Lexington and Concord 6

from The Encyclopedia of The Continental Congresses

The clash that occurred on 19 April 1775 was the opening salvo in a fight that would last for several years, involve some of the world's great powers, and ultimately lead to American independence.

The conflict had been simmering for many years, since the passage of The Stamp Act and The Sugar Act, and then the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party. The collection of 13 colonies called the First Continental Congress, in Philadelphia in September 1774, called for the boycott of English

goods, designed to bring the British Parliament to rescind its latest series of economic and other punitive measures. Historian John Fiske wrote in 1891, “Great events had meanwhile happened in

Massachusetts. All through the winter the resistance to General [Thomas] Gage had been passive, for the lesson had been thoroughly impressed upon the mind of every man, woman, and child in the

province that, in order to make sure of the entire sympathy of the other colonies, Great Britain must be allowed to fire the first shot. The Regulating Act had none the less been silently defied, and neither councillors nor judges, neither sheriffs nor jurymen, could be found to serve under the royal

commission.” 1

Until 19 April 1775, Lexington and Concord were two sleepy towns, parts of the metropolis that would

become the major city of Boston. Historian Charles Hudson wrote in 1876:

Lexington is a post town in the County of Middlesex, State of Massachusetts, situated in latitude 42o

26’ 50” North, and longitude 700 13’ 55” West. It is about eleven miles West-northwest from Boston, and about fifteen miles Southeast-by-south from Lowell. It has Winchester, Woburn, and Burlington, on the Northeast; Burlington and Bedford on the North, Lincoln, on the West; Waltham on the Southwest,

and Belmont and Arlington on the Southeast. The township, like most of those in the neighborhood, is somewhat irregular in shape, and contains about twenty square miles, or about 13,000 acres. It is

generally more elevated than any of the adjoining towns, unless it be Lincoln; and hence the water from Lexington runs in every direction, and finds its way to the ocean through the Shawshine, Mystic, and Charles rivers. 2

Concord is located just six miles southeast of Lexington.

The situation had been lighted the previous September. As the Continental Congress was meeting in

Philadelphia, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony General Thomas Gage, the commander of British troops, realized that opposition to the Coercive Acts was undermining his ability to keep order in the

colony. Gage, recently appointed the governor of the colony, put himself in control of all aspects of life—from business, to the courts, to everything that touched the lives of ordinary citizens. Realizing that this might backfire, on 1 September 1774 he sent more than 250 troops to seize some 250 barrels

of gunpowder held in an arsenal in Charlestown. Instead, citizens of that area believed that a British invasion was underway, and they assembled a militia to fight the British. Instead of marching to

Charlestown, Gage fortified the garrison of his own forces in case of attack, and ordered all Bostonians to relinquish their weapons. On 21 September, a convention of citizens was held in

Worcester to form groups of “Minute Men” who could respond—in minutes—to a British attack. The following month, in defiance of Gage, the Massachusetts General Assembly convened and renamed itself the First Provisional Congress, forming a Committee of Safety and a Committee of

Supplies to aid the people in defending themselves. Gage gave orders to his men to travel across the countryside and take notes on what the people were doing; in February 1775 these men received

the following orders from Gage:

To Captain Brown and Ensign D'Bernicre, (of the army under his command) whom he ordered to take a sketch of the roads, passes, heights, &c. from Boston to Worcester, and to make other observations:

Narrative of Occurrences during their mission, Wrote by the Ensign, Together with an ACCOUNT of their doings, in consequence of further Orders and Instructions from General Gage, of the 20th March

following, to proceed to Concord, to reconnoitre [sic] and find out the state of the provincial magazines; what number of cannon, &c. they have, and in what condition. Also, An Account of the

Transactions of the British troops, from the time they marched out of Boston, on the evening of the 18th, ‘till their confused retreat back, on the ever memorable Nineteenth of April 1775; and a Return

of their killed, wounded and missing on that auspicious day, as made to Gen. Gage. 3

The men went out and realized that the people were taking arms and ammunition and other materiél from arsenals and hiding them. One of the places where weapons were being stored, Gage

discovered, is the village of Concord. In February, Gage sent a letter to the Secretary of State for the American Colonies, Lord Dartmouth, asking for permission to strike at Concord, seize the weapons

being stored, and to arrest leaders pushing for action against the British. The permission would come two months later.

By early April 1775, the situation was rife for violence. Samuel Adams, who had attended the First

Continental Congress, had said in 1768, “We will not submit to any tax, nor become slaves. We will take up arms, and spend our last drop of blood before the King and Parliament shall impose on us,

and settle crown offers in this country to dragoon us. The times were never better in Rome than when they had no king and were a free state; and as this is a great empire, we shall have it in our power to

give laws to England.” 4

In the early days of April 1775, General Gage ordered additional troops into the city, to put an end to the calls for a boycott of English goods and arrest several men, including Samuel Adams and John

Hancock, for sedition. By the night of 18 April, he had assembled 800 Grenadiers to march to Concord to arrest several of the men. They sailed from Boston to move into place. Patriots in the area

received word that the movement was taking place: One of them, silversmith Paul Revere, launched an alarm on horse by travelling to various towns warning that the British were on their way.

