I
Not a clause in the Declaration of Independence sets forth the real and underlying cause of the American Revolution. The attention of its writer was bent upon recent events, and he dwelt only upon the immediate reasons for throwing off allegiance to the British government. In the dark of the storm already upon them, the men of the time could hardly look with clear vision back to ultimate causes. They could not see that the English kings had planted the seeds of the Revolution when, in their zeal to get America colonized, they had granted such political and religious privileges as tempted the radicals and dissenters of the time to migrate to America. Only historical research could reveal the fact that from the year 1620 the English government had been systematically stocking the colonies with dissenters and retaining in England the conformers. The tendency of colonization was to leave the conservatives in England, thus relatively increasing the conservative force at home, while the radicals went to America to fortify the radical political philosophy there. Thus England lost part of her potentiality for political development.
Not only were radicals constantly settling in the colonies, because of the privileges granted them there, but the Crown neglected to enforce in the colonies the same regulations that it enforced at home. The Act of Uniformity was not extended to the colonies, though rigidly enforced in England; the viceregal officers, the governors, permitted themselves again and again to be browbeaten and disobeyed by the colonial legislatures;[42] and even the king himself had allowed Massachusetts (1635) to overreach him by not giving up her charter.[43]
After a century of great laxity toward the colonies—a century in which the colonists were favored by political privileges shared by no other people of that age; after the environment had established new social conditions, and remoteness and isolation had created a local and individual hatred of restraint; after the absence of traditions had made possible the institution of representation by population, and self-government had taken on a new meaning in the world; after a great gulf had been fixed between the social, political, and economic institutions of the two parts of the British empire—only then did the British government enter upon a policy intended to make the empire a unity.[44]
Independence had long existed in spirit in most of the essential matters of colonial life, and the British government had only to seek to establish its power over the colonies in order to arouse a desire for formal independence. The transition in England, therefore, to an imperial ideal, about the middle of the eighteenth century, doubtless caused the rending of the empire. Walpole and Newcastle, whose administrations had just preceded the reign of George III., had let the colonies alone, and thus aided the colonial at the expense of the imperial idea; while their successors, Grenville and Townshend, ruling not wisely but too well, forced the colonists to realize that they cared more for America than for England.
The time had come, though these ministers failed to see it, when the union of Great Britain with her colonies depended on the offspring’s disposition toward the mother-country. Good feeling would preserve the union, but dissatisfaction would make even forcible control impossible. Social and political and economic ties still bound the colonists to the home land, but these were weak ties as compared with an irrepressible desire for self-growth. The expression of their political ideals unrestrained by the conservatism of the parent was a desired end to which they strove, almost unconscious of their object.
To understand the American Revolution, therefore, several facts must be clearly in mind—first, that Great Britain had for one hundred and fifty years been growing to the dignity of an empire, and that the thirteen colonies were a considerable part of that empire; second, the colonies had interests of their own which were not favored by the growing size and strength of the empire. They were advancing to new political ideals faster than the mother-country. Their economic interests were becoming differentiated from those of England. They were coming to have wants and ambitions and hopes of their own quite distinct from those of Great Britain.
At the fatal time when the independent spirit of America had grown assertive, the politically active part of the British people began unconsciously to favor an imperial policy, which their ministers suggested, and which to them seemed the very essence of sound reasoning and good government. They approved of the proposed creation of executives who should be independent of the dictation of the colonial assemblies. There were also to be new administrative organs having power to enforce the colonial trade regulations; and the defensive system of the colonies was to be improved by a force of regular troops, which was in part to be supported by colonial taxes.
In order to accomplish these objects, the king’s new minister, the assiduous Grenville, who knew the law better than the maxims of statesmanship, induced Parliament, in March, 1764, to resolve upon “certain stamp duties” for the colonies. A year later the “Gentle Shepherd,” as Pitt had dubbed him, proved his watchfulness by getting a stamp act passed,[45] which, though nearly a duplicate of one in force in England, and like one of Massachusetts’ own laws, nevertheless aroused every colony to violent wrath.
This sudden flame of colonial passion rose from the embers of discontent with Grenville’s policy of enforcing the trade or navigation laws—those restrictions upon colonial industries and commerce which were the outgrowth of a protective commercial policy which England had begun even before the discovery of America.[46] As the colonies grew they began to be regarded as a source of wealth to the mother-country; and, at the same time that bounties were given them for raising commodities desired by England, restrictions were placed upon American trade.[47] When the settlers of the northern and middle colonies began manufacturing for themselves, their industry no sooner interfered with English manufactures than a law was passed to prevent the exportation of the production and to limit the industry itself. This system of restrictions, though it necessarily established a real opposition of interest between America and England, does not seem on the whole to have been to the disadvantage of the colonies;[48] nor was the English colonial system a whit more severe than that of other European countries.
In 1733, however, the Molasses Act went into effect,[49] and, had it been enforced, would have been a serious detriment to American interests. It not only aimed to stop the thriving colonial trade with the Dutch, French, and Spanish West Indies, but was intended to aid English planters in the British West Indies by laying a prohibitive duty on imported foreign sugar and molasses. It was not enforced, however, for the customs officials, by giving fraudulent clearances, acted in collusion with the colonial importers in evading the law; but, in 1761, during the war with France, the thrifty colonists carried on an illegal trade with the enemy, and Pitt demanded that the restrictive laws be enforced.
The difficulty of enforcing was great, for it was hard to seize the smuggled goods, and harder still to convict the smuggler in the colonial courts. Search-warrants were impracticable, because the legal manner of using them made the informer’s name public, and the law was unable to protect him from the anger of a community fully in sympathy with the smugglers. The only feasible way to put down this unpatriotic trade with the enemy was to resort to “writs of assistance,” which would give the customs officers a right to search for smuggled goods in any house they pleased.[50] Such warrants were legal, had been used in America, and were frequently used in England;[51] yet so highly developed was the American love of personal liberty that when James Otis, a Boston lawyer, resisted by an impassioned speech the issue of such writs his arguments met universal approval.[52] In perfect good faith he argued, after the manner of the ancient law-writers, that Parliament could not legalize tyranny, ignoring the historical fact that since the revolution of 1688 an act of Parliament was the highest guarantee of right, and Parliament the sovereign and supreme power. Nevertheless, the popularity of Otis’ argument showed what America believed, and pointed very plainly the path of wise statesmanship.
When, in 1763, the Pontiac Indian rebellion endangered the whole West and made necessary a force of soldiers in Canada, Grenville, in spite of the recent warning, determined that the colonies should share the burden which was rapidly increasing in England. He lowered the sugar and molasses duties,[53] and set out to enforce their collection by every lawful means. The trouble which resulted developed more quickly in Massachusetts, because its harsh climate and sterile soil drove it to a carrying-trade, and the enforced navigation laws were thought to threaten its ruin. It was while American economic affairs were in this condition that Grenville rashly aggravated the discontent by the passage of his Stamp Act.
As the resistance of the colonies to this taxation led straight to open war and final independence, it will be worth while to look rather closely at the stamp tax, and at the subject of representation, which was at once linked with it. The terms of the Stamp Act are not of great importance, because, though it did have at least one bad feature as a law, the whole opposition was on the ground that there should be no taxation whatever without representation. It made no difference to its enemies that the money obtained by the sale of stamps was to stay in America to support the soldiers needed for colonial protection. Nothing would appease them while the taxing body contained no representatives of their own choosing.
To attain this right, they made their fight upon legal and historical grounds—the least favorable they could have chosen. They declared that, under the British constitution, there could be no taxation except by persons known and voted for by the persons taxed. The wisest men seemed not to see the kernel of the dispute. A very real danger threatened the colonies—subject as they were to a body unsympathetic with the political and economic conditions in which they were living—but they had no legal safeguard.[54] They must either sever the existing constitutional bond or get Parliament of its own will to limit its power over the colonies. All unwittingly the opponents of the Stamp Act were struggling with a problem that could be solved only by revolution.
Two great fundamental questions were at issue: Should there be a British empire ruled by Parliament in all its parts, either in England or oversea? or should Parliament govern at home, and the colonial assemblies in America, with only a federal bond to unite them? Should the English understanding of representation be imposed upon the colonies? or should America’s institution triumph in its own home? If there was to be a successful imperial system, Parliament must have the power to tax all parts of the empire. It was of no use to plead that Parliament had never taxed the colonies before, for, as Doctor Johnson wrote, “We do not put a calf into the plough: we wait till it is an ox.”[55] The colonies were strong enough to stand taxation now, and the reasonable dispute must be as to the manner of it. To understand the widely different points of view of Englishmen and Americans, we must examine their systems of representative government.
In electing members to the House of Commons in England certain ancient counties and boroughs were entitled to representation, each sending two members, regardless of the number of people within its territory. For a century and a half before the American Revolution only four new members were added to the fixed number in Parliament. Meanwhile, great cities had grown up which had no representation, though certain boroughs, once very properly represented, had become uninhabited, and the lord who owned the ground elected the members to Parliament, taking them, not from the district represented, but from any part of the kingdom. The franchise was usually possessed either by the owners of the favored pieces of land or in the boroughs chiefly by persons who inherited certain rights which marked them as freemen. A man had as many votes as there were constituencies in which he possessed the qualifications.
In the colonial assemblies there was a more distinct territorial basis for representation, and changes of population brought changes of representation. New towns sent new members to the provincial assembly, and held the right to be of great value. All adult men—even negroes in New England—owning a certain small amount of property could vote for these members. In the South only the landholders voted, but the supply of land was not limited, as in England, and it was easily acquired. Finally, the voter and the representative voted for must, as a rule, be residents of the same district. From the first the colonial political ideals were affected by new conditions. When they established representative government they had no historic places sanctified by tradition to be the sole breeding-places of members of Parliament.
Backed by such divergent traditions as these, the two parts of the British empire, or, more accurately, the dominant party in each section of the empire, faced each other upon a question of principle. Neither could believe in the honesty of the other, for each argued out of a different past. The opponents of the Stamp Act could not understand the political thinking which held them to be represented in the British Parliament. “No taxation without representation” meant for the colonist that taxes ought to be levied by a legislative body in which was seated a person known and voted for by the person taxed. An Englishman only asked that there be “no taxation except that voted by the House of Commons.” He was not concerned with the mode of election to that house or the interests of the persons composing it. The colonists called the Stamp Act tyranny, but the British government certainly intended none, for it acted upon the theory of virtual representation, the only kind of representation enjoyed by the great mass of Englishmen either at home or in the colonies. On that theory nothing was taxed except by the consent of the virtual representatives of those taxed. But, replied an American, in England the interests of electors and non-electors are the same. Security against any oppression of non-electors lies in the fact that it would be oppressive to electors also; but Americans have no such safeguard, for acts oppressive to them might be popular with English electors.[56]
When the news of the Stamp Act first came oversea there was apparent apathy. The day of enforcement was six months away, and there was nothing to oppose but a law. It was the fitting time for an agitator. Patrick Henry, a gay, unprosperous, and unknown country lawyer, had been carried into the Virginia House of Burgesses on the public approval of his impassioned denial, in the “Parson’s Cause” (1763), of the king’s right to veto a needed law passed by the colonial legislature. He now offered some resolutions against the stamp tax, denying the right of Parliament to legislate in the internal affairs of the colony.[57] This “alarum bell to the disaffected,” and the fiery speech which secured its adoption by an irresolute assembly, were applauded everywhere. Jefferson said of Henry, that he “spoke as Homer wrote.”
