Who Wants to Be a General Anyway?

Here are a couple more wrinkles in how the Rhode Island legislature commissioned Nathanael Greene to lead its troops in 1775 which I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere.

First, the colony named Greene its brigadier general. That was one rung lower than the rank still held by Simeon Potter, major general.

At the same time the legislature commissioned Greene, it also promoted Potter into its upper house, the Assistants.

Those actions might have kept the hot-tempered man content that he was still being respected. The colony still wanted his cooperation (and his cannon).

At the siege of Boston, Greene was the youngest general and had the least seniority. But he was still lumped in with the other generals. In June, Nathaniel Folsom reported back to New Hampshire: “Mr. [Artemas] Ward is Capt. General, Mr. [John] Thomas Lieut. General, and the other Generals are Major Generals.” That was their practical pecking order, not their formal ranks.

In July, the Continental Congress listed Greene as a brigadier general, alongside Thomas, William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Sullivan, and others. In the summer of 1776 Greene became a Continental major general, and that remained his official rank throughout the war.

Here’s another possible factor in Rhode Island’s choice of Greene to command its army in 1775: Nobody else wanted the job.

The army of observation was designated as 1,500 soldiers, smaller than the other three New England colonies. Whoever commanded that contingent was bound to be low man on the totem pole around Boston. And in practice Greene was able to collect only about a thousand men.

For a Rhode Island man of military ambition, it might have seemed more promising to stay home and organize the coastal defense against British naval raids. At least you’d be the biggest fish in the pond.

What’s more, prospects might have looked even more promising at sea. Rhode Island was a maritime society. Many of its leading men were merchant captains who in wartime commanded or invested in privateers. As the example of Simeon Potter showed, that form of warfare could be the path to a life-changing windfall. Even naval captains had a chance at wealthy prizes.

On 12 June, Rhode Island became the first rebellious colony to commission its own navy, making Abraham Whipple the commander over two armed vessels. Whipple seized the Diana, a tender of H.M.S. Rose, off Newport three days later.

In October, Rhode Island’s delegates to the Continental Congress pushed for the creation of a Continental Navy. Ultimately delegate Stephen Hopkins’s brother Esek was appointed the first commander in chief of that branch.

That fall, the Rhode Island assembly (having given up on Simeon Potter) had appointed Esek Hopkins a brigadier general for defense of the colony. But the man jumped at the opportunity to go to war at sea. Because that was probably where he and his neighbors saw the real prestige and money.

In sum, Nathanael Greene might have become a general because senior men in Rhode Island didn’t view that job as important. Nobody foresaw what Greene would make of it.

COMING UP: The New Hampshire army.

“I have pleased myself with the thought of serving under you”

As discussed yesterday, sometime in the first week of May 1775 the Rhode Island legislature appointed Nathanael Greene to be the brigadier general of its army of observation.

In his biography of his grandfather, George Washington Greene wrote:

There is a tradition, but I will not vouch for it, that the first choice fell upon an Episcopalian, who declined; the second, on a Congregationalist, who also declined; and that, when the third vote was announced as having fallen on Greene, he rose in his place, and said: “Since the Episcopalian and Congregationalist won’t, I suppose the Quaker must.”

That’s about as tepid an endorsement for a “tradition” as a nineteenth-century biographer could provide. And the religious terms “Episcopalian” and “Congregationalist” weren’t standard in 1775, suggesting it wasn’t exact.

One recent biographer of Nathanael Greene has suggested that those first two candidates for command declined on religious grounds. I think that’s a misreading of the tradition. The first two faiths mentioned weren’t pacifist. That was the point of the anecdote—the irony of a (lapsed) Quaker leading an army instead of men from sects that didn’t object to military action. And the story might have some validity, though I doubt it happened in a legislative session.

The legislature’s first choice probably was Simeon Potter, already major general of the colony militia. At least, the body couldn’t ignore him. And Potter was an Anglican, even if he’d punched his minister in the face back in 1761. (Incidentally, the Rev. John Usher died on 30 Apr 1775, just as these discussions about the Rhode Island army were under way.)

Another candidate for command whom G. W. Greene and later biographers mentioned is James Mitchell Varnum (shown here), captain of the Kentish Guards. He’d grown up in Dracut, Massachusetts, as what people would later term a Congregationalist. That said, there were many others of that faith in Rhode Island as well, some probably quite senior to the twenty-six-year-old Varnum.

Varnum and Greene had worked together in the fall of 1774 to form the Guards, an independent militia company based in East Greenwich. Varnum, a rising young attorney, was chosen as the first captain. Encouraged by a cousin, Greene put his name forward to be a lieutenant, only to learn that some members thought his limp meant he didn’t look good marching in an elite company at all.

Sometime in October, it appears, Greene wrote to Varnum:

If I conceive right of the force of the objection of the gentlemen of the town, it was not as an officer, but as a soldier for that my halting was a blemish to the rest. I confess it is my misfortune to limp a little, but I did not conceive it to be so great; but we are not apt to discover our own defects. . . .

I have pleased myself with the thought of serving under you, but as it is the general opinion that I am unfit for such an undertaking, I shall desist. I feel not the less inclination to promote the good of the company, because I am not to be one of its members. I will do anything that's in my power to procure the charter.

Apparently Varnum had spoken of leaving the company himself if Greene was forced out because the letter continued:

Let me entreat you, Sir, if you have any regard for me, not to forsake the company at this critical season for I fear the consequences—if you mean to oblige me by it, I assure you it will not, I would not have the company break and disband for fifty Dollars

Varnum stayed with the company and apparently convinced Greene to do the same.

On 29 October, the legislature, with Greene as a delegate, issued a charter for the Kentish Guards. Its act listed the dozens of men who had petitioned for that charter, starting with Varnum and the other three designated as officers, including Christopher Greene. The fifth name on that list was Nathanael Greene. So officially he was a leading member.

It’s conceivable that some fallout from that affair influenced the choice of Greene as general in May 1775. If the legislature did approach Varnum, he may have thought it was Greene’s turn to lead. Or perhaps, with a real war looming, organizational skills seemed a lot more important than a slight limp.

TOMORROW: Hidden factors in the decision.

The Mysterious Rise of Nathanael Greene

In Massachusetts, the lower house of the General Court published annual detailed journals of what it (officially) discussed each day.

