When the Real Battle Started—and Where

One of the basic questions about the Battle of Lexington and Concord is why it took so long for the major fighting to get started. There were men killed at Lexington at dawn, about 5:00 A.M. There were men on both sides killed at Concord’s North Bridge about 10:00. But then the militia commanders pulled half their men back from the bridge, and held their fire when four British companies marched by. The concerted provincial counterattack didn’t start until the early afternoon.

Some, but not all, of the answer lies in how the provincials had to work up to fighting against fellow British subjects. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had built up a military over the preceding six months in the hopes that it would cause the royal authorities to back down. People wanted a peaceful solution, not a civil war. Of course, after seeing regulars fire first at the North Bridge, the militiamen in Concord felt less reluctance about shooting at them.

This question also makes me think of a comparison I once read between the provincials attacking the British column and a dog chasing a car. If the dog ever catches the car, what would he do with it?

There was an argument well after the war over whether the Essex County militia under Col. Timothy Pickering could have cut off the British before they reached Charlestown. But if the provincials had captured Col. Percy and several hundred soldiers, what would they have done with those men? Who was ready to assume that authority? I doubt the men of Massachusetts really tried to stop the British withdrawal. I think they wanted to exact some punishment and hurry those regulars back to their garrison.

I have to acknowledge that waiting until early afternoon meant that more militia companies showed up, but I don’t think that was decisive.

I think the most significant factor in the the timing is that the Middlesex County militiamen started their concerted attack after the British troops had left the center of Concord. Until then, there had been hundreds of soldiers in the middle of the civilian population and some valued public property. (The print by Amos Doolittle above, courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg, gives an impression of that brief occupation.) Once those troops were a mile to the east, at Meriam’s corner, it was open season.

“They let him pass without firing a single shot”

Yesterday we left the Middlesex County militia in uncontested control of the North Bridge over the Concord River. There were three dead or dying British privates on the ground, and three companies of British light infantrymen hightailing it back to the comrades in the center of Concord.

In making that advance, the militiamen had also cut off four companies of British soldiers searching for weapons at militia colonel James Barrett’s farm from the rest of their expedition. The provincials had watched those regulars cross the bridge and go over the hills toward their commander’s homestead.

So what did the militia commanders do? Barrett pulled his older companies back to the west side of the bridge and up the hill to the field where they usually trained. The minute companies took a secure position behind a stone wall closer to the town center, and waited for the British response.

At the first word of trouble, Lt. Col. Francis Smith marched two companies of British grenadiers toward the bridge, meeting his fleeing light infrantrymen along the way. He saw where the provincials were stationed. And after ten minutes he turned the grenadiers around and headed back to his main force.

Which still left the four companies up at Barrett’s farm. When those regulars had finished their search, Capt. Lawrence Parsons led them back toward the river, not knowing what had happened at the bridge.

And then they crossed the river and proceeded into town. They were stopped only by the sight of a comrade whose skull had been tomahawked. Obviously, there had been a fight at the bridge, and Parsons no doubt wondered where his rearguard companies had gone to. But he encountered no resistance from the Middlesex men on both sides of the river.

As Ens. Jeremy Lister wrote:

tho. there was a large Body of Rebels drawn up upon the hill we had left when we retired to Concord Bridge yet they let him pass without firing a single shot, tho they might undoubtedly have cut his 2 [sic] Compys. off to a Man.

TOMORROW: Why did the Concord militia hold back?

The Real Fight at Concord Bridge

The thumbnail image to the right is N. C. Wyeth’s “Fight at Concord Bridge.” It shows Concord’s “embattled farmers,” apparently standing athwart the town’s North Bridge, blocking the British troops.

In the same spirit is this painting, which allposters.com doesn’t credit to a particular artist. The site labels it “American Minutemen Fight to Hold Off the British Army at Concord Bridge, April 10, 1775.” That’s not only nine days early, but misrepresents how the fighting at the North Bridge in Concord went down.

Many people conceive of that skirmish as the local militiamen taking a stand on the bridge and refusing to let the British troops cross. In fact, the two forces’ movements were much more complicated.

When Lt. Col. Francis Smith’s British expedition came into view east of Concord, the militia companies assembled in town turned and marched west, away from the regular troops and across that North Bridge. They took positions on high ground that overlooked the Concord River, eventually ending up more or less where the North Bridge Visitor Center is now.

Lt. Col. Smith sent seven companies of light infantrymen to that bridge. Four of those companies crossed and went two miles beyond to search the farm of militia colonel James Barrett, where Gen. Thomas Gage had heard (correctly) that the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had hidden weapons. The militia didn’t try to block that search party. Three other British companies remained near the bridge, on either side of the Concord River, in order to guard their comrades’ withdrawal route.

The regulars down by the river watched the militia up on the rise. The militiamen, numbers growing, watched the regulars. The situation was so static that one English-born farmer from Lincoln, James Nichols, walked down the hill to talk to the soldiers, then walked back up and said he was done for the day—he wasn’t interested in fighting his countrymen.

