The Significance of Breed’s Hill Instead of Bunker’s

For one last posting on the label “Breed’s Hill,” I’ll share some thoughts on whether that label matters.

These days, it’s mostly useful as a fact that people (mostly of the male variety, to be frank) deploy to show they know more than average: ‘Well, actually, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed’s Hill.”

Which is true, though:

• it’s not clear that many people had ever heard the name “Breed’s Hill” before the battle.
• a lot of the worst fighting took place along the north shore of the Charlestown peninsula, not on either hill.
• the British army also took Bunker’s Hill, and the victor usually gets to define the battleground.

Even more trenchant, what difference did that name make to the outcome of the battle? How did the “Breed’s Hill” label affect the seizure of the Charlestown peninsula? Or the deaths or wounding of nearly 1,500 men?

Well, actually, there’s an argument that Col. William Prescott’s insistence on fortifying Breed’s Hill before Bunker’s Hill, as he understood his orders to specify, did shape the outcome of the battle. Could the provincials have prevailed if they’d had a strong fallback position?

I’m dubious. The goal of the Massachusetts command—the committee of safety, Gen. Artemas Ward, and his council of war—was to keep the British army from seizing the Charlestown and Dorchester peninsulas, as intelligence said the Crown would soon try to do. The New England army’s countermeasure was to seize those positions first.

The real challenge, as Gen. John Thomas indicated from Roxbury, was holding those positions against a British counter-countermeasure. Thomas didn’t think that was feasible and declined to go onto Dorchester Heights that June.

The geography of Charlestown was more welcoming for such an advance from the mainland, but it doesn’t look like the New England army was truly prepared to hold that ground. With only a couple of days to get organized, the provincials didn’t have all the tools, artillery, and reinforcements lined up to fortify and stay on those high points. We see that from the limited support the front-line troops got during the battle.

Even beyond that, the crucial problem for the New England army turned out to be gunpowder. That would have been a problem no matter which hill they fortified.

To be fair to Gen. Ward, he was worried about a possible second British advance in Roxbury or elsewhere along the siege lines. He couldn’t throw all the provincial resources into Charlestown. But the Continental operation to fortify Dorchester Heights in March 1776 shows how effective preparation could overcome adverse conditions.

I even wonder if fortifying Bunker’s Hill might have changed the British commanders’ thinking in a way that would have produced a worse outcome for the provincials. Gen. William Howe saw a small redoubt on a relatively short hill that was close enough for cannon to reach Boston and thus worth cleaning out. He focused on that spot, with disastrous results.

If Howe had seen fortifications on Bunker’s Hill also or instead, he might have decided on a more cautious strategy, focused on cutting the provincials off at the neck. That might have produced many more rebel casualties and fewer British ones. The New Englanders could have ended the day more dismayed, the regulars more chuffed, with a consequent effect on the larger siege.

“The officer (Crean Brush) who took my goods”

As quoted back here, on 10 Mar 1776 Gen. William Howe authorized Crean Brush to seize linen and woolen goods inside Boston to ensure they would be carried out of town and not fall into the hands of (or be sold to) the rebel army.

By that point, most of the wealthy people inside besieged Boston were Loyalists, and they planned to leave with the British military. But many adherents to the Patriot cause had left their goods in the town months before. And a few men had stayed to look after their property, their family, or their constituents.

Selectman Samuel Austin was in the last category. Nine years later he told John Adams, who had once employed his son as a law clerk and was now the U.S. of A.’s minister to Great Britain, what he remembered about those days:

I apprehend it needless to Say anything about the Rude, and insulting behavior of the officer (Crean Brush) who took my goods, all which I was oblidg’d to Submit to.—

Suffice it to say that on the 11th. March 1776 Crean Brush, an officer appointed by Genl. How, and by his written Orders…did by force and Arms, with near Twenty Soldiers, with their Guns and Bayonets enter my House and took from me in goods & Merchandize to the amount of Two Thousand Four hundred and Thirty Pounds 18/7 Neat Sterling Cost, to which I have aded Fifty per ct. Advance, which would not pay the Insurance & Freight, as also Interest on the same, untill paid. . .

I had an Opportunity of Conversing with [Gen. Howe] on the Subject of taking my goods from me in the manner he did, He Expressd himself with great Surprize and Indignation, that I should even think he mean’t to Alienate the Property of my goods, by no means he said, he mean’t no such thing, on the Contrary, he assured me in the most Sollemn manner my goods should all be Returnd me again, or the Cash paid for them. He aded it was a Common thing for an Army when Retreating and another army Pursuing, for the Retreating Army to take from the inhabitants, every thing that might any ways be servicable to the Pursuers, but that as soon as the Confusion was over, the inhabitants had their goods Return’d or the money paid them, to the amount of what was taken away, and this he Asur’d me should be the case with mine.—

He said further that what he had done was in Conformity to orders Rec’d from the Minster, to Prevent the Rebels as he calld them from being benifitted by them. Accordinly in a letter he writes Lord Dartmouth (which I have seen) given him an Accot. of Evacuating the Town, he has these words, “all the Woolen good also, that I could find Room for belonging to those who chose to stay behind, the want of which is more distress to the Enemy than any other Article whatever, has been shipd, Inventories of them taken in the best manner Possible, and Put under the Charge of proper persons, in order hereafter to be stor’d.”

Agreeable to this, is his Orders to Crean Brush when he took the goods (Coppy of which you’ll have withe Papers sent you from Congress) in which are these words, “You are hereby Authorizd, and Requir’d to take into your Possession, all such goods as Answer this discription, to give Certificates to the owners that you have Reciev’d them for their use, and will deliver them to the owners orders, Unavoidable Accidents Excepted.”

Both the above Extracts, Plainly Evince, that it was never the intention, or design either of Genl. How or the Minister, that such goods so taken, should be look’d upon as forfited goods, on the Contrary, they were to be inventoried and Stored, and taken Proper care of, for the bennefit of the owners, and to be deliverd to their Orders, all which is Exactly agreeable to Genl Hows declaration to me, that they or the money should be Return’d.

Austin’s point in 1785 was that the British government still owed him for the value of his confiscated goods. London merchants were pushing him to repay his debts from before the war, so he wanted that money—or he wanted to be able to tell those creditors that they should go after their own government for repayment instead of him.

TOMORROW: More complaints about Crean Brush.

“All good Subjects will use their utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d”

When Crean Brush came to him after confiscating Cyrus Baldwin’s goods in March 1776, Gen. William Howe was looking ahead to the next phase of the war.

