Meanwhile, to the West

Another new book on Revolutionary-era America actually looks at what else was happening on the continent while Britain’s thirteen colonies along the middle Atlantic coast fought for independence.

Claudio Saunt, author of West of the Revolution: An Uncommon Look at 1776, explained his approach in an article for the Boston Globe:

Spanish soldiers and missionaries were establishing the first permanent European colonies on North America’s Pacific Coast. (Native Americans, who observed Spanish schooners emerge on the horizon as if rising from the depths, called the newcomers “people from under the water.”)

Further north, Russians were seizing control of the Aleutian Islands and would soon push into the Alaskan mainland—territory they would not relinquish until 1867.

In the heart of the continent, Native Americans—who were as numerous as the Colonists then in revolution—sought to exploit the economic and geopolitical tumult engendered by European colonization on the coasts.

Specifically, Saunt wrote, “According to one traditional Lakota history, the Lakota (Sioux) Indians discovered the Black Hills in 1775-1776.” That memory was recorded by American Horse (1840-1908) in 1879—earlier than some Revolutionary traditions in textbooks and histories today.

In a short review for the Globe, Kate Tuttle wrote: “One persistent undercurrent to Saunt’s narrative is how much history hinges on misunderstanding and ignorance, along with greed and fear — not a pretty picture, but a necessary and timely addition to the heroic creation story we celebrate on July 4.” Here are other reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.

Digging for “Heretical” Roots

Matthew Stewart’s new book Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic is getting a lot of attention now. Here are interviews with Stewart in:

• The Boston Globe
• Church & State

And here are reviews of the book in:

• Kirkus
• Christianity Today
• The New Republic
• The Los Angeles Times, which uses a picture of Thomas Young the nineteenth-century British scientist instead of Dr. Thomas Young the eighteenth-century American physician.

As one should expect, the Christianity Review piece by a professor at a Christian college is much more critical than the piece in Church & State, which is the newsletter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Stewart is clearly arguing against claims of our modern religious right that the U.S. of A. was founded on and for Christian beliefs—almost always the beliefs of the people making those claims. As Stewart points out, people of a particular faith tend to assume that when historical figures they admire mention “God,” that means the same God they themselves believe in. But even when people of the past specifically allude to Christianity or Jesus, they may not share the same understanding of those terms and ideas as their modern readers.

That can cut in all directions. “Presbyterian“ was often used as a general derogatory term by eighteenth-century non-Presbyterians. John Adams’s understanding of “Unitarianism” doesn’t map directly onto the modern Unitarian-Universalist creed. And so on.

The interviews and reviews indicate that Stewart has focused his work on certain Revolutionary figures: Young, his friend and coauthor Ethan Allen, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine. But those men were only a narrow slice of a mass movement toward independence and repuhlicanism.

Samuel Adams, for example, appears in those articles above only in the Globe interview as “Sam Adams,” comrade of Young’s. Yet Adams clearly had more influence on the course of the Revolution than Young, who never served in public office and died in 1777. Adams was also a devout Calvinist, and therefore less helpful to Stewart’s thesis.

As much as I’m pleased to see the name of Dr. Young in a Boston newspaper again, I thought the Globe interview didn’t offer an accurate picture of the man. Stewart twice calls him a “street warrior” but doesn’t identify him as a physician. While Young’s free thinking allowed him to imagine political change (he was a true democrat as early as the late 1760s), his deism was a liability to the local Whig movement; friends of the royal government used Young’s unorthodox beliefs to discredit him in heavily Calvinist Boston. Young and Allen were clearly outliers in the spectrum of American religious thought during his lifetime.

Stewart’s academic background is in philosophy, not history, and he’s shining a spotlight on the classical roots of Enlightenment deism. I hope Nature’s God does better at putting those ideas in the full context of Revolutionary history than the short interviews and reviews allow.

Luther Little’s Low Point

Luther Little (1756-1842) was an American naval officer during the War for Independence. He was a lieutenant on the Protector, a Massachusetts ship that was captured by the Royal Navy in 1781.

Little escaped captivity, however, because he’d been assigned to command a vessel the Protector had captured previously on its voyage into a friendly port.

On a later voyage, however, Capt. Little’s ship was wrecked in a storm and he broke his leg. But eventually he made it back to his home town of Marshfield.

In 1841 Little dictated a memoir of his life to a relative, and in the 1910s the Journal of American History published that manuscript. This is the incident he started with:

At the age of ten years, 1766, I recollect going to swim in the North River, a stream that runs between Scituate and Marshfield, accompanied by several boys in the neighbourhood. While we were thus amusing ourselves the tide rose and took off my clothes. Aided by the boys, I chose the least conspicuous path home, two miles and a half; got into a chamber window, and instead of the fig leaves chosen by Adam and Eve for a similar purpose, I took to my bed and feigned myself sick. I lay there quietly until my mother came up, who, hearing my story, gave me herb-tea, &c, and by this means I escaped a good whipping.

The following sketch of my life will show that I have been exposed to danger, and eminently so, both by sea and land, but never have I felt any depression of spirits so sensibly as at the loss of this suit of clothes.

The Bunker Hill Poetic Challenge Winner!

Thanks to all the Boston 1775 readers who took up the Bunker Hill Poetic Challenge! They were Joseph Sullivan, Dr. Sam Forman, Marshall Stack, R. Doctorow, John Johnson, Michael Lynch, Chip O, Facebook’s Committee of Correspondence, and G. Lovely. It was truly gratifying to see that response to a challenge I wasn’t sure anyone would enjoy.

After reviewing the rules, the staff had to eliminate some entries because they didn’t match the announced criteria, but we appreciate those efforts nonetheless.

That left enough verses to make a difficult choice, especially with my fondness for limericks as a way to comment on serious historical events. But in the end the prize goes to this entry:

THE REBEL’S SECRET REVEAL’D

When dawn reveal’d the Rebel fort,
One Abercrom was heard to retort,
“With one advance we shall win the day!”
Alas, it did not turn out that way.

“Another charge and we no doubt win!”
Said Howe. “Let the next advance begin!”
Yet failure again was their reward—
Samuel Paine thought it quite untoward.

Whilst over in Boston, Gage did muse
“What evil trick do these Rebels use?
Oh Mars! Reveal their secret power!
How can they hold out hour ’pon hour?”

In fact, ’twas all due to Snelling’s drinks—
Or so his son would have us thinks.

Those lines from R. Doctorow not only offer some iambic tetrameter to a world that sorely needs it, but they allude to this Boston 1775 posting. Alluding to the judges’ own work is always useful in scholarly competitions.

So R., please send me an email or comment with your surface-mail address, and I’ll ask the publisher of Bunker Hill: A City, A Battle, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick to send you a complimentary copy.

Honorable mention goes to Michael Lynch, who took himself out of competition for the book, for this fine five-line overview of the battle:

While stuck inside Boston’s bubble,
The British burned Charlestown to rubble.
They carried the hill,
But so many were killed
That it really was not worth the trouble.