The clerk of the Provincial Congress kept similarly detailed notes, and that record was published in 1838.

Rhode Island’s assembly, in contrast, issued a bare-bones record of each legislative session: lists of elected and appointed officials, texts of resolutions and new laws. No specific dates between the day the assembly convened and when the session ended. No mention of failed petitions, disagreements with the upper house, committee reports, or the like.

As a result, Rhode Island’s legislative process is opaque. We know a session started on 22 April to wrap up the fiscal year and, in response to news from Massachusetts, to form a 1,500-man “army of observation.” But the only official clue to the date of that crucial resolution was how Gov. Joseph Wanton and Lt. Gov. Darius Sessions’s protest against it was dated 25 April.

Among the last actions of that legislature was:

IT is Voted and Resolved, That Mr. Nathaniel Greene be, and he is hereby, appointed in the Room of the Honorable Samuel Ward, Esq; (who is going to the Continental Congress) to wait on the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut, to consult upon Measures for the common Defence of the Four New-England Governments.

A new assembly convened on “the First Wednesday in May,” or 3 May. The legislature continued to build up the army. With Gov. Wanton staying home, lawmakers established a committee of safety to oversee that process.

Nathanael Greene and fellow delegate William Bradford were reimbursed for “their Service, Horse-Hire and Expences” on that Connecticut trip. Simeon Potter, Greene, and Daniel Owen were made a committee to audit the accounts of a man making “Six Gun-Carriages” for the colony. There was more activity.

And then suddenly the records shows a long list of new appointments. Simeon Potter was elevated to the upper house. William Bradford went onto the committee of safety. And atop the first list of “Officers of the Army of Observation” was:

Nathaniel Greene, jun. Esq; Brigadier-General.

Greene’s commission was dated 8 May, so the discussion that led to the creation of that handsome formal document must have taken place over the preceding week. But we know next to nothing about it.

We know Greene had represented the town of Coventry in the assembly for a few years. (For a while historians thought this was a different man, and indeed there were other Nathaniel Greenes active in Rhode Island affairs, but documents came to light to confirm his service.) The Greene family was enmeshed in the colony‘s politics.

We know Greene was particularly involved in the formation and training of the Kentish Guards, in Rhode Islanders’ initial response to the Lexington Alarm, and on the military committees listed above.

On the other hand, Nathanael Greene didn’t have a high rank in the colony militia. Indeed, he was only a private in the Kentish Guards, as I’ll discuss tomorrow.

Nonetheless, when the time came to go to war, the legislature promoted Greene above that unit’s captain, James Mitchell Varnum, and all other militia colonels to command its army. How that happened is an enduring mystery.

TOMORROW: Other candidates.

Rhode Island’s “vote for raising men”

As soon as he heard about the shooting at Lexington, James Warren, delegate from Plymouth to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, passed the news on to Patriots in Rhode Island.

On 20 April the elite militia company called the Kentish Guards mustered and marched toward Massachusetts.

Before those men reached the border, a message arrived from Gov. Joseph Wanton (shown here), ordering the unit to stand down.

Four members continued on horseback, three of them being Nathanael Greene and his brothers. But once those men heard that the British troops were back inside Boston and the emergency had passed, they went home to Rhode Island to sort things out.

The colony’s first step came quickly. On 22 April the assembly passed an act to raise 1,500 men

properly armed and disciplined, to continue in this colony, as an army of observation, to repel any insult or violence that may be offered to the inhabitants. And also, if it be necessary for the safety and preservation of any of the colonies, to march out of this colony and join and co-operate with the forces of the neighboring colonies.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had also used the phrase “army of observation” in early April, implying a purely defensive force. Once the fighting began, however, it dropped that phrase entirely. Even as the Rhode Island assembly called its new troops an “army of observation,” it was clearly opening the door to sending those men off to help Massachusetts in its war.

Top officials in the colony resisted. Though Gov. Wanton had been crucial to stymieing the Crown’s Gaspee inquiry a couple of years before, he filed a protest against the legislature’s vote. Deputy Governor Darius Sessions joined him along with two members of the Council of Assistants (the upper house), Thomas Wickes and William Potter. On 25 April they declared their opposition to the new army

Because we are of opinion that such a measure will be attended with the most fatal consequences to our charter privileges, involve the Colony in all the horrors of a civil war, and, as we conceive, is an open violation of the oath of allegiance, which we have severally taken upon our admission into the respective offices we now hold in the Colony.

Coincidentally, Rhode Island’s charter called for a new legislative session to start on the first Wednesday of each May. In that spring’s annual election, Sessions, Wickes, and Potter all lost their seats. (Potter would recant and apologize in June, and then return to the Council of Assistants.) Nicholas Cooke became the new deputy governor.

Rhode Island’s freemen reelected Joseph Wanton as governor, but on 2 May he sent a letter to the assembly saying, “indisposition prevents me from meeting you.” Instead he enclosed what Lord Dartmouth, the British Secretary of State, considered a conciliatory offer. Wanton thought that was a more promising route to resolving the crisis. He told the legislators:

The prosperity and happiness of this colony, is founded in its connexion with Great Britain; “for if once we are separated, where shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws and commerce, we must bleed at every vein.”

That passage quoted from John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. (Some authors miss the quote marks and attribute those words to Wanton himself.)

On 5 May the legislative speaker, Metcalf Bowler, tried to force the governor’s hand. He sent a blank commission for an officer in the new army and asked Wanton whether he would sign such a form. The governor replied:

I cannot comply with it; having heretofore protested against the vote for raising men, as a measure inconsistent with my duty to the King, and repugnant to the true and real interest of this government.

At that point the assembly bypassed Gov. Wanton and started treating Nicholas Cooke as the colony’s chief executive. Wanton wouldn’t be officially replaced until November, but he could no longer stand in the way of Rhode Island’s army.

TOMORROW: Finding a general.

New Collection from the Journal of the American Revolution

Next month Westholme Publishing will issue The Journal of the American Revolution Annual Volume 2024, edited ably once again by Don N. Hagist.

This webpage about the book says it will contain two articles by me.

In fact, the book will have only one article from me. That’s because I combined my two web articles about the confounding Samuel Dyer into one complete study.

