“He hobbled into battle on his wooden leg”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TOMORROW: Versifying.

“Lt. Coll. Walcott now excuses it”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Stark repeatedly and at last absolutely refused to comply”

The New Hampshire general Nathaniel Folsom arrived on the siege lines around Boston on 20 June 1775.

However, Col. John Stark (shown here) had been in the action since April. The militia troops he had led into Massachusetts had become the 1st New Hampshire Regiment.

Col. James Reed had enlisted men into the 3rd New Hampshire Regiment in Fitzwilliam and joined Stark at the siege in early June.

Both regiments fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June, standing up against the British army’s right and taking casualties.

Stark didn’t respond happily to a new man appearing and declaring he was now in charge based on the vote of a quasi-legal congress and his war record from twenty years before.

On 23 June, Gen. Folsom wrote back to the New Hampshire government from Medford:

In my Letter to you yesterday I acquainted you that on my arrival here I Imediately waited on the Capt. General [Artemas Ward]; he then Order’d me to make return to him of the Two Regiments, viz. Colo. Stark’s & Colo. Reed’s, of their Situation and Circumstances; on my return here I sent orders to the Two Colos. to make return of their respective Regiments to me.

Colo. Reed Imediately obey’d the order but Colo. Stark repeatedly and at last absolutely refused to comply. I am well inform’d by Mr. Stark’s best friends that he does not Intend to be under any subordination to any Person appointed by the Congress of New Hampshire to the general command of the New Hampr. Troops. I have tried all conciliatory methods both by Personal Conversation and the mediation of Friends, but without effect.

In consequence whereof I this afternoon again waited on the Capt. General at Head Quarters to take his order on the matter; he requested me to advise with the Committee of Safety of New Hampr on the Business, as Colo. Stark has received no Commission yet from you, he thinks he does not properly come under his cognizance.

Gentlemen, it is I trust unnecessary to hint to you that without a Proper subordination it will be absolutely Impossible for me to Execute the Trust you have Reposed in me; in my last conversation with Mr. Stark, he told me he could take his Pack and return home (and meant as I suppose to Lead his men with him.) I represented to him the dishonorable part he would thereby act towards both Colonies.

I have since made Enquiry & find he would not be able to Lead off many more than the supernumerors of his Regiment, it still consisting of 13 Companys. I think a Regiment might be form’d of the men who have been under his command without his being appointed to the Command of ’em.

I must do the Justice to Letn. Col. [Isaac] Wyman to say he has behaved prudently, Courageously and very much like a Gentleman, and I think I could recommend him to the command as soon as any Person I know.

Wyman was Stark’s second-in-command and potential successor.

TOMORROW: Can this regiment be saved?

“Siege and Liberation of Boston,” 7–8 Aug.

Registration is open for the third Pursuit of History Weekend that I’ve helped to program, this one on “The Siege and Liberation of Boston” on 7–8 August.

Organized with the folks who manage History Camp, these sessions are designed to offer in-depth looks at developments 250 years ago through expert speakers and visits to the actual sites where the history happened.

We’ll start on the slope of Breed’s Hill in Charlestown, exploring what turned out to be the decisive battle of the first campaign of the Revolutionary War. Sam Forman and Mary Adams will introduce two of the leaders of the American forces, Dr. Joseph Warren and John Stark. We’ll walk the battlefield and hear about ongoing investigations of the landscape from Boston City Archaeologist Joe Bagley. Then we’ll take a road trip to other places that the Continental Army fortified, which few visitors see. That day we plan to have meals at two restaurants that go back to the eighteenth century.

On the following day, we’ll move into the North End, collaborating with the Paul Revere House, the Old North Church, and veteran tour guide Charles Bahne to offer an in-depth look at the experience of living inside besieged Boston. Finally, I’ll speak about George Washington as a new commander-in-chief, what he thought his job was, and what he really learned.

The Pursuit of History webpage for this event has a video of me explaining more. Sam Forman and I are also scheduled to talk about the siege and this event in the History Camp discussion series on Thursday, 10 July, at 8:00 P.M.

This Pursuit of History Weekend is not, in fact, on a weekend but on a Thursday and Friday. That’s to allow people to also attend History Camp Boston on Saturday, 9 August, and even the related tours the next day if their history interests are still unsated.

And speaking of History Camp Boston 2025, I’ll be speaking there, too. My topic is related to the end of the Boston siege. That talk is called “Henry Knox, Loyalist?” It offers a new interpretation of that American general’s rise to prominence.