Historian Arthur Bernon Tourtellot wrote, “In the clear chill of an early April morning in 1775, twenty-one companies of picked British soldiers—grenadiers, the tallest, most heavily armed of infantrymen, traditionally the first to attack, and light infantry, the agile flanking troops of the regiments—marched

out from Boston across the softly rolling countryside of Middlesex.” 5 The warnings from Revere and his fellow riders worked: When the British arrived at Lexington to move to arrest some of the leaders of

the opposition, the Minute Men were waiting for them. Only those there know who fired first: the British claimed that the Americans did, while the Americans claimed that the British did. The salvo that was

fired, by whatever side, opened up to become a conflict that would last for eight years and involve several world powers.

Thomas Boynton, one of those warned of the movement of the British troops, wrote in his journal:

This Morning being wednesday [sic] about the suns Rising the Town was Alarmd with the News that the Regulars was on their march to Concord upon which the town musterd [sic] and a bout [sic] 10

oclock [sic] marched on ward for Concord in Tewksbury news came that the Regulars had fired on our men in Lexington and had kild [sic] 8: in Bilrike News came that the Enemy were killing and slaying our men in Concord: Bedford we had News that the Enemy had killed 2 of our men and had

Retreated Back we Shifted our Course and persued [sic] after them as fast as possible but all in vain the Enemy had the start 3 or 4 miles it is said that there number were a bought 1500 men they were

persued [sic] as far as Charlestown that night; the next Day they past Charls [sic] River the loss number they Sustaind as we here were 500: our men about 40. 6

The British were prepared at Lexington, then moved on to Concord, but, at the North Bridge, the American militia had a much larger force, repelling the British with losses on both sides. A broadside, published quickly on the action by the Americans in Salem, called the British move “a Bloody

Butchery.” Showing two rows of coffins with the names of the dead Americans, the broadside proclaimed:

The army then proceeded to Concord, drew up on the parade, near the meeting-house, during which time the inhabitants from the neighboring towns collected and took possession of the

adjacent hills; about eleven o'clock the firing began on both sides, which lasted near an hour, when the regular troops began to retreat, the provincials closely pursuing them to a bridge at a small

distance, which the regulars took up as they passed; then they renewed the fire, and some were slain on both sides; but the regulars still retreated, and the provincials pursued them down to Lexington, where the regulars, about three o'clock in the afternoon, met with a reinforcement of about twelve

hundred men commanded by Earl Percy, with two brass field pieces; they again renewed the attack on the provincials, but soon thought proper further to retreat towards their head-quarters, the

provincials pursued them into Charlestown, where they arrived at 6 o'clock; taking immediately, an advantageous post on Bunker's-Hill, about a mile from the ferry… 7

Unlike today's instant coverage of any leading world event, the shootings at Lexington and Concord

did not go reported across the colonies for weeks. Historian Frank Luther Mott surveyed the reaction to the incident when he wrote, “The first printed newspaper account of the initial violence of the

American Revolution appeared in the Boston News-letter, the oldest colonial newspaper. However, the April 20, 1775 Newsletter account of the Battles at Lexington and Concord could not be more

different than that which later appeared in Thomas's Massachusetts Spy [on] 3 May 1775 … The Newsletter's loyalist sympathies permitted only one paragraph, which briefly surmises the events of the day. It does pay passing mention to Thomas and the others who spread the alarm, stating that

‘Upon the People's having Notice of this Movement on Tuesday Night, alarm Guns were fired throughout the Country, and Expresses sent off to the different towns …’” This account concludes

with a clear statement of the confusion that swept across the Bay Colony in the days following the conflict: “The Reports concerning this unhappy Affair, and the causes that concurred to bring on an

Engagement, are so various that we are not able to collect any Thing confident or regular, and cannot therefore with certainty give our Readers any further Account of this shocking Introduction to all the Miseries of a Civil War.’ Over the next six weeks of 1775, 27 colonial newspapers would break

the news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The most substantial reports appeared in the Salem Gazette on April 21 and later reprinted in the Essex Gazette on 25 April, the Essex Journal on 27

April 26 and the [Massachusetts] Spy on 3 May.” 8

The reporting on the incidents is rarely discussed among historians. One of the earliest reports in The

Essex Gazette of Salem, Massachusetts, on 25 April 1775 states:

Last Wednesday, the 19th of April, the Troops of His Britannick [sic] Majesty commenced Hostilities upon the People of this Province, attended with Circumstances of Cruelty, not less brutal than what

our venerable Ancestors received from the vilest Savages of the Wilderness. The Particulars relative to this interesting Event, by which we are involved in all the horrours [sic] of a civil war, we have

endeavoured [sic] to collect as well as the present confused state of affairs will admit.

On Tuesday evening a detachment from the Army, consisting, it is said, of eight or nine hundred men, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Smith, embarked at the bottom of the Common in Boston, on

board a number of boats, and landed at Phipps's [sic] farm, a little way up Charles River, from whence they proceeded with silence and expedition on their way to Concord, about eighteen miles

from Boston. The people were soon alarmed, and began to assemble in several Towns, before daylight, in order to watch the motion of the Troops. At Lexington, six miles below Concord, a

company of Militia, of about one hundred men, mustered near the Meeting-House; the Troops came in sight of them just before sunrise; and running within a few rods of them, the Commanding Officer accosted the Militia in words to this effect: “Disperse, you rebels— damn you, throw down your arms

and disperse;” upon which the Troops huzzaed, and immediately one or two officers discharged their pistols, which were instantaneously followed by the firing of four or five of the soldiers, and then there

seemed to be a general discharge from the whole body: eight of our men were killed, and nine wounded. In a few minutes after this action the enemy renewed their march for Concord; at which

