“Wounded in the cheek, and it is tho’t will not recover”

Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw went out of Boston with his soldiers in the 5th Regiment of Foot on 19 Apr 1775.

He came back wounded. The always helpful Lt. Frederick Mackenzie recorded that Hawkshaw was wounded on the cheek.

Almost half a century later, provincial militiaman Joseph Thaxter recalled this rumor:

Lieutenant Hawkstone, said to be the greatest beauty of the British army, had his cheeks so badly wounded that it disfigured him much, of which he bitterly complained.

That looks like a memory of Lt. Hawkshaw. But I can’t find any British source inside Boston that includes a handsome lieutenant’s lament. That’s the sort of thing fellow officers would be likely to mention or remember.

If Hawkshaw was indeed handsome, that might be why Bostonians remembered him being at disputes and couldn’t identify the other officers with him. That might also make it more appealing for Patriots to imagine him grieving his lost beauty.

I don’t think Thaxter is a reliable source here. Not only did he recall the lieutenant’s name imperfectly, but he described the man being wounded at Concord’s North Bridge, and he wasn’t. Hawkshaw was probably hit between Lexington and Charlestown.

Ezekiel Russell’s “A Bloody Butchery, by the King’s Troops” broadside offered readers outside Boston another significant detail:

Lieutenant Hawkshaw was wounded in the cheek, and it is tho’t will not recover.

For at least the first week, many people expected the lieutenant to die.

By 6 May, that medical prognosis had improved. David Greene wrote from Boston of “Hawkshaw, of the 5th, badly wounded, but like to recover.”

TOMORROW: How bad was Lt. Hawkshaw’s wound?

“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.

“Ordered to draw his Hand across the Face of his Lieutenant Colonel”

As quoted yesterday, on 15 Apr 1775 a court-martial sentenced Lt. Col. William Walcott to be reprimanded in front of the entire second brigade of the British army in Boston.

Walcott had struck a young officer in his regiment, Ens. Robert Patrick. The military court deemed that behavior “unmilitary & ungentleman like.” Regimental commanders weren’t supposed to slap down that far.

Another possible detail of the sentence didn’t make it into Gen. Thomas Gage’s general orders, however. Some sources say that the court or the brigadier who both presided over it and commanded the brigade, Gen. Robert Pigot, told Ens. Patrick to swipe his hand across Lt. Col. Walcott’s face in return for the lieutenant colonel striking him.

The earliest I’ve found that detail mentioned is a book published in Bristol in 1806: The Singular and Interesting Trial of Henry Stanton, Esq., of the 8th. (or King’s) Regiment: On Charges for Unofficer-like Behaviour, as Preferred Against Him by Lieutenant Colonel Young, Commanding the Said Regiment. Tried by a General Court-Martial Held at Doncaster, August 14, 1805, and several subsequent Days.

In the course of the arguments, someone stated:

Lieutenant Colonel Walcot, of the 5th. Regiment of Foot, encamped in Boston, North America, in 1775, was suspended for Six Months, for striking Ensign Patrick, of the same Regiment; who was ordered to draw his Hand across the Face of his Lieutenant Colonel, before the Whole Garrison, in return for the Insult he received. Notwithstanding he had challenged Colonel Walcot.

This was tried before an Honourable Court Martial, Brigadier General Pigot, President.

Those words appear between quotation marks, but I haven’t found their source.

Ten years later, E. Samuel published An Historical Account of the British Army: And of the Law Military, as Declared by the Ancient and Modern Statutes, and Articles of War for Its Government with a Free Commentary on the Mutiny Act, and the Rules and Articles of War; Illustrated by Various Decisions of Courts Martial.

That book stated in a footnote:

A remarkable instance of this kind occurred in the late war in America. Lieutenant-Colonel Walcot, of the 5th regiment of foot, while encamped near Boston, was so unfortunate, in a hasty and intemperate moment, to be moved to strike a subaltern (Ensign Patrick) under his command; and notwithstanding the latter had challenged him, the lieutenant-colonel was brought to a court martial, of which Brigadier-General Pigot was president, for the offence, when the court, after due consideration, suspended him from pay and allowances for six months, and was further pleased to order that Ensign Patrick should draw his hand across the face of the lieutenant-colonel before the whole garrison, in return for the insult he had received.

Samuel’s publication was authoritative enough that the anecdote appeared in several more histories of the British army, the 5th Regiment, dueling, and courts martial over the next century.

