“Very barbarously broke his scull and let out his brains”

As I quoted two days ago, in the spring of 1775 five British soldiers testified to seeing one of their comrades with “the Skin over his Eye’s Cut and also the Top part of His Ears cut off” near the North Bridge in Concord. On 19 April, army officers were already interpreting that as a scalping.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress published a deposition, quoted yesterday, in which two men who buried the British soldiers at the bridge denied any of them had been scalped. Did that lay the controversy to rest, along with the dead men?

No, it didn’t, because the Rev. William Gordon of Roxbury acknowledged the attack in a letter published in the Pennsylvania Gazette on 7 June 1775:

The narrative [from Gen. Thomas Gage] tells us that as Capt. [Lawrence] Parsons returned with his three companies over the bridge, they observed three soldiers on the ground, one of them scalped, his head much mangled, and his ears cut off, tho’ not quite dead; all this is not fiction, tho’ the most is. The Rev. Mr. [William] Emerson informed me how the matter was, with great concern for its having happened.

A young fellow coming over the bridge in order to join the country people, and seeing the soldier wounded and attempting to get up, not being under the feelings of humanity, very barbarously broke his scull and let out his brains, with a small axe (apprehend of the tomahawk kind) but as to his being scalped and having his ears cut off, there was nothing in it. The poor object lived an hour or two before he expired.

In addition to appearing in a major American newspaper, Gordon’s account was also published in a New England almanac for 1776.

Thirteen years later, Gordon (working with a ghostwriter) adapted his letters into The Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America. Still presented as a series of letters written as the war went on, that book said:

The fire was returned, a skirmish ensued, and the troops were forced to retreat, having several men killed and wounded, and lieutenant Gould (who would have been killed, had not a minister present prevented) with some others taken. One of their wounded, who was left behind, attempting to get up, was assaulted by a young fellow going after the pursuers to join them, who, not being under the feelings of humanity, barbarously broke his skull with a small hatchet, and let out his brains, but neither scalped him nor cut off his ears. This event may give rise to some malevolent pen to write, that many of the killed and wounded at Lexington, were not only scalped, but had their eyes forced out of the sockets by the fanatics of New-England; not one was so treated either there or at Concord. You have the real fact. The poor object languished for an hour or two before he expired.

In 1775, Gordon named Emerson as the eyewitness he heard about the event from. In 1788 he credited “a minister present” with saving Lt. Edward Thoroton Gould’s life, and that could only have been Emerson. And in both cases Gordon acknowledged that “a young fellow” had indeed hatcheted one of the wounded British soldiers.

Thus, very early on an American source, sympathetic to the Patriot cause, acknowledged this attack on a wounded man at the bridge and condemned it. Both that author and his source were ministers, and they clearly wanted their condemnation of that act in the public record. It was therefore very difficult for Americans to maintain the position implied by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s report, that nothing had happened.

Instead, later American authors offered excuses for that act. Some wrote that the young local was acting in self-defense, or out of mercy. Others said he was a black slave or a children, implying that the respectable people of Concord should not be responsible. In fact, he was Ammi White, a young militiaman who remained in Concord for years.

TOMORROW: The British soldiers buried at the bridge.

Burying the Bodies at the North Bridge

At the end of 19 Apr 1775, the people of Concord faced a big problem. Massachusetts was, of course, now in armed rebellion against the royal authorities holding the province’s capital. There were dead and dying royal soldiers in town. But Concord shared those problems with other towns.

The big problem specific to Concord was that one of those British soldiers had not only been shot but had obviously suffered a major head wound inflicted at close range. An inhabitant named Ammi White, born about 1754, had struck a wounded and defenseless man with his hatchet. The town’s minister, the Rev. William Emerson, had apparently seen him do this. See D. Michael Ryan’s article for more detail.

Concordians dug a grave for the soldiers who died near the North Bridge, put the bodies inside, and covered them up. But then Gen. Thomas Gage had a “Circumstantial Account” of the battle published in Boston, and (as quoted yesterday) it said that one soldier at the bridge had been “scalped, his head much mangled, and his ears cut off, though not quite dead.” So that required a response.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress published its own report complaining about British soldiers’ behavior, particularly later in the day. That narrative also stated:

A paper having been printed in Boston, representing, that one of the British troops killed at the bridge at Concord, was scalped, and the ears cut off from the head, supposed to be done in order to dishonour the Massachusetts people, and to make them appear to be savage and barbarous, the following deposition was taken that the truth might be known.

We, the subscribers, of lawful age, testify and say, that we buried the dead bodies of the King’s troops that were killed at the North-Bridge in Concord, on the nineteenth day of April, 1775, where the action first began, and that neither of those persons were scalped, nor their ears cut off, as has been represented.

Zechariah Brown,
Thomas Davis, jun.

Concord, May 11th, 1775.

Those men gave their oath to magistrate Duncan Ingraham. As a merchant captain, he had been part of the genteel mob that attacked Loyalist printer John Mein in Boston in 1769. He retired to Concord in 1772 and two years later acted friendly enough with British army officers to have a Patriot mob attack him—symbolically, by attaching a sheep’s head and guts to his chaise.

By May 1775, however, Ingraham was firmly among the Patriots. The deposition he helped create deflected Gage’s specific charges: scalping and cutting off ears. Brown and Davis didn’t say anything about whether they’d noticed if one of those soldiers had suffered a terrible head wound. As with many other depositions that the Massachusetts Whigs collected in the 1770s, I think this testimony was the truth but not the whole truth.