Then some men on the hill spotted smoke from the center of Concord. The grenadiers there had found some cannon carriages and extra wheels, piled them up, and set them on fire. The flames threatened the town house. Officers ordered soldiers to douse the fire, but by then it had done too much damage—not to the building, but to the stalemate back at the bridge.

Lt. Joseph Hosmer asked Col. Barrett, “Will you let them burn the town down?” After hearing from other officers, the militia colonel ordered an advance. Two militia regiments began to march down toward the bridge and the three British companies guarding it.

Clearly outnumbered, those regulars withdrew to the town side of the bridge and started to take up the planks to keep the militia regiments from crossing. To the locals, that looked like more property destruction. Men shouted down at the redcoats, and the militia companies kept marching.

As Capt. Walter Sloane Laurie and Lt. William Sutherland tried to get the British soldiers in formation to protect themselves, three soldiers fired without orders. Capt. Isaac Davis and Pvt. Abner Hosmer of Acton were killed, and four other men were wounded. The provincials fired back, hitting four British officers, killing three privates and wounding five more. The redcoats retreated at a run back to the center of Concord.

Thus, the “embattled farmers” of Middlesex County weren’t trying to keep the redcoats from crossing the Concord River—it was the other way ’round!

TOMORROW: In pulling back from the North Bridge, the British left four companies cut off behind enemy lines. What happened to them?

Provisions of the Boston Port Bill

One of the major milestones leading up to the Revolutionary War was the Boston Port Bill, the law Parliament passed on 31 Mar 1774 to punish the town—the third-largest port in North America—for the Boston Tea Party. It stated that starting on 1 June:

it shall not be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever to lade put, or cause or procure to be laden or put, off or from any quay, wharf, or other place, within the said town of Boston, or in or upon any part of the shore of the bay, commonly called The Harbour of Boston,…any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever…

The authorities could confiscate any goods they found being unloaded, and any ship carrying them, and any “horses, cattle, and carriages,” used to move them. Also, any wharf owner caught with such goods could be fined to triple their value.

The law was to remain in effect until:

it shall sufficiently appear to his Majesty that full satisfaction hath been made by or on behalf of the inhabitants of the said town of Boston to the united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies [i.e., the East India Company], for the damage sustained by the said company by the destruction of their goods sent to the said town of Boston, on board certain ships or vessels as aforesaid; and until it shall be certified to his Majesty, in council, by the governor, or lieutenant governor, of the said province, that reasonable satisfaction hath been made to the officers of his Majesty’s revenue [i.e., the Customs service], and others, who suffered by the riots and insurrections above mentioned, in the months of November and December, in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, and in the month of January, in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four.

The law allowed in “any military or other stores for his Majesty’s use.” It didn’t apply to fishing vessels, and it provided a way for Boston to receive other food and firewood:

nothing in this act contained shall extend…to any fuel or victual brought coastwise from any part of the continent of America, for the necessary use and sustenance of the inhabitants of the said town of Boston, provided the vessels wherein the same are to be carried shall be duly furnished with a cocket and let-pass, after having been duly searched by the proper officers of his Majesty’s customs at Marblehead, in the port of Salem, in the said province of Massachuset’s Bay; and that some officer of his Majesty’s customs be also there put on board the said vessel, who is hereby authorized to go on board, and proceed with the said vessel, together with a sufficient number of persons, properly armed, for his defence, to the said town or harbour of Boston…

The bill was more succinctly summarized in a diary quoted in the Marblehead Register on 17 Apr 1830:

Boston Port Bill passed, only Coasters [i.e., smaller ships sailing up and down the North American coast] allowed to enter after being searched at Marblehead and an officer put on board to proceed to Boston; many strangers in town, and great buzz among the people.

The government in London probably thought that Marblehead would be pleased with the extra traffic, and not support Boston politically. Instead, people in other parts of New England, and then other parts of America, started sending food to Boston as a show of solidarity. The Boston Port Bill became one of what were decades later labeled “the Intolerable Acts.”

“There is a spirit prevailing here…”

As we move toward Patriots’ Day, the anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride and the Battle of Lexington and Concord, I’ll focus on events and documents about the start of the Revolutionary War.

This is “A Letter from a Gentleman in the Province of Massachusetts, to his Friend in London.” It was dated 21 Jan 1775, printed in a British newspaper, and reprinted early the next year in Almon’s Remembrancer. The writer was obviously trying to convince influential people in Britain to urge their government to back down from the political confrontation by describing how ready the New Englanders were for a fight.

The town of Boston is a spectacle worthy of the attention of a deity, suffering amazing distress, yet determined to endure as much as human nature can, rather than betray America and posterity. General [Thomas] Gage’s army is sickly, and extremely addicted to desertion. What would they be if things were brought to extremities? Do you think such an army would march through our woods and thickets and country villages to cut the throats of honest people contending for liberty?