This volume offers many other articles about Revolutionary New England, including:

• Remember Baker: A Green Mountain Boy’s Controversial Death and Its Consequences by Mark R. Anderson
• John Hancock’s Politics and Personality in Ten Quotes by Brooke Barbier
• Mercy Otis Warren: Revolutionary Propagandist by Jonathan House
• Captain James Morris of the Connecticut Light Infantry by Chip Langston
• Smallpox Threatens an American Privateer at Sea by Christian McBurney
• John Adams and Nathanael Greene Debate the Role of the Military by Curtis F. Morgan, Jr.
• The Perfidious Benjamin Church and Paul Revere by Louis Arthur Norton
• The Highs and Lows of Ethan Allen’s Reputation as Reported by Revolutionary-Era Newspapers by Gene Procknow
• Captain Luke Day: A Forgotten Leader of “Shays’s Rebellion” by Scott M. Smith
• Engaging the Glasgow by Eric Sterner

(My apologies to the authors of any other relevant articles I missed.)

And there are of course lots of articles about the American Revolution in, you know, other places.

“No body ever heard of a quarter Master in History as such”

As part of last weekend’s History Camp Valley Forge, I signed up for a tour of “F.O.B. Valley Forge” led by Army War College professor Ricardo A. Herrera, author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778.

I’ve visited Valley Forge before, but I was pleased to view the terrain again with an expert guide.

While standing in front of the oversized mounted statue of Gen. Anthony Wayne, Herrera spoke about how the Continental Army’s supply problems that winter were exacerbated by the lack of a quartermaster general. Thomas Mifflin resigned from that administrative post (for the second time) in November 1777.

In March 1778, Gen. George Washington finally twisted the arm of his most trusted lieutenant, Nathanael Greene, to take that job. It had been filled by civilians before, and Greene insisted on a promise that he could return to his army rank afterwards.

A year later, on 29 Apr 1779, Greene made his ongoing feelings about the assignment clear in a letter to Washington:

There is a great difference between being raisd to an Office and decending to one; which is my case. There is also a great difference betwext serving where you have a fair prospect of honor and laurels, and where you have no prospect of either let you discharge your duty ever so well. No body ever heard of a quarter Master in History as such or in relateing any brilliant Action.

But Greene was doing the job. His first big action as quartermaster general, Herrera explained, was to launch a “grand forage,” sending troops out into the countryside around Valley Forge to collect every type of supply that the army needed, paying in Continental scrip whether farmers were happy about that or not.

Greene put Wayne in charge of the main part of that effort. Col. Henry Lee and Cmdre. John Barry scoured other areas. That campaign for supplies kept the army together in the spring of 1777.

As I looked up at the statue of Wayne, I wondered whether there was a similar statue of Greene, given his importance. So I did some quick web-searching. Washington, Wayne, and Steuben appear to have been the only generals with standalone statues in Valley Forge National Park until this century.

In 2015, a statue of Greene by Susie Chisholm was put up near the Washington Memorial Chapel. It’s life-sized, not oversized. It’s on foot, not mounted. And I suspect it’s at that location because the chapel and its grounds are episcopal property, not part of the national park. (The National Park Service is in the business of preserving statues and monuments, not installing new ones.) Chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution funded this memorial.

And that public artwork is making sure that somebody has heard of a quartermaster.

“Paid my Respects to Generall Washington”

By Saturday, 24 March, the merchant John Rowe was so used to dining at home that in his diary he started off describing dinner there before remembering he’d dined with a friend and relative, shown here courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum:

I din’d at home with at Mr. [Ralph] Inman’s with him Mrs. [Elizabeth] Inman Genl. [Nathanael] Green Mrs. [Catherine] Green Tuthill Hubbard Mrs. [Dorothy] Forbes, Mr. [John?] Lowell Mrs. Rowe Capt. Gilbt. Speakman & Doctr. [blank] & Spent the Evening at home with Mrs. Rowe Capt. Speakman & Jack Rowe

Some Fire below Nantasket Road—I take it to be a Transport set on Fire to destroy her

Tuthill Hubbard was another Boston merchant, not very active politically. He would become the town’s postmaster.

If another of Inman’s guests was John Lowell (the surname isn’t clear in the manuscript), Rowe might have spoken to him about recovering the value of the goods the British military confiscated on their departure. Later in the year, Lowell would represent Rowe and other merchants in that effort.

The next day was a Sunday:

afternoon I went to Church Mr. [Samuel] Parker Read prayers & preached from the 22d. Chapter of St. Mathew . . . This was a very Good Sermon & considering the distressing Time A Good many People At Church. . . .

A Transport was burnt Last night in the Lighthouse Channell

The British evacuation fleet was still hovering in the outer harbor as 25 March dawned, and Rowe tracked its movement on Monday:

The Fleet still in Nantasket Road—

A Great many of the Ships in Nantasket Sailed this Afternoon

278 Dollars continintall

There’s no indication what that last line referred to, but Rowe was getting used to a new currency.

On Tuesday, 26 March, John Rowe completed the task of cozying up to the new power structure to protect his commercial interests:

Snowd a Little to Night— . . .

I waited on Genl. Greene this morning with Mr. Baker abo. Some Iron on my Wharff.

I din’d at home with Capt. Timothy Folger The Revd. Mr. [Samuel] Parker Mr. [Jonathan] Warner Mr. Richd. Greene Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe—

after dinner I went with Mr. Parker & paid my Respects to Generall [George] Washington who Receivd us Very Politely.

I’ll leave Rowe there for the nonce, having successfully trimmed his sails in March 1776.

Reading Nathanael Greene, Quartermaster General

The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia has just finished digitizing its collection of Nathanael Greene Papers.

All the scans can be read through the Revolutionary City portal, created by the A.P.S., the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library Company of Philadelphia.

The A.P.S. collection comes from Gen. Greene’s years working as the quartermaster general, 1778 to 1780, and doesn’t contain any private correspondence.

As Thomas Johns III writes on the society’s blog:

As Quartermaster General, Nathanael Greene struggled with, but ultimately improved, the transportation of troops and supplies that the Continental Army depended upon. The need for supplies fluctuated throughout the war, but their successful transportation remained essential to the American cause. . . .

During the Philadelphia Campaign, fear of impressment caused many Pennsylvanians to conceal their wagons, horses, oxen, etc. When property was taken, those affected sought to have their damages repaid. Attempts at this, both formal and informal, are documented in the collection. Further, this collection mentions legislation from the General Assemblies of Rhode Island and New York that limited the impressment of articles and wagon-teams by the Continental Army.