“Necessary that the regiments be immediately settled”

Many accounts of George Washington’s arrival in Cambridge in 1775 say that he converted the ragtag New England militia into the Continental Army.

That’s a misconception. It’s common enough that I might have expressed that understanding myself when I first wrote about the beginning of the war. But it misses an important development that I now see more clearly, and see as more important.

The New England colonies had already formed armies in the spring of 1775. Militia companies were designed to respond to emergencies, such as the Lexington Alarm. When an emergency was over, men expected to go home. Enlisting in an army meant a man agreed to serve for a defined time.

That was a different legal relationship between a government and its citizens, and for New Englanders military service was all about that maintaining that covenant. As Fred Anderson has written, British army officers (who were used to enlisting for life and commanding men who had done the same) and later Gen. Washington ran into trouble because they didn’t share that outlook.

On 19 April and shortly afterward, about 20,000 militia men mobilized, ending up in camps ringing the peninsula of Boston. But with all the regulars back inside the town, the immediate emergency had passed. Some men wanted to go home.

Two days later, Gen. Artemas Ward wrote to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress:

My situation is such that, if I have not enlisting orders immediately, I shall be left all alone: it is impossible to keep the men here, excepting something be done. I therefore pray that the plan may be completed and handed to me this morning, that you, gentlemen of the Congress, issue orders for enlisting men.

The committee of safety responded with a proposal to sign up “out of the Massachusetts forces, eight thousand effective men,” to serve for seven months.

Two days later, on 23 April, the full congress went further with two votes:

Resolved, unanimously, that it is necessary for the defence of the colony, that an army of 30,000 men be immediately raised and established.

Resolved, That 13,600 men be raised immediately by this province.

The rest were expected to come from the neighboring colonies.

That Massachusetts army would have fewer men per company and fewer companies per regiment than the Massachusetts militia. The Patriot authorities expected some men to go home and hoped to keep units as cohesive as possible.

In the following weeks, there must have been a lot of discussion within the ranks. Some companies enlisted nearly en masse under their familiar officers. Other men chose to go home to their wives, children, and farms. Some went home and came back. To fill holes, there was some shuffling of officers’ ranks and which companies belonged to which regiments (i.e., reported to which colonels).

Ward and his top officers were worried enough about the war to recommend a formal militia call on 9 May so there would be enough armed men to protect Roxbury and Dorchester. Ten days later the general wrote to Dr. Joseph Warren as president of the congress:

It appears to me absolutely necessary that the regiments be immediately settled, the officers commissioned, the soldiers mustered and paid agreeable to what has been proposed by the Congress—if we would save our Country.

That day the provincial congress approved its first Massachusetts army commission, to Col. Samuel Gerrish.

Gradually more pieces were put into place. Ward was sworn in as an army general, not just a militia general, the next day. By the end of the month, what Patriot newspapers started calling “the Grand American Army” had about 16,000 men from four colonies.

To be sure, not all those forces were formally enrolled yet. In Moses Little’s regiment from Essex County, Moses Sleeper had signed on as a corporal on 9 May. But the committee of safety didn’t approve paperwork for the whole regiment until 26 June, the last regimental commission of the spring. By then some of Col. Little’s companies had already fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

For more about the process of creating this provincial army, see Mike Cecere’s article “The Army of Observation Forms: Spring 1775 in Massachusetts” at the Journal of the American Revolution.

COMING UP: Taking the oath.

“Alarmed that the Regulars were advancing towards Our Entrencment”

Among the presentations at this Saturday’s commemoration of Gen. George Washington’s arrival in Cambridge is a talk by Longfellow House archivist Kate Hanson Plass on the diary of Moses Sleeper.

Hanson Plass and her team have recently shared the diary online: transcription with annotations and illustrations, plus a link to page images on Archive.org.

The introduction explains:

In the museum collection of the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site is a diary written by a soldier who participated in the early days of the American Revolution. No one knows how the diary got to the house, though it seems likely that a collector in the Longfellow family acquired it for its Revolutionary War connection in the early 20th century.

The book itself is small (5” by 8”), pocket size; its cover and the first and last three pages are missing. There is no indication of the identity of the writer of the diary; at first reading it seems to be anonymous. Using clues inside the diary – references to family members and locations of military service – the author has been established as Corporal Moses Sleeper of Newburyport, Massachusetts, who served for 19 months in Colonel Moses Little’s Regiment (later the 12th Continental Regiment).

