More Talks on the Battle of Bunker Hill and Its Aftermath

Here are more upcoming talks that look ahead to the Sestercentennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Tuesday, 10 June, 6:00 P.M.
Courage and Resolve in Nation and Institution Building
Massachusetts General Hospital and online

Major General Joseph Warren’s death at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, secured his legacy as a Revolutionary War hero. Lesser known is his role as an advocate for organized healthcare for the poor and needy. Both he and his brother John advanced American medicine during the Revolutionary and Early Republic eras. In the early 1800s, John’s son Dr. John Collins Warren would build upon those ideals through his own role in co-founding the Massachusetts General Hospital. Biographer Dr. Samuel Forman explores the lives of these three men and their continued influence on current health care.

This free event will take place in the hospital’s Paul S. Russell, M.D., Museum of Medical History and Innovation at 2 North Grove Street. Register for a seat or a link here.

Thursday, 12 June, 5:30 P.M.
General James Reed and the Battle of Bunker Hill
Main Street Studios, 569 Main Street

The Fitchburg Historical Society says, “Join us for fun discussion,” part of a series on “Local Stories from the American Revolution.” It looks like society officials will provide the basic information.

Continental Army general James Reed (1722–1807) lived in Fitchburg when it was part of Lunenburg and again in the last decade of his life. He was born in Woburn, however, and starting in 1765 led a settlement in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. After war broke out, Reed returned to Massachusetts as colonel of a New Hampshire regiment and fought alongside Col. John Stark at the rail fence. In mid-1776 Reed was assigned to the Northern Department, helping the retreat from Canada. He contracted smallpox, lost his sight, and retired from the army.

Friday, 13 June, 10:00 A.M.
Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battle of Bunker Hill
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston

Join Chief Historian Peter Drummey for a gallery talk on the exhibition, “1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution,” which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Drummey will discuss the impact of the Battle of Bunker Hill using items on display. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

Panel on Bunker Hill Memory in Charlestown, 5 June

On Thursday, 5 June, Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown will host a panel discussion on the topic “Two Nations, One Battle: Bunker Hill in British and American Memory.”

Representing New England will be Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution, winner of the 2013 New England Book Award for Non-Fiction, and other books.

Sharing the British perspective will be Oxford graduate Emma Hart, now professor of American History and director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The moderator will be Brooke Barbier, author of King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.

The event description says: “Through thoughtful dialogue and historical insight, the panel will explore how the Battle of Bunker Hill has been remembered, interpreted, and understood on both sides of the Atlantic over the past 250 years.”

The audience will have the chance to ask questions and “take part in a broader community conversation.”

This event is free with registration. Doors to the campus’s A300 auditorium will open at 6:00 P.M., and the discussion will start after half an hour of music. For directions, see Eventbrite page.

Partners in this event include the college, the Bunker Hill Monument Association, the Friends of the Charlestown Branch Library, the British Consulate-General in Boston, and the National Parks of Boston.

Another event looking ahead to the Sestercentennial of the battle will take place on Wednesday, 11 June, from 11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. The intersection of Chelsea and Warren Streets in Charlestown will be dedicated as Joseph Warren Square after the physician and political activist who died in the battle.

This ceremony is co-sponsored by the American Legion Bunker Hill Post 26 and Abraham Lincoln Post 11 veterans organizations in partnership with the City of Boston and City of Boston Veterans Affairs. Plans include speakers and the unveiling of a plaque. Attendees can then repair to the Warren Tavern for an annual toast to Dr. Warren.

“To turn his back sullenly on his General”?

As discussed yesterday, on 19 July 1775 Gen. Joseph Spencer arrived back in the camps of what was now the Continental Army, bringing a letter from the governor of his home colony of Connecticut, Jonathan Trumbull.

Trumbull asked Gen. George Washington to understand how Spencer was miffed at seeing Israel Putnam promoted to major general over him. And merely because Putnam had led troops in the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

Delivering that letter was probably the first time Spencer had met Washington. And I imagine the discussion was as stiff and cold as the new commander-in-chief could be. As Maj. Samuel Blachley Webb (shown here) wrote on 11 July, Spencer’s departure “without leave or license from Gen. Washington,…displeased him much.”

Indeed, Spencer’s hissy fit had damaged his standing even among his own officers. He’d asked his subordinates to sign a protest on his behalf, and Webb reported:

I have since been to Roxbury, and find the officers, many of them, heartily sick of what they have done, in particular, Maj. [Return Jonathan] Meiggs,—who says he was forced to sign what the others did—to keep peace; and says he had rather serve under Putnam than Spencer.

You’ll find Generals Washington and [Charles] Lee, are vastly more fond, and think higher of Putnam, than any man in the army; and he truly is the Hero of the day. . . . Better is it for us to lose four Spencers than half a Putnam.

News of Putnam’s higher rank “gave universal satisfaction,” Webb added.