As soon as the names of the appointed stamp-distributers were made known (August 1, 1765) the masses expressed their displeasure in a way unfortunately too common in America. Throughout the land there was rifling of stamp-collectors’ houses, threatening their lives, burning their records and documents, and even their houses. Their offices were demolished and their resignations compelled—in one case under a hanging effigy, suggestive of the result of refusal. The more moderate patriots cancelled their orders with British merchants, agreed not to remit their English debts, and dressed in homespun to avoid wearing imported clothes.
On the morning that the act went into effect (November 1, 1765) bells tolled the death of the nation. Shops were shut, flags hung at half-mast, and newspapers appeared with a death’s-head where the stamp should have been. Mobs burned the stamps, and none were to be had to legalize even the most solemn and important papers. The courts ignored them and the governors sanctioned their omission. None could be used, because none could be obtained. All America endorsed the declaration of rights of the Stamp-Act Congress, which met in New York, October, 1765. It asserted that the colonists had the same liberties as British subjects. Circumstances, they declared, prevented the colonists from being represented in the House of Commons, therefore no taxes could be levied except by their respective legislatures.[58]
This great ado was a complete surprise to the British government. On the passage of the Stamp Act, Walpole had written,[59] “There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one slight day on the American taxes.” That expressed the common conception of its importance; and when the Grenville ministry fell (July, 1765), and was succeeded by that of Rockingham, the American situation had absolutely nothing to do with the change. The new ministry was some months in deciding its policy. The king was one of the first to realize the situation, which he declared “the most serious that ever came before Parliament” (December 5, 1765). Weak and unwilling to act as the new ministry was, the situation compelled attention. The king at first favored coercion of the rebellious colonies, but the English merchants, suffering from the suspended trade, urged Parliament to repeal the act. Their demand decided the ministry to favor retraction, just as formerly their influence had forced the navigation laws and the restrictions on colonial manufactures. If the king and landed gentry were responsible for the immediate causes of the Revolution, the influence of the English commercial classes on legislation was the more ultimate cause.
After one of the longest and most heated debates in the history of Parliament, under the advice of Benjamin Franklin, given at the bar of the House of Commons,[60] and with the powerful aid of Pitt and Camden, the Stamp Act was repealed. Another act passed at the same time asserted Parliament’s power to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.[61] Thus the firebrand was left smouldering amid the inflammable colonial affairs; and Burke was quick to point out that the right to tax, or any other right insisted upon after it ceased to harmonize with prudence and expediency, would lead to disaster.[62]
It is plain to-day that the only way to keep up the nominal union between Great Britain and her colonies was to let them alone. The colonies felt strongly the ties of blood, interest, and affection which bound them to England.[63] They would all have vowed, after the repeal of the Stamp Act, that they loved their parent much more than they loved one another. They felt only the normal adult instinct to act independently. Could the British government have given up the imperial idea to which it so tenaciously clung, a federal union might have been preserved.
The genius of dissolution, however, gained control of the ministry which next came into power. When illness withdrew Pitt from the “Mosaic Ministry,” which he and Grafton had formed, Townshend’s brilliant talents gave him the unquestioned lead. This man, who is said to have surpassed Burke in wit and Chatham in solid sense, determined to try again to tax the colonies for imperial purposes.[64] He ridiculed the distinction between external and internal tax; but since the colonists had put stress on the illegality of the latter he laid the new tax on imported articles, and prepared to collect at the customhouses. The income was to pay the salaries of colonial governors and judges, and thus render them independent of the tyrannical and contentious assemblies. Writs of assistance, so effective in enforcing the revenue laws but so hated by the colonists, were legalized. The collection of the revenue was further aided by admiralty courts, which should try the cases without juries, thus preventing local sympathy from shielding the violators of the law.[65]
All the indifference into which America had relapsed, and which the agitators so much deplored, at once disappeared. The right of trial by jury was held to be inalienable. The control of the judiciary and executive by the people was necessary to free government, asserted the pamphleteers. Parliament could not legalize “writs of assistance,” they rashly cried. The former stickling at an internal tax was forgotten, and they objected to any tax whatever—a more logical position, which John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, supported by the assertion “that any law, in so far as it creates expense, is in reality a tax.” Samuel Adams drew up a circular letter, which the Massachusetts assembly dispatched to the other colonial assemblies, urging concerted action against this new attack on colonial liberties.[66] The British government, through the colonial governors, attempted to squelch this letter, but the Massachusetts assembly refused to rescind, and the other colonies were quick to embrace its cause.
Signs were not wanting that the people as well as the political leaders were aroused. When the customs officials, in 1768, seized John Hancock’s sloop Liberty for alleged evasion of the customs duties, there was a riot which so frightened the officers that they fled to the fort and wrote to England for soldiers.
This and other acts of resistance to the government led Parliament to urge the king to exercise a right given him by an ancient act to cause persons charged with treason to be brought to England for trial. The Virginia assembly protested against this, and sent their protest to the other colonies for approval.[67] The governor dissolved the assembly, but it met and voted a non-importation agreement, which also met favor in the other colonies. This economic argument again proved effective, and the Townshend measures were repealed, except the tax on tea; Parliament thus doing everything but remove the offence—“fixing a badge of slavery upon the Americans without service to their masters.”[68] The old trade regulations also remained to vex the colonists.
In order that no disproportionate blame may be attached to the king or his ministry for the bringing on of the Revolution, it must be noted that the English nation, the Parliament, and the king were all agreed when the sugar and stamp acts were passed; and though Parliament mustered a good-sized minority against the Townshend acts, nevertheless no unaccustomed influence in its favor was used by the king. Thus the elements of the cloud were all gathered before the king’s personality began to intensify the oncoming storm. The later acts of Parliament and the conduct of the king had the sole purpose of overcoming resistance to established government. Most of these coercive acts, though no part of the original policy, were perfectly constitutional even in times of peace. They must be considered in their historical setting, however, just as President Lincoln’s extraordinary acts in a time of like national peril. Henceforth we are dealing with the natural, though perhaps ill-judged, efforts of a government to repress a rebellion.
After the riot which followed the seizure of the Liberty (June, 1768), two regiments of British soldiers were stationed in Boston. The very inadequacy of the force made its relations with the citizens strained, for they resented without fearing it. After enduring months of jeering and vilification, the soldiers at last (March 5, 1770) fired upon a threatening mob, and four men were killed. Much was made of the “massacre,” as it was called, because it symbolized for the people the substitution of military for civil government. A Boston jury acquitted the soldiers, and, after a town-meeting, the removal of the two regiments was secured.
A period of quiet followed until the assembly and the governor got into a debate over the theoretical rights of the colonists. To spread the results of this debate, Samuel Adams devised the “committees of correspondence,”[69] which kept the towns of Massachusetts informed of the controversy in Boston. This furnished a model for the colonial committees of correspondence, which became the most efficient means for revolutionary organization. They created public opinion, set war itself in motion, and were the embryos of new governments when the old were destroyed.
The first provincial committee that met with general response from the other colonies was appointed by Virginia, March 12, 1773, to keep its assembly informed of the “Gaspee Commission.”[70] The Gaspee was a sort of revenue-cutter which, while too zealously enforcing the Navigation Acts, ran aground (June 9, 1772) in Narragansett Bay. Some Providence men seized and burned the vessel, and the British government appointed a commission to inquire into the affair.[71] The commission met with universal opposition and had to report failure.
From this time on the chain of events that led to open rebellion consists of a series of links so plainly joined and so well known that they need only the barest mention in this brief introduction to the actual war. The British government tried to give temporary aid to the East India Company by permitting the heavy revenue on tea entering English ports, through which it must pass before being shipped to America, and by licensing the company itself to sell tea in America.[72] To avoid yielding the principle for which they had been contending, they retained at colonial ports the threepenny duty, which was all that remained of the Townshend revenue scheme. Ships loaded with this cheap tea came into the several American ports and were received with different marks of odium at different places. In Boston, after peaceful attempts to prevent the landing proved of no avail, an impromptu band of Indians threw the tea overboard, so that the next morning saw it lying like seaweed on Dorchester beach.
This outrage, as it was viewed in England, caused a general demand for repressive measures, and the five “intolerable acts” were passed and sent oversea to do the last irremediable mischief.[73] Boston’s port was closed until the town should pay for the tea. Massachusetts’ charter was annulled, its town-meetings irksomely restrained, and its government so changed that its executive officers would all be under the king’s control. Two other acts provided for the care and judicial privileges of the soldiers who soon came to enforce the acts. Finally, great offence was given the Protestant colonies by granting religious freedom to the Catholics of Quebec, and the bounds of that colony were extended to the Ohio River,[74] thus arousing all the colonies claiming Western lands. Except in the case of Virginia, there was no real attack on their territorial integrity, but in the excitement there seemed to be.
Some strong incentive for the colonies to act together had long been the only thing needed to send the flame of rebellion along the whole sea-coast. When the British soldiers began the enforcement of the punishment meted to Boston, sympathy and fear furnished the common bond. After several proposals of an intercolonial congress, the step was actually taken on a call from oppressed Massachusetts (June 17, 1774).[75] Delegates from every colony except Georgia met in Philadelphia in September, 1774. Seven of the twelve delegations were chosen not by the regular assemblies, but by revolutionary conventions called by local committees; while in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, three of the remaining five states, the assemblies that sent the delegates were wholly dominated by the revolutionary element. Local committees may therefore be said to have created the congress, and they would now stand ready to enforce its will.
The assembled congress adopted a declaration of rights, but their great work was the forming an American association to enforce a non-importation and non-consumption agreement.[76] Local committees were to see that all who traded with England or refused to associate were held up as enemies of their country. The delegates provided for a new congress in the following May, and adjourned.
Meanwhile, General Gage and his “pretorian guard” in Boston were administering the government of Massachusetts with noteworthy results. A general court of the colony was summoned by Gage, who, repenting, tried to put it off; but it met, formed a provincial congress, and, settling down at Cambridge, governed the whole colony outside of Boston. It held the new royal government to be illegal, ordered the taxes paid to its own receiver instead of Gage’s, and organized a militia. Gage at last determined to disarm the provincials. His raid to destroy the stores at Concord (April 19, 1775) resulted in an ignominious retreat and the loss of two hundred and seventy-three men, to say nothing of bringing sixteen thousand patriots swarming about Boston.
II
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR, 1775
Though mainly social and economic forces brought the revolution to the stage of open warfare, a Massachusetts politician had so used these forces that both his friends and enemies thought the blame or the honor to be his. Samuel Adams began to desire independence as early as 1768. From that time it was his unwearying effort to keep alive the opposition to the British ministry. For years he sought to instil in the minds of rising youths the notion of independence. His adroit mind, always awake and tireless, toiled for but one end; and he was narrow-minded enough to be a perfect politician. Two opposing views could never occupy his mind at the same time. For sharp practices he had no aversion, but he used them for public good, as he saw it, and not for private gain. He was a public servant, great or small, from his earliest manhood—as inspector of chimneys, tax-collector, or moderator of town-meetings. He was ever a failure in business; in politics, shrewd and able. The New England town-meeting was the theatre of his action;[77] he directed the Boston meetings, and the other towns followed. His tools were men. He was intimate with all classes, from the ship-yard roustabouts to the ministers of the gospel. In the canvass and caucus he was supreme. Others were always in the foreground, thinking that theirs was the glory. An enemy said that he had an unrivalled “talent for artfully and fallaciously insinuating” malice into the public mind. A friend dubbed him the “Colossus of debate.” He was ready in tact and cool in moments of excitement; his reasoning and eloquence had a nervous simplicity, though there was little of fire, and he was sincere rather than rhetorical.