TOMORROW: Did that bury the controversy?

British Corpses at the North Bridge

I’m returning to the Battle of Lexington and Concord for another series of essays. Later this week I’ll post some work by another researcher that I’ve been hoping to share for years. But first I want to lay the groundwork for that.

In the middle of the morning on 19 Apr 1775, three British army companies were holding the North Bridge in Concord while three others had marched to James Barrett’s farm to search for cannon, gunpowder, and other military stores.

The soldiers around the bridge were from the light infantry companies of the 4th, 10th, and 43rd Regiments. On a rise above them was a mass of provincial militia.

Aroused by the sight of smoke from the center of town, those provincial companies began to march down to the bridge. The king’s soldiers became alarmed. Some fired at the advancing men. The provincials fired back.

Lt. William Sutherland of the 38th Regiment, who had volunteered to accompany this mission, later wrote that he was wounded and withdrew under fire, “leaving two of those that turned out with me dead on the Spot, one of which I am told they afterwards Scalped.”

That claim of scalping came from the British soldiers who were at Barrett’s farm and marched back across the bridge some time later, after both sides had withdrawn from that spot. Capt. John Gaspard Battier of the 5th’s light company recorded this testimony:

Corpl. Gordon, Thos. Lugg, Wm. Lewis, Charles Carrier & Richd. Grimshaw in the presence of Captn. Battier of the 5th. Light Company do solemnly declare, when they were returning to Join the Grenadiers they saw a Man belonging to the Light Company of the 4th. regiment with the Skin over his Eye’s Cut and also the Top part of His Ears cut off

That’s one of the very few accounts of this battle that the British army gathered from its enlisted men.

News of that atrocity spread among the redcoats. Capt. Edward Thoroton Gould, taken prisoner in the afternoon, later testified that he’d heard the report “From a captain that advanced up the country.” Lt. Sutherland included it in his report for Gen. Thomas Gage, signed on 26 April. Ens. Jeremy Lister, writing after 1782, recalled seeing four soldiers’ bodies mutilated, clearly an exaggeration.

Soon after the battle Gen. Gage published a broadside offering a “Circumstantial Account of an Attack…on his Majesty’s troops,” which stated:

When Capt. [Lawrence] Parsons returned with the three companies over the bridge, they observed three soldiers on the ground; one of them scalped, his head much mangled, and his ears cut off, though not quite dead; a sight which struck the soldiers with horror.

Sutherland remembered two soldiers “dead on the Spot” while Parsons and his men saw three. The officer in charge of the British men at the bridge, Capt. Walter Sloane Laurie, later reported three privates killed, though he didn’t write when and where they died or where he’d last seen their bodies. Laurie didn’t write about a scalping—he reported only what he’d personally seen, and that attack allegedly happened after he’d led his surviving men back to Concord center. But plenty of other soldiers saw a mutilated corpse of one of their comrades.

TOMORROW: Burying the evidence.

Learning about the Jacob Whittemore House, 18 & 23 May

Minute Man National Historical Park contains eleven buildings that stood during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The only one within the bounds of Lexington (just barely tucked in) is the Jacob Whittemore House, built around 1717, bought by the government in 1961, and renovated in 2005.

The family that lived in that house during the battle wasn’t wealthy and suffered various misfortunes, which contributed to their memories not becoming part of the traditional narrative of how the Revolutionary War began.

The Mass Humanities Foundation provided the Friends of Minute Man with funds to hire Polly Kienle as a Scholar-in-Residence to research those people. Her research, the park says, has “contributed to the development of new interactive exhibits about daily life in 1775 that invite visitors to the Jacob Whittemore House to explore 18th-century food and where it came from, clothing and what was worn when, and division of work within a rural 18th-century family.”

The house will be open to the public on a regular basis this summer from 29 June to 24 August, Thursday through Monday afternoons. Each day rangers will lead a family activity titled “Hats Off! A Homespun Tribute.”

In addition, Kienle will present her program titled “If these Walls Could Speak…” on Saturday, 18 May, as a part of a daylong event at the Jacob Whittemore House. This event, running 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., will also feature reenactors of the Lexington militia and His Majesty’s 10th Regiment of Foot. Rangers will lead tours of the nearby “Parker’s Revenge” site. It’s part of Lexington’s 300th anniversary. Kienle will repeat her program for visitors on five Sundays this year: 16 June, 21 July, 25 August, 22 September, and 20 October.

Finally, there will also be a panel discussion titled “Some Stayed Behind, to Protect Their Terrified Families” about the experiences of that house’s inhabitants during the battle, featuring Kienle and experts from various disciplines. That free public forum will take place from 6:00 to 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, 23 May, at Minute Man Visitor Center in Lexington.

A Door into Harbottle Dorr’s Newspapers

A couple of years ago, I mentioned the newspapers that Boston hardware dealer and selectman Harbottle Dorr collected, annotated, and indexed during the Revolution. Three of the four big volumes have long been owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2011 the society bought the fourth.

The M.H.S. has now digitized the complete Harbottle Dorr Newspaper Collection so anyone can check it out. I got a sneak peek at that website earlier this year, and it promises to be a very valuable resource.