Webb was sending these observations to his stepfather, Silas Deane. On 20 July, Deane told his wife how the Continental Congress was responding to Spencer’s behavior:

You can be at no loss to infer what opinion is formed of him from this conduct, in doors and out. Suffice it to say, the voice here is, that he acted a part inconsistent with the character either of a soldier, a patriot, or even of a common gentleman. To desert his post in an hour of danger,—to sacrifice his Country, which he certainly did as far as was in his power,—and to turn his back sullenly on his General, a General, too, of such exalted worth and character,—will, I can assure you, unless he take the most speedy and effectual measures to atone, draw upon him the resentment of the whole Continent.

Neither Deane nor fellow Connecticut delegate Eliphalet Dyer ever pushed Spencer for promotion again. (He was made a major general in the fall of 1776 as part of a general wave of promotions.)

On 21 July, Gen. Washington reported to the Congress that Spencer had agreed to “serve under Puttnam, rather than leave the Army intirely.” The men’s relative ranks would not change.

The next day, Gen. Washington announced a new organization for the Continental Army around Boston. With three major generals under him, he put Artemas Ward in charge of a brigade on the southern side of the siege lines, Lee in charge of the northern wing, and Putnam in charge of the center.

Among the brigadier generals, he assigned Spencer to the southern wing under Ward. Thus, Spencer would answer to a general he’d already acknowledged as senior, not to Putnam. Gov. Trumbull had suggested a similar way of keeping the two Connecticut officers apart. Which wasn’t the sort of issue Washington wanted to face.

Spencer served the rest of the siege, making no distinct contribution at all. He never gained Washington’s trust, and after an unsuccessful Rhode Island campaign he left the army.

“General Spencer’s uneasiness, &c., at being overlooked, &c.”

According to the young Connecticut officer Samuel Blachley Webb, when Gen. Joseph Spencer learned the Continental Congress had ranked Israel Putnam over him, “He began to speak very freely; and finally, persuaded the officers, to remonstrate to the Assembly of Connecticut; and he set off immediately for home.”

Spencer was older than Putnam. He had raised a company for King George’s War in the 1740s while Putnam’s vaunted military career began in 1755. The Connecticut legislature had granted Spencer seniority, and he wanted to keep that status.

Forty-nine Connecticut officers signed a letter to their legislature that praised Spencer’s “exemplary life, good conduct, prudence, and courage.” It said:

You are sensible it will be with great reluctance our Troops at Roxbury could see their General superseded by an officer in previous lower command. We have no objection to the appointment of Generals [George] Washington and [Charles] Lee, and shall endeavour to preserve the good order and submission to their government as hath before distinguished this part of the Connecticut Troops whilst under General Spencer’s command; but the late arrangement so far removes General Spencer from his former command, that he cannot and will not continue in the service under this arrangement.

In his home colony, Spencer seemed to get the support he was after. In Lebanon on 13 July, Gov. Jonathan Trumbull showed his Council a draft letter to Gen. Washington about the issue. The official record of that meeting says the letter was

hinting at General Spencer’s uneasiness, &c., at being overlooked, &c., and that it was beside our expectations, &c., and proposing, &c., that said General Spencer may remain stationed at Roxbury with the body of Connecticut Troops now there, &c.; which are approved, though a small alteration was made in the Letter to gratify Gen. Spencer after he came in, &c.

Two politicians, Samuel Huntington and William Williams (the governor’s son-in-law and speaker of the assembly), went to the tavern where Spencer was staying to hear him out about “his dissatisfaction, &c.” They tried to “reconcile him cheerfully to pursue the service.”

That afternoon, Gov. Trumbull and the Council invited Spencer to join their meeting. They

had a long conference with him on the subject matter of his being superseded by the General Congress, in putting Gen. Putnam above him &c., which he thinks very hard of and resents &c., and is at length persuaded to return to the army and not at present quit the service as he proposed; and Genl. Spencer set out on his return to camp with the letters to Genl. Washington.

Trumbull’s letter to Gen. Washington said that “Generals [David] Wooster and Spencer will think they have reason to complain” about their ranking relative to Putnam and suggested a “Method to obviate the difficulties that are apprehended”:

The Army before Boston is necessarily thrown into two Grand Divisions. General Spencer with a Number of Our Troops hath hitherto been at Roxbury, and General Putnam at Cambridge —That Destination continued and Observed, may prevent uneasy Competition; preserve good order, and promote the public Service.

Spencer arrived back on the siege lines around Boston on 19 July.

TOMORROW: A triumphant return?

“Genl. Putnams fame ran so high”

Another consequence of the Battle of Chelsea Creek was that it raised the profile of Israel Putnam (1718—1790).

Putnam was already well known in North America. He’d fought for several years in past wars. He served in Maj. Robert Rogers’s rangers, on the Crown’s naval expedition against Havana in 1762, and even in Pontiac’s War.

People also passed around a story of Putnam crawling into the den of a wolf on his farm, so his personal bravery and strength were beyond doubt.