The British military was about to leave Boston. The American rebels lacked a lot of manufactured goods, from cannon down to woven cloth. Gen. Howe didn’t want them to find such useful material in the town.

In the coming days, the Royal Artillery would damage or spike all the cannon they left behind or pitch them into the water. Local Patriots would congratulate themselves on restoring those guns, but that took a lot of effort, and some of that ordnance was never as good again.

As for cloth, Gen. Howe issued this proclamation on 10 March:

By His Excellency
WILLIAM HOWE,
MAJOR GENERAL, &c. &c. &c.

AS Linnen and Woolen Goods are Articles much wanted by the Rebels, and would aid and assist them in their Rebellion, the Commander in Chief expects that all good Subjects will use their utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d from this Place:

Any who have not Opportunity to convey their Goods under their own Care, may deliver them on Board the Minerva at Hubbard’s Wharf, to Crean Brush, Esq: mark’d with their Names, who will give a Certificate of the Delivery, and will oblige himself to return them to the Owners, all unavoidable Accidents accepted.

If after this Notice any Person secretes or keeps in his Possession such Articles, he will be treated as a Favourer of Rebels.

That announcement was important enough to be printed, probably by John Howe (no relation).

Gen. Thomas Gage had already put Brush in charge of seizing abandoned property, but this order extended the New York lawyer’s mandate to cover linen and woolen from anyone in Boston.

TOMORROW: Assembling a team.

Crean Brush’s American Career

Yesterday’s post reported that among the people captured aboard the evacuation ship Elizabeth in April 1776 was Crean Brush.

Eric Wiser wrote a good article about Brush for the Journal of the American Revolution: “Hell’s Half-Acre: The Fall of Loyalist Crean Brush.” More information can be found in “Crean Brush vs. Ethan Allen: A Winner’s Tale” by John J. Duffy and Eugene A. Coyle, published in Vermont History (P.D.F. download). I’ll review just the main points here.

Brush came to America from county Tyrone in Ireland in the 1760s when he was in his thirties and already a widower. He soon established himself as a lawyer and government appointee in New York City.

Brush married Margaretha Schoolcraft, who had a daughter named Frances from her previous relationship with Capt. John Montresor, the British army engineer. (Some sources say this girl was Margaretha’s niece. Others give the girl’s surname as Montezuma. It seems clear those were cover stories.)

In 1772, after accumulating grants of tens of thousands of acres of frontier land, Brush moved his family to the new town of Westminster, New York, between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. Soon he was a leader of the new community, variously commissioner of the court, surrogate of the court, county clerk, and representative in the colonial legislature. Brush worked with Philip Schuyler to establish the rule of (New York) law in his new county.

Unfortunately for Brush, others had settled the same region with grants from New Hampshire that overlapped and competed with the grants from New York. These men, led by Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, and Remember Baker, called themselves the Green Mountain Boys. Brush called them the Bennington Mob, becoming an early opponent and target of that faction. The London government had approved New York’s side of that dispute, giving Brush more reason to support royal policies.

On 13 Mar 1775, while Brush was away at the legislature, there was a fatal fight around the Westminster courthouse. Then war broke out in Massachusetts. The Green Mountain Boys seized Fort Ticonderoga for the rebels. Brush realized the region wasn’t safe for him, and neither was his former home in New York City. The Brush family moved into besieged Boston.

On 1 October, Gen. Thomas Gage gave Brush a commission to collect goods from the buildings of people who had left Boston so they wouldn’t be damaged when British soldiers were lodged in those homes and warehouses. The general required Brush “to take all due Care thereof, and to deliver said Goods when called upon, to those to whom you shall have given Receipts for the same.”

What Brush really wanted, though, was the British commander’s approval for his scheme to raise a Loyalist regiment and take back his corner of New York from the Green Mountain Boys. Gage never authorized that, which probably saved Brush from dying in a futile battle. Still, Brush presented the same proposal to Gen. William Howe in early 1776, but he didn’t get any further before it was time to leave.

TOMORROW: Preparing to evacuate.

The Last of Castle William

On 10 Mar 1776, the last royal chief justice of Massachusetts, Peter Oliver, boarded a ship called the Pacific, which usually sailed between India and Britain. He called it “a very commodious vessell, which General [William] Howe was so polite as to appropriate to the accomodation of my friends and me.”

For the next week, Oliver recorded periodic artillery exchanges between Boston and the Continental lines. On 17 March, he wrote, “The troops at Boston embarked, and about 20 sail fell down into King Road by 11 o’clock this morning.” The next day, he watched the army start to destroy Castle William.

One of the Royal Artillery engineers involved in that operation was Capt.-Lt. Archibald Robertson. In his diary that officer wrote, “In the Morning went to Castle William to see the mines prepar’d; found them ready for Loading.” 

The next day, Robertson “found the mines all loaded but 12 which were again unloaded as the General wanted them not to be ready for some days.” Gen. William Howe was shifting some troops onto transport ships that had just arrived from Halifax, and the 64th Regiment was still holding the Castle, exchanging cannon fire with the mainland.

That night, Judge Oliver reported, the “south Blockhouse of the Castle was burnt, and some of the walls of it blown up.”

On 20 March, Capt.-Lt. Robertson wrote:

At 3 o’clock Colonel [Alexander] Leslie came to the Castle from the General with orders to load the mines. We began immediately and had 63 done by 7 o’clock.

As the night had the Appearance of Rain and the wind fair it was thought proper for the 64th to Embark. . . . Accordingly at 8 o’clock 6 Companies Embark’d and the Boats lay off untill the mines were fired, which was done 1/2 an hour Afterwards and they had a very good Effect.

The Barracks and other houses were then set on fire, and at 9 the Rear Guard consisting of 3 Companies, the Artillery, etc. Embark’d, and we got all safe on board the Transports.

Judge Oliver’s description of this spectacle was:

The blowing up of the Castle Walls continued: and at night all the combustible part of the Castle was fired. The conflagration was the most pleasingly dreadful that I ever beheld: sometimes it appeared like the eruption of Mount Etna; and then a deluge of fire opened to the view; that nothing could reconcile the horror to the mind, but the prevention of such a Fortress falling into the hands of rebels, who had already spread such a conflagration of diabolical fury throughout America, which scarce anything can quench but the— metu tremefacit Olympum.

That Latin phrase meant “He makes Olympus tremble,” hinting at a supernatural power.

Capt.-Lt. Robertson’s watercolor of Castle William being consumed by fire appears above; “a very good Effect” indeed.