place they destroyed several Carriages, Carnage Wheels, and about twenty barrels of Flour, all belonging to the Province. Here about one hundred and fifty men going towards a bridge, of which

the enemy were in possession, the latter fired and killed two of our men, who then returned the fire, and obliged the enemy to retreat back to Lexington, where they met Lord Percy, with a large

reinforcement, with two pieces of cannon. The enemy now having a body of about eighteen hundred men, made a halt, picked up many of their dead, and took care of their wounded. At Menotomy, a few of our men attacked a party of twelve of the enemy, (carrying stores and

provisions to the Troops) killed one of them, wounded several, made the rest prisoners, and took possession of all their arms, stores, provisions, &c., without any loss on our side. The enemy having

halted one or two hours at Lexington, found it necessary to make a second retreat, carrying with them many of their dead and wounded, who they put into chaises and on horses that they found standing in the road. They continued their retreat from Lexington to Charlestown with great

precipitation; and notwithstanding their field-pieces, our people continued the pursuit, firing at them till they got to Charlestown Neck, (which they reached a little after sunset) over which the enemy

passed, proceeded up Bunker's Hill, and soon afterwards went into the Town, under the protection of the Somerset Man-of-War of sixty-four guns.

In Lexington the enemy set fire to Deacon Joseph Loring's house and barn, Mrs. Mullikin's house and shop, and Mr. Joshua Bond’ s house and shop, which were all consumed. They also set fire to several other houses, but our people extinguished the flames. They pillaged almost every house they passed

by, breaking and destroying doors, windows, glasses, &c., and carrying off clothing and other valuable effects. It appeared to be their design to burn and destroy all before them; and nothing but

our vigorous pursuit prevented their infernal purposes from being put in execution. But the savage barbarity exercised upon the bodies of our unfortunate brethren who fell, is almost incredible: not

contented with shooting down the unarmed, aged, and infirm, they disregarded the cries of the wounded, killing them without mercy, and mangling their bodies in the most shocking manner.

We have the pleasure to say, that, notwithstanding the highest provocations given by the enemy,

not one instance of cruelty, that we have heard of, was committed by our victorious Militia; but, listening to the merciful dictates of the Christian religion, they “breathed higher sentiments of

humanity.”

The British story on what happened at Lexington and Concord was published in 1776:

It were to be wished, for the Honour of the Insurgents, that their Barbarous Cruelty to the wounded Soldiers, were more problematical than their firing FIRST on the King's Troops. The Soldiers who fell by the first Fire of the Rebels, were found scalped, when the Detachment returned from Concord to

Lexington Bridge. Two Soldiers who lay wounded on the Field, and had been scalped by the savage Provincials, were still breathing. They appeared, by the Traces of Blood, to have rolled in the Agonies

of this horrid Species of Death, several Yards from the Place where they had been scalped. Near these unfortunate men, another dreadful object presented itself. A soldier who had been slightly wounded, appeared with his eyes torn out of their sockets, by the barbarous mode of GOOGING, a

word and practice peculiar to the Americans. Humanity forbids us to dwell longer on this scene of horror. The rebels, to break the force of accusation, began to recriminate. They laid several instances

of wanton cruelty to the charge of the troops; yet nothing is better ascertained, than that not one of the soldiers ever quitted the road, either upon their march or return from Concord. The Congress

stigmatize the expedition to Lexington and Concord, with the epithets “of an unprovoked and wanton assault. “ Was the collecting warlike implements at Concord, raising men throughout the Province, disciplining troops in every district, forming magazines, purchasing ammunition, and

preparing arms, no provocation? Were not the whole Country assembled before they knew of this expedition? And was not their being so completely provided with the means of repelling hostilities, a

sufficient proof, that they had previously resolved to commence them? Could TEN THOUSAND men,

the number that attacked (though at a PRUDENT distance) the troops on their retreat, have been collected by accident, or called together by a sudden alarm? Are not the Congress conscious to

themselves, and was not General Gage sufficiently apprized, that the people of Massachusets-Bay [sic] had determined to begin hostilities, had the expedition to Concord never happened? The truth

is, the march of the troops had only hastened the execution of the plan of rebellion settled before in the secret Councils of the Provincial Congress. 10

An additional account is found in The London Gazette in the edition for 6-10 June 1775:

Lieutenant Nunn, of the Navy, arrived this morning at Lord Dartmouth's and brought letters from General Gage, Lord Percy and Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, containing the following particulars of what

passes on the nineteenth of April between a detachment of the Kings troops in the Province of Massachusetts Bay and several parties of rebel provincials … Lieutenant-Colonel Smith finding, after

he had advanced some miles on his march, that the country had been alarmed by firing of guns and ringing of bells, dispatched six companies of light infantry, in order to secure two bridges on different roads beyond Concord, who, upon their arrival at Lexington, found a body of the county people

under arms, on a green close to the road; and upon the King's troops marching upon them, in order to inquire the reason of their being so assembled, they went off in great confusion, and several guns

were fired upon the King's troops from behind a stone wall, and also from the meeting house and other houses, by which one man was wounded, and Major Pitcairn's horse was shot in two places. In

consequence of this attack by the rebels, the troops returned the fire and killed several of them. After which, the detachment marched on to Concord without any further happening. 11