As I said above, the detail of Ens. Patrick touching Lt. Col. Walcott’s face does not appear in the general orders describing the outcome of the case. Furthermore, the court martial officially acquitted Patrick of challenging Walcott, contrary to the later descriptions of the punishment.

Neither of the British army officers who followed this case in their diaries—Lt. John Barker and Lt. Frederick Mackenzie—described seeing Ens. Patrick carry out this action. But perhaps another contemporaneous source will surface.

Paradoxically, this alleged detail of the Walcott case has gotten more discussion in print than the verdict in Gen. Gage’s official announcement. It’s in the literature as an unusual but still precedented measure the British army has taken to encourage good behavior in officers.

TOMORROW: Suspended.

(The picture above shows an officer from an Irish volunteer regiment being manly about 1780.)

“They agreed to fight with Pistols”

What were officers of the British army in Boston thinking about in the weeks leading up to 18 Apr 1775?

Judging by the word count of what they wrote in their general orders and diaries, they were closely watching the fallout of a dispute between two officers in the 5th Regiment.

On 23 March, Lt. John Barker of the 4th recorded:

another duel stop’d between the Lt. Col. [William Walcott]…and Ensn. [Robert] Patrick of the same [regiment]; some words passing between them, the Lt. Cl. struck Mr. P——k in the face upon which they both immediately drew their Swords, but the other Officers interfering it was put a stop to ’till the Rolls were call’d when they both went to the Common, where they agreed to fight with Pistols which Mr. Patrick went for and upon his return was met by an Officer of the Regt. who by some means took the Pistols and fired ’em in the air, which alarmed the Guard which turned out and took him Prisoner and carried him to Lord Percy who put him in arrest, then went to Col. Wallcott and put him in arrest likewise; there the affair rests.

Three days later, Lt. Frederick Mackenzie of the 23rd wrote:

There was a dispute lately on the Evening parade of the 5th Regiment, between Lieut Colo. Walcott, and Ensign Patrick of that Corps, at the close of which the former struck the latter, and drew his Sword upon him, which occasioned a Challenge; but the Officers having interfered, and the matter having been reported to Genl. [Thomas] Gage, he ordered them both to be put under arrest, and tried by a General Court Martial…

Ensign Patrick is related to the Lieut Colonel.

Mackenzie was a reliable veteran officer, so his statement about the two men being related is probably correct, but I haven’t been able to find more details.

Lt. Col. Walcott was born around 1742 and had been with the 5th Regiment since 1760, joining as a captain. Ens. Patrick had arrived in July 1771.

TOMORROW: The verdict.

[The picture above shows the uniform of an officer in the 5th Regiment as of 1792.]

Victory on Battle Road

The latest issue of Discover Concord magazine includes an article by one of our region’s most knowledgeable and experienced public interpreters of the Revolutionary War, Ranger Jim Hollister of Minute Man National Historical Park.

In just two pages (with handsome photographs) this article tackles the question of who won the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Ranger Jim begins:

On the surface this may seem simple. The colonists were able to keep most of their military supplies safely out of British hands. The British soldiers then suffered heavy casualties during their retreat to Boston where they were trapped and besieged.

However, though things certainly did not go the way they wanted, did the British Army actually lose on April 19, 1775? The answer depends upon how you define victory.

The article then examines the mission from the British point of view, quoting Gen. Thomas Gage’s orders, Humphrey Bland’s military manual, and the accounts of officers like Capt. John Barker and Lt. Frederick Mackenzie. The popular view of the event doesn’t really take British perspectives into account, not least because many of those sources weren’t available as the American version cemented.

Another aspect of the battle is that, as those early lines of the article say, the provincials’ primary objective was to keep hold of their military supplies. The Committee of Safety had established a policy of “opposing” an army expedition into the countryside, but did that mean stopping the column from returning to Boston?

In that respect the militia regiments were like the proverbial dog chasing a car. Imagine that dog is successful—what would it do with a car? Likewise, no one in Massachusetts had made any plans about what to do with a few hundred captured soldiers. People had to improvise fast when they ended up with a couple dozen.

Had the provincials made a concerted effort to cut off the British troops, they might have succeeded. But those militiamen would certainly have suffered more casualties, put nearby property and civilian lives at risk, and prompted a stronger response from the Crown. They might well have lost the moral upper hand, so important in the following weeks, and they could even have ended up suffering a demoralizing defeat. By eking out a partial success in leading the redcoats back to safety, Col. Percy might have left both sides in stronger positions.