TOMORROW: Leaving America behind.

“He must not fire upon the Town of Boston tonight”

On 10 Mar 1776, 250 years ago today, Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, Robert Hanson Harrison (shown here), sent this order to Gen. Artemas Ward in Roxbury:

By his Excellency’s command I am to inform you that It is his desire that you give peremptory Orders to the Artillery Officer commandg at Lams Dam, that he must not fire upon the Town of Boston tonight unless the Enemy first begin a Cannonade, and that you Inform the Officer at Dorchester heights that he is not to fire from thence on the Town—

If they begin, and we have any Cannon on Nuke Hill, his Excellency wou’d have the fire to be returned from thence among the Shipping and every damage done them that possibly can.

Notwithstanding the accounts received of the Enemy’s being about to evacuate the Town with all seeming hurry & expedition, his Excellency is apprehensive that Genl [William] Howe has some design of having a brush before his departure and is only waiting in hopes of findg us of our Guard, he therefore desires that you will be very vigilant and have every necessary precaution taken to prevent a Surprize and to give them a proper reception in case they attempt anything

This conditional order summed up the Continental commanders’ dilemma. On the one hand, they didn’t want to waste gunpowder and cause unnecessary damage to the town if the British army was leaving. On the other hand, they still didn’t fully trust the British commander to leave.

Around seven o’clock that evening, Gen. Horatio Gates sent another message to Ward with a similar mix of optimism and paranoid preparation:

The Motions of The Enemys Fleet, Strongly intimate their intention of Abandoning The Town of Boston tomorrow,

His Excellency Generel Washington is therefore Anxious to take every Possible Advantage of their precipate Retreat; & desires you would Order all the Troops at Roxbury, & Dorchester Heights, to be paraded at their Several Alarm Posts, half an hour before day tomorrow morning; it is not possible for His Excellency to give any Particular directions as to the manner of Distressing the Enemy, or assisting Our Friends in The Town, as there is no foreseeing the Circumstances that will accompany the departure of [the] Ministerial Army: a very exact Observation will be taken from hence of all The Enemys Motions at Sun rise.

the General desires the like attention may be paid on Your side, & wishes you to Communicate every half hour all extraordinary Occurrences; you may be assured of receiving the like minute Accounts from hence

Meanwhile, inside Boston Gen. Howe’s orders were all about preparing to sail, though he did add that “Upon Ringing the Church Bells at Night the Troops are to get under Arms.” Because he wasn’t entirely sure there would be no Continental attack, either.

Capt. John Barker summed up the situation inside the town this way: “Nothing but hurry and confusion.”

“He would take no notice of it”

On 8 Mar 1776, 250 years ago today, three Loyalists walked out of Boston under a flag of truce.

Peter Johonnot and the brothers Thomas and Jonathan Amory handed a letter to the Continental Army officer commanding at the bottom of the Neck, Col. Ebenezer Learned (1728–1801) of Oxford.

That letter was signed by four Boston selectmen, and I quoted it in full here, a mere eighteen years ago.

The gist of the message was that “Genl [William] Howe…has no intention of destroying the Town Unless the Troops under his command are molested during their Embarkation.” The British army was ready to leave.

However, that gist was coated in verbiage and layers of intermediaries: the three gentlemen who brought the message, the four selectmen, Lt. Gov. Thomas Oliver, Gen. James Robertson. It wasn’t a letter from Gen. Howe himself or anyone he’d designated as his representative.

The next day, Col. Learned wrote back from Roxbury to the three Loyalists:

Agreeably to a promise made to you at the Lines Yesterday I waited upon his Excellency Genl [George] Washington and presented to him the Paper (handed to me by you) from the Select Men of Boston.

The Answer I receiv’d from him was to this effect “That as it was an unauthenticated Paper; without an address and not obligatory upon General Howe he would take no notice of it”

As Washington noted, Gen. Howe had put no promise in writing. He had also avoided acknowledging any legitimacy to Washington’s claim to be a fellow general.

Nonetheless, the reply Learned sent back assured the Loyalists, and the British officials behind them, that Gen. Washington had read the message.

Indeed, even as the Continental commander-in-chief was officially taking no notice of the letter, his staff was making several copies of it, and he was conveying its contents to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut and the Continental Congress.

When I spoke in Acton last month, someone asked if Washington and Howe had made an agreement about letting the British depart. This exchange of letters that wasn’t officially an exchange was why I had to answer, “Yes and no.”

“A more interesting and bloody scene is apprehended”

The Rev. William Gordon’s account of the end of the siege of Boston continues, picking up (in the present historical tense) just after Gen. William Howe has spotted the Continental Army positions on the hills of the Dorchester peninsula:

The admiral [Molyneux Shuldam] informs him, that if the Americans possess those heights he cannot keep one of his majesty’s ships in the harbour. A council of war determines to attempt dislodging them.

General [George] Washington has settled his plan of defence and offence. Boston is so surrounded on every land side by neighbouring hills, that nothing can take place on the wharves or next to the water, but it may be noted by the help of glasses. Proper signals having been agreed on, by means of the hills, which are in view one of another, intelligence can be conveyed instantly from Dorchester heights to Roxbury, and from Roxbury to Cambridge and so the reverse. This mode of communicating information is the speediest and safest.

General Washington’s plan is, in case any number of the enemy leave Boston to attack the heights and are defeated, to communicate such defeat by the proper signal, when 4000 provincials are to cross over from Cambridge side, and attempt the town in the confusion that the regulars will be under. The boats are prepared, and the men paraded ready to embark. General [John] Sullivan commands the first division, and general [Nathanael] Green the second. Gen. [William] Heath objected to the command when offered, and remains in perfect safety with the troops left in Cambridge. The whole force which the commander in chief now has, including all the militia, is not much short of 20,000.

All is hurry and bustle in Boston. General Howe orders the ladders in town to be cut to ten feet lengths, that they may be fit for scaling. A large body of troops are to embark on board the transports, and to proceed down the harbour, with a view of landing in the hollow between the furtherest of the two fortified hills and the castle.

The men are observed by one, at whose door they are drawn up before embarking, to look in general, pale and dejected; and are heard to say, “It will be another Bunker’s Hill affair, or worse”—they have adopted the prevailing mistake of Bunker’s for Breed’s Hill. Some show great resolution and boast of what they will do with the rebels. When these troops, amounting to about 2,000, and designed to be under the command of lord Percy, are upon the wharves, and passing in the boats to the transports, the Americans expect they are intended for an immediate attack, clap their hands for joy, and wish them to come on.