As shown in the advertisement above, Harbottle Dorr was a hardware merchant. But he had the  mind and soul of an archivist. Just above his own shop notice, you can see he penned a cross-reference from the essay by “Junius Americanus” to another item in the collection. He inserted such notes and highlights throughout his newspapers, along with occasional (one-sided) editorial commentary and educated guesses about who wrote pseudonymous essays.

Dorr also compiled an index with nearly 5,000 entries, covering both the newspapers and some pamphlets he thought deserved to be bound with them. The M.H.S.’s Beehive blog shared this glimpse of how Dorr indexed the articles:

• Cold Water, the Pernicious effects of drinking too much in hot weather &c. 212
• Dogs Mad, Symptoms of 11
• Drowned Persons Recover’d 638
• Earth opening & swallowing Person’s at Quebec 601
• Mcdougal Capt. [Alexander] presented with venison (in Prison) 50
• Rum Danger of drawing it by candlelight 192
• Speaker of the House of Commons in Great Britain Sir John Cust died because the House would not let him go to ease the Calls of Nature; They Alter that Custom 85
• Tea, Ladies of Boston sign not to drink any vid. Under Agreement 31.
• Thunder Terrible, Broke on a Magazine & produced terrible Consequences. 418.

The index and archivists’ descriptions are searchable, producing one of the best doors into the collection. (The newspapers themselves aren’t transcribed.) Another entry is through the dates of important events. And if one has a citation to a Boston newspaper story from someone else’s footnote, it’s worth checking out whether Harbottle Dorr had anything to say about that item.

Unabashed Gossip at All Things Liberty

If you’ve tired of rerunning my conversation with Marian Pierre Louis at Fieldstone Common, you can head over to All Things Liberty and find an interview with me in two parts. It contains secrets of finding historical sources, book recommendations, and bizarre biographical details.

Or you can just go straight to Don Hagist’s article on that site about British army officers missing their dogs. Seriously, I know I can’t compete with that.

All Things Liberty aims to be the popular online Journal of the American Revolution. It was co-founded by Todd Andrlik, who interviewed me, and Hugh T. Harrington. Ray Raphael, Thomas Fleming, and many other fine writers contribute to it.

Todd also assembled Reporting the Revolutionary War, which contains scores of images from period newspapers with analytical essays by me, Don, Ray, Tom, Hugh, and many more. A big, handsome hardcover book, it makes a fine gift for a graduate, parent, or anyone else who likes American history.

“King Hancock” After the Revolution

Yet another complication in interpreting the phrase “King Hancock” in 1775 is John Hancock’s later political career. In 1780 he became governor of Massachusetts. That prominence affected how people spoke about him, and quite possibly about how people remembered others speaking about him.

As careful as he was to maintain his political popularity, Hancock developed rivals and enemies. In the new republic, one easy way to attack a rich politician was to tag him as having monarchical ambitions. Samuel Breck, born in Boston in 1771, recorded a sarcastic reference to Hancock in a political verse:

Madam Hancock dreamt a dream;
She dreamt she wanted something;
She dreamt she wanted a Yankee King,
To crown him with a pumpkin.

According to Breck, the line about “a Yankee King” was a commentary on Hancock’s political ambitions in the early federal period, when he enjoyed being the most important officeholder in New England and supposedly took as little notice as possible of the national government.

Within a couple of decades after Breck’s memoirs were posthumously published in Philadelphia in 1863, authors were saying the British had sung those lines in Boston at the start of the Revolutionary War. But back in early 1775 there was no “Madam Hancock” wishing her husband to be a king. (Or, rather, “Madam Hancock” was John’s aunt Lydia.) Hancock didn’t marry Dolly Quincy until after the war began. Breck had actually written that British soldiers had sung other words to “Yankee Doodle,” which he didn’t record.

I suspect that later memories of Hancock as an American politician also colored John Adams’s 1815 recollection about the Continental Congress’s choice of commander-in-chief:

Who, then, should be General? On this question, the members were greatly divided. A number were for Mr. Hancock, then President of Congress, and extremely popular throughout the United Colonies, and called “King Hancock” all over Europe.

In fact, in June 1775 Hancock wasn’t popular “throughout the United Colonies”; he was well known in New England, and folks elsewhere might have heard about Gen. Thomas Gage’s proclamation offering amnesty to any rebel but him and Samuel Adams. But Hancock had become president of the Congress only on 24 May and had hardly enough time to grow “extremely popular.”

Adams carefully avoided saying any Americans referred to the man they supposedly admired as “King Hancock,” but he did claim that people “all over Europe” used that phrase. Most likely, however, few Europeans had ever heard of John Hancock before the Declaration of Independence. When he visited England as a young businessman, Hancock was heartily annoyed at how little respect he got; he was used to being the biggest frog in Boston’s Frog Pond.

No evidence besides Adams’s letter forty years after the fact suggests that any Congress delegates wanted to appoint Hancock commander-in-chief. As with other details of Adams’s recollection, what he wrote about “King Hancock” makes me doubt the reliability of his storytelling.

COMING UP: A myth about another king.

“King Hancock” in Verse

I’ve been tracking appearances of the phrase “King Hancock” in Revolutionary sources, starting in 1770. A couple of those references were complimentary; most were sneering references from supporters of the royal government.