Around the start of 1775, a Pennsylvanian wrote to London to refute the idea that the Americans would need Charles Lee to command an army. That letter said:

the colonies are not so wrapped up in Gen. Lee’s military accomplishments as to give him the preference to Col. Putnam and Col. [George] Washington,—men whose military talents and achievements have placed them at the head of American heroes. There are several hundred thousand Americans who would face any danger with these illustrious heroes to lead them.

Then in early June 1775 reports of the fighting on and off Noddle’s Island reached Philadelphia. Those reports noted that Putnam, now a Connecticut general, had led the New England troops in the field. And successfully! (In fact, this was the only time Putnam would be present at a significant American victory for the rest of the war.)

Noddle’s Island was the latest news when the Continental Congress decided to adopt the New England army as the Continental Army in mid-June, appointing Washington commander-in-chief and commissioning more generals to serve under him. The Congress chose these men as major generals, in order: Artemas Ward, Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Putnam. Nine more men were given the rank of brigadier general.

As Connecticut delegate Eliphalet Dyer wrote, “Genl. Putnams fame ran so high as Induced the Congress to give him the Preference” over other candidates for the higher rank. Indeed, Putnam was the only general besides Washington whom the Congress elected unanimously.

Unfortunately, the Connecticut legislature had appointed its generals in this order: David Wooster, Joseph Spencer, and then Putnam. Spencer was on the lines in Massachusetts, thinking he had seniority over Putnam.

On 23 June, Roger Sherman told Wooster that he’d tried to convince his fellow delegates in Philadelphia to stick to the Connecticut ranking:

I informed them, of the arrangement made by our Assembly which I thought would be satisfactory, to have them continue in the same order; but as General Putnam’s fame was spread abroad, and especially his successful enterprise at Noddle’s Island, the account of which had just arrived, it gave him the preference in the opinion of the Delegates in general, so that his appointment was unanimous among the colonies.

Wooster was assigned to the Canada campaign under Schuyler, so he wouldn’t be serving under Putnam. Spencer, on the other hand, faced the prospect of taking orders from a man he’d just outranked. On 10 July, Washington wrote to the Congress:

General Spencer was so much disgusted at the Preference given to General Puttnam, that he left the Army without visiting me, or making known his Intentions in any Respect.

TOMORROW: Rank feelings.

Heading into June 1775 with Confidence

One consequence of the Battle of Chelsea Creek is that by the end of May 1775 the provincial troops started to feel pretty powerful.

The militia mobilization of the Lexington Alarm had done significant damage to the Crown forces. Fortifications were keeping the king’s troops inside Boston.

The Royal Navy was seizing some ships and raiding coasts and islands for food. But three times now the provincial defenses had pushed back. Fairhaven men had recaptured two ships from Capt. John Linzee of H.M.S. Falcon. Hingham and other South Shore companies had forced troops off Grape Island with only a fraction of the hay they wanted.

And the fight over Hog Island and Noddle’s Island was even more impressive. The provincials came away with some livestock, reducing the food supply for besieged Boston. They set fire to hay being grown to feed the army’s horses.

In the fighting that followed, the provincials had deployed artillery for the first time and withstood return fire. They hadn’t lost any men, with four wounded and expected to recover, and reports out of Boston suggested some of the enemy had died. (Two seamen were killed, in fact, but some early reports put the number of Crown casualties as high as thirty.)

From H.M.S. Diana the provincial troops had pulled useful supplies: four four-pounder cannon, twelve swivel guns, the mast, and various bits of fresh rigging—the ship had been launched only the previous year.

And then those troops had actually destroyed the Diana—a Royal Navy warship! True, it was a relatively small vessel that had run aground, but that was obviously a provincial victory and a royalist loss.

Even the most cautious New England commanders and soldiers must have felt they were on a roll when they made the move onto the Charlestown peninsula on the night of 16 June. But the scale of the battle that followed was far beyond any other fight in the Boston campaign.

The Sestercentennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill will be observed on two successive weekends in June:

• Parade, concert, speeches, and other ceremonies in Charlestown on 13–17 June.
• Battle reenactment over similar terrain in Gloucester on 21–22 June.

Make your plans now!

“Lucky for the Town that the Fire broke out in the Day Time”?

Just above its report on the Royal Navy store ship that caught fire in Boston harbor on 29 May 1773 (quoted yesterday), Richard Draper’s Boston News-Letter ran this brief item about another event that same day:

Saturday last being the Anniversary of the Restoration of King Charles II. a Feu de Joy was fired on board the Men of War in this Harbour.

Ordinarily, royal anniversaries like the king’s and queen’s birthdays were celebrated by both civil and military authorities in Boston. In this case, there was a conspicuous absence of cannon salutes, bell-ringing, or toasts inside the town.

New England had generally supported the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell that followed. Its people and elected officials shielded regicides from Charles II’s retribution. Most British people thought the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was a Good Thing, but New Englanders were particularly convinced that deposing the Stuarts was a necessary course correction as the kingdom sank back into papist tyranny.

