“An account of the progress of our machine”

On 31 Aug 1775, the Rev. Benjamin Boardman, serving as a chaplain to Connecticut troops at the siege of Boston, wrote in his diary:

I collected this day in cash for the encouragt. of Mr. Bushnels Machine the sum of £13.4.4. in cash out of our regt.

Boardman was a graduate of Yale, and David Bushnell (1740–1826) had just graduated from that college.

On 24 September, Dr. Benjamin Church wrote to his British army contact:

The distroying the Ships in the manner I wrote you before they began to dispair of tho’ the former of the Machine is full of faith that he can do it, Works on hardly and so let him, I say.

This intel might have referred to the same machine, or to different technology designed to damage Royal Navy ships.

Bushnell’s invention was still in the works, but getting closer to completion, when the doctor and inventor Benjamin Gale (1715–1790) wrote from Killingworth to Silas Deane at the Continental Congress on 9 November:

In your last you requested I would give you an account of the progress of our machine, and whether anything may be expected of it. I now sit down to give you a succinct but imperfect account of its structure, which is so complicated that it is impossible to give a perfect idea of it. . . .

I conclude by the time this reaches you the machine will be in camp. Lately he has conducted matters and his designs with the greatest secrecy, both for the personal safety of the navigator as to produce the greatest astonishment to those against whom it is designed,—

if this projection succeeds, of which I make no doubt, as I well know the man and have seen the machine while in embryo, and every addition made to it fills me with fresh astonishment and surprize. And you may call me a visionary, an enthusiast, or what you please,—I do insist upon it, that I believe the inspiration of the Almighty has given him understanding for this very purpose and design.

But two weeks later, on 22 November, Gale had to report a delay:

I have to ask pardon for the wrong information I gave you. At the time of my last writing, I supposed the Machine was gone, but since find one proving the navigation of it in Connecticut River. The forcing pump made by Mr. [Isaac] Doolittle, not being made according to order given, did not answer; which has delayed him. The trials I mentioned to have been made since Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin’s being here, was the explosion, which prov’d beyond expectation.

The most famous American scientist of the day had stopped in Saybrook on his way back from Cambridge to Philadelphia in order to inspect this invention.

Gale sent another update and plea to Deane on 7 December:

…everything answers well, but still, he fails on one account. He proposes going in the night, on account of safety. He always depends on fox-wood, which gives light in the dark, to fix on the points of the needle of his compass, and in his barometer, by which he may know what course to steer and the depth he is under water, both which are absolute necessity for personal safety of the navigator; but he now finds that the frost wholly destroys that quality in that wood, of which he was before ignorant, and for that reason and that alone he is obliged to desist. He was detained near two months for want of money, and before he could obtain it the season was so far advanced he was, in the manner I have now related, frustrated. . . .

The person, the inventor of this machine, now makes all his affairs a secret even to his best friends, and I have liberty to communicate this much from him only with a view to know if Dr. Franklin knows of any kind of phosphorus that will answer his purpose; otherwise the execution must be omitted until next spring, after the frosts are past.

As of 1 February, Gale was still seeking some phosphorescent material for Bushnell. He wrote, “I have lately seen the man, and conversed freely with him. He is no enthusiast; a perfect philosopher, and by no means doubtful of succeeding.” But the siege of Boston would end before warm weather.

TOMORROW: A new campaign.

(Several replicas of the Bushnell’s machine have been built over the years based on the verbal descriptions. The one shown above was in Westbrook, Connecticut, as of last year.)

“‘Subject’ to an authority founded on the late Declaration of Independence”

During the siege of Boston, Benjamin Davis, Sr., signed up for the Loyal American Association, which appears to have been a pro-Crown militia.

We have these companies’ rolls but little other information on what they actually did, if anything. But membership is a useful yardstick for Loyalism.

According to Todd Braisted’s On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies website, Davis was listed as a sergeant in the Third Company, headed by Adino Paddock. Hopestill Capen, a fellow Sandemanian, was also a fellow sergeant.

Benjamin Davis, Jr., joined the Second Company under Capt. Abijah Willard at the rank of private. He was around nineteen years old, thus of prime military age.

In 1776 both father and son evacuated Boston with the British military. Then they headed back to New York to be part of the British military’s return to the newly-declared independent U.S. of A. After their ship was captured, both were locked up in the Boston jail starting in July.

In the Massachusetts state archives, and published in Peter Force’s American Archives, is a long letter dated 10 Oct 1776 to James Bowdoin, who happened to be a senior member of the Massachusetts Council. The signature as transcribed was “Benj’a Davis, Jun.” However, the writer refers to “my son” and “the property which I left in my store in Boston, in March past, worth about a thousand pounds sterling,” so it must have come from Benjamin, Sr.

This letter lays out Benjamin Davis’s religious motivation for remaining loyal to the royal government, to the extent that he refused to recognize the authority of his captors, even to ask for his release:

There is a proverb that it will be well for me to attend to, as it is applicable to one in my present situation: “The fear of man bringeth a snare.” [Proverbs, 29:25] I consider myself now to be wholly in the power of the people, and that there is no legal authority for me to apply to for relief. The present distressed situation I am in, and the method pointed out to me in order to get relieved, are such as makes it necessary for me to be much on my guard, lest I get ensnared.

I am bound by God’s law to “be subject to the higher power;” [Romans 13:1] and I have much more to dread from the disobedience of his commands than I can have to fear from those who may be offended at me because I cannot in conscience be “subject” to an authority founded on the late Declaration of Independence. I am very sorry I am placed in such a situation, as though designed to compel me to take such a step for my enlargement as would be in me a breach of God’s law.

To compel me to act or do, contrary to the dictates of my conscience, any one thing that shall carry with it any authority founded on the Declaration of Independence, until the same be recognized and fully settled so as to become my duty to be “subject,” would be the same, and I see no odds, as if I was in Spain or Portugal and committed to the Inquisition as a heretick, and they were to inflict on me the most cruel tortures in order to compel me to deny the faith.