The neighbouring colonies of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, are arming and training themselves with great spirit, and it they must be driven to the last appeal, devoutly praying for the protection of heaven.

There is a spirit prevailing here, such as I never saw before. I remember the conquest of Louisburg in 1745; I remember the spirit here when the Duke d’Anville’s squadron was upon this coast, when forty thousand men marched down to Boston, and were mustered and numbered upon the common, compleat in arms, from this province only in three weeks; but I remember nothing like what I have seen these six months past.

Jean-Baptiste-Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d’Anville, was the commander of a French expedition to regain Louisburg and attack Boston during King George’s War in 1746. D’Anville’s fleet, according to various sources, included from 54 to 97 ships, carrying between 7,000 and 13,000 fighting men. But everyone agrees this was the largest fleet ever sent to North America up to that time.

Bad weather and disease slowed the voyage to Nova Scotia. Then the duke died of a stroke. (There are medical urban legends about that.) His second-in-command tried to commit suicide. The third-in-command, knowing bad luck when he saw it, decided to return to France.

The French fleet never came to Boston, but it did prompt the big militia mobilization that the letter-writer remembered. (A century later the same event prompted Henry W. Longfellow to write “A Ballad of the French Fleet” in the voice of the Old South Meeting-House’s minister.)

Gov. William Shirley (shown above, courtesy of blupete.com) sent some of those Massachusetts troops up to Nova Scotia as reinforcements. And in 1747 those men were beaten by a smaller French force in the Battle of Grand-Pré. But New Englanders generally chose not to remember that part, and certainly not to remind their friends in London about it.

Seminar on Climate Change—the Previous One

The Massachusetts Historical Society will host a seminar on Anya Zilberstein’s paper in progress “Cold Comfort: The Benefits of Climate Change in Early North America,” on Tuesday, 13 April, at 5:15 P.M. The summary reads:

The perceived suitability of a region for cultivation and commerce influenced settlement patterns in the colonial era and into the 19th century. Join us to learn how early scientific climate studies and natural histories influenced the development of New England and Nova Scotia throughout this period.

Zilberstein comes from Concordia University, and her website bio offers a little more detail about what she’s exploring:

Dr. Zilberstein’s dissertation, “Planting Improvement: The Rhetoric and Practice of Scientific Agriculture in Northern British America, 1670-1820,” explored the relationship between land-use practices the construction of scientific expertise, and the ideology of settler colonization in early New England and Nova Scotia and the Atlantic world. She is currently revising “Planting Improvement” and further researching such issues as the connection between landscape improvement and moral uplift, the relationship between chorographic surveys and regionalism, and early modern ideas about cold climates and the global North. Her broad research and teaching interests include the British empire, early North America, environmental and agrarian history, the history of natural history, historical geography, and food cultures.

Prof. Brian Donahue of Brandeis University will comment on the paper, and then the discussion should become general. Attendees can pick up a copy of the paper at the M.H.S. that afternoon. There is no charge for attending.

After the discussion, the society will provide a light buffet supper and space for further chat; it asks attendees to RSVP by email or phone at 617-646-0568.

“Not Cutting the Flesh”

While searching for examples of Continental soldiers losing feet to rolling cannon balls (none found so far), I came across some interesting examples of other curious cannon-ball injuries from volume 17 of the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association.

According to this volume, Ephraim Abbott (1752-1778) was a volunteer at the Battle of Bennington on 16 Aug 1777. “A cannon ball wrenched his body, not cutting the flesh, and made him lame for life.” Or what few months were left of it.

Gen. John Nixon (1725-1815) was likewise bloodlessly wounded at the first battle of Saratoga on 19 Sept 1777. “A cannon ball passed so near his head as to permanently impair the eye and ear on one side.”

After the second battle of Saratoga, surgeon James Thacher described treating this even more curious injury:

A brave soldier received a musket ball in his forehead, between his eyebrows; observing that it did not penetrate the bone, it was imagined that the force of the ball being partly spent, it rebounded and fell out, but on close examination by the probe, the ball was detected, spread entirely flat on the bone under the skin, which I extracted with the forceps.

No one can doubt but he received his wound while facing the enemy, and it is fortunate for the brave fellow, that his skull proved too thick for the ball to penetrate.

Thacher’s journal entry for 24 Oct 1777 discusses other unusual wounds.

(Photo of the Saratoga Monument by Samantha Decker, via Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

Washington as You’ve Never Seen Him

The Museum of Hoaxes reports that on 22 Mar 1937 Life magazine ran this photograph of the statue of Gen. George Washington in Boston’s Public Garden.

Unlike the general, it appears that the magazine was looking forward—ten days to the first of April.

Pretty impressive, considering that the Life staff didn’t have PhotoShop. Which I think Dean Trippe used for his photographs of Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things.