Sleeper and Sgt. Paul Lunt of the same regiment obviously shared their diaries since many of their entries are the same. They weren’t keeping private, personal notes but making a record of their military service for people back home and in the future.

Cpl. Sleeper’s surviving pages start right before the Bunker Hill battle, which his regiment wasn’t involved in. Here’s his terse account of those days:

Friday 16 our Men went to Charlestown and Intrenched on a hill beyond Bunker hill they fired from the Ships and Copps hill all the time.

Saturday 17 1775 the Regulars Came out upon the Back of Charlestown and Set fire to It & burnt It down & Came to our Entrenen[?] forced It with the Loss 896 of the Regulars and about 50 of ours The fire began at 3 o Clock and held till 6

Sund 18 we Entrinched on prospect hill alarmed that the Regulars were advancing towards Our Entrencment but found It to be false Returned to Quarters

Mondy 19 Wee killed Some of there Guard

T 20 Went upon Picquet

W 21 past musters

Thirsday 22 Received our month pay

You wouldn’t know from those entries that Capt. Benjamin Perkins’s company, including Cpl. Sleeper, went onto the Charlestown peninsula on 17 June and saw combat. I’ve quoted later recollections of the Bunker Hill fight from other men in that company: Lt. Joseph Whitmore and Pvt. Philip Johnson.

Sgt. Lunt’s description of the battle offered a little more detail:

Saturday, 17th. - The Regulars landed a number of troops, and we engaged them. They drove us off the hill, and burnt Charlestown. Dr. [Joseph] Warren was lost in the battle: the siege lasted about three hours. They killed about 50 of our men, wounded about 80: we killed of the king’s troops 896, - 92 officers, 104 sergeants.

Both Sleeper and Lunt listed an exact number of enemy casualties—a piece of intelligence it usually takes days or weeks to acquire. In Sleeper’s case, we can see that number was written right into the entry, not inserted later. That suggests these provincial soldiers didn’t write their diary entries on the evening after the battle but after time had passed, they had recovered, and they might have had less to do.

“To-morrow I go on another attack”

We met Thomas James as a major in the Royal Artillery stationed in New York in 1765. After he vowed to protect the stamped paper and said nasty things about the people opposing the new tax, a crowd attacked his home.

Maj. James went home to Britain to report on the situation to Parliament, and he reported on Parliament to royal authorities in New York.

By 1771 James was a lieutenant colonel in the artillery. In that year he published an illustrated two-volume study titled The History of the Herculean Straits, Now Called the Straits of Gibraltar: Including those Ports of Spain and Barbary that Lie Contiguous Thereto.

The “authour,” as he’s called on the title pages, had served in Gibraltar in 1749–1755. He’d been working on this book for years, and is credited with being the first Englishman to publish observations on the area’s geography.

In 1775 Lt. Col. James was inside besieged Boston. Here’s his brief report on the aftermath of the Bunker Hill battle in a letter to Lt. Col. Francis Downman in London dated 23 June 1775:

We are in thickness of war, we have had two battles already, in the last we carried our point, took the lines and a strong redoubt, with 2,500 men against 7,000.

We have upwards of 80 officers killed and wounded, and the flower of the grenadiers and light infantry; some regiments have but five grenadiers left. We had at one gun the officer and volunteer wounded, and but one man without a wound. [Capt.-Lt. John] Lemoine is wounded, so are [Capt. W. Oren] Huddlestone and [Lt. Ashton] Shuttleworth. We are well. My volunteer hands have been full.

To-morrow I go on another attack, covering the left in my gondolas, which I have made, viz., three with a heavy 12-pr. in each prow. Adieu.

James’s “gondolas” seem to have gone down in American records as the Crown’s “floating batteries.”

It’s notable that both sides of the Bunker Hill battle insisted they were heavily outnumbered by the enemy.

“The victory was ruinous to our best soldiers”

In 1775 John Graves Simcoe was a lieutenant in the 35th Regiment of Foot, which had been sent to Boston.

Simcoe would go on to a notable career in the Crown forces and then in the government of Canada, but he missed the Battle of Bunker Hill, as he described in a letter written before the end of June 1775:

On the 17th of this month, the first act of civil commotion commenced. The ship, I was in, was at sea; but, at a distance, we heard the sound of cannon, and, at midnight, saw two distinct columns of fire ascending. In this horrid state, well knowing we were the last of the fleet, ignorant whether Boston or some hostile town was in flames, were we kept for two days.