“St. David, mounted on a Goat”

In investigating the myths and realities of goat mascots in the 23rd Regiment of Foot, or Royal Welch Fusiliers, I’ll start with a fine inside source on that unit in the Revolutionary War, the diary of Lt. Frederick Mackenzie (c. 1731-1824, shown here later in life courtesy of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Regimental Museum). 

In his entry for 1 Mar 1775, Lt. Mackenzie described how the regiment’s officers organized a festive dinner in honor of St. David’s Day. David was the patron saint of Wales, and even though the 23rd’s no longer had a particular connection to Wales beyond its name, that was enough of an excuse for a feast at the end of winter.

Mackenzie listed the men who dined at this event, both from the 23rd Regiment and from the wider garrison. Generals Thomas Gage and Frederick Haldimand came, along with brigadiers Earl Percy and Valentine Jones. (Gen. Robert Pigot was invited but “was unwell.”) Adm. Samuel Graves represented the Royal Navy. Many top staff officers attended, as did the regimental surgeon and chaplain. Two officers “Formerly in the Regt.” and two designated only as “Welchmen” were additional guests. 

Unfortunately, about the festivity itself Mackenzie wrote nothing beyond that it was “according to Custom.” For more information we turn to the report printed in Margaret Draper’s Boston News-Letter the next day:

Yesterday being DAVID’s Day, (the Tutelar Saint for Wales,) the same was observed with the usual demonstrations of Joy, by his Majesty’s own Regiment of Royal Welch Fusilears; an elegant Entertainment was provided at the British Coffee-House, which his Excellency the Commander in Chief honored with his Presence: The Admiral and all the General Officers likewise assisted.--- 

On entering the Room, St. David, mounted on a Goat, adorned with Leeks, presented himself to View, and the whole Ceremony concluded with the following Healths:—

1. St. DAVID and Wales.
2. Prince of Wales.
3. The KING.
4. The QUEEN and Royal Family. 
5. The General and the Army.
6. The Admiral and the Navy.
7. Lord NORTH. 
8. Lord Dartmouth. 
9. Plume of Feathers. (August 26th 1346.)
10. Colonels and Corps.
11. The glorious Memory.
12. Our old Friend.
13. The 1st of August 1714. (Hanover Succession.)
14. The 1st of August 1759. (Minden.)
15. The 13th of September 1759. (Quebec.)
16. The 20th of November 1759. (Hawke.)
17. May Great-Britain forever maintain her Supremacy over the Colonies.
18. The 1st of July 1690. (Boyne.)
19. The 12th of July 1691. (Aghrim.)
20. The 15th of of April 1746. (Culloden.)
21. General Amherst, and the 8th of September 1760. (Surrender of Canada.)
22. Prince Ferdinand.

I’ve used links to annotate the historical allusions in those toasts.

This newspaper item offers what appears to be the earliest record of a goat associated with the Royal Welch Fusiliers: “St. David, mounted on a Goat, adorned with Leeks, presented himself to View.” The article doesn’t make clear what that means—evidently the right people were supposed to know already, indicating that this was an established tradition.

For more detail, we must turn to another officer’s account of that same dinner.

TOMORROW: Goat behaving badly.

“Two peices of Cannon Brought From Watertown to ye Towns”

The 3 Feb 1775 petition to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s committee of safety about eight iron cannon can’t answer the question of what happened to those guns.

Did the congress assume control of them and add them to their other weapons? Or did they remain under the control of the four towns that had undertaken to equip them for use?

Or did the congress and the towns come to some sort of compromise, in which the towns continued to assume responsibility for those guns but expected the province to pay for the work eventually?

We don’t appear to have enough records from two of the four towns to provide definite answers. For Lexington, Alex Cain has written:

Unfortunately, what became of the guns after February 1775 is unknown. Lexington’s town meeting minutes from the Spring of 1775 were stolen years ago. Records from December 1775 through the remainder of the war do not mention the cannons.

The Weston town records show no payments related to cannon in 1775. In March 1776 the town treasurer’s account for the preceding year includes 12 shillings “Recd. of Capt. Samel. Baldwin for the Use of two Guns Belonging to the Town,” but that price suggests those were muskets, not artillery.

On the other hand, we know there were mounted cannon in Watertown on 30 March. On that day, Col. Percy led troops in a march that was part springtime exercise, part an attempt to get the provincials used to seeing redcoats come through their towns. Capt. John Barker wrote in his diary:

The 1st. Brigade marched into the Country at 6 oclock in the morning; it alarmed the people a good deal. Expresses were sent to every town near; at Watertown about 9 miles off, they got 2 pieces of Cannon to the Bridge and loaded ’em but nobody wou’d stay to fire them; at Cambridge they were so alarmed that they pulled up the Bridge.