I’m sure Bowdoin didn’t expect that!

Davis pointed out that he wasn’t demanding his confiscated property since doing so would be another form of recognizing the local courts. He probably knew that also meant fewer locals would see him as an enemy.

The letter continued:

I profess myself a liege subject of his Majesty King George III, founded on this principle, that all who are born within his dominions or realm he has a claim upon as his rightful and lawful subjects; that the Provinces and Colonies in North America make a part of his realm.

I was born in this Province; of course allegiance is due from me to him, nor can it be dissolved but by his consent, or by a revolution taking place within the Kingdom, or the Government fixed and established, in which case it would be dissolved. I am bound by God’s law to “honour the King,” and to be subject to the legislative authority of Great Britain as “the higher power.”

I cannot, in any way, be aiding or assisting in any plan or scheme for bringing about any revolution in the Empire upon any pretence whatsoever, without breaking a positive law of God. But whenever any revolution does take place within the Kingdom, and the Government becomes fixed and established, be the cause that brings it about what it may, I shall then be bound in conscience to be “subject” to its authority, for they will then become the “higher power” in the Apostle’s sense.

That’s Sandemanian doctrine.

Davis said he didn’t desire “being abroad” in Boston, lest people think he was trying to convert them or spy on them; that “would be as unbecoming as to be an informer against my neighbour, who may be concerned in an illicit trade.” But he also said he hoped to “take lodgings in town.”

Finally, Davis suggested that “my son, together with myself and servant, could be exchanged for any prisoners in the hands of his Excellency General [William] Howe, at New-York.”

TOMORROW: Petitions.

“May God preserve this second Sodom”

On 25 May 1775, one week after the New-England Chronicle’s initial, hazy report on the fire that started in the 65th Regiment’s barracks, printers Samuel and Ebenezer Hall returned to the subject with a longer dispatch.

This article started by summarizing the account of how the fire started and listing a few damaged buildings. It continued:

The following Letter contains an Account of the Transactions of the Military at the Fire; and will give the Public some Idea of the present wretched Police of that once well governed Town.

Extract of a Letter from Boston.

“I propose to give you a circumstantial Account of the late Fire, previous to which please to observe, that for ten Days past, a Report has been propagated, that the Liberty Party intended to set Fire to the Town in different Places as soon as the greater Part of them had got out.

The General [Thomas Gage] took the Alarm, and took the Engines under Guard, and appointed new Captains; the late Engine Men took umbrage at it; but to the Point.---

I being informed that Barrack was on Fire, ran through the Street crying Fire, (as no Bells rang) but was stopped by a Man who told me it was the Officer’s Order not to cry Fire, one having threatened to beat the Man’s Brains out that did. The Drums all this Time beating to Arms.

When I came to the Fire I found no engine there. Applying to one of the late Engine Men to know the Reason, was informed that he had applied for the Engine, but the Bayonet was pointed at him, and he was told that he must apply to some Officer for an Order before he could have it.

After this fatal Delay the Engines appeared with the new appointed Captains and military Firewards, and a miserable figure they cut, the former not knowing how to obey if the latter had known how to command.---

Upon the whole, it appears to me as plain as the meridian Sun, had the Engines been on the old Footing, the Fire would have been put out, and *twenty thousand Pounds Sterling Loss prevented. Let that be as it may, I will venture to say, had the Fire broke out in the Center of the Town it would have laid it in Ashes, in the Direction it took to the Water. May God preserve this second Sodom from the Fate of the First.”

* The whole Loss is thought to be £40,000 Sterling.

After that Hall printed the complete list of property losses that had already appeared in the Newport Mercury and other papers. That list included: “50 Barrels of Flour, belonging to the Donation Stock, destroyed.” That stock was food donated to feed the poor of Boston since the previous year’s Port Bill.

That contemporaneous account was rewritten for the Saturday Morning Transcript of 15 Mar 1834 under the headline “Fire Reminiscences: No XVI.” The best new line put into the original voice was: “I asked the reason of such extraordinary delay, and was told by an Engineman that he had been to his Engine, but the bayonets were too thick.”

That text in turn was printed with small changes in Arthur Wellington Brayley’s A Complete History of the Boston Fire Department in 1889.

As a first-person account, it was more dramatic than the list of burned buildings alone. At the same time, the writer and printers had a political message about how military occupation was damaging the community.

TOMORROW: Back to Benjamin Davis.

“The 65th lost their Arms, Cloathing, and everything”

Yesterday I quoted the first newspaper account of the fire at the 65th Regiment’s barracks on the Town Dock, rented from the Loyalist merchant Benjamin Davis.

Here are some more accounts from the town, starting with Lt. John Barker’s journal entry for 18 May:

About 9 oclock last night a fire broke out in the Barracks of the 65th Regt. on a Wharf near the Market: every house on the Wharf, amounting to 41, was burnt to the Ground, and most of the things in them; the 65th lost their Arms, Cloathing, and everything; and the 47th has lost 4 Companies cloathing; the loss altogether is considerable as they were all stores on the Wharf and full of Goods. – A chest of Bullets was found in [John] Hancock’s store.

Coll. [James] Abercrombie Adjt. Genl., lately arrived from England, going up Cambridge river this morning in a Man of War’s Boat was fired upon by several of the Rebels from the Banks; several balls went thro’ the boat but nobody was hurt; they made the best of their way back, and I don’t hear that he has been as fond of reconnoitring since.

Detachments from the different Corps were sent to extinguish the fire, which had began to break out again; in 4 or 5 hours they effected it.

