The expected land attack from Clinton's troops, already ashore on Long Island, was not made. A strong wind had raised the waters of the channel between that island and Sullivan's Island so high that it could not be forded, and suitable boats for the passage were not at hand.[505] A few days later the shattered vessels and the troops left the neighborhood, and Colonel Moultrie had leisure to count the costs of his victory, which was twelve killed and twice as many wounded. The courage of Sergeant Jasper, in replacing on the bastion a flag which had been shot away, became at once a household anecdote.[506]
[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]
THE earliest attempt with any precision to enumerate the various sources of information upon the whole series of military events about Boston during 1775 and 1776 was by Richard Frothingham, in the notes of his Siege of Boston (1849), where, in an appendix, he groups together the principal authorities. Later than this, Barry (Massachusetts, iii. ch. 1), Dawson (Battles, vol. i.), and others had been full in footnotes; but the next systematized list of sources was printed by Justin Winsor in 1875, in the Bulletin of the Boston Public Library. This last enumeration was somewhat extended in the Bunker Hill Memorial, published by the city of Boston,[507] and still more so by the same writer in his Handbook of the American Revolution, Boston, 1879. It is condensed in the Memorial Hist. of Boston, iii. 117.
Salem, because of a little alleged pricking of bayonets when Leslie's expedition was harassed there in February, 1775, has sometimes claimed to have witnessed the first shedding of blood in the war. The principal monograph on the subject is C. M. Endicott's Account of Leslie's retreat at the North Bridge in Salem, on Sunday, Feb. 26, 1775 (Salem, 1856).[508] Early resistance to British arms, and even bloodshed in the act, had undoubtedly occurred before the affair at Lexington, and writers have cited the mob at Golden Hill,[509] in New York, and the massacre at Westminster, in the New Hampshire Grants, when an armed body of settlers arose against the authority of the king, as asserted in favor of the jurisdiction of New York in March, 1775.[510]
The precipitation of warfare, however, can only be connected with the expedition to Lexington and Concord. Every stage of the affair has been invested with interest by discussion and illustration. The ride of Paul Revere to give warning has grown to be a household tale in the spirited verse of Longfellow; but, as is the case with almost all of that poet's treatments of historical episodes, he has paid little attention to exactness of fact, and has wildly, and often without poetic necessity, turned the channels of events. In literary treatment, the events of Lexington and Concord form so distinct a group of references that they can be best considered in a later note (A), as can also the sources of information respecting the fight at Bunker Hill (B).
Of the siege of Boston, the chief monograph is Frothingham's, already referred to. Other contributions of a monographic nature are the address and chronicle of the siege by Dr. George E. Ellis in the Evacuation Memorial of the City of Boston (1876); W. W. Wheildon's Siege and Evacuation of Boston and Charlestown (Boston, 1876, pp. 64); and the chapters on the siege in Dawson's Battles of the United States, vol. i., and Carrington's Battles of the Revolution (1876).[511]
Among the general historians, Bancroft has made an elaborate study of the siege, devoting to it a large part of his vol. viii. (orig. edition), and all the histories of the United States, Massachusetts, and Boston necessarily cover it.[512]
The principal of the later British historians is Mahon, in his Hist. of England, vol. vi. Lecky (England in the Eighteenth Century, ii. ch. 12), while he goes little into details, gives an admirable account of the two respective camps. The Life of Burgoyne, by Fonblanque, is the fullest of the biographies of the actors on the British side.
On the American side, the lives of leading officers all necessarily yield to those of Washington,[513] whose letters, as contained in vol. iii. of Sparks's ed. of his Writings, can well be supplemented by those of Reed, then his secretary.[514] Of the contemporary general historians, Gordon and Mercy Warren were familiar with the actors of the time. The Journals of the Continental Congress and of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts follow the development of events, and show how in some ways the legislation shaped them.[515] Contemporary records and comments are garnered in Almon's Remembrancer, Force's Archives, Niles's Principles and Acts of the Revolution, and Moore's Diary of the Amer. Revolution. The life and daily routine of both camps are to be traced in abundant orderly books, diaries, and correspondence, of which the register is given in the notes (C and D) following this essay.