When we anchored, we saw Charles-Town burnt to ashes, and found our army had been engaged; that our troops were victorious, but that the victory was ruinous to our best soldiers, and particularly so to our officers, ninety-two of whom were killed and wounded.

The loss fell heavy on the flank companies of our regiment. [Edward] Drewe commanded the light infantry; exerting himself, at the head of that fine company, he received three shots through him, one in the shoulder, one in the bend of the thigh, the other through his foot. He also received two contusions, and his shoulder was dislocated. [Hugh] Massey is shot through the thigh, but says it is as well to be merry as sad. Poor [William] Bard was the third officer of the company. He was killed, speaking to Drewe. His dying words were, “I wish success to the 35th; only say I behaved as became a soldier.”

The sergeants and corporals of this heroic company were wounded, when the eldest soldier led the remaining five, in pursuit of the routed rebels. The grenadiers equalled their brethren, and, I fear, were as unfortunate. The brave and noble spirited Captain [James] Lyon, is dangerously wounded; and, to aggravate the misfortune, his wife, now with child, a most amiable woman, is attending on him. Both his Lieutenants were wounded.

The loss we have sustained, in the most warm and desperate action America ever knew, draws tears from every eye interested for brave and unfortunate spirits. Had I time to enumerate to you the many instances which the soldiers of our companies, alone, afforded the most generous exertions of love, fidelity, and veneration for their officers, and of the glowing, yet temperate resolutions of these officers, your tears would be those of triumph, and you would confess that in war alone human nature is capable of the most godlike exertions. I think you will believe me abstracted from friendship, when I say, that I never heard of more courage and coolness than Drewe displayed on that day; and his spirits are, even now, superior to any thing you can conceive.

That extract was published in 1782. As we might guess, it was brought to the public’s attention by Edward Drewe, whom Simcoe had such high praise for.

“You saved my son’s life in Ameriky!”

Here’s an entry from Literary Anecdotes and Contemporary Reminiscences of Professor Porson and Others, from the Manuscript Files of the Late E. H. Barker, Esq. of Thetford, Norfolk, published in London in 1852.

CLXV. CAPTAIN LENTHALL.

July 12, 1837. C. Montagu told to me the following story of Captain Lenthall, a gentleman, who was formerly owner of Burford Priory in Oxfordshire.

He was at the battle of Bunker’s Hill, where the English were defeated by the Americans [sic].

Seeing that his countrymen were getting the worst, and that his own regiment was disorganized, Captain L. took refuge in a saw-pit. A common soldier, belonging to the same company, followed the example of his commanding officer, and both of them escaped alive.

Some years afterwards, when the Captain was returned to Burford, his residence, a poor woman one day gave him a hearty benediction, which led him to ask the reason of her good wishes.

“God bless you, sir,” said she, “you saved my son’s life in Ameriky!”

“And how did I save your son’s life?” replied the Captain.

“O, sir, he would never have thought of getting down into the sawpit, if you hadn’t done so first!”

John Lenthall was a twenty-five-year-old lieutenant in the 23rd Regiment (Welch Fusiliers) in 1775. I must note that he was actually wounded in the Bunker Hill battle. He saw more action that summer during the British attack on the Penny Ferry.

Richard Frothingham included this anecdote in his centennial history of Bunker Hill.

Lenthall’s family home, Burford Priory, is shown above. It’s now owned by a branch of the Murdoch family.

“Crying most pitifully all exceeping one”

This is a portrait of Mary Hubbard (1734–1808) painted by John Singleton Copley about 1764 and now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.

According to the institute, Hubbard’s “pose, gown, and background were precisely copied from a British engraving of a noblewoman, yet Copley distinguished the work as his own by capturing the figure’s individual features as well as the surfaces and colors of the luxurious fabrics.”

Mary Greene had married Daniel Hubbard (1736–1796) in 1757. Their mothers were first cousins. What’s more, her widowed father had married his widowed mother in 1744. That was one way mercantile families retained their money.

The Hubbards were Loyalists, particularly invested in importing sugar from the slave-labor plantations in Demarara. Daniel Hubbard signed the merchants’ addresses to the last royal governors, and the family remained in town during the siege. 