In the fall of 1778, John Hancock helped to command an expedition of Massachusetts, Continental, and French troops against the British military in Newport, Rhode Island. It failed.

That prompted the outwardly Loyalist New York newspaper printer James Rivington to publish a satire in the 3 Oct 1778 Royal Gazette that included this verse:

In dread array their tatter’d crew,
Advanc’d with colors spread Sir,
Their fifes play’d Yankee Doodle, doo,
King Hancock at their head Sir.

Frank Moore’s Diary of the American Revolution (1860) reprinted the whole poem and also quoted a letter from Joshua Longstreet dated 3 Sept 1778 which described “King Hancock, that insufferable piece of bravery, at their head.” Alas, no other author appears to have found Joshua Longstreet or his letters.

In his Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution (1855), Moore reprinted another Loyalist poem, this time celebrating the British capture of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780. It began:

King Hancock sat in regal state,
And big with pride and vainly great,
Address’d his rebel crew:
“These haughty Britons soon shall yield
The boasted honors of the field.
While our brave sons pursue.”

That appears to have been a reference to Hancock as president of the Continental Congress at the time of the Declaration of Independence, though he had stepped down from that post in 1777. In the Carolinas the phrase “King Hancock” might also have brought up memories of the Tuscarora War of 1711-1715, when one Native leader was called King or Chief Hancock.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a period source for that second poem. Moore printed it with two paragraphs of annotation about the phrase “King Hancock,” which he said appeared in Loyalist newspapers about the same time. One paragraph was about Hancock and Samuel Adams as “malignant stars” and the other about Hancock traveling “attended by four servants, dressed in superb livery, mounted on fine horses richly caparisoned.” However, those paragraphs appear in two separate issues of the Pennsylvania Ledger, dated 7 and 11 March 1778—two years before the events in this verse.

To add to the confusion, William Wells’s Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams quoted the first of those paragraphs, citing Moore’s Diary—but linking it to the wrong footnote on that page and thus misdating it by two years. And when Lilian Whiting quoted the second item in Boston Days: The City of Beautiful Ideals (1902), she put the Loyalist criticism of Hancock’s ostentation into Samuel Adams’s mouth. So the whole situation is a citational mess.

But it’s clear that most printed references to “King Hancock” during the Revolutionary War came from people who opposed American independence.

COMING UP: After the war.

“Washington’s Old Headquarters” in Richmond

This detail from a postcard in Virginia Commonwealth University’s library collection shows a gentleman outside “Washington’s Old Headquarters” in Richmond, Virginia. That’s a stone house built in 1754. Here’s the same house in a photo from the Library of Congress.

As the latest issue of Colonial Williamsburg magazine explains in its “Then and Now” series, Gen. George Washington never actually used Richmond’s oldest standing house as his headquarters. He never seems to have been there in any capacity. And other myths surrounding the house are equally bogus. (Also check out the series entry on “Martha Washington’s Kitchen.”)

In our more enlightened time, the old stone building is now Richmond’s Museum of Edgar Allan Poe. Of course, Poe never lived or worked in the house, either. But as a fifteen-year-old military school cadet, Poe once stood near the house in an honor guard for Lafayette.

Two Talks at the Royall House & Slave Quarters

This spring the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford is hosting two lectures on slavery in the early republic.

On Wednesday, 15 May, Henry Wiencek will speak on his book Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves.

In his provocative study, Wiencek argues that the author of the Declaration of Independence shifted his position on slavery for financial reasons, after becoming convinced that the only way to make a success of his debt-ridden plantation was through what he called the “silent profits” gained from those he enslaved.

Wiencek is also author of The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White and An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. He is a son of Dorchester and graduate of Boston College High School.

This talk starts at 7:30 P.M. It costs $5, or free for Royall House and Slave Quarters members.

On the afternoon of Saturday, 8 June, literary historian Lois Brown offers a presentation titled “Marked with the furrows of time”: Belinda, the Royalls, and Accounts of Freedom. The Medford Historical Society explains how Belinda, enslaved to the Loyalist Isaac Royall, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature in 1783 for a pension from his confiscated estate.

Brown is a professor in the African American Studies Program and the Department of English at Wesleyan University. She is the author of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Black Daughter of the Revolution.

Brown’s talk is part of an annual benefit for the site that runs from 3:00 to 5:00. It will include tours and exhibits, music, and refreshments. Tickets are $35 for members, $45 for non-members.

“I mean King Hancock.”

As I noted last month, a largely reliable British officer, Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, reported that some of the provincial troops shouted, “King Hancock forever!” on 19 Apr 1775. John Hancock went on to become president of the Continental Congress, thus the highest elected official of the United Colonies. Thus, if anyone was in position to be King of the new independent country, Hancock was.

Which brings me to an item in the 3 Sept 1777 Pennsylvania Journal. That Patriot newspaper published this account of fighting in upstate New York from Abraham Ninham, a leader of the Stockbridge Indians serving in the Continental Army. When it starts, Ninham and his men have captured some British soldiers:

On our way to our encampment, we thought we would take in with us as many Tories as we could find; and in order to find them out, we gave our prisoners their guns, taking out the flints. When we came near a house, we told our prisoners, “you must keep before us, and if you see any men you must cock your guns and present them at them, and demand who they are for, the King or country.”

They did so, and the Tories answered they were for the King, or they should have moved off long ago. They seemed to be glad to see the regulars, and told them, “You are our brothers.”