Greene was the most successful quartermaster general the Continental Army produced. He took the job reluctantly months after Thomas Mifflin had resigned the post for the second time, and was able to stabilize the office and hand it off to Timothy Pickering.

Mifflin and Pickering were both merchants, so they understood bargaining for goods, but Greene brought a different sort of peacetime experience. As manager of his family’s anchor-making workshop in Rhode Island, he oversaw a proto-industrial factory with a skilled workforce to manage, supplies to obtain, customers to satisfy. Very few men in the young U.S. of A. had that sort of knowledge.

Understanding logistics and supplies for the whole army in turn helped Greene in waging that southern campaign in the last years of the war—but that’s beyond the timeframe of this documentary collection.

The largest collection of Nathanael Greene Papers is in the Clements Library at the University of Michigan. A small collection is in Manuscripts and Archives at Yale.

Looking All the Way Back on History Camp 2022

Many of the sessions at last month’s History Camp Boston were recorded, and the videos are going up on the web now.

I started the morning with a talk on “Digging and Debunking: Using Online Tools to Investigate the Myths of American History.” I’m not sure I actually got to all the topics promised in the description:

From Founders’ quotes to inspirational legends to details that historians have repeated for so long that nobody considers where they came from, our history abounds with assertions that we should be skeptical about. This workshop discusses how to assess such historical tales and tidbits. It will share tactics for using Google Books and other free resources to pinpoint when and where stories arose, and lay out the dynamic of “grandmother’s tales,” “memory creep,” and other ways legends spread. And every so often these techniques reveal that a story almost too good to be true is supported by solid evidence.

Then again, I wrote that description in late 2019, so I’m just glad that I got to this talk at all. (The blog posting I used as a visual aid and online starting-point is here.)

At the end of the day I was part of a panel on “Using New Media to Present History” organized by Michael Troy of the American Revolution Podcast, with Jake Sconyers of HUB History and Larisa Moran of History Dame.

A panel of podcasters, bloggers, and video bloggers discusses how new forms of media are transforming the presentation of History. We will discuss how podcasting and other new media differ from traditional media, why they reach new audiences, and trends in how presenting new media is continuing to change.

As usual, those sessions conflicted directly with others I’d hoped to attend, so I’m pleased that many more talks were recorded. Here are videos of other History Camp Boston 2022 sessions on aspects of Revolutionary America:

• Matthew Wilding and Mary Adams of Revolutionary Spaces on “Gamifying History: Roleplaying the Revolution”
• Salina B. Baker on “General Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution”
• Nancy Rubin Stuart on “Poor Richard’s Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father”
• Steve Butz on “Shays’ Settlement in Vermont”
• David Dalrymple on “Captain Patrick Ferguson’s Experimental Corps of Riflemen”
• Roberta DeCenzo on “The Last Civilian Royal Governors of Colonial Massachusetts”
• Andy Volpe on “Re-Engraving Paul Revere: The Boston Massacre”
• Judy Cataldo on “The Bloody Flux of 1775, Looking at the Little Picture”
• Scott Nadler on “Inconvenient Founders: Thomas Young and the Forgotten Disrupters of the Revolution”

Plus you can see four presentations on aspects of the Salem Witch Trials! Talks on early westward expansion and Salem’s mercantile flowering and racism in early recorded pop music! Lots more! If more videos come on line after being reviewed, I’ll post more links.

History Camp Boston is a project of The Pursuit of History, a non-profit corporation that produces History Camps in other metro areas, the upcoming online History Camp America, and the weekly History Camp discussions with authors. I’m on the organization’s board. If you’re grateful for this content and want to see more such gatherings, please consider a donation to The Pursuit of History through its webpage.

“Major Scarborough Gridley guilty of a breach of orders”

On 24 Sept 1775, Maj. Scarborough Gridley’s career in the Continental Army came to an end.

Gridley was the fourth-ranking officer in the artillery regiment. More important, he was the son of the regimental commander, Col. Richard Gridley.

When the Massachusetts Provincial Congress summoned Richard Gridley in April 1775 and asked him to come out of retirement to lead its artillery and engineering force, one of his conditions was a high rank for his youngest son.

On 17 June, Maj. Gridley was ordered to take his artillery company onto the Charlestown peninsula and help defend the provincials’ new redoubt on Breed’s Hill. He found something else to do.

Three months later, that led to a court-martial. And on 24 September Gen. George Washington’s orders stated:

Major Scarborough Gridley, try’d at a late Genl Court Martial, whereof Brigd. Genl [Nathanael] Green was president, for “being deficient in his duty upon the 17th June last, the day of the Action upon Bunkers-hill”—

The Court find Major Scarborough Gridley guilty of a breach of orders; They do therefore dismiss him from the Massachusetts service; But on Account of his inexperience and Youth, and the great confusion which attended that days transaction in general, they do not consider him incapable of a Continental Commission, should the General Officers recommend him to his Excellency—

The General confirms the dismission of Major Scarborough Gridley, and orders it to take place accordingly.

Scar Gridley was born on 9 Oct 1739, so “inexperience and Youth” referred to his age of…thirty-five. Clearly that line was a sop to his father, as was the idea that he might become an officer in the army Washington was organizing for the new year. The commander pointedly took no notice of anything but this “young” man being dismissed.

Other Americans noticed the dismissal as well. The artist Bernard Romans produced a print titled “An Exact View of the late Battle at Charlestown, June 17, 1775.” The Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken copied that to make “A Correct View of The Late Battle at Charlestown: June 17th, 1775.”

Romans’s image included a detail, shown above, of Maj. Scar Gridley staying in the foreground, out of the battle, trading cannon shot with a Royal Navy ship in the Charles River. He helpfully labeled that figure “Broken Officer.” (Aitken appears to have left out Romans’s labels, which would have been of most interest to New Englanders.)

Thus, Maj. Gridley’s contemporaries viewed his deficiency as crucial to the American defeat at Bunker Hill and were willing to pay to see why he was thrown out of the army. His five months of military service were not a success.

TOMORROW: Whatever happened to Maj. Gridley?

An Acquittal and a Conviction

On 29 Aug 1775, Gen. George Washington told Richard Henry Lee, “I have at this time one Colo., one Major, one Captn, & two Subalterns under arrest for tryal.”

