How Lincoln Impressed Washington

In June 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress commissioned its president, Dr. Joseph Warren, as a major general in the provincial army.

Under the tacit hierarchy of the New England generals, that would have put Warren under Artemas Ward (considered a captain general) and John Thomas (a lieutenant general), and by seniority at the bottom of all the other major generals in the New England forces.

Of course, Dr. Warren never took up that commission. He went onto the battlefield in Charlestown, fought as a volunteer, and died.

Despite that precedent, the clerk of the provincial congress, Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, also wanted to be a general.

Lincoln had been a lieutenant colonel in the Suffolk County militia before the war. In January 1776, the General Court promoted him to militia major general. His main mission was coastal defense, and he reported on that situation to John Adams in August.

At the same time, Lincoln was positioning himself for a commission in the Continental Army. Gen. Ward wasn’t in the best of health and had lost the support of Gen. George Washington and other important figures. Even Joseph Ward, a relative and aide, told Adams that Gen. Ward was “under the great disadvantage of bad health” and couldn’t show his men that he was “superior to difficulties dangers or misfortunes” as the best generals did.

Joseph Ward wrote:

If a few old Colonels should resign it might be no disadvantage to the Service; very few of them take much pains to qualify themselves for higher command; they want education, knowledge of the World and genuine ambition to make them shine as Generals. I apprehend that Benjamin Lincoln Esqr. (now a Major General in the militia) is a good man for a Brigadire General; he has never been a Continental Officer nor had much experience, but he is a man of abilities and appears to me to have a good mind. I am well informed that he would like to engage in the Service.

That fall, the Massachusetts General Court raised short-term troops to defend New York. After James Warren declined command, Lincoln became the state major general in charge of that force. They weren’t involved in the big battles and came home in November.

That service was enough to impress Gen. Washington, however. When Massachusetts raised more troops for the winter of 1777 and put Lincoln in charge of them, the commander-in-chief wrote to him:

Give me leave Sir to assure you that this Appointment gives me the highest Satisfaction as the proofs you exhibited of your Zeal for the Service, in the preceding part of this Campaign convinces me, that the command could not have devolved upon a more deserving Officer.

Lincoln served under Gen. William Heath in that winter, besieging a British position near Kingsbridge. Heath’s push fizzled out, further lowering him in Washington’s eyes.

Back in July 1775, when Washington had arrived in Massachusetts, the province’s generals were Ward, Thomas, and Heath. Now Ward was about to resign, Thomas was dead, and Heath was doomed never to have a combat command again. Instead, Washington recommended the Continental Congress consider Benjamin Lincoln as “worthy of your Notice in the Continental Line.”

Lincoln thus became the newest major general in the Continental Army in March 1777. And he retained Washington’s esteem even after having to surrender Charleston to the Crown in May 1780. He also became the U.S. of A.’s first Secretary of War under the Confederation Congress.

On the afternoon of Sunday, 8 December, Robert J. Allison will speak to the Hingham Historical Society on “From Hingham to Yorktown: The Military Campaigns of General Benjamin Lincoln.” You can purchase tickets to attend that talk or view online through this page.

“Throw up such works on the two commanding Eminences”

I’ve often wondered how Gen. Artemas Ward reacted to the letters he received from the headquarters of his commander, Gen. George Washington, on 2-3 Mar 1776.

Those letters were full of details about how to manage the Continental Army’s move onto the Dorchester peninsula, down to what sort of barrels to fill with rocks and make ready to roll down onto approaching redcoats. (“Perhaps single Barrels would be better than linking of them together, being less liable to accidents—the Hoops should be well Naild or else they will soon fly, & the Casks fall to Pieces.”)

If I were in Ward’s boots, I’d be thinking, “I’ve been advising you to take this position for months now! You did nothing but come up with foolhardy plans for frontal attacks, and I kept telling you about Dorchester Heights! And now you’re telling me we have to act fast?! You’re telling me what to do in case of wind?!”

But we don’t know what Ward would have said to Washington because he didn’t put that in writing. Perhaps he was even gratified that his commander had become so enthusiastic about his suggestion.

On 4 March, Ward issued these orders to his part of the army:

That 2100 Men viz 1 Brigadier Genl. 3 Coll. 3 Lieut Coll. 3 Majors 23 Capts 71 Subs. 100 Sergts. 3 Drums 1916 Rank. & file 3 Surgeons 3 Mates are to be Paraded this Eveng at Six oclock precisely, at Dorchester, completely Armd & accoutred, with one days Provision ready cook’d.