I knew one of the Tories as soon as I came in sight of him; I therefore put my hat over my face for fear the fellow should know me till the red coats had done their duty. After he had in a most strong manner declared he was for the King, I asked him further, “Will you be true to the King, and fight for him till you die?”

“O yes,” said the Tory.

Upon this he discovered his error, knew me, and immediately said, “What King do you mean? I mean King Hancock.”

“Ah,” said I; “we have found you out; we don’t know kings in America yet; you must go along with us.”

According to this anecdote (which isn’t necessarily accurate), a Loyalist thought that praising “King Hancock” would help him pass as a Patriot, but—ho ho!—the joke was on him. In becoming independent, the United States had adopted republican values and now disdained all kings.

COMING UP: “King Hancock” in verse.

Unabashed Gossip at Fieldstone Common

Last month genealogist Marian Pierre-Louis and I gossiped by phone about children in Revolutionary Boston, the Vassall families of Cambridge, and other topics.

That was for an episode of Marian’s internet radio show and podcast Fieldstone Common, and you can hear the recording here. There are also a couple of photos of me on the episode’s webpage, and Marian’s introduction explains how I fell into historical research.

The Slow Spread of Official News about Bunker Hill

In response to this week’s question about George Washington on 17 June 1775, the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a few people guessed he was in New York on the way to the siege lines. In fact, he didn’t leave Philadelphia until the morning of 23 June, a full week after he agreed to be commander-in-chief. His letters make clear that even he didn’t expect his departure to take that long.

Washington reached New York on 25 June, and there opened a dispatch from Boston with a report on the fighting in Massachusetts. (Adding to the chronological confusion, the letters Washington sent during his journey north all appear to be misdated by one day.) The dispatch that Washington read that day brings up another mystery.

News of the first shots at Lexington on the morning of 19 Apr 1775 reached New York on the afternoon of 23 April, according to the comprehensive table at the back of David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride. So a little less than five days.

Yet the report on Bunker Hill arrived in New York eight days after the battle, even assuming that no dispatch rider departed until light on 18 June. Why the difference?

On 18 June, the day after the fight, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress appointed a six-man committee to “prepare a letter to the Continental Congress on the late attack of the king’s troops at Bunker’s hill, &c.” That committee included Joseph Hawley, James Warren, Dr. Benjamin Church, and James Otis, Sr.—all heavy hitters. But the congress was then officially leaderless with Dr. Joseph Warren missing and feared dead. On the afternoon of 19 June, the legislature chose James Warren (shown above, courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts) as its new president.

On 20 June, the Provincial Congress reviewed its committee’s report on the battle, “paragraph by paragraph,” and ordered it to be copied and sent. Their dispatch referred to an “anonymous letter from Boston” numbering the British casualties at “about one thousand,” which turned out to be more accurate than the committee thought.

That was probably the letter that Washington opened in New York five days later. So the mail riders weren’t slow. The Provincial Congress delayed its report until its committee had a good sense of what had happened and/or could put a good spin on events. It thus seems likely that Gen. Washington and his party had heard brief, early rumors about the Bunker Hill battle before they reached New York City.

What Was Washington Doing During the Battle of Bunker Hill?

On Tuesday I posed the question of what George Washington was doing during the Battle of Bunker Hill, which occurred on the afternoon of 17 June 1775.

As several people noted, around that date the Continental Congress was making Washington the commander-in-chief of its new Continental Army. But that process took some time. The Congress voted to appoint a commander and offered Washington the post on 15 June, heard his acceptance on 16 June, and started drafting its formal commission and instructions on 17 June, as shown in its record here. It seems likely that once Washington accepted the post of commander, he stayed away from the Congress’s formal sessions. So where was he?

The most consistent source for Washington’s daily activities before the war are his diaries, which are otherwise bland and unenlightening. (He stopped keeping those diaries as soon as he took up his commission as general, making him perhaps the most frustrating diarist ever.) As shown here, Washington’s entry for 17 June 1775 was:

Dined at Burns’s in the Fields—spent the Evening at my Lodgings.

Washington also recorded dining at “Burns’s” or “Burn’s” on 1, 13, and 15 June. I think that dinner locale was most likely Patrick Byrne’s tavern on Front Street between Walnut and Spruce, known as “the Sign of the Cock.” Byrne (1734-1808) was an immigrant from Ireland, and his tavern shows up in other news of the era. But I’m not certain his address counted as “in the Fields” in 1775—any Philadelphians know?

Since Americans of this period ate dinner in the first half of the afternoon, and Philadelphia time was somewhat behind Boston time, Washington was probably eating at Byrne’s as the major fighting of the Battle of Bunker Hill began.

Two days before, Washington had “spent the Eveng. on a Committee”—that was the last day before he accepted the post of general, and I suspect he used the time to make clear what he wanted in other generals (Charles Lee, Horatio Gates), aides, and other support. But on 17 June, as the British consolidated their new territory on Bunker’s Hill and the provincials threw up hasty fortifications on the west side of Charlestown neck, Washington spent the evening privately.

As of midnight, three Boston 1775 readers answered the question correctly, citing Washington’s diary. Two people are our old friends and occasional guest bloggers Charles Bahne and Don Hagist, and the third is frequent commenter Joe Bauman. Congratulations to all three gentlemen!