And once again, thanks to all who took part. Happy Independence Day!

A Different Point of View on the “Bunker Hill” Song

As I discussed yesterday, in post-Revolutionary Boston young veterans of the war preserved and passed around the words to a song about the Battle of Bunker Hill written from the British point of view.

They had different things to say, however, about who had written that song:

• The first surviving broadside says it was “Composed by the British Soldiers,” and an 1811 reprint says it was “Composed by the British.”
• A handwritten copy of the verses kept by the merchant John Marston credited “one of the British army.”
• The historian Samuel Swett apparently had a broadside headlined “Composed by a British Officer after the engagement.”
• Either working with more information or splitting the difference between his sources, Swett labeled the lines “Extracts from a song said to be written by a British Serjeant” in his 1826 book.
• Finally, in the 1830s newspaper publisher Benjamin Russell told a visitor that the song had been “written by a common British soldier, who afterwards deserted to the Americans, and used to sing it in the American camp.”

I’m inclined to think the song came from the British enlisted ranks rather than from an officer. Whether or not that lyricist deserted, some deserter may well have carried the lyrics across the siege line. Russell was in the American camp until August 1775 (when his father grabbed him), so he could have heard the song first- or second-hand. But of course there could have been a lot of distortion in memory or oral tradition over the next sixty years.

And there was even more distortion to come! Sometime in the mid-1830s the Boston printer Leonard Deming reprinted the song once more. His broadside said “Battle of Bunker Hill” had been “Composed by a British Officer, the day after the Battle, June 17, 1775.”

And something curious happened as Deming’s shop put the lyrics into print. His text matches the earlier broadsides closely through the bottom of the first column. Then the next stanza is based on lines that had appeared toward the end of the preceding versions, with some changes. It says:

Brave Howe is so considerate,
As to guard against all dangers;
He allow’d each half a gill this day,
To rum we are no strangers.

The earliest printed version said:

Brave Howe is so considerate, as to prevent all danger,
He allows us half a pint each day, to him we are not strangers:

The Deming broadside reproduced two more stanzas intact, but then the American typographers apparently got fed up with all that British boasting. For the rest of the song they rewrote nearly every verse to criticize the British commanders and praise the Americans. The new lines went:

And when the works were got into,
And put them to the flight, sir,
They pepper’d us, poor British elves,
And show’d us they could fight, sir.

And when their works we got into,
With some hard knocks and danger;
Their works we found both firm and strong,
Too strong for British Rangers.

But as for our Artillery,
They gave all way and run,
For while their ammunition held,
They gave us Yankee fun.

But our commander, he got broke,
For his misconduct, sure, sir;
The shot he sent for twelve pound guns,
Were made for twenty-fours, sir.

There’s some in Boston, pleas’d to say,
As we the field were taking,
We went to kill their countrymen,
While they their hay were making.

For such stout whigs I never saw,
To hang them all I’d rather;
By making hay with musket balls,
Lord Howe cursedly did bother.

Bad luck to him by land and sea,
For he’s despis’d by many;
The name of Bunker Hill he dreads,
Where he was flogg’d most plainly.

And now my song is at an end,
And to conclude my ditty;
’Tis only Britons ignorant,
That I most sincerely pity.

As for our King and William Howe,
And General Gage, if they’re taken,
The Yankees will hang their heads up high,
On that fine hill call’d Beacon.

Compare those lines, especially the last, with the original.

There’s no indication on the Deming broadside that it didn’t offer the original lyrics, so later authors took those lines to be authentic. There’s even a lesson plan from the Library of Congress using the 1830s broadside as a Revolutionary text. It says, “within hours of the battle, it also inspired an unknown British officer to set down his own impressions in verse. As you read his account of the bloody day and notice his clear respect for his enemies, you might think about how a different point of view can shed new light on even the most familiar events.”

So here I am shedding new light with a different point of view. We don’t know who wrote the original song, but we know the lyrics on the Deming broadside from the 1830s were not written by a British officer in 1775.

“It has been copied so many times, for the last fifty years”

It’s no surprise that British soldiers composed a song about the Battle of Bunker Hill, as quoted yesterday. After all, they won the fight, and then they had several months in Boston to fill. What’s surprising is that the song was printed and preserved in American broadsides and archives.

It’s conceivable that the song was first printed inside Boston during the siege by one of the remaining Loyalist printers, and a copy of that remained after the evacuation. However, there’s strong evidence that Massachusetts youths of the Revolutionary generation passed along the song.

Complicating the picture a bit is that in 1811 the Boston printer Nathaniel Coverly reissued the verses on a broadside headlined “BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. This Song was composed by the British, after the engagement.” That had the same text and punctuation as the earlier printing, but Coverly broke the long rhyming lines in two to produce twenty-four stanzas instead of twelve. That broadside could have reinforced and distorted people’s memory of the song from Revolutionary times, but people don’t seem to have noticed it.

After the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, Samuel Swett began to work on his History of Bunker Hill Battle. On 17 Apr 1826 a Quincy man named John Marston (1756-1846) wrote this to him:

Agreeably to your request, I send you a copy of the British song, on the battle of Bunker Hill. I will not vouch for its perfect correctness. It has been copied so many times, for the last fifty years, there are probably some mistakes and omissions.

You will observe a word is wanting at the end of the fourteenth verse, to rhyme with “danger.” I believe the meaning of the word wanting is, coward or cowardice. It was a favorite object of the British to represent us as cowards, and that we could not fight except behind stone walls and breast-works.

Marston’s handwritten copy was headed, “A song on the battle of Bunker Hill, composed by one of the British army, June, 1775, Tune—‘When Sawney up to London came.’” Compared to the previously printed texts, Marston omitted two stanzas and occasional words, and transposed two other stanzas.

In addition, in 1838 E. C. Wines wrote this about visiting Bunker Hill in A Trip to Boston, in a Series of Letters to the Editor of the United States Gazette:

I considered myself fortunate in having so excellent a guide as Major [Benjamin] Russell, who, he says, was on the spot the day when the battle occurred, and saw the whole of it, though, as he was but a mere stripling, he took no active part in it. Being, however, a “looker-on in Venice,” he is familiar with every locality and with all the incidents of the day. He gave me a minute and graphic account of the battle, specifying all the leading events, and pointing out the place where each one happened.

Among other things, he repeated a doggerel description of the battle, written by a common British soldier, who afterwards deserted to the Americans, and used to sing it in the American camp. It has no poetical merit, but as the Major declares it to be perfectly accurate in its facts, and as it has never yet appeared in print, I venture to transcribe it.

Wines then wrote out a ten-stanza version of the song. Despite being Boston’s leading Federalist publisher, Russell (1761-1845, shown above) apparently didn’t know that those lines had been published at least three times before.

Thus, Bostonians who were teenagers during the Battle of Bunker Hill preserved this British army song about the fight and helped it get into history books over half a century later.

TOMORROW: So who wrote those lines? And why do we remember a different version?