Lt. Frederick Mackenzie noted that march, as well as another on 10 April: “The 38th. and 52ed. Regiments marched out this Morning as far as Watertown.” Later, just after the war began, he wrote: “The 38th & 52ed Regiments marched once to Watertown, which indeed occasioned some alarm, and Cannon were fired, bells rung, and expresses sent off, to give the alarm.” So not only did the Watertown militia company have two cannon, but its men could move, load, and fire those guns, and the British army knew about them.

As for Concord, we have the documentation from James Barrett of what ordnance and other material he was storing for the provincial congress. That included:

Two peices of Cannon Brought From Watertown to ye Towns
Eight Peices of Cannon Brought to ye Town by Mr Harrington
Four Peices of Brass Cannon & Two Mortar from Col Robertsons [sic—Lemuel Robinson]

Thus, when Barrett wrote this note, he controlled two iron cannon secured by William Molineux in 1774, sent out to Watertown, and then sent on to Concord for mounting. But he also had the Boston train’s four brass cannon, the two mortars that James Brewer claimed to have smuggled out of Boston, and eight more guns from some guy named Harrington (which is a whole other mystery for me). And in March more ordnance arrived from Salem.

No wonder James Warren wrote to his wife Mercy from Concord on 10 April: “This Town is full of Cannon…” A royal spy specified there were twelve cannon mounted around the Concord courthouse under twenty-four-hour guard, three 24-pounder siege guns in the courtyard of the prison, plus the brass field-pieces from Boston back at Barrett’s farm.

In mid-April, after warnings from Boston, Barrett and his family and neighbors began to move those artillery pieces even farther away. Four cannon reportedly went to the neighborhood of provincial congress receiver-general Henry Gardner in Stow. But four remained behind in Concord at the courthouse, according to Gen. Thomas Gage’s local informant. I suspect those were owned by the town, and it didn’t want to let them go.

I still don’t know who Gage’s spy was, but one candidate is Duncan Ingraham, the merchant captain who had retired to Concord a couple of years before. As described back here, his son had sold four iron cannon to Molineux in October 1774. Those comprised half of the artillery pieces that the 3 Feb 1775 petition discussed. In other words, there was a 50% chance that the pair of cannon assigned to Barrett had come from Ingraham. Had the captain spotted what he still considered his own property rolling through town?

Once again, my thanks to Joel Bohy of Bruneau & Co. and Antiques Roadshow for sharing the document from the Massachusetts archives that added new clues to this inquiry.

TOMORROW: The cannon that didn’t bark.

The First Captured British Officer to Die in the Revolutionary War

When provincial militia companies fired at the British soldiers holding the North Bridge in Concord, they wounded four army officers:

• Lt. Edward Thoroton Gould of the 4th Regiment, in the foot.
• Lt. Waldron Kelly of the 10th, in the hand or arm.
• Lt. William Sutherland of the 38th, only slightly.
• Lt. Edward Hull of the 43rd, in the arm.

Unable to march back to Boston, Gould commandeered a chaise in Concord and set out with Hull, who seems to have been more badly hurt. They raced back to safe ground through the hostile countryside.

Somewhere east of Lexington, the lieutenants met up with Col. Percy and the British relief column. Gould briefed the colonel about what had happened in Concord and drove on. But by the time the chaise reached Meontomy, the provincial militia was out in force.

Someone fired at the vehicle, wounding Hull again. Gould surrendered and was taken to Medford. Hull was carried into a deserted house beside the road. When the homeowners, Samuel and Elizabeth Butterfield, returned at the end of the day, they found a provincial man, Daniel Hemenway, shot in the chest but relatively healthy, and Lt. Hull, grievously wounded.

The next day, the Rev. David McClure had been in the Butterfields’ house. He wrote:

I went into a house in Menotomy, where was a stout farmer, walking the room, from whose side a surgeon had just cut out a musket ball . . .

In the same room, lay mortally wounded, a british Officer, Lieut. Hull, a youthful, fair & delicate countinance. He was of a respectable family of fortune, in Scotland. Sitting on one feather bed, he leaned on another, & was attempting to suck the juice of an Orange, which some neighbour had brought. The physician of the place had been to dress his wounds, & a woman was appointed to attend him. His breaches were bloody, lying on the bed. . . .

I asked him, if he was dangerously wounded? he replied, “yes, mortally.” That he had received three balls in his body. His countenance expressed great bodily anguish. I conversed with him a short time, on the prospect of death & a preperation for that solemn scene, to which he appeared to pay serious attention.