I flipped a coin with Washington on it a couple of times, and it came up for Don. So I’ll be sending him a free copy of Nathaniel Philbrick’s new book Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution. Thanks, everyone!

TOMORROW: A question of timing.

Q. & A. on Bunker Hill with Nathaniel Philbrick, part 2

Today Boston 1775 concludes a colloquy with Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution.

Q. What could the American commanders have done differently to win the battle? What could the British commanders have done differently to avoid such heavy losses? And how would a different outcome on 17 June 1775 have affected the siege of Boston or the war?

A. The most obvious failing of the American commanders had to do with the artillery regiment under Colonel Richard Gridley, who had the unfortunate habit of picking officers to whom he was related. With only one or two exceptions, the officers under Gridley’s command were both cowardly and ineffectual, and several of them were seen running scared from the scene of the battle.

Since most of the American troops were already terrified of the British cannons, it was especially unnerving to see their own artillery officers proving so pathetically incompetent. This led large numbers of soldiers to linger back on Bunker Hill, where they could avoid the battle to the south. For those fighting in the redoubt and along the breastworks and rail fence, it was infuriating to realize that hundreds, if not thousands of their own men were on the Charlestown peninsula but were providing them with no help.

Both Colonels William Prescott and John Stark were highly critical of Israel Putnam, who had stationed himself on Bunker Hill. Putnam seems to have chiefly occupied himself trying to build a fortification that might serve as a fallback position for those on the front line, but this was hardly a priority at this point in the battle when Prescott and Stark needed every soldier and musket they could get. According to Stark, if Putnam had done what he should have and gotten those lollygaggers to join the fighting, “he would have decided the fate of his country in the first action.”

On the British side, it might have all gone very differently if they had followed Henry Clinton’s advice and landed some soldiers to the north at Charlestown Neck, where they would have cut off the American retreat.

If the American army had been routed at Bunker Hill and the British had then pursued them into Cambridge, the war might have been effectively over before it even got started. If the Americans had decisively won the battle, it might have convinced the British ministry to agree to a compromise. The ironic thing is that both alternative outcomes would have meant that America remained a part of the British Empire.

Q. A movie studio has bought the dramatic rights to Bunker Hill. While acknowledging that authors have zero influence on casting, let’s imagine that you’re making that movie. You’ve spent a lot of mental time with several of the characters involved in the start of the Revolution. Cast a couple of those leading roles with well-known actors or actresses, past or present, and explain why they would be good choices.

A. I’m terrible at this kind of thing, but I’ll give it a try, limiting myself to actors/actresses from the past.

Errol Flynn as Joseph Warren. He’d bring a swashbuckling, action-hero charisma to the role that would be great, particularly when it comes to Warren delivering his Massacre-Day Oration in a toga and when he fights to the death at the redoubt on Breed’s Hill.

Katharine Hepburn as Mercy Scollay, Warren’s fiancée. Scollay was apparently very bright and high strung and Kate would be perfect; while we’re at it, let’s cast an older Spencer Tracy as her father John Scollay, chair of the Boston Selectmen.

Let’s go with a young Ernest Borgnine as Israel Putnam since you need a big athletic loveable guy with a wild streak.

I’d pick Laurence Olivier to be Thomas Gage and tell him to bring out his inner Hamlet.

I picture both Colonels Prescott and Stark as being thin and wiry and fairly humorless—maybe a dour Jimmy Stewart for Prescott and Max von Sydow as Stark?

See, I told you I was lousy at this kind of thing.

Hey, I don’t think that was so bad! At top: Olivier tries to channel Gen. John Burgoyne in The Devil’s Disciple. Below: Young Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian in In the Wake of the Bounty.

TOMORROW: The Bunker Hill giveway. Answers accepted until midnight!

Q. & A. on Bunker Hill with Nathaniel Philbrick, part 1

Here’s the first part of my blog interview with Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the new book Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution.

Q. Your new book is titled Bunker Hill, but it describes the years before that battle on 17 June 1775 and continues to the end of the siege of Boston in 1776. How did you decide on the boundaries of your story? Did you start with the battle and expand, or did you set out to tell a story of the American Revolution and narrow in on that battle?

A. All of my books seem to be about communities under incredible stress and trauma, and from the first I wanted Bunker Hill to be about what the Revolution did to the inhabitants of Boston. I knew it had to end with the evacuation of the British, and it seemed natural that it begin after the Tea Party with the Boston Port Act and the arrival of General Gage and his army. Within those time constraints the Battle of Bunker Hill was the pivotal event—when a rebellion turned into a war.

Q. What aspect of the Battle of Bunker Hill did you find most surprising, or feel isn’t as well known as it should be? What misconceptions do you think people have about the battle, then or now?

A. I don’t think it’s generally understood what a confused and confusing event it was.

The Americans’ original plan was to postpone, if not stop altogether, an impending British attack by building a fort on Bunker Hill, which is on the north end of the Charlestown peninsula and would have commanded the approaches to Cambridge without directly threatening the British in Boston. But for reasons that are still not clear, William Prescott built his redoubt about a half mile to the south on Breed’s Hill, less than a cannon shot away from Boston. Instead of delaying a British attack, Prescott ended up provoking the bloodiest battle of the Revolution.

