“So disagreeable that one half of the Congress withdraw”

Delving into the newly published John Dickinson letters also led me back into the notes of the Continental Congress during 1775.

The official record that secretary Charles Thomson kept for eventual publication was often anodyne. The delegates made themselves into a committee of the whole to avoid going on the record, and of course Thomson was politic about what he recorded.

But some delegates kept their own notes. In this period Silas Deane kept busy summarizing arguments and then grading the speakers.

Neither Dickinson nor John Adams came off in Deane’s notes as so composed and effective as they would have liked.

In his memoir Adams described himself as “not having ever been remarkable for very long Harrangues.” But on 15 May Deane described the Massachusetts man’s remarks as “lengthy, and argumentative.”

Dickinson felt he was guiding the Congress to a safe middle course. That same day Deane wrote that the Pennsylvanian “argues smoothly but Sophistically on the Subject and gives rather disgust.”

And here’s the delegates’ interactions on 24 May:

Mr. Dickinson in his old Way lengthy, and concludes in his old Way with a Fable

Mr. [Thomas] Mifflin animadvests[?] with spirit on him and exposes his reasoning &c

Mr. [Thomas] Johnson, on a reconciling plan and offers a Motion.

Col. [Richard Henry] Lee for a different mode of expression in ye Motion and is severe on Dickenson

Mr. Jno. Rutledge against any Concession whatever, that Lord North has given Us his Ultimatum with which We cannot agree. Treats Dickinsons plan with the upmmost Contempt. and is so severe that [Samuel] Chase rises to explain himself.

Col. Lee up again

Mr. [Thomas] Stone of Maryland so disagreeable that one half of the Congress withdraw

Deane’s 1775 notes were published in Letters of Delegates to Congress, and they can easily be found online at From the Page and American Founding.

Meanwhile, the Congress’s official record of 24 May 1775 is:

Peyton Randolph, President, returned to Virginia where he was Speaker of the Assembly. John Hancock was unanimously chosen President.

Samuel Ward reported that the committee of the whole had made progress in the business of the state of America, but not having come to a conclusion, requested permission “to sit again.”

Adjourned till to Morrow at 9 o’Clock.

Deane’s notes show what was really behind that “progress.”

“Choosing a Commander” at the Longfellow–Washington Site, 13 Mar.

On Thursday, 13 March, I’ll speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site on “Choosing a Commander: Myths & Realities Behind the Continental Congress’s Decision to Make George Washington the General.”

Two hundred fifty years ago this spring, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress invited the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to take over the direction (and funding) of the army besieging Boston. A big part of that direction was choosing who would command those troops.

Decades later, John Adams left detailed accounts of those discussions. He described himself as the man who advocated for George Washington of Virginia when no one else would.

According to letters Adams wrote in 1815 (and possibly in 1816 but never sent), most Congress delegates preferred either leaving the army in the hands of Gen. Artemas Ward of Massachusetts or hiring former British army lieutenant colonel Charles Lee.

Adams stated:

The Nominations were made, Ward I believe by Mr [Thomas] Cushing, Lee by Mr [Thomas] Mifflin, and Washington by Mr [Thomas] Johnson of Maryland. The opposition to a change was not So warm, as it had been before, but Still each Candidate had his Advocates.

Nevertheless all agreed in the great importance of Unanimity. This point was urged from all quarters of the House with great force of Reason and Eloquence and Pathos that never has been exceeded in the Counsells of this Nation. It was unanimously agreed to postpone in Election to a future day in hopes that Gentlemen by a deliberate Consideration, laying aside all private feelings, local Attachments, and partial motives, might agree in one, and unanimously determine to Support him with all their Influence. The Choice was accordingly postponed.

By this time all the Friends of Ward, among whom there was not one more Sincere than John Adams who had known him at School within two doors of his Fathers house, and who had known him in Worcester in his riper Years, were fully convinced that Washington Should be preferred to Lee; and they had reason to fear that Delegates from the Southern and Middle States would vote for Lee rather than for any New Englandman. And all the Sober Members would have preferred Either Ward or Washington to Lee.

When the day of Election arrived, after some Observations on the necessity of Concord, Harmony and unanimity in the present portentous moment, Congress proceeded to the Choice and the Suffrages were all found to be for George Washington.

In this talk I’ll explore how much the contemporaneous record from 1775, including Adams’s own private letters, supports this recollection.

This event is scheduled to start at 6:00 P.M., and will include questions and answers afterward. It is free, but seating in the Longfellow carriage house is limited. There’s an option to watch the livestream, and a recording will be put on the site’s YouTube channel when ready.

“My opinion of the merits of that Whig”

In 1817, Gen. Joseph G. Swift (1783–1865), the U.S. Army’s chief of engineers, accompanied the new President, James Monroe, on a tour of fortifications and battlefields in the northern states.

On 8 July, Monroe and his company stopped in Quincy to meet former President John Adams (who was also the father of Monroe’s secretary of state).

Gen. Swift wrote in his memoir:

Mr. Adams at first mistook me for the son of his brother lawyer, Samuel Swift, and poured out his commendation, saying: “I have written to Mr. [William] Wirt my opinion of the merits of that Whig, who fell a martyr to the fury of [Thomas] Gage.”

I replied: “It was my grandfather, and you gave me my cadet’s warrant eighteen years ago,” upon which he was pleased to subjoin some civil commendation. The conversation naturally attracted the attention of the whole dinner party; and it was a scene of deep interest to hear the old man scan the days of his life in Congress, when he nominated Washington, etc.