Merchant John Rowe put in his journal:

17 May … About Eight of Clock A Terrible Fire Broke Out in the Barracks on Treats Wharff Occupied by the 65th Regiment. it was Occasiond by Accident or rather from Great Carelessness — it destroyd 33 Stores on Dock Square — Mine was in Great Danger I thought it So & therefore removd Great part of my Effects — from thence. it continued untill half past One with Progress — The Officers Behavd Very Well

The Cloathing of 4 Companies belonging to the 47th. Regimt was burnt & Some Fire Arms Lost

18 May Thursday Warm Weather W So. W — The People in General very Busy in Collecting the Effects that were Sav'd Out of the Fire

Rumors were more dire, as usual. From Salem, Nathaniel Appelton wrote: “There has been a very great fire at Boston last night don’t yet learn the particulars but in generall that it broke out near draw-bridge & consumed many buildings; some say 30, some say 100, oh poor Boston!”

In fact, this fire appears to have been confined to a central business district. Although lots of warehouses and stores were destroyed, along with the goods inside them, no private homes were lost—just the 65th Regiment’s quarters.

TOMORROW: Newspaper coverage.

“A fire broke out in the barracks of the 65th regiment”

When the British army returned to central Boston in 1774, Benjamin Davis, Sr., rented his store on the south side of the Town Dock as a barracks.

Davis later told the Loyalists Commission that he “put his own goods in a Cellar” to make room for the redcoats. That turned out to be a costly decision.

On 24 May 1775, Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy reported that on 17 May:

a fire broke out in the barracks of the 65th regiment on the south side of the Town-Dock, occasioned by a serjeant of said regiment delivering cartridges to the men by candle-light, a spark from the candle falling amongst them, set fire thereto and immediately the building was in a blaze.

Upon discovery of the fire the troops immediately beat to arms, which being unusual upon such occasions, caused great consternation amongst the inhabitants, and but few dared to leave their habitations; some that did repaired to the engine houses as usual, but to their surprize were told, the engines were not to be delivered without an order from the General [Thomas Gage] (he having a few days before taken the engines under his care, information being given to him, as he said, that when the inhabitants had removed some desperate people, purposely left, were to set fire to the town;)

by this delay the fire got to so great a height, as put it out of the power of the people to stop its progress speedily: It raged with uncommon fury till near three o’clock next morning, in which time all the barracks on the Dock, with a number of stores adjoining, near thirty buildings in the whole, were entirely consumed, with merchandize to a great amount.

The merchandize was chiefly taken out of the stores and put upon the wharf, and might have been saved had not the Admiral [Samuel Graves] some time before taken every boat from the town, and at the time of the fire cruelly refused any assistance.

It was the opinion of the inhabitants, that had the engines been in their hands as formerly, or could they have got them in any season, the fire might have been stopped at the first barrack.

Earlier in the occupation, redcoats and locals had worked together to stop a fire. But with the town besieged and the military commanders on edge, there was more finger-pointing than cooperation.

TOMORROW: Eyewitness reports.

“The Women from the Windows asking Davis whether he wanted any Gingerbread”

Massachusetts ships captured the Peggy on its voyage from Halifax to New York on 22 July 1776, as described yesterday.

The civilians aboard that ship were taken to Marblehead, then to Boston under guard. Word spread quickly that one of them was Benjamin Davis, a merchant who had left town months before.

On 28 July, Joseph Ward wrote to John Adams from Boston about the ship: “There are many Tories on board, among whom is the noted Benjamin Davis.”

The next day, Ezekiel Price put in his diary: “Brought to town Benjamin Davis and a number of other Tories, who were committed to jail.”

Why was Davis being singled out? He’d made himself notorious in some way, and we have a couple of hints about how.

David Cobb wrote to Robert Treat Paine on 29 July:

Just now the Tories were Landed at the Long Wharf from Marblehead & were attended from thence to the Prison by 2 thousand people; the Women from the Windows asking Davis whether he wanted any Gingerbread, refering to his treatment of the little Chreldren when they were going out of Town last Year. I wish the Devil had ’em.

Abigail Adams alluded to the same scuttlebut in her letter to John the same day:

we have taken a vessel from Halifax bound to New York, which we should call a prize but that it containd about 14 Tories among whom is that infamous Wretch of a Ben Davis the Ginger Bread Robber. How many little ones can say I was an Hungry and you gave me no Bread, but inhumanely took what little I had from me. I wish the Sea or any other Element had them rather than we should be tormented with them.

The editors of the Adams and Paine Papers weren’t sure what to make of those remarks about gingerbread.

I can’t find any sources providing a definite answer, but here’s my guess. At the start of the war, many families sought to leave Boston. Gen. Thomas Gage didn’t want refugees to take out food, which his army needed, or weapons, which the provincial army needed. So the governor set up a system of passes and inspections using both military and civilian administrators.

In the 5 June 1775 Boston Gazette, Benjamin Edes published an open letter addressed “To the perfidious, the truce breaking THOMAS GAGE” and signed “Massachusettensis.” (This was not, presumably, the Loyalist political writer.) Among its complaints about Gage was:

Nay, have not you, and your associates by your orders, been mean enough to steal rum and sugar from a poor teamster, half a cake of gingerbread, a nutmeg, and half a bisket from a poor woman who was flying half famished out of Boston from your low lived tyranny and oppression?

That item was reprinted in several other Massachusetts and Connecticut newspapers over the next couple of weeks. It’s the one gingerbread-related complaint I could find from the period.

That complaint shows that people working for the royal government were confiscating food from folks trying to leave Boston, even mundane food like gingerbread, even from “a poor woman.”

I suspect that Benjamin Davis had agreed to work for Gage’s royal government as some sort of inspector or administrator. At some point that spring, he took gingerbread from a family or two trying to leave town. Children may have cried. That incident didn’t get into the newspapers, but it made him notorious enough that citizens yelled at “Ben Davis the Ginger Bread Robber” more than a year later.

And, unlike Hopestill Capen, few people in Boston minded seeing Davis locked up.

(The picture above shows the Pennsylvania politician Joseph Galloway, not mentioned anywhere in this posting. In September 1774 John Adams wrote in his diary that he was “introduced to Mr. Galloway, the Speaker of the House in Pensylvania. He looks like Ben. Davis the Sandimanian.”)

