“Both poisoned and chewed the musket balls”

Lt. John Waller of the British Marines wrote to his brother soon after the Battle of Bunker Hill:

We had of our corps one major, 2 captains, and 3 lieutenants killed; 4 captains, and 3 lieutenants wounded: 2 serjeants, and 21 rank and file killed; and 3 serjeants and 79 privates wounded: and I suppose, upon the whole, we lost, killed and wounded, from 800 to 1000 men. We killed a number of the rebels, but the cover they fought under made their loss less considerable than it would otherwise have been. The army is in great spirits, and full of rage and ferocity at the rebellious rascals, who both poisoned and chewed the musket balls, in order to make them the more fatal. Many officers have died of their wounds, and others very ill: ’tis astonishing what a number of officers were hit on this occasion; but the officers were particularly aimed at.

Poisoning a musket ball was thought to stop a wound from healing. Chewing a ball supposedly roughed up its surface so that it produced a rough wound that also wouldn’t heal easily. Poisoning and chewing a ball—well, that seems like a way to poison yourself.

This wasn’t an isolated complaint. Throughout the eighteenth century British officers complained about their enemies poisoning and/or masticating musket balls. Indeed, back in the 1670s the English poet Samuel Butler had launched such an accusation against Oliver Cromwell’s English army in Hudibras:

’Twas ill for us we had to do
With so dishon’rable a foe:
For though the law of arms doth bar
The use of venom’d shot in war,
Yet by the nauseous smell and noisom
Their case-shot savour strong of poison,
And doubtless have been chew’d with teeth
Of some that had a stinking breath…

Since the discovery of germs as the real factor in those deadly wounds, I don’t know if anyone’s bothered to test musket balls to see if poison could survive being fired across a battlefield.

There does appear to be evidence of British soldiers chewing or roughing up musket balls. The photo above shows a set dated to the English Civil War in the 1640s, on sale through TimeLine Originals. Another bunch is on display at Fort Ticonderoga. But I wonder if British officers ever ordered that tactic or acknowledged that their own men used it.

“He received four balls in his body.”

And at last it’s time to unveil the Boston 1775 answer to that burning question: Which provincial soldier killed Maj. John Pitcairn of the British Marines as he led the final assault on the provincial redoubt atop Breed’s Hill? Was it—

• Peter Salem, as most historians have written since the mid-1800s?
• Salem Poor, commended for his conduct in that battle?
• Joseph Spalding, credited in his 1820 obituary?
• Benjamin Webber of Gloucester?
• Phinehas Whitney of Maine?
• An unnamed boy who became a shoemaker by 1807?

Do we even have enough information to hazard an answer? How much longer can I draw this out?

Okay, okay. My answer to that question is:

Wrong question.

Let’s go back and look at the earliest description of how Pitcairn was shot, the Rev. Dr. John Eliot’s note in his almanac for 1775:

He had been wounded twice; then putting himself at the head of his forces, he faced danger, calling out, “Now for the glory of the marines!” He received four balls in his body.

So according to someone who was actually in Boston when Pitcairn died, the major was struck at least four times, perhaps six. Even if he was wounded twice with a single shot (a possibility with eighteenth-century muskets), that still means there were multiple shooters.

Furthermore, the June 1775 letters of Lt. John Waller cast doubt on Samuel Swett’s 1819 story of Maj. Pitcairn being shot as he “mounted [the works]...and exultingly cried ‘the day is ours’.” And on the 1807 battlefield guide’s tale that “the major called to his soldiers to hasten their speed, as the enemy had abandoned the fort.”

According to Waller, Pitcairn was fatally shot at “the Talus of the Redoubt”—at the bottom of the rise and the wall the provincials had built the night before. Between the Marines and the redoubt were “Hedges,” “the Talus,” “the Ditch,” and “the Parapet.” Furthermore, those British troops were suffering a “very heavy and severe Fire from the Enemy in the Redoubt,” so no one would have considered it empty.

Waller recalled that his men were pinned down in that spot for “Ten Minutes or near a Quarter of an Hour”—in which time Maj. Pitcairn was shot and his son started to carry him back to the waterside. It probably took more minutes for Waller to regain command of that unit and coordinate the final attack with two superior officers as he described. Maj. Pitcairn wasn’t shot during the final storming of the redoubt, as the stories have come down to us, but a significant period before.

TOMORROW: So, jeez already, which provincial soldiers were responsible for Maj. Pitcairn’s death?