Adams was of medium stature, but in his most intense moments he attained to a dignity of figure and gesture. His views were clear and his good sense abundant, so that he always received profound attention. Prematurely gray, palsied in hand, and trembling in voice, yet he had a mental audacity unparalleled. He was dauntless himself, and thus roused and fortified the people. Nor were his efforts confined to the town-meeting, for he was also a voluminous newspaper writer. He showed no tolerance for an opponent, and his attacks were keenly felt. “Damn that Adams. Every dip of his pen stings like a horned snake,” cried an enemy. Thus he went on canvassing, caucusing, haranguing, and writing until the maddened Gage attempted to seize him and the munitions of war which he and his fellow-politicians had induced the colony to collect. Concord and Lexington and the pursuit into Boston were the results.
At the close of that long day of fighting (April 19, 1775) it was plain that war had begun, and the Massachusetts politicians who had pushed matters to that stage may well have had misgivings. A single colony could have no hope of success, and there was little in the past to make one believe that the thirteen colonies would unite even to defend their political liberties. Franklin gave a vivid picture of their different forms of government, different laws, different interests, and, in some instances, different religious persuasions and different manners.[78] Their jealousy of one another was, he declared, “so great that, however necessary a union of the colonies has long been for their common defence, ... yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves.” They were more jealous of each other than of England, and though plans for union had been proposed by their ablest statesmen, they had refused to consider them.[79] There were long-standing disputes between neighboring colonies over boundaries, over relations with the Indians, and over matters of trade.
The greatest danger, however, that confronted the American cause was political division on the subject of the relations with England. As the quarrel with the mother-country grew more bitter, it was seen that the British government had many friends in America who, if they did not defend the action of the ministry, at least frowned upon the violent opposition to it. They believed that America’s best interests lay in the union with Great Britain. The aristocracy of culture, of dignified professions and callings, of official rank and hereditary wealth tended to side with the central government.[80] The more prosperous and contented men had no grievances, and conservatism was the character one would expect in them. They denounced the agitators as demagogues and their followers as “the mob.”
Through the long ten years of unrest preceding the Revolution, these Tories, as they were called, had suffered at the hands of mobs, and now, when Gage was powerless outside of Boston, an active persecution of them began.[81] Millers refused to grind their corn, labor would not serve them, and they could neither buy nor sell. Men refused to worship in the same church with them. They were denounced as “infamous betrayers of their country.” Committees published their names, “sending them down to posterity with the infamy they deserve.” After the siege of Boston had begun, those who were even suspected of Toryism, as their support of the king was called, were regarded as enemies in the camp. The Massachusetts committees compelled them to sign recantations or confined them in jails for refusal. If they escaped they were pursued with hue and cry.
Some fled to other colonies, but found that, “like Cain, they had some discouraging mark upon them.” In exile they learned that the patriot wrath visited their property: their private coaches were burned or pulled in pieces. A rich importer’s goods were destroyed or stolen, and his effigy was hung up in sight of his house during the day and burned at night. Beautiful estates, where was “every beauty of art or nature, every elegance, which it cost years of care and toil in bringing to perfection,” were laid waste. Looking upon this work of ruin, a despairing loyalist cried that the Americans were “as blind and mad as Samson, bent upon pulling the edifice down upon their heads to perish in the ruins.”
The violence of the patriots’ attack upon the loyalists seemed for a time to eliminate the latter from the struggle. The friends of royal power in America expected too much, and while the king’s enemies were organizing they waited for him to crush the rising rebellion. They looked on with wonder as the signal flew from one local committee to another over thirteen colonies, who now needed only a glowing fact like Lexington to fuse them into one defensive whole. The news reached Putnam’s Connecticut farm in a day; Arnold, at New Haven, had it the next day, and in four days it had reached New York.[82] Unknown messengers carried it through Philadelphia, past the Chesapeake, on to Charleston, and within twenty days the news in many garbled forms was evoking a common spirit of patriotism from Maine to Georgia. It was commonly believed that America must be saved from “abject slavery” by the bands of patriots encompassing Boston.
The farmers and mechanics who had hurried from their work to drive the British from Concord into Boston were not an army. They settled down in a great half-circle around the port with a common purpose of compelling Gage to take to his ships, but with no definite plan. Confusion was everywhere. Men were coming and going, and there were no regular enlistments.[83] A few natural leaders were doing wonders in holding them together.[84] Among them the brave and courteous Joseph Warren, the warm friend of Samuel Adams and zealous comrade in the recent work of agitation, was conquering insubordination by the manly modesty and gentleness of his character. Others who were old campaigners of the French and Indian wars worked ceaselessly to bring order out of chaos.
Yet not even the fanatic zeal of the siege could banish provincial jealousies. There were as many leaders as there were colonies represented. New Hampshire men were led by John Stark, a hero of the French war; Connecticut men were under Israel Putnam, more picturesque as a wolf-slayer than able as a leader. Nathanael Greene, the philosophic and literary blacksmith, commanded the Rhode Island militia.[85] It was with difficulty that “the grand American army,” as the Massachusetts congress called it, finally intrusted the chief command to General Artemas Ward, who, in turn, was controlled by the Massachusetts committee of safety.
Even with some organization and a leader there was little outward semblance of an army. In the irregular dress, brown and green hues were the rule. Uniforms like those of the British regulars, the hunting-shirt of the backwoodsman, and even the blankets of savages were seen side by side in the ranks of the first patriot armies. There was little distinction between officer and private.[86] Each company chose its own officers out of the ranks,[87] and the private could not understand why he should salute his erstwhile friend and neighbor or ask his permission to go home. The principle of social democracy was carried into military life to the great detriment of the service. Difference in rank was ignored by the officers themselves, who in some cases did menial work about camp to curry favor with their men.
Fortunately, there was in this raw militia a good leaven of soldiers seasoned and trained in the war with France. These men led expeditions to the islands of Boston Harbor in the effort to get the stock before it should be seized by the British.[88] Numerous slight engagements resulted, turning favorably, as a rule, for the patriots, and the new recruits gained courage with experience. Thus nearly two months passed away, and an elated patriot wrote that “danger and war are become pleasing, and injured virtue is now aroused to avenge herself.”
The only way to drive Gage out of Boston was to seize one of the commanding hill-tops either in Dorchester or Charlestown, whence they might open a cannonade on the city. Gage saw this danger, and with the arrival of reinforcements under Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne a plan was made to get control of the dangerous hill-tops. With ten thousand well-equipped soldiers to pit against an ill-trained and poorly commanded multitude of farmers the task seemed easy. After trying to terrify the rebels by threatening with the gallows all who should be taken with arms, and offering to pardon those who would lay them down, Gage prepared to execute this plan. The patriots forestalled him by sending twelve hundred men under the veteran Colonel Prescott to seize Bunker Hill, in Charlestown.
VII
THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, 1775.
In May, 1775, the British force in Boston had increased by fresh arrivals from England and Ireland to ten thousand men. The man-of-war Cerberus arrived on the 25th with Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne—three officers experienced in the military tactics of Europe, but little prepared for service here. They were surprised at the aspect of affairs, and Gage was reproached for his apparent supineness. However, unity of action was necessary, and the new-comers heartily co-operated with Gage in his plans, such as they were, for dispersing the rebel host that hemmed him in. He issued a proclamation on June 12 insulting in words and menacing in tone. It declared martial law; pronounced those in arms and their abettors “rebels, parricides of the Constitution,” and offered a free pardon to all who would forthwith return to their allegiance, except John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were outlawed, and for whose apprehension as traitors a reward was offered. This proclamation, so arrogant and insulting, served only to exasperate the people. In the mean while several skirmishes had occurred between parties of the British regulars and the provincials, upon some of the cultivated islands that dot the harbor of Boston.
At this time (May, 1775) but little progress had been made by the Americans in erecting fortifications. Some breastworks had been thrown up at Cambridge, near the foot of Prospect Hill, and a small redoubt had been formed at Roxbury. The right wing of the besieging army, under General Thomas, was at Roxbury, consisting of four thousand Massachusetts troops, including four artillery companies, with field-pieces and a few heavy cannon. The Rhode Island forces, under Greene, were at Jamaica Plains, and near there was a greater part of General Spencer’s Connecticut regiment. General Ward commanded the left wing at Cambridge, which consisted of fifteen Massachusetts regiments, the battalion of artillery under Gridley, and Putnam’s regiment, with other Connecticut troops. Most of the Connecticut forces were at Inman’s farm. Paterson’s regiment was at the breastwork on Prospect Hill, and a large guard was stationed at Lechmere’s Point. Three companies of Gerrish’s regiment were at Chelsea; Stark’s regiment was at Medford, and Reid’s at Charlestown Neck, with sentinels reaching to Penny Ferry and Bunker Hill.
It was made known to the Committee of Safety that General Gage had fixed upon the night of June 18 to take possession of and fortify Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights. This brought matters to a crisis, and measures were taken to perfect the blockade of Boston. The Committee of Safety ordered Colonel Prescott, with a detachment of one thousand men, including a company of artillery, with two field-pieces, to march at night and throw up intrenchments upon Bunker Hill, an eminence just within the peninsula of Charlestown, and commanding the great northern road from Boston, as well as a considerable portion of the town. Bunker Hill begins at the isthmus, and rises gradually for about three hundred yards, forming a round, smooth hill, sloping on two sides toward the water, and connected by a ridge of ground on the south with the heights now known as Breed’s Hill. This was a well-known public place, the name, “Bunker Hill,” being found in the town records and in deeds from an early period. Not so with “Breed’s Hill,” for it was not named in any description of streets previous to 1775, and appears to have been called after the owners of the pastures into which it was divided, rather than by the common name of Breed’s Hill. Thus, Monument Square was called Russell’s Pasture; Breed’s Pasture lay farther south, and Green’s Pasture was at the head of Green Street. The easterly and westerly sides of this height were steep. On the east, at its base, were brick-kilns, clay-pits, and much sloughy land. On the west side, at the base, was the most settled part of the town. Moulton’s Point, a name coeval with the settlement of the town, constituted the southeastern corner of the peninsula. A part of this tract formed what is called Morton’s Hill. Bunker Hill was one hundred and ten feet high, Breed’s Hill sixty-two feet, and Moulton’s Hill thirty-five feet. The principal street of the peninsula was Main Street, which extended from the Neck to the ferry. A road ran over Bunker Hill, around Breed’s Hill, to Moulton’s Point. The westerly portions of these eminences contained fine orchards.