Therefore, local forts and authorities didn’t join the Royal Navy in celebrating the Stuart Restoration that May day in 1773. But did the descendants of Puritans begrudge the military’s action?

Of course they did. Thomas and John Fleet’s Boston Evening-Post reported the same event this way:

Saturday last being the anniversary of the Nativity and Restoration of King CHARLES II. the Colours, (as usual on Red Letter Days) were displayed on board the Flag Ship here, and at One o’Clock a Feu de Joy from her and the Gibraltar (being the only Ships of War we had then here to protect us) was all the Notice, as we have yet heard, that was taken to honor the Memory of the execrable Race of the STEUART Family.

Even the newspaper’s use of the phrase “Red Letter Days” was fraught with meaning. Those were the saints’ days on the Anglican calendar, shunned by the Puritans. As late as 1758 Roger Sherman had to explain why he acknowledged those dates in the almanacs he published “to serve the Publick” of Connecticut despite being a devout Congregationalist.

As for the radical Boston Gazette, it didn’t mention the anniversary of Charles II’s coronation at all. But Edes and Gill’s report on the ship catching fire was highly political:

Saturday last about 12 o’Clock at Noon a Fire broke out on board the Britannia, Capt. John Walker, a Store Ship for the Fleet station’d here for the Protection of the Trade and Fishery, lying in the Harbour, and within Gunshot of the Town.

It being reported that there was a considerable Quantity of Powder on board, it put the Inhabitants in great Consternation. Thousands of People seeking Refuge from the falling of Chimneys, &c. in Case of an Explosion. However as it turn’d out, there was no Powder on Board; which if it had at first been ascertain’d, would have sav’d said Ship from being burnt almost to the Water’s Edge. Considerable Stores we hear were not consumed.

It is however some what lucky for the Town that the Fire broke out in the Day Time, and when only the People belonging to the Ship were on board, otherwise it might have been Matter of Representation to the Board of Admiralty at Home to have immediately fitted out a Fleet in order to apprehend certain Persons to be sent beyond the Seas to be tried, as in the Case of the Gaspee Schooner at Rhode-Island.

Be it as it may, this Accident may prove very beneficial to some in settling Accounts.

In this one report the Boston Gazette thus managed to suggest that:

• The idea that Royal Navy warships were in the harbor to protect locals instead of threatening them was laughable.
• Naval administrators were to blame for the slow firefighting response.
• Authorities like Thomas Hutchinson would have been happy to add this fire to their list of false accusations about Boston.
• The royal government was acting unconstitutionally in the Gaspee inquiry.
• Some corrupt officials or contractors would use the fire to cover up embezzling or other crimes.

That was some impressive conspiracy theorizing.

I should note that the fire was seen at noon, the cannon salute to Charles II at 1:00 P.M. So locals couldn’t have set fire to the ship to protest the royalist celebration. On the other hand, navy commanders might have been more eager to salute the Stuart Restoration after seeing their store ship burning out of control in Boston harbor.

“A Fire broke out on board the fine large Store-Ship”

While looking at the diary of Thomas Newell this spring, I was struck by this dramatic entry for 29 May 1773, 252 years ago today:

King’s store-ship burnt in this harbor. The inhabitants greatly surprised, fearing there was a great quantity of gunpowder on board. Thousands retired to the back part of the town, and over to Charlestown, &c.; but no powder happened to be on board.

John Rowe mentioned the same event in his diary, but he was out of town fishing during the panic, so his entry doesn’t preserve the same excitement.

For more detail I turned to the newspapers. Here’s the straightforward report in the 3 June Boston News-Letter:

at Noon, a Fire broke out on board the fine large Store-Ship, (which had been laying in this Harbour for several Months past commanded by Capt. [John] Walker, having Stores for the Navy) which soon communicated to the Masts, Rigging and Turpentine on the Deck, and before any Assistance came, her upper Works were almost wholly in a Blaze; so that little or no Attempt was made to extinguish it:—

The Boats from the Men of War, with some from the Town, towed the Ship over to Noddle’s Island, where, after scuttling her, she was left to burn to the Water’s Edge.—

The Fire, it is said, was occasioned by some Coals falling from the Hearth of the Cabouse on to the Deck, which had lately been pay’d over with Turpentine, and spread with such Rapidity that nothing could be taken out of her:—

The Captain, with his Wife and two Children, who usually kept on board, likewise a Boy (the other People belonging to her being ashore) were obliged to be taken out of the Cabin Windows, without being able to save the least Thing but what they had on:—

A report prevailing at the Time of the Fire, that a large Quantity of Powder was on board, put the Inhabitants in general into great Consternation, for fear of the Consequences that might arise from an Explosion thereof; but being afterwards assured that none was in her, they became perfectly easy, and the Hills and Wharfs were covered with Spectators to view so uncommon a Sight.

Some of the Stores in the Hold, such as Cordage, Cables, and Anchors, which were under Water before the Fire could reach them, will be saved.

