Ezekiel Price: “Sand was mixt with the powder”

I don’t trust Elkanah Watson’s story of a Continental Army powderhouse stocked with barrels of sand to make the gunpowder supply look bigger than it was. And I completely discount Edward Everett Hale’s statement that Gen. George Washington was taken aback by such a subterfuge by Gen. Artemas Ward. But there was a moment during the siege of Boston when Americans worried about such a mix-up.

That moment was right after the Battle of Bunker Hill, before the provincials realized how much damage they had inflicted on the British troops. In those early days, people were looking around for someone to blame for losing the Charlestown peninsula.

Ezekiel Price was a Boston court officer and insurance broker who had taken up residence in Milton after the war broke out. He kept a diary recording lots of the gossip he picked up, including this news on Monday, 19 June 1775, two days after the battle:

Further reports relating to the unfortunate action at Charlestown,—that the Continental Army fought like lions, and mowed down the Regular Army as they approached the entrenchments, until their ammunition was expended, and until a fatal mistake (as I call it) was discovered,—that the cartridges and shot for the artillery proved wholly unfit for them, and could not be used; besides which, an opinion prevails among the Continental Army, that treachery was in some of the Continental officers. A suspicion also arises among them that sand was mixt with the powder, and that the cartridges and ball being thus sent was with design: all which creates great uneasiness in the camp.

This rumor appears to have confined the problem of sand and gunpowder just to the cartridges, or bags of powder, supplied to the New England artillery, not to the entire army’s powder supply.

There had indeed been problems with the cartridges for Capt. John Callender’s artillery company: the cartridges sent out with his cannon were too large to fit into the barrels. But once provincial soldiers broke open those cartridges, the powder inside proved quite explosive.

The next day, Price discounted all those rumors on the basis of new rumors:

Heard that the Continental Army had received a fresh supply of powder, and that they were in high spirits; . . . that all the reports of treachery were entirely without foundation, and propagated by the enemies to the cause, and weak, discontented men, and by some cowards who fled from the engagement, and formed these lies to favor their escape from danger.

Those counter-rumors might protest too much, but that would only confirm that we can’t treat all the tales Price recorded as reliable fact. Most likely, the suspicion about sand and gunpowder grew from an early attempt to explain why the provincial artillery regiment had performed so badly overall. Once more information spread, blame focused on Callender and other specific officers.

TOMORROW: One last mix of sand and gunpowder.

“Capt. John Callender is accordingly cashiered”

After the British won the Battle of Bunker Hill, there was a great deal of finger-pointing on the American side. Eventually New Englanders decided the battle had actually been a Good Thing, but they still blamed several officers for behaving poorly.

As I related back here, Gen. Israel Putnam insisted that an artillery captain he had met on the battlefield be court-martialed for abandoning his cannon. That process had a false start, but by the time Gen. George Washington settled into his new job in Cambridge the verdict was awaiting his approval.

On 7 July 1775, the commander-in-chief’s general orders made a big deal of his decsion:

It is with inexpressible Concern that the General upon his first Arrival in the army, should find an Officer sentenced by a General Court Martial to be cashier’d for Cowardice—A Crime of all others, the most infamous in a Soldier, the most injurious to an Army, and the last to be forgiven; inasmuch as it may, and often does happen, that the Cowardice of a single Officer may prove the Distruction of the whole Army:

The General therefore (tho’ with great Concern, and more especially, as the Transaction happened before he had the Command of the Troops) thinks himself obliged for the good of the service, to approve the Judgment of the Court Martial with respect to Capt. John Callender, who is hereby sentenced to be cashiered. Capt. John Callender is accordingly cashiered and dismissd from all farther service in the Continental Army as an Officer.

The General having made all due inquiries, and maturely consider’d this matter is led to the above determination not only from the particular Guilt of Capt. Callenders, but the fatal Consequences of such Conduct to the army and to the cause of america.

He now therefore most earnestly exhorts Officers of all Ranks to shew an Example of Bravery and Courage to their men; assuring them that such as do their duty in the day of Battle, as brave and good Officers, shall be honor’d with every mark of distinction and regard; their names and merits made known to the General Congress and all America: while on the other hand, he positively declares that every Officer, be his rank what it may, who shall betray his Country, dishonour the Army and his General, by basely keeping back and shrinking from his duty in any engagement; shall be held up as an infamous Coward and punish’d as such, with the utmost martial severity; and no Connections, Interest or Intercessions in his behalf will avail to prevent the strict execution of justice.