General Washington happens at that instant to be on one of the heights; thinks with his men; and says to those who are at hand, “Remember it is the fifth of March, and avenge the death of your brethren.” It is instantly asked by such as are not near enough to hear, “What says the general?” His words are given in answer. They fly from man to man through all the troops upon the spot, and add fuel to the martial fire already kindled, and burning with uncommon intenseness.

The surrounding hills and elevations about Boston, affording a secure view of the ground on which the contending parties are expected to engage, are alive with the numerous spectators that throng them. A more interesting and bloody scene is apprehended to be just upon commencing, than what presented at Charlestown. They wait, as do the troops, officers and privates, the morning through; and till far into the afternoon, when they are convinced of the tide’s being so far ebbed, that no attack can be made by general Howe on the Tuesday, which indeed is not his intention, for he is preparing to do it on the Wednesday.

The transports go down in the evening toward the castle, a floating battery is also towed down, but the wind is unfavorable, and before they reach their destination blows up fresh, and forces three of the vessels ashore on Governor’s Island. A storm succeeds at night, such as few remember ever to have heard; and toward morning it rains excessively hard.

[March 6.] The design of general Howe was hereby frustrated, and a deal of bloodshed providentially prevented. A council of war, was called in the morning, and agreed to evacuate the town as soon as possible. The time that had been gained by the Americans for strengthening their works, before any attempt could be now made upon them, took away all hope of success…

And with that return to the past tense, Gordon signaled that the height of suspense was past. The siege would not end with a second mighty battle.

TOMORROW: When is an exchange of messages not an exchange of messages?

“By ten o’clock at night the troops have raised two forts”

Yesterday I quoted Gen. William Howe’s report on how he discovered and responded to the Continental Army fortifications on the heights of the Dorchester peninsula.

From the American side, one of the chroniclers closest to the action was the Rev. William Gordon of Roxbury. In his 1788 history he offered a detailed account of the Continental operation, which I’ll quote at length.

Folks who dislike historians describing events in the present tense may need to grit their teeth for a while.

All things being ready on Monday [4 Mar 1776]; as soon as the evening admits, the expedition goes forward. The covering party of 800 men lead the way; then come the carts with the intrenching tools; after them the main working body of about 1200 under general [John] Thomas: a train of more than 300 carts, loaded with fascines; hay in bundles of 7 or 800 weight, &c. close the martial procession.

The bundles of hay are designed for Dorchester neck, which is very low, and exposed to be raked by the enemy; and are to be laid on the side next to them [i.e., towards Boston], to cover the Americans in passing and repassing. Every man knows his place and business. The covering party, when upon the ground, divides; half goes to the point nearest to Boston, the other to that next to the castle.

All possible silence is observed. But there is no occasion to order the whips to be taken from the waggoners, lest their impatience, and the difficulty of the roads should induce them to make use of them, and occasion an alarm. The whips used by the drivers of these ox carts, are not formed for making much noise, and can give no alarm at a distance. The men in driving their oxen commonly make most noise with their voices; and now a regard to their own safety dictates to them, to speak to their cattle, as they move on, in a whispering note.

There are no bad roads to require an exertion; for the frost having been of long continuance, they are so hard frozen as to be quite good. The wind lies so as to carry what noise cannot be avoided by driving the stakes and picking against the ground, (still frozen above eighteen inches deep in many places) into the harbour between the town and the castle, so that it cannot be heard and regarded by any who have no suspicion of what is carrying on especially as there is a continued cannonade on both sides.

Many of the carts make three trips some four; for a vast quantitiy [sic] of materials have been collected, especially chandeliers and facsines [sic]. By ten o’clock at night the troops have raised two forts, one upon each hill, sufficient to defend them from small arms and grape shot. The night is remarkably mild, a finer for working could not have been sellected out of the three hundred and sixty-five. They continue working with the utmost spirit, till relieved the Tuesday morning (March 5.) about three. It is so hazy below the height that the men cannot be seen, though it is a bright moon-light night, above on the hills.

It is some time after day break before the ministerialists in Boston can clearly discern the new erected forts. They loom to great advantage, and are thought to be much larger than is really the case. General Howe is astonished upon seeing what has been done; scratches his head and is heard to say, “I know not what I shall do; the rebels have done more in one night, than my whole army would have done in months.”

That last remark is the sort that New Englanders liked to tell themselves the British commanders had made, not questioning how anyone on their side of the lines could know. And who knows? It may even be true.

TOMORROW: Does the empire strike back?

“The enemy had thrown up three very extensive works”

Two hundred fifty years ago this morning Gen. William Howe looked across Boston harbor and saw that the Continental Army had erected fortifications on the heights of the Dorchester peninsula.

Those weren’t strong fortifications—they were primarily wooden, with fascines (bundles of sticks) lying between chandeliers (frames sticking up like the pickets of a fence). But Howe could see men at work strengthening those barriers with earth.

Sixteen days later, Howe described his response in a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth:

On the 2d instant [i.e., of this month], at night, the rebels began a cannonade upon the town from Roxbury and Phipps’s Farm [in Cambridge], and threw some shells from both places, without doing any personal damage, and but little to the buildings; the same was repeated on the evenings of the 3d and 4th, by which only six men were wounded; the fire being returned from our batteries, but at such a distance as to be very uncertain in the execution.

It was discovered on the 5th, in the morning, that the enemy had thrown up three very extensive works, with strong abatis round them, on the commanding hill on Dorchester Neck, which must have been the employment of at least twelve thousand men in a situation so critical.

I determined upon an immediate attack, with all the force I could transport. The ardor of the troops encouraged me in this hazardous enterprise; regiments were expeditiously embarked on board transports to fall down the harbor, and flat-boats were to receive other troops, making the whole two thousand four hundred men, to rendezvous at Castle William, from whence the descent was to be made, on the night of the 5th, but the wind unfortunately coming contrary and blowing very hard, the ships were not able to get to their destination, and this circumstance also making it impossible to employ the boats, the attempt became impracticable.

The weather continuing boisterous the next day and night, gave the enemy time to improve their works, to bring up their cannon, and to put themselves into such a state of defence that I could promise myself little success by attacking them under all the disadvantages I had to encounter; wherefore I judged it most advisable to prepare for the evacuation of the town, upon the assurance of one month’s provision from Admiral [Molyneux] Shuldham, who, in this emergency, as he has on every other occasion, offered all the assistance he could afford.