“A SONG Composed by the British Soldiers…”

This is the last day the Boston 1775 staff is accepting entries into the Bunker Hill Poetic Challenge, with the prize of a paperback copy of Nathaniel Philbrick’s Bunker Hill. Many thanks to all who have shared their verses so far.

For inspiration in case you haven’t entered yet, here’s the full text of “A SONG Composed by the British Soldiers, after the Battle at Bunker-Hill, on the 17th of June, 1775.”

The broadside that preserves these lines, in the collection of the Boston Public Library, doesn’t state a publisher or a date. The use of the long S and other typography suggest that it was produced in the eighteenth century, probably after 1775 but within recent memory of the battle.

The lyrics are most definitely from the redcoats’ point of view:

It was on the seventeenth by break of Day, the Yankees did surprise us,
With their strong works they had thrown up, to burn the town and drive us;
But soon we had an order came, an order to defeat them;
Like rebels stout they stood it out, and thought we ne’er could beat them.

About the hour of twelve that day, an order came for marching,
With three good flints and sixty rounds, each man hop’d to discharge them;
We marched down to the long wharf, where boats were ready waiting,
With expedition we embark’d, our ships kept cannonading.

And when our boats all filled were, with officers and soldiers,
With as good troops as England had, to oppose who dare control us;
And when our boats all filled were, we row’d in line of battle,
Where showers of ball like hail did fly, our cannon loud did rattle.

There was Cops-Hill battery near Charlestown, our twenty-fours they play’d;
And the three frigates in the stream, that very well behaved.
The Glasgow frigate clear’d the shore, all at the time of landing,
With her grape shot and cannon balls, no Yankees ne’er could stand them.

And when we landed on the shore, we draw’d up all together,
The Yankees they all man’d their works, & thought we’d ne’er come thither:
But soon they did perceive brave Howe, brave Howe, our bold commander,
With grenadiers and infantry, we made them to surrender.

Brave William Howe on our right wing, cry’d boys fight on like thunder,
You soon will see the rebels flee, with great amaze and wonder;
Now some lay bleeding on the ground, and some fell fast a running,
O’er hills and dales & mountains high, crying zounds brave Howe’s a coming.

They began to play on our left wing, where Pigot he commanded,
But we return’d it back again, with courage most undaunted;
To our grape shot and musquet ball, to which they were but strangers,
They thought to come with sword in hand, but soon they found their danger.

And when the works we got into, and put them to the flight, sir,
Some of them did hide themselves, and others died with fright, sir;
And when their works we got into, without great fear or danger,
Their works were made so firm and strong, the Yankees are great strangers.

But as for our artillery, they all behaved dinty,
For while their ammunition held, we gave it to them plenty;
But our conductor he got broke, for his misconduct sure sir,
The shot he sent for twelve pound guns, was made for twenty-four, sir.

There is some in Boston please to say, as we the field were taking,
We went to kill their countrymen, while they their hay were making;
But such stout whigs I never saw, to hang them all I’d rather,
For making hay with musquet balls, and buck-shot mixed together.

Brave Howe is so considerate, as to prevent all danger,
He allows us half a pint each day, to him we are not strangers:
Long may he live by land and sea, for he’s belov’d by many,
The name of Howe the Yankees dread, we see it very plainly.

And now my song is at an end, and to conclude my ditty;
It is the poor and ignorant, and only them I pity;
And as for their king that John Hancock, and Adams if they’re taken,
Their heads for signs shall hang up high upon the hill call’d Beacon.

This song is thus yet another example of British voices saying that Americans wanted Hancock to be their king.

These lines were passed down and reprinted in the early republic, which raises a couple of questions:

• How did Americans come to know about such an anti-Yankee song popular among British soldiers?
• How did we come to remember the song with different words?

TOMORROW: A tortuous publishing history.

(Photo above by Jerry Callaghan, courtesy of Friends of Minute Man National Park. It shows members of the 63rd Regiment of Foot reenacting unit.)

Hope and Pain on Bunker Hill

Yesterday I quoted the start of a 12 July 1775 letter from Richard Hope, surgeon for the British army’s 52nd Regiment in Boston. That was actually Dr. Hope’s second report on the Battle of Bunker Hill to relatives back in England. He had sent another letter (probably now lost) immediately after the battle, and he had some corrections to make.

I doubt not but my Sister Sukey has given you and the rest of my friends a particular account of the action, to whom I wrote immediately after; but I erred very largely in my list of the killed and wounded on our side, as I only made it from my own conjecture and observation and no other returns had then been given on to the Commander in Chief of the losses of the several Regiments; I mentioned our having lost in killed and wounded five hundred men, sorry am I to contradict that report, for on a minute examination I find our numbers are more than double.

General [William] Howe who commanded that day had about two thousand men and six pieces of cannon; the rebels had upwards of six thousand in their Redoubt and breastworks; all the houses of Charlestown were lined with men, and during the engagement they received three different reliefs of a thousand each time; yet did our small army charge with so much bravery, as to gain a compleat victory: and put the rebels to a total rout in spite of their superior numbers, and advantageous situation, who left their cannon behind them and part of their wounded.

As the men posted in the houses began to fire on our troops which galled them horribly as they advanced, General Howe was obliged to send orders to our ships and a battery of twenty four pounders at Boston to burn the town; this was soon effected, and the enemy found the place too hot for them, so they joined their party in the redoubt, who pelted our men with such a continued heavy fire, that it was more like the report of thunder than of muskets.

The 52nd. Regiment had three Captains killed in the field, the Major and two Subalterns are since dead of their wounds, and three Captains and two Subalterns remain very badly wounded, three of them in much danger; We had about thirty killed on the spot of our private men, and eighty wounded, a fourth part of whom will die, forty seven of the worst cases with the whole sick of the Regiment were for want of room in the general Hospital forced on me; this is quite unpresidented to oblige a regimental Surgeon to bear the charge in time of war of wounded soldiers, and this injustice will be above forty pounds out of my pocket, a noble recompence for nineteen years service; then the fatigue is so great that I have not had five hours rest any night since the action; so that thro’ weakness of body, uneasiness of mind, and being half starved, I am brought low enough.

This victory is of important consequence, otherwise the enemy would have soon burnt Boston and annoyed our fleet, but we had too many men fell to be able to pursue the fugitives, or to thin them in their retreat, and the only advantage we have gained by the conquest is a spot of ground to encamp on which we have stronly [sic] fortified, about two miles from it the rebels have an amazing redoubt on the top of a very high hill with every kind of work for defence, that it would take twenty thousand to enable the General to attack it.

In short our little army is so much reduced by the two battles, that if Britain does not arouse from her lethargy and send out three parts of her fleet and a reinforcement of at least twenty thousand men, she may bid adieu to her empire in the western world, and we that are already here engaged in her cause, must fall victims to it; and I would not give a hundred pound for an estate of a thousand a year on the life of any man in this army. It would pierce a heart of stone to hear the daily shrieks and lamentations of the poor widows and fatherless left desolate and friendless three thousand miles from home in a land of wretches worse than savages, for even savages exceed them in humanity.