John Thomas Writes Home to His Wife

On 9 Mar 1776, Gen. John Thomas sat down to write to his wife Hannah from “Dorchester Hills, in a small hut.” Gen. Thomas, who was a doctor in civilian life, had married Hannah Thomas (that was her maiden name, too) on 12 Sept 1761, according to Kingston, Massachusetts, records. They had three children:

• Hannah, born 14 Nov 1762.
• John, born 17 Jan 1766.
• Nathaniel, born 23 June 1769.

The general’s letter, which began “Dear Mrs. Thomas,” described how on the night of 4-5 March he had led “about three thousand picked men, beside three hundred and sixty ox teams and some pieces of artillery,” onto the Dorchester peninsula to fortify its two tallest hills before daybreak.

Thomas described the British reaction:

About sun rise, the enemy and others in Boston, appeared on the tops of the houses and on the wharfs viewing us with astonishment, for our appearance was unexpected to them. The connonading which had been kept up all night from our lines at Lamb’s Dam [in Roxbury], and from the enemy’s lines likewise, at Lechmere’s Point [in Cambridge], now ceased from these quarters, and the enemy turned their fire towards us on the hills, but they soon found it was to little effect.

About ten o’clock we discovered large bodies of troops embarking in boats with their artillery, which made a formidable appearance. After some time they were put on board transports, and several of the ships came down near to the castle, as we supposed, with a design to land on our shore.

Our people appeared in spirits to receive them,. We were in a good posture of defence, and had two thousand men added to our number. The enemy viewed us critically, and remained in that situation that night. The next day they came to sail, and returned to town and landed their troops. On Friday, about two o’clock, P. M. they sent a flag of truce with a paper, a copy of which I enclose.

Thomas left out the nasty windstorm that had prevented the British troops from landing on Dorchester until the Continentals had had time to strengthen their defenses even more. The gentlemen carrying a white flag brought this letter from Boston’s selectmen.

Gen. Thomas told his wife, “I have had very little sleep or rest this week,…But now I think we are well secured.” He offered another reassurance in a postscript:

Your son John is well and in high spirits. He ran away from Oakley privately, on Tuesday morning, and got by the sentries and came to me on Dorchester Hills, where he has been most of the time since.

Oakley was the Thomases’ enslaved black servant. Ten-year-old John had evidently decided he had to be with his dad on Dorchester Heights in case the British attacked.

Gen. Thomas died of smallpox in Canada on 2 June. His son John lived to be eighty-seven.

“His looks were as mad as could be”

Yesterday I pointed to Don Hagist’s report on British Army private William Whitwell, who went insane on a military transport ship. Here’s a parallel case of a British Marines officer which Lee Bienkowski, author of Admirals in the Age of Nelson, unearthed in the National Archives of Britain and shared with the Revlist back in 2002.

On 21 Sept 1776, the navy tried Lt. Neil Wanchope to determine if he was lunatic. A lieutenant on the Thetis named (like the American general) William Heath testified:

His conduct has been insulting and improper. . . . This was after a very severe fit of madness when we were obliged to have four people hold him in his bed. I was frequently obliged to go to quiet him. He was knocking against the 1st Lieutenant’s cabin desiring him to leave off electrifying and murdering him. He regarded me more than anybody. He never insulted me till lately.

He grew better in about three weeks and returned to our mess. We used to send him his victuals when he was mad, and made the servant taste it first, for fear we should poison him. He did not eat at first for some time for that suspicion. At St. Helena he got better and conversed; he talked sensibly.

About the 21st of June at St. Helena at breakfast we sent to let him know breakfast was ready. He came with a bottle of porter in one hand and a tumbler in the other. Somebody just put his cup over to him. He said, “Gentlemen, I’ll have none of your tea.” His looks were as mad as could be. He said we had electrified him under cover and hurt his constitution, and he would take a turn with us all round one by one. He loaded his pistol that night.

Wanchope eventually challenged another lieutenant to a duel and then stabbed him superficially in the belly. He was found insane and discharged.

Wanchope’s rank suggests that he was a young man, and his paranoia indicates he might have been suffering from schizophrenia, which often becomes apparent in youth. I was particularly struck by how his anxieties focused on being “electrified,” the latest technology of the day, the way some people today worry about computer chips implanted inside them.

At last spring’s Organization of American Historians meeting, Dr. Nassir Ghaemi observed that schizophrenia (along with bipolar/manic-depressive disorder) is found at a fairly steady rate across all societies. In other words, Wanchope and Whitwell might or might not have suffered from schizophrenia, but we should assume that about one in a hundred men of their time did.

New Ways to Raise Funds for Old Stuff

Just a quick note spreading the word about a couple of nearby historical organizations’ interesting fundraising efforts:

• American Antiquarian Society’s Adopt-a-Book program; there’s an event on 30 March, but also a mail-in component.
• Friends of Minute Man Park charity auction, ending soon.

Pvt. William Whitlow’s Frenzy

Last week Don Hagist’s British Soldiers, American Revolution blog featured the story of William Whitlow, a private and musician in His Majesty’s 44th Regiment of Foot who suffered episodes of insanity. Specifically, “When out of his sense he would express delusions that his wife was cheating on him with other soldiers.”