The Continentals had actually armed their new forts with cannon on that first night. They had even brought the makings of barracks so that hundreds of soldiers could man those positions all night. It was a very well planned operation, a great contrast to the brave but ultimately unsuccessful improvisation that marked the provincial move onto the Charlestown peninsula the previous June.

Howe wrote that report on board H.M.S. Chatham, floating off the Massachusetts coast. The siege of Boston was over.

Knox Trail Commemorations on 8–9 Feb.

Two hundred fifty years ago, the fifty-eight artillery pieces that Col. Henry Knox had convoyed from Fort Ticonderoga were in Framingham, being mounted on carriages and prepared for use.

The Sestercentennial celebrations of that event continue.

Sunday, 8 February, 2 to 4 P.M.
Knox Trail 250th Commemorative Program
Framingham History Center, Village Hall on the Common

This free, family-friendly event is part of a four-community commemoration presented by Revolution250. The program is scheduled to begin at 2 P.M. with a winter procession across the Framingham Centre Common, featuring cannons mounted on draft-animal-pulled sleds, a fife and drum unit, and colonial reenactors portraying a welcoming party.

The event will continue inside with a commemorative program highlighting Framingham’s role and the shared history of nearby Knox Trail communities. Peter Salem will be portrayed alongside a display of the original muster roll that records his service. Another highlighted artifact will be one of only twelve known handwritten fife tune books from the era. The MA250-sponsored “Stitching Revolution in Massachusetts” quilt will be unveiled.

Because of frigid temperatures and snow, most of the program will take place indoors. Parking will be available at Plymouth Church (87 Edgell Road) and First Parish (24 Vernon Street). For more details, see this webpage.

Monday, 9 February, 7 to 8:30 P.M.
The Noble Train Arrives: Knox, Washington and the End of the Siege
Aeronaut Brewing Company, Somerville

As sponsored by the Somerville Museum, Dan Breen concludes his two-part saga by recounting how the cannon from Ticonderoga were hauled over the Berkshires, across the Connecticut River and finally to Dorchester Heights, where they would help to cue Gen. William Howe to abandon Boston. Learn more and reserve tickets through this page.

In addition, a video of my talk in Cambridge at the end of last month on “A Fine Train of Artillery” and how the siege ended is now online here.

“Lt. Coll. Walcott now excuses it”

As I’ve been discussing, a British army court-martial ordered Lt. Col. William Walcott to be reprimanded on the Common in front of the second brigade of British troops in Boston on 17 Apr 1775.

Part of that ceremonial punishment might have been for Ens. Robert Patrick, the young officer Walcott had yelled at and struck, to draw his hand across the regimental commander’s face, thus making things even.

Though a couple of other young officers, Lt. John Barker and Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, wrote the long court-martial verdict into their diaries, neither man described seeing that embarrassing punishment. And Mackenzie was in the second brigade, so he would have been on the Common.

Perhaps that detail was too small to mention. Or maybe it never happened, and the sources from the early 1800s are wrong.

We do know there was another wrinkle in Lt. Col. Walcott’s penalty. He was supposed to be “Suspended for the Space of three Months.” However, Gen. Thomas Gage’s orders for 18 April state:

The Commander in Chief is pleas’d to take off the Suspension ordered upon Lt. Coll. Walcott from this Day inclusive; It having Appeared thro’ the course of the tryal, that Ens. Patrick did behave disrespectfull to his Commanding Officer, but it not being inserted in the Crime, the Court did not proceed upon it, & Lt. Coll. Walcott now excuses it, And will not bring it to a Tryal; but the Commander in Chief thinks proper to Warn Ensign Patrick to behave with more respect for the future to his Commanding Officer.

Thus, although the court martial acquitted Ens. Patrick of “Quarrelling,” “giving a blow,” and “giving…a Challange to fight,” he could still have been brought up on charges of being “disrespectfull.”

But Lt. Col. Walcott decided to let that charge lie. Maybe the family relationship between the two men reported by Lt. Mackenzie was a factor. Maybe this forbearance let Walcott show he was behaving as a proper officer again.

As for Gen. Gage, he was about to send 700 or so soldiers to Concord that evening, with another 1,200 to follow them a few hours later. He needed all his regiments working as efficiently as possible, and that meant keeping Lt. Col. Walcott on the job.

The 5th Regiment took casualties on 19 April, and more at Bunker Hill. Ens. Patrick was promoted to lieutenant on 22 November. He was still at that rank in the 1778 Army List.

Lt. Col. Walcott continued to command the regiment as its official colonel, Earl Percy, handled higher responsibilities. In January 1777 Gen. Sir William Howe gave him responsibility for negotiating exchanges of prisoners of war with Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, Robert Hanson Harrison. In October, Walcott was wounded at the Battle of Germantown, and he died on 16 November.

“The only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe”

Thomas Hyde Page (1746–1821) graduated top in his class from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1769, winning a gold medal from the king.

Page became a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and arrived in Boston in the spring of 1775. During the Battle of Bunker Hill he served as one of Gen. William Howe’s aides.

Richard Frothingham quoted the 11 Jan 1776 London Chronicle as saying:

A few days ago arrived in town, from Boston, Lieutenant Page, of his majesty’s corps of engineers, on account of the wounds he received the 17th of June, in the action of Charlestown. This gentleman is the only one now living of those who acted as aids-de-camp to General Howe, so great was the slaughter of officers that day. He particularly distinguished himself in the storming of the redoubt, for which he received General Howe’s thanks.

Page was back in London because he had been wounded in the leg, badly enough to require some sort of amputation.

Capt. John Montresor wrote to Page from Philadelphia on 17 June 1778 noting the “disagreeable memory” of the date. “I hope you are able to saunter without a stick.”

In his journal, however, Montresor grumped about his lack of a pension and wrote, “Page served Eleven days and was then wounded and return’d home and had ten shillings per diem settled for life.” (Of course, Montresor still had both his legs.)

Page continued to work on various engineering projects for the British military. Promotion was slow in that branch of the service, but between 1781 and 1783 he became a captain. That summer he received a double honor: he was elected to the Royal Society and knighted. A couple of years later he shifted to the invalid corps.

In 1790, Lt. Col. John Small, who had been Gen. Robert Pigot’s brigade major, wrote to Page:

The interesting position we were placed in side by side at the memorable Battle of Bunker’s Hill will never be forgotten, and will ever excite the most anxious emotions in the breast of the fellow campaigner who has now the honor of addressing you; who witnessed in the most trying moments, your innate worth, your professional Intrepidity and skill, and was most seriously affected when at your side he saw you ffall from a very dangerous wound, receiv’d when displaying your exertions in the ffield, when your cool and manly example, and sound judicious advice, contributed much to acquire success and victory.