The colonel was John Mansfield of Lynn, originally scheduled to be tried in early August. The major was Scarborough Gridley of Stoughton, in the artillery regiment. As I described yesterday, Gridley had stayed out of the main fighting at Bunker Hill and ordered Mansfield (who had a higher rank) to keep his infantry regiment nearby.

The captain was another artillery officer, Capt. Edward Crafts (1746-1806). He was a younger brother of Thomas Crafts, one of the Loyall Nine who organized the first public protest against the Stamp Act and then remained active in Whig politics. Thomas was an officer in Boston’s militia artillery company, and Edward trained in that unit as a young man.

Edward Crafts was a tinner by profession. He was still in Boston in 1770, when he supplied a deposition for the town’s Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre. But back in 1768 he had married a country girl, Eliot Winship of Lexington. In 1771 the growing family moved to Worcester. At the end of 1773 Edward became a founding member of the American Political Society, his new town’s new club for Whig politics.

As the province moved toward military conflict in 1774, Worcester put Crafts on a committee to acquire and mount four cannon. He started to train a militia regiment to use those guns. Both Massachusetts Provincial Congress records and spy reports to Gen. Thomas Gage describe a large number of artillery pieces in the town by the spring of 1775.

When war broke out, however, Edward Crafts marched as a private in the town’s minuteman company. Then he returned home and recruited an artillery company to serve through the rest of the year. According to most listings of the Massachusetts artillery regiment under Col. Richard Gridley, Crafts was the senior captain.

That might have given him the stature, and the boldness, to challenge Maj. Scar Gridley. The colonel’s son was nominally fourth in command of the regiment, but in practice he was the colonel’s main aide and protégé. Sometime in the summer of 1775, after Maj. Gridley had behaved so ineffectually at Bunker Hill, he and Capt. Crafts exchanged words and accusations.

That led to the first of a series of court-martial proceedings, starting 1 September. The next day’s general orders announced the verdict:

Capt. Edward Crafts of Col. Gridley’s regiment of Artillery, tried yesterday by a General Court Martial, is acquitted of that part of the Charge against him, which relates to [“]defrauding of his men,” and the Court are also of opinion, that no part of the Charge against the prisoner is proved, except that of using abusive expressions to Major Gridley; which being a breach of the 49th Article of the Rules and Regulations for the Massachusetts Army; sentence the Prisoner to receive a severe reprimand from the Lt Col. of the Artillery in the presence of all the Officers of the regiment and that he at the said time, ask pardon of Major Gridley for the said abusive language.

The lieutenant colonel of the regiment was William Burbeck. I have no idea if he made Capt. Crafts perform this ritual before the end of the month because there was still more legal business to get through.

According to the diary of Lt. Benjamin Crafts (an Essex County cousin of the Crafts brothers from Boston), Col. Mansfield’s court-martial started on 8 September. A week later, on 15 September, the commander’s general orders declared the outcome:

Col. John Mansfield of the 19th Regt of foot, tried at a General Court Martial, whereof Brigdr Genl [Nathanael] Green was president, for “remissness and backwardness in the execution of his duty, at the late engagement on Bunkers-hill”; The Court found the Prisoner guilty of the Charge and of a breach of the 49th Article of the rules and regulations of the Massachusetts Army and therefore sentence him to be cashiered and render’d unfit to serve in the Continental Army.

The General [Washington] approves the sentence and directs it to take place immediately.

Notably, although the Continental Army kicked Mansfield out, the voters of Lynn chose him for their town committee of correspondence, inspection, and safety almost every year until the end of the war, and also voted to have him moderate town meetings.

Likewise, the voters of Newbury sent Samuel Gerrish to the Massachusetts General Court in 1776, the year after the army cashiered him the same way. Those gentlemen’s neighbors felt they still deserved leadership responsibilities.

COMING UP: The trial of Scarborough Gridley.

[The photo above shows the modern marker on Edward Crafts’s grave in Potter, New York, where the family moved in 1792, courtesy of Find a Grave. The original stone also survives there.]

“Remissness and backwardness” at Bunker Hill

On 13 Aug 1775, Gen. George Washington issued orders for a court-martial to take place the following day with Gen. Nathanael Greene presiding.

The defendant was Col. John Mansfield (1721-1809) of Lynn. Three junior officers in his regiment had accused him “of high Crimes and Misdemeanors”—namely “remissness and backwardness in the execution of his duty, at the late engagement on Bunkers-hill.”

But there was a delay. On 17 August, Washington told Greene and the other officers to try Col. Samuel Gerrish instead. There were also hearings on officers of lesser rank in that month. As I discussed last month, Gen. Washington was happy to remove a bunch of officers from the Continental ranks.

On 20 August the commander-in-chief told his cousin and overseer Lund Washington, “there is two more Colos. now under arrest, & to be tried for the same Offences.” One was Mansfield.

Why the delay? The charge against Mansfield also involved Maj. Scarborough Gridley of the artillery regiment, who was a protégé of his father, Col. Richard Gridley. The colonel was highly respected in Massachusetts because of his service in the last two wars, particularly the 1745 siege of Louisbourg. With a half-pay pension from the Crown, he was seen as the equivalent of a British army artillerist. The Massachusetts government had even moved to promote Col. Gridley to major general on 23 June.

Gen. Washington and particularly Gen. Charles Lee were not at all impressed with Col. Gridley’s fortifications and other work when they arrived in Cambridge in July. Washington informed the Continental Congress of Gridley’s new Massachusetts rank but pointedly didn’t endorse it. The Congress commissioned him as a Continental colonel instead. But people still didn’t want to totally alienate Col. Gridley.

What’s more, for a significant time that summer the colonel was home in Stoughton recovering a wound he’d suffered at Bunker Hill. His son Scar was the only liaison between him and the army. So both politically and practically, Maj. Scar Gridley was almost untouchable for a while.

That’s where the incident with Col. Mansfield came in. Mansfield’s failing at the Battle of Bunker Hill was to listen to Maj. Scar Gridley. As Richard Frothingham explained the situation in his History of the Siege of Boston, both officers had been ordered onto the battlefield on the Charlestown peninsula but stopped before crossing the neck:

Major Gridley, of the artillery, inadequate to his position, with part of the battalion, marched a short distance on Cambridge road, then halted, and resolved to cover the retreat, which he thought to be inevitable. Col. [Joseph] Frye, fresh from the battle, urged him forward; but Gridley, appalled by the horrors of the scene, ordered his men to fire at the [Royal Navy ship] Glasgow, and batteries from Cobble Hill. He also ordered Colonel Mansfield to support him with his regiment, who, violating his orders, obeyed.