Before the men are marchd from the regimental Parades, they are to be handsomely drawn up two deep. Their arms, Amunition & Accoutraments strictly examin’d, the commission’d & non-commission’d Officers properly posted. The Officers will give particular Attention to their own Divisions, whether they are employ’d in the work, or as a covering Party, & not shift from one part of the Battallion to another. This will give an Opportunity for ye free Circulation to the Orders of the Commanding Officer, & enable him to conduct any movement with less Danger of Confusion, & greater Probability of Success.

The Officers will mark well the Behavior of their men; that ye Bravery & Resolution of the good Soldier may not pass unrewarded; & Meanness & Cowardice meet with just Contempt.

At 3 Oclock Tomorrow morn’g, will be paraded for the Relief of the above Party, at ye same Place, 3000 Men viz 1 Brigadier Genl. 5 Coll 5 Lieut. Coll 5 Majors 30 Capts 92 Subs 118 Sergts 5 Drums 2342 Rank & File 5 Surgeons 5 Mates, Accoutred & posted as above with one Days Provision ready cook’d. The 5 Companies of Rifle men equipt as above are to parade at the same Place & time.

At which time the Remainder of all ye Regts are to be turn’d out & take their respective Alarm Posts. The Party that is reliev’d from Dorchester is not to be dismiss’d as soon as reliev’d; but to join their respective Regts at their Alarm posts, & wait for further Orders.

The Genl. expects that in case of an attack, the Officers exert themselves to prevent their men from throwing away their Fire before the Enemy are within Reach, & recommends that no Soldier fire at any time without a particular Object in View; single Guns well aim’d and briskly fir’d, have a greater Tendency to disconcert & do more Damage to an Enemy, than firing by Plattoons.

The Surgeons and Mates are to be equip’d with every thing necessary for their department. It is ordered that the whole Camp keep by them one Days Provision ready cook’d; & that no Officer or Soldier strole from their Quarters. 2500 Men Are to parade every Morng equip’d, at ye same hour & Place.

Ward’s aide de camp, Joseph Ward, wrote out the general’s instructions to the man who would command the move onto the peninsula, Gen. John Thomas:

Brigadier General Thomas is to take the Command of 2100 Men which are to be paraded at Dorchester at six o’Clock this Evening, with which he is to proceed to Dorchester Point, and there throw up such works on the two commanding Eminences, as with the advice of the Engineer [probably Col. Richard Gridley] shall think most proper for the defence of the ground & annoyance of the Enemy and defend the same.

And there were also instructions to the head of the rifle companies:

Capt. Hugh Stevenson is to take the command of the three Companies of Rifle men in this Incampment, & also the two Companies which are ordered here from Cambridge; & at three Oclock tomorrow Morning proceed to Dorchester Point, there to obey such orders as he shall receive from Brigadier Genl. Thomas, or the Commanding Officer on that Point. 

The length and detail of all those orders on 2-4 March make a sharp contrast to what Ward had told his officers back on 15 June 1775, when the provincials had decided to fortify Bunker’s Hill. Moving onto Dorchester Heights was a more challenging operation, but this time the army had been preparing for weeks.

The 2,100 soldiers Ward sent out first were equipped not just with entrenching tools and their muskets. There were also 300 wagons loaded with bundles of hay to create a shield along the causeway and prefab pieces of fortification to assemble on the heights. There were the riflemen to guard the shoreline. There was the cover of an ongoing cannonade. And Ward had 3,000 more men ready to relieve the soldiers who would build the works—that hadn’t worked well back in June.

And of course there were barrels.

TOMORROW: The men with the bright ideas.

The Real Story of “Old Put”

When I wrote yesterday’s essay about Gen. Joseph Spencer’s nickname, I asked myself, “And now will someone ask about ‘Old Put’?” And sure enough, on the Boston 1775 Facebook page Peter Fisk asked about “Old Put,” the fabled nickname for Gen. Israel Putnam.

And my answer to myself yesterday was, “Well, of course Putnam was called ‘Old Put’! He was old. His last name was Putnam. Every author in the world says he was called ‘Old Put’!” But I was fooled by every author saying Gen. Horatio Gates’s men fondly referred to him as “Granny,” which is where this week started off. So I decided I should calm down and do the research to answer Peter’s question.

There are several contemporaneous references to Putnam as “Old Put,” almost all of them coming from the very top of the Continental Army: Gen. George Washington’s headquarters.