The amazing thing is that the battle went as well as it did for the Americans, and that’s led to another misconception. The British, not the Americans, actually won the battle, but they suffered casualties of almost fifty percent. As General Howe admitted, “The success is too dearly bought.”

So there you have it, a battle named for the wrong hill that was won by the war’s ultimate losers. No wonder people are confused.

Q. My favorite anecdote about the Battle of Bunker Hill revolves around Abijah Willard recognizing his in-law William Prescott on the edge of the redoubt. In The Whites of Their Eyes, Paul Lockhart raised doubts about that story, but you find it plausible. Would you please summarize the anecdote and the issues involved in judging its authenticity?

A. Early on in the battle a cannon ball decapitated one of Prescott’s men. Prescott could see that the rest of his soldiers, most of whom had no previous war experience, were badly shaken. In order to inspire them, he jumped up onto the fort’s parapet and began to strut back and forth, waving his sword and shouting at the British. Apparently Prescott was wearing a banyan—a long loose-fitting coat that must have been swirling about him like a cape.

Meanwhile, at that moment in Boston, General Thomas Gage was examining the American stronghold through his spyglass when he saw this maniac dressed in a banyan making a spectacle of himself. Standing beside Gage was a loyalist named Abijah Willard. Gage handed his spyglass over to Willard and asked if he knew who that crazy guy was. According to tradition, Willard recognized that it was none other than his brother-in-law William Prescott.

“Will he fight?” Gage asked.

“Yes, sir,” Willard replied. “He is an old soldier and will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins.”

The story may seem too good to be true, but it comes from Prescott’s son, which is a pretty trustworthy source, I think. Paul Lockhart is justifiably skeptical of the anecdote, pointing out that given the distance and the fact that eighteenth-century spyglasses were pretty primitive compared to what we have today it would have been impossible for Willard to recognize any face that far away, especially with smoke in the air.

My theory is that given Prescott’s much-commented-on coat, a facial recognition was not required. I’ve played around a bit with eighteenth-century telescopes here on Nantucket and have come to believe that Willard recognized the coat, not the face, and said, “Aha, that’s my madman brother-in-law Bill.”

TOMORROW: More of this interview. And have you entered the contest for a copy of Bunker Hill?

Nat Philbrick’s Bunker Hill: Talks, Reviews, and a Giveaway

Today is the publication date of Nathaniel Philbrick’s new book, Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution. He’s speaking about it three times this week in Massachusetts:

• Wednesday, 1 May, 6:00 P.M., Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline. Co-sponsored by the Brookline Booksmith and the Massachusetts Historical Society. Tickets are $5 per person from the bookstore, or free to someone who buys a copy of the book there.
• Thursday, 2 May, 7:00 P.M., American Antiquarian Society, Worcester. Free to the public.
• Friday, 3 May, 6:30 P.M., the Bostonian Society’s Old State House Museum, Boston. Free to the public.

For upcoming events in other parts of the country, visit Nat’s website.

Bunker Hill has been garnering some very good reviews. David M. Shribman wrote in the Boston Globe:

Everyone in these precincts knows this story, or apocryphal strains of it: that the Battle of Bunker Hill really was fought on Breed’s Hill, that June 17 forevermore would be a red date on local calendars, that the heroic Joseph Warren died in battle as a nation was being born. Yet this is but the skeleton of the story Nathaniel Philbrick tells in Bunker Hill, a masterpiece of narrative and perspective by an author who has helped us look anew at the voyage of the Mayflower and the passage of George Armstrong Custer.

Thomas Fleming, who began his own career writing about the Revolution with a book on this battle, Now We Are Enemies, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Philbrick tells the complex story superbly, from the American and British points of view…[with an] emphasis on the flaws that afflicted both sides.” Tony Horwitz walked the battlefield with Nat Philbrick for Smithsonian magazine.

Walter Isaacson mused in the Washington Post:

The Committees of Correspondence conjured up comparisons to the role played in Tahrir Square by Facebook and other social networks. The affair of the purloined Hutchinson Letters reminded me of WikiLeaks, the rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes reminded me of Twitter, and the Tea Party reminded me of, well, the tea party. As Philbrick writes, “Samuel Adams and his compatriots had created what was, in essence, an extralegal, colony-wide network of communications that threatened to preempt old hierarchical form of government.”

But the most interesting lesson was that, even though the American Revolution might have been partly kindled by social networks, it was taken over and won by militias. Those who pamphleteer and blog, talk and tweet, cannot control the course of events as handily as those who are willing to put their lives on the line. The revolution will not be tweeted.

At All Things Liberty, Hugh T. Harrington focused on scope and sources:

Despite a title that suggests a narrow focus on a single battle, Bunker Hill does a superb job setting the stage for the Siege of Boston and the climatic action that took place on Breed’s Hill. Coverage of the Committees of Correspondence is outstanding. One may grumble that some other aspects such as the Tea Party and the raid on Fort William and Mary could have been treated more thoroughly but even in a book reaching 400 pages it is clear that not everything can be detailed in a single volume. What is presented is an outstanding overview.

Maps are essential to understanding the story and following the action. Fortunately excellent, clearly readable and simple maps are provided. The book provides outstanding coverage of the big picture of what was happening, who was doing it and why.

However, the strong reliance upon 19th century secondary sources to add details and color to the narrative is disappointing. Much of what was written in the 19th century falls into the category of legend, hearsay, or simply entertaining stories that do not always stand up well to historical scrutiny.