To convict Mansfield of disobeying higher orders, cowardice, or incompetence would imply that Scar Gridley was guilty of the same charges. And how would his father respond? That might have been why Mansfield’s court martial took so long to get started.

In early September 1775, however, the court-martial proceedings started again. The logjam might have been broken from below as officers in the artillery regiment fired accusations at each other.

TOMORROW: Two trials in two weeks.

“Improper to sustain a commission”

On 16 Aug 1775, the Continental Army issued its internal response to the fiery British raid on the Penny Ferry landing in Malden, described back here.

As quoted in Col. William Henshaw’s orderly book:

Captain Eleazer Lindsey of Colonel Gerrish’s regiment, tried by a general court-martial for absenting himself from his post, which was attacked and abandoned to the enemy; the court, on consideration, are of opinion that Captain Lindsey be discharged the service, as a person improper to sustain a commission.

This was one of a series of court-martial proceedings in that week. On 13 August orders had gone out for some men to be confined, and the next day Gen. Nathanael Greene (shown here) assembled a panel of high-ranking officers in the Harvard College chapel.

On 18 August, Greene’s panel tried Col. Samuel Gerrish and unanimously found “That he behaved unworthy an Officer” during the British assault on Sewall’s Point. The court-martial cited “the 49th Article of the Rules and Regulations of the Massachusetts Army,” which was a grab-bag clause:

All Crimes not capital, and all Disorders and Neglects, which Officers and Soldiers may be guilty of, to the Prejudice of good Order and military Discipline, though not mentioned in the Articles of War, are to be taken cognizance of by a general or regimental Court-Martial, according to the Nature and Degree of the Offence, and be punished at their Discretion.

The court recommended that Gerrish “be cashiered, and render’d incapable of any employment in the American Army.” Gen. George Washington approved that sentence the next day.

On 25 August, the commander-in-chief transferred the company formerly under Capt. Lindsey out of the regiment formerly under Col. Gerrish and back into the regiment of Col. Ruggles Woodbridge.

I’ve already quoted what Washington wrote about these actions to his overseer on 20 August. Nine days later he wrote something similar to Richard Henry Lee:

I have made a pretty good Slam among such kind of officers as the Massachusets Government abound in since I came to this Camp, having Broke one Colo. and two Captains for Cowardly beh[aviour in] the action on Bunker’s Hill—Two captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they had men in their Company—and one for being absent from his Post when the Enemy appeared there, and burnt a House just by it.

Besides these, I have at this time one Colo., one Major, one Captn, & two Subalterns under arrest for tryal—

In short I spare none & yet fear it will not all do, as these Peeple seem to be too inattentive to every thing but their Interest.

Washington’s comments don’t line up exactly with the court-martial sentences. Gerrish was formally charged with poor behavior well after Bunker Hill, and both Lindsey and Capt. Christopher Gardner could be described as “being absent from his Post when the Enemy appeared there, and burnt a House just by it.” But the overall trend is clear.

Three Revolutionary War Symposia in Three Weekends

Three Revolutionary War symposia are happening on successive weekends this fall, so it’s time to pick and prepare.

On 20-22 September, Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York will host its sixteenth Annual Seminar on the American Revolution. The speakers are:

• John Buchanan, “Nathanael Greene and the Road to Charleston”
• Mark R. Anderson, “Our Kahnawake Friends: America’s Essential Indian Allies in the Canadian Campaign”
• Phillip Hamilton, “Loyalty and Loyalism: Henry Knox and the American Revolution as a Transatlantic Family Struggle”
• Patrick Lacroix, “Promises to Keep: French-Canadian Soldiers of the Revolution, 1775-1783”
• Bryan C. Rindfleisch, “‘’Twas a Duty Incumbent on Me’: The Indigenous & Transatlantic Intimacies of George Galphin, the American Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the South”
• John Ruddiman, “German Auxiliaries’ Reactions to American Slavery and Relationships with Enslaved Americans”
• Jessica J. Sheets, “‘I Hope…We Shall Ever Be on Terms of Friendship’: The Politically Divided Tilghman Family”
• Alisa Wade, “‘To Live a Widow’: Personal Sacrifice and Self-Sufficiency in the American Revolution”

On Saturday, 28 September, the first Emerging Revolutionary War Symposium will take place at the Gadsby’s Tavern Museum in Alexandria, Virginia. This year’s theme is “Before They Were Americans,” and the speakers will discuss what led to the idea of breaking from Britain:

• Peter Henriques, “George Washington: From British Subject to American Rebel”
• Phillip Greenwalt, “I wish this cursed place was burned: Boston and the Road to Revolution”
• Katherine Gruber, “A Tailor-Made Revolution: Clothing William Carlin’s Alexandria”
• William Griffith, “A proud, indolent, ignorant self sufficient set: The Colonists’ Emergence as a Fighting Force in the French and Indian War”
• Stephanie Seal Walters, “Smallpox to Revolution”

Register through this link.


Lastly, on 3-5 October, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, in partnership with the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, will host the first International Conference on the American Revolution, bringing scholars from Britain, Ireland, and the U.S. of A. together.

The M.O.A.R. says:

The conference will coincide with the opening of Cost of Revolution: The Life and Death of an Irish Soldier, the Museum’s first international loan exhibition. With more than one hundred works of art, historical objects, manuscripts, and maps from lenders across the globe, Cost of Revolution will explore the Age of Revolutions in America and Ireland through the life story of an Irish-born artist and officer in the British Army, Richard Mansergh St. George (1750s-1798).