A rumor about Hull’s captivity circulated among his fellow officers in Boston, as recorded by Lt. Frederick Mackenzie on 30 April:

Lt. Hull of the 43rd Regiment who was dangerously wounded on the 19th Instant, was left in a house in the Village of Menotomy. ’Tis said the Rebels placed three deserters from the 43rd Regt over him while he lay on a bed unable to move, and that one of those Villains threatened to shoot him for having formerly brought him to a Court Martial.

There’s no hint of such treatment in provincial sources. The head of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, Dr. Joseph Warren, had written to Gen. Thomas Gage assuring him that Hull and Gould were getting medical care. He invited the general to send out any British army surgeon he chose.

In Igniting the American Revolution, Derek W. Beck writes that toward the end of the month, as Hull weakened, Warren sent Gage another note saying that the lieutenant hoped to see his regimental adjutant. That was Lt. William Miller; he was promoted to captain at the end of the year and was still at that rank when he died in 1789.

Hull died on 2 May. The next day, Gen. Artemas Ward ordered three lieutenants and three adjutants to escort the lieutenant’s coffin to Charlestown and turn it over to the British military. A barge from H.M.S. Somerset carried it across the Charles River to Boston.

On 4 May Lt. John Barker of the 4th Regiment wrote in his diary:

The late Lt. Hull of the 43d was buried today: he was wounded and taken Prisoner on the 19th and the day before yesterday died of his wounds; they yesterday brought him to town as he had requested it.

They won’t give up any of their Prisoners, but I hear they treat ’em pretty well.

(The photo above shows the monument to two British privates killed and buried near the North Bridge in Concord. We don’t know where Lt. Hull’s body was interred.)

The Career of Capt. the Hon. Lionel Smythe

As I described yesterday, the identity of the “Captain Smythe, of the Royal Army” whom Frank Moore quoted several times in the Diary of the American Revolution compilation is a mystery. The manuscript diary Moore said he worked with has not been found since.

The Army List for 1778 shows only one Captain Smythe in the royal army, though there were plenty of Smyths and Smiths who might have attained that rank by the end of the war.

That one candidate for the diarist was the Hon. Lionel Smythe (1753-1801), younger son of Viscount Strangford. He started the war as a lieutenant in the 49th Regiment. In May 1776, Smythe became an aide de camp to Gen. Percy, who made himself the young man’s patron. In fact, in Fusiliers: The Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American Revolution, Mark Urban wrote that Smythe was one of a couple of handsome young officers that Percy had crushes on.

Percy paid the £550 Smythe needed to buy Smythe the rank of captain of the light infantry company in the 23rd Regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, in October 1777. In return, Smythe wrote “monthly” letters home to his benefactor, which Urban used as sources for his history of that regiment during the Revolutionary War.

I therefore hoped that we could line up what Urban reported from Capt. Lionel Smythe and what the diarist wrote and decisive evidence that they were or weren’t the same man. Unfortunately, the published sources just don’t offer enough material to confirm or eliminate that possibility. Maybe the additional letters contain more evidence.

According to Urban, Lionel Smythe “eschewed army politics or gossip” in his letters to Percy, “confining himself to factual accounts of what he had seen.” In contrast, many of the diarist’s entries are consumed with gossip about the Americans. But that could simply reflect what Moore and Urban were looking for in their respective sources. Lionel Smythe referred to the American commander as “Mr. Washington” in a letter during that winter, and the diarist also referred to Washington without a military rank. But that was also the British commanders’ policy, so it may not be a useful clue.

Going back to the summer of 1776, Lionel Smythe was an aide to Percy during the British reconquest of New York City. Smythe the diarist wrote about John Hancock’s exhortations to the New York defenders in June and added a remark about Hancock’s “gouty legs, that were so shamefully overworked on the morning the gallant Percy marched to Lexington.” So there’s some connection.

Lionel Smythe was presumably with Earl Percy when he helped to take Newport, Rhode Island, that December. Percy remained in Newport into the spring of 1777 while the diarist was in New York by 1 March. Yet it’s possible that Percy had sent Smythe back to Gen. Sir William Howe with news of the victory in hopes the general would reward the young aide. We know that by March there were rumors in New York about Percy and Howe being at odds.