Was Washington trying to make an example of Capt. John Callender? He certainly was. His language, especially at the end, closely followed the suggestion of the respected Massachusetts legislator Joseph Hawley, who on 5 July had written to him:

…I suggest, that although in the Massachusetts part of the Army there are divers brave and intrepid officers, yet there are too many, and even several Colonels, whose characters, to say the least, are very equivocal with respect to courage. There is much more cause to fear that the officers will fail in a day of trial, than the privates. I may venture to say, that if the officers will do their duty, there is no fear of the soldiery.

I therefore most humbly propose to your consideration the propriety and advantage of your making immediately a most solemn and peremptory declaration to all the officers of the Army, in general orders, or otherwise, as your wisdom shall direct, assuring them that every officer who, in the day of battle, shall fully do his duty, shall not fail of your kindest notices and highest marks of your favour; but, on the other hand, that every officer who, on such a day, shall act the poltron, dishonour his General, and by failing of his duty, betray his Country, shall infallibly meet his deserts, whatever his rank, connexions, or interest may be; and that no intercessions on his behalf will be likely to be of any avail for his pardon.

Of course, it’s one thing to say the system was going to be strict with everyone—it’s another thing to carry that out. Callender wasn’t the only Massachusetts artillery officer who had performed below expectations at Bunker Hill. But the other two were the son and nephew of the artillery regiment’s commander. It took months before they faced courts-martial. “No Connections, Interest or Intercessions” indeed!

Calendar eventually returned to the army. Of the Gridley cousins, Scarborough was convicted and cashiered, Samuel acquitted, but neither was in the Continental Army at the start of 1776.

Benjamin Pierce’s Story of Bunker Hill

In March 1818, the Port-Folio magazine published Henry Dearborn’s account of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Dearborn was a veteran of that battle and the war that followed, later a Secretary of War, and finally a general during the War of 1812. So of course people respected his version of history, right?

Certainly not! Dearborn bluntly criticized Gen. Israel Putnam (shown here). Among other things, he wrote that the Connecticut general “remained at or near the top of Bunker Hill until the retreat. . . . He not only continued at that distance himself during the whole of the action, but had a force with him nearly as large as that engaged.” Within weeks Putnam’s son Daniel and others leapt to the late general’s defense.

Dearborn fought back, gathering recollections from other veterans of the battle who didn’t recall “Old Put” as a leader that day. One was Benjamin Pierce. In a letter dated 17 May 1818 he told Dearborn:

I have read your “Account of the Battle of Bunker’s-hill,” and consider it to be more like the thing itself, than any statement I have ever seen.

I think our Army broke ground on the evening of the 16th of June; and the Battle was on the 17th. I went on to the Hill about eleven o’clock, A. M., on the 17th; when I arrived at the summit of Bunker’s hill, I saw two pieces of cannon there standing, with two or three soldiers standing by them, who observed they belonged to Captain [John] Callender’s Company, and said that the Captain and his officers were cowards, and that they had run away.

General Putnam there sat upon a horse; I saw nobody at that place when I arrived there, but the General and those two or three soldiers. General Putnam requested our Company, which was commanded by Captain John Ford of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, to take those two pieces of cannon, and draw them down; our men utterly refused, and said they had no knowledge of the use of artillery, and that they were ready to fight with their own arms.

Captain Ford then addressed his Company in a very animated, patriotic, and brave strain, which is the characteristic of the man; the Company then seized the drag-ropes and soon drew them to the rail-fence, according to my recollection, about half the distance from the redoubt on Breed’s-hill to Mystic-river. I think I saw General Putnam at that place, looking for some part of his sword; I did not hear him give any orders nor assume any command, except at the top of Bunker’s-hill, when I was going to the field of battle.

I remained at the rail-fence, until all the powder and ball were spent. I had a full view of the movements of the enemy; and I think your statement of the order of the day and of the two contending armies, is correct and cannot be denied with the semblance of truth.

Excuse an old soldier.

Other soldiers described Putnam being much more active, almost frenetic, especially in regard to other abandoned cannon—but not at the rail fence, where Pierce’s and Dearborn’s companies stationed themselves. Thus, they didn’t see Putnam exercise much authority, but other men did, and were still fond of “Old Put.”