In fact, Thomas Johnson of Maryland was the Continental Congress delegate who had nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief. Adams told a great story about making that nomination, but the Congress’s records contradict it.

As for the mention of William Wirt, in this period Adams was on a campaign to undercut Wirt’s biography of Patrick Henry, which he felt gave too much credit for the Revolution to that legislator and Virginians as a whole. (Awkwardly enough, Wirt was President Monroe’s attorney general.) The former President was writing long letters to other authors laying out his version of history and encouraging William Tudor, Jr., son of his former law clerk, to write a biography of James Otis, Jr.

Seven years later, having retired from the army to become a civil engineer, Swift wrote back to the former President about his family:

When I had the honour to be at your residence in 1817 (while accompanying President Monroe) I was gratified by some account which you were pleased to give me, of my Grand Father Samuel Swift, formerly a Lawyer of Boston, whom you designated as a friend of yours & as the “Widows friend”—& whose name you had before mentioned, in some Printed Letters, as a distinguished Whig:—It is natural &, with just views, it is commendable in man to reflect with interest upon the conduct & character of his progenitor.—

I have heard that my G. Father was a zealous & a effective Whig—that he died in 1775 a Prisoner & Martyr under the Tyrrany of Gage,—that he was foremost & useful in Public Meetings in urging his fellow Citizens to resist oppression & especially to resist Gages call to the Bostonians to deliver up their Arms:—The premature death of their G Father led to the dilapidation & final loss of his Property while Boston was a Garrison,—This then Young family driven to various parts of this Country & made Poor, were dispersed, & thus we know little of this G. Father except from tradition.—

If you will at a leisure moment cause an amanuensis to note to me any information of the Character & Conduct of Saml. Swift & especially as touching the great struggle for Independence, it will be received as a distinguished favour,—One of my objects in taking this liberty is to be Enabled to tell my Six Sons what share their progenitor may have had in contributing to bring about that War which made a nation Free & Happy!—

If Adams wrote back over the next two years before his death, that letter doesn’t survive. But Swift’s letter certainly lays out the image of his grandfather that he wanted to confirm.

TOMORROW: Swift family sources.

The First British Army Casualty of the Revolutionary War

In describing the skirmish at Lexington, the senior British officer on the scene, Maj. John Pitcairn of the Marines, wrote:

…some of the rebels who had jumped over the wall fired four or five shots at the soldiers, which wounded a man of the Tenth and my horse was wounded in two places, from some quarter or other, and at the same time several shots were fired from a meeting house on our left.

Reporting that the provincials had shot “a man of the Tenth” was significant for Pitcairn and army commander Gen. Thomas Gage. They wanted to portray the locals as starting the fight. But British officers typically didn’t care much about enlisted men as individuals. Maj. Pitcairn gave that wounded private about as much space as his horse.

Not until 1782, when a younger British army officer named Jeremy Lister wrote out his memoirs of army life, did our sources record the name of the wounded man—the first British casualty of the Revolutionary War.

Back in 1775 Lister was an ensign, the lowest-ranking officer, in the 10th Regiment of Foot. He volunteered to go with that regiment’s light infantry company on the 18–19 April expedition to Concord. That company became part of the vanguard of the British column. As they passed through the center of Lexington, they found a large portion of the town’s militiamen lined up on their common with firearms.

Ens. Lister’s account of that event was:

we saw one of their Compys. drawn up in regular order Major Pitcairn of the Marines second in Command call’d to them to disperce, but their not seeming willing he desired us to mind our space which we did when they gave us a fire then run of to get behind a wall.

we had one man wounded of our Compy in the Leg his Name was Johnson also Major Pitcairns Horse was shot in the Flank we return’d their Salute, and before we proceeded on our March from Lexington I believe we Kill’d and Wounded either 7 or 8 Men.

One curiosity about Lister’s report is that the 10th Regiment’s light infantry company didn’t have anyone named Johnson on its muster roll for 19 Apr 1775. So did Lister just make up that name seven years later, or assign a common name to a soldier he dimly remembered?

In Paul Revere’s Ride, David Hackett Fischer noted that muster rolls show a private named Thomas Johnson transferred into the light infantry company from another part of the 10th Regiment just five days after that battle. Was that date just an artifact of the paperwork, and Pvt. Thomas Johnson was already with the company on the 19th? That seems like the most likely explanation for Lister’s statement, though it would be nice if the evidence were more definite.

Whatever injury Johnson sustained, it didn’t stop him from proceeding with the column all the way to Concord. The lights of the 10th Regiment were among the companies deployed to guard the area around the North Bridge while other soldiers proceeded to James Barrett’s farm to search for artillery. Pvt. Johnson thus got to participate in the first two fatal exchanges of fire in the war.

As the redcoats left Concord, the provincial militia companies began a more concerted attack. Ens. Lister wrote, “I recd a shot through my Right Elbow joint which efectually disabled that Arme.” A military surgeon removed the ball at Lexington, but for weeks the ensign thought he would lose that arm.

The British soldiers made their way under fire to Charlestown by evening. Ens. Lister rode a couple of miles on a horse, but decided that made him too big a target, so he walked most of the way. We don’t know if Johnson made the whole journey on foot or became one of the wounded soldiers who crowded onto horses, artillery carriages, and confiscated vehicles. At the end of the day the 10th Regiment reported seventeen wounded, one killed, and one missing.

Parts of the 10th Regiment also fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June. Ens. Lister was still recovering from his wound in Boston. Pvt. Thomas Johnson went into the battle and was killed.

[The photograph above shows a member of the recreated 10th Regiment, which has been portraying the soldiers at the start of the Revolutionary War for over fifty years.]