Scheduled presentations include:

• Linda Colley, “Britain, America, and Ireland in an Age of War and Revolution”
• Andrew Mackillop, “Losing and Winning: Scotland and the American Revolution”
• Stephen Conway, “Englishness and the American Revolution”
• Matthew Skic, “Cost of Revolution: The Life and Death of an Irish Soldier”
• Gregory J. W. Urwin, “From Parade Ground to Battlefield: How the British Army Adapted to War in North America, 1775-1783”
• Aaron Sullivan, “The Disaffected: Britain’s Occupation of Philadelphia During the American Revolution”
• Lauren Duval, “The Home Front: Gender, Domestic Space, and Military Occupation in the American Revolution”
• Padhraig Higgins, “Playing the Soldier: The Art and Material Culture of Soldiering in Eighteenth-Century Ireland”
• Ruth Kenny, “Insurrection and Identity: The Depiction of Conflict in Late Eighteenth-Century Irish Art”
• Martin Mansergh, “The Legacy of History for Making Peace in Ireland”

Attendees can also sign up for a one-day guided bus following the path of Richard St. George through the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777, a walking tour of the fight for Fort Mifflin, and of course tours of the museum itself.

Speakers at 2019 Revolutionary War Conferences

Here are the line-ups of speakers and topics at two conferences on the Revolutionary War coming later this year.

Though some of the speakers are academics and they’re presenting high-quality research, these aren’t academic gatherings. The focus is sharing stories with other researchers and the interested public rather than developing papers for journals.

Eighth Annual Conference of the American Revolution, America’s History L.L.C., Williamsburg, Virginia, 22-24 Mar 2019

• Rick Atkinson, “The British Are Coming: Waging Expeditionary War in the Age of Sail”
• Rod Andrew, Jr.: “Not the Swamp Fox: South Carolina’s Andrew Pickens in the Revolutionary War”
• Jack Buchanan, “The Road to Charleston: How Nathanael Greene Dealt with Logistics, Civil War and Politics in South Carolina and Georgia”
• Larrie Ferriro, “Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It”
• Stephen Fried, “Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father”
• Don Hagist, “A Thousand Lashes: Discipline in the British Army by the Cat o’ Nine Tails”
• James Kirby Martin, “‘In a Wanton and Barbarous Manner’: Benedict Arnold’s New London Raid and the Fort Griswold ‘Massacre’”
• Eric Schnitzer, “The Hessians are Also Coming: Who Were King George’s Hirelings and Where Did They Come From?”
• Lt. Col. Sean Sculley, “The Contest for Liberty: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783”
• Richard J. Sommers, “Founding Fathers and Fighting Sons: The Revolutionary War Forebears of Civil War Soldiers and Statesmen”

Sixteenth Annual Fort Ticonderoga Seminar on the American Revolution, Fort Ticonderoga, Ticonderoga, New York, 20-22 Sept 2019

• John Buchanan, “Nathanael Greene and the Road to Charleston”
• Mark R. Anderson, “Our Kahnawake Friends: America’s Essential Indian Allies in the Canadian Campaign”
• Phillip Hamilton, “Loyalty and Loyalism: Henry Knox and the American Revolution as a Transatlantic Family Struggle”
• Patrick Lacroix, “Promises to Keep: French-Canadian Soldiers of the Revolution, 1775-1783”
• Bryan C. Rindfleisch, “‘’Twas a Duty Incumbent on Me’: The Indigenous & Transatlantic Intimacies of George Galphin, the American Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the South”
• John Ruddiman, “German Auxiliaries’ Reactions to American Slavery and Relationships with Enslaved Americans”
• Jessica J. Sheets, “‘I Hope…We Shall Ever Be on Terms of Friendship’: The Politically Divided Tilghman Family”
• Alisa Wade, “‘To Live a Widow’: Personal Sacrifice and Self-Sufficiency in the American Revolution”

In addition, the Fort Plain Museum’s annual conference is scheduled for 6-9 June. The preliminary announcement lists speakers, including some of the people above, but the full line-up of topics will come next month.

Dr. Thacher’s Diagnoses

On 7 June 1780, Dr. James Thacher served as a Continental Army surgeon during the Battle of Springfield, New Jersey. In his diary, published decades later, Thacher described one casualty like this:

In the heat of the action, some soldiers brought to me in a blanket, Captain Lieutenant [Alexander] Thompson of the artillery, who had received a most formidable wound, a cannon ball having passed through both his thighs near the knee joint. With painful anxiety, the poor man inquired if I would amputate both his thighs; sparing his feelings, I evaded his inquiry, and directed him to be carried to the hospital tent in the rear, where he would receive the attention of the surgeons. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." He expired in a few hours.

After the battle, Gen. Nathanael Greene reported to the commander-in-chief: "The Artillery under the command of Lt Colonel [Thomas] Forest was well served—I have only to regret the loss of Capt. Lt Thompson who fell at the side of his piece by a cannon ball."

Dr. Thacher recalled having to leave another casualty of the British artillery fire:

While advancing against the enemy, my attention was directed to a wounded soldier in the field. I dismounted and left my horse at a rail fence, it was not long before a cannon ball shattered a rail within a few feet of my horse, and some soldiers were sent to take charge of the wounded man, and to tell me it was time to retire.

I now perceived that our party had retreated, and our regiment had passed me. I immediately mounted and applied spurs to my horse, that I might gain the front of our regiment. Colonel [Henry] Jackson being in the rear, smiled as I passed him; but as my duty did not require my exposure, I felt at liberty to seek a place of safety.

It may be considered a singular circumstance, that the soldier above mentioned was wounded by the wind of a cannon ball. His arm was fractured above the elbow, without the smallest perceptible injury to his clothes, or contusion or discoloration of the skin. He made no complaint, but I observed he was feeble and a little confused in his mind. He received proper attention, but expired the next day. The idea of injury by the wind of a ball, I learn, is not new, instances of the kind have, it is said, occured in naval battles, and are almost constantly attended with fatal effects.

As for other soldiers, Thacher noted another curious condition:

Our troops in camp are in general healthy, but we are troubled with many perplexing instances of indisposition, occasioned by absence from home, called by Dr. [William] Cullen nostalgia, or home sickness. This complaint is frequent among the militia, and recruits from New England. They become dull and melancholy, with loss of appetite, restless nights, and great weakness. In some instances they become so hypochondriacal as to be proper subjects for the hospital. This disease is in many instances cured by the raillery of the old soldiers, but is generally suspended by a constant and active engagement of the mind, as by the drill exercise, camp discipline, and by uncommon anxiety, occasioned by the prospect of a battle.

As at summer camp, staying busy helped alleviate homesickness. As did the prospect of being hit, or even nearly hit, with a cannon ball.

More Special Events in February

Here are a couple more events this month that caught my eye.