A portion of the regiments of Prescott, Frye, and Bridge, and a fatigue party of two hundred Connecticut troops with intrenching tools, paraded in the Cambridge camp at six o’clock in the evening. They were furnished with packs and blankets, and ordered to take provisions for twenty-four hours. Samuel Gridley’s company of artillery joined them, and the Connecticut troops were placed under the command of Thomas Knowlton, a captain in Putnam’s regiment, who was afterward killed in the battle on Harlem Heights. After an impressive prayer from the lips of President Langdon, of Harvard College, Colonel Prescott and Richard Gridley, preceded by two servants with dark lanterns, commenced their march, at the head of the troops, for Charlestown. It was about nine o’clock at night, the sky clear and starry, and the weather very warm. Strict silence was enjoined, and the object of the expedition was not known to the troops until they arrived at Charlestown Neck, where they were joined by Major Brooks, of Bridge’s regiment, and General Putnam. A guard of ten men was placed in Charlestown, and the main body marched over Bunker Hill. A council was held, to select the best place for the proposed fortification. The order was explicit, to fortify Bunker Hill; but Breed’s Hill being nearer Boston, and appearing to be a more eligible place, it was concluded to proceed to fortify it, and to throw up works, also, on Bunker Hill, to cover a retreat, if necessary, across Charlestown Neck. Colonel Gridley marked out the lines of the proposed fortifications, and, at about midnight, the men, having thrown off their packs and stacked their arms, began their perilous work—perilous, because British sentinels and British ships-of-war were almost within sound of their picks.
Officers and men labored together with all their might, with pickaxes and spades, and were cheered on in their work by the distant signals of safety—“All’s well!”—that came from the shipping and the sentinels at the foot of Copp’s Hill. It proclaimed that they were still undiscovered; and at every cry of “All’s well!” they plied their tools with increased vigor. When the day dawned, at about four o’clock, they had thrown up intrenchments six feet high; and a strong redoubt, which was afterward the admiration of the enemy, loomed up on the green height before the wondering eyes of the astonished Britons like a work of magic. The British officers could hardly be convinced that it was the result of a few hours’ labor only, but deemed it the work of days. Gage saw at once how foolish he had been in not taking possession of this strong point, as advised, while it was in his power to do so.
The fortification was first discovered at dawn, by the watchmen on board the British man-of-war Lively. Without waiting for orders, the captain put springs upon his cables, and opened a fire on the American works. The noise of the cannon aroused the sleepers in Boston, and when the sun arose on that bright morning, every eminence and roof in the city swarmed with people, astonished at the strange apparition upon Breed’s Hill. The shots from the Lively did no harm, and, defended by their intrenchments, the Americans plied their tools in strengthening their works within, until called to lay aside the pick and shovel for gun and knapsack.
PLAN OF THE REDOUBT ON BREED’S HILL
On June 17 Admiral Graves, the naval commander at Boston, ordered the firing to cease; but it was soon renewed, not only by the shipping, but from a battery of six guns upon Copp’s Hill in the city. Gage summoned a council of war early in the morning. As it was evident that the Americans were rapidly gaining strength, and that the safety of the town was endangered, it was unanimously resolved to send out a force to drive them from the peninsula of Charlestown and destroy their works on the heights. It was decided, also, to make the attack in front, and preparations were made accordingly. The drums beat to arms, and Boston was soon in a tumult. Dragoons galloping, artillery trains rumbling, and the marching and countermarching of the regulars and loyalists, together with the clangor of the church bells, struck dismay into many a heart before stout in the presence of British protectors. It is said that the danger which surrounded the city converted many Tories into patriots; and the selectmen, in the midst of that fearful commotion, received large accessions to their list of professed friends from the ranks of the timid loyalists.
Toward noon between two and three thousand picked men from the British army, under the command of General Sir William Howe and General Pigot, embarked in twenty-eight barges, part from the Long Wharf and some from the North Battery, in Boston, and landed at Morton’s, or Moulton’s Point, beyond the eastern foot of Breed’s Hill, covered by the guns of the Falcon and other vessels.
The Americans had worked faithfully on their intrenchments all the morning, and were greatly encouraged by the voice and example of Prescott, who exposed himself, without care, to the random shots of the battery on Copp’s Hill. He supposed, at first, that the enemy would not attack him, but, seeing the movements in the city, he was convinced to the contrary, and comforted his toiling troops with assurances of certain victory. Confident of such a result himself, he would not at first send to General Ward for a reinforcement; but between nine and ten o’clock, by advice of his officers, Major Brooks was dispatched to headquarters for that purpose. General Putnam had urged Ward early in the morning to send fresh troops to relieve those on duty; but only a portion of Stark’s regiment was allowed to go, as the general apprehended that Cambridge would be the principal point of attack. Convinced otherwise, by certain intelligence, the remainder of Stark’s regiment, and the whole of Reed’s corps, on the Neck, were ordered to reinforce Prescott. At twelve o’clock the men in the redoubt ceased work, sent off their intrenching tools, took some refreshments, hoisted the New England flag, and prepared to fight. The intrenching tools were sent to Bunker Hill, where, under the directions of General Putnam, the men began to throw up a breastwork. Some of the more timid soldiers made the removal of the tools a pretext for leaving the redoubt, and never returned.
It was between twelve and one o’clock when the British troops, consisting of the fifth, thirty-eighth, forty-third, and fifty-second battalions of infantry, two companies of grenadiers, and two of light infantry, landed, their rich uniforms and arms flashing and glittering in the noonday sun, making an imposing and formidable display. General Howe reconnoitred the American works, and, while waiting for reinforcements, which he had solicited from Gage, allowed his troops to dine. When the intelligence of the landing of the enemy reached Cambridge, two miles distant, there was great excitement in the camp and throughout the town. The drums beat to arms, the bells were rung, and the people and military were speedily hurrying in every direction. General Ward used his own regiment, and those of Paterson and Gardner and a part of Bridge’s, for the defence of Cambridge. The remainder of the Massachusetts troops were ordered to Charlestown, and thither General Putnam conducted those of Connecticut.
At about two o’clock the reinforcement for Howe arrived, and landed at the present navy-yard. It consisted of the Forty-seventh battalion of infantry, a battalion of marines, and some grenadiers and light infantry. The whole force (about four thousand men) was commanded and directed by the most skilful British officers then in Boston; and every man preparing to attack the undisciplined provincials was a drilled soldier, and quite perfect in the art of war. It was an hour of the deepest anxiety among the patriots on Breed’s Hill. They had observed the whole martial display, from the time of the embarkation until the forming of the enemy’s line for battle. For the Americans, as yet, very little succor had arrived. Hunger and thirst annoyed them, while the labors of the night and morning weighed them down with excessive fatigue. Added to this was the dreadful suspicion that took possession of their minds, when only feeble reinforcements arrived, that treachery had placed them there for the purpose of sacrifice. Yet they could not doubt the patriotism of their principal officers, and before the action commenced their suspicions were scattered to the winds by the arrival of their beloved Doctor Warren and General Pomeroy. Warren, who was president of the Provincial Congress, then sitting at Watertown, seven miles distant, informed of the landing of the enemy, hastened toward Charlestown, though suffering from sickness and exhaustion. He had been commissioned a major-general four days before. Putnam, who was at Cambridge, forwarding provisions and reinforcements to Charlestown, tried to dissuade him from going into the battle. Warren was not to be diverted from his purpose, and, mounting a horse, he sped across the Neck and entered the redoubt, amid the loud cheers of the provincials, just as Howe gave orders to advance. Colonel Prescott offered the command to Warren, as his superior, when the latter replied, “I am come to fight as a volunteer, and feel honored in being allowed to serve under so brave an officer.”
While the British troops were forming, and preparing to march along the Mystic River for the purpose of flanking the Americans and gaining their rear, the artillery, with two field-pieces, and Captain Knowlton, with the Connecticut troops, left the redoubt, took a position near Bunker Hill, and formed a breastwork seven hundred feet in length, which served an excellent purpose. A little in front of a strong stone and rail fence, Knowlton built another, and between the two was placed a quantity of new-mown grass. This apparently slight breastwork formed a valuable defence to the provincials.
It was now three in the afternoon. The provincial troops were placed in an attitude of defence as the British column moved slowly forward to the attack. Colonel Prescott and the original constructors of the redoubt, except the Connecticut troops, were within the works. General Warren also took post in the redoubt. Gridley and Callender’s artillery companies were between the breastworks and rail fence on the eastern side. A few troops, recalled from Charlestown after the British landed, and a part of Warner’s company, lined the cart-way on the right of the redoubt. The Connecticut and New Hampshire forces were at the rail fence on the west of the redoubt, and three companies were stationed in the main street at the foot of Breed’s Hill.
GENERAL PLAN OF THE BATTLE
Before General Howe moved from his first position he sent out strong flank guards, and directed his heavy artillery to play upon the American line. At the same time a blue flag was displayed as a signal, and the guns upon Copp’s Hill and the ships and floating batteries in the river poured a storm of round-shot upon the redoubt. A furious cannonade was opened at the same moment upon the right wing of the provincial army at Roxbury, to prevent reinforcements being sent by General Thomas to Charlestown. Gridley and Callender, with their field-pieces, returned a feeble response to the heavy guns of the enemy. Gridley’s guns were soon disabled; while Callender, who alleged that his cartridges were too large, withdrew to Bunker Hill. Putnam was there, and ordered him back to his first position. He disobeyed, and nearly all his men, more courageous than he, deserted him. In the meanwhile, Captain Walker, of Chelmsford, with fifty resolute men, marched down the hill near Charlestown and greatly annoyed the enemy’s left flank. Finding their position very perilous, they marched over to the Mystic, and did great execution upon the right flank. Walker was there wounded and made prisoner, but the greater part of his men succeeded in gaining the redoubt.
Under cover of the discharges of artillery the British army moved up the slope of Breed’s Hill toward the American works in two divisions, General Howe with the right wing, and General Pigot with the left. The former was to penetrate the American lines at the rail fence; the latter to storm the redoubt. They had not proceeded far before the firing of their artillery ceased, in consequence of discovering that balls too large for the field-pieces had been sent over from Boston. Howe ordered the pieces to be loaded with grape; but they soon became useless, on account of the miry ground at the base of the hill. Small arms and bayonets now became their reliance.
Silently the British troops, burdened with heavy knapsacks, toiled up the ascent toward the redoubt in the heat of a bright summer’s sun. All was silent within the American intrenchments, and very few provincials were to be seen by the approaching battalions; but within those breastworks, and in reserve behind the hills, crouched fifteen hundred determined men, ready, at a prescribed signal, to fall upon the foe. The provincials had but a scanty supply of ammunition, and, to avoid wasting it by ineffectual shots, Prescott gave orders not to fire until the enemy were so near that the whites of their eyes could be seen. “Then,” he said, “aim at their waistbands; and be sure to pick off the commanders, known by their handsome coats!” The enemy were not so sparing of their powder and ball, but when within gunshot of the apparently deserted works commenced a random firing. Prescott could hardly restrain his men from responding, and a few did disobey his orders and returned the fire. Putnam hastened to the spot, and threatened to cut down the first man who should again disobey orders, and quiet was restored. At length the enemy reached the prescribed distance, when, waving his sword over his head, Prescott shouted, “Fire!” Terrible was the effect of the volley that ensued. Whole platoons of the British regulars were laid upon the earth like grass by the mower’s scythe. Other deadly volleys succeeded, and the enemy, disconcerted, broke and fled toward the water. The provincials, joyed at seeing the regulars fly, wished to pursue them, and many leaped the rail fence for the purpose; but the prudence of the American officers kept them in check, and in a few minutes they were again within their works, prepared to receive a second attack from the British troops, that were quickly rallied by Howe. Colonel Prescott praised and encouraged his men, while General Putnam rode to Bunker Hill to urge on reinforcements. Many had arrived at Charlestown Neck, but were deterred from crossing by the enfilading fire of the Glasgow and two armed gondolas near the causeway. Portions of regiments were scattered upon Bunker Hill and its vicinity, and these General Putnam, by entreaties and commands, endeavored to rally. Colonel Gerrish, who was very corpulent, became completely exhausted by fatigue; and other officers, wholly unused to warfare, coward-like kept at a respectful distance from danger. Few additional troops could be brought to Breed’s Hill before the second attack was made.
