“I have pleased myself with the thought of serving under you”

As discussed yesterday, sometime in the first week of May 1775 the Rhode Island legislature appointed Nathanael Greene to be the brigadier general of its army of observation.

In his biography of his grandfather, George Washington Greene wrote:

There is a tradition, but I will not vouch for it, that the first choice fell upon an Episcopalian, who declined; the second, on a Congregationalist, who also declined; and that, when the third vote was announced as having fallen on Greene, he rose in his place, and said: “Since the Episcopalian and Congregationalist won’t, I suppose the Quaker must.”

That’s about as tepid an endorsement for a “tradition” as a nineteenth-century biographer could provide. And the religious terms “Episcopalian” and “Congregationalist” weren’t standard in 1775, suggesting it wasn’t exact.

One recent biographer of Nathanael Greene has suggested that those first two candidates for command declined on religious grounds. I think that’s a misreading of the tradition. The first two faiths mentioned weren’t pacifist. That was the point of the anecdote—the irony of a (lapsed) Quaker leading an army instead of men from sects that didn’t object to military action. And the story might have some validity, though I doubt it happened in a legislative session.

The legislature’s first choice probably was Simeon Potter, already major general of the colony militia. At least, the body couldn’t ignore him. And Potter was an Anglican, even if he’d punched his minister in the face back in 1761. (Incidentally, the Rev. John Usher died on 30 Apr 1775, just as these discussions about the Rhode Island army were under way.)

Another candidate for command whom G. W. Greene and later biographers mentioned is James Mitchell Varnum (shown here), captain of the Kentish Guards. He’d grown up in Dracut, Massachusetts, as what people would later term a Congregationalist. That said, there were many others of that faith in Rhode Island as well, some probably quite senior to the twenty-six-year-old Varnum.

Varnum and Greene had worked together in the fall of 1774 to form the Guards, an independent militia company based in East Greenwich. Varnum, a rising young attorney, was chosen as the first captain. Encouraged by a cousin, Greene put his name forward to be a lieutenant, only to learn that some members thought his limp meant he didn’t look good marching in an elite company at all.

Sometime in October, it appears, Greene wrote to Varnum:

If I conceive right of the force of the objection of the gentlemen of the town, it was not as an officer, but as a soldier for that my halting was a blemish to the rest. I confess it is my misfortune to limp a little, but I did not conceive it to be so great; but we are not apt to discover our own defects. . . .

I have pleased myself with the thought of serving under you, but as it is the general opinion that I am unfit for such an undertaking, I shall desist. I feel not the less inclination to promote the good of the company, because I am not to be one of its members. I will do anything that's in my power to procure the charter.

Apparently Varnum had spoken of leaving the company himself if Greene was forced out because the letter continued:

Let me entreat you, Sir, if you have any regard for me, not to forsake the company at this critical season for I fear the consequences—if you mean to oblige me by it, I assure you it will not, I would not have the company break and disband for fifty Dollars

Varnum stayed with the company and apparently convinced Greene to do the same.

On 29 October, the legislature, with Greene as a delegate, issued a charter for the Kentish Guards. Its act listed the dozens of men who had petitioned for that charter, starting with Varnum and the other three designated as officers, including Christopher Greene. The fifth name on that list was Nathanael Greene. So officially he was a leading member.

It’s conceivable that some fallout from that affair influenced the choice of Greene as general in May 1775. If the legislature did approach Varnum, he may have thought it was Greene’s turn to lead. Or perhaps, with a real war looming, organizational skills seemed a lot more important than a slight limp.

TOMORROW: Hidden factors in the decision.

Frank W. Coburn’s Twenty-three Towns—and Four Extra?

About a century ago, Frank Warren Coburn of Lexington set out to document the names of the militiamen who fought in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Not just the men who marched, but those in companies that exchanged fire with the British troops.

Coburn scoured the available sources to determine which towns’ companies probably saw fighting. Then he went through the Massachusetts state archives, looking for payrolls submitted from those towns. He also sought lists of militiamen from other sources, such as town histories and manuscripts.

Coburn printed all the names he found in an appendix to his 1912 history (full title: The Battle of April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts). His list of towns was:

• Lexington, of course
• Concord, Acton, Bedford, Lincoln, Billerica, Chelmsford, Framingham, Reading, Sudbury, Woburn; all “entered the contest at Concord,” which could mean either at the North Bridge or later as the regulars withdrew from the town
• Cambridge, which “entered the contest at Lincoln”
• Newton, which “entered the contest at Lexington”
• Brookline, Watertown, Medford, Malden, Roxbury, Dedham, Needham, Lynn, Beverly, and Danvers, which all “entered the contest at Arlington”

Twenty-three towns—but Coburn’s appendix also included four more places.

He listed Arlington separately from Cambridge even though in 1775 Arlington was a precinct of Cambridge called Menotomy. Coburn didn’t find a militia muster roll for Capt. Benjamin Locke’s company from that area. Instead, he relied on town histories by Lucius R. Paige and Samuel A. Smith.

It’s worth noting that Coburn didn’t treat Burlington and Winchester the same way. Those towns calved off of Woburn in the 1799 and 1850, respectively, and militiamen from those areas were part of the Woburn companies. But Burlington and Winchester didn’t get their own entries as Arlington did. Likewise, Carlisle was treated as part of Concord, Wayland as part of Sudbury, and so on. 

Coburn also began his appendix with a statement setting off three more towns:

These Companies were all participants, with the exception of those of Dracut, Stow, and Westford. I have given them, as they came so nearly into the contest.

That implies Coburn decided to give the men from those towns an honorable mention for trying extra hard.

That certainly seems to be the case for Dracut, located up at the New Hampshire border. That town’s company made much better time than their neighbors. Coburn wrote, “The men of Dracut did not reach the scene of actual conflict but tried to, and came so near the British rear guard as to deserve a place in this record.” Good effort, Dracut! Way to hustle!

In similar fashion, Coburn wrote, “The men from Westford did not reach Concord in time to enter the engagement, but pursued the British so closely as to deserve especial mention.” And the same sentence about Stow.

As I noted yesterday, Stow actually suffered a casualty in the battle: Daniel Conant, wounded. However, he lived in the part of the Stow that became Maynard in 1871. The Stow Independent reported in 2014:

Conant wasn’t on the [William] Whitcomb company’s list, where he should have been. The theory is he lived closer to North Maynard—and, hence, Concord—at the time, so he marched ahead on his own…

In that case, Conant’s position within shooting range wouldn’t say anything about how close the Stow companies got.

At another point in his book, Coburn wrote that one Stow company “did not reach North Bridge until about noon, too late to be in the action there, but in ample time to be active in the pursuit.” And the three companies from Westford also “reached the North Bridge too late, but were active afterwards.”

What did Coburn mean by “active” or “active in the pursuit”? Especially when he concluded that those same companies were not “participants” but “came…nearly into the contest”? Did they come in sight of the redcoat column, but not within firing range? If so, did they conceivably affect the British soldiers’ behavior? And what about the Salem regiment, which also reportedly came close enough to see the redcoats?

TOMORROW: Another analysis, skirmish by skirmish.