According to Liz Covart’s article in the Journal of the American Revolution, the controversy over Dearborn’s attack on Putnam helped to cost him the race for governor of Massachusetts. Ironically, a few years later Benjamin Pierce won two terms as governor of New Hampshire. (In between those terms he lost once to a candidate named John Bell. Pierce’s son Franklin would later win an even bigger election.)

Pierce’s letter is typical of a lot of first-person accounts of the Bunker Hill battle written in the midst of the Dearborn-Putnam controversy: so focused on the question of whether Putnam was in the fight and/or in command that it omits most of the writer’s own experience. Did Ford’s men fire the cannon they took to the fence, and how effectively? What was it like to fight there “until all the powder and ball were spent”? Alas, Pierce didn’t say.

Gen. Putnam’s Cannons

During the Battle of Bunker Hill, Gen. Israel Putnam didn’t just order an artillery officer back into battle. He actually took over the operation of an abandoned cannon or two.

When I first read about that incident in histories by Thomas Fleming and Richard Ketchum, it seemed somewhat outlandish, but it turns out there were quite a few witnesses. In his History of Bunker Hill Battle, published shortly after the fiftieth anniversary of the fight, Samuel Swett quoted the deposition of Ezra Runnels of Middleborough about the event:

I belonged to Capt. [Samuel] Gridley’s artillery company. Went on to the Hill with the company, and 2 small pieces, the evening before the battle; and was at and near the redoubt during the battle, until our party retreated. I well remember of seeing Gen. Putnam at the breastwork during the battle. Before that time, residing in Groton, Connecticut, was personally acquainted with him. I repeatedly saw him during the action walking upon the breastwork and animating the men to exert themselves.

Capt. Gridley, having received some [gunpowder] cartridges which were too large for our pieces, said that nothing could be done with them, and left his post, and our company was scattered. General Putnam came to one of the pieces, near which I stood, and furiously inquired where our officers were? On being told our cartridges were too big, and that the pieces could not be loaded, he swore, and said they could be loaded, taking a cartridge, he broke it open, and loaded the pieces with a ladle, which was discharged; and assisted us in loading two or three times in that manner.

A couple of other recollections from the same book appear to refer to the Gridley company’s cannon in the redoubt:

Joshua Yeomans, Norwich, Putnam’s own regiment: I saw Gen. Putnam split a field-piece in the fort; he could not get the ball into the piece. He went to his saddle-bags [haversack] and took a canvas bag of musket balls [grape], loaded the cannon, and fired it at a number of officers who were consulting under a row of trees.

Amos Foster, Tewksbury: Two of our field-pieces were near me and fired a number of times. Hill, a British deserter, said we fired too high. The pieces were lowered; he said, with an oath, “you have made a furrow through them.” He watched British field-pieces, and, when they were about to fire, we all laid down. One man was burned very badly by a cannon cartridge.

I wish I could identify that deserter.

Other veterans said that Putnam also brought a cannon from Capt. John Callender’s company forward to the rail fence on the American left and had Capt. John Ford’s men operate it:

Alexander Davidson, Edgecombe, Ford’s company: Putnam ordered our company to carry the cannon, deserted by Callender, to the rail fence; he accompanied the pieces himself, saw to the placing them and until they commenced firing them. I well recollect his expression at the second firing of one of the pieces, it was loaded with cannister and seemed to make a lane through them [i.e., the enemy].

Israel Hunt, Dunstable, Bridge’s regiment: Gen. Putnam and Capt. Ford brought an iron field-piece to the rail fence, and fired it a number of times.

William F. Wade, Ipswich, captain in Little’s regiment: One of our cannon, deserted by Callender, was fired a number of times at rail fence very near me; two men in our Regt. Halliday and Dutton, of Newburyport, fired one of the cannon 3 or 4 times and hurraed very loud.

Benjamin Peirce, Hillsborough, Ford’s company: went on to the Hill about 11; Putnam requested our company to drag Callender’s cannon down Bunker Hill; at Capt. Ford's persuasion, drew them to rail fence; thinks he saw Gen. Putnam at that place, looking for some part of his sword

What had happened to Putnam’s sword? According to the general’s son, he broke it swiping at a non-commissioned officer in Callender’s company.

Benjamin Pierce was an eighteen-year-old soldier during the battle. He grew up to be governor of New Hampshire (as shown above) and father of President Franklin Pierce.

“Sam Trevett under an arrest. For what?”