Here, for example, is the official word from the British on 30 May 1775: “A REPORT having been

spread, and an Account having been printed and published, of a Skirmish between some of the People in the Province of Massachuset's Bay [sic] and a Detachment of His Majesty's Troops; it is

proper to inform the Publick [sic], that no Advices have as yet been received in the American Department of any such Event. There is Reason to believe, that there are dispatches from General

[Thomas] Gage on board The Sukey, Captain Brown, which, though she sailed Four Days before the Vessel that brought the printed Account, is not yet Arrived.” 12

Historian Julie Flavell discovered that the British, in response to the opening of fighting, ordered that

all correspondence from America be opened and searched. She wrote, “Just days after the news of Lexington and Concord reached London, early in June 1775, the British government ordered the

opening and screening of all letters carried by the packets from the colonies to the metropolis. The resulting extracts … form a set of post office intercepts that is probably unique of its kind. These letters

represent what may be the only instance of the use of post office surveillance by eighteenth-century British ministers for opinion-gathering purposes. The undertaking sheds new light on the attitudes of the ministers as they steered the empire into a civil war.” 13

The colonies responded to this action by calling another meeting of the First Continental Congress, this time styled as the Second Continental Congress. The delegates to that parley said little on the

opening of fighting, merely to print affidavits from various citizens and soldiers in Massachusetts who were affected in one way or another by the fighting. 14

We look to the oration delivered by Ebenezer Baldwin, Pastor of the First Church of Christ in Danbury,

Connecticut, who said, “It is an unusually cruel Enemy with whom we are engaged in War. Not that the British Nation are cruel and savage among other Nations; but considering us as Rebels (as they

affect to do) they think themselves warranted to treat us in that cruel Manner, which would be deemed inhuman and savage in one Nation at War with another: The very Thoughts of which

towards the French or Spaniards, or any other national Enemies of Great-Britain, those very Officers and Soldiers who have been guilty of perpetrating these Cruelties, would probably reject with Abhorrence.” 15

The reaction to the fighting was instantaneous— the enormous pent-up rage that had been held back against the British laws and enactments now broke into open warfare. Men who had served, or

would serve, in colonial offices, or in the Continental Congresses, now raised militias and funds for the Continental Army that sprang up. Within months, the war would spread to all thirteen colonies, and,

within a little more than a year, the Continental Congress would declare independence.

Over time, the words “Lexington and Concord” have become synonymous with both the opening

fight for American freedom and with independence. In 1871, on the 96th anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities, historian George Bailey Loring gave an oration, in which he said, “Ninety-six years ago to-day the town of Lexington became immortal in history. The story is a familiar one. It has been

recorded by the careful and patient annalist; illumined by the poet; exalted by the orator; repeated with holy zeal at the fireside; passed from tongue to tongue along all the admiring lands; and

received as an inspiration by all the sons of men toiling and hoping to be free. And what a wonderful story it is!”

BATTLES OF TRENTON AND PRINCETON 1

BEFORE THE BATTLES OF TRENTON AND PRINCETON

Since August 1776, British forces under General William Howe had been driving the Continental Army south out of New York. On November 16 the British overran Fort Washington in Manhattan, taking

2,000 Americans prisoner.

The British then pursued the Americans across New Jersey. In mid-December Washington led his army south across the Delaware River. They camped on the Pennsylvania side, short of food, ammunition

and supplies.

WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE

Washington realized that without a decisive action, the Continental Army was likely doomed, so he planned a daring assault on the Hessian garrison at Trenton. He envisioned a three-pronged attack,

with his army of 2,400 flanked by a 1,900-man diversionary force under Colonel John Cadwalader and a blocking move by General James Ewing’s 700 men.

Washington’s men and cannons crossed the icy river in boats and began the 19-mile march towards

Trenton in a freezing storm. In the end, neither Cadwalader nor Ewing were able to carry out their parts of the plan.

THE BATTLE OF TRENTON

The Hessian force at Trenton numbered 1,400 under the leadership of Colonel Johann Rall. Although

Rall had received warnings of colonial movements, his men were exhausted and unprepared for Washington’s attack—though rumors that they were drunk from Christmas celebrations are unfounded.

As he approached the town, Washington divided his men, sending flanking columns under General Nathaniel Greene and General John Sullivan. Meanwhile, Colonel Henry Knox’s cannons fired on the

garrison. Rall attempted to rally his troops but was never able to establish a defensive perimeter, and was shot from his horse and fatally wounded. The Hessians quickly surrendered. All told, 22 were killed, 92 wounded, 918 captured and 400 escaped. The Americans suffered two frozen to death and five

wounded.

BETWEEN TRENTON AND PRINCETON

Realizing his men could not hold Trenton against British reinforcements, Washington withdrew across the Delaware. However, on December 30 he crossed back into New Jersey with an army of 2,000.

Informed that 8,000 British troops under Generals Charles Cornwallis and James Grant were marching south from Princeton, Washington worked quickly to supplement his numbers, urging militiamen whose terms had expired to stay on for six weeks.

On New Year’s Day, Washington’s force of 5,000 poorly trained men massed in Trenton. The next day Cornwallis arrived with an army 5,500. After skirmishes at the American lines and three attempts to

cross the bridge at Assunpink Creek, Cornwallis relented for the day, assuming he had Washington trapped.

That night, Washington deployed 500 men to keep the campfires going while the rest of his troops made a nighttime march north to Princeton. To keep their movement secret, torches were extinguished and wagon wheels muffled in heavy cloth.

