After “hearing and examining the evidence,” the panel found Ruick guilty and sentenced him to “one year’s imprisonment in Newgate Prison, in Symsbury, and as much longer as the present disputes between Great Britain and the Colonies shall subsist.”

Gen. Artemas Ward affirmed those sentences. They don’t appear in Gen. George Washington’s general orders, issued out of Cambridge.

TOMORROW: A glimpse of John Short.

“Sentenced to be Sent to Simsburty in Connecticut”

Here’s another glimpse of Gen. George Washington’s work in Cambridge 250 years ago.

On 11 Dec 1775, mustermaster general Stephen Moylan wrote out a letter to the committee of safety of Simsbury, Connecticut, for the commander’s signature:

Gentlemen

the prisoners which will be deliverd you with this haveing been tried by a Court Martial & deemd to be Such flagrant & Attrocious villains, that they Cannot by any Means be Set at Large or Confined in any place near this Camp were Sentenced to be Sent to Simsburty in Connecticut.

you will therefore be pleas’d to have them Secured in your Jail or in such other manner as to you shall Seem necessary So that they Cannot possibly make their escape—the Charges of their imprisonment will be at the Continental expence.

That same day Washington’s new military secretary Robert Hanson Harrison (shown here) sent this note to Gen. Artemas Ward in Roxbury, as published by Peter Force in American Archives:

I am commanded by his Excellency to enclose to your care the letter which you will herewith receive for the Committee at Symsbury. Should there be any of the Connecticut troops at Roxbury, which are going that way, and with whom the prisoners can be trusted, you will get them to take charge of them, as it will save some expense; but if you are of opinion that there will be the least risk of their getting away, you will send them off under a proper guard, with a copy of their sentence for the Committee.

On 21 December, Harrison sent a follow-up:

I wrote you the 11th inst., respecting the prisoners to be sent to Simsbury, and enclosed a letter for the Committee of that place; to these I beg leave to refer you. In case you did not receive them, his Excellency desires that you will send them off under a proper guard, unless there should be any of the Connecticut troops going home, who will take the charge of them to the Committee. You will please certify the Committee of the atrociousness of their crime, and of the court’s sentence.

Some of the Connecticut regiments had finished their enlistment terms on 10 December and were heading home. Hence the suggestion that those men could escort these prisoners to Simsbury (and presumably get a little more pay for that work).

Because Washington’s letter was printed in American Archives, a widely distributed and authoritative nineteenth-century source, it’s been quoted in many books about the Old New Gate Prison at Simsbury and American incarceration in general. 

However, I haven’t found any of those books stating who these prisoners were. Because Loyalists were confined at Simsbury later in the war, many authors have assumed that the people Washington sent to Connecticut were political prisoners. 

TOMORROW: Naming names.

“Like a shock of electricity upon a morbid system”

Yesterday I discussed how An Authentic Narrative of the Life of Joshua Slocum was anything but an authentic memoir of a Revolutionary War soldier.

Joshua Slocum had spent time in the Continental Army, to be sure, but the book his son John published in 1844 went into great detail about events his father had nothing to do with, producing bogus stories based on preceding books and popular lore.

When the war began, Joshua Slocum was about fifteen years old, probably living in the part of Wrentham that became Franklin. Although there are cases of boys that young serving in the siege of Boston—as musicians, servants, clerks, substitutes for older brothers—there’s no documentation that Joshua did. He probably stayed in the countryside and worked on the farm. Four years later, when he reached the typical age for military service, he enlisted for one of the Rhode Island campaigns.

Because John Slocum wanted to connect his father to the famous events of the Revolutionary War, he wrote about 1775: the Lexington alarm, the siege of Boston, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. When he created the book, in the middle of the nineteenth century, one of the most celebrated events from that year was Gen. George Washington taking command of the Continental Army.

This is how the Authentic Narrative treats that moment:

When this heart-cheering intelligence [of George Washington’s appointment] reached Cambridge, my father informed me that one long, loud and joyful acclamation rent the skies—each successive post catching the sound, till it was wafted through the entire line of the arm, operating upon it like a shock of electricity upon a morbid system.

If, continues he, the mere announcement of his appointment could create so much enthusiasm and awaken such joyous sensations through our ranks, what must have been the feelings inspired when, on the 2d of July, fifteen days from the date of his commission, Washington, in company with Gen. [Charles] Lee, arrived at Head Quarters in Cambridge—when, for the first time, we were permitted to see, face to face, the great man who, under God, was destined to achieve the Independence of his country, and to lay broad and deep the foundation of this stupendous republic? For myself I shall not attempt to describe it—language would fail in the attempt.

As eyewitness testimony, this is worthless. Indeed, Slocum didn’t even try to provide details of the generalissimo’s arrival.

As a reflection of how Americans of 1844 wanted to think about Washington, however, it’s very interesting. Since John Slocum was writing without any reliable input from his father, this passage is entirely untainted by what the fighting men of 1775 actually thought. It’s a pure expression of myth.

Slocum depicted the provincial troops around Boston as “a morbid system” needing a jolt of power. Ordinary men were excited to learn about the new commander-in-chief, not because he represented support from colonies outside New England but because they somehow sensed he was the “great man who, under God, was destined to achieve the Independence of his country.”

Actual diaries from July 1775 show much less emotion. Some barely mention Washington. Most of the soldiers had probably never heard of the man. Few entertained thoughts of independence yet.

Those newly dubbed Continental soldiers probably did share the nineteenth-century Americans’ wish to believe their success was destined and protected by God, but so have many other groups in history. Stories like this are one way to reinforce that belief.

John Slocum might come up in Tuesday’s panel discussion at the Cambridge Public Library about “The First Commander Remembered.”