Don wrote of Whitlow:

As a child he had fallen from a wall in Kinsale, Ireland, and hit his head. This caused him pain sometimes, and worse than that it subjected him to occasional bouts of irrational behavior. The problem was compounded by drinking.

I’m not convinced the fall had much to do with Whitlow’s behavior, though it’s the sort of detail his contemporaries could see as significant. We humans like to find explanations for things we can’t understand, and a blow on the head provides a ready explanation.

As for alcohol, “Soldiers who had known Whitlow all his life discerned that these events could occur when he was completely sober” as well as when he’d been drinking. Liquor could have been Whitlow’s attempt to escape his mental problems—though it could easily have made his behavior worse.

Today I suspect psychiatrists would view Whitlow as exhibiting paranoid delusions, and seek the source in brain chemistry and genetics rather than childhood injuries. It appears that his symptoms began in early adulthood, which might be another diagnostic clue. The army put up with his behavior for years during the first half of the Revolutionary War.

In September 1779 the Whitlows and the 44th were on a transport ship, and William had one of his breakdowns:

He was seen running around the deck like a madman. On one occasion he left his wife and child in their berth, went to a group of sailors in steerage and accused them of having his wife with them. For nearly an hour he ranted and no one could convince him that his family was right where he’d left them. When he did return to his wife he claimed that he knew where she’d been and told her that he had been “talking to three little Devils upon Deck.”

Soon after a non-commissioned officer found him beating his wife; when asked why, he replied “Why should not I beat her, when I this Moment saw her in the Steerage with a Sailor on top of her.” One night when he was standing sentry at a hatchway on the ship, he approached the serjeant-major and insisted that he had been with his wife and had her hidden behind him in his watchcoat.

This story doesn’t end well, alas. Whitlow killed his wife (with help from the failings of eighteenth-century medicine), and tried to kill himself. His contemporaries judged him to be legally insane.

Contending for Cannon Balls

On Friday I quoted a letter from July 1775 describing how American troops in Roxbury reacted to a British artillery barrage: “most of the cannon shot were taken up and brought to the General.—It is diverting to see our people contending for the balls as they roll along.”

Why would people “contend for the balls”? The memoir of artist John Trumbull, a young Connecticut officer during the siege (shown here in a 1777 self-portrait), offers an answer. Describing the time before the Battle of Bunker Hill, Trumbull wrote:

Nothing of military importance occurred for some time; the enemy occasionally fired upon our working parties, whenever they approached too nigh to their works; and in order to familiarize our raw soldiers to this exposure, a small reward was offered in general orders, for every ball fired by the enemy, which should be picked up and brought to head-quarters.

This soon produced the intended effect—a fearless emulation among the men; but it produced also a very unfortunate result; for when the soldiers saw a ball, after having struck and rebounded from the ground several times, (en ricochet,) roll sluggishly along, they would run and place a foot before it, to stop it, not aware that a heavy ball long retains sufficient impetus to overcome such an obstacle. The consequence was, that several brave lads lost their feet, which were crushed by the weight of the rolling shot.

The order was of course withdrawn, and they were cautioned against touching a ball, until it was entirely at rest. One thing had been ascertained by this means, the caliber of the enemy’s guns—eighteen pounds.

I’ve seen several historians describe provincial soldiers chasing down cannon balls or getting hurt doing so, and those who cite sources all point back to Trumbull. But I can’t find the “general orders” that Trumbull recalled, the “small reward” offered, or an example of a soldier getting wounded as a result. So I wondered if Trumbull’s memory was exaggerating.

But that Roxbury letter shows that soldiers were chasing cannon balls as they rolled, and taking them to a general. In addition, Elias Nason’s 1877 history of Dunstable contains this short anecdote from the Bunker Hill battle:

While Isaac Wright was sitting exhausted on a bank in front of a house in Charlestown, a cannon-ball came rolling along so near him that he could have touched it with his foot, and on being asked why he did not stop it, he said, “I then should have returned home with only one leg.”

More evidence that some new soldiers thought it was a good idea to stop rolling cannon balls with their bodies. But Wright, who was about twenty-one years old, already knew not to try.

“A 13-inch bomb dropped directly opposite the door”

Yesterday I quoted an account from early July 1775 of American soldiers in Roxbury defusing an unexploded British mortar shell by kicking out the burning fuse before its spark reached the explosive charge.

That seems to have been what one did with shells that landed without exploding. Here are some more examples from the Cambridge side of the provincial lines. First, from the memoir of John Greenwood, who was a teenaged fifer in 1775:

Night was the time for frolicking, as the British were constantly sending bombs at us, and sometimes from two to six at a time could be seen in the air overhead, looking like moving stars in the heavens. These shells were mostly thirteen inches in diameter, and it was astonishing how high they could send such heavy things.