THE BATTLE OF PRINCETON

At dawn on January 3, 1777, Cornwallis woke to find that his opponent had disappeared, while

Washington’s men were nearing the end of their 12-mile march to Princeton.

Washington sent a small force under General Hugh Mercer to destroy a bridge. Mercer’s men

encountered Redcoats under Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood and Mercer was killed in the fighting. Arriving militiamen under Col. Cadwalader had little effect. Then Washington arrived, riding between

the firing lines until his terrified horse refused to go on. The Americans rallied and broke through Mercer’s lines.

AFTER THE BATTLES OF TRENTON AND PRINCETON

As at Trenton, the Americans took prisoners, arms and supplies but quickly withdrew after winning the Battle of Princeton. Washington had wanted to advance to New Brunswick, but was fortuitously

overruled by his officers (at the time, Cornwallis’ men were en route to New Brunswick).

Washington’s men marched to Morristown, in northern New Jersey, where they established winter quarters, safe from British incursions. The Continental Army basked in its achievements—at Princeton

they had defeated a regular British army in the field. Moreover, Washington had shown that he could unite soldiers from all the colonies into an effective national force.

BATTLE OF SARATOGA 2

The Battle of Saratoga was an American capture of an entire British army at the turning point of the

Revolutionary War. In 1777 Great Britain planned to conquer New York State and isolate New England from the rest of the colonies by having three armies converge at Albany. One of these

forces, composed of 7,800 British and German regulars, loyalist militia, and Indians under Gen John Burgoyne, left Canada in June and advanced south along Lake Champlain. A second force under Gen William Howe was to move up the Hudson River from New York City. A third force, under the

command of Gen Barry St. Leger, was to arrive at Albany via Lake Ontario and the Mohawk River. On his move south, Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga [now in Essex Co] on 6 July and defeated an

American rear guard at Hubberton [now East Hubberton, Vt] on 7 July. Nevertheless, he lacked adequate provisions and lost over 900 soldiers on 16 August after the American victory at the Battle

of Bennington, fought at what is now Hoosick (Rensselaer Co). One week later (and unknown to Burgoyne), St. Leger was forced to abandon his siege of Fort Schuyler [now Rome, Oneida Co] at the head of the Mohawk River and return to Canada. Although he was informed of the northern

campaign, Gen Howe did not receive his orders to support Burgoyne before leaving New York City in July 1777 with his own plan to attack Philadelphia.

In September 1777 American general Horatio Gates blocked Burgoyne's advance by entrenching 7,000 men near Bemis Heights [now in Saratoga Co]. On 19 September Burgoyne sent 4,200 troops in

three columns against the American position. Benedict Arnold, Gates's aggressive subordinate, attacked the western column near a clearing at the Freeman's Farm. The heavily forested, broken terrain was ideally suited for American riflemen and light infantry and prevented the British from full

use of their artillery. As more American units arrived on the field, they struck the center column and inflicted heavy casualties, up to 83% in the 62d Regiment of Foot. The British center was nearing

collapse when German general Friedrich von Riedesel arrived with troops from the eastern column and repelled the American advance. As darkness fell, the Americans broke off the engagement, known as the first Battle of Saratoga, or the Battle of Freeman's Farm, having suffered approximately

300 casualties. British losses included 160 dead, 364 wounded, and 42 missing.

Over the next several weeks, Burgoyne erected fortifications while waiting for relief forces from the

south. On 3 October Gen Henry Clinton advanced up the Hudson River with 3,000 troops to create a diversion for Burgoyne. The action was too late to assist, however, as they only reached Esopus [now

Kingston, Ulster Co]. Meanwhile, militia continued to swell Gates's ranks to 11,000. On 7 October Burgoyne sent a 1,500-man reconnaissance force to probe the American left. The Americans again took the initiative, however, and attacked, driving them back toward their entrenchments. The British

managed to rally until Gen Simon Fraser, one of their principal officers, fell mortally wounded. Arnold, relieved from command after a dispute with Gates several days earlier, rode onto the field without

orders and led a series of charges against the British works. These were repelled, so Arnold shifted to the redoubt anchoring the British right. He was seriously wounded in the leg as his men carried the

position. They were unable to exploit this success because of the lateness of the day but still won a significant victory. During this second Battle of Saratoga, or the Battle of Bemis Heights, the Americans inflicted another 894 casualties at a cost of 130 lives of their own men.

Burgoyne retreated slowly but was encircled by the growing American force. Faced with dwindling supplies, heavy casualties, and increasing desertions, he surrendered near the heights of Saratoga

[now Schuylerville, Saratoga Co] on 17 October. The Americans captured 5,721 soldiers, including 7 generals, 27 cannons, and thousands of muskets. The American victory boosted morale greatly and prompted France to sign a military alliance with the new nation. The battlefield and its environs

became a state historic site in 1927 and a national historic park in 1938.

BATTLE OF YORKTOWN 3

In the Summer of 1781 the American colonies' fight for independence hung in the balance. British and American forces stood locked in apparent equilibrium. As George Washington's army, bolstered

by regular French forces, besieged English Commander in Chief Sir Henry Clinton in New York, time seemed on the British side. One bold Franco-American gambit could decide the Revolution - one

way or another. But was the risk worth taking?