Like the 22 June letter from Loyalist Samuel Paine, Dr. Hope’s account provides a very high estimate of the number of provincials involved in the battle. Instead of two British advances stopped late by musket fire followed by a third successful charge, Hope described “a continued heavy fire” from the rebel positions.

Paine wrote of expecting the king’s troops to “advance into the country, laying waste & devastation wherever they go.” In contrast, Dr. Hope felt that the provincials’ new fortifications on Winter Hill and Prospect Hill were much too formidable to attack. In fact, he warned that Britain might soon lose its “empire in the western world.”

That difference between the Paine and Hope letters might be due to the time elapsing between them as the new situation became clear to the royal authorities. However, after reading several of the army surgeon’s letters, I think that his temperament was involved. Whether in Québec or Boston or New York, Dr. Hope always found something to complain about. His letters home express a lot of pain and very little hope.

Dr. Richard Hope’s “great contusion”

A month ago I was in London, visiting the British Library and the National Archives (as well as friends).

One set of documents I looked at in the latter institution was a collection of fifteen letters from Dr. Richard Hope, surgeon attached to His Majesty’s 52nd Regiment of Foot from 1756 to 1776.

These are private letters, and there’s no official reason for them to have been deposited in the National Archives. It looks like a man who worked in the Public Record Office from 1866 to 1912 once owned the letters and simply left them there. Their catalogue designation is PRO 30/39/1.

So far as I can tell from Google, only one author has cited Hope’s letters: Geoffrey L. Hudson in a study of British military medicine in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This, therefore, might be the first time anyone’s quoted the doctor’s account of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Almost a month after the fight, on 12 July, Dr. Hope sat down to write to one of his relatives “at Eastcot near Harrow on the Hill” in Ruislip. He began:

When you read in the Papers an account of the late battle on Charlestown hights it will give you satisfaction to get intelligence that I am in the land of the living. I could not escape quite scot free, but being obliged to advance in the very front of the works I had a hair breadth escape of being shot thro’ the thigh. Luckily for me the ball struck on a large bunch of keys that I had that day contrary to custom put into my breeches pocket, which changed the line of direction: one of the keys was almost buried in my thigh and occasioned a great contusion that makes me very lame; yet I quitted not the field nor missed any part of my duty.

TOMORROW: Dr. Richard Hope describes the battle.

Ambrose Bierce on “Bunker’s holy hill”

Here’s an example of poetry inspired by the Battle of Bunker Hill from Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?), published in 1886:

Liberty

“‘Let there be Liberty!’ God said, and lo!
The skies were red and luminous. The glow
Struck first Columbia’s kindling mountain peaks
One hundred and eleven years ago!”

So sang a patriot whom once I saw
Descending Bunker’s holy hill. With awe
I noted that he shone with sacred light,
Like Moses with the tables of the Law.

One hundred and eleven years? O small
And paltry period compared with all
The tide of centuries that flowed and ebbed
To etch Yosemite’s divided wall!

Ah, Liberty, they sing you always young
Whose harps are in your adoration strung.
(Each swears you are his countrywoman, too,
And speak no language but his mother tongue.)

And truly, lass, although with shout and horn
Man has all-hailed you from creation’s morn
I cannot think you old—I think, indeed,
You are by twenty centuries unborn.

Rob Vellela at the American Literary Blog clued me into this poem back in April.

It’s not eligible for the current Boston 1775 Poetic Challenge because:

• It’s more than fourteen lines long.
• It’s already been published.
• Were Mr. Bierce to win the challenge, we wouldn’t be able to deliver his prize of a paperback copy of Nathaniel Philbrick’s Bunker Hill since he left no forwarding address at his last stop.

Following the Drums Along the Mohawk

American Heritage Living History Productions and the Historical Society of Rockland County, New York, are teaming up to offer an overnight guided bus tour on the theme of “Drums Along the Mohawk.”

Taking place on the weekend of 9-10 August, the tour starts on Saturday morning by taking on passengers at two spots: West Nyack and New Paltz. The bus will stop at twelve historic sites, including the homes of Gen. Philip Schuyler and Gen. Nicholas Herkimer and the Van Schaick Mansion. There will be guides on the bus and at the sites.

On Saturday evening, guests will view a performance of the Drums Along the Mohawk outdoor drama at the Gelston Castle Estate in Mohawk, New York. Based closely on Walter D. Edmonds’s novel, this drama tells “the story of a newlywed couple thrust into the brutal conflict of the American Revolution during the year 1777.” Bring your own lawn chair or blanket to sit on while watching the show.

The price for the entire tour is $279 per person, single occupancy; $244 per person, double occupancy. That ticket includes the bus transportation, admission to all sites and stops, lodging at the Knights Inn in Little Falls, and meals (except a bring-your-own lunch for Saturday to eat on the bus). The deadline for reserving a space through the Historical Society of Rockland County is 30 June. Call 845-634-9629 or see this page for more information.

Other performances of the Drums Along the Mohawk outdoor drama this summer are scheduled for 2, 3, and 10 August. Tickets are $10-15, but you have to get yourself to Mohawk, New York, on your own.

The Bunker Hill Poetic Challenge

The last two postings have shared some verses inspired by the Battle of Bunker Hill and published in 1775 by Ezekiel and Sarah Russell, printers of (at that time) Salem. Now it’s your turn.

The publisher of Nat Philbrick’s book Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution has offered to send a free copy of the new paperback edition to a Boston 1775 reader. It’s an energetic retelling of the first campaign of the Revolutionary War, and if you’ve already got a copy it can make a fine introduction to the subject for someone else.

In thinking about how to give that book away, I got inspired by the Russells and decided to offer this challenge:

Post up to fourteen lines of original rhymed, metrical verse on the subject of the Battle of Bunker Hill as a comment to this blog posting. Limericks would be especially welcome. Sonnets would be especially impressive.

Verses based on postings from the preceding several days would show you’ve been reading, but the lines could be about any aspect of the Battle of Bunker Hill: the whole fight, small incidents, personalities, historiography.

The entry deadline will be the end of 1 July 2014.

On 4 July, the Boston 1775 staff will choose the most moving or entertaining entry and award that poet his or her own copy of Philbrick’s Bunker Hill, to be sent direct from the publisher.

“Warren step’s beyond their path”

When Ezekiel and Sarah Russell put together their “ELEGIAC POEM” about Bunker Hill, they didn’t stint. Their customers didn’t get just sixty woodcut coffins and four columns of poetry.

The Russells also provided “An ACROSTIC on the late Major-General WARREN Who was slain fighting for the LIBERTIES of AMERICA”:

J ust as JOSEPH took his flight
O nward to the realm of light,
S atan hurl’d his hellish darts,
E vil angels played their parts;
P iercy, Burgoyne, Howe, and Gage,
H over about infernal rage:

W ARREN step’d beyond their path,
A w’d by none, nor fear’d their wrath;
R an his race to joy and rest,
R ose amongst the loyal blest;
E nter’d in the rolls of fame,
N orth and Devil mist their aim.