• Mustermaster general Stephen Moylan to former military secretary Joseph Reed, 5 Dec 1775: “I would have given a good deal that you was here last Saturday when the stores arrived at camp. Such universal joy ran, through the whole as if each grasped victory in his hand, to crown the glorious scene there intervened one truly ludicrous, which was old PUT mounted on a large mortar which was fixed in its bed for the occasion, with a bottle of rum in his hand, standing parson to christen, while godfather [Thomas] Mifflin gave it the name of CONGRESS.”
• Moylan to Reed, 1 Feb 1776: “The Bay is open, everything thaws except Old Put. He is still as hard as ever, crying out for powder—powder—ye gods, give us powder!”
• Reed to Washington, 15 Mar 1776: “I suppose old Putt was to command the Detachment intended for Boston on the 5th Inst.—as I do not know any Officer but himself who could have been depended on for so hazardous a Service.”
• Washington back to Reed, 1 Apr 1776: “The 4000 Men destind for Boston on the 5th; if the Ministerialists had attempted our Works on Dorchester, or the Lines at Roxbury, were to have been headed by old Put.”
• Lt. Col. Joseph Ward, formerly aide to Gen. Artemas Ward, to John Adams, 9 May 1777: “Old Put—says, ‘Fact now is the time, I am for attacking the dogs without delay, drive them off that we me go home about our business’—thus he.”

So it’s hard to establish a nickname more solidly and officially than that.

Oddly, however, I didn’t stumble across any examples of enlisted men referring to their general as “Old Put.” The closest I found was veteran John Greenwood referring in his memoir to an operation ”planned by old Putnam.” More references might be buried in pension reminiscences or the like, but I was surprised, given how freely veterans spoke about his fellow Connecticut commander Spencer.

The Army and Navy Chronicle for 1837 yields one anecdote, credited to the New York Gazette, about that issue:

Original Revolutionary Anecdote.—

When the American army was stationed in Putnam county [New York], during the Revolutionary war, one of the soldiers saw a boat approaching, and he cried out, there comes “old Put,” a name familiarly applied to the gallant General Putnam.

A young upstart officer hearing this caused him to be put under arrest for speaking disrespectfully of the General.

On the arrival of General Putnam on shore, he inquired what that man was sent away for?

The officer said, he has spoken disrespectfully of your Excellency.

What did he say? inquired the General.

He called you “old Put.”

So I am old Put, said he; release him instantly.

That may be only a legend, but it certainly sounds true to Israel Putnam’s character.

TOMORROW: Might as well do a full week—the general with the most exotic nickname.

Finding Room for the New Hampshire Troops

On 15 June 1775, Col. James Reed [often spelled Read] wrote back to the New Hampshire Committee of Safety from the siege lines outside Boston. On 2 June, Read had followed orders from Gen. Nathaniel Folsom and mustered “a number of men” from “the westward part of the Province of New-Hampshire.” He reported:

On the twelfth of June, I arrived at Cambridge and waited on General [Artemas] Ward; he informed me that Cambridge was so thronged with soldiers, that he had given orders to Captains Spalding, Walker, and Crosby, to march to Medford. Then I repaired to Medford, and there I met with Captains Hinds, Whitcomb, Town, Hutchins, Man, Marcey, and Thomas. Whitcomb and Thomas I took out of Colonel Stoke’s [Stark’s?] Regiment for the two Companies that were assigned me. Then I was informed by Colonel [John] Stark that Medford was so full of soldiers that it was necessary for some to take other quarters; then I applied to General Ward and received orders in these words:

GENERAL ORDERS.
Head-Quarters, June 12, 1775.

That Colonel Read quarter his Regiment in the houses near Charlestown Neck, and keep all necessary guards between his barracks and the ferry, and on Bunker Hill.

J[oseph]. WARD, Secretary.

Then, Sirs, I marched my Regiment from Medford to Charlestown Neck, and, with the assistance of Mr. [Peter or Timothy?] Tufts, one of the Selectmen of Charlestown, I got my men into good barracks, and then raised my guard, consisting of one Captain, two subalterns, four sergeants, four corporals, and forty privates; this ended the thirteenth day of June.

Housing soldiers on Charlestown Neck just a few days before 17 June 1775. What could go wrong?

It’s notable that at this point in June 1775 American commanders felt there were too many soldiers in Cambridge and Medford. Soon they would be ordering more men to those locations.

“To take immediate Possession of Bunker’s Hill, and Dorchester Neck”

A couple of days ago, I quoted a warning from New Hampshire to Massachusetts about the British army planning to seize the Charlestown and Dorchester peninsulas.

In response to that and other warnings, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety met on 15 June at the house of Harvard steward Jonathan Hastings and came to this conclusion:

Whereas, it appears of Importance to the Safety of this Colony, that possession of the Hill, called Bunker’s Hill, in Charlestown, be securely kept and defended; and also some one hill or hills on Dorchester Neck [i.e., peninsula] be likewise Secured. Therefore, Resolved, Unanimously, that it be recommended to the Council of War, that the abovementioned Bunker’s Hill be maintained, by sufficient force being posted there; and as the particular situation of Dorchester Neck is unknown to this Committee, they advise that the Council of War take and pursue such steps respecting the Same, as to them shall appear to be for the Security of this Colony.