Percy quit in a huff and returned to England by the middle of the year. Lionel Smythe presumably returned to the 49th Regiment. Debrett’s Peerage states that the young officer was “severely wounded at the battle of Brandywine” on 11 Sept 1777. I haven’t found any other mention of this, even in a family biography, but the 49th was in that battle. Capt. Lionel Smythe was in Philadelphia that winter, sending Percy a description of the Mischianza. Meanwhile, Moore didn’t quote any diary entries from his Capt. Smythe for over a year after May 1777.

On 1 July 1778, the diarist complained about the Continental Congress. On 29 July, Capt. Lionel Smythe and his light infantrymen went on board the Isis to sail back to Newport, where the British expected an attack from the French fleet. On 11 September he wrote to Percy about the British victory. The 23rd was back in New York a few weeks later. The diarist’s next entry, from greater New York, is dated 8 November.

On 13 Aug 1779, the diarist wrote about Alexander Hamilton reportedly penning an epic poem to preserve the memory of the Revolution “in case Clinton’s light bob should extirpate the whole race of rebels.” Capt. Lionel Smythe was, of course, a commander of “light bobs” under Gen. Sir Henry Clinton.

The next month, on 5 September, the young captain married Maria Eliza Phillipse, from an upper-class Loyalist family. (Urban dated the marriage to 5 August, but New York and family records agree that it happened in September.) As explained in Lives of the Lords Strangford, Smythe’s family was titled but no longer wealthy. In fact, his father had taken holy orders and become dean of Derry. Urban treated this as a classic example of American money marrying a handsome European aristocrat, but there was a catch: a lot of the Phillipse wealth was behind enemy lines and at risk in the event of an American win.

In October 1779 the 23rd Regiment, including the light infantry company, sailed for Charleston. The regiment was in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia all through 1780 and 1781 until Yorktown. Meanwhile, the diarist wrote twice from the New York area in 1781, on 10 March and 16 September. So is that the proof we want that the two men aren’t the same? Unfortunately, not all the 23rd’s officers went south. Capt. Frederick Mackenzie, for example, remained in New York as one of Clinton’s staff officers. Urban didn’t quote any letters from Capt. Lionel Smythe about the southern campaign or anything else after his marriage, so we can’t be sure where he was.

Capt. Lionel Smythe retired from the army after the war and followed his father into a clerical vocation. Two years later, the older man died, and as the only surviving son Lionel Smythe became the seventh Viscount Strangford. He continued to hold “the living of Kilbrew, in the diocese of Meath,” in Ireland. He also had a royal pension to make ends meet, though he lost it for a while after voting in the Irish House of Lords against a bill the government favored.

In 1801 the Gentlemen’s Magazine reported that the seventh Viscount Strangford died on 1 October “At Bristol hot wells, in his 48th year.” He and his American wife had four children, the eldest of whom became the new viscount. (A couple of years later, he published a volume of translations of poetry from the Portuguese.)

As I said, it’s possible that Capt. Lionel Smythe’s letters to Percy contain more information that could give a clear answer to whether he was Moore’s “Capt. Smythe.” It’s also possible that research on the career of another British officer whose name was almost Smythe could make a better match for the diary entries. But right now it’s still a mystery.

“Calling out, ‘King Hancock forever’!”

According to Lt. Frederick Mackenzie of His Majesty’s 23rd Regiment of Foot, as the British column made its way back to Boston on 19 Apr 1775:

During the whole of the march from Lexington the Rebels kept an incessant irregular fire from all points at the Column, which was the more galling as our flanking parties, which at first were placed at sufficient distances to cover the march of it, were at last, from the different obstructions they occasionally met with, obliged to keep almost close to it.

Our men had very few opportunities of getting good shots at the Rebels, as they hardly ever fired but under cover of a stone wall, from behind a tree, or out of a house; and the moment they had fired they lay down out of sight until they had loaded again, or the Column had passed.

In the road indeed in our rear, they were most numerous [or, according to the earliest transcript, “they were not numerous”] and came on pretty close, frequently calling out, “King Hancock forever”!

Mackenzie’s account was first published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1890. Though he clearly wrote from the perspective of a British officer, he was generally calm and factual, and most historians trust him on the details.

So if we believe Mackenzie about the provincials shouting, “King Hancock forever!” what did they mean by that?

Giving John Hancock the nickname “King” could have been an allusion to his wealth. Likewise, colonial Americans referred to Robert “King” Carter of Virginia (1663-1732), and Robert “King” Hooper (1709-1790) of Danvers. Men in Lexington might have had a particular fondness for Hancock because his paternal grandfather had been the minister of their town for a long time.

But Lt. Mackenzie probably heard sedition in those calls. With Hancock just concluding a stint as president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, royal officials might have suspected he wanted to set himself up as monarch of Massachusetts.