The British troops, reinforced by four hundred marines from Boston, under Major Small, accompanied by Doctor Jeffries, the army surgeon, advanced toward the redoubt in the same order as at first, General Howe boldly leading the van, as he had promised. It was a mournful march over the dead bodies of scores of their fellow soldiers; but with true English courage they pressed onward, their artillery doing more damage to the Americans than at the first assault. It had moved along the narrow road between the tongue of land and Breed’s Hill, and when within a hundred yards of the rail fence, and on a line with the breastworks, opened a galling fire, to cover the advance of the other assailants. In the meanwhile, a carcass and some hot shot were thrown from Copp’s Hill into Charlestown, which set the village on fire. The houses were chiefly of wood, and in a short time nearly two hundred buildings were in flames, shrouding in dense smoke the heights in the rear whereon the provincials were posted. Beneath this veil the British hoped to rush unobserved up to the breastworks, scale them, and drive the Americans out at the point of the bayonet. At that moment a gentle breeze, which appeared to the provincials like the breath of a guardian angel—the first zephyr that had been felt on that sultry day—came from the west and swept the smoke away seaward, exposing to the full view of the Americans the advancing columns of the enemy, who fired as they approached, but with little execution. Colonels Brener, Nixon, and Buckminster were wounded, and Major Moore was killed. As before, the Americans reserved their fire until the British were within the prescribed distance, when they poured forth their leaden hail with such sure aim and terrible effect that whole ranks of officers and men were slain. General Howe was at the head, and once he was left entirely alone, his aids and all about him having perished. The British line recoiled, and gave way in several parts, and it required the utmost exertion in all the remaining officers, from the generals down to the subalterns, to repair the disorder which this hot and unexpected fire had produced. All their efforts were at first fruitless, and the troops retreated in great disorder to the shore.
General Clinton, who had beheld the progress of the battle with mortified pride, seeing the regulars repulsed a second time, crossed over in a boat, followed by a small reinforcement, and joined the broken army as a volunteer. Some of the British officers remonstrated against leading the men a third time to certain destruction; but others, who had ridiculed American valor, and boasted loudly of British invincibility, resolved on victory or death. The incautious loudness of speech of a provincial, during the second attack, declaring that the ammunition was nearly exhausted, gave the enemy encouraging and important information. Howe immediately rallied his troops and formed them for a third attack, but in a different way. The weakness of the point between the breastwork and the rail fence had been discovered by Howe, and thitherward he determined to lead the left wing with the artillery, while a show of attack should be made at the rail fence on the other side. His men were ordered to stand the fire of the provincials, and then make a furious charge with bayonets.
So long were the enemy making preparations for a third attack that the provincials began to imagine that the second repulse was to be final. They had time to refresh themselves a little and recover from that complete exhaustion which the labor of the day had produced. It was too true that their ammunition was almost exhausted, and, being obliged to rely upon that for defence, as comparatively few of the muskets were furnished with bayonets, they began to despair. The few remaining cartridges within the redoubt were distributed by Prescott, and those soldiers who were destitute of bayonets resolved to club their arms and use the breeches of their guns when their powder should be gone. The loose stones in the redoubt were collected for use as missiles if necessary, and all resolved to fight as long as a ray of hope appeared.
During this preparation on Breed’s Hill, all was confusion elsewhere. General Ward was at Cambridge, without sufficient staff-officers to convey his orders. Henry (afterward General) Knox was in the reconnoitring service, as a volunteer, during the day, and upon his reports Ward issued his orders. Late in the afternoon, the commanding general despatched his own, with Paterson and Gardner’s regiments, to the field of action; but to the raw recruits the aspect of the narrow Neck was terrible, swept as it was by the British cannon. Colonel Gardner succeeded in leading three hundred men to Bunker Hill, where Putnam set them intrenching, but soon ordered them to the lines. Gardner was advancing boldly at their head, when a musket-ball entered his groin and wounded him mortally. His men were thrown into confusion, and very few of them engaged in the combat that followed, until the retreat commenced. Other regiments failed to reach the lines. A part of Gerrish’s regiment, led by Adjutant Christian Febiger, a Danish officer, who afterward accompanied Arnold to Quebec and was distinguished at Stony Point, reached the lines just as the action commenced, and effectually galled the British left wing. Putnam, in the mean time, was using his utmost exertions to form the confused troops on Bunker Hill and get fresh corps with bayonets across the Neck.
All was order and firmness at the redoubt on Breed’s Hill as the enemy advanced. The artillery of the British swept the interior of the breastwork from end to end, destroying many of the provincials, among whom was Lieutenant Prescott, a nephew of the colonel commanding. The remainder were driven within the redoubt, and the breastwork was abandoned. Each shot of the provincials was true to its aim, and Colonel Abercrombie and Majors Williams and Speedlove fell. Howe was wounded in the foot, but continued fighting at the head of his men. His boats were at Boston, and retreat he could not. His troops pressed forward to the redoubt, now nearly silent, for the provincials’ last grains of powder were in their guns. Only a ridge of earth separated the combatants, and the assailants scaled it. The first that reached the parapet were repulsed by a shower of stones. Major Pitcairn, who led the troops at Lexington, ascending the parapet, cried out, “Now for the glory of the marines!” and was immediately shot by a negro soldier. Again numbers of the enemy leaped upon the parapet, while others assailed the redoubt on three sides. Hand to hand the belligerents struggled, and the gun-stocks of many of the provincials were shivered to pieces by the heavy blows they were made to give. The enemy poured into the redoubt in such numbers that Prescott, perceiving the folly of longer resistance, ordered a retreat. Through the enemy’s ranks the Americans hewed their way, many of them walking backward and dealing deadly blows with their musket-stocks. Prescott and Warren were the last to leave the redoubt. Colonel Gridley, the engineer, was wounded, and borne off safely. Prescott received several thrusts from bayonets and rapiers in his clothing, but escaped unhurt. Warren was the last man that left the works. He was a short distance from the redoubt, on his way toward Bunker Hill, when a musket-ball passed through his head, killing him instantly. He was left on the field, for all were flying in the greatest confusion, pursued by the victors, who remorselessly bayoneted those who fell in their way.
Major Jackson had rallied Gardner’s men upon Bunker Hill, and, pressing forward with three companies of Ward’s, and Febiger’s party from Gerrish’s regiment, poured a destructive fire upon the enemy between Breed’s and Bunker Hill, and bravely covered the retreat from the redoubt. The Americans at the rail fence, under Stark, Reed, and Knowlton, reinforced by Clark, Coit, and Chester’s Connecticut companies and a few other troops, maintained their ground, in the meanwhile, with great firmness, and successfully resisted every attempt of the enemy to turn their flank. This service was very valuable, for it saved the main body, retreating from the redoubt, from being cut off. But when these saw their brethren, with the chief commander, flying before the enemy, they too fled. Putnam used every exertion to keep them firm. He commanded, pleaded, cursed and swore like a madman, and was seen at every point in the van trying to rally the scattered corps, swearing that victory should crown the Americans. “Make a stand here!” he exclaimed; “we can stop them yet! In God s name, fire and give them one shot more!” The gallant old Pomeroy, also, with his shattered musket in his hand, implored them to rally, but in vain. The whole body retreated across the Neck, where the fire from the Glasgow and gondolas slew many of them. They left five of their six field-pieces and all their intrenching tools upon Bunker Hill, and they retreated to Winter Hill, Prospect Hill, and to Cambridge. The British, greatly exhausted, and properly cautious, did not follow, but contented themselves with taking possession of the peninsula. Clinton advised an immediate attack upon Cambridge, but Howe was too cautious or too timid to make the attempt. His troops lay upon their arms all night on Bunker Hill, and the Americans did the same on Prospect Hill, a mile distant. Two British field-pieces played upon them, but without effect, and, both sides feeling unwilling to renew the action, hostilities ceased. The loss of the Americans in this engagement was one hundred and fifteen killed and missing, three hundred and five wounded, and thirty who were taken prisoners; in all, four hundred and fifty. The British loss is not positively known. Gage reported two hundred and twenty-six killed, and eight hundred and twenty-eight wounded; in all, ten hundred and fifty-four. In this number are included eighty-nine officers. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, from the best information they could obtain, reported the British loss at about fifteen hundred. The number of buildings consumed in Charlestown, before midnight, was about four hundred; and the estimated loss of property (most of the families, with their effects, having moved out) was nearly six hundred thousand dollars.
The number engaged in this battle was small, yet contemporary writers and eye-witnesses represent it as one of the most determined and severe on record. There was absolutely no victory in the case. The most indomitable courage was displayed on both sides; and when the provincials had retired but a short distance, so wearied and exhausted were all that neither party desired more fighting, if we except Colonel Prescott, who earnestly petitioned to be allowed to lead a fresh corps that evening and retake Breed’s Hill. It was a terrible day for Boston and its vicinity, for almost every family had a representative in one of the two armies. Fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers were in the affray, and deep was the mental anguish of the women of the city, who, from roofs and steeples and every elevation, gazed with streaming eyes upon the carnage, for the battle raged in full view of thousands of interested spectators in the town and upon the adjoining hills. In contrast with the terrible scene were the cloudless sky and brilliant sun.[89]
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF
BUNKER HILL, 1775, AND THE
BATTLE OF SARATOGA, 1777
1775. Washington conducts the siege of Boston. The Americans take Montreal. Unsuccessful assaults on Quebec. Settlement of Kentucky by Daniel Boone.
1776. The British evacuate Boston. The British repulsed at Charleston, S. C. The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence. The British, under Howe and Clinton, defeat the Americans, under Putnam and Sullivan, in the battle of Long Island. The British occupy New York. The Americans defeated at White Plains. Washington surprises the Hessians at Trenton.
1777. Washington is victorious at Princeton. Burgoyne takes Ticonderoga. The Americans are victorious at Bennington. Washington defeated by Howe in the battle of the Brandywine. Battle of Stillwater. The British enter Philadelphia. Repulse of Washington at Germantown. Battle of Saratoga.
VIII
THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA, 1777.
In 1777 the British ministry had planned, in addition to the operations of the main army against Philadelphia, an invasion from Canada, apprehensions of which had led the Americans into their late unsuccessful attempt to conquer that province. Such supplies of men or money as they asked for were readily voted; but in England, as well as in America, enlistments were a matter of difficulty. Lord George Germaine was possessed with an idea, of which Sir William Howe found it very difficult to disabuse him, that recruits might be largely obtained among the American loyalists. In spite, however, of all the efforts of Tryon, Delancey, and Skinner, the troops of that description hardly amounted as yet to twelve hundred men; and Howe complained, not without reason, of the tardiness of the ministers in filling up his army.
* * * * *
The American Northern Department, again placed under the sole command of Schuyler, had been so bare of troops during the winter that serious apprehensions had been felt lest Ticonderoga might be taken by a sudden movement from Canada over the ice. The Northern army was still very feeble; and the regiments designed to reinforce it filled up so slowly, notwithstanding the offer of large additional bounties, that Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire were obliged to resort to a kind of conscription, a draft of militia men to serve for twelve months as substitutes till the regiments could be filled. In forming the first New England army, the enlistment of negro slaves had been specially prohibited; but recruits of any color were now gladly accepted, and many negroes obtained their freedom by enlistment.