Shortly after the Battle of Bunker Hill, Gen. Israel Putnam demanded that the army court-martial the artillery officer he had met pulling back from the fight. The general even threatened to resign if he didn’t get his way. Based on Putnam’s identification, the authorities detained Capt. Samuel Russell Trevett of Marblehead.

Unfortunately, as a committee from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress reported on 23 June, “by a mistake in the name, the wrong officer was confined.” Putnam, a Connecticut general, didn’t know the artillery officers from the other colonies. Trevett was actually the only commander of a provincial artillery company to keep fighting to the end.

Trevett’s arrest caused some consternation, particularly among his Marblehead matrosses, who had stuck out the battle with him. Back in their home town, the mariner Ashley Bowen wrote in his diary for 19 June:

A grand muster with our Regiment. We cannot hear the particular at Charlestown. Some rain. Captain Sam Trevett under an arrest. For what?

Within a couple of days the army brass had discovered the mistake. The congress’s committee reported on who really pulled back: “These Officers' names are, Captain [Samuel] Gridley and Captain John Kallander.” Callender was set up for court-martial instead.

But by then it was too late. Trevett and his men had gone home to Marblehead. On 29 June, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety tried to catch up to events through this resolution:

Mr. [Richard] Devens and Colonel [Azor] Orne, appointed to draw up a Vote relative to Captain Trevet and Company, reported the following, which was accepted, viz;

Whereas, from a mistake made by one of the General Officers, Capt. Samuel Russell Trevet has been put under arrest, which mistake is set forth in a Certificate by order of the General [Artemas Ward]; and upon examination it appears that said Trevet has approved himself a good officer, but said mistake has unhappily operated to the dispersion of his Company; therefore

Resolved, That said Captain Trevet be directed to collect his said Company as soon as possible, and then apply to this Committee in order to be commissioned.

Trevett declined the invitation and never rejoined the American army. Some of his men did, including his first sergeant and brother-in-law, Robert Wormsted. But Trevett had apparently had enough.

What happened to Callender, Gridley, and Gridley’s relatives in the regiment after Gen. George Washington arrived will be part of my talk tonight at Anderson House, the national headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati. Come on by if you’re in the neighborhood!

Samuel Russell Trevett’s Story of Bunker Hill

As I’ve been describing, in the Battle of Bunker Hill the field officers of the American artillery didn’t cover themselves with glory:

• Maj. Scarborough Gridley never even went onto the Charlestown peninsula.
• His cousin Capt. Samuel Gridley and Capt. John Callender did get to the redoubt on Breed’s Hill, but then discovered their guns were too small and their gunpowder cartridges too large.

The latter two pulled back, one even after Gen. Israel Putnam had met him and ordered him forward again at gunpoint.

The exception to that pattern was Capt. Samuel Russell Trevett of Marblehead. He was assigned to follow Maj. Gridley, but when he realized his superior wasn’t budging he defied orders and advanced to Charlestown on his own. Trevett and his company were the only American artillerists active in the thick of the battle.

Trevett described some of his experience in a letter he wrote on 2 June 1818:

I commanded a company of artillery from the town of Marblehead, attached to Col. Richard Gridley’s regiment, stationed at Cambridge. About one o’clock in the afternoon of the 17th of June, 1775, I left Cambridge with my company, for Bunker’s Hill. When about a quarter of a mile from the Colleges, I saw Gen. Putnam pass upon a horse towards the town of Cambridge, and in 15 or 20 minutes I saw him pass in like manner towards Charlestown.

When I arrived at Bunker’s Hill, on the north west side, I there saw Gen. Putnam dismounted, in company with several others. I halted my company, and went forward to select a station for my pieces, and on my return, saw Gen. Putnam as before; the American and English forces being then engaged.—

I proceeded on with my company, and soon after joined that part of the American force at the rail fence, towards Mystic river, the Americans commenced a general retreat. As I was descending the north west side of Bunker’s Hill, I again saw Gen. Putnam in the same place, putting his tent upon his horse. I asked him where I should retreat with the field piece I had brought off, he replied to Cambridge, and I accordingly marched my company to Cambridge.

Unfortunately, Trevett wrote that letter to answer questions about whether Putnam was in command during the battle—a consuming issue for authors in the early 1800s. Trevett didn’t leave a full account of the battle, which means we’re missing his memory of the most interesting parts.