As Charles Martyn interpreted the documentary evidence in his biography of Gen. Artemas Ward, that commander convened his council of war, also in the Hastings house, and decided:

Resolved in Council of War to take immediate Possession of Bunker’s Hill, and Dorchester Neck.

But Gen. John Thomas wasn’t at Ward’s council of war in Cambridge. In fact, I’m not sure whether he was at any of Ward’s councils of war. And Thomas had responsibility for Dorchester and the southern wing of the siege.

So the Committee of Safety sent two members, Joseph Palmer and Benjamin White, to meet with Thomas. And Ward’s council of war sent Gen. Israel Putnam, Col. Joseph Ward (the commander’s secretary), and Col. Samuel Gerrish to relay its resolve. They were all “to consult with the Commanding Officers at Roxbury respecting the expediency of carrying the above Resolutions into Execution.”

Thomas didn’t take the decision of Ward’s council as an order. He evidently convened his own council of war, and they concluded that they didn’t have the resources to hold the Dorchester peninsula against a likely British countermove. As a result, that area remained a no-man’s land until the following March.

Would the siege of Boston have been different if Gen. Thomas’s troops had taken possession of the Dorchester peninsula at the same time that Ward’s wing marched into Charlestown? Well, sure. But different in what way is hard to figure.

Would Gen. Thomas Gage have split his forces to attack both peninsulas, and not been able to capture either? Or would sending men into Dorchester have weakened Thomas’s defenses in Roxbury, opening the door for a British charge down the Boston Neck?

Given the topography of the Dorchester peninsula, would its hills’ defenders have been cut off? (Most of the provincials who went into Charlestown got out.) Would holding the heights of either peninsula have mattered for the New England forces when they had little to no heavy artillery? We’ll never know.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, on 15 June 1775, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of the army it had just created on paper.

(Above is Thomas’s headquarters in Roxbury, now known as the Dillaway-Thomas House. The photograph is by Tim Sackton via Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

Three People Detained at the Castle

On 1 Mar 1775, a group of middling-class Boston activists sent a letter to the Sons of Liberty in New York, asking to set up a regular correspondence so as to share news and “contradict the many infamous lies which are propagated by the Enemies of our Country.”

Three of those Bostonians are well known to the authorities at Boston 1775: silversmith Paul Revere, printer Benjamin Edes, and decorative painter Thomas Crafts, Jr.

The other three were also active in the Patriot movement:

• Joshua Brackett, proprietor of the Cromwell’s Head tavern on School Street.
• schoolmaster Joseph Ward (in Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, Esther Forbes misidentified him as a distiller).
• Thomas Chase, whose South End distillery stood next to Liberty Tree.

Of those six men, three (Edes, Crafts, and Chase) had been part of the “Loyall Nine,” the political club that helped organize Boston’s Stamp Act protests in 1765. Three (Revere, Ward, and Crafts) would gain the title “colonel” in the coming war.

The Bostonians asked to set up a correspondence with their counterparts in New York so as to share news and “contradict the many infamous lies which are propagated by the Enemies of our Country.” They added a postscript about Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie’s recent unsuccessful raid on Salem:

Enclosed you have an account of the late Expedition which terminated to the honour of Americans. In addition to the secrecy with which the maneuvre to Salem was conducted, we inform you that three persons were occasionally at the castle on Saturday afternoon and were detained there till 10 o’clock on Monday lest we should send an Express to our brethren at Marblehead and Salem.

When that letter, now in the John Lamb Papers at the New-York Historical Society, was printed in Elbridge Goss’s 1891 biography of Revere, there was one small error. Instead of saying “three persons,” Goss’s transcription said “these persons.”

While writing her biography of Revere, Forbes interpreted “these persons” to refer to the men who had signed the letter, including the silversmith. At the time Revere was leading an effort to gather information about the army, so she concluded that he and his colleagues had gone to Castle William to spy on the troops. Later she fictionalized the same scene by adding her young hero Johnny Tremain, but then removed those pages from her final manuscript.

The letter to the New Yorkers is correctly transcribed in David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride, where I first read about this mixup years ago. What’s more, the word “occasionally” in eighteenth-century usage implies that the three people detained at the fort just happened to be there on business rather than to be spying on the army. Since the letter offers no first-hand details about being held at the Castle, we can feel certain that none of those three men were Revere or his colleagues (or Johnny Tremain).