I have often seen them strike the ground when it was frozen and bound up like a foot-ball, and again, falling on marshy land, they would bury themselves from ten to twelve feet in it, whereupon, the wet ground having extinguished the fuse, the Yankees would dig them up to get the powder out.

On one occasion a 13-inch bomb dropped directly opposite the door of the picket guard-house where 200 men were on duty, and a lad about eighteen years old, named Shubael Rament [Raymond], belonging to our company, ran out, knocked the fusee from the shell, and took the powder out of it, of which I had some myself to kill snipe with.

A similar reminiscence appeared in the Memoir of the Life of Eliza S. M. Quincy, the wife of the Josiah Quincy who became mayor of Boston and president of Harvard. In October 1830 the Quincys hosted Dr. Amos Holbrook of Milton, who had been surgeon’s mate in Col. John Greaton’s Regiment starting in August 1775.

“The [Harvard] President’s house was given to the commissary of the army,” said Dr. Holbrook; “and I was quartered at the house of Mr. [David] Phips, in the neighborhood. The colleges were much injured by the garrison. The rooms in Harvard Hall, except the one then used as a library, were filled with barrels of salt beef, brought by the country people for the army. One day, during the siege of Boston, a shell thrown by the British from Copp’s Hill struck the ground in the square near the President’s house. The fuze was yet burning; and a soldier went and stamped it out, at the risk of his life.”

That house is now called Wadsworth House, no longer the college president’s home but an administrative building. The “square near the President’s house” is now Harvard Square. Click the thumbnail above for a larger picture by eileansiar of the area that seems to have been saved from shelling.

“A Severe Cannonade at Roxbury”

Almon’s Remembrancer was an annual publication in London which reprinted interesting British newspaper items of the past year, and thus became a valuable source for historians of the Revolution—easier to search than all those newspapers. The 1776 volume included this passage from a letter sent from Cambridge and dated 12 July 1775:

Yesterday we spent in Roxbury:—while there, were amused with a heavy fire of cannon and mortars, from the lines of the Regulars on the Neck, and from one of their floating batteries, against 200 of our men, who were throwing up a breast work in front of the George Tavern. On the same Neck, and within a few rods of the Regulars advance guard; our people kept on their work, and never returned a shot.

Three bombs burst near our men without injuring them—most of the cannon shot were taken up and brought to the General [probably John Thomas].—It is diverting to see our people contending for the balls as they roll along.

During a severe cannonade at Roxbury, last week, a bomb, thirteen inches in diameter, fell within the American lines, and burnt furiously, when four of the artillerymen ran up, and one kicked out the fuse, saved the bomb, and probably some lives—a stroke of heroism worthy of record. The regulars have so hardened the provincials by their repeated firing, that a cannonading is just as much minded as a common thunder shower.

In the map above, available via Wikipedia, you can see the George Tavern near the Americans’ “Roxbury Lines” fortifications at the bottom.

TOMORROW: Defusing more bombs.