“Fell in with two Arm’d Schooners”

Yesterday I wrote about Benjamin and Edward Davis, two brothers who were mercantile partners in Boston until religion and Revolutionary politics split them apart.

Benjamin became a Sandemanian, devoutly guided not to oppose British Crown policies by, for instance, signing on to the non-importation boycotts.

Edward remained an Anglican, attending Trinity Church. By late 1774 the Whigs coopted him into helping to enforce their strongest boycott, the Continental Association.

Both brothers remained in Boston during the siege. But when the British military evacuated, Edward stayed while Benjamin sailed away to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In April 1776 the Patriot authorities ordered magistrates to question Edward about his loyalty, but evidently he passed muster.

Around the start of July, Benjamin Davis boarded the ship Peggy, headed for New York. Along with him came his son Benjamin, Jr., who turned twenty that year; an enslaved man; half a dozen other Loyalist men; and a few Loyalist women.

Evidently those refugees saw business opportunities supplying the huge British and Hessian army assembling at New York. The Peggy was loaded with provisions, including 2,648 “mutton hams,” 311 “tierces salted beef,” fish, flour, snuff, cloth, stockings, and a large quantity of alcohol in various forms.

The Peggy also carried six 3-pounder and two 2-pounder cannon. It sailed in convoy with dozens of other merchant ships and troop transports, all escorted by two Royal Navy warships. The sea voyage probably seemed safe.

We have the ship captain’s account of what happened next:

I James Kennedy, Master of the Ship Peggy, in the Merchant Service, declare that I left Hallifax about the first Inst. [i.e., of this month] under Convoy of the Renown of Fifty Guns, with a Fleet of sixteen [torn] Transports containing the 42nd & 71 Scotch Regiments & Fraziers new rais’d Regiment, about 3000 in all, & three Large Ships with Hessian Troops on board, about 600 in all, & one Ship with 5 companys of English foot Guards, & four Victualling Ships, the whole Fleet bound for New York.

Off Nantucket Shoals we fell in with the Flora Frigate of Thirty Guns & four Transports with Highland Troops, these had been in Boston Bay, where they got information from a Fisherman that the Town was Evacuated, on which they Stood for Hallifax untill they met with us, they then joyn’d our Fleet for New York.

The Scotch Troops were all to be of Coll [Archibald] Campbells division (of the Grand Army in America, the whole of which Army I was informd, would by the last of July, amount, to 50,000.) the Hessian Troops left England about the 12th of May, some of the Officers informd me they came out with 304 Sail under the Command of Commodore Hawtham [William Hotham], on board of whom were 10,000 Foreign Troops & some English Troops (number unknown).

last Fryday sennight [19 July] in a gale of wind & thick weather I lost the Fleet & on monday [22 July] I fell in with two [American] Arm’d Schooners, Capts. [John] Skimmer & [Samuel] Tucker, to whom I surrendered after a short engagement, in which I had only one man Wounded.

The day after the Fleet left Hallifax, I saw from my Deck forty Sail of Ships standing in for that Harbour, & which I suppose to be part of the Fleet under Commodore Hawtham.

Skimmer commanded the Franklin and Tucker the Hancock, schooners originally launched under the authority of the Continental Army commander. They were now sailing for Massachusetts.

The Patriot authorities who took Capt. Kennedy’s deposition were evidently pumping him for intelliegence on what other British ships and troops were out there rather than details of his engagement with the schooners.

For Benjamin Davis, all that mattered now was that he was a prisoner of the state he’d left four months before.

TOMORROW: The gingerbread man.

“At the French lines on Prospect Hill”

In 2019 Ric Detwiller published an excellent article at the Journal of the American Revolution about a Frenchman recruited as a provincial engineer early in the siege of Boston.

Though “Monsieur Dubuque” (Jean-Baptiste du Buq?) lasted only a short time before defecting to the British, he left behind a fortification near Prospect Hill labeled “French Redoubt” on Henry Pelham’s map of the siege, as shown in this posting.

In a comment to the Detwiller article, Les Haskell added a pertinent entry from the diary of his relative, Caleb Haskell, on 26 July 1775:

This morning our regiment was ordered out of the great Fort [on Prospect Hill] to man the French lines — where we are for the future to repair in an alarm. A grenadier, belonging to the enemy’s side when on sentry, quitted his post, came over to us and delivered himself a prisoner to our guards.

In addition, the Massachusetts archives has a return of Capt. Edward Crafts’s artillery company dated 12 Oct 1775 from the “French lines.”

While preparing yesterday’s talk on the Convention Army, the prisoners of war held at Prospect and Winter Hills in 1777–78, I spotted how the label “French lines” lasted past the siege of Boston.

In 1894 the Maine Historical Society published the “Military Journal of Col. Ichabod Goodwin,” an orderly book for a militia contingent detailed to help guard those prisoners. That document shows that the three main positions where the Continental forces posted guards included “french lines.”

The editor of this volume guessed that term “probably refers to Hessians, no French troops having been present.”

However, the German-speaking prisoners (actually Brunswickers) were housed on Winter Hill. Pelham’s map locates the “French Redoubt” much closer to Prospect Hill. And the transcript of the early 1778 inquiry into Col. David Henley’s treatment of the British prisoners shows Col. Jacob Gerrish speaking of “the guard at the French lines on Prospect Hill.”

Thus, nearly three years after “Monsieur Dubuque” slipped away from his job with the Americans, military men in New England still referred to the fortifications he oversaw as the “French lines.”

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.

“A Genius has appear’d lately”

In his 29 Apr 1776 letter to Samuel Adams, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper described the man who came forward with a solution for cannon with damaged trunnions:

It was judg’d by…all here, at first, that they could never again be made useful: But a Genius has appear’d lately, a Country Surgeon in our Army, an obscure Man till now, who has hit upon a Method of mounting them, without Trunnions, so as to render them it is tho’t, serviceable as ever.

