“He had taken a Cold and became sick”

From the memoir of Pvt. Daniel Granger of Andover, published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in 1930:

My first services in the Revolution were on Winter Hill in the Fall and Winter of 1775. I at the age of 13 years. In the Month of December, News came up, that my Brother was sick and unable to do Duty, he was very thinly clad, as most of the Soldiers were at the time; he had taken a Cold and became sick. My parents said that I must take the Horse and go down and bring him home. But if the Officers would receive me in his sted, (and he being able to ride alone) I might stay in his room: I went down, & found him, he went with me to the Officers, to offer my services and to obtain a Furlow for himself: they questioned me a little and finally said that I might stay in his room if I thought that I could do the duty of a Soldier, & I gave my Consent, my Brother took the Horse & went home, & I took his Accoutrements and went in his Mess. The Barracks were then building, but were not finished. The Weather was extremely cold.

It looks like Daniel’s older brother was named Jacob and born about 1758. (All the other brothers whom that genealogy site lists were even younger than Daniel.) According to Sarah Loring Bailey’s Historical Sketches of Andover, in late 1777 Jacob marched north with a town militia company to defend against Gen. John Burgoyne’s thrust from Canada. The following spring Daniel, still only a teenager, served three months as a militia drummer at West Point.

My sinuses are feeling a bit like Jacob’s today, but—alas—I don’t have a thirteen-year-old brother to stand in for me.

“Mr. Daulton a Tory”?

One of my favorite Revolutionary War memoirs is that of Daniel Granger (born 1762), published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in 1930.

Daniel was only thirteen when he showed up on the siege lines in December 1775 to serve in place of his older brother, who was sick and needed to go home. The brothers switched places again around the end of February 1776, so Daniel served less than three months of the siege. But his memories of those months are very vivid, probably because it was such a short, intense time. In December, I was able to use Daniel’s memory of a password to date one of his anecdotes.

However, there’s one detail I just can’t find a match for. Apparently referring to Lechmere Point in Cambridge, Granger wrote:

I well recollect that on the Westerly part of this Point stood a very beautiful Seat, which belonged to a Mr. Daulton a Tory as I was informed with a beautiful Yard, Garden, Trees & Serpentine walks &c &c. But every thing had been cruelly mutillated by the Soldiers out of spite to Toryism.

I can’t find a prominent man named “Daulton” in this area. It’s possible that Daniel heard or remembered the name wrong, or that it was garbled in transcription. Or that the estate he remembered was somewhere else. Or that I haven’t searched for the right spelling variation. Still looking.

Pvt. Daniel Granger of the Continental Army

Daniel Granger was born in Andover, Massachusetts, on 2 March 1762. That made him thirteen and a half when he joined the Continental Army as a temporary substitute for his older brother, who had fallen ill and wanted to go home. It was the winter of 1775-76, and Daniel served nearly three months until his brother returned.

Here was one of Daniel’s experiences as a young soldier:

I was not detailed to go on Sentury until about ten or eleven Oclock at Night, and it so happened that I was placed the lowest down on the [Lechmere] Point, by a larg Oak stump the most awfully cold, bleak place, no watch-box to stand in; and by orders, our Guns were loaded. Here I had to stand two hours, and tramp round the old stump to Keep me from freesing, and no other Sentinal in sight of me.

And about eleven or twelve oclock the Sentinal that was placed above me, heard the Ice trickle down from the Rocks as the Tide fell off, which frightened him, I heard him hale, at the Top of his voice, “who comes there” twice I beleave, and then fired off his Gun and ran off, I could hear the Drum beating at the guardhouse to turn out the Guard, I cocked my Gun, looked and lissaned, but could see nor hear anything but the trickling of the Ice on the Shore, I was determined not to run, nor to fire, until I should see or hear some thing to fire at.

and soon I saw two Men coming, and as they approached, I haled, who comes there, one answered “grand rounds” I then said grand rounds, advance & give me the countersign, they advanced, and when at a proper distance, I charged baonnet ordered them to stand, & give the Countersign. one answered, “Baltimore” which was the Word given to all the Senturies for that night I answered the word is right, and shouldered my Gun.

They talked with me some time, asked me, if I heard the Sentury fire? I told them that I heard him hale, and fire, & his tramp on the Snow when he ran, but that I saw nothing, & was determined not to fire nor run until I did, they said, “I was a brave fellow” and asked my age, & on being told it, expressed astonishment, that I should be there so young.

And early the next Morning an Officer came into the guard house & enquired for the Sentury that stood down the lowest on the Point in the Night at the time of the alarm, & soon found me, and took me into the Officers Room and I recollect the Captain’s name was Clough, he took me by the hand and sat me down on his Knees, praised me a good deal for my courage and said many pleasing things to me which made me rather Proud.

The countersign “Baltimore” lets us pinpoint this event as happening on 26 December 1775. My favorite detail is how Capt. Jeremiah Clough of New Hampshire sat the boy on his knee to praise him. That’s how young Pvt. Granger was.

Daniel Granger evidently started to write down his recollections at the age of eighty and finished in 1848. A copy of the manuscript was transcribed and published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in 1930.