Twitter Feed, 15-24 Mar 2010

• RT @history_book: The Showman & the Slave: Race, Death & Memory in Barnum's America j.mp/c7VWQ7 // George Washington's nurse? #
• Washington Irving finishes biography of the President he was named for: bit.ly/aBtbun #
• Private, for-profit education companies get most funding from public while public universities depend on private funds: bit.ly/bDzArG #
• Gravestone of Polly Harris, Charlestown, d 1787: bit.ly/aWZxVz #
• Connecticut's Ralph Earl painted charming portraits of kids in early republic: bit.ly/aQvk06 #
• The death of British sergeant David Stuart in 1780: bit.ly/cVhQRK #
• A glimpse of war between Connecticut and Pennsylvania: bit.ly/bF4KBO #
• RT @KateMessner: So awesome! RT @SaundraMitchell Remains of 1730s French fort found on shores of Lake Champlain. tinyurl.com/ya72rlf #
• RT @amhistorymuseum Today in 1767: President Andrew Jackson born in Waxhaw, SC. His uniform coat: ow.ly/1li2N #
• RT @Thos_Jefferson: For more on my religious beliefs, visit the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia entry at ow.ly/1mViy #
• RT @Thos_Jefferson: Sorry @LtGovAndreBauer: "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results..." is not by Jefferson. #
• Report on open-hearth cooking class, 1830s style: bit.ly/d8oQk3 #
• C-SPAN archive on Boston lectures about J & A Adams, Jefferson, and Washington: bit.ly/cPzlqc #
• Richard Brookhiser on the Adams cousins, why Samuel wanted John to defend Boston Massacre soldiers: bit.ly/8XOL1R #
• Brookhiser got substance right, timing wrong. Boston elected John Adams representative BEFORE soldiers' trial, tho after he took case. #
• Gen. Washington, disputes over rank among Continental officers, land speculation, and new republican values: bit.ly/cHRTQ4 #
• RT @Gozaic: Check out the photos! RT @tudorplace: 18th century double barreled pistol found during dig! bit.ly/cl9Geh #
• RT @halseanderson: ::dons Linguistic Superiority Hat:: Today's word is "tatterdemalion". Used by Brit officer to describe Patriot soldiers. #
• Photos of what heavy rain did at Minute Man Natl Park: bit.ly/9s0ELa #
• From 1804, Ching's Patent Worm Lozenges: bit.ly/b2oMtp Apparently they healed just about as good as they sound. #
• Recounting effort to recreate Mary Goddard's 1777 printing of the Declaration of Independence: bit.ly/bJxn8w #
• RT @amhistorymuseum: Who sewed the flag that inspired our national anthem? Hint: It wasn't Betsy Ross! ow.ly/1n26T #
• RT @SecondVirginia: 3/17/1780: to honor Ireland @GeoWashington declares that "all fatigue and working parties cease": cot.ag/b9mBAZ #
• Sample of @bostonhistory's school programs in greater Boston: bit.ly/9mnapJ #
• Historian Jill Lepore and NEH chair Jim Leach (ex-R-IA) discuss political civility at AAS in Worcester, 14 Apr: bit.ly/9L0ZT7 #
• RT @LooknBackward: Happy Evacuation Day! bit.ly/a9u5O7 // (Tho harbor engraving actually shows British troops arriving in Oct 1768.) #
• RT @inhuggermugger: Today in 1737, Charitable Irish Society of Boston creates 1st public celebration of Saint Patrick's Day in America. #
• RT @gerryconway: Reading "What God Hath Wrought" about America 1812-48; struck by how little politics has changed. Ignorance and fear rule. #
• RT @amhistorymuseum: Gotten your census survey? Census records are a key source for learning about the past. See why! ow.ly/1n8Xn #
• Robert Gross, 3/17: It wasn't taxation without representation that made men of Concord revolt in 1775; it was losing their charter rights. #
• RT @RagLinen: New Rag Linen blog post: Colonial Newspapers, Unsung Heroes of the American Revolution - tinyurl.com/ybbst4n #
• Presenting himself as history buff on FRESH AIR, political adivsor Karl Rove calls James Callender "Cadwallader." Oops. #
• Revolutionary news feed and word-a-day iPhone apps from Colonial Williamsburg: bit.ly/avx3Gn I can't use 'em; maybe you can. #
• Robert Mitchell, 3/17: To understand strategic importance of Dorchester Heights, look at colonial Boston's deep-water shipping channel. #
• Alex Goldfeld, 3/18: Blacks in North End probably had religious meetings BEFORE Rev Cotton Mather got involved. bit.ly/d71t5V #
• Abigail Adams bio by Woody Holton wins Bancroft Prize: bit.ly/9De9ij #
• RT @history_book: Rhode Island's Founders: From Settlement to Statehood - Patrick T. Conley tinyurl.com/yl4kda6 #
• Brad Pasley at Common-Place suggests Texas schoolbook board has redeemed Thomas Jefferson as a hero for the left: bit.ly/9zGzQC #
• Some 1700s gravestones are touching. Some are elegant. Some just have…character. bit.ly/aG8BXv bit.ly/c2yhb6 #
• RT @TAHVT: American Revolution: K-12 lesson plans & classroom projects bit.ly/4txnlR #historyteachers #resources #education #
• Robert Darnton at NY REVIEW OF BOOKS sees blogs in 18th-century newspaper form: bit.ly/bOaWVJ #
• RT @NPSEducation: It survived the Great Fire of Boston in 1760 while 349 other buildings fell. What is it? ow.ly/1o0hV #
• RT @wceberly: 232 yrs ago, 20 Mar 1778, Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane & Arthur Lee meet Louis XVI as reps of US bit.ly/a2g3a5 #
• .@lucyinglis Sounds like your witness to London poverty was Dr John Coakley Lettsom. His Boston connection: bit.ly/66z7jg #
• Open house at the treasure-filled Massachusetts Historical Society, 27 March: bit.ly/dtBXqc #
• 11-year-old Hannah Ruggles's gravestone from 1742: bit.ly/ceEgav #
• From Ted Widmer in the BOSTON GLOBE, "How Haiti Saved America" in the Revolutionary War: bit.ly/cmkgzk #
• Visiting 18th-century London's museum of anatomical curiosities: bit.ly/cM2AQM #
• Collection of British letters from American War going on the auction block: nyti.ms/aNnAN2 #
• The dark and the light in Georgian London: bit.ly/akv9Rj Boston got its first street lamps in 1774, lit with whale oil. #
• William Caslon, leading typographer of 18th-century British Empire: bit.ly/dmtJUs Modern types: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caslon #
• Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty" speech as a literary creation: bit.ly/aws8sv #
• Levi Ames's life as a burglar in colonial Boston: bit.ly/cgO5z1 Levi Ames's afterlife: bit.ly/bJOetw #
• RT @history_book: The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare: A Tale of Forgery and Folly - by Doug Stewart - Da Capo Press. bit.ly/dnVKkx #
• Damian Wayne gets genealogical—at least at @SHORTPACKED: bit.ly/bWKmiy #
• Mass Historial Socy's exhibit "War Through the Eyes of the Adams Women" includes Abigail Adams's report on Bunker Hill: bit.ly/8YD6fM #
• Author in 1797 London arguing astronomy and natural sciences were proper subjects for girls: bit.ly/9Bte9q Of course, she would. #
• BOSTON GLOBE slide show of historic documents up for auction: bit.ly/9tAP0d GLOBE's background story: bit.ly/aPEAFE #
• Joel Barlow, poet of Revolutionary generation: bit.ly/aIh42O Later formed Paris ménage with wife & steamboat engineer Robert Fulton. #
• Community meetings on the Boston Public Library's budget straits: bit.ly/cu7nQ2 #
• RT @wceberly: 24 Mar 1765, Parliament passes Quartering Act bit.ly/9vmDvb // Common myth versus reality. #
• RT @OspreyRich: V Davis Hanson contrasts collapse of mil hist in academe with interest from ordinary Americans - ow.ly/1qduY #
• RT @wceberly: Crown Point, NY; Stone foundation discovered next to old Champlain Bridge could be small fort from 1731 bit.ly/bYpx9l #