After 1778 the main theater of war had shifted to the South as the British concentrated on trying to

reestablish their control of that area. By 1781 they were convinced that this could not be accomplished while Virginia continued to serve as a base for American military operations. Hence in January 1781 Clinton sent the American turncoat, Benedict Arnold, with 1,600 British troops to raid up

the James River. By late May the British had accumulated about 7,200 men in Virginia, including the remnants (1,500) of Sir Charles Cornwallis' force, which had come up from Wilmington, N. C.

Cornwallis was given over-all command of British forces in Virginia and in late May and early June led them on raids deep into the state. At first he was opposed only by a numerically greatly inferior force under the Marquis de Lafayette, but in mid-June the later was reinforced by troops under Brig. Gen.

Anthony Wayne and Baron von Steuben, drillmaster and inspector general of the Continental Army. Cornwallis then turned back to the coast to establish a base at Yorktown from which he could

maintain sea communications with Clinton in New York.

Meanwhile, Washington was tentatively preparing his northern army, recently reinforced by about

4,800 French troops under Lt. Gen. Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau, for an attack on New York. However, he received confirmation on 14 August that Adm. Francois de Grasse's (I) fleet had departed the French West Indies with 3,000 troops aboard and would be available for operations in

the Chesapeake Bay area through mid-October. He therefore finally determined to go to Virginia with a substantial part of his army, including the French regulars under Rochambeau. He crossed the

Hudson (20-26 August), made a feint in the direction of New York to hold Clinton in the city, and then struck southward across New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Maryland.

In the meantime, De Grasse's fleet arrived off Yorktown on 30 August, debarked 3,000 French regulars to reinforce Lafayette, and on 5 September fought an indecisive naval engagement off the Virginia Capes (I) with a British fleet under Adm. Thomas Graves. After several days of maneuvering at sea,

Graves retired temporarily to New York for repairs, leaving the French fleet in control of Chesapeake Bay.

This permitted Washington and Rochambeau to embark their forces in Maryland and sail via the Chesapeake and the James River to a point near Williamsburg (14-24 September). From there an

allied army numbering about 15,000 8,845 Americans and 7,800 French moved forward on 28 September to begin siege operations against Yorktown. Finally, after a night attack (I) on 16 October failed to recapture key defense points, Cornwallis requested an armistice (17 October).

He surrendered his entire command about 8,000 men on 19 October. In the siege the British lost 156 killed and 326 wounded; the Americans, 20 killed and 56 wounded; and the French, 52 killed and 134

wounded.

British hopes for victory in America collapsed with Cornwallis' defeat. Lord North's ministry fell in March 1782 and the new cabinet opened direct negotiations with the American peace commissioners in

Europe that resulted ultimately in ending the war.

5

THE TRUE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 4

Smithsonian Magazine

The last stop on Boston’s Freedom Trail is a shrine to the fog of war. “Breed’s Hill,” a plaque reads. “Site of the Battle of Bunker Hill.” Another plaque bears the famous order given American troops as the British charged up not-Bunker Hill. “Don’t fire ’til you see the whites of their eyes.” Except, park

rangers will quickly tell you, these words weren’t spoken here. The patriotic obelisk atop the hill also confuses visitors. Most don’t realize it’s the rare American monument to an American defeat.

In short, the nation’s memory of Bunker Hill is mostly bunk. Which makes the 1775 battle a natural

topic for Nathaniel Philbrick, an author drawn to iconic and misunderstood episodes in American history. He took on the Pilgrim landing in Mayflower and the Little Bighorn in The Last Stand. In his new book, Bunker Hill, he revisits the beginnings of the American Revolution, a subject freighted with more

myth, pride and politics than any other in our national narrative.

“Johnny Tremain, Paul Revere’s Ride, today’s Tea Partiers—you have to tune all that out to get at the real story,” Philbrick says. Gazing out from the Bunker Hill Monument—not at charging redcoats but at

skyscrapers and clotted traffic—he adds: “You also have to squint a lot and study old maps to imagine your way back into the 18th century.”

***

Boston in 1775 was much smaller, hillier and more watery than it appears today. The Back Bay was still a bay and the South End was likewise underwater; hills were later leveled to fill in almost 1,000 acres. Boston was virtually an island, reachable by land only via a narrow neck. And though founded by

Puritans, the city wasn’t puritanical. One rise near Beacon Hill, known for its prostitutes, was marked on maps as “Mount Whoredom.”

Nor was Boston a “cradle of liberty”; one in five families, including those of leading patriots, owned

slaves. And the city’s inhabitants were viciously divided. At Copp’s Hill, in Boston’s North End, Philbrick visits the grave of Daniel Malcom, an early agitator against the British identified on his headstone as “a true son of Liberty.” British troops used the patriot headstone for target practice. Yet Malcom’s

brother, John, was a noted loyalist, so hated by rebels that they tarred and feathered him and paraded him in a cart until his skin peeled off in “steaks.”

Philbrick is a mild-mannered 56-year-old with gentle brown eyes, graying hair and a placid golden

retriever in the back of his car. But he’s blunt and impassioned about the brutishness of the 1770s and the need to challenge patriotic stereotypes. “There’s an ugly civil war side to revolutionary Boston that we don’t often talk about,” he says, “and a lot of thuggish, vigilante behavior by groups like the

Sons of Liberty.” He doesn’t romanticize the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord, either. The “freedoms” they fought for, he notes, weren’t intended to extend to slaves, Indians, women or

Catholics. Their cause was also “profoundly conservative.” Most sought a return to the Crown’s “salutary neglect” of colonists prior to the 1760s, before Britain began imposing taxes and responding to American resistance with coercion and troops. “They wanted the liberties of British subjects, not

American independence,” Philbrick says.