Hancock and other leading American politicians of April 1775 would have hotly denied such an ambition. At the time they were still professing their loyalty to George III and the British constitution. The source of all the troubles, they complained, was the corrupt ministry in London, not the king. So I doubt those men would have been pleased to hear the provincial soldiers shout “King Hancock forever!”

In fact, in nearly all the uses of the term that have come down to us, “King Hancock” was a pejorative thrown out by supporters of the royal government trying to discredit or ridicule Hancock and the Patriot cause.

COMING UP: The birth and rise of the “King Hancock” meme.

“Numbers of Them Were Mounted”

As I described in my first posting about Hezekiah Wyman, the great power of his legend is how it describes the fear of the British soldiers each time they spot the white-haired farmer on his white horse, riding closer for another shot. To quote from “The White Horseman”:

“Ha!” cried the soldiers, “there comes that old fellow again, on the white horse! Look out for yourselves, for one of us has got to die, in spite of fate.” And one of them did die, for Hezekiah’s aim was true, and his principles of economy would not admit of his wasting powder or ball.

Descriptions of such British fears and the nickname “Death on the pale horse” remain in the story as retold more calmly in Henry Smith Chapman’s History of Winchester and David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride. That emotion is what made the tale stick in my mind the first time I read it.

But what evidence supports those statements? None of those tellings and retellings cite any specific accounts from British soldiers, prisoners, deserters, letters, memoirs, or newspapers. In fact, back in 1835 when the Hezekiah Wyman legend was first published as “The White Horseman,” historians had very few eyewitness accounts of the Battle of Lexington and Concord from the British side. Even now, we have several from officers, but almost none from enlisted men.

And to my knowledge, none of the surviving accounts mentions the soldiers fearing a man on a white horse. There’s a single statement about mounted provincials, from Lt. Frederick Mackenzie of the 23rd Regiment, first published in 1926:

Those Rebels who came in from the flanks during the march, always posted themselves in the houses and behind the walls by the roadside, and there waited the approach of the Column, when they fired at it.

Numbers of them were mounted, and when they fastened their horses at some little distance from the road, they crept down near enough to have a Shot; as soon as the Column had passed, they mounted again, and rode round until they got ahead of the Column, and found some convenient place from whence they might fire again.

These fellows were generally good marksmen, and many of the used long guns made for Duck-Shooting.

While acknowledging “generally good marksmen,” Mackenzie didn’t describe any of those men as noticeably deadly. He didn’t describe men firing with their guns laid across their saddles. He didn’t describe a white-haired rider on a white horse. In sum, there’s no British evidence for the parts of the story that make Hezekiah Wyman seem special.

As I’ve noted, there was a Hezekiah Wyman with a white horse who lived within riding distance of the fighting. But there’s no contemporaneous evidence or reliable family lore that he took part in the battle.

There are hints that the author of “The White Horseman” was aware of some Middlesex County oral traditions about 19 Apr 1775. But even if a story was going around about an old marksman striking fear into soldiers as “Death on the pale horse,” that was inspired by what Americans wished the British had felt. At most, the real Hezekiah Wyman would have been riding along with a bunch of other farmers on horseback, creeping down to a house or wall near the road, and shooting with “generally good” results.

In the end, I don’t see big contradictions or anomalies in the tale of Hezekiah Wyman to show that it must be fiction. But it’s not up to us to disprove any story we inherit from the past. The weight of the evidence has to be there for us to believe it. Barring new discoveries, I think the evidence for this tale is too light to shift it from literary legend to historical episode.

(Photo above by Alex Starr, via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.)

Dr. Joseph Warren Dresses for an Oration

One of the more picturesque confrontations that led up to the Battle of Lexington and Concord was Dr. Joseph Warren’s oration in memory of the Boston Massacre on 6 March 1775. (The actual anniversary was on the 5th, but that was a Sunday.) The online history magazine Common-Place has published Prof. Eran Shalev’s article on Dr. Warren’s style that day, which sets the scene this way:

On the morning of March 6, 1775, Joseph Warren, a physician-turned-revolutionary leader, stopped his one-chair carriage in front of Boston’s Old South Church [known then as Old South Meeting-House, as I discussed yesterday]. Warren climbed down from the carriage, followed by a servant holding a small bundle. The two men crossed the street and entered an apothecary’s shop. When Warren came out of the store he wore a Roman toga. He now crossed the street once more and burst into the swarming Old South to deliver the fourth annual Boston Massacre oration.