A “caboose” was originally a ship’s galley, Merriam-Webster says. Advertisements from eighteenth-century America indicate a “caboose” could be sold separately from a ship, and in 1768 New York a man named Thomas Hempsted was killed by “the Caboose falling on him” as a ship keeled over. So I suspect it also meant the stove and other cooking equipment designed for a ship but not necessarily installed in a dedicated cabin.

The first documented use of the word “caboose” in English was in 1732, and Samuel Johnson didn’t include it in his 1755 dictionary. But everyone reading the Boston newspapers was expected to know what that meant.

TOMORROW: The conspiracy theories.

“The Diana was soon after burnt by the rebels”

Having covered the maritime seizures that took place between Fairhaven and Martha’s Vineyard (14 May 1775) and the exchange of fire over Grape Island off Hingham (21 May), I’ve come back to the skirmishing over Hog Island and Noddle’s Island that’s become known as the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

And just in time for its Sestercentennial! (Well, the Sestercentennial of the second day of the action.)

Here’s a description of that fight from the British perspective, not contemporaneous but within living memory, published in 1804 by former engineer Robert Beatson in Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain:

The insurgent Americans, with astonishing perseverance, pursued their avowed design of cutting off every possible supply from the friends of Government, and of destroying what they could not carry away.

On the 27th of May, they burnt a great deal of hay on Hog island; and a few hours after, they landed on Noddles island, with the intention of also burning the hay which had been purchased for the army, and of adding to the conflagration, by laying in ashes a storehouse that had been hired when his Majesty’s ship the Glasgow was on shore, and in which the Admiral [Samuel Graves] had deposited two large cargoes of lumber, until an opportunity should offer of sending them to Halifax.

The storehouse also contained many other articles, which it was of great consequence to preserve, from the impossibility of having them replaced at this juncture. There were likewise on this island six hundred sheep, several milch cows, and a number of horses, mostly private property.

The Admiral, eager to prevent the depredations of the Americans, when he observed that they were landed upon the island, immediately ordered the Diana schooner (newly arrived) to sail between it and the main; and to get up as high as possible to intercept them: and as assistance from the army required time, he directed a party of marines to be landed.

The Diana entered the river between three and four in the afternoon at low water, and proceeded to Hog island, with some interruption from the rebels on all sides. Their numbers on Hog and Noddles islands were computed at seven hundred men. Parties of each occasionally attacked the Diana. They were, however, all obliged to quit Noddles island, without doing the intended mischief.

This being effected; Lieutenant [Thomas] Graves [shown above, later in his career], whom the Admiral had ordered not to remain in the river upon the turn of the tide, began to move off: but being retarded by a calm which unluckily took place, the boats of the squadron were ordered to assist the Diana by towing her along.

The slow progress which she made gave time for the enemy to assemble; and by the close of the evening the whole country was alarmed, and the rebel General [Israel] Putnam had brought two thousand men with field-pieces from Cambridge, with which he lined the shore and greatly annoyed her.

The marines from the squadron were landed on the island, with two three pounders from the Cerberus; and General [Thomas] Gage, the moment it was in his power, sent two pieces of artillery: but it was impossible, though in sight of the fleet, to give the schooner any effectual assistance.

The calm continued; it grew almost dark; the fire of the rebels increased; between eleven and twelve at night, she unfortunately got aground upon the ferry-ways at Winnisimmest, and the tide ebbing fast, rendered every effort to move her ineffectual.

About three in the morning she fell over, and her crew were obliged to abandon her, and go on board the Britannia armed floop, which had been sent to their assistance. The Diana was soon after burnt by the rebels.

The battle was renewed by Lieutenant [John] Graves in the Britannia, and lasted about eleven hours from first to last, in which there were two men killed, and several wounded; the commander, officers, and crew of the Diana schooner were tried by a Court-martial for the loss of the vessel, and most honourably acquitted.

Lt. Thomas Graves of was a nephew of Adm. Samuel Graves, as was Lt. John Graves of the Somerset’s tender Britannia. Other sources say both Graves brothers suffered serious burns when the provincials set the Diana on fire.

This account is based mostly on Adm. Graves’s report to the Admiralty on 7 June. He said almost nothing about this event in his later narrative of the start of the war, most likely because it didn’t reflect very well on the navy in general and his family in particular.

The courts martial that Beatson mentioned were held in Boston, under Adm. Graves’s eye. In their 2013 New England Quarterly article on this fight, Craig J. Brown, Victor T. Mastone, and Christopher V. Maio reported that all the British mariners testifying at Lt. Graves’s trial said the Diana hadn’t gone far upstream, but the archeological record suggests otherwise. In sum, that inquiry might have been a whitewash. Both Graves brothers eventually became admirals.

Of the shoreline fights between Crown and provincials in May 1775, this was the first in which either commander reported any of his own men killed. The two Royal Navy seamen who died were named George Williams and William Crocker. The Rev. John Troutbeck, assistant rector at King’s Chapel, “performed divine Service” at their funeral on board H.M.S. Somerset.

