“The Diana was soon after burnt by the rebels”

Having covered the maritime seizures that took place between Fairhaven and Martha’s Vineyard (14 May 1775) and the exchange of fire over Grape Island off Hingham (21 May), I’ve come back to the skirmishing over Hog Island and Noddle’s Island that’s become known as the Battle of Chelsea Creek.

And just in time for its Sestercentennial! (Well, the Sestercentennial of the second day of the action.)

Here’s a description of that fight from the British perspective, not contemporaneous but within living memory, published in 1804 by former engineer Robert Beatson in Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain:

The insurgent Americans, with astonishing perseverance, pursued their avowed design of cutting off every possible supply from the friends of Government, and of destroying what they could not carry away.

On the 27th of May, they burnt a great deal of hay on Hog island; and a few hours after, they landed on Noddles island, with the intention of also burning the hay which had been purchased for the army, and of adding to the conflagration, by laying in ashes a storehouse that had been hired when his Majesty’s ship the Glasgow was on shore, and in which the Admiral [Samuel Graves] had deposited two large cargoes of lumber, until an opportunity should offer of sending them to Halifax.

The storehouse also contained many other articles, which it was of great consequence to preserve, from the impossibility of having them replaced at this juncture. There were likewise on this island six hundred sheep, several milch cows, and a number of horses, mostly private property.

The Admiral, eager to prevent the depredations of the Americans, when he observed that they were landed upon the island, immediately ordered the Diana schooner (newly arrived) to sail between it and the main; and to get up as high as possible to intercept them: and as assistance from the army required time, he directed a party of marines to be landed.

The Diana entered the river between three and four in the afternoon at low water, and proceeded to Hog island, with some interruption from the rebels on all sides. Their numbers on Hog and Noddles islands were computed at seven hundred men. Parties of each occasionally attacked the Diana. They were, however, all obliged to quit Noddles island, without doing the intended mischief.

This being effected; Lieutenant [Thomas] Graves [shown above, later in his career], whom the Admiral had ordered not to remain in the river upon the turn of the tide, began to move off: but being retarded by a calm which unluckily took place, the boats of the squadron were ordered to assist the Diana by towing her along.

The slow progress which she made gave time for the enemy to assemble; and by the close of the evening the whole country was alarmed, and the rebel General [Israel] Putnam had brought two thousand men with field-pieces from Cambridge, with which he lined the shore and greatly annoyed her.

The marines from the squadron were landed on the island, with two three pounders from the Cerberus; and General [Thomas] Gage, the moment it was in his power, sent two pieces of artillery: but it was impossible, though in sight of the fleet, to give the schooner any effectual assistance.

The calm continued; it grew almost dark; the fire of the rebels increased; between eleven and twelve at night, she unfortunately got aground upon the ferry-ways at Winnisimmest, and the tide ebbing fast, rendered every effort to move her ineffectual.

About three in the morning she fell over, and her crew were obliged to abandon her, and go on board the Britannia armed floop, which had been sent to their assistance. The Diana was soon after burnt by the rebels.

The battle was renewed by Lieutenant [John] Graves in the Britannia, and lasted about eleven hours from first to last, in which there were two men killed, and several wounded; the commander, officers, and crew of the Diana schooner were tried by a Court-martial for the loss of the vessel, and most honourably acquitted.

Lt. Thomas Graves of was a nephew of Adm. Samuel Graves, as was Lt. John Graves of the Somerset’s tender Britannia. Other sources say both Graves brothers suffered serious burns when the provincials set the Diana on fire.

This account is based mostly on Adm. Graves’s report to the Admiralty on 7 June. He said almost nothing about this event in his later narrative of the start of the war, most likely because it didn’t reflect very well on the navy in general and his family in particular.

The courts martial that Beatson mentioned were held in Boston, under Adm. Graves’s eye. In their 2013 New England Quarterly article on this fight, Craig J. Brown, Victor T. Mastone, and Christopher V. Maio reported that all the British mariners testifying at Lt. Graves’s trial said the Diana hadn’t gone far upstream, but the archeological record suggests otherwise. In sum, that inquiry might have been a whitewash. Both Graves brothers eventually became admirals.

