“I snatch’d the golden glorious Opportunity”

In late July 1775, a Continental Congress delegate from Virginia named Benjamin Harrison (shown here, at least according to the federal government) wrote a letter to Gen. George Washington, an old acquaintance now commanding the American army outside Boston. He sent it north with a young Boston lawyer named Benjamin Hichborn, who was captured by the Royal Navy. (Someday I’ll tell that story in more detail.)

The British authorities in Boston had Harrison’s letter published in the 17 August Boston News-Letter, then being printed by Margaret Draper and John Howe. It was the only newspaper in town, and firmly in support of (and dependent on) the royal government.

Before Harrison’s letter saw print, someone inserted a few extra lines:

As I was in the pleasing Task of writing to you, a little Noise occasioned me to turn my Head round, and who should appear but pretty little Kate, the Washer-woman’s Daughter over the Way, clean, trim and rosey as the Morning; I snatch’d the golden glorious Opportunity, and but for the cursed Antidote to love, Sukey [Harrison’s wife], I had fitted her for my General against his Return. We were obliged to part, but not till we had contrived to meet again; if she keeps the Appointment I shall relish a Week’s longer stay.

At least historians assume those lines were inserted because they don’t appear in copies of the letter that Gen. Thomas Gage sent to his superiors in the Secretary of State’s office in London. (Harrison’s original has not survived.)

Apparently a British “dirty tricks” artist wanted to smear Gen. Washington, and cause personal problems for him. As for Harrison, the aside might in fact have been in character for him; John Adams later described him as “another Sir John Falstaff,…his conversation disgusting to every man of delicacy or decorum.” If Harrison, back in Philadelphia, denied ever writing those lines, Adams probably didn’t believe him.

The copies of that letter sent to the Admiralty in London included the spurious lines. That’s yet more evidence of something we already knew: the British army and navy commanders didn’t get along during the siege of Boston. Gage and his staff didn’t give their naval counterparts copies of the original letter. Adm. Samuel Graves’s staff must have either received a doctored copy, or transcribed the text from the News-Letter.

The Admiral’s Plan to End the War, and the End of the Somerset

On the evening of 19 Apr 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage was absorbing news of his troops’ bloody withdrawal from Concord. According to his later report, Adm. Samuel Graves came to offer this helpful advice:

In an interview this Evening with General Gage the Admiral advised the burning of Charles town and Roxbury, and the seizing of the Heights of Roxbury and Bunkers Hill, (indeed the latter had begun to be fortified, but that work was discontinued for some reasons with which the Admiral was unacquainted);

to this Proposal the General objecting the weakness of the Army, the Admiral replied that he would strengthen it to the utmost of his power by landing what few Marines remained aboard his Fleet, and, if the General would withdraw the 64th Regiment from Castle William, he would garrison it with his Seamen and be answerable for its safety.

Such a plan pursued, at the same time that the three Line of Battle Ships lay opposite to the town full of Rebels and their Goods, would probably have chequed the most daring and have given such am Appearance of activity to our Operations that things might have continued a long time quiet.

It was indeed the Admirals opinion that we ought to act hostiley from this time forward by burning & laying waste the whole country, & his inclination and intentions were to strain every nerve for the public Service.

Having been recalled to England when he wrote this, Graves was defending himself against criticism. He was also writing with the assurance of a man whose plan was passed over in favor of another and could thus say, “If people had only listened to me at the time…”

Gage opted for less punitive measures, with threats instead of actual destruction. The admiral recorded one step:

Capt. [Edward] LeCras was ordered to acquaint the Select Men of Charles Town that if they suffered the Rebels to take possession of their town or erect any works upon the Heights, the Somerset should fire upon them

The Somerset was still guarding the Charles River on 17 June when the British forces spotting provincials building a redoubt on the lower portion of Bunker Hill called Breed’s Hill. Its gun crews immediately went to work, set fire to Charlestown, and made the first kill of that battle.

The warship was part of the evacuation of 1776, returned to England, and was back along the North American coast in 1778, fighting Continental and French ships. During that mission the Somerset ran aground off Truro on 2 November. Twenty-one members of the crew died, and the rest became prisoners of war.

The Massachusetts authorities salvaged all they could, including cannons used to fortify Boston and “several Casks of Oatmeal” assigned to “for the Use of the State Hospital” the following April. The shipwreck itself is now considered the property of the British government.

The Somerset in the Battle of Lexington and Concord

On 18 Apr 1775, the warship Somerset was moored in the Charles River at the narrow point between Boston’s North End and Charlestown. Its guns never fired and its sailors took no part in any fighting the next day, but the warship was significant in the Battle of Lexington and Concord in several ways.