On 18 June 1775, Mary Hubbard wrote this description of the the Battle of Bunker Hill to her half-brother, David Greene (1749–1812):

once more at my Pen I can scarcely compose myself enough for any thing nor will you wonder when you know the situation we are in at present

Yesterday another Battle fought Charlestown the Scene of action they began early in the Morning & continued all day fighting. in the afternoon they set fire to the town & it is now wholy laid in ashes we could view this Melancholy sight from the top of our house

one poor Man went on the top of the meeting house to see the Battle was not able to git down again but perished in the flames.

about five in the afternoon they began to send home their wounded here my dear Brother was a Scene of woe indeed to see such numbers as pass’d by must have moved the hardest heart, judge then the fealings of your Sister, some without Noses some with but one Eye Broken legs & arms some limping along scarcely able to reach the Hospital, while others ware brought in Waggons, Chaise, Coaches, Sedans, & beds on mens Shoulders

the poor Women wringing their hands & crying most pitifully all exceeping one who on seeing her Husband in a cart badly wounded vou’d revenge went of but soon return’d compleatly Equip’t with her gun on her Shoulder her Knapsack at her back march’d down the street & left the poor Husband to try how many she could send along to tell he was comeing.

there is a vast Number of our Men killd & wound a great many Oficers two are sent to their long homes amongst the rest one fine looking Man much about your age who stopt against our windows to have his leg which was sliping moved a little he lived till this morning the poor fellow came a shore but yesterday or the day before, Perhaps his Mothers darling & his Fathers Joy cut of in the midst of his days his Sisters two if he had any must weep his untimely fate

hope it will never be my lot to have any of my near connections follow the Army.

Major [John] Pitcarn & Mr. Gore* both dead with many more that I dont know. we cannot yet learn how many of the enemy are kill’d, think it likely Mr. Hubbard who I supose will give you a particular account of the Battle will be able to write you word, to his Letter I refer you.

* have since heard Mr. Gore is a live

I don’t know who “Mr. Gore” is, not seeing such a British officer on the list of wounded. Hubbard wrote as if that man had been in the battle and thus not from the civilian family of Gores I’ve studied. (Samuel Gore was arrested after the battle for cracking a joke about the British deaths.)

The Hubbards didn’t evacuate Boston with the British military. Daniel kept at his business, and in 1792 was one of the founders of the Union Bank. He died on St. Croix during a voyage back from Demarara in 1796.

Mary Hubbard’s letter was first published by the Charlestown historian Richard Frothingham in 1876 and then as transcribed here in the D.A.R.’s American Monthly Magazine in 1894.

(The correspondent who sent the text to the magazine was Anita Newcomb McGee, a military doctor in the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars.)

“Since my friends conquer, I with pleasure die!”

Yesterday I introduced the figure of William Bard, son of a wealthy New Jersey man who enlisted in the British army in 1761, reportedly because he was sad about an unrequited love affair.

By June 1775, Bard had risen from ensign to lieutenant in the 35th Regiment. Unfortunately, that was as far as he got because he was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

According to Richard Trimen’s An Historical Memoir of the 35th Royal Sussex Regiment of Foot (1873):

The light company of the regiment lost all the officers and non-commissioned officers killed or wounded, on which an old soldier, whose name unfortunately has not been preserved, seeing the company without a leader, stepped out and took command of it. The grenadier company was in a worse condition, for only five of them were untouched at the close of the action.

That regimental history put Lt. Bard in the grenadier company, but the contemporaneous sources say he was with the lights.

In August 1775 The Gentleman’s Magazine published this poem.

To the Memory of Lieut. BARD, in the Light Infantry Company of the 35th Regiment, who was killed in the Attack on the American Entrenchments, near Boston.

Addressed to the Captain of that Company [Edward Drewe].

WHY unlamented should the valiant bleed,
Tho’ not with wealth or tinsel’d honours crown’d,
Who, by brave acts, seek glory’s deathless meed,
Whose life was blameless, and whose fall renown’d?

Oh Bard! deserving of a happier fate,
Upon thy birth no star auspicious shone;
Full were thy days of woe, tho’ short thy date,
And fell Misfortune claim’d thee for her son.

Britain with empty praise alone repaid
Thy well-prov’d valour; oft thy blood was shed
In her defence—yet, ever undismay’d,
You trod the rugged path where glory led.

With his bold friend, the valiant band before,
(Like two twin lions from the mountain’s height)
He rush’d undaunted to the battle’s roar,
And urg’d the num’rous foe to shameful flight.

What could he more? he fell,—with fame adorn’d,
He nobly fell, while, weeping by his side,
Bright Victory the dear-bought conquest mourn’d,
As thus, with fault’ring voice, he faintly cried—

“Praise crown the warriors by whose side I fought,
And the dear youth who o’er them holds command;
Tell him I acted as a soldier ought,
Nor sham’d the glory of his valiant band.”