Of the shoreline fights between Crown and provincials in May 1775, this was the first in which either commander reported any of his own men killed. The two Royal Navy seamen who died were named George Williams and William Crocker. The Rev. John Troutbeck, assistant rector at King’s Chapel, “performed divine Service” at their funeral on board H.M.S. Somerset.

Cannon to Reappear at Grotonfest, 24 Sept.

One of the events of this Saturday’s Grotonfest will be the Groton Historical Society’s unveiling of a Revolutionary-era cannon.

The Groton Herald and Nashoba Valley Voice have both run stories about local curator Earl Carter’s work restoring that iron cannon and building a (naval) carriage for it. The Herald’s online story includes a photograph of the markings on the gun, including the royal monogram.

However, in relaying Carter’s understanding of the cannon’s history, the Herald story raises questions:

The cannon was captured when the British gunboat H.M.S. Diana, fitted with four cannon and swivel guns, sailed up Chelsea Creek from Boston Harbor to engage Colonial forces. Exposed to heavy gunfire, the British were forced to abandon Diana at about 10 pm. When British Lieutenant [Thomas] Graves abandoned Diana, he transferred his men to HMS Britannia, which was successfully towed to deeper water. Unmanned, Diana drifted and ran aground on the Mystic River side of the Chelsea coast, tipping onto one side.

American forces, including the eight Groton Minutemen, commanded by Asa Lawrence, boarded the Diana and removed four cannon, one of which is pictured on the front page of the paper. Other American forces rapidly removed everything of value, including other guns, rigging, sails, clothing, and money. They laid hay under the stern to serve as kindling, and the vessel was set on fire at about 3 a.m. to prevent it from falling back into British hands.

Twenty days later, these same four captured cannon were deployed at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Three of the four cannon were lost in the battle, with this one cannon remaining in American hands. Immediately following the battle, a great amount of the armament and gunpowder, including this cannon, were taken to Col. [James] Barrett’s farm in Concord for safe hiding from the British. But, soon, the British learned of this hiding place and sent a large contingent to confiscate these military stores.

The same narrative appears in the video accompanying the Valley Voice article.

However, the “large contingent” of British soldiers sent to confiscate weapons at Barrett’s farm arrived on 19 Apr 1775, one month before the fight over the Diana and two months before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

In addition, the Massachusetts artillery regiment got six cannon onto the Charlestown peninsula during Bunker Hill and lost five—all “4 pounders,” according to Lt. Richard Williams of His Majesty’s 23rd Regiment.

Neither newspaper story lays out the historical documentation for that narrative—which, of course, is not what newspaper stories usually do. But I hope there are clear answers to these questions:

• What size is this iron cannon? What other physical evidence does the gun itself carry? 
• What paper trail traces the cannon from the Diana into the New England army and through the war? In researching The Road to Concord I found that Col. Richard Gridley’s Massachusetts artillery regiment did a lousy job with paperwork, and the Continental Army not much better when it came to tracking individual guns.
• When does this particular cannon surface in Groton records? The town had an unusually active, document-loving local historian in Samuel Abbott Green (1830-1919). I found no mention of a local Revolutionary cannon in his books, even in the section of his Groton during the Revolution that discusses how the Massachusetts Committee of Safety assigned “four six-pounders” to the town on 15 Apr 1775. (It’s not clear the committee had time to ship those guns to Groton before the war began.)

There were cannon in Groton as early as 1808 because the town had its own militia artillery company. In that year (according to Green in his Natural History and the Topography of Groton) the Federalist Columbian Centinel reported that the town’s Independence Day celebration had been spoiled by partisan feuding within the company:

Capt. [James] Lewis [1761-1828], of the Groton Artillery, (a demo[crat].) tho’ courteously invited to appear with his company to celebrate the day, which gave our country birth, not only meanly denied Lieut. [Solomon] Carleton [1773-1856] and his company the use of the cannon on the occasion, but unsuccessfully endeavored to dissuade many from the celebration.

That gathering toasted the “Concord Artillery” instead. Even more specific, at a Lawrence Academy ceremony in 1854, Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855) shared a youthful memory of “the Groton artillery, with their two enormous guns—three pounders.”

According to the Valley Voice, “In 1972, the Groton Historical Society re-discovered [the cannon] behind a building near Lawrence Academy. Someone had built a miniature outdoor display…[but] the barrel was covered in vines ‘30 to 40 years old’.” So the cannon’s provenance seems clear for the last fifty years, at least.