The Middle and Southern colonies, whence Washington’s recruits were principally to come, were still more behind-hand. Of the men enlisted in those states, many were foreign-born, redemptioners, or indented servants, whose attachment to the cause could not fully be relied upon. Congress had offered bounties in land to such Germans as might desert from the British, and Howe now retorted by promising rewards in money to foreigners deserting the American service. Congress, as a countervailing measure, at Washington’s earnest request relinquished a plan they had adopted of stopping a portion of the pay of the indented servants in the army as a compensation to their masters for loss of service. That compensation was left to be provided for at the public expense, and the enlisted servants were all declared freemen.
Washington was still at Morristown, waiting with no little anxiety the movements of the British. The expected reinforcements and supplies, especially tents, the want of which had kept Howe from moving, had at last arrived. Burgoyne had assumed the command in Canada; but what his intentions were Washington did not know—whether he would advance by way of Lake Champlain, or, what seemed more probable, would take shipping in the St. Lawrence and join Howe in New York. Nor could he tell whether Howe would move up the Hudson to co-operate with Burgoyne, or whether he would attempt Philadelphia; and if so, whether by land or water.
Philadelphia, however, seemed the most probable object of attack; and the more effectually to cover that city, leaving Putnam in the Highlands with a division of Eastern troops, Washington, on May 28th, moved to a piece of strong ground at Middlebrook, about twelve miles from Princeton. He had with him forty-three battalions, arranged in ten brigades and five divisions; but these battalions were so far from being full that the whole amounted to only eight thousand men.
On June 13th Howe marched out of New Brunswick with a powerful army, designing apparently to force his way to Philadelphia. Washington called to his aid a large part of the troops in the Highlands; the New Jersey militia turned out in force; Arnold, to whom had been assigned the command at Philadelphia, was busy with Mifflin in preparing defences for the Delaware. It was Howe’s real object, not so much to penetrate to Philadelphia as to draw Washington out of his intrenchments and to bring on a general engagement, in which, upon anything like equal ground, the British general felt certain of victory. With that intent he made a sudden and rapid retreat, evacuated New Brunswick even, and fell back to Amboy. The bait seemed to take; the American van, under Stirling, descended to the low grounds, and Washington moved with the main body to Quibbletown. But when Howe turned suddenly about and attempted to gain the passes and heights on the American left, Washington, ever on the alert, fell rapidly back to the strong ground at Middlebrook. In this retrograde movement Stirling’s division lost a few men and three pieces of artillery; but the American army was soon in a position in which Howe did not choose to attack it.
Defeated in this attempt to bring on a general action, and having made up his mind to approach Philadelphia by water, the British commander, on June 30th, withdrew into Staten Island, where he embarked the main body of his army, not less than sixteen thousand strong, leaving Clinton, who had been lately honored with the Order of the Bath, to hold New York with five thousand men, and, by expeditions up the Hudson and into New Jersey, to co-operate as well with Burgoyne as with the attack upon Philadelphia.
Washington knew from spies, of whom he always had a number in New York, that a fleet of transports was fitting out there, but its destination was kept secret. Perhaps Howe meant to proceed up the Hudson to co-operate with Burgoyne; and the probability of such a movement seemed to be increased by the arrival of news that Burgoyne was advancing up Lake Champlain. Perhaps, with the same object of aiding Burgoyne, Howe might make an attempt upon Boston, thus finding employment at home for the New England militia and preventing any reinforcements to Schuyler’s army. Under these impressions, Washington moved slowly toward the Hudson; but when the British fleet went to sea, he retraced his steps toward the Delaware; and news arriving that the ships had been seen off Cape May, he advanced to Germantown. Instead of entering the Delaware, the British fleet was presently seen steering to the eastward, and all calculations were thus again baffled. It was thought that Howe was returning to New York or had sailed for New England, and the army was kept ready to march at a moment’s notice. Washington, in the interval, proceeded to Philadelphia and there had an interview with Congress.
* * * * *
The force in Canada at Burgoyne’s disposal had been a good deal underrated by Washington and by Congress; nor could they be induced to believe that anything was intended in that quarter beyond a feigned attack upon Ticonderoga, in order to distract attention from Philadelphia. Hence the less pains had been taken to fill up the ranks of the Northern army, which, indeed, was much weaker than Congress had supposed. At least ten thousand men were necessary for the defence of Ticonderoga alone; but St. Clair, who commanded there, had only three thousand, very insufficiently armed and equipped. The posts in the rear were equally weak.
It was a part of Burgoyne’s plan not merely to take Ticonderoga, but to advance thence upon Albany, and, with the co-operation of the troops at New York, to get possession also of the posts in the Highlands. The British would then command the Hudson through its whole extent, and New England, the head of the rebellion, would be completely cut off from the Middle and Southern colonies.
Burgoyne started on this expedition with a brilliant army of eight thousand men, partly British and partly Germans, besides a large number of Canadian boatmen, laborers, and skirmishers. On the western shore of Lake Champlain, near Crown Point, he met the Six Nations in council, and, after a feast and a speech, some four hundred of their warriors joined his army. His next step, on June 29th, was to issue a proclamation, in a very grandiloquent style, setting forth his own and the British power, painting in vivid colors the rage and fury of the Indians, so difficult to be restrained, and threatening with all the extremities of war all who should presume to resist his arms.
Two days after the issue of this proclamation, Burgoyne appeared before Ticonderoga. He occupied a steep hill which overlooked the fort, and which the Americans had neglected because they thought it inaccessible to artillery. Preparations for attack were rapidly making, and St. Clair saw there was no chance for his troops except in instant retreat. The baggage and stores, placed in bateaux, under convoy of five armed galleys, the last remains of the American flotilla, were despatched, on July 6th, up the narrow southern extremity of the lake to Skenesborough, now Whitehall, toward which point the troops retired by land, in a southeasterly direction, through the New Hampshire Grants.
While General Fraser pursued the retreating troops, followed by General Riedesel with a corps of Germans, Burgoyne forced the obstructions opposite Ticonderoga, and, embarking several regiments, he speedily overtook the American stores and baggage, all of which fell into his hands.
BURGOYNE’S ROUTE
The garrison of Skenesborough, informed of Burgoyne’s approach, set fire to the works and retreated up Wood Creek to Fort Anne, a post about half-way to the Hudson. They had a sharp skirmish with a British regiment which followed them; but, other troops coming up, they set fire to the buildings at Fort Anne and retired to Fort Edward.
The van of St. Clair’s troops, at the end of their first day’s march, had reached Castleton, a distance of thirty miles from Ticonderoga; but the rear, which included many stragglers, and amounted to twelve hundred men, contrary to St. Clair’s express orders, stopped short at Hubberton, six miles behind, where they were overtaken on the morning of July 7th and attacked by Fraser. One of the regiments fled disgracefully, leaving most of their officers to be taken prisoners. The two other regiments, under Francis and Warner, made a stout resistance, but when Riedesel came up with his Germans they too gave way. Francis was killed, and many with him; some two hundred were taken prisoners. Those who escaped, though dispersed for the moment, reached St. Clair in detached parties. Warner, with some ninety men, came up two days after the battle. This was at Rutland, to which place St. Clair, having heard of the fall of Skenesborough had continued his retreat. For some time his whereabouts was unknown, but, after a seven days’ march, he joined Schuyler at Fort Edward, on the Hudson. Here was assembled the whole force of the Northern army, amounting to about five thousand men; but a considerable part were militia hastily called in, many were without arms, there was a great deficiency of ammunition and provisions, and the whole force was quite disorganized.
The region between Skenesborough and the Hudson was an almost unbroken wilderness. Wood Creek was navigable as far as Fort Anne; from Fort Anne to the Hudson, over an exceedingly rough country, covered with thick woods and intersected by numerous streams and morasses, extended a single military road. While Burgoyne halted a few days at Skenesborough to put his forces in order and to bring up the necessary supplies, Schuyler hastened to destroy the navigation of Wood Creek by sinking impediments in its channel, and to break up the bridges and causeways, of which there were fifty or more on the road from Fort Anne to Fort Edward. At all those points where the construction of a side passage would be difficult he ordered trees to be felled across the road with their branches interlocking. All the stock in the neighborhood was driven off, and the militia of New England was summoned to the rescue.
The loss of Ticonderoga, with its numerous artillery, and the subsequent rapid disasters came like a thunderbolt on Congress and the Northern States. “We shall never be able to defend a post,” wrote John Adams, President of the Board of War, in a private letter, “till we shoot a general.” Disasters, the unavoidable result of weakness, were ascribed to the incapacity or cowardice of the officers. Suggestions of treachery even were whispered, and the prejudices of the New-Englanders against Schuyler broke out with new violence. In the anger and vexation of the moment, all the Northern generals were recalled, and an inquiry was ordered into their conduct; but the execution of this order was suspended on the representation of Washington that the Northern army could not be left without officers. Washington shared the general surprise and vexation, but he had confidence in Schuyler, and he did all in his power to reinforce the Northern army. Two brigades from the Highlands, Morgan with his rifle corps, the impetuous Arnold, and Lincoln, a great favorite with the Massachusetts militia, were ordered to the Northern Department. Washington declined the selection of a new commander tendered to him by Congress, and that selection, guided by the New England members, fell upon Gates.
Burgoyne meanwhile issued a new proclamation for a convention of ten deputies from each township, to assemble at Castleton, to confer with Governor Skene, and to take measures for the re-establishment of the royal authority. Schuyler, in a counter-proclamation, threatened the utmost rigor of the law of treason against all who complied with Burgoyne’s propositions. Subsequently to the Declaration of Independence, the inhabitants of Vermont had organized themselves into an independent state, had applied to Congress for admission into the Union, and had adopted a constitution. A Continental regiment had been raised and officered in Vermont, of which Warner had been commissioned as colonel. But Congress, through the influence of New York, disclaimed any intention to countenance the pretensions of Vermont to independence; and the Vermont petition for admission into the Union had been lately dismissed with some asperity. If Burgoyne, however, founded any hopes of defection upon this circumstance, he found himself quite mistaken.
The advance from Skenesborough cost the British infinite labor and fatigue; but, beyond breaking up the roads and placing obstacles in their way, Schuyler was not strong enough to annoy them. These impediments were at length overcome; and Burgoyne, with his troops, artillery, and baggage, presently appeared on the banks of the Hudson. The British army hailed with enthusiasm the sight of that river, object of their toil, which they had reached on July 29th with great efforts indeed, but with an uninterrupted career of success and a loss of not above two hundred men.
It now only remained for the British to force their way to Albany; nor did it seem likely that Schuyler could offer any serious resistance. His army, not yet materially increased, was principally composed of militia without discipline, the troops from the eastward being very little inclined to serve under his orders and constantly deserting. Fort Edward was untenable. As the British approached, the Americans crossed the river, and retired, first to Saratoga, and then to Stillwater, a short distance above the mouth of the Mohawk.
Hardly had Schuyler taken up this position when news arrived of another disaster and a new danger. While moving up Lake Champlain, Burgoyne had detached Colonel St. Leger, with two hundred regulars, Sir John Johnson’s Royal Greens, some Canadian Rangers, and a body of Indians under Brant, to harass the New York frontier from the west. On August 3d St. Leger laid siege to Fort Schuyler, late Fort Stanwix, near the head of the Mohawk, then the extreme western post of the State of New York. General Herkimer raised the militia of Tryon County, and advanced to the relief of this important post, which was held by Gansevoort and Willett, with two New York regiments. About six miles from the fort, owing to want of proper precaution, Herkimer, on August 6th, fell into an ambush. Mortally wounded, he supported himself against a stump and encouraged his men to the fight. By the aid of a successful sally by Willett, they succeeded at last in repulsing the assailants, but not without a loss of four hundred, including many of the leading patriots of that region, who met with no mercy at the hands of the Indians and refugees.