I wish I had more of that letter to understand who was asking what favor.

Using surveys by Montresor and others, Page published very good maps of Boston harbor and the town of Boston. His 1793 “Plan of the Action at Bunkers Hill” is still the most useful source on the topography of the Charlestown peninsula in 1775—though it’s also notable in switching the labels of Bunker’s Hill and Breed’s Hill.

Most of Page’s engineering work involved drainage, harbors, canals, and other civil projects rather than fortifications. James Northcote’s portrait of Page above shows him “holding a Plan of Fort Landguard and seen in the distance.” Page didn’t build that fort, but he engineered its tricky well. (Once apparently at Boston, that painting is now on display at the Tyntesfield estate in North Somerset.)

Sir Thomas Hyde Page remained active all around Great Britain for decades and finally retired to Boulogne, France, where he died.

After Historical Collections and Remarks

As discussed yesterday, Lt. Col. Robert Donkin distributed Historical Collections and Remarks to most of his subscribers in the spring of 1778, even though Hugh Gaine printed it in 1777.

The book carried a dedication to Earl Percy (shown here), best known for leading the British relief column during the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The next year, he was promoted to general.

Percy participated in the Crown’s recapture of New York City and Newport, Rhode Island, in 1776. Gen. Henry Clinton left him in charge in the latter port.

Gen. Percy didn’t get along with Gen. Sir William Howe, his commander-in-chief. He sailed home to Britain in May 1777, ostensibly for noble family reasons but really because he didn’t want to take orders from Howe anymore. (Percy was heir to an English dukedom while Howe was merely younger brother of a viscount in the Irish peerage.)

Thus, by dedicating Historical Collections and Remarks to Percy, and then commissioning a frontispiece featuring him, Donkin took sides in a feud within the British command. However, in late 1777 Howe sent his own resignation to London, and he left America in May 1778, so Donkin’s career didn’t suffer.

The artist who engraved Percy’s portrait, James Smither, evidently accompanied the British army from Philadelphia to New York in the summer of 1778. The following 22 May, he advertised in James Rivington’s Royal Gazette:

JAMES SMITHER,
Engraver and Seal Cutter,
LATE of Philadelphia, at the Golden-Head No. 923, in Water-Street, near the Coffee-House, and next door but one to Mr. Nutter’s, where he engraves in the most elegant manner Coats of Arms, Seals, Maps, Copper Plates, and all other kind of engraving.

Meanwhile, the government of Pennsylvania declared that Smither was a Loyalist collaborating with the enemy and confiscated his property.

After the war was over a few years, however, Smither was able to quietly return to Philadelphia. In 1790 he started advertising an “Evening Drawing School,” much as he had back in 1769. He died around 1797, and his son, also named James Smither, carried on engraving until the 1820s.

As for Lt. Col. Robert Donkin himself, he continued to serve in the British army. He didn’t have the money that let Percy, Howe, and some other officers resign on principle.

In 1779 Clinton made Donkin the lieutenant colonel of the Royal Garrison Battalion. This unit was made up of “the worn out & wounded Soldiers of the British Regular Regiments in America,” Donkin later wrote. The officers were chosen for “Zeal & Experience and Constitutions broken by a long & arduous Service.” The unit was thought unfit for duty on the march or in battles but capable of serving in New York City, the Caribbean, or other secure garrisons. By 1780, Lt. Col. Donkin was commanding the bulk of those troops on Bermuda.

In 1783 the Royal Garrison Battalion was reduced. Donkin returned to Britain as a retired officer with a pension. Out of courtesy he was gradually promoted every few years, and since he lived until 1821, when he was ninety-three years old, Donkin made it all the way up to full general.

TOMORROW: More holes in Historical Collections.

Two Lieutenants and the Battle of Brooklyn

On the afternoon of 27 Aug 1776, British and Hessian soldiers under Gen. James Grant advanced on a Continental force, including men from Delaware and Maryland, under Gen. William Alexander, Lord Stirling (shown here).

Lt. John Ragg of the British marine grenadiers led twenty men forward from the right flank of the Crown forces. His orders were “to speak to” the commander of a unit in blue coats, thought to be Hessians, and tell them to stop firing at their own side.

Meanwhile, Lt. William Popham was one of the American officers trying to hold the left side of their line with a company of “awkward Irishmen and others.” Coming from the Delaware regiment, those soldiers were dressed in blue coats.

You can guess what happened. As Popham told it, “Capt. Wragg [sic] and 18 men, supposing us to be Hessians by the similarity of our dress, approached too near before he discovered his mistake.”

The Delaware Continentals took the marines as prisoners. The Americans stripped the British of their guns, Popham taking charge of Ragg’s weapons.

Decades later Popham reported:

I was immediately ordered with a guard to convey them across the creek in our rear to our lines. On descending the high ground we reached a salt meadow, over which we passed, though not miry, yet very unfavorable to silk stockings and my over-clothes.

Popham was a Princeton College graduate eager to look like a gentleman.

As the party crossed the meadow, the British started to fire cannon in their direction. Lt. Ragg stopped moving, “in the hope of a rescue.”

Popham ordered Ragg to “march forward instantly, or I should fire on him.”

Ragg started moving again. But then a new obstacle appeared:

When we got to the creek, the bank of which was exceedingly muddy, we waded up to our waists. I got in after my people and prisoners, and an old canoe that had been split and incapable of floating except by the buoyancy of the wood, served to help those who wanted help to cross a deep hole in the creek, by pushing it across from the bank which it had reached.

I had advanced so far into the mud, and was so fatigued with anxiety and exercise, that I sat down on the mud with the water up to my breast, Wragg’s fusee, cartouch-box, and bayonet on my shoulder; in which situation I sat till my charge were all safely landed on the rear.

Gen. Grant continued to press forward with his 7,000 men, more than twice the British force in the Battle of Bunker Hill. However, that was just a diversion.

Gen. William Howe had sent many more of his troops on long flanking march to the right. They moved through an unguarded pass and hit the Americans from an unexpected direction. In fierce fighting, almost the whole Continental force was driven back to Brooklyn Heights.

Stirling ordered most of his men back as well, keeping a contingent of Maryland soldiers as the rear guard. He led them in two counterattacks on the Crown forces while other Americans withdrew as best they could.