Prof. Shalev seems to imply that Dr. Warren wore only a toga. I strongly believe more witnesses would have commented on the doctor’s undress if he’d fully adopted Roman dress—and undress. Indeed, Judge Peter Oliver made a big deal later of how Warren had been “a bare legged milk Boy” while growing up in Roxbury. How could he have resisted describing the man making a public speech wearing nothing but a blanket? The New York Gazetteer noted that Warren still wore his “breeches,” at least. It was early March in New England, after all.

I rather think the doctor made his sartorial point by wearing a Roman toga over contemporary genteel dress, as in William Rush’s statue of Washington or this similar example by Sir Francis Chantrey, now in the Massachusetts State House.

As Shalev’s account proceeds, it’s weakened by some factual errors, small and medium-sized. This wasn’t the fourth annual oration on the Massacre. There were two in 1771, one on the anniversary offered by radical Dr. Thomas Young, and a second a few weeks later that the town officially requested from a more mainstream Whig, schoolteacher James Lovell. Dr. Warren first spoke in 1772; Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., in 1773; and John Hancock in 1774. So Dr. Warren’s 1775 oration was, depending on how we count, the fifth or sixth.

Furthermore, Samuel Adams never delivered one of those speeches, contrary to the article. Adams generally worked in town meetings or behind the scenes. As his 1898 biographer James K. Hosmer wrote, “He was always in speech straightforward and sensible, and upon occasion could be impressive, but his endowment was not that of the mouth of gold.” Adams had a tremor that affected his hands and voice, which neurologist Elan Louis has concluded was an essential tremor.

The article’s implication that in 1772 Dr. Warren was “a member of the Committee of Safety, a board of selectmen who dealt with security issues,” seems to confuse various groups. The selectmen were the town’s seven highest officials, elected each March to serve the full year and usually reelected for the next as well. The town meeting also appointed committees for various tasks. Immediately after the Boston Massacre, Boston created a committee of safety to demand that the governor remove the army regiments from the center of town, and Warren served on it. But that was an ad hoc committee, disbanding after it had accomplished its purpose. Later, in 1775, Warren served on a stronger and longer-lived Committee of Safety, created by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to organize military resistance against the Crown.

Prof. Shalov ends his article with the tumultuous ending of the 1775 oration:

After Warren stepped from the pulpit, Samuel Adams stood up and asked for a volunteer to deliver next year’s commemorative oration. Adams apparently took the opportunity to reinforce colonists’ sense that the events of 1770 represented an entirely unjust massacre. Not surprisingly, the redcoats, according to MacKenzie, “began to hiss,” and someone mistakenly heard the words “Fire! Fire!”

I think a better picture comes from Shalov’s original source, the diary of Lt. Frederick Mackenzie of the 23rd Regiment (Royal Welch Fusiliers):

As this meeting was called an Adjournment of a former Town meeting, as soon as the Oration was ended, Mr. Saml. Adams came forward from a Pew in which he and the other Select men sat [sic—Adams wasn’t a Selectman, but Mackenzie was from out of town], very near the Pulpit, and moved, “that the thanks of the Town should be presented to Doctor Warren for his Elegant and Spirited Oration, and that another Oration should be delivered on the 5th of March next, to commemorate the Bloody Massacre of the 5th of March 1770.”

For Bostonians, the word “bloody” was an accurate description of the shootings on King Street. For late-eighteenth-century British gentlemen, however, the word was quite rude. Adams probably knew that, as did the crowds who called British soldiers “bloodybacks.” And, Mackenzie went on to write, the British officers in Warren’s audience took the bait:

On this several Officers began to hiss; others cried out, “Oh! fie! Oh! fie!” and a great bustle ensued. As everyone was now in motion, intending to go out, there was a good deal of noise, and the exclamation was mistaken for the cry of Fire! Fire! Numbers immediately called out Fire! Fire! which created a Scene of the greatest confusion imaginable.

Again, British and Bostonians suffered from being separated by a common language.

Here’s the text of Warren’s oration. Note that the doctor avoided the word “bloody” even as he wallowed in scenes of gore:

...behold thy murdered husband gasping on the ground, and to complete the pompous show of wretchedness, bring in each hand thy infant children to bewail their father's fate. Take heed, ye orphan babes, lest, whilst your streaming eyes are fixed upon the ghastly corpse, your feet glide on the stones bespattered with your father’s brains. Enough! this tragedy need not be heightened by an infant weltering in the blood of him that gave it birth.

(For the record, not one of the fatalities of the Massacre is known to have had a wife or children.)