Tryon County, which included the whole district west of Albany, abounded with Tories. It was absolutely necessary to relieve Fort Schuyler, lest its surrender should be the signal for a general insurrection. Arnold volunteered for that service, and was despatched by Schuyler with three regiments; with the rest of his army he withdrew into the islands at the confluence of the Mohawk and the Hudson, a more defensible station than the camp at Stillwater.
The command of Lake George, as well as of Lake Champlain, had passed into the hands of the British. That lake furnished a convenient means of transportation; a large quantity of provisions and stores for the British army had arrived at Fort George, and Burgoyne was exerting every effort for their transportation to his camp on the Hudson. The land carriage was only eighteen miles, but the roads were so bad and the supply of draught cattle so small that, after a fortnight’s hard labor, the British army had only four days’ provisions in advance.
“To try the affections of the country, to mount Riedesel’s Dragoons, to complete Peter’s Corps of Loyalists, and to obtain a large supply of cattle, horses, and carriages,” so Burgoyne expressed himself in his instructions, it was resolved to send a strong detachment into the settlements on the left. Colonel Baum was sent on this errand, with two pieces of artillery and eight hundred men, dismounted German dragoons and British marksmen, with a body of Canadians and Indians, and Skene and a party of Loyalists for guides.
Langdon, the principal merchant at Portsmouth, and a member of the New Hampshire council, having patriotically volunteered the means to put them in motion, a corps of New Hampshire militia, called out upon news of the loss of Ticonderoga, had lately arrived at Bennington under the command of Stark. Disgusted at not having been made a brigadier, Stark had resigned his Continental commission as colonel, and, in agreeing to take the leadership of the militia, had expressly stipulated for an independent command. On that ground he had just declined to obey an order from Lincoln to join the main army—a piece of insubordination which might have proved fatal, but which, in the present case, turned out otherwise. Informed of Baum’s approach, Stark sent off expresses for militia and for Warner’s regiment, encamped at Manchester, and joined by many fugitives since the battle of Hubberton. Six miles from Bennington, on the appearance of Stark’s forces (August 14th), Baum began to intrench himself, and sent back to Burgoyne for reinforcements. The next day was rainy, and Stark, also expecting reinforcements, delayed the attack. Baum improved the interval in throwing up intrenchments. Breyman marched to his assistance, but was delayed by the rain and the badness of the roads, which also kept back Warner’s regiment. Having been joined on August 16th by some Berkshire militia under Colonel Simmons, Stark drew out his forces, and about noon approached the enemy. “There they are!” exclaimed the rustic general—“we beat to-day, or Molly Stark’s a widow!” The assault was made in four columns, in front and rear at the same time, and after a hot action of two hours the intrenchments were carried. The Indians and provincials escaped to the woods; the Germans were mostly taken or slain. The battle was hardly over, and Stark’s men were in a good deal of confusion, when, about four in the afternoon, Breyman was seen coming up. Warner’s regiment luckily arrived at the same time. The battle was renewed and kept up till dark, when Breyman abandoned his baggage and artillery, and made the best retreat he could. Besides the killed, about two hundred in number, the Americans took near six hundred prisoners, a thousand stand of arms, as many swords, and four pieces of artillery—a seasonable supply for the militia now flocking in from all quarters. The American loss was only fourteen killed and forty-two wounded.
Just at the moment when a turn in the affairs of the Northern Department became fully apparent, the two brigades from the Highlands having arrived, and the militia fast pouring in, Schuyler, much to his mortification, was superseded by Gates on August 22d. He still remained, however, at Albany, and gave his assistance toward carrying on the campaign. The day after Gates assumed the command, Morgan arrived with his rifle corps, five hundred strong, to which were presently added two hundred and fifty picked men under Major Dearborn, of Scammell’s New Hampshire regiment.
The victory of Stark had a magical effect in reviving the spirits of the people and the courage of the soldiers. Indignation was also aroused by the cruelties reported of Burgoyne’s Indian allies. A most pathetic story was told of one Jenny McRea, murdered by Indians near Fort Edward. Her family were Loyalists; she herself was engaged to be married to a Loyalist officer. She was dressed to receive her lover, when a party of Indians burst into the house, carried off the whole family to the woods, and there murdered, scalped, and mangled them in the most horrible manner. Such, at least, was the story as told in a letter of remonstrance from Gates to Burgoyne. Burgoyne, in his reply, gave, however, a different account. According to his version, the murder was committed by two Indians sent by the young lady’s lover to conduct her for safety to the British camp. They quarrelled on the way respecting the division of the promised reward, and settled the dispute by killing the girl. Even this correction hardly lessened the effect of the story or diminished the detestation so naturally felt at the employment of such barbarous allies.
The artful Arnold, while on his march for the relief of Fort Schuyler, had sent into St. Leger’s camp a very exaggerated account of his numbers. The Indians, who had suffered severely in the battle with Herkimer, and who had glutted their vengeance by the murder of prisoners, seized with a sudden panic, deserted in large numbers. On August 22d, two days before Arnold’s arrival, St. Leger himself precipitately retired, leaving his tents standing and the greater part of his stores and baggage to fall into Arnold’s hands. On returning to Gates’ camp, Arnold received the command of the left wing.
These checks were not without their effect on the Six Nations. Burgoyne’s Indians began to desert him—an example which the Canadians soon followed. The Onondagas and some of the Mohawks joined the Americans. Through the influence of the missionary Kirkland, the Oneidas had all along been favorably disposed. It was only the more western clans, the Cayugas, Tuscaroras, and Senecas, which adhered firmly during the war to the British side.
The American army being now about six thousand strong, besides detached parties of militia under General Lincoln, which hung upon the British rear, Gates left his island camp, and presently occupied Behmus’ Heights, a spur from the hills on the west side of the Hudson, jutting close upon the river. By untiring efforts, Burgoyne had brought forward thirty days’ provisions, and, having thrown a bridge of boats over the Hudson, he crossed to Saratoga. With advanced parties in front to repair the roads and bridges, his army slowly descended the Hudson—the Germans on the left, by a road close along the river; the British, covered by light infantry, provincials, and Indians, by the high ground on the right.
Gates’ camp on the brow of Behmus’[90] Heights formed a segment of a circle, convex toward the enemy. A deep intrenchment extended to the river on the right, covered not only by strong batteries, but by an abrupt and thickly wooded ravine descending to the river. From the head of this ravine, toward the left, the ground was level and partially cleared, some trees being felled and others girdled. The defences here consisted of a breastwork of logs. On the extreme left, a distance of three-quarters of a mile from the river, was a knoll, a little in the rear, crowned by strong batteries, and there was another battery to the left of the centre. Between the two armies were two more deep ravines, both wooded. An alarm being given about noon of September 19th that the enemy was approaching the left of the encampment, Morgan was sent forward with his riflemen. Having forced a picket, his men, in the ardor of pursuit, fell unexpectedly upon a strong British column, and were thrown into temporary confusion. Cilley’s and Scammell’s New Hampshire regiments were ordered out to reinforce him. Hale’s regiment of New Hampshire, Van Courtlandt’s and Henry Livingston’s of New York, and two regiments of Connecticut militia were successively led to the field, with orders to extend to the left and support the points where they perceived the greatest pressure. About three o’clock the action became general, and till nightfall the fire of musketry was incessant. The British had four field-pieces; the ground occupied by the Americans, a thick wood on the borders of an open field, did not admit the use of artillery. On the opposite side of this field, on a rising ground, in a thin pine wood, the British troops were drawn up. Whenever they advanced into the open field, the fire of the American marksmen drove them back in disorder; but when the Americans followed into the open ground the British would rally, charge, and force them to fall back. The field was thus lost and won a dozen times in the course of the day. At every charge the British artillery fell into possession of the Americans, but the ground would not allow them to carry off the pieces, nor could they be kept long enough to be turned on the enemy. Late in the afternoon, the British left being reinforced from the German column, General Learned was ordered out with four regiments of Massachusetts and another of New York. Something decisive might now have occurred, but the approach of night broke off the contest, and the Americans withdrew to their camp, leaving the field in possession of the British. They encamped upon it, and claimed the victory; but, if not a drawn battle, it was one of those victories equivalent to a defeat. The British loss was upward of five hundred, the American less than three hundred. To have held their ground in the circumstances in which the armies stood was justly esteemed by the Americans a decided triumph.
In anticipation of an action, Gates had ordered the detached corps to join him. Stark, with the victors of Bennington, had arrived in camp the day before. Their term of service, however, expired that day; and satisfied with laurels already won, in spite of all attempts to detain them, they marched off the very morning of the battle. In consideration of his courage and good conduct at Bennington, Congress overlooked the insubordination of Stark, which, in a resolution just before, they had pointedly condemned, and he was presently elected a brigadier. Howe and McDougall about the same time were chosen major-generals.
Before receiving Gates’ orders to join the main body, a party of Lincoln’s militia, led by Colonel Brown, had surprised the posts at the outlet of Lake George on September 17th, and had taken three hundred prisoners, also several armed vessels and a fleet of bateaux employed in transporting provisions up the lake. Uniting with another party under Colonel Johnson, they approached Ticonderoga and beleaguered it for four days. Burgoyne’s communications thus entirely cut off, his situation became very alarming, and he began to intrench. His difficulties increased every moment. Provisions were diminishing, forage was exhausted, the horses were perishing. To retreat with the enemy in his rear was as difficult as to advance.
A change of circumstances not less remarkable had taken place in the American camp. Gates’ army was increasing every day. The battle of Behmus’ Heights was sounded through the country as a great victory, and, the harvest being now over, the militia marched in from all sides to complete the overthrow of the invaders. Lincoln, with the greater part of his militia, having joined the army on September 22d, he received the command of the right wing. Arnold, on some quarrel or jealousy on the part of Gates, had been deprived, since the late battle, of his command of the left wing, which Gates assumed in person. Gates was neither more able nor more trustworthy than Schuyler; but the soldiers believed him so, and zeal, alacrity, and obedience had succeeded to doubts, distrust, and insubordination. Yet Gates was not without his difficulties. The supply of ammunition was very short, and the late change in the commissariat department, taking place in the midst of the campaign, made the feeding of the troops a matter of no little anxiety.