That began to change once blood was shed, which is why the Bunker Hill battle is pivotal. The chaotic skirmishing at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 left the British holed up in Boston and

hostile colonists occupying the city’s surrounds. But it remained unclear whether the ill-equipped rebels were willing or able to engage the British Army in pitched battle. Leaders on both sides also thought the conflict might yet be settled without full-scale war.

This tense, two-month stalemate broke on the night of June 16, in a confused manner that marks much of the Revolution’s start. Over a thousand colonials marched east from Cambridge with orders

to fortify Bunker Hill, a 110-foot rise on the Charlestown peninsula jutting into Boston Harbor. But the Americans bypassed Bunker Hill in the dark and instead began fortifying Breed’s Hill, a smaller rise

much closer to Boston and almost in the face of the British.

The reasons for this maneuver are murky. But Philbrick believes it was a “purposeful act, a provocation and not the smartest move militarily.” Short on cannons, and the know-how to fire those they had with accuracy, the rebels couldn’t do much damage from Breed’s Hill. But their threatening

position, on high ground just across the water from Boston, forced the British to try to dislodge the Americans before they were reinforced or fully entrenched.

On the morning of June 17, as the rebels frantically threw up breastworks of earth, fence posts and stone, the British bombarded the hill. One cannonball decapitated a man as his comrades worked

on, “fatigued by our Labour, having no sleep the night before, very little to eat, no drink but rum,” a private wrote. “The danger we were in made us think there was treachery, and that we were brought

there to be all slain.”

Exhausted and exposed, the Americans were also a motley collection of militia from different colonies, with little coordination and no clear chain of command. By contrast, the British, who at midday began disembarking from boats near the American position, were among the best-trained

troops in Europe. And they were led by seasoned commanders, one of whom marched confidently at the head of his men accompanied by a servant carrying a bottle of wine. The British also torched

Charlestown, at the base of Breed’s Hill, turning church steeples into “great pyramids of fire” and adding ferocious heat to what was already a warm June afternoon.

All this was clearly visible to the many spectators crowded on hills, rooftops and steeples in and around Boston, including Abigail Adams and her young son, John Quincy, who cried at the flames

and the “thunders” of British cannons. Another observer was British Gen. John Burgoyne, who watched from Copp’s Hill. “And now ensued one of the greatest scenes of war that can be

conceived,” he wrote of the blazing town, the roaring cannons and the sight of red-coated troops ascending Breed’s Hill.

However, the seemingly open pasture proved to be an obstacle course. The high, unmown hay obscured rocks, holes and other hazards. Fences and stone walls also slowed the British. The

Americans, meanwhile, were ordered to hold their fire until the attackers closed to 50 yards or less. The wave of British “advanced towards us in order to swallow us up,” wrote Pvt. Peter Brown, “but

they found a Choaky mouthful of us.” When the rebels opened fire, the close-packed British fell in clumps. In some spots, the British lines

became jumbled, making them even easier targets. The Americans added to the chaos by aiming at officers, distinguished by their fine uniforms. The attackers, repulsed at every point, were forced to

withdraw. “The dead lay as thick as sheep in a fold,” wrote an American officer.

The disciplined British quickly re-formed their ranks and advanced again, with much the same result. One British officer was moved to quote Falstaff: “They make us here but food for gunpowder.” But the American powder was running very low. And the British, having failed twice, devised a new plan.

They repositioned their artillery and raked the rebel defenses with grapeshot. And when the infantrymen marched forward, a third time, they came in well-spaced columns rather than a broad

line.

As the Americans’ ammunition expired, their firing sputtered and “went out like an old candle,” wrote William Prescott, who commanded the hilltop redoubt. His men resorted to throwing rocks, then swung their muskets at the bayonet-wielding British pouring over the rampart. “Nothing could be

more shocking than the carnage that followed the storming [of] this work,” wrote a royal marine. “We tumbled over the dead to get at the living,” with “soldiers stabbing some and dashing out the brains

of others.” The surviving defenders fled, bringing the battle to an end.

In just two hours of fighting, 1,054 British soldiers—almost half of all those engaged—had been killed or wounded, including many officers. American losses totaled over 400. The first true battle of the

Revolutionary War was to prove the bloodiest of the entire conflict. Though the British had achieved their aim in capturing the hill, it was a truly Pyrrhic victory. “The success is too dearly bought,” wrote Gen. William Howe, who lost every member of his staff (as well as the bottle of wine his servant

carried into battle).

Badly depleted, the besieged British abandoned plans to seize another high point near the city and ultimately evacuated Boston. The battle also demonstrated American resolve and dispelled hopes that the rebels might relent without a protracted conflict. “Our three generals,” a British officer wrote

of his commanders in Boston, had “expected rather to punish a mob than fight with troops that would look them in the face.”

The intimate ferocity of this face-to-face combat is even more striking today, in an era of drones,

tanks and long-range missiles. At the Bunker Hill Museum, Philbrick studies a diorama of the battle alongside Patrick Jennings, a park ranger who served as an infantryman and combat historian for the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This was almost a pool-table battlefield,” Jennings observes of the

miniature soldiers crowded on a verdant field. “The British were boxed in by the terrain and the Americans didn’t have much maneuverability, either. It’s a close-range brawl.”

