Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution Part 26

Charles Martyn describes Artemas Ward's arrival in Cambridge in his biography of the general, pp. 8990. For information on General John Thomas, I have relied on Charles Coffin's Life and Services of Major General John Thomas, pp. 38. On recruitment in Ma.s.sachusetts during the French and Indian wars, see Fred Anderson, A People's Army, pp. 3948. The resolution that the recruitment of enslaved African Americans reflected "dishonor on this colony" is in the May 20, 1775, minutes of the Committee of Safety, JEPC, p. 553. Joseph Tinker Buckingham in Specimens of Newspaper Literature, vol. 2, tells of how Benjamin Russell and his cla.s.smates found themselves marooned in Cambridge and how they attached themselves to the officers of the provincial army (p. 4). Paul Revere relates the conversation that followed Benjamin Church's announcement that he had decided to pay a visit to Boston, as well as how Church pointed out the stain of blood on his stockings, in "A Letter ... to the Corresponding Secretary," pp. 11011. Lysander Salmon Richards in his History of Marshfield tells of the wine closet Nesbitt Balfour built in the cellar of the Thomas house during the winter of 1775 (pp. 11718). Allen French provides a detailed account of the militia's tentative and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to prevent Balfour's detachment from escaping from Marshfield in FYAR, pp. 2830. My thanks to J. L. Bell in a personal communication for pointing out that Isaac Bissell's first name was changed to Israel as the result of a copyist's mistake as the message about the fighting at Lexington was carried from town to town. For an account of Bissell's ride from Boston to New York and the spread of news of the fighting at Lexington throughout the colonies, see John Schiede, "The Lexington Alarm," pp. 4750, 6275. For the activities of the Provincial Congress on April 22 and 23, 1775, see JEPC, pp. 14750.

On Gage's negotiations with the town and the April 27 surrender of thousands of firearms on the part of the Boston residents as well as the loyalists' insistence that the agreement not be honored, see Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston (HSOB), pp. 9496. John Andrews tells of his decision to stay in Boston despite his wife's decision to flee in an April 24, 1775, letter in LJA, pp. 4056. Andrew Eliot writes of his intention to stay in Boston in a May 31, 1775, letter at MHS, in which he also writes of the "gra.s.s growing in the public walks and streets"; Eliot writes of "more than nine thousand" Bostonians having left the city in a June 19, 1775, letter to Isaac Smith, in MHS Proceedings, 1878, p. 287. Peter Oliver describes the town as "a perfect skeleton" in OPAR, p. 124. By March 1776 the British army in Boston had reached 8,906 men, including officers: see DAR 10:246. An April 25, 1775, intelligence report to Gage states that "Colo. Putnam proposes [attacking Boston from the Neck] by advancing large bodies of screwed hay before them"; the report also claims that "flat boats" are being built by the provincials in Watertown and Cambridge, in PIR, 3:198485; an April 30 intelligence report claims "that they had returns last evening from Wellfleet, upon the Cape Cod sh.o.r.e, that three hundred whale boats were ready, and they still talk of burning the ships," PIR, 3:1987; a May 28 intelligence report claims that there is a provincial plan to "make their way good into town by boats, numbers of which of the whale boat kind are provided, from Nantucket, Cape Cod and all that coast to the amount of 500," in PIR, 3:1994. Paul Litchfield writes of the whaleboats pa.s.sing along the Scituate sh.o.r.e in a June 10, 1775, entry of his Diary, p. 378. On May 27, 1775, fifty whaleboats were confiscated from Nantucket by provincial forces and taken to Cape Cod for ultimate delivery to the Boston area, as described in Edouard Stackpole's Nantucket in the American Revolution, p. 15.

My account of the race between the Quero and Sukey depends on Robert Rantoul, "The Cruise of the Quero," pp. 14, and James Duncan Phillips, Salem in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 36467. Josiah Quincy Jr.'s final wishes are recorded in the end of his London Journal in Portrait of a Patriot, vol. 1, edited by Daniel Coquillette and Neil Longley York, pp. 26769. Joseph Warren's April 27, 1775, letter to Arthur Lee appears in Frothingham's LJW, p. 471. The resolves providing annuities for artillery officers William Burbeck and Richard Gridley are in JEPC, pp. 153, 157. Allen French provides a good summary of Benedict Arnold's activities in Boston as well as during the taking of Ticonderoga in FYAR, pp. 14952; the evolution of the Committee of Safety's decision to employ Arnold in this "secret service" can be traced in JEPC, pp. 531, 532, 534. Samuel Forman points out that the powder Warren gave to Arnold's expedition to Ticonderoga "could have made all the difference if made available to Prescott's beleaguered Americans" on Bunker Hill in DJW, p. 298. Joseph Warren's letter to Connecticut governor Trumbull is in LJW, pp. 47576; Frothingham discusses Gage's dealings with the delegation from Connecticut in HSOB, pp. 1045; see also Allen French's FYAR, pp. 13234, which includes Jedediah Huntington's claim that Gage was "wicked, infamous, and base without a parallel." Frothingham in LJW tells of the committee from the Provincial Congress appointed to "wait on Warren, to know whether he could serve them as their president"; he also quotes Warren's note in which he replies that "he will obey their order," p. 475. The minutes from May 2, 1775, of the Second Provincial Congress indicate that frustrations with Warren's lack of attendance led to the election of Colonel James Warren of Plymouth (husband of Mercy Otis Warren) to the presidency, but after James Warren declined to serve that same day ("after offering his reasons for excuse"), a committee was selected to talk to Joseph Warren about retaining the presidency, an office he held until his death (JEPC, p. 178).

Fears concerning an imminent British attack around May 10 are evident in the congressional minutes, in JEPC, pp. 21015; see also Frothingham in HSOB, p. 107. The best account of Church's role in the mix-up with General Thomas in Roxbury is in Charles Martyn's Life of Artemas Ward, pp. 1024. The most helpful transcription of what is evidently Benjamin Church's espionage report to Gage written about May 10, 1775, is in PIR, 3:198890; see also French's Gage's Informers, pp. 15153. The resolution for "a day of public humiliation, fasting, and prayer" on May 11, 1775, is in the April 15 minutes of the second Provincial Congress; citizens were instructed to "