To squeeze full value from that poem, it was also reprinted in an almanac for the following year.

The image above shows John Norman’s frontispiece for Hugh Henry Brackenridge’s play about Bunker Hill published in Philadelphia in 1776, another early portrayal of Dr. Warren as a martyr.

The Russells’ Poetic Broadside on Bunker Hill

After the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Ezekiel Russell print shop in Salem issued “AN ELEGIAC POEM” on the battle. That broadside probably appeared toward the end of 1775 since a note on its bottom said Russell’s almanacs for the following year were “now in the press.”

The Russell broadside is a useful snapshot of how New Englanders wanted to remember the battle in 1775:

THE NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN
TERRIBLE AND BLOODY BATTLE
FOUGHT AT AN INTRENCHMENT ON
BUNKER-HILL,

Now justly called (by the Regulars) BLOODY-HILL, situated two miles from the head-quarters of the Regulars at BOSTON, and one mile northward from the centre of the town of CHARLESTOWN, in NEW-ENGLAND, in AMERICA, which was wantonly and inhumanly set on fire and consumed, previous to the engagement: This town contained one large meeting-house, about three hundred dwelling-houses, a great number of which were large and elegant, besides one hundred and fifty or two hundred other buildings, whereby about six or seven hundred of its distressed inhabitants are now forced from their dwellings, and obliged to seek new habitations for themselves, many of whom having left, on this calamitous occasion, their houses, cloaths, furniture, and in short every thing that was valuable, depend at this time entirely on the benevolent charity of their kind and simpathizing brethren and friends in the country; who have the unfeigned and hearty thanks of all such as have been relieved: May whole kindness, shewn to the distressed people who have been obliged to take refuge from that or any other town, be rewarded an hundred fold in this world, and in the world to come may they receive life everlasting, is the sincere and fervent wish of every true Friend to the RIGHTS and LIBERTIES of the AMERICAN COLONIES!—

We are sure an attempt to delineate the horrible and shocking situation the distressed souls were in, that still remained in that unfortunate town, at the time the cannonading began, would melt the stoutest heart, and give a shock to the human imagination, which would very far surpass the compass of this sheet; but the relation of this wicked and cruel affair may perhaps hereafter afford matter of speculation to the Historian, and serve to fill many pages in the history of AMERICA.—

What soul but must be filled with horror at viewing the aged and decrepit ones begging for the assistance of the youth, who were now flying through the red-hot cannon balls and smoke occasioned by the flames of their dwellings? What heart but must melt at beholding the Women with their helpless little ones around them, in the greatest confusion seeking a refuge from the devouring jaws [of] destruction, and from the violent fury of their cruel and barbarous enemies? It is said this diabolical transaction was executed by orders from that arch-traitor and worst of villains T[homas] G[age], whom posterity will forever curse, so long as his name shall be remembered.—

This bloody battle was fought about four o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday the seventeenth of JUNE, one thousand seven hundred and seventy five, between an advanced party of seven hundred Provincials, and fourteen regiments and a train of artillery, of the Ministerial forces, the former of whom after bearing about two hours, with the utmost fortitude and bravery, as severe a fire as perhaps ever was known, and many having fired away all their ammunition, they were over-powered by numbers, and obliged to leave the intrenchments, with three pieces of cannon, and retreat about sun-set to a small distance over Charlestown-neck.—

By the returns made in the Provincial and Ministerial Armies it appears, that there were of the Provincials one major-general, one colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, two captains, three lieutenants, and ninety privates, killed, among which number, to the inexpressible grief of our whole army, is that honorable, renowned, and magnanimous Hero, MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN, Esquire, who commanded on this occasion, as also the brave and intrepid Colonels [Thomas] GARDNER and [Moses] PARKER; there were one lieutenant and two hundred and fifty privates wounded: Total killed and wounded three hundred and twenty four.—

On the side of the Regulars there were one lieutenant-colonel, four majors, eleven captains, thirteen lieutenants, one ensign, one hundred and two serjeants, one hundred corporals, seven hundred and fifty-three rank and file, killed; one quarter-master, three majors, fifteen captains, nineteen lieutenants, six ensigns, and five hundred and four wounded; Total of killed and wounded, fourteen hundred and fifty.—

The above account, which contains in substance as accurate a detail as can be collected from the different advices received from Boston and elsewhere, of the transactions of both armies on that ever-memorable seventeenth of June, is here annexed to the proceeding Poem, and printed in this form at the request of a great number of Friends to the AMERICAN CAUSE, to whom (but more especially those belonging to the Continental Army, who may have this sheet very cheap) it is recommended to preserve, not only as a token of gratitude to their deceased Friends, we mean those immortal and heroic WORTHIES, who lately so nobly bled in defence of the RIGHTS, LIBERTIES, and PRIVILEGES of NORTH-AMERICA: This sheet may be thought necessary to keep in eternal remembrance the heroic BATTLE of CHARLESTOWN, where a few hundreds of Americans several times repulsed eight times their number of Ministerial Troops of Great-Britain.

This broadside greatly overstated the number of British involved in the battle and the number of those troops killed, apparently by double-counting the wounded. It also understated the number of Americans engaged, their casualties, and the number of cannon they left on the field (five).

Evidently in 1775 the people of Massachusetts recalled Dr. Warren as leading the American forces, but in later years authors repeated Col. William Prescott’s story that the doctor had refused a command position. The broadside’s description of the British attack as lasting “two hours” is an interesting contrast to Samuel Paine’s account of an assault taking about an hour.

After that far-from-brief introduction came an all-too-long set of verses. Just a taste:

ADIEU to wanton songs and foolish joys,
  To idle tales that fill the ear,
A mournful theme my heart employs,
  And hope the living will it hear.
A horrid fight there hap’d of late,
  ’Twas on June seventeen,
When a great number met their fate
  In fighting on the green.
Yes, hundreds of poor souls are dead,
  In battle they were slain,
Both sides met with a heavy stroke,
  T’ rehearse it gives me pain.

You can read the whole poem, and view the broadside, at the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website.

As I noted back here, Isaiah Thomas reported that the Russell shop printed a lot of ballads decorated with coffins like this one. Thomas first stated that Russell’s wife Sarah composed the elegiac verses, but later penciled in a note that “a young woman” working in the shop did so. (I still think it was Sarah.)

TOMORROW: But wait, there’s more!

Reports of Lt. Col. James Abercrombie’s Death

The highest-ranking British officer to be killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill was Lt. Col. James Abercrombie, commander of a special battalion of grenadiers. Sometimes Salem Poor is credited with shooting Abercrombie rather than the most popular target among the British officers, Maj. John Pitcairn (who never scaled the wall of the redoubt as stories claimed).