At the end of the day, the Continentals had lost more than 2,000 men. Nearly all the Maryland rear guard was dead. Stirling was a prisoner.

Gen. Howe reported 64 killed, 293 wounded, and 31 missing—including Lt. Ragg and his marines.

TOMORROW: The end of Lt. Ragg’s war?

Lt. Ragg in the Assault on Brooklyn

In June 1776, Lt. John Ragg of the marines was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the rest of the British military force evacuated from Boston.

In July, Ragg was in the fleet of forty-five ships that started unloading British soldiers onto Staten Island, New York.

More troop transports and Royal Navy warships arrived from other parts of the empire. By the end of July, Adm. Lord Richard Howe was overseeing more than one hundred ships while Gen. Sir William Howe commanded 32,000 soldiers.

Those numbers continued to grow in early August. Among the new arrivals were 8,000 Hessian soldiers.

On the morning 22 August, 4,000 redcoats moved onto Long Island. This was significantly more than the British force in the Battle of Bunker Hill, but it was only an advance guard, about a tenth of Howe’s entire land army.

The Americans drew back. By the end of that day, the British had landed 15,000 men at Gravesend Bay, with 5,000 more to follow a couple of days later.

The two armies dug in warily for the next two days. The Americans held the Brooklyn and Guan Heights, guarding the main passes.

Late in the evening of 26 August, Gen. James Grant (1720–1806, shown above) sent a force of about 4,000 British and Hessian men forward against the Continentals. The first major skirmish was around the Red Lion Inn. The British captured the American commander, Maj. Edward Burd, and sent his forces fleeing.

Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons of Connecticut managed to gather Continental troops along the Gowanus Road and to send for reinforcements. Gen. Stirling arrived with about 1,500 men from Maryland and Delaware. Under his command, the Continentals moved back toward the Red Lion Inn.

Meanwhile, Gen. Grant’s Crown troops were also growing, up to 7,000. That force included the 2nd battalion of marines.

According to a letter written on 4 September by a British officer to a friend in Aberdeen, and published in the Scots Magazine, the marine battalion “was sent from our right to support Gen. Grant.”

In the fighting on 27 August, those marines came under “several fires” from a unit dressed in blue uniforms with red facings. Those were the colors of some Hessian regiments while most of the Continental Army had no uniforms at all, so the British officers assumed that was friendly fire.

Lt. Ragg and twenty men from his grenadier company were “sent out to speak to” those Hessians.

TOMORROW: They weren’t Hessians.

Lt. Ragg and “A Crime of the greatest Magnitude”

The wound that Lt. John Ragg suffered at the Battle of Bunker Hill wasn’t bad enough to knock him out of the marines.

He recovered, remained in besieged Boston, and evacuated to Nova Scotia in March 1776 along with the rest of the British military.

On 6 June, Gen. William Howe’s general orders stated:

A Crime of the greatest Magnitude, Viz.: that of striking an Officer, having been committed by John Browning, Private Soldier of the 23d. Regiment, and the time and Situation of the Army not permitting, at present, the holding of a General Court Martial, It is the Commander in Chief’s order that the Prisoner be continued in Irons on board Ship until he can be tried by a General Court Martial.

In his 2007 book Fusiliers, Mark Urban revealed (in an endnote) that the officer Pvt. Browning struck was Lt. John Ragg.

Ordinarily Browning would have been court-martialed in Halifax, but Howe needed the 23rd and all other available forces to attack New York that summer. The fleet departed three days after his order. The private remained a prisoner below decks. Lt. Ragg and his grenadier company sailed normally.

Browning’s court martial took place on Staten Island in July. Urban writes:

With evidence sketchy to back a lieutenant’s claim that he had been hit, Browning was acquitted of the capital charge but was found guilty of insulting a serjeant, for which he was ordered to receive 200 lashes. However, General Howe reviewed the case and waived he corporal punishment, arguing that if Browning was acquitted of the more serious offence there was no point in chastising him at all.

Browning’s attack was the third time in about a year and a half that Lt. Ragg had gotten into a conflict bad enough to get into the historical record. First young Samuel Shaw, then Lt. John Clarke, and here Pvt. John Browning.

To be sure, Ragg himself wasn’t officially blamed for any of those disputes. He was the alleged victim in both courts-martial.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder if Gen. Howe decided to let Browning off with time served (in irons) because he’d come to view Ragg as a magnet for trouble, someone who made people angry.

TOMORROW: Ragg as the empire strikes back.

“They Stole many things & plunder’d my Store”

John Rowe reported that Monday, 11 Mar 1776, brought “Gloomy heavy Weather,” and his mood wasn’t any better.

The day before, as quoted yesterday, Gen. William Howe issued a proclamation requiring everyone with “Linnen and Woolen Goods” to turn them over to the evacuating army lest they fall into Continental hands.

That proclamation promised that the New York merchant Crean Brush (shown here) “will give a Certificate of the Delivery, and will oblige himself to return them to the Owners.” But if people didn’t comply, they risked being treated as rebel sympathizers.

Rowe appears to have been surprised that this proclamation applied to him, too. His 11 March diary entry says:

This morning I Rose very Early and very Luckily went to my Warehouse

when I Came there I found Mr. Crian Brush with an Order & party from the Genl. who were just going to Break Open the Warehouse which I prevented by Sending for the Keys & Opening the Doors—

They took from Mee to the Value of Twenty Two hundred & Sixty Pounds Sterling According to the best Calculation I Could make in Linnens Checks Cloths & Woollens—

This Party behaved very Insolently & with Great Rapacity & I am very well Convinc’d exceeding their orders to a Great Degree They Stole many things & plunder’d my Store. Words cannot Describe it

This Party consisted of Mr. Blasswitch who was one of the Canceaux people [i.e., an officer on H.M.S. Canceaux] Mr. Brush the Provost Mr. [William] Cunningham A Refugee Mr. [James or Peter] Welch The Provost Deputy—A Man nam’d [William] Hill & abo. fifteen Soldiers—with others—

I Remained all Day in the store but Could not hinder their Destruction of my Goods This day I Got a piece of Bread & one Draft of Flip

I Spent the Evening at home with Mr. [Samuel] Parker Rich’d Green Mr. [Jonathan] Warner of Portsmouth who assisted Mee very much with Mrs. Rowe & Jack Rowe

They are making the Utmost Speed to get away & carrying Ammunition Cannon & every thing they Can away taking all things they meet with never asking who is Owner or whose Property making havock in Every house & Destruction of All kinds of Furniture—

There never was Such Destruction & Outrage committed any day before this Many other People have suffer’d the Same Fate as Mee— Particularly—
Mr. Saml. Austin Mr. John Scolly Capt. [Samuel] Partridge Capt. [Samuel] Dashwood Mr. Cyrus Baldwin The Widow [Mary] Newman

In May 1776, Austin, Scollay, Partridge, Dashwood, and Rowe petitioned the Continental Congress to speak up for them about their confiscated goods. But there was a war on.