“Surely the most ridiculous expedition that ever was plan’d”

After the exchange of fire over Grape Island on 21 May 1775, both sides of the war claimed to have damaged the other and gotten the best of the day.

Four days after the fighting, the New-England Chronicle stated:

Whether any of the Enemy were wounded, is uncertain, though it is reported three of them were. It is thought that they did not carry off more than one or two tons of hay.

As for the gunfire from the departing Royal Navy vessels, that was “without effect.”

The next day’s Connecticut Gazette was even more positive:

the People…wounded 3 of the Enemy, and drove them off. They had got a Ton and Half of Hay on Board.

And the 3 June Pennsylvania Ledger said:

the regulars returned to Boston, with the loss of eight men killed and several wounded, as the provincials were informed by a gentleman that left Boston the next day.

In contrast, Lt. John Barker of His Majesty’s 4th Regiment wrote in his diary that ”a few of the Rebels were killed, without any loss on our side,” and he estimated the amount of hay removed as up to “7 or 8 Tons.”

Militaries always have a better sense of their own losses and usually exaggerate the enemy’s. If we follow that guideline and accept only what each army said about its own force, then the day ended without any casualties on either side.

The Crown forces had taken away a few tons of needed hay, but the Patriots burned far more—even Barker guessed his comrades had left “about 70” tons behind.

The provincials also burned Elisha Leavitt’s barn on the island. Local tradition held that he treated his neighbors to rum during the day to avert similar violence against his property on shore.

As usual, Lt. Barker saw a lot to complain about:

It was surely the most ridiculous expedition that ever was plan’d, for there were not a tenth part boats enough even if there had been Men enough, and the Sloop which carried the Party mounted 12 guns, but they were taken out to make room, whereas if one of two had been left it would have effectually kept off the Rebels

That might have been echoed in the 26 May Connecticut Gazette: “We hear Gen. [Thomas] Gage blamed the Admiral [Samuel Graves] for sending Vessels that were so small, on this Enterprize.” We should ask how the printers could reliably know such a thing. On the other hand, it may be significant that Graves skipped over this action in his self-serving report narrative of the war.

The reaction on the provincial side was very different. In a follow-up letter to her husband, Abigail Adams had nothing but praise for the locals who took part in the fight, particularly their own relatives:

I may say with truth all Weymouth Braintree Hingham who were able to bear Arms, and hundreds from other Towns within 20 30 and 40 miles of Weymouth.

Our good Friend the Doctor [Cotton Tufts] is in a very misirable state of Health, has the jaundice to a [very gr]eat degree, is a mere Skelliton and hardly able to [ride fro]m his own house to my fathers. Danger you [know] sometimes makes timid men bold. He stood that day very well, and generously attended with drink, Bisquit, flints &c. 5 hundred men without taking any pay. He has since been chosen one of the committee of Correspondence for that Town, and has done much Service by establishing a regular method of alarm from Town to Town.

Both your Brothers were there—your younger Brother [Elihu Adams] with his company who gaind honour by their good order that Day. He was one of the first to venture aboard a Schooner to land upon the Island.

That reflects the general mood on the two sides at this time. The British military was having inter-service quarrels over logistics while the provincials were celebrating solidarity. Even though neither side had accomplished a great deal, or suffered a serious loss.

“Assembled on a Point of Land next to Grape-Island”

Yesterday we left the people of Weymouth and surrounding towns in a panic as three or four vessels full of British soldiers appeared off their north coast early on Sunday, 21 May 1775.

Abigail Adams happened to be writing on her husband’s behalf to Edward Dilly, a British publisher and bookseller sympathetic to the American Whigs. She portrayed the situation like this:

Now this very day, and whilst I set writing the Soldiers provincial are passing my windows upon an allarm from the British troops who have been landing a number of Men upon one of our Sea coasts (about 4 miles from my own habitation) and plundering hay and cattle. Each party are now in actual engagement. God alone knows the Event, to whom also all our injuries and oppressions are known and to whom we can appeal for the justice of our cause when the Ear of Man is deaf and his heart hardned.

At the command of Lt. Thomas Innis of the 43rd Regiment, scores of those redcoats started coming ashore, carrying long, sharp…scythes. They got to work harvesting hay from Grape Island, to take back to Boston to feed the garrison’s horses.

Meanwhile, local militia companies gathered in the towns, eventually augmented by three companies from the provincial army camp at Roxbury. An 1893 Hingham town history assumed that Capt. James Lincoln, commander of a new company of Massachusetts troops, took charge. That history stated: “The old people of fifty years ago, used to tell of the march of the military down Broad Cove Lane, now Lincoln Street.”

Once those local men reached the shoreline, however, they discovered that there was little they could do. As the 25 May New-England Chronicle reported:

The People of Weymouth assembled on a Point of Land next to Grape-Island. The Distance from Weymouth Shore to the said Island was too great for small Arms to do much Execution; nevertheless our People frequently fired.