However, there’s no evidence that Col. Israel Putnam told his men to hold their fire until they saw “the

whites” of the enemies’ eyes. The writer Parson Weems invented this incident decades later, along with other fictions such as George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. In reality, the Americans opened fire at about 50 yards, much too distant to see anyone’s eyes. One colonel did

tell his men to wait until they could see the splash guards—called half-gaiters—that British soldiers wore around their calves. But as Philbrick notes, “‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their half-

gaiters’ just doesn’t have the same ring.” So the Weems version endured, making it into textbooks and even into the video game Assassin’s Creed.

The Bunker Hill Monument also has an odd history. The cornerstone was laid in 1825, with Daniel Webster addressing a crowd of 100,000. Backers built one of the first railways in the nation to tote

eight-ton granite blocks from a quarry south of Boston. But money ran out. So Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor and author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” rescued the project by organizing a

“Ladies’ Fair” that raised $30,000. The monument was finally dedicated in 1843, with the now-aged Daniel Webster returning to speak again.

Over time, Brahmin Charlestown turned Irish and working class, and the monument featured in gritty crime movies like The Town, directed by Ben Affleck (who has also acquired the movie rights to

Philbrick’s book). But today the obelisk stands amid renovated townhouses, and the small park surrounding it is popular with exercise classes and leisure-seekers. “You’ll be talking to visitors about

the horrible battle that took place here,” says park ranger Merrill Kohlhofer, “and all around you are sunbathers and Frisbee players and people walking their dogs.” Firemen also visit, to train for climbing tall buildings by scaling the 221-foot monument.

Philbrick is drawn to a different feature of the park: a statue of what he calls the “wild man” and

neglected hero of revolutionary Boston, Dr. Joseph Warren. The physician led the rebel underground and became major general of the colonial army in the lead-up to Bunker Hill. A flamboyant man, he

addressed 5,000 Bostonians clad in a toga and went into the Bunker Hill battle wearing a silk-fringed waistcoat and silver buttons, “like Lord Falkland, in his wedding suit.” But he refused to assume command, fighting as an ordinary soldier and dying from a bullet in the face during the final assault.

Warren’s stripped body was later identified on the basis of his false teeth, which had been crafted by Paul Revere. He left behind a fiancée (one of his patients) and a mistress he’d recently impregnated.

“Warren was young, charismatic, a risk-taker—a man made for revolution,” Philbrick says. “Things

were changing by the day and he embraced that.” In death, Warren became the Revolution’s first martyr, though he’s little remembered by most Americans today.

***

Before leaving Charlestown, Philbrick seeks out one other site. In 1775, when Americans marched past Bunker Hill and fortified Breed’s instead, a British map compounded the confusion by mixing up

the two hills as well. Over time, the name Breed’s melted away and the battle became indelibly linked to Bunker. But what of the hill that originally bore that name?

It’s visible from the Bunker Hill Monument: a taller, steeper hill 600 yards away. But Charlestown’s narrow, one-way streets keep carrying Philbrick in the wrong direction. After 15 minutes of circling his

destination he finally finds a way up. “It’s a pity the Americans didn’t fortify this hill,” he quips, “the British would never have found it.”

It’s now crowned by a church, on Bunker Hill Street, and a sign says the church was established in 1859, “On the Top of Bunker Hill.” The church’s business manager, Joan Rae, says the same. “This is

Bunker Hill. That other hill’s not. It’s Breed’s.” To locals like Rae, perhaps, but not to visitors or even to Google Maps. Tap in “Bunker Hill Charlestown” and you’ll be directed to...that other hill. To Philbrick,

this enduring confusion is emblematic of the Bunker Hill story. “The whole thing’s a screw-up,” he says. “The Americans fortify the wrong hill, this forces a fight no one planned, the battle itself is an ugly and

confused mess. And it ends with a British victory that’s also a defeat.” Retreating to Boston for lunch at “ye olde” Union Oyster House, Philbrick reflects more personally on

his historic exploration of the city where he was born. Though he was mostly raised in Pittsburgh, his forebears were among the first English settlers of the Boston area in the 1630s. One Philbrick served in

the Revolution. As a championship sailor, Philbrick competed on the Charles River in college and later moved to Boston. He still has an apartment there, but mostly lives on the echt-Yankee island of

Nantucket, the setting for his book about whaling, In the Heart of the Sea. Philbrick, however, considers himself a “deracinated WASP” and doesn’t believe genealogy or flag-

waving should cloud our view of history. “I don’t subscribe to the idea that the founders or anyone else were somehow better than us and that we have to live up to their example.” He also feels the

hated British troops in Boston deserve reappraisal. “They’re an occupying army, locals despise them, and they don’t want to be there,” he says. “As Americans we’ve now been in that position in Iraq and can appreciate the British dilemma in a way that wasn’t easy before.”

But Philbrick also came away from his research with a powerful sense of the Revolution’s significance.

While visiting archives in England, he called on Lord Gage, a direct descendant of Gen. Thomas Gage, overall commander of the British military at the Bunker Hill battle. The Gage family’s Tudor-era

estate has 300 acres of private gardens and a chateau-style manor filled with suits of armor and paintings by Gainsborough, Raphael and Van Dyck.

“We had sherry and he could not have been more courteous,” Philbrick says of Lord Gage. “But it was a reminder of the British class system and how much the Revolution changed our history. As

countries, we’ve gone on different paths since his ancestor sent redcoats up that hill.”