A contemporary source suggests instead that Abercrombie was a victim of friendly fire. This passage is from the Scots Magazine, August 1775:

A private letter mentions the following particulars of the death of Lt-Col. Abercromby. This gallant officer, who on a slight repulse almost maintained his ground, by his example immediately recovered the troops, who returned with impetuosity to the charge.

In this tumultuous onset he unfortunately received a ball near the groin, (supposed accidentally from some of his own soldiers), which came with such power from its proximity, as to force a toothpick-case, which he had in his waistcoat pocket, along with it.

From the lodgement of the ball it could readily be extracted: but part of the toothpick being got so far, it baffled the art of the surgeons, and began to mortify. In this state amputation was thought necessary; but he died in the operation.

Abercrombie died on 23 June. Some sources say he died in the house used by Capt. John Montresor of the Royal Artillery.

Another letter from Boston quoted in British periodicals told a different story about Abercrombie. The 27 July 1775 Middlesex Journal and Evening Advertiser (and probably London papers earlier) stated that a letter described the officer telling the people around his deathbed:

My friends, we have fought in a bad cause, and therefore I have my reward, as the rest have had that have gone before me. Had I fell in fighting against the enemy, I had died with honour, but posterity will brand us for massacreing our fellow subjects; therefore, my friends, sheath your swords till you have an enemy to engage with.

Lt. Col. Abercrombie supposedly died two hours after saying that.

I find the Scots Magazine report a lot more convincing.

Joseph Snelling’s Delivery at Bunker Hill

Here’s another notable story of the Battle of Bunker Hill, told by the Rev. Joseph Snelling in his 1847 autobiography. It concerned his father, also named Joseph Snelling (1741-1816).

The elder Snelling was a bookbinder in Boston. He married Rachel Mayer in 1763 and evidently had a small shop of his own at the start of the war.

Snelling’s older brother Jonathan (1734-1782) was a merchant and officer in the Cadets. He dined with the Sons of Liberty as the Liberty Tree Tavern in Dorchester in 1769. But he signed the laudatory addresses to the royal governors in 1774, confirming himself as a Loyalist.

In contrast, Joseph the bookbinder “took an active part in our struggles for liberty, from the commencement to the close of the. American Revolution.” Or at least that’s what his son believed.

Joseph Snelling’s name doesn’t actually show up in the records of Patriot activities before 1775, so far as I can tell. According to his son, he continued to serve British officers and soldiers in his shop before the war: “the officers and soldiers were often in, paid honorably for the goods they purchased, and even treated the family with civility and respect.” The one possible example of prewar Patriot activity that Snelling’s son recorded was this:

At a certain time when the English had possession of Boston, our people at Watertown were in want of ammunition. My father hearing of this, volunteered with three or four others to convey it to them, if possible. Accordingly a scow was procured and loaded with arms and ammunition; and, to prevent suspicion, the whole was covered with boards. They then, in plain sight of English vessels, poled the scow to Watertown, and delivered the load to the people, who received it gladly.

There were trips to smuggle military material out of Boston before the war began. However, that story appears in the Snelling memoir after the Battle of Bunker Hill, when the family had moved out to Newton. Thus, that delivery may not have been from Boston, with a harbor patrolled by British warships, but from Newton down the Charles River, far from the enemy. (If it actually happened.)

As for Bunker Hill, the younger Snelling’s account is a combination of what he’d evidently heard from his father and what he understood about the battle, not always accurately. Thus:

On the afternoon before the battle of Bunker Hill, our people met at Cambridge, in order to make the necessary preparation for a battle which they were hourly expecting. My father was there with them. There was the brave General [Joseph] Warren, who came with his fusee and his powder-horn hung over his shoulder, and volunteered his services. When they were ready to start for Bunker Hill, Dr. [Peter] Thatcher offered a solemn and appropriate prayer to Almighty God, that their heads might be covered in the day of, battle, and they protected from their enemies.

According to our other sources, Warren wasn’t with the troops at Cambridge on 16 June 1775 but joined them in Charlestown the next day. The minister who prayed with those troops the evening before they went onto the peninsula was the Rev. Samuel Langdon, president of Harvard, not the Rev. Peter Thacher, who watched the battle from the far side of the Mystic River.

As for Joseph Snelling’s own experience:

Colonel Bradlee and my father were appointed to superintend the conveyance of five loads of provision to the fort for the refreshment of our people. Accordingly they engaged five ox teams, loaded with provision, and five men to drive them. In order to reach the fort they were obliged to cross a neck of land directly in front of the Glassgow frigate, and a floating battery, then lying in the river. These soon discovered the teams, and aimed their cannon at them, to prevent them from getting to the fort. As soon as the cannon balls began to whiz around them, the five teamsters left their teams, and fled with great precipitation.

Colonel Bradlee and my father then drove these five teams to the fort alone, which was the first time that my father ever drove a team. This was in the midst of the battle—but they were in more danger than the people at the fort. The balls flew thick and fast all around them, and I have heard my father say they were expecting every moment that their heads would be taken off, but a kind providence protected them; not a ball touched them, or one of their teams. Thus, agreeable to the prayer, their heads were covered in the day of battle.

When they arrived at the fort, they found our people almost exhausted, and suffering greatly with thirst—all their cry was water, water. Some hogsheads of beer were brought with the provision, by which they were greatly refreshed. The day was extremely warm, and our people, by the effect of the heat, the powder and smoke, resembled colored people. One man came to my father for refreshment, who had received a musket ball in the back of his head, which took out his eye without touching the brain—blood and water was then gushing from the wound. (Three months after this, the same man came to my father to receive his rations, his wound perfectly healed.)

A shorter version of this tale appears in Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight’s The History of the Descendants of Elder John Strong (1871); that refers to Snelling’s companion as “Col. Bradford, an associate commissary.” The Symmes Memorial, by John Adams Vinton (1873), doesn’t include the anecdote but says Snelling “joined the army…under Gen. [Artemas] Ward as a commissary.”

Joseph Snelling’s name doesn’t appear in the surviving records of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress or its Committee of Safety. However, a legislative act late in 1775 confirms that the Massachusetts government owed him money for somehow assisting its commissary general. (The General Court voted to recompense several other men as well, but not anyone named Bradlee or Bradford.)

In early 1812, the U.S. House considered a petition from Snelling “praying further compensation for services rendered as a clerk in the office of the Deputy Commissary General of Issues in the Revolutionary war.” The Committee of Claims responded “That the prayer of the petitioner ought not to be granted,” and it wasn’t. That doesn’t mean that Snelling’s petition was exaggerated; its facts might simply not have met the threshold for further compensation.

But really the Snelling family lore does seem extraordinary. American accounts of the Bunker Hill battle talk about how the soldiers on the front lines didn’t receive any supplies. Young Robert Steele recalled a desperate search for water. If five ox carts (somehow driven by two men, one a complete novice) had brought in beer and other provisions after the fighting had started (given that one man was allegedly bleeding from a musket wound), then surely some soldiers would have taken note of that fact.