The Fire was returned from one of the Vessels with swivel Guns; but the Shot passed over our Heads, and did no Mischief.

Matters continued in this State for several Hours, the Soldiers polling the Hay down to the Water-Side, our People firing at the Vessel, and they now and then discharging swivel Guns.

In Scituate, Paul Litchfield recorded in his diary, the Rev. Ebenezer Grosvenor went ahead with the second part of his Sunday sermon as normal.

Eventually the tide came in. Abigail Adams wrote of the shoreline defenders:

At last they musterd a Lighter, and a Sloop from Hingham which had six port holes. Our men eagerly jumpt on board, and put of for the Island. As soon as they [the regulars] perceived it, they decamped. Our people landed upon [the] Island, and in an instant set fire to the Hay which with the Barn was soon consumed, about 80 ton tis said.

The newspaper report offered more details:

The Tide had now come in, and several Lighters, which were aground, were got afloat, upon which our People, who were ardent for Battle, got on board, hoisted Sail, and bore directly down upon the nearest Point of the Island.

The Soldiers and Sailors immediately left the Barn, and made for their Boats, and put off from one End of the Island, whilst our People landed on the other. The Sloops hoisted Sail with all possible Expedition, whilst our People set Fire to the Barn, and burnt 70 or 80 Tons of Hay; then fired several Tons which had been polled down to the Water-Side, and brought off the Cattle.

Lt. John Barker basically agreed with that sequence of events in his diary:

as soon as they [the foragers] landed they were fired on from the opposite shore but without receiving any harm, the distance being too great; the party did not return the fire but kept on carrying the hay to the boats, until at last the Rebels in great numbers got into Vessels and Boats and went off for the Island; the party then embarked and sailed off with what hay they had, and as they were obliged to go along shore they were fired upon, when Lt. Innis who commanded was at last forced to return the fire…

Back to the New-England Chronicle:

As the Vessels passed Horse-Neck, a Sort of Promontory which extends from Germantown [in Braintree], they fired their Swivels and small Arms at our People very briskly, but without Effect, though one of the Bullets from their small Arms, which passed over our People, struck against a Stone with such Force as to take off a large Part of the Bullet.

That ended the crisis. All that remained was for the two sides to tote up gains and losses.

TOMORROW: The bottom line.

“3 Sloops and one cutter had come out”

In May 1775, the people of Hingham and other towns along the South Shore from Boston weren’t really worrying about protecting livestock on harbor islands.

As a 3 May petition from selectmen in Braintree, Weymouth, and Hingham to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress put it, those towns felt “in great danger of an attack from the troops now in Boston, or from the ships in the harbor.”

They worried that the British military would attack the towns themselves, not off-shore pasturage—perhaps to seize food but mostly to punish the rebellious population.

The congress therefore authorized those towns to raise two and a half companies of men for their defense through the end of the year, on the same terms as the provincial soldiers being signed up to keep besieging Boston. In Hingham, James Lincoln took a captain’s commission and started recruiting.

On the morning of Sunday, 21 May, vessels were spotted maneuvering through the islands off the Weymouth shore. Abigail Adams described the response in north Braintree:

When I rose about six oclock I was told that the Drums had been some time beating and that 3 allarm Guns were fired, that Weymouth Bell had been ringing, and Mr. [Ezra] Welds [churchbell in Braintree’s middle precinct] was then ringing.

I immediatly sent of an express to know the occasion, and found the whole Town in confusion. 3 Sloops and one cutter had come out, and droped anchor just below Great Hill. It was difficult to tell their design, some supposed they were comeing to Germantown others to Weymouth. People women children from the Iron Works flocking down this Way—every woman and child above or from below my Fathers.

My Fathers family flying, the Drs. [Cotton Tufts’s] in great distress, as you may well immagine for my Aunt had her Bed thrown into a cart, into which she got herself, and orderd the boy to drive her of to Bridgwater which he did. The report was to them, that 300 hundred had landed, and were upon their march into Town.

The allarm flew [like] lightning, and men from all parts came flocking down till 2000 were collected

In Scituate, Paul Litchfield was home from Harvard College, his senior year cut short by the war. He wrote in his diary:

Just before meeting began in morning, hearing the King’s troops were landing near Hingham, the people in general dispersed, so no meeting.

The 25 May New England Chronicle, newly moved to Cambridge, reported this military response:

Last Sabbath about 10 o’clock A.M. an express arrived at General [John] Thomas’s quarters at Roxbury, informing him that four sloops (two of them armed) were sailed from Boston, to the south short of the bay, and that a number of soldiers were landing at Weymouth.

Gen. Thomas ordered three companies to march to the support of the inhabitants.

But the first newspaper report of the action was the 22 May Newport Mercury:

An express arrived here this morning, from Providence, with advice, that a party of soldiers from Boston had landed at Weymouth, and burnt the town down, and were ravaging the country when the express came away. Troops from all parts of the country were going to oppose them.——The particulars not yet come to hand.

TOMORROW: The particulars of what really happened.