Then, when inform’d the hostile troops were fled,
With strength renew’d, he made this short reply:
“Thanks to kind Heaven, I have not vainly bled;
Since my friends conquer, I with pleasure die!”

Thus, like the fearless Theban, he expir’d;
A fate bewail’d, yet envied by the brave.
The muse, with tender sympathy inspir’d,
Thus pours her sorrows o’er his silent grave.

Nor you, ye warriors, shall unprais’d remain—
Reduc’d to five, in sullen rage they stand;
Each gen’rous leader wounded sore, or slain,
The oldest soldier led the slender band.

In one close line, while every furrow’d brow
With vengeance lour’d they eagerly pursu’d,
With levell’d thunder, the affrighted foe,
And grim Destruction mark’d their course in blood.

O thou! from who, disdaining abject fear,
Each glowing bosom caught congenial flame,
Who still surviv’d, to me for ever dear,
Thy loss I dread, yet triumph in thy fame.

Perish the thought! nor let me thus profane
Thy well-earn’d praise with one ill-omen’d sigh!
All mean distrust is sacred honour’s bane,
The brave may fall—their actions never die.

R.H.

Despite his moping quoted yesterday, someone was fond of Lt. Bard.

“The only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe”

Thomas Hyde Page (1746–1821) graduated top in his class from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1769, winning a gold medal from the king.

Page became a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and arrived in Boston in the spring of 1775. During the Battle of Bunker Hill he served as one of Gen. William Howe’s aides.

Richard Frothingham quoted the 11 Jan 1776 London Chronicle as saying:

A few days ago arrived in town, from Boston, Lieutenant Page, of his majesty’s corps of engineers, on account of the wounds he received the 17th of June, in the action of Charlestown. This gentleman is the only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe, so great was the slaughter of officers that day. He particularly distinguished himself in the storming of the redoubt, for which he received General Howe’s thanks.

Page was back in London because he had been wounded in the leg, badly enough to require some sort of amputation.

Capt. John Montresor wrote to Page from Philadelphia on 17 June 1778 noting the “disagreeable memory” of the date. “I hope you are able to saunter without a stick.”

In his journal, however, Montresor grumped about his lack of a pension and wrote, “Page served Eleven days and was then wounded and return’d home and had ten shillings per diem settled for life.” (Of course, Montresor still had both his legs.)

Page continued to work on various engineering projects for the British military. Promotion was slow in that branch of the service, but between 1781 and 1783 he became a captain. That summer he received a double honor: he was elected to the Royal Society and knighted. A couple of years later he shifted to the invalid corps.

In 1790, Lt. Col. John Small, who had been Gen. Robert Pigot’s brigade major, wrote to Page:

The interesting position we were placed in side by side at the memorable Battle of Bunker’s Hill will never be forgotten, and will ever excite the most anxious emotions in the breast of the fellow campaigner who has now the honor of addressing you; who witnessed in the most trying moments, your innate worth, your professional Intrepidity and skill, and was most seriously affected when at your side he saw you ffall from a very dangerous wound, receiv’d when displaying your exertions in the ffield, when your cool and manly example, and sound judicious advice, contributed much to acquire success and victory.

I wish I had more of that letter to understand who was asking what favor.

Using surveys by Montresor and others, Page published very good maps of Boston harbor and the town of Boston. His 1793 “Plan of the Action at Bunkers Hill” is still the most useful source on the topography of the Charlestown peninsula in 1775—though it’s also notable in switching the labels of Bunker’s Hill and Breed’s Hill.

Most of Page’s engineering work involved drainage, harbors, canals, and other civil projects rather than fortifications. James Northcote’s portrait of Page above shows him “holding a Plan of Fort Landguard and seen in the distance.” Page didn’t build that fort, but he engineered its tricky well. (Once apparently at Boston, that painting is now on display at the Tyntesfield estate in North Somerset.)

Sir Thomas Hyde Page remained active all around Great Britain for decades and finally retired to Boulogne, France, where he died.

“Major Pitcairn was a brave and good man”

Laying the ground for Tuesday’s online presentation for Old North Illuminated about the legends associated with Maj. John Pitcairn, here are some articles that appeared in the British press in the latter part of 1775 which were then reprinted in American newspapers.

Pennsylvania Packet, 2 Oct 1775:

Extract of a letter from Chatham, July 31.