“It came my turn to stand Sentury”

Daniel Granger (1762-1853) of Andover enlisted in the Continental Army during the winter of 1775-76, replacing his older brother, who was sick. Daniel was thirteen. In a memoir he finished five years before he died, Granger recalled the routine of his duties on Winter Hill beside the Mystic River:

The work of calling out the guard, was, that when any Guard or Detachment was wanted, a certain Number from each Company was given to the sargent major of the Regiment every Night & he went around to every Company & notified each Soldier, and the non Commissioned Officers, on what guard or duty he was so detailed, and to be ready at such an Hour, in the Morning.

The Sergent Major whose name was Bell, would be out at the time with his Rattan and rap on the Barracks & halloo, turn out quarter Guard, & he had a stantorian Voice, When each Officer & Soldier would turn out, who were so detailed for that Guard & there would be a Commissioned Officer to receive them on the parade. The Roll was called. If no one was missing: they were marched off to the place appointed to relieve the Guard of the preceeding Morning. . . .

The first time that I was detached, was on the main guard and I prepared my breakfast the Night before, so as to be ready, at the call of the little Bell, and not to get a caneing from him for negligence, as some others did, for when he began to wrap and to ball, the Soldiers would call out “there is the Bell, don’t you hear the Bell?”

It came my turn to stand Sentury, until about ten oclock at Night, and it was the most stormy and bitter cold Night that I ever felt, and I had to stand on the N.E. side of the Hill, where the Wind flew extremely cold, two long hours, altho I had a watch box to stand in yet I was obliged to go out for I could not see any one approaching when in the Box. I stood out my two hours and then was released. . . .

We were then marched to the Guard-house, where was a good fire, & as soon as I got warm, I wraped my Blanket round me, lie down on the cold wet floor, my Pack for a Pillow, and then slept, but some scuffled and wrassled all night rather than to sleep on a wet floor.

Eventually, Granger reported, “My Brother returned in good health, and I went home about the last of February 1776.”

The thumbnail above, courtesy of the Library of Congress, shows the Continental fortifications on Prospect Hill and Winter Hill.

Who Really Paid the Biggest Price?

I’ve been writing about the error-ridden “Price They Paid” essay on the signers of the Declaration of Independence. As detailed in many refutations, the essay greatly exaggerates the personal sacrifices that those Continental Congress delegates during the war. None were killed in battle, it turns out. Few, if any, suffered torture as prisoners, or died as paupers.

Even when the essay is rewritten to avoid those factual errors, however, I still think it distorts history by focusing on the very top tier of American society and ignoring the greater suffering of people at lower levels. The signers were well insulated from most difficulties by their wealth and by the values of their time.

Indeed, Congress delegates were sometimes literally insulated. When George Washington oversaw the siege of Boston in 1775-76, he lived in the large house shown above, now Longfellow National Historic Site. In contrast, Daniel Granger, who served a short time that winter as a thirteen-year-old private, recalled his housing this way:

The Barracks were then building, but were not finished. The Weather was extremely cold. . . .

the Mess, my brother belonged to had excavated a place into the side of a Hill covered it with Timber & boards built up a fireplace & Chimney and a Door, had Straw for the flooring & bedding, where they were warm & comfortable, and were called a Mess of Cubs, who lived in a Den.

As soon as the Barracks were finished, we were obliged to quit the Den & go into the Barraks. but were not so warm & comfortable: the Barraks were hastily built only boarded & battened & without Windows excepting a square opening with a sliding shutter.

So who was paying the biggest price that winter—the general, who had represented Virginia at the Congress, or his men?

No one saw anything wrong with the vast difference between Gen. Washington’s mansion and Pvt. Granger’s den and barracks. American society in the 1770s was far more deferential to the upper classes than we behave (or acknowledge behaving) today. Washington and his officers were gentlemen, and therefore expected to enjoy comfortable quarters, while almost all enlisted men were yeomen (small farmers), mechanics, or laborers with no property at all.

Even when taken prisoner, gentlemen got better treatment than ordinary men. The essay notes that a handful of signers were captured by the British military, particularly South Carolinians caught in the fall of Charleston. However, most American gentlemen were held captive in mansions, or the better parts of jails; and paroled on their word of honor or exchanged for other gentlemen. It’s hard to find an American prisoner who suffered particularly for having signed the Declaration.

In contrast, enlisted men and sailors who became prisoners or war were usually held longer than officers and captains, and in worse conditions. Danske Dandridge’s American Prisoners of the Revolution states:

From printed journals, published in New York at the close of the war, it appeared that 11,500 American prisoners had died on board the prison ships.

That estimate is probably high; I’ve seen a more recent number of 8,500 dead in all British prisons. Still, it’s clear that the prison hulks anchored off Brooklyn, holding tens of thousands of ordinary soldiers and sailors, were disease-ridden hellholes. Those men were held in those conditions not only despite the fact that they weren’t leading the rebellion but because they weren’t.

All told, about 25,000 American fighting men died of wounds and disease during the Revolutionary War—about 7% of the total enlisted. Of the fifty-six signers, eight died during the war, six of them from diseases at home. (Being established leaders of their communities, Congress delegates were probably older than the average gentleman.) Only two signers, or less than 4%, died unnaturally before the end of the war. Button Gwinnett was killed in a duel with a fellow American. Thomas Lynch, Jr., went on a voyage for his health and was lost at sea—along with all the sailors and other people on that ship, of course.

So in terms of physical suffering, the Declaration’s signers appear to have paid a significantly smaller price than ordinary, non-wealthy American soldiers.

TOMORROW: The matter of property.