First, the Somerset, like most of the other Royal Navy ships around Boston that day, supplied boats and crews to ferry Lt. Col. Francis Smith’s column across the Charles to Cambridge.

Second, the ship with its 68 guns (according to a January count) stopped the usual ferry from crossing the river, thus preventing travelers from carrying news of evening preparations for the expedition out of Boston to the countryside.

Paul Revere had prepared for just such an obstacle, however. He had confederates send a signal to the Committee of Safety in Charlestown by hanging two lanterns in the Christ Church steeple. And, to be safe, he had two friends row him across the Charles—which meant passing the warship. In 1798 Revere recalled:

two friends rode me across the Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset man-of-war lay. It was then young flood, the ship was winding, and the moon was rising.

Donald W. Olson and Russell L. Doescher discussed how the angle of the moonlight aided Revere’s passage in this 1992 article for Sky and Telescope.

The action then shifted to the mainland, and the west. The journal on board H.M.S. Preston records this order for late on 19 April:

at 1/2 past 5 hoisted a Red flag at the Main Topmast head and fired a Gun as a Signal for all the Marines of the fleet to go on board the Somerset

About ninety minutes later the British column and its reinforcement under Col. Percy reached Charlestown from the west, many of the men exhausted and their ammunition depleted. Adm. Samuel Graves later wrote of his own preparations:

the Admiral ordered all the Marines on Board to be ready to land at a Moments Warning upon a Signal for that purpose, and by desire of General [Thomas] Gage, they were landed in the afternoon at Charles Town under the command of Captain Lieut. James Johnson to cover the retreat of our harrassed Soldiers.

But it was the Somerset alone that preserved the detachment from Ruin. The vicinity of that formidable Ship to Charles Town so intimidated its Inhabitants that they (tho’ reluctantly) suffered the Kings Troops to come in and pass over to Boston, who would otherwise have been undoubtedly attacked, and in their defenceless conditions such a proceeding must have been fatal to all the Land Forces on that side…

Graves went on to claim that his navy ship had saved all the army troops in Boston as well. After having “massacred those poor harrassed Soldiers” at the end of their march, he said, the Charlestown people would have crossed into Boston, found “19 out of 20” men ready to help them, and destroyed the rest of the redcoats as well. I doubt army officers saw the navy as that crucial.

TOMORROW: Adm. Graves’s plan to put down the rebellion, and the end of the Somerset.

The Somerset Repaired for “Considerable Service”

H.M.S. Somerset arrived in Boston harbor in December 1774, carrying 68 cannon and a contingent of British Marines under the command of Maj. John Pitcairn. By the end of that year all those men had been landed and housed in barracks. As for the ship itself, Adm. Samuel Graves reported to London in January:

The Somerset was so leaky at Sea that two Hand Pumps were continually at Work, and it is the constant Employment at present of one hand to pump to Keep her free.

This Somerset was thirty years old that year, as described on this website of a group that reenacts its crew.

Spring weather allowed the navy to do some repairs. On 31 March, Graves wrote to Gen. Thomas Gage that he wanted to take off all the ship’s guns and most of her cargo “that by heeling her, when lightened, they may caulk as much of her bottom as possible.” The general and admiral weren’t on good terms, but they tried not to actively interfere with each other’s work, so Gage assigned the navy two transport boats to move its heavy equipment.

On 11 April, Graves reported to the Admiralty in London about the Somerset:

Upon stripping the sheathing from her Bottom, we found the Ocham in her seams entirely rotten and the Butt Ends open; these Defects have been repaired, her Decks and sides well caulked and I have placed her, where the Lively and Canceaux formerly lay, between Charles Town and Boston. It is very likely that in this situation she will be of considerable service.

In a long, self-justifying report Graves wrote later, he explained what sort of “considerable service” he had in mind:

as the situation of things became more and more critical, and he was solicited to guard Boston against any attempt [i.e., attack] from Charles Town side, he caused the channel of the [Charles] river to be sounded, and, finding there was room enough for a large ship to swing at low water, ordered Captain [Edward] Le Cras to place the Somerset exactly in the Ferry way between the two towns, which he accordingly did.

This information is useful in understanding the mindset of the British military commanders in Boston 235 years ago. They weren’t expecting an imminent attack by rebellious provincials, but they felt they had to guard against one.

In fact, the navy had stationed one or two warships at the mouth of the Charles since the Powder Alarm of the previous September. But the Lively had twenty guns, the Canceaux eight. By replacing them with the Somerset’s 60+, Graves was making a very intimidating statement.

TOMORROW: The Somerset on 18-19 Apr 1775.