Harrington acknowledges that the endnotes in Bunker Hill explain the sources Nat Philbrick relied on and, in some cases, acknowledge that other historians (like myself) disagree on certain stories’ reliability. Readers can then make up their own minds. That makes Bunker Hill definitely a book in which one should read the notes.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll share a question-and-answer with Nat Philbrick about this book. But first, Boston 1775 has a copy of Bunker Hill to give away. As usual, I’m tying this giveaway to a question of historical knowledge:

What was George Washington doing during the Battle of Bunker Hill?

Put your answer in a comment on this blog entry. I’m looking for the most specific, best documented answer. I’ll keep those comments invisible until the arrival of Friday, 3 May. If there are two or more best answers, I’ll pick one correct respondent at random to receive a free copy of Bunker Hill.

Two Talks on the View from France

Tomorrow the Institute for the Liberal Arts and the History Department at Boston College are presenting a lecture titled “Les Treize Colonies: Viewing Early America from France” by Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Professor of American History and Civilization at the Université de Paris VIII. This talk begins at 4:00 in Stokes Hall S376.

On 7 May at noon, Van Ruymbeke will speak at the Boston Athenaeum on “Rêves d’Amérique: The New World in Huguenot Imagination and Reality.” That lecture description says:

Promotional pamphlets published by colonial proprietors and land speculators to draw Huguenots to their domains and Huguenot letters sent from America to relatives who remained in Europe enable historians to grasp the image that the New World carried in the refugees’ imagination and to contrast it to the harsh reality of getting settled in an often inhospitable environment.

Van Ruymbeke is author of a new book titled L’Amérique avant les États-Unis: Une histoire de l’Amérique anglaise (America before the United States: A History of English America). He’s previously written and edited books on the Huguenot diaspora after 1685.

Among the Huguenot families who eventually settled in Boston were the Reveres, Bowdoins, and Faneuils. For a while there was a Huguenot church, though it sat empty by the time of the Revolution. Ironically, the town’s first Catholic congregation met there in the 1780s.

The Boston Town House at 300

In 1713, Boston built its Town House as its center of government—the building for town meetings, the Massachusetts Council and General Court, and the Superior Court. It was only natural that the business community would congregate nearby as well. Many large ports in the British Empire had similar buildings. What’s remarkable about Boston’s Town House is that it’s standing, the oldest surviving public building in the United States. But now we know it as the Old State House museum.

The Bostonian Society, which maintains that museum, is celebrating the 300th anniversary of its building with a series of events in May. These include:

• Nathaniel Philbrick speaks on the Boston origins of the American Revolution and signs his new book, Bunker Hill [more on that to come soon]. Friday, 3 May, 6:30 P.M., free for all.
• Masonic Re-Dedication & Anniversary Commemoration. Saturday, 4 May, 11:00 A.M. Free to all passersby.
• Battle Road Brewing hosts a beer tasting for visitors aged 21 and over. Wednesday, 8 May, 5:30 P.M.
• Treasure or Trouble? A special exhibit on preserving historic buildings, including “the opportunity to put on a pair of gloves to get a hands-on experience with historical materials.” Thursday, 9 May, 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. Free with admission to the Old State House.
• Modern Demands, Historic Spaces. A panel of experts will examine key issues in historic preservation, including accessibility, balancing preservation with for exhibitions and events, changing technologies and energy needs. Moderator Greg Galer, the Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance, will encourage audience participation and dialog with the panel. Thursday, 9 May, 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. Free.
• Old State House 300th Anniversary! Saturday, 11 May, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. A day of celebration as the Old State House turns 300! Visitors can experience three centuries of history through family-friendly activities, special tours, and conversations with Revolutionary Characters. Free with admission to the Old State House.

Slinging “King Hancock” Back and Forth

Of all the people in Revolutionary America I’ve found saying, “King Hancock,” so far only one used the phrase at all proudly. Boston 1775 reader Richard Doctorow quoted that item in a comment a while back.

The 15 Jan 1778 Independent Chronicle and other newspapers printed an anecdote about an eight-year-old American fifer taken prisoner during a raid on Long Island. To a British officer he proudly identified himself as “one of King Hancock’s men.”

Was that unnamed boy using a term common among American soldiers? Or was he, too, speaking sarcastically, spitting a term used by British officers back at them? Did this boy even exist? Even if he didn’t, it would be significant that a Patriot newspaper wanted people to believe he did.

In contrast, it’s easier to find stories of people loyal to the Crown using the phrase “King Hancock” in insults to the American cause. For example, in 1778, the American military tried Col. David Henley, at his request, for how he had attacked some of the British prisoners of war in the “Convention Army” at Cambridge. For more on that conflict, see Don Hagist’s recounting.

One witness in Henley’s court martial, Cpl. John Buchanan of the British army, testified:

After [Pvt. Samuel] Reeves was returned to the guard-room, and the other prisoners dismissed, Reeves said to me, “This is a poor pass I am come to, to be taken out of the guard-house and stabbed, and my king and country damned—damn King Hancock and the Congress.”

Buchanan acknowledged that Col. Henley might have heard this remark and become even angrier at Reeves.

Because by that time most Americans had become republicans and disdained having a king of any kind. Which meant “King Hancock” became purely an insult.

COMING UP: “King Hancock” in verse later in the war.