“Major Pitcairne was killed close by me”

CSI: Colonial Boston returns with a series I’m calling “The Mysterious Death of Major Pitcairn.” That’s him dying at the right, a small detail in John Trumbull’s The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Maj. John Pitcairn was the highest-ranking British Marine in Boston in 1774-75. He was in charge of the British troops who confronted the Lexington militia at dawn on 19 Apr 1775. And in the Battle of Bunker Hill, he was one of the highest-ranking British officers killed.

How did Pitcairn die? The sources closest to the event seem to be two letters from Lt. John Waller, adjutant (i.e., administrative officer) of the first Marines battalion. A copy of the first, dated 21 June 1775, is available online from the Massachusetts Historical Society in two forms:

As soon as our Battalion were in the Boats Major Pitcairn gave directions to be landed, as near the Redoubt as possible, as the Light Infantry had then (tho’ at a great distance) began the Attack. we Landed accordingly where we were attack’d before I cou’d get those in the first Boat form’d, however, we soon form’d into tolerable order with the Loss of one Man only, and then March’d into a Field where we form’d in Line with the 43rd. & 47th. Regts. and were then order’d to shelter ourselves by laying on the Grass.

We were soon order’d to advance and attack the natural defences of the Redoubt and to storm that also at all Events. we gain’d Ground on the Enemy but slowly, as the Rails Hedges & stone walls, broke at every time we got over them and several Men were shot, in the Act of climbing them, we at length overcame these difficulties with very little loss till we came to the Talus of the Redoubt at the bottom of which was a Road with Hedges & Trees on each side besides a low stone wall, on the part we were Jumbled together.

I say Jumbled, as the March over the Rails &c. had shifted the 47th Regt. (that was on our Right on leaving the low Ground) in such a manner as to divide the 2 Companies on the right of our Battalion from the other 6 on the Left; but as they were nearly in a Column of Files we were not far asunder: in this situation we received a Check (tho’ with retreating an Inch) from the very heavy and severe Fire from the Enemy in the Redoubt, and in this Spot we lost a number of Men, besides the irreparable loss of poor Major Pitcairne, whose worth I never was sensible of till that day

we remaind about Ten Minutes or near a Quarter of an Hour in this dangerous situation, where the poor Fellows were kill’d as I was directing the Files how to level their Fire, at length half mad with standing in this situation & doing nothing towards Reducing the Redoubt, I requested Colnel [William] Nesbit [of the 47th] to form upon our Left in order that we might advance to the Enemy with our Bayonets without firing: this was with difficulty perform’d and Captain [Archibald] Campbell [of the Marines light infantry] coming up at this Instant, and forming upon our Right we mounted the Hedges without firing a Shot, and ran directly up the Talus, got into the Ditch and mounted the Parapet. . . .

I cannot pretend to describe the Horror of the Scene within the Redoubt when we enter’d it, ’twas streaming with Blood & strew’d with dead & dying Men the Soldiers stabbing some and dashing out the Brains of others was a sight too dreadful for me to dwell any longer on

The next day, Waller wrote to his brother:

We landed close under Charlestown, and formed with the 47th Regiment close under the natural defences of the redoubt, which we drove the enemy from, climbing over rails and hedges. So we closed upon them; but when we came immediately under the work, we were checked by the severe fire of the enemy, but did not retreat an inch.

We were now in confusion, after being broke several times in getting over the rails, etc. I did all I could to form the two companies on our right, which at last I effected, losing many of them while it was performing. Major Pitcairne was killed close by me, with a captain and a subaltern, also a serjeant, and many of the privates, and had we stopped there much longer, the enemy would have picked us all off.

I saw this, and begged Colonel Nesbitt of the 47th to form on our left, in order that we might advance with our bayonets to the parapet. I ran from right to left, and stopped our men from firing, while this was doing, and when we had got in tolerable order, we rushed on, leaped the ditch, and climbed the parapet, under a most sore and heavy fire. . . .

One captain and one subaltern fell in getting up, and one captain and one subaltern was wounded of our corps; three captains of the 52nd were killed on the parapet, and others that I know nothing of. God bless you! I did not think, at one time, that I should ever have been able to write this, though in the heat of the action I thought nothing of the matter.

This letter was published in 1845 in Historical Record of the Royal Marine Forces, by Paul Harris Nicolas. The text also appears here.

TOMORROW: Immediate reactions to Pitcairn’s death in Boston.