BEHMUS’ OR BEMIS’ HEIGHTS
Disposition of troops, October 7th
There was still one hope for Burgoyne. A letter in cipher, brought by a trusty messenger from Clinton, at New York, informed him of an intended diversion up the Hudson; and, could he maintain his present position, he might yet be relieved. But his troops, on short allowance of provisions, were already suffering severely, and it was necessary either to retreat or to find relief in another battle. To make a reconnaissance of the American lines, he drew out fifteen hundred picked men on October 7th and formed them less than a mile from the American camp. The two camps, indeed, were hardly cannon-shot apart. As soon as Burgoyne’s position was discovered his left was furiously assailed by Poor’s New Hampshire brigade. The attack extended rapidly to the right, where Morgan’s riflemen manœuvred to cut off the British from their camp. Gates did not appear on the field any more than in the former battle; but Arnold, though without any regular command, took, as usual, a leading part. He seemed under the impulse of some extraordinary excitement, riding at full speed, issuing orders, and cheering on the men. To avoid being cut off from the camp, the British right was already retreating, when the left, pressed and overwhelmed by superior numbers, began to give way. The gallant Fraser was mortally wounded, picked off by the American marksmen; six pieces of artillery were abandoned; and only by the greatest efforts did the British troops regain their camp. The Americans followed close upon them, and, through a shower of grape and musketry, assaulted the right of the British works. Arnold forced an entrance; but he was wounded, his horse was shot under him as he rode into one of the sally-ports, and his column was driven back. Colonel Brooks, at the head of Jackson’s regiment of Massachusetts, was more successful. He turned the intrenchments of a German brigade, forced them from the ground at the point of the bayonet, captured their camp equipage and artillery, and, what was of still more importance, and a great relief to the American army, an ample supply of ammunition. The repeated attempts of the British to dislodge him all failed, and he remained at night in possession of the works. Darkness at length put an end to the fighting; but the Americans slept on their arms, prepared to renew it the next morning. The advantages they had gained were decisive. The British had lost four hundred men in killed, wounded, and prisoners; artillery, ammunition, and tents had been captured; and the possession of a part of the works by the Americans would enable them to renew the attack the next day with every chance of success. For the safety of the British army a change of position was indispensable; and, while the Americans slept, the British general, with skill and intrepidity, order and silence, drew back his discomfited troops to some high grounds in the rear, where the British army appeared the next morning (October 8th) drawn up in order of battle. That day was spent in skirmishes. While attempting to reconnoitre, General Lincoln was severely wounded and disabled from further service. Fraser was buried on a hill he had designated, amid showers of balls from the American lines. The Baroness de Riedesel, who followed the camp with her young children, and whose quarters were turned into a sort of hospital for the wounded officers, has left a pathetic account of the horrors of that day and of the retreat that followed.
To avoid being surrounded, Burgoyne was obliged to abandon his new position, and, with the loss of his hospitals and numerous sick and wounded, to fall back to Saratoga on October 9th. The distance was only six miles; but the rain fell in torrents, the roads were almost impassable, the bridge over the Fishkill had been broken down by the Americans, and this retrograde movement consumed an entire day. The same obstacles prevented, however, any serious annoyance from the American troops. During this retreat, the better to cover the movements of the army, General Schuyler’s house at Saratoga and extensive saw-mills were set on fire and destroyed. A body of artificers, sent forward under a strong escort to repair the bridge toward Fort Edward, found that road and the ford across the Hudson already occupied by the Americans. The fleet of bateaux, loaded with the British supplies and provisions, was assailed from the left bank of the river, and many of the boats were taken. The lading of the others was only saved by a most laborious and difficult transportation, under a sharp American fire, up the steep river-bank to the heights occupied by the British army. Even the camp itself was not safe; grape and rifle balls fell in the midst of it.
Burgoyne’s situation was truly deplorable. He had heard nothing further from New York, and his effective force was now reduced to four thousand men, surrounded by an enemy three times as numerous, flushed with success, and rapidly increasing. All the fords and passes toward Lake George were occupied and covered by intrenchments, and, even should the baggage and artillery be abandoned, there was no hope of forcing a passage. An account of the provisions on hand (October 13th) showed only three days’ supply. The troops, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, and conscious of their hopeless situation, could not be depended on, especially should the camp be attacked. A council of war, to which not field officers only, but all the captains commandant were summoned, advised to open a treaty of capitulation.
Gates demanded, at first, an unconditional surrender; but to that Burgoyne would not submit. The American commander was the less precise about terms, and very eager to hasten matters, lest he too might be attacked in the rear. He knew, though Burgoyne did not, that the intended diversion from New York, delayed for some time to await the arrival of forces from Europe, had at length been successfully made, and that all the American posts in the Highlands had fallen into the hands of the British. Should Burgoyne continue to hold out, this new enemy might even make a push on Albany.
The main defences of the Highlands, Forts Clinton and Montgomery, on the west bank of the Hudson, separated from each other by a small stream, and too high to be battered from the water, were surrounded by steep and rugged hills which made the approach to them on the land side very difficult. To stop the ascent of the enemy’s ships, frames of timber, with projecting beams shod with iron, had been sunk in the channel. A boom, formed of great trees fastened together, extended from bank to bank, and in front of this boom was stretched a huge iron chain. Above these impediments several armed vessels were moored. On an island a few miles higher up, and near the eastern bank of the river, was Fort Constitution, with another boom and chain. Near the entrance of the Highlands, and below the other posts, Fort Independence occupied a high point of land on the east bank of the river. It was at Peekskill, just below Fort Independence, that the commanding officer in the Highlands usually had his headquarters. The two brigades sent to the Northern army, and other detachments which Washington had himself been obliged to draw from the Highlands, had so weakened the regular garrison that Washington became much alarmed for the safety of that important post. The remainder of the New York militia, not under arms in the Northern Department, had been called out by Governor Clinton to supply the place of the detached regulars; other militia had been sent from Connecticut; but, as no signs of immediate attack appeared, and as the harvest demanded their services at home, Putnam allowed most of them to return. Half the New York militia were ordered back again by Clinton, but before they had mustered the posts were lost. Putnam was at Peekskill with the main body of the garrison, which amounted in the whole to not more than two thousand men. While a party of the enemy amused him with the idea that Fort Independence was their object, a stronger party landed lower down, on the other side of the river, and, pushing inland through the defiles of the Highlands, approached Forts Clinton and Montgomery, of which the entire garrison did not exceed six hundred men. Before assistance could be sent by Putnam—indeed, before he knew of the attack—the forts, much too extensive to be defended by so small a force, were both taken on October 5th. Governor Clinton, who commanded, his brother, General James Clinton, and a part of the garrison availed themselves of the knowledge of the ground and escaped across the river, but the Americans suffered a loss of two hundred and fifty in killed and prisoners. Fort Constitution was immediately evacuated by the few troops that held it, and two new Continental frigates, with some other vessels, were set on fire to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy. Even Peekskill and Fort Independence were abandoned, the stores being conveyed to Fishkill, whither Putnam retired with his forces. The booms and chains were removed, so that ships could pass up; and a British detachment under Tryon burned Continental Village, a new settlement on the east side of the river, where many public stores were deposited.
DISPOSITION OF TROOPS FROM OCTOBER 11TH TILL THE SURRENDER, OCTOBER 17TH
Informed of these movements, and very anxious to have Burgoyne’s army out of the way, Gates agreed, on October 16th, that the British troops should march out of their camp with the honors of war, should lay down their arms, and be conducted to Boston, there to embark for England, under an engagement not to serve against the United States till exchanged. Having heard from a deserter of the advance of Clinton, Burgoyne hesitated to ratify the treaty; but, on consideration and consultation with his officers, he did not choose to run the risk of breaking it. The prisoners included in this capitulation were five thousand six hundred and forty-two; the previous losses of the army amounted to near four thousand more. The arms, artillery, baggage, and camp equipage became the property of the captors. The German regiments contrived to save their colors by cutting them from the staves, rolling them up, and packing them away with Madame de Riedesel’s baggage.
As soon as the garrison of Ticonderoga heard of the surrender, they hastily destroyed what they could and retired to Canada. Putnam no sooner heard of it than he sent pressing despatches for assistance. The British had proceeded as high up as Esopus, which they burned about the very time that Burgoyne was capitulating. Putnam had been already joined by some three thousand militia, to which a large detachment from Gates’ army was soon added. As it was now too late to succor Burgoyne, having dismantled the forts in the Highlands, the British returned to New York, carrying with them sixty-seven pieces of heavy artillery and a large quantity of provisions and ammunition. Before their departure they burned every house within their reach—a piece of malice ascribed to Tryon and his Tories.
The capture of a whole British army,[91] lately the object of so much terror, produced, especially in New England, an exultation proportionate to the recent alarm. The military reputation of Gates, elevated to a very high pitch, rivalled even the fame of Washington, dimmed as it was by the loss of Philadelphia, which, meanwhile, had fallen into the enemy’s hands. The youthful Wilkinson, who had acted during the campaign as deputy adjutant-general of the American army, and whose Memoirs contain the best account of its movements, being sent to Congress with news of the surrender, was henceforth honored with a brevet commission as brigadier-general; which, however, he speedily resigned when he found a remonstrance against this irregular advancement sent to Congress by forty-seven colonels of the line. The investigation into Schuyler’s conduct resulted, a year afterward, in his acquittal with the highest honor. He insisted, however, on resigning his commission, though strongly urged by Congress to retain it. But he did not relinquish the service of his country, in which he continued as active as ever, being presently chosen a member of Congress.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF
SARATOGA, 1777, AND THE BATTLE
OF YORKTOWN, 1781
1777. Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation. Stars and Stripes adopted. British evacuate New York. British occupy Philadelphia. American winter-quarters at Valley Forge, in December.
1778. France recognizes the independence of the United States. The British evacuate Philadelphia. The battle of Monmouth. France declares war against England. The Wyoming Valley Massacre. Battle of Rhode Island. The British enter Savannah. General George Rogers Clark conquers the “Old Northwest.”
1779. Storming of Stony Point by the Americans. Paul Jones, in the Bon Homme Richard, is victorious over the British frigate Serapis. The British win the engagement of Brier Creek. Spain declares war against Great Britain. Congress guaranties the Floridas to Spain if she takes them from Great Britain, provided the United States should have free navigation on the Mississippi.
1780. Lincoln surrenders to Clinton at Charleston. Defeat of Gates by Cornwallis in the first battle of Camden. Treason of Benedict Arnold. Capture and execution of André. The British are defeated at King’s Mountain.
1781. American victory at Cowpens. The ratification of the Articles of Confederation by the several states completed. Greene is defeated by Cornwallis at Guilford Court-House. The British are victorious at Hobkirk’s Hill (second battle of Camden). New London burned by Arnold. Battle of Eutaw Springs. Washington and Rochambeau, aided by the French fleet under Count de Grasse, besiege Cornwallis in Yorktown. Surrender of Cornwallis.
IX
YORKTOWN AND THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS (1781)
The year 1781 opened with small promise of a speedy ending of the American struggle for independence. New York remained in the hands of the English. Cornwallis was confident of success in the South. But Greene’s brilliant campaigning and Lafayette’s strategy left Cornwallis with a wearied army devoid of any fruits of victory, and, finally returning to the seaboard, he settled himself at Yorktown. Washington, before New York, had watched the Southern campaigns closely. Word came from the Count de Grasse that the French fleet under his command was ready to leave the West Indies and join in operations in Virginia. Washington at once planned a new campaign, destined to prove of peculiar brilliancy. He was joined by Rochambeau’s French army from Newport. Clinton, the British commander in New York, was tricked into believing that the city was to be closely besieged. But the American and French armies, six thousand strong, passed by New York in a race through Princeton and Philadelphia to Chesapeake Bay, which they reached on September 5th, the day that De Grasse entered with his fleet to join the other French fleet which had been set free from Newport. De Grasse maintained his command of Chesapeake Bay in spite of the futile attack of Admiral Graves and the British fleet. If Rodney, who had sailed for England, had been in Graves’ place the outcome might have been different. A defeat of De Grasse would have meant British control of the water and a support for Cornwallis, which would have saved his army and ruined Washington’s plans. Yorktown affords one of the striking illustrations in Captain Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power upon History.—Editor.