The Islands of Elisha Leavitt

Elisha Leavitt (1713–1790) was a blacksmith in Hingham, and a lot more. He also traded in goods, “engaged in navigation,” and owned part of a fishing company.

In the 1760s Leavitt started to amass a particular sort of real estate: Boston harbor islands. He bought Georges Island in 1765, Lovells Island in 1767, Grape Island just off Hingham, and half of Gallops Island. All told that was over 150 acres of land useful for raising hay and pasturing livestock.

In 1771 Leavitt bought the big old Thaxter house, shown above in a stereograph from the New York Public Library. By that time his son Martin was at Harvard College, preparing to be a doctor. The family was edging into gentility.

A Hingham tradition held that Leavitt was “a bitter Tory.” However, his name doesn’t appear in the newspapers or in Massachusetts Provincial Congress records as a suspected Loyalist. Aside from one election as a constable decades before, he wasn’t politically visible.

Likewise, there’s a tradition that Leavitt let “Nathaniel Ray Thomas and other tories of Marshfield” into his mansion through a “secret door” in September 1774 and hid them until they could make their way to Boston. But no one claimed to have actually seen this hidden room in the Leavitt house before it was demolished. It doesn’t appear to have been an isolated estate, safe from prying eyes. 

I find it hard to believe Leavitt could be well known for supporting the royal government and continue to live peacefully in Hingham from 1774 into 1777 (when his name first appeared in the Boston papers in an advertisement for an until-recently-enslaved man named Primus) and beyond. Massachusetts towns weren’t very forgiving of “bitter Tories” in those years. I suspect Leavitt may have been less militant than his neighbors but was probably more neutral than Loyalist.

In The Islands of Boston Harbor (1935), Edward Rowe Snow wrote: “Realizing that the British officers needed hay for their horses quartered in Boston, [Leavitt] sent word for them to come down to Grape Island and gather the hay.” But Snow offered no documentary evidence for such an offer.

As men like William Harris, Elijah Shaw, and Henry Howell Williams found out in May 1775, the Royal Navy and army was collecting food and forage as they needed, paying owners who cooperated and just taking the supplies otherwise. After all, there was a war on. Given those alternatives, Leavitt may very well have preferred to take the money.

In any event, on 20 May Lt. John Barker of the 4th Regiment inside Boston wrote in his diary:

A Detachment of 1 Subaltern and 30 [men] sent to Crape Island, about 9 miles from Town in the Bay, to bring up hay.

Barker meant Grape Island, Elisha Leavitt’s nearest island property.

TOMORROW: The alarm.

“When the stakes are as significant as life and liberty”

Earlier this week the president of Yale, Marie McInnis, offered inspiration to the graduating class from a work by much earlier graduate.

Here’s an article from the university:

A Yale-trained art historian, McInnis turned to an artwork from the Yale University Art Gallery collection for answers, focusing on John Trumbull’s celebrated painting “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill.” The canvas marks that moment, 250 years ago in June, when a band of American rebels stood their ground on a hillside in Charlestown, then just north of Boston, against the might of the British military.

In Trumbull’s painting, the scene unfolds beneath acrid plumes of smoke as British forces breach the revolutionaries’ lines. Joseph Warren, an American major general, lies mortally wounded in the arms of a comrade. A redcoat tries to bayonet the fallen general — but British Major John Small has stepped in to stop him.

“In that moment, one man preserves the dignity of a dying foe with an unexpected gesture of compassion amid chaos,” McInnis said. “One man, taming the passions of war, chooses mercy. Chooses to see the man who was his friend, instead of the general of an opposing force.”

In highlighting Small’s intervention, McInnis said, Trumbull invites viewers to recognize a frequently overlooked kind of courage: The ability to show compassion to a bitter adversary.

“Compassion, as I suspect Major Small understood, is not the absence of conviction. It is not weakness,” she said. “And it is certainly not retreat. It is, in fact, an act of radical strength in its rarest form. It is the idea that even in our most consequential disagreements — that even when the stakes are as significant as life and liberty — we must find ways to recognize our common humanity.”

And displaying compassion does not mean avoiding conflict or denying differences, McInnis said.

“In a vibrant, pluralistic society, disagreement is inevitable, indeed welcomed,” she said in her speech, titled “Overcoming divides and embracing our shared humanity.”

“But what I would like to impress on you today is that compassion can coexist with our most deeply held beliefs.”

Here’s the full text of President McInnis’s speech.

Historically, I have to point out that Trumbull constructed his scene to convey just such a message. According to Alexander Garden, Maj. Small himself said that the artist “paid me the compliment of trying to save the life of Warren; but the fact is, that life had fled before I saw his remains.”

Also, Trumbull produced multiple copies of this scene with subtle differences. The image shown above from Yale is one of his preliminary studies. The university also owns a finished, full-color version, as do the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Wadsworth Athenaeum. (Notably, the colors aren’t the same on those two canvases, particularly in the flags Trumbull inserted into the scene.)