The Rev. Joseph Snelling clearly had a familial motive for telling this story, and a religious one: he wanted readers to understand that his father and Bradlee had been protected from enemy fire “agreeable to the prayer.” But it looks like there had been a lot of “memory creep” between the elder Joseph Snelling’s experiences delivering some supplies to the provincial army in 1775 and when his son wrote down this tale decades later.

Samuel Paine: “all the Horrors of War, Death & Rebellion”

Here’s another eyewitness account of the Battle of Bunker Hill, from a different perspective. Samuel Paine was a Loyalist who moved from Worcester to Boston in June 1775 “after passing thro’ too many Insults and too Cruel Treatment.”

On 22 June, Paine wrote to his brother in London with an update on the war:

After the Concord Expedition Affairs took a turn. A Large Army was immediately raised, & every Passage to the Town of Boston invested, the Prov’l Congress, conducted Extremely well, put their Army on Pay, by issuing a Large Sum of Paper Currency, and they appeared very formidable, having Plenty of Artillery. In various Rencontres with the King’s Troops they got the Better, were flush’d with Victory & held a British Soldier in the highest Contempt, but the surrender of the Important Fortress of Ticonderoga to the American Arms, heightened their Enthusiasm.

In this situation of their Minds last Friday night, being very dark, Many Thousands took Possession of a High Hill in Charlestown (called Bunker’s) that commanded the whole of this Town, & before Morn’g they had compleated a Redoubt, & such Intrenchments as did Honor to the Engineer, & this Town lay Exposed to a fire which must have ruined it unless prevented. As soon as it was discovered from Cops Hill, near the ferry on which is a fine Battery, the Lively, Glasgow, & Battery began to play, and a most furious Cannonade began upon the Rebels, which they return’d seven Times upon the Town. Instead of Quitt’g their post large Reinforcements were sent from Cambridge Head Quarters of their Army. Matters here began to be Serious.

About 1 o’clock all the Grenadiers & light Infantry of the whole Army, reinforced to about 3,000 under the Conduct of the Gallant Lord Howe [actually his brother, Gen. William Howe], & [Col. James] Abercromby Embarked from the Long Wharf, with 12 Brass Pieces & landed at a Point of Land back of Charlestown, in full view of the Rebels, who still kept their Post. The Troops being annoy’d from some Houses in Charlestown, the ships threw Carcases into it, and in a few min. the whole Town was in flames, a most Awful, Grand & Melancholy Sight. In the Mean, the Troops marched on toward the Hill for the Intrenchments, under a most heavy fire of Artillery, on both sides.

Never did I see such a Day; I was on Beacon Hill in full Prospect. In about thirty Min’s the Troops were nigh the works exposed to an amazing Fire of small Arms, for by this Time, the Rebels amounted to 10,000. In a few min’s we heard the shouts of the British Army, whom we now saw Entering the Breast Works & soon they entered, and a most terrible slaughter began upon the Rebels, who now were every one shifting for himself. The Troops pursued them over the Neck, beyond [Robert] Temples House, & were Masters of the Field of Battle. The Troops have suffered Extremely, there being about 24 Officers killed & near 60 wounded and about 700 Rank & File killed & wounded.

The Rebels lost a vast many, among whom was Doct. [Joseph] Warren, a noted Rascal, & Willard Moore of Paxton a Lt. Col. We have about 30 Prisoners here, some of whom are to be Executed. After the firing ceased I went over, & Good God, what a Sight, all the Horrors of War, Death & Rebellion. The British Army is encamped upon the High Hills in Charlestown, in fine Spirits, [and] will advance into the Country as soon as possible, laying waste & desolation wherever they go.

In fact, the British military was so spent by the battle that they didn’t make another large attack for the rest of the siege. Nor did they execute any of the American prisoners, though many died of their wounds in the Boston jail. But Paine’s predictions reveal one aspect of the emotional response to the bloody battle.

Paine’s letter is also notable for how much strength it ascribes to the provincial forces: up to 10,000 men, capable of “a most heavy fire of Artillery.” American veterans tended to downplay their numbers, and the artillery support was small and sporadic. Paine also didn’t describe the three waves of the British advance as most American witnesses did.

The recipient of this letter, Dr. William Paine, served as a British army surgeon for most of the war. In the late 1780s, however, he returned to Worcester and eventually cofounded the American Antiquarian Society with Isaiah Thomas. The society published this letter in 1909.

The Memory of Peter Brown after Bunker Hill

Coming back to the Battle of Bunker Hill, one of our very best accounts of the event comes from an American soldier from a Westford company named Peter Brown. On 25 June 1775 Brown sent a detailed description of that fight to his mother. That document is now at the Massachusetts Historical Society, which offers a digitized version for everyone.

I quoted from Peter Brown’s letter in 2011, adding (based on the M.H.S.’s page about him) that we have few other details of his life beyond this document.

In February of this year a commenter dubbed lifford gave me a pointer to a history of Lunenburg which has more to say about Peter Brown. So I used that tip, and of course Google Books, to get beyond the common name “Peter Brown” and find more information.

It appears that Brown’s letter first appeared in print in the June 1875 issue of Potter’s American Monthly. A correspondent from Belfast, Maine, named John L. Locke prefaced the document this way:

The original of the following letter, rusty with age and worn by frequent handling, has the following address on its back: Mrs. Sarah Brown, Newport, Rhode-Island. The writer of the letter was Peter Brown, son of Wm. Brown, of Newport, R.I. He was married to Miss Olive Dinsmore, of Boylston, Mass., Oct. 24, 1781. At the close of the Revolution, in 1783, Mr. and Mrs. Brown went to Lunenburg, Mass., and in the locality known as “Flat Hill” commenced house-keeping operations. His grandson, Wm. Lifford Brown, now occupies the place. Of their 8 children, 4 were sons, and 4 were daughters. Mr. Brown died in Lunenburg, July 15, 1829, aged 76 years. He and all his family except one who died in Boston, were buried in the South Cemetery in Lunenburg.

The original letter, of which this is an exact copy, is now in possession of Mrs. Charlotte Lewis, of Lunenburg, who is a lineal descendant of Peter Brown, the writer.

Later that year the New England Historical Genealogical Society reprinted Brown’s letter and Locke’s preface in an appendix to a collection of Centennial Orations Commemorative of the Opening Events of the American Revolution. That publication was mostly a reprint from the society’s Register in 1875, but the Brown letter was added to the appendix late and therefore never got included or indexed with the Register volumes. Only 275 copies of the standalone collection with the letter were printed.

Then we come to lifford’s source, George A. Cunningham’s “History of the Town of Lunenburg.” Cunningham died in 1875, so he must have prepared that genealogical study before the publications above, but his work was never published. Until recently it appears to have existed only as a typescript at the Lunenburg Historical Society.

