Sgt. Fargo and Gen. Washington’s “Indignation and Shame”

As I introduced back here, in 1775 Moses Fargo was a sergeant in Col. Samuel Holden Parsons’s Connecticut regiment during the siege of Boston. He was ordered to keep an orderly book, copying down the orders for each day as they were dictated to him—which allowed for idiosyncratic spelling. Here’s Sgt. Fargo’s entry for 4 Aug 1775:

it with Indignation and Shame the Genll observes that notwithstanding the Repeated orders which have Ben Given to pervent the Firing of guns in and about the Camp that it is Daily and hourly Pratised

That Contrary to all orders Stragling Soldiers Do steal past the Guards and Fire at a distance Where there is not the Least posabilty of hurting the Enamy and Where there is no other End answerd but to waist there amunition and Expose themselfs to the Redicule of the Enamy and keep there own Camp harised by Frecquent & Continuel alarms to the hurt and Deterement of Every Good Soldier who is thereby Disturbed of his Natural Rest and at Length will Never be able to Distingush Between the Real and the Fals alarmes

for that Reson the Gen’l Forbids in the most perremtory maner any Person or Persons whatsoever under any Pertence to Pass the out Guards unless autherised by the Commanding officer of that part of the Lines Signafyed in Riting which must be Shewed to the officers of the Guard in there Posts any Person Offending in this Perticuler will be Considered in no other Light then a Common Enamy and the guards will have orders To fire on them as Such the Commanding officer of Every Regmt. is to Derict that Every man in his Regmt. is Made accquanted with these orders to the End that no one may plead Ignorance and that all may be aprisd with the Consiquences of Disobediance the Colo. of Regmts and the Commanding officers of Cores to order the Role of Each Company to be Called twice a Day and Every mans Amunition to Examined at Evening Role Calling and Such as are Found Difficant are to be Confined the Guards are to Aprehend all Persons Near there Posts whether towns people or Soldiers

Of course, Gen. George Washington’s “indignation and shame” was just a cover story. Or rather, he probably felt indignant and ashamed, but not because the men were firing at the enemy.

Rather, as Gen. John Sullivan’s letter reveals, the day before headquarters issued the orders above, Washington had learned that the army had significantly less gunpowder than he had been told. All that talk about “the ridicule of the enemy” and a “good soldier…disturbed of his natural rest” was meant to stop the men from using up powder while keeping the supply crisis secret from the British.

The Connecticut Historical Society published Fargo’s orderly book in 1899. It transcribed the countersign password as “Iceland,” but other sources say it was “Ireland.” For the sake of Sgt. Fargo and his company, I hope he actually wrote that right.

(Photograph above by Erin and Lance Willett via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.)

Don’t Make Me Come Back There!

Moses Fargo was a non-commissioned officer in Capt. William Coit’s Connecticut company, Col. Samuel Holden Parsons’s regiment, during the siege of Boston. On 23 Apr 1775, he was given a small notebook with this instruction, which he wrote on the first page:

That Each Adjutant Serjt Majr and Each Sert be Immediatly provided With orderly Books in order Regularly to Enter the orders of the army.

Each morning, the regiment’s sergeants were summoned to take down the day’s orders by dictation from Parsons or his adjutant. Those orders tended to cover administrative matters, not military strategy. Here, for example, is what Fargo wrote on 1 Aug 1775:

Notwithstanding Former orders For making Return of the Number of tents in Each Company in the Regment [there are] Great Complaints that more tents are in the Company or in the posestion of Idevideals Belonging To the Companys then the Number Returned

it is therfore orderd that the Commanding officer of Each Company Forthwith Mak a Return under his own hand of the Number of men in there Respective Companys and of the Number of tents in there Respective Companys or of any Noncomisiond officer or soldier in there Company that Equil Justus may be Don to the Companys Respecting the tents

Complaints being Made of Great Destruction of the Frute Belonging to the Inhabetants at Roxbury and that Damige has been Don to the owners of the Frute Such Personal Ingures have been Sufferd by the pratice of Throwing apples about the Camp It is orderd that all persons Belonging to this Regment upon there peril Forbear Distroying the Frute & also that the aforesaid pratice be Immediatly disused

Fargo was, as we see, a phonetic speller. But when the Connecticut Historical Society published this document alongside others in 1899, its editor wrote: “The two following journals are by much more illiterate men than the preceding order-book.”