On Sunday, 11 February, at 12:30 P.M. the Pickering House in Salem will host a presentation on “17th- & 18th-Century Food and Cookery” by Karen Scalia of Salem Food Tours.

What would the Pickerings and their contemporaries have been eating back then? How would it have been cooked? What about spices? Utensils? Where did they get their ingredients? How dangerous was standing over a fire? What about our friend, the Rumford Roaster?

(That would be the type of oven invented by Benjamin Thompson of Woburn, later Count Rumford, shown here.)

This lecture includes a “mini spice tasting.” The cost is $25, or $20 for Pickering House members. Advance registration required through pickeringhouse1@gmail.com.

Down in New Jersey, Somerset County’s Heritage Trail Association will offer its “Five Generals Tour” on Sunday, 18 February.

The popular bus tour…gives participants an opportunity to visit five of the existing houses where Generals George Washington, Henry Knox, Baron Von Steuben, Nathaniel Greene, and William Alexander were headquartered during the Middlebrook Cantonment of 1778-79. The historic homes include the Abraham Staats House in South Bound Brook, the Jacobus Vanderveer House in Bedminster, the Wallace House in Somerville, the Van Veghten House in Finderne, and the Van Horne House in Bridgewater.

At the Vanderveer House, Bob Heffner of the American Historical Theatre in Philadelphia will portray Gen. Knox (as shown at right). The artillery commander used that house as his headquarters in the winter of 1778-79. Knox also established America’s first military training school in nearby Pluckemin.

The tour begins at the Van Horne House, 941 East Main Street in Bridgewater. Docents will welcome visitors at each home. The bus will return to the Van Horne House between each visit for refreshments. The entire tour will take a little less than three hours, with departures on on the hour from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. Each tour is limited to twenty people. The cost is $25 for adults, $15 for students, free for children under age six. Register through the Heritage Trail Association.

A Greene Family Crisis over Playing Cards

On 29 January 1776, Gen. Nathanael Greene wrote to his brother Christopher from the Continental camp on Prospect Hill about a family crisis—his wife’s friends had played cards in front of their stepmother.

The general wrote:

I am extream sorry that Mr [John] Gooch and Nancy Varnum affronted Mother at my House with Cards. Surely Mrs [Catherine] Greene could not be present. She must have known better. It was insult that I would not have sufferd the best friend I had in the World to have offerd to her.

Altho I think Cards in themselves as innocent as any other pieces of Paper yet its criminal to play before her because they knew how Conscious the friends are in these matters. In the choice of all our pleasures regard should be had to time and place, private and publick Prejudices. Since the Resolution of Congress I have never had a Card in my hand to play, not sufferd one in my House that I remember.

I Love and Esteem the old Lady and should be very sorry that this disagreeable circumstance should be constered into an intentiononal [sic] affront, for I dare presume it proceeded intirely from Ignorance and not out of any disrespect to her. People that have been Accustomed to these things all their Days dont feel upon the Occasion like you and me who have stole the pleasures in secret Corners.

There are layers of disapprobation here. Mary (Collins Rodman) Greene disliked card-playing because of her Quaker values—but obviously her stepsons had snuck in more than a few games.

Then the Continental Congress in its Association of 20 Oct 1774 had urged Americans to avoid “all kinds of gaming,” including cards, and Nathanael Greene said he had complied.

But Nathanael’s wife Catherine came from a higher social class, and she was independent in many ways. It looks like her social circle didn’t adhere to either the Congress’s or traditional Quakers’ strictures against cards. Indeed, despite the general’s expression of certainty, it strikes me that Catherine Greene probably knew exactly what was going on in their house.

John Gooch was probably the same man of that name who became a captain in James Varnum’s Continental Army regiment and saw action at Harlem Heights and Fort Washington in 1776. However, that man’s service at least nominally started in January, so he should have been in the camp when Greene wrote this letter. Maybe he was on recruiting duty while playing cards.

On 9 Feb 1776, Nathanael and Catherine’s first child was born. They named that son after Nathanael’s boss: George Washington Greene. Giving birth apparently freed Catherine to travel, and she reportedly visited the camp at Cambridge before the end of the siege. She certainly spent many months later in the war traveling with the army and socializing with other commanders’ wives rather than staying at home in Rhode Island with her mother-in-law.

The Campaign to Repair and Repaint Spell Hall

The Gen. Nathanael Green Homestead in Coventry, Rhode Island, is using Facebook to raise money to fix up the building’s exterior.

The president of the non-profit corporation that maintains the house, Dave Procaccini, says: “we are raising money to be used to repair damaged and rotted clapboards and trim and for a new coat of paint to protect the Greene Homestead, the National Historic Landmark home of George Washington’s Second in Command. Every little bit helps.”

Nathanael Greene, a bachelor forge owner, commissioned that house and moved in in 1770. He referred to the building in letters as “Spell Hall,” perhaps a reference to local children being taught to read there. It remained his residence until 1783, though he was away for significant periods in those years.

Through October, the Greene Homestead is open four days a week.

“Rhode Island’s Revolutionary Artillery” in Newport, 8 Dec.

On Thursday, 8 December, I’ll speak at the Newport Historical Society on the topic “The Launch of Rhode Island’s Revolutionary Artillery.” I wrote about that development in The Road to Concord, but for this talk I’m assembling more information and analysis.

Here’s the event description:

In December 1774, the Rhode Island Assembly voted to move almost all of the cannons in Newport’s Fort George to Providence in order to, as the governor stated, “prevent their falling into the hands of the King.” The Assembly also formed a new “Train of Artillery,” a military company assigned to use those cannon to defend the colony. Oddly, however, the train’s commanders were from Boston. Within a few months, Rhode Island’s artillerists became one of the most respected units of the new Continental Army.

What links the Boston Tea Party, Providence’s First Baptist Meetinghouse (shown here),  and Rhode Island’s new Train of Artillery? That’s one of the new topics I’ll discuss. I may even venture an explanation about why Rhode Island suddenly promoted Nathanael Greene from a mere private in the Kentish Guards militia company to general in command of its “Army of Observation” around Boston.

This talk will start at 5:30 P.M. in the society’s Resource Center at 82 Touro Street. Admission is $1 for members and active and retired military personnel, $5 for others. To reserve seats, visit this webpage or call 401-841-8770. I’ll happily sign copies of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War afterward.