Then a grant allowed the society to digitize the document, and it’s now available (with a poor O.C.R. transcription) through archive.org. As pages 97-98 show, Brown served in various town and church offices in Lunenburg after the war. He and his wife Olive had eight children (the youngest of which I see was named Lifford).

Finally, Find-a-Grave has catalogued Peter and Olive Brown’s grave, as shown above. Its inscription reads:

In memory of
Mr. Peter Brown,
who died July 15, 1829,
Æt. 76.

In memory of
Mrs. Olive,
wife of Mr. Peter Brown,
who died April 20, 1828,
Æt. 70.

He was a soldier in the revolution,
was one of those who persued
the British in their retreat from
Concord to Boston, was in the
Battle on Bunker’s Hill. He was an
honest man and a devoted Christian.

She was a faithful wife,
an affectionate Mother,
and a sincere Christian.

Their surviving children, William & Mary,
have erected this stone to the memory
of their Parents.

What Kind of Man Was James Winthrop?

James Winthrop (shown here) was a son of Prof. John Winthrop of Harvard College, one of the most respected New England men of his generation. James benefited from that connection with some appointments, first at Harvard and later within the Massachusetts government. But he doesn’t appear to have ever been content.

In 1786 John Quincy Adams wrote to his mother about Winthrop:

…the librarian, Mr. W.…is a man of genius and learning, but without one particle of softness, or of anything that can make a man amiable, in him. He is, I am told, severe in his remarks upon the ladies; and they are not commonly disposed to be more favorable with respect to him. It is observed that men are always apt to despise, what they are wholly ignorant of. And this is the reason, I take it, why so many men of genius and learning, that have lived retired and recluse lives, have been partial against the ladies. They have opportunity to observe only their follies and foibles, and therefore conclude that they have no virtues. Old bachelors too are very apt to talk of sour grapes; but if Mr. W. ever gets married, he will be more charitable towards the ladies, and I have no doubt but he will be more esteemed and beloved than he is now, he cannot be less.

Winthrop never married.

A Harvard library finding aid for a small set of James Winthrop papers states:

When his father died in 1779, James hoped to succeed him as Harvard’s Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. Samuel Williams was chosen instead, though, and it has been speculated that Winthrop’s intemperance and eccentric personality were the primary reasons he was overlooked. Although he participated in a scientific expedition with Williams and Stephen Sewall in October of 1780, he also attempted to damage Williams’ reputation as a scholar on several occasions.

Winthrop was widely known for making malicious comments about others, and as a result he appears to have been unpopular among his colleagues at Harvard. In 1787 he was removed from the librarianship as the result of a newly instituted rule preventing faculty members from holding civil or judicial office. This rule is believed to have been instituted for the sole purpose of removing Winthrop [a register of probate] from the staff.

The position of Hollis Professor became vacant shortly thereafter, but Winthrop was unwelcome. He eventually bequeathed his father’s impressive collection of books to tiny new Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

After leaving Harvard, Winthrop wrote some prominent essays against ratifying the new Constitution and some analyses of the Book of Revelations. He served many years as a low-level judge. In James Bowdoin and the Patriot Philosophers, Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel wrote: “Regarded as an intriguer, drunkard, and cynic, he was the misfit son of a gifted father, and tolerated out of respect for his ancestors.” But I suspect that the root of Winthrop’s problem wasn’t drinking or intriguing but just not being able to get along easily with people.

For that reason, I’m inclined to think that Winthrop’s writings about the Battle of Bunker Hill are reliable so far as they go, and frustrating because he didn’t grasp what people would be most interested in hearing.

More about Bunker Hill from James Winthrop

In 1818, the same year he responded to a map of Bunker Hill published in the Analectic Magazine as quoted yesterday, James Winthrop wrote another letter about the battle published in the North American Review. That second letter was dated 18 June—i.e., right after the battle’s anniversary.

Winthrop was also responding to a statement in Henry Dearborn’s recently published account of the battle, which said that American soldiers had prepared the rail fence “by the direction of the ‘committee of safety,’ of which James Winthrop, Esq. who then, and now lives in Cambridge, was one, as he has within a few years informed me. Mr. Winthrop himself acted as a volunteer on that day, and was wounded in the battle.”

Winthrop insisted that wasn’t right:

I lived in Cambridge all the summer of 1775, and among others was present at the battle of Bunker Hill, on the 17th of June, in that summer. The army was then upon the state establishment [i.e., the Massachusetts army was not yet part of the Continental Army]. About one o’clock, or a little after it, an alarm was given in this vicinity. James Swan, Esq. was then resident here. We two armed ourselves and went down together to Charlestown. A little beyond the College, General Joseph Warren overtook us. We were both known to him and exchanged the passing compliment. But as he was on horseback we did not join company.

When we passed over Bunker Hill, we went immediately to that part of the lines, where the rail-fence stood. There were two fieldpieces there, but no artillery-men with them. Generals [Israel] Putnam and Warren were in conversation by one of them. We spoke with them, and then passed on toward the redoubt. The two generals were standing, and General Putnam had hold of the briddle of his horse; there were then very few, if any men at the fence. When we got to the redoubt, we did not enter, but spent a little time in viewing the situation of the ground and of the enemy. We supposed, from the position of the British troops, that their intention was to advance between our intrenchment and the Mystic river, and that it would become necessary to have that part of our line well guarded. We expressed our opinion, and some of the people about us desired us to go and see if any sufficient force was there. We two accordingly went over to the rail-fence, and being arrived near the place where we had seen the two generals, and where the fieldpieces were still standing, the firing commenced. I did not see either General Putnam or General Warren afterwards on that day.

I have not now the command of dates, but think it was only a few days after this, when the army was taken into continental pay, and General [George] Washington took the command. [Artemas] Ward, Putnam and [William] Heath were general officers, and continued to be generally respected. I never heard any blame cast on General Putnam, and it was about fifteen years after this that he died in peace.

It is altogether a mistake, that either I, or my brother [John Winthrop], was ever on the Committee of Safety. About a month after the battle, if I rightly recollect, the government [i.e., the official Massachusetts General Court] was organized according to the charter, and the Committee of course ceased.

Winthrop’s second letter was thus in basic agreement with his first, which isn’t surprising since he wrote them around the same time. Once again he didn’t provide a complete account of the battle as he’d seen it. He didn’t describe the actual fighting. He didn’t describe the retreat off the peninsula. Dearborn wrote that Winthrop was wounded at the battle, but Winthrop’s own letter says nothing about that.

The North American Review letter was mostly about who was in command of the American forces and what Israel Putnam did. Those were hotly debated questions in the early 1800s, with Putnam’s descendants being particularly keen to make their views known.

The fact that Winthrop was disclaiming the distinction of being on the Committee of Safety and not talking about his wound suggests he might have provided a broad and honest perspective of the battle, rather than puffing himself up. Then again, Winthrop may have bragged to Dearborn and felt pressure to openly disclaim those lies once they became public. Winthrop’s reputation wasn’t the highest—but was his problem being deceitful or too honest?

TOMORROW: Assessing James Winthrop.