I can only give you some general imperfect Idea of this Method. He first sinks the Cannon to its Centre, in a strong wooden Sock, like the Barrell of a Musket in it’s Stock: He braces it with three iron Clasps to prevent it’s leaping out of this Stock; and yet so as not to obstruct any Movement necessary to it’s use.

The Cannon in this wooden Bed, is mounted on a Carriage, and by rounding the lower side of the latter like the Foot of a rocking Cradle, Provision is made for the Elivation & Depression of the Cannon.

He has compleated one or two already in this Manner; and if Experience proves it, to be, what some good Judges have already pronounc’d it, the Invention will do Honor to our Country & ought to be immortalise the Name of the Man, which is Clap.

It will give us an hundred fine Cannon for the Defence of our Harbor, which a few Days ago were given up as entirely useless.

To my surprise, I find that this is the first time in more than twenty years that Boston 1775 has mentioned Dr. Preserved Clap.

Dr. Clap did make a short appearance in The Road to Concord, in which I posited that his method was how the New Englanders mounted damaged artillery pieces in 1775.

In Old Landmarks and Historic Fields of Middlesex (1895), Samuel A. Drake included this picture, saying it showed Dr. Clap’s carriage as drawn “by an officer of artillery present at the siege.” I haven’t located that original drawing or the officer’s name.

Cooper’s letter is the earliest mention of Dr. Clap and his invention that I’ve found, as well as the most detailed description of it. The wording suggests that Clap came forward with his method only in the spring of  1776, not during the siege. And Cooper’s description really doesn’t match the drawing. So I have questions.

TOMORROW: Who was Preserved Clap?

Twenty Years of Boston 1775

Twenty years ago today, on 14 May 2006, I posted my first item on this blog.

That post was a link to an article I’d written for the magazine then called New England Ancestors, now American Ancestors, published by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.

The original link broke. A subsequent link from 2012 broke. But Boston 1775 is still here.

That article described how a message from Dr. John Homans to his mentor, Dr. Joseph Gardner, in the first days of the Revolutionary War was detoured by the duplicitous Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr.

Last August I revealed other messages that Dr. Church diverted into the files of Gen. Thomas Gage, from Boston magistrate Edmund Quincy to his daughter Dorothy and her fiancé, John Hancock.

Tonight I’m speaking in Stoneham about how Dr. Church managed to infiltrate Gen. George Washington’s network for sneaking intelligence out of besieged Boston before the Continentals realized their surgeon-general as a spy.

One way to look at this situation is that after twenty years of daily blogging I’m still working the same ground.

Another is that Dr. Benjamin Church’s treachery is an endless source of revelations and fun.

“That the said Hill be immediately apprehended”

John Hill was yet another of the Loyalists captured aboard the brig Elizabeth.

[I feel like I’m never getting away! Then again, that’s probably how those passengers felt when they were brought back to New England after trying to evacuate.]

According to recent research shared in the Loyalist Directory, John Hill was born in Ireland about 1737. He moved to New York City in the early 1770s and ran an inn.

In March 1775, Hill came to the aid of William Cunningham during a fight near New York’s Liberty Pole (shown here). Hill later told the Loyalists Commission that “a Mob…beat us with Clubs, and stoned us.” The two men were thrown into prison and put on trial in April. But the foreman of the jury, John Wetherhead (another future Loyalist), kept them from being convicted and punished.

Cunningham and Hill “escaped to Boston,” reaching the besieged town by 5 May. They enlisted in the militia company of James Forrest, another man from Ireland. Hill said he was “appointed Quarter Master to the same Company.”

In March 1776, Gen. William Howe decided to evacuate the town. He ordered Crean Brush to confiscate all cloth that could be useful to the Continental Army. Brush enlisted Richard Hill, formerly sheriff in his county of northeastern New York (which would become Vermont), as an assistant. Richard presumably brought his younger brother, John Hill, onto that team.

As ships pushed off from Boston’s wharves, John Hill and his family squeezed onto the Elizabeth along with Brush, most of the confiscated goods, a squad of British soldiers, and other Loyalists. In Hill’s words, “on the 17th of March 1776, he left Boston, with the Royal Army; but was taken at Sea, by the Rebels.”

The brig, its property, and its wealthiest passengers were sent to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The Hill family and several others were landed on Cape Ann by 7 April. The Massachusetts authorities summoned John Hill to Watertown for questioning.

On 19 April, the Massachusetts Council reported:

The Committee appointed to examine sundry Persons taken on board the Brigt Sally [sic] bound to Hallifax, & sent to the Council by the Committee of Marblehead…examined [John] Hill who informs your Committee that he is a native of Ireland that he came to New York three or four years since that he came to Boston about ten months ago on the removal of the troops from New York to Boston for the recovery of monies due to him from them and that for the same purpose he was going to Hallifax having acted as a Sutler among the troops.

Sailing off to Canada out of political loyalty was suspect. Sailing there just to collect debts from soldiers seemed more reasonable to these office-holders.

The Council agreed that Hill should be allowed to go free after providing a “written parole not to bear arms against the United Colonies, nor in any way aid or assist the Enemies of the said Colonies.” He probably headed back to Cape Ann to find his wife and at least one child.

In Boston, however, some merchants were still seething at how Brush and his assistants had taken their property. That property itself was up in Portsmouth, being sorted by Continental agent Joshua Wentworth. More information filtered back to Watertown.