“The chief topic in this town for several days past has been concerning the death of the unfortunate Major Pitcairn, who died of his wounds in the late engagement in America. He was late Major of his Majesty’s division of Marines at this place. He was a Gentleman of universal good character, and beloved by his officers and men, and much esteemed by all ranks of people here for his affability and genteel address. He was a tender husband, and an affectionate father.

[“]On the news being brought to his lady last Thursday evening, she immediately dropped down, and for several hours it was thought she was dead; she has not spoke since, and her life is not expected; their mutual happiness was beyond conception. The unfortunate Lady’s character is no ways deficient to that of the Major.”

Pitcairn had married Elizabeth Dalrymple, and she lived until 1809.

Pennsylvania Gazette, 4 Oct 1775:

A letter from Boston, dated July 18, says, “Lieutenant [William] Pitcairn, son to our Major of that name, was standing by his father when that noble officer fell, and expired without uttering a word; he looked very wishfully at the Lieutenant, who kneeled down, and cried out, “My father is killed: I have lost my father!”

This slackened the firing of our corps for some minutes, many of the men echoing the words, “We have all lost a father!”

When Frank Moore sampled this item as a footnote in his Diary of the American Revolution, he changed “our corps,” which seems to point to the marines, to “the regulars,” a larger group.

As an anecdote it’s quite touching, but the description of Pitcairn having “expired without uttering a word” is contradicted by many contemporaneous reports of the major lingering after being shot. For example, Gen. John Burgoyne wrote:

Major Pitcairn was a brave and good man. His son, an officer in the same corps, and near him when he fell, carried his expiring father upon his back to the boats, about a quarter of a mile, kissed him, and instantly returned to his duty. This circumstance in the hands of a good painter or historian, would equal most that can be found in antiquity.

Gen. Thomas Gage listed Pitcairn as mortally wounded, not immediately dead. There’s a story from Boston of the major’s long dying conversation with Dr. Thomas Kast.

Pennsylvania Mercury, 13 Oct 1775:

It is said that a pension of 200l. per annum is settled on the Widow of the late Major Pitcairn, who has eleven children.

New-York Gazette, 16 Oct 1775:

Extract of a letter from Plymouth, August 15.

“Lieut. Pitcairn, of the marines, (who brought his father, Major Pitcairn, when mortally wounded at Boston, off the field of action) is appointed a Captain Lieutenant and Captain in the said corps, (though not in his turn) as an acknowledgement of the services of his gallant father.”

Virginia Gazette, 19 Oct 1775:

July 28. Major Pitcairne, of the marines, who was killed in the late action in America, has left 7 children. Four balls were lodged in his body, and he was taken off the field upon his son’s shoulders.

The History of the Fife Pitcairns says John and Elizabeth had nine children, one of whom had been lost at sea in 1770.

A Closer Look at the Landscape of Bunker’s Hill

Back in 2017, I shared a map of the Battle of Bunker Hill that Gen. Henry Clinton had drawn himself on the back of some sheet music (permalink).

I wrote:

One eye-catching detail is that Clinton sketched a small fortification on top of Bunker’s Hill . . . There are even lines indicating that one of the warships in the Charles River fired at that site. . . .

evidently on 17 June, Clinton perceived the provincials as having fortified themselves there

This spring Boston 1775 reader Adam Derenne sent an email shedding some light on that mystery:

I believe that Clinton misinterpreted the site — it wasn’t a partial fortification but a gravel pit operated by Charlestown resident Peter Edes.

As Mr. Derenne pointed out, Edes’s gravel pit is mentioned in Charlestown’s 1767 land survey:

Then we measurd a Gravel Pitt Enclos’d & Improv’d by Mr. Peter Edes with his land lying Bounded on the way leading over Bunker’s Hill just opposite to Temple’s Barn. We began about 8 Feet below the easterly part of his Mr. Edes’s Stone Wall, said Wall being on the Way from Temples leading over Bunker’s Hill…

This owner was probably the Peter Edes (1705–1787) whose son Benjamin became a printer of the Boston Gazette (and had a son named Peter).

Mr. Derenne also noted that the City of Boston’s G.I.S. website shows what properties Peter Edes owned in 1775, covering the odd spot in Clinton’s map. Thomas Hyde Page’s map of the battle, published in 1793, showed a blob where Clinton drew that second fortification, presumably the gravel pit.

I then went looking for a mention of this pit in accounts of the battle. Did provincials use it to shelter themselves from the Royal Navy shelling that side of Charlestown? Did British engineers incorporate it into their fortifications on Bunker’s Hill, either the quick barriers made on the evening of 19 April or the sturdy fort built over time after 17 June? But I couldn’t find any account mentioning the gravel pit. So there’s still a mystery to solve.