(The photo above shows H.M.S. Victory a full century after our Somerset had wrecked on Cape Cod. As I understand it, the two warships were about the same size, but if anyone has pictures of a ship of the Somerset’s class please let me know.)

Skirmish at the Boston Light

Yesterday guest blogger Christopher Klein, author of the new book Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands: A Guide to the City’s Hidden Shores, described the importance of the Boston Light on Little Brewster Island. That first North American lighthouse is shown above in a late-1800s sketch based of a mezzotint engraving created by William Burgis in 1729.

In 1775, that lighthouse made it safe for the Royal Navy and British supply ships to navigate Boston harbor at night. The islands were the British military’s nearest source of fodder and vegetables. Aiming to strike at the Crown forces, Maj. Joseph Vose of the Continental Army led a raiding party onto the Nantasket peninsula on the night of 18 July 1775. Their ultimate goal was Little Brewster Island. Chris describes what happened next:

The patriots landed on the island on the morning of 20 July 1775, burned the wooden parts of the lighthouse, and removed three casks of oil, gunpowder, and furniture. Seeing the beacon in flames, several British barges, a cutter, and an armed schooner attacked Vose’s detachment, but only two patriots were wounded in the action.

A letter from Brigadier General William Heath to George Washington, dated 21 July 1775, recounted the actions of Vose’s detachment, both on Little Brewster Island and on other islands in Boston Harbor:

Sir

I have the Pleasure to inform your Excellency that Major Vose of my own Regiment; beside[s] securing the Barley on Nantasket; yesterday morning Landed on the Light-House Island with Six or Seven Boats, the Light House was set on Fire and the wood work Burnt, the Party brought off Three Casks of Oyl, all the furniture of the Light house, about 50 wt of Gun Powder, a Quantity of Cordage &c. (an Inventory of which will be forwarded to your Excellency;)

Some of the Brave men who effected this with their Lives in their Hands, have just now applied to me to know whether it was to be consid[ered] as Plunder, or otherwise; I was not able to detirmine this matter, but told them that I would Lay the matter before your Excellency; I would beg leave to add that these Brave men, were some of them at Grape Island, Deer Island & at Long Island when each of those Islands were Stripped of their Stock &c.

I have the Honor to be your Excellency’s most obedient & very Humble Servt
W. Heath

The British quickly deployed Loyalist workers, protected by a guard of marines, to repair Boston Light. “With this Party,” Vice Admiral Samuel Graves wrote, “the Engineers were of opinion the Light House might well be defended, until Succours arrived, against 1000 men, and the Admiral expected to have the Building soon repaired and a Light shewn as before.”

And it appears the British did proceed quickly in their repair of the light. In a letter to John Adams, James Warren reported that by the night of 29 July the British efforts to rebuild the beacon were “in such forwardness as Actually to shew a Light.”

However, the other assessment by Graves as to the ease of defending Boston Light would soon be put to the test.

Check back at Boston 1775 on 31 July for the next chapter in the lighthouse’s war story. Thanks, Chris!

The Royal Navy Heads for Cape Ann

Two hundred thirty-two years ago, Boston selectman Timothy Newell wrote in his diary:

This morning two bomb Ketches and several armed vessels with some sailors sailed on a secret expedition, it is said to demand a Ship belonging to Portsmouth, retaken by our whale boats, and carried into Cape Ann—also to demand of that town 40 seamen which they took from the man of war—if not delivered in 24 hours to bombard the town.

Although the British and Continental armies had continued to make plans, build fortifications, fire artillery, and occasionally skirmish, the real action at this point in the war was at sea.

British naval vessels were trying to keep the army in Boston supplied by escorting transports and merchant ships from Britain. The first generation of American privateers were trying to capture those ships full of food and weapons. That meant the navy was trying to hunt the privateers.

In this case, the provincials had also apparently taken “40 seamen” from a naval ship. Perhaps those men had been impressed by the Royal Navy, perhaps they were simply tired of life in the navy, perhaps they wanted to try the American cause.

Admiral Samuel Graves was already eager to take aggressive action against the New England rebels. On 1 Sept 1775, he had written to Gen. Thomas Gage:

With your Excellency’s approbation and Assistance, I propose to lay Waste such Sea Port Towns in the New England Governments as are not likely to be useful to His Majesty’s Stores and to destroy all the Vessels within the Harbours. To this End I must beg your Excellency to assist me with such Men, Vessels, Artillery Forces &ca as His Majesty’s Squadron is not provided with, and are really requisite under for the intended Service.

Graves particularly resented having most of the Marines deployed on land instead of on his ships.

The small squad of ships that left Boston on 3 October was spotted off Gloucester later that week, as Newell feared. However, its commanders apparently thought that town would be too difficult to shell. The ships headed further up the coast.