We don’t have Trevett’s experience of the fighting, when apparently he and his men fired grapeshot at the advancing British troops from the rail fence. We don’t have his full description of the retreat, in which his company dragged off a four-pounder cannon—the only American field-piece in Charlestown not captured by the enemy. We don’t know if Trevett agreed with Gen. Putnam that backward artillery officers were responsible for losing the peninsula, and that “one of these officers ought to be punished with death.”

Worst of all, we don’t have Trevett’s memory of how he felt when Putnam reported that the artillery officer who had refused orders to go back into the fight was named Trevett.

TOMORROW: The Massachusetts government tries to clean up this mess. And have I mentioned that I’ll be speaking about the new commander-in-chief’s response to the whole situation on Tuesday at 7:00 P.M. at Anderson House?

[The photo above shows the house in Marblehead where Samuel Russell Trevett was born in 1751, as photographed by Daniel Sterner of the Historic Buildings of Connecticut and Massachusetts blogs. Sterner has a new book out: A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut.]

Gen. Putnam Meets an “Officer in the Train”

The provincial plan for the Battle of Bunker Hill called for Capt. Samuel Gridley and Capt. John Callender to take their artillery companies, each with two four-pounder cannon, into the redoubt that infantrymen had built on Breed’s Hill. Gridley was a New Hampshire blacksmith and nephew of the artillery regiment’s commander. Callender was a Boston mechanic trained in that town’s militia artillery company.

In a letter to his mother, a private named Peter Brown described what he saw one of those artillery captains do:

Our Officers sent time after time for Cannon from Cambridge in the Morning & could get but four, the Captn of which fir’d a few times then swung his Hat three times round to the enemy and ceas’d to fire

One problem was that the American guns weren’t powerful enough to answer the Royal Artillery‘s fire from Copp’s Hill in Boston. Another was a problem with supplies: as a committee from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress found a week later:

An officer of rank affirmed to your Committee that he absolutely knew that some of the [gunpowder] cartridges and balls were too large for the cannon, and that it was necessary to break the cartridges before they could be of use.

That committee was formed to investigate “a report which has prevailed in the Army, that there has been treachery in some of the Officers.” The legislators interviewed American commanders and reported back:

General [Israel] Putnam informed us, that in the late action, as he was riding up Bunker’s Hill, he met an officer of the Train drawing his cannon down in great haste; he ordered the officer to stop and go back; he replied he had no cartridges; the General dismounted and examined his boxes, and found a considerable number of cartridges, upon which he ordered him back; he refused, until the General threatened him with immediate death, upon which he returned up the hill again, but soon deserted his post and left the cannon.

Another officer, who had the direction of another cannon, conducted much in the same manner. The relation of this matter from General Putnam was confirmed by several other officers of distinction, as to what is most material relative thereto. . . .

General Putnam declared to your Committee, as his opinion, that the defeat of that day was owing to the ill-behaviour of those that conducted the artillery, and that, one of these officers ought to be punished with death, and that unless some exemplary punishment was inflicted, he would assuredly leave the Army. That upon the defeat of the officers of the Train, the re-enforcements ordered up the hill could not be prevailed upon to go; the plea was, the Artillery was gone, and they stood no chance for their lives in such circumstances…

In his History of Bunker Hill Battle (1827), Samuel Swett cited a letter from Putnam’s son to say that in his encounter with the retreating artillery company the Connecticut general had ”entreated, threatened, and broke his sword over them knocking down a non-commissioned officer.”

But one thing Putnam hadn’t done was get the name of the artillery officer he met. (This story and the consequences of it will be part of my free talk at the Society of Cincinnati museum in Washington, D.C., on 10 July.)

TOMORROW: Capt. Samuel Trevett of Marblehead.

After John Callender’s Court-Martial

Thanks to everyone who came out to my talk about the early Continental artillery at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters last night.

Among the episodes I related was Capt. John Callender’s court-martial on the charge of “Cowardice” at Bunker Hill. Five days after arriving in Cambridge, Gen. George Washington affirmed that Callender should be booted out of the army.

I was determined to avoid doing what every version of that story I’ve seen does, and go on to describe how Callender traveled to New York in the fall of 1776 as a volunteer “cadet” in Capt. John Johnson’s artillery company.

I steeled myself not to say that when Johnson and his lieutenant were wounded in the Battle of Brooklyn, Callender took command of that company until the British captured him and the other survivors.

And that after his release, Callender received a captain-lieutenant’s commission in the Continental artillery dated 1 Jan 1777 and served to the end of the war.

So you may well read that about Capt.-Lt. John Callender. But you didn’t hear it from me.