“The Ghost of Major John Pitcairn,” 24 June

Sticking with the saga of Henry Howell Williams and his quest for (over?)compensation meant I mustered only a brief mention of the Battle of Bunker Hill on its Sestercentennial.

But today I’m watching the reenactment of that battle in Gloucester, and I’ll discuss some aspects of the event in the coming days, both on this site and live.

On Tuesday, 24 June, I’ll speak on “The Ghost of Major John Pitcairn” for Old North Illuminated’s digital speaker series.

Our event description:

After Major John Pitcairn was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill, he was remembered in Britain as “a Gentleman of universal good character.” In Massachusetts, however, people still accused Pitcairn of having ordered redcoats to fire at the Lexington militia two months earlier. The major’s body was laid in the crypt of the Old North Church, but his memory haunted American history through stories, rumors, and artifacts linked to his name.

In this talk, J. L. Bell, proprietor of the history blog Boston 1775, sifts through the evidence behind those legends before digging into how a church warden with a shaky reputation sent Maj. Pitcairn’s body back to Britain—or did he?

I suppose I should make clear that I know of no stories about Pitcairn’s spirit haunting people or places. Rather, his memory and Americans’ hunger to make meaning of that memory have produced several oft-repeated narratives.

I’ll talk about several legends of Maj. Pitcairn: his pistols and horse, who shot him at Bunker Hill, how Bostonians remembered him, and what happened to his body in the decades after his death. Some of those stories might even be true.

Register to hear this talk online with a donation through this Eventbrite page. It’s scheduled to begin at 7:00 P.M., and there will be time for questions afterward. Assuming the recording goes well, a video will appear online afterward.

“The Memorialist should apply to that source for relief”

In 1787, the Confederation Congress was meeting in New York, at City Hall and the Fraunces Tavern (shown here).

When Henry Howell Williams asked for more than £3,600 in compensation for losses from Noddle’s Island twelve years earlier, the Congress referred his request to its Board of Treasury. (This must have happened after 10 Apr 1787, when Williams wrote to Secretary of War Henry Knox asking for his help with this petition.)

That treasury board consisted of three men, all recent Congress delegates:

• Samuel Osgood, a merchant from Andover and Continental Army veteran who had moved to New York. He would later be the first Postmaster General under the new Constitution.
• Walter Livingston of New York, like Osgood a former army commissary.
• Arthur Lee of Virginia, who had studied both medicine and law in Britain, helped John Dickinson to write “The Liberty Song,” and spent the 1770s in Europe as an American lobbyist and diplomat annoying other American lobbyists and diplomats.

These were the same three men who considered Richard Gridley’s request for payment for a horse killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill (fought 250 years ago today).

On 1 Aug 1788 that board told the Congress:

the damage done to the property of the Memorialist, and the articles stated to have been applied to the benefit of the United States, was previous to the formation of an Army, under the authority of the Union.

The Board are therefore of opinion, that if the evidence adduced in proof of the value and quantity of the articles stated to have been applied to the public use was more satisfactory than in fact it is, it would be improper to establish a Precedent, in the present instance, for an admission of numerous Claims, on the merits of which it would be impossible for the Officers of the Treasury to form any competent judgement.

The general fact, of a very valuable property belonging to the Memoralist, having been either destroyed or used for the benefit of the Army assembled at Boston in the month of May 1775, by order of a Board of General Officers, appears by the Certificate of the late Commissioner of Accounts for the State of Massachusets, marked A, to have been well established:

Inasmuch however as the aforesaid property appears to have been applied for the immediate benefit of the State, and as the merits of the Claim can be best ascertained under their authority, The Board are of opinion, that the Memorialist should apply to that source for relief; and should Claims of a similar description be hereafter allowed by the general Board of Commissioners, the State will obtain reimbursement for such sums as shall appear an equitable compensation for the real damage sustained by the Memorialist.

In short, the Congress sent Williams back to Massachusetts since the Battle of Chelsea Creek happened before any Continental Army legally existed.

It’s probably also significant that the Confederation Congress was on its last legs. It didn’t have enough money to pay all its bills. So few delegates were coming to New York that the body often lacked a quorum—hence the use of commissioners for day-to-day administration, and the long delay in actions. By the time this board submitted its report, a new Constitution was being publicly debated.

TOMORROW: Back to Massachusetts.

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.

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!

“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.)