On 25 April, 250 years ago today, the whole Massachusetts General Court passed a new resolve:

WHEREAS a certain John Hill, lately taken Prisoner by Commodore [John] Manly, in a Vessell bound from Boston to Hallifax, and brought into Portsmouth, was examined before the Council; and no Evidence then appearing against him, he was discharged & set at Liberty;

And whereas it hath since been made to appear to this Court; that the said Hill, at the time he was taken, as aforesaid, had in his possession Chests, Trunks & Packages of Goods and Merchandizes to the value of three hundred pounds Sterlg. supposed to have been stolen from the distressed Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; and was an Assistant to Crean Brush in his late unwarrantable and highhanded Thefts & Robberies
Therefore

Resolved, That the said Hill be immediately apprehended, wherever to be found, & brought before this Court for Examination, touching the Premises, and all Sheriffs, Constables & other executive Officers, and all the good People of this Colony, are hereby directed & impowered to apprehend the said Hill, wherever he may be found, and bring him forthwith before this Court, in order that he may be dealt with for his aforesaid highhanded Crimes, as to Law & Justice appertains.

TOMORROW: The manhunt was on!

[Boston also had a justice of the peace named John Hill, very involved in events surrounding the Boston Massacre. Unfortunately, the same tag applies to both men, but I think context will make it easy to sort out their stories.]

Caleb Wheaton “industriously vindicating the Measures of the Ministry”

In yesterday’s discussion of how the Massachusetts legislature dealt with Loyalists captured on the Elizabeth in April 1776, I left out Caleb Wheaton and his sons: Caleb, Jr.; Joseph; and John.

That’s because their story is complex and detailed enough to deserve a few postings on their own. And even then there will be holes and mysteries.

Vital records of Rehoboth show Caleb Wheaton born there in 1713. There were lots of Wheatons in that region, however, including across the nearby border in Rhode Island. Unfortunately for us, that means there were other men with the same name moving in and out of the eighteenth-century record.

Documents in Caleb Wheaton’s filing to the Loyalist Commission in 1784 show that he served in the Massachusetts army raised by Gov. William Shirley to hold Annapolis Royal in 1744. Later he was “Commandant of St. George’s Fort in the Eastern Part of the Province of Massachusetts,” now Thomaston, Maine.

Customs Commissioner Charles Paxton certified that his agency made Wheaton “a preventive Officer at Machias in which he conducted himself faithfully and diligently to the Acceptance of the Board.” That couldn’t have been a full-time position, given the size of trade in the region.

By 1774, Wheaton owned 200 acres in Machias, Maine, where he lived, and 173 more acres in Dedham. Capt. Solomon Smith wrote that he “was Situated in the most advantagest place for traid in the harbour of Machias.” Wheaton’s family consisted of a wife and nine children, some grown.

That year, Caleb Wheaton testified, he was “obliged to fly from his Estate and Property…on Account of his Attachment to the British Government.”

The 13 Feb 1775 Newport Mercury ran these two articles:

Rehoboth, February 3, 1775.

A Number of the Inhabitants of this Town assembled on Monday last [28 January], to enquire into the Conduct of Mr. Caleb Wheaton, who lately came here from the Eastward, and who had rendered himself obnoxious, by openly espousing & vindicating the Plan of Despotism now carrying on against the Colonies. A Committee was appointed to wait on him, and after making an Acknowledgment of his Villany, asking Forgiveness, and promising Amendment, he was ordered to depart the Town in twelve Hours. . . .

PROVIDENCE, Feb. 4.

Mr. Caleb Wheaton, who some Time since was obliged to quit this Town for industriously vindicating the Measures of the Ministry, returned here from Rehoboth the Beginning of this Week, which Place he had likewise been obliged to leave; and Yesterday a Number of the Inhabitants paid him a second Visit, to remind him of their former Request, when he thought proper to make a precipitate Flight.—So many all the Enemies to America become destitute of a Resting-Place for the Soles of their Feet.

The reference to “the Eastward” makes me think these items referred to Caleb Wheaton, Sr., from Maine.

Like other New England Loyalists, Wheaton found protection in army-occupied Boston. Gen. Thomas Gage certified that “he was employ’d as an Officer of Guides in the Kings Service.” According to E. Alfred Jones’s Loyalists of Massachusetts, “By orders of General Sir William Howe he pulled down the Old North Meeting House,” which happened on 16 Jan 1776.

TOMORROW: The Wheaton brothers.

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.

“After this they went to it with their fists”

Here’s an example of how Gen. John Burgoyne’s diary of the late 1775, just brought to light, offers new detail on life inside besieged Boston.

We’ve long known that in August 1775 Adm. Samuel Graves (shown below) and Customs Commmissioner Benjamin Hallowell (shown at right) got into a fistfight. In 1929, Allen French delivered a whole paper on this incident to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The two men had already butted heads over the unloading of a merchant ship. One report suggests that Hallowell had critiqued the way Graves deployed warships during the Battle of Bunker Hill. But the immediate conflict was over hay growing on Gallops Island in the outer harbor.

Hallowell had purchased the right to harvest that hay. Graves wanted that hay, or at least half of it, for the navy. (Or maybe he wanted half the value of the hay for himself.) Hallowell secured permission from Gov. Thomas Gage to harvest. Graves refused to allow haying on the islands, and he had warships.

Hallowell sent increasingly angry letters to the admiral. Graves sent no replies. Hallowell took that silence as a sign of disrespect, and he was probably right.

The next time the commissioner saw Adm. Graves, on Milk Street on 11 August, he demanded the sort of answer that he, “as a gentleman, had a right to expect."

A letter sent from Boston on 19 August and printed in the 21-23 Sept 1775 London Chronicle stated:

To this civil question, the Admiral replied in his usual style; and while the Commissioner was whispering a challenge to him, returned a blow in the face.

Though Mr. Hallowell was unarmed, the Admiral had recourse to his sword, on which the former rushed upon him, forced it from him, broke it over his knee, and then flung it in Greaves’s face; after this they went to it with their fists, but were soon parted.—

The Admiral has come off with a black eye. He has not yet proposed a renewal of battle, probably preserving himself for the Yankies, who have already carried off all his fresh stock, burnt his hay on the islands, and destroyed the light-house twice under his very nose.