Meeting the Lexington Militia, 26 March

On Friday, 26 March, the Lexington Historical Society’s Cornelius Cronin Lecture Series will feature Bill Poole (who reenacts the role of Ebenezer Locke) speaking on “The Lexington Militia of April 19, 1775: Up Close and Personal.”

Who were the men present on Lexington common when the British column arrived? What happened to them during and after the Revolutionary War? Where did the young drummer William Diamond end up, and what’s the connection between Benedict Arnold and Sgt. William Munroe?

This talk begins at 8:00 P.M. at the Lexington Depot. It is free and open to the public, and there will even be coffee and dessert.

“The Standard of our Second Regiment”

A lot of analyses of American and other national flags discuss what the colors symbolize. In fact, those meanings got attached to the banner years after it had been established. In 1782, a Continental Congress report on a seal for the United States noted that it contained the colors of the national flag and said:

White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valour, and Blue, the color of the Chief (the broad band above the stripes) signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice.

Sometimes, however, color symbolism was a luxury an army couldn’t afford. On Monday, 19 June 1775, Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut met with that colony’s Committee of War on various matters, including flags:

It was moved and represented that the colour of blue, being ordered for the Standard of our Second Regiment, cannot be obtained, &c.

Voted, That the colour of green be substituted in its stead.

So much for “vigilance, perseverance & justice,” I guess.

Two Conferences in April

The New England Historical Association’s annual meeting is coming up on Saturday, 17 April, at Salem State College in Massachusetts. There are sessions on:

• “Smallpox Inoculation in Revolutionary America” with papers by Ann M. Becker, Melissa Grafe, and Andrew Wehrman.
• “Print Culture and Political Culture in Colonial and Post-Revolutionary America,” with Sean Delaney, Charles Heaton, and Kara E. Pierce.
• “Telling Difficult History in Public Places,” with Katrina Browne, Rae Gould, and Louis P. Hutchins.

N.E.H.A.’s next conference is in October in Maine, and its call for papers is out now.

Ondine LeBlanc alerted me to what looks like an intriguing conference at Brown University on 24 April 2010: “Women in the Archives.” Its eighteenth-century content includes:

• Sandy Perot, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Staging A Revolution: British and American Women in Theatre in the Late 18th Century”
• Frank Kelderman, University of Michigan. “Sarah Wentworth Morton’s Ouâbi and the Politics of Ethnography”

And registration is free.

“We found every thing exactly the reverse”

On 3 July 1775, Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army in Cambridge and started to assess the situation. He had come from Philadelphia with Gen. Charles Lee, an experienced British officer.

The next day, Lee wrote to Robert Morris in Philadelphia with a critical assessment:

We arrived here on Sunday before dinner. We found every thing exactly the reverse of what had been represented.

We were assured at Philadelphia that the army was stock’d with Engineers. We found not one. We were assur’d that we should find an expert train of Artillery. They have not a single Gunner, and so on so far from the men being prejudiced in favour of their own Officers They are extremely diffident in ’em and seem much pleased that we are arrived.

The men are really very fine fellows, and had they fair play would be made an invincible army. We are working hard to strengthen our different posts—And if the enemy will give us time for three or four days we shall I think be quite secure. I believe the loss of the regulars in the last affair was probably very heavy All accts concur in it.

Indeed, both armies were still reeling from the Battle of Bunker Hill—the New Englanders because they had lost, the British because their victory had cost them so many men. Lee threw himself into strengthening fortifications that could keep the redcoats from coming out of Charlestown to Cambridge. Unknown to him, the British commanders in Boston had decided that such an effort would be futile.