Nine years later, in 1785, Rowe, Partridge, Dashwood, and Austin sought help from Gov. James Bowdoin and American minister John Adams in gaining redress from Britain. (I don’t know why Scollay dropped out; he was still alive at the time.)

Responding to a similar claim from Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, Adams wrote back on 13 Oct 1786:

I have not yet presented any of these Claims at Court, because there is not even a Possibility of their being regarded— . . . I frankly own I do not think, that the Dignity or the faith of the United States ought ever to have been compromised in these Matters—

If those Boston merchants had left with the British military, they might have regained their property after landing in Halifax. But they did, after all, show themselves to be rebel sympathizers.

TOMORROW: A receipt, and more disorder.

“Utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d from this Place”

Here’s merchant John Rowe’s diary entry for Sunday, 10 Mar 1776:

Capn. Dawson is Returnd with Two Vessells—he has had a severe Brush with four Privateers.

George Dawson commanded H.M.S. Hope, a schooner with four guns and thirty crewmen. On 30 January he had nearly caught or killed the first Continental naval hero, John Manley, as described here.

Rowe seems to sympathize with Dawson rather than the Patriots on the two ships he had captured, or the four “Privateers” that had tried to capture him. He went on:

I staid at home all Day—

A Proclamation came Out from Genl. How this day a very severe one, on Some People

In writing he stayed home, Rowe meant he didn’t go to church, though he did have the Rev. Samuel Parker over that evening.

That proclamation from Gen. William Howe appears here at the Journal of the American Revolution:

As Linnen and Woolen Goods are Articles much wanted by the Rebels, and would aid and assist them in their Rebellion, the Commander in Chief expects that all good Subjects will use their utmost Endeavors to have all such Articles convey’d from this Place:

Any who have not Opportunity to convey their Goods under their own Care, may deliver them on Board the Minerva at Hubbard’s Wharf, to Crean Brush, Esq; marked with their Names, who will give a Certificate of the Delivery, and will oblige himself to return them to the Owners, all unavoidable Accidents excepted.

If after this Notice any Person secretes or keeps in his Possession such Articles, he will be treated as a Favourer of Rebels.

So now we know what happened to the Minerva, the ship that Rowe had noted the army had impressed the day before.

When Rowe called Howe’s proclamation “very severe…on Some People,” he was downplaying how that could be severe on him. As a merchant, he owned a lot of cloth. But perhaps he thought he could get away with keeping most of it.

The general’s order not to leave any cloth in Boston sheds light on the rest of Rowe’s diary entry for 10 March:

John Inman Went on board this day—with his Wife he has in his Possession three Watches of mine & Sundry Pieces of Checks which was to be made into Shirts—

Jos Goldthwait Mrs. Winslow went on board this day—he has Carried off Capn. Linzees horse witho. Paying for him

John Linzee was a captain in the Royal Navy who had married Rowe’s niece and remained a good friend. Goldthwait wasn’t just a horse thief; he was commissary for the king’s troops, and undoubtedly wanted to preserve that animal from the rebels as well.

TOMORROW: A brush with Brush.

“Nothing but Cruilty & Ingratitude falls to my Lot”

With Continental cannon pointing at Boston from Dorchester Heights, the merchant John Rowe realized that the siege was coming to an end. But what did that mean for him?

In his diary Rowe wrote on 6 Mar 1776:

This morning the Country People have thrown a Strong Work on Another Place on the Neck at Dorchester Nick. Gen. [William] Howe has order’d the Troops ashore again & tis now out of Doubt that Gen Howe will Leave this Town with his Troops &c—which has put The Inhabitants of This Town into Great Disorder Confusion & much Distress. . . .

The Firing has Ceas’d this day—

7 March:

The Troops & Inhabitants very Busy in Getting All the Goods & Effects on board the Shipping in the Harbour—

tis Impossible to describe the Distresses of this unfortunate Town

I din’d and spent the Evening at home with my Dear Mrs. Rowe Mr. [Ralph] Inman & Jack Rowe—

Genl. Robinson Pd. Mee a Visit

Rowe hadn’t described his wife as “my dear” for a while, possibly since the summer of 1774 when she was injured in a carriage accident. That’s a measure of the stress he was feeling now.

I believe the man Rowe referred to in this week as “Genl. Robinson” was Maj. Gen. James Robertson, barrack master general of the British army in North America. (Other documents, including selectman Timothy Newell’s journal and even Gen. Howe’s orderly book, also referred to him as “Robinson” at times.)

Back in 1768 Rowe had called Robertson a “Gentleman of Great Abilities & very cool & dispassionate.” He handled a lot of the army’s logistics, which at this moment meant safely moving the troops.

8 March:

My Situation has almost Distracted Me [i.e., driven me insane]

John Inman Archy McNeil and Duncan are determin’d to Leave Mee—God Send Me Comfort in My Old Age—I try to do what Business I Can, but am Disapointd and nothing but Cruilty & Ingratitude falls to my Lot.

I Spend the Day & Evening with my Dear Mrs. Rowe Richd. Green & John Haskins—

John Inman was a young relative of Mrs. Rowe. There were multiple men named Archibald McNeil or McNeal in Boston in the 1770s, and this appears to have been the baker, perhaps working for the Rowes as a cook. Duncan also seems to have been a household servant, perhaps enslaved. They were all evidently ready to sail away with the troops, and Rowe felt they were deserting him personally—which means he had already made up his mind to stay.

9 March:

I dind at home with the Revd. Mr. [Samuel] Parker [shown above] Mrs. Rowe & Jack & Spent the Evening at the Possee

This day Genl. Robinson pressed the Ship Minerva into the Service—nothing but hurry & confusion, Every Person Striving to get Out of this Place

A Great Deal of Firing on both Sides this night

As I wrote yesterday, I suspect that Rowe had a financial interest in the Minerva since he mentioned that ship and not others, but I can’t confirm that. Perhaps Gen. Robertson’s visit two days before was about the army’s need for that getaway vessel.

TOMORROW: Worse and worse.