Over the next couple of days Graves’s nephew, Capt. Thomas Graves, R.N., twice challenged Hallowell on the admiral’s behalf. Another nephew, Capt. Samuel Graves, R.N., hit the commissioner on the back of the head with a cane, and Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf had to separate the men. Hallowell declared he wouldn’t duel on instructions from Gen. Gage—at least not with anyone but the admiral.

According to a 21 August letter from Capt. Samuel Graves summarized in the Dartmouth Manuscripts, the dispute was heard by a court martial. The board faulted the admiral for “An error in judgment for disobedience of orders and neglect of duty.”

Our most detailed description of this fight comes from Hallowell, and most of the other sources sympathize with him, too. (Given the commissioner’s snappish temper, that shows how many people disliked Adm. Graves.) At least a couple of those sources say the admiral came away with a black eye, suggesting the commissioner got the better of the fight.

Per Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Gen. Burgoyne called the whole incident “shameful” and recorded that Hallowell suffered a black eye, too.

Prof. O’Shaughnessy will share more details about the Burgoyne diary and how it came to light in an online “fireside chat”/Zoom webinar on 15 April at 6 P.M. Harvard time.

Gen. Burgoyne’s Backstage Diary

Since I mentioned Gen. John Burgoyne a few days back (even if Robert Woolf didn’t), that gives me a reason to point to the big Burgoyne news of the month.

In the Washington Post, Andrew O’Shaughnessy disclosed:

…a previously unknown journal kept by…British Gen. John Burgoyne, was discovered in the archives of Knowsley Hall, the Liverpool-area estate of the earls and countesses of Derby. In 1751, Burgoyne married Lady Charlotte Stanley, daughter of the 11th Earl of Derby. The family archives also contain letters he wrote to his wife from Europe in the 1760s, as well as his personal, annotated copy of the evidence he gave in Parliament in defense of his command at the Battles of Saratoga. After that 1777 defeat, Burgoyne spent significant time at the hall. The journal does not bear his name, but it could have been written by no one else.

Just how do we know that only Gen. Burgoyne could have written this journal? After all, there were scores of British army officers in Boston in late 1775.

The oddest feature is Burgoyne’s obsession with putting on plays. The journal’s three final entries concern rehearsals for a performance of “The Tragedy of Zara,” an adaptation of Voltaire’s “Zaïre” featuring a prologue by Burgoyne. On Dec. 1, he describes holding a final rehearsal and putting his bags on board a naval ship for his passage back to England, where he remained till returning to help lead the British force in Canada in May 1776. The play was performed the next day, shortly before his departure.

Yeah, that checks out.

I heard about this journal a few weeks back as Prof. O’Shaughnessy assessed it since he was looking for corroborating sources on events in besieged Boston. I look forward to seeing the text published. Already it promises more details about life inside the town.

TOMORROW: An example.

“The troops quitting the town was a beautiful sight”

From yesterday we continue with Robert Woolf’s reminiscence of being a teen-aged businessman caught in the siege of Boston in the spring of 1775:

I had not been many days settled with the family of a gentleman in the custom house when, early on the morning of June the 17th (1775), we were awakened by a smart cannonade from one of the ships of war!

This was no less than the prelude to the famous and bloody battle of Bunker’s Hill, so well recorded in all the public documents of the time that it requires no comment. I, however, lost a valuable friend, Major [John] Pitcairn, killed on the field, and the cries and groans of the great number of wounded brought into the town, as they passed our house, were heart-rending.

Affairs now remained quiet until the following year, the town strictly blockaded by the Americans, the troops and remaining inhabitants suffering many privations up to the beginning of March, 1776. Then began a heavy cannonade and bombardment, many of the shot falling so close to my quarters that we were obliged to remove to a more distant part of the town, and soon afterwards orders were issued by the Governor [actually Gen. William Howe] for the troops and loyal inhabitants to evacuate the place.

This was accordingly done without molestation by the enemy, and all embarked safely in transports provided for the occasion. The troops quitting the town was a beautiful sight, the whole coming off at one and the same time by signal!

I hadn’t seen anyone praise the British soldiers’ departure that way before. In fact, contemporaneous sources are clear that the some troops went on board ships days before others. Perhaps Woolf was remembering one particular day, such as the last embarkation on 17 March, and all the redcoats left in town at that time.

All then proceeded to Halifax, Nova Scotia, which, being a small place, caused no little confusion. The troops, however, remained but a few days [more like weeks] and then proceeded to attack the Americans at New York, leaving two battalions in Halifax, with whom I was stationed, and became one of the mess of the second battalion, and there I remained for two years, thus having an opportunity of exploring some parts of that wild and (at that time) unsettled country, the extensive and impenetrable woods coming within two miles of the town.

At last we embarked for England with part of the marines, and after a most boisterous passage (at one time being five days unable to carry any sail, or to cook any victuals) we landed safely at Plymouth, where I remained a week, and then, proceeding to Portsmouth, a few days more saw me safely set down again in London! October, 1778.

By 1779 Woolf moved on to India, eventually becoming accountant-general for the East India Company. He married Anna Maria Smart, whose father painted the miniature of her shown above. They had nine children.

In 1848 a granddaughter of the couple moved to the province of New Brunswick, bringing some family papers and art. That’s why the portrait is in the National Gallery of Canada and Woolf’s memoir was published by the Women’s Canadian Historical Society despite having no mention of women.

“On our arrival at Boston we were surprised to find the town blockaded”

Here’s an account of the siege of Boston first published in 1909 by the Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Toronto.

It’s said to be “From the Diary of Robert Woolf,” later a high official in the East India Company, and bears the date of October 1778 at the end. However, internal clues show Woolf wrote down this reminiscence later in life, so that date refers only to the last event he described.

Woolf began:

In April, 1775, although only nineteen years of age, I was intrusted by a London merchant (Sir George Wombwell), in whose counting-house I had been placed, with a sum of £4,000 (four thousand pounds), to proceed to Boston, Mass., U.S., to pay some part of the King’s troops there. I accordingly embarked at Portsmouth on the frigate Cerberus, and found Generals [William] Howe and [Henry] Clinton, with their aides-de-camp, were also passengers.

Gen. John Burgoyne was on the same ship but didn’t rate a mention.

The Parliamentary Register for 1776 states that £400 sterling was entrusted to Woolf to pass on to Capt. John Chads of H.M.S. Cerberus “for his extraordinary expences occured in the passage” with those three generals. Here’s the receipt for that sum, signed by Chads, Wombwell, and Woolf, from Gen. Thomas Gage’s papers.

I can’t find any mention of the amount of £4,000 or any other reference to Wombwell supplying money for the British army in America. (Later he victualed the garrison at Gibraltar.) So Woolf might have misunderstood, misremembered, or exaggerated his mission. Even so, sending a teenager across the Atlantic to reimburse one ship captain seems like a big investment. Was this trip supposed to insert Woolf and his employer into the business of supplying the British military?

Some of that £400 probably went to nice food and liquor on the ship—not that young Woolf got to enjoy it.

The captain of the frigate apologised for thus not being able to accommodate me at his own table, and placed me with the lieutenants, one of whom was afterwards the late Admiral [James] Burney [shown above about fifteen years later], who also accompanied Captain [James] Cook on his voyage round the world; and I carry the remembrance of that gentleman’s musical skill on the violin, frequently dissipating, as it did, the melancholy occasioned by the monotony of the voyage.

Nothing remarkable occurred worthy of observation beyond the swiftness of our frigate’s sailing, compared with that of other vessels with which we fell in, and the extremely thick fog on the banks of Newfoundland, with the astonishing abundance of fine codfish caught there by the sailors.

On our arrival at Boston we were surprised to find the town blockaded and surrounded by the rebels (as they were then called), cutting off all communication with the country, and the town nearly deserted by its inhabitants; those who remained with the King’s troops thus deprived of all supplies, with reason to dread an approaching famine, which would in all probability have occurred had not the approach by sea been kept open.

A first and severe action had taken place a few weeks before in the neighbourhood, when several lives were lost on both sides. This unexpected state of affairs threw me into much perplexity, from which I was partly relieved by Captain [Christopher] Horsfall, of the Welsh Fusiliers, to whom I had letters. He kindly took me to his quarters and gave me both board and lodging. I also received very friendly attention from Major [John] Pitcairn, commanding the second battalion of marines on shore.

Young Woolf has arrived in a besieged town, but he’s recovered from his surprise and found protectors. What was left to worry about? 

TOMORROW: A more severe action.

“The next morning presented to the view of the enemy a regular fort”

Samuel Richards (1753–1841) came from Farmington, Connecticut. In May 1775 he marched north with his town’s company to the Boston siege lines.

According to the memoir he wrote for his family decades later, Richards went as a gentleman volunteer, not in the ranks, and in Roxbury, Gen. Joseph Spencer offered him a post as private secretary.

However, contemporaneous records show that the young man was a sergeant in Capt. Noadiah Hooker’s company from May to December 1775. Perhaps Richards preferred his family to consider him as always of genteel class. 

Those sources agree that when the Continental Army was enlisted for a second year, Samuel Richards signed on as an ensign—the lowest rank of officer.

Ens. Richards’s regiment served on the southern side of the siege. For a while they camped on Gen. William Heath’s family farm in Roxbury, then in barracks as close to the Neck as possible.

Richards and his company were part of the reinforcement that went onto the Dorchester peninsula on the morning of 5 Mar 1776 to prepare for an expected British counterattack. He left this account of what followed in his memoir, published in 1909:

the next morning at 8 oClock a relief was sent on—of which I was one—in passing the neck the tide having overflowed it I found my boots filled with mud and water, but we had no dry clothes with us, nor any time or opportunity for changing. . . .

I found a redoubt considerably advanced in a position well calculated for defence. Outside the parapet were casks filled with sand and so placed that a slight touch would set them rolling down the hill which was very steep on every side, and thus break the ranks of the enemy on their advance.

Those barrels had prompted a lot of discussion.

On the afternoon of the 6th we very plainly saw the enemy in motion in the town: dense columns of troops moving down the main street to the wharf and embarking on board the ships which moved down the harbor and formed in a kind of crescent at considerable distance from the hill.

most of the next day [still 6 March] was spent by those ships in beating up nearer to our post—the wind being a head:

we continued our work incessantly in compleating the redoubt, being urged to exertion by a full expectation of being attacked by the enemy’s troops we had seen embark on board the ships; we had no time to spare for reflecting on and counting the cost of the issue of the expected battle, we did not work litterally with arms in our hands, but they were lying by our sides, and it is presumed that every one ardently wished for the opportunity of shewing the enemy what freemen would do when contending for their just rights. No one needed stimulating to the performance of his duty as every one possessed the inclination.

As night approached an uncommonly severe South East rain storm came on with very high wind, and in that elevated situation, surrounded by the sea, it was felt in all its force, but the severity of the storm did not stop our work, which we pushed forward with the utmost alacrity. The next morning presented to the view of the enemy a regular fort, far advanced to completion—and to our view their ships below apparently in a very disorderly condition: the day passed without any thing worthy of particular notice.

In looking back, Ens. Richards skipped over the couple of days that passed before the next action.

At evening we broke ground on Nook, or Nuke point, a small hill very near the water oposite South Boston. The enemy could plainly hear the sound of our entrenching tools, on which they opened and continued an incessant cannonade with a general direction towards this point. I counted the number of discharges up to about 1500 during half an hour and then left off counting; this firing was continued through the night, and the morning shewed a novel sight; the ground all around where the work had been carrying on appeared as if it had been plowed irregularly, and a very great number of cannon balls were picked up: but strange as it may seem there was but a surgeons mate and two privates killed during the night.

Contemporaneous sources say a doctor and three Continental privates were killed.

TOMORROW: Marching into Boston.

(Richards’s portrait, as copied for another family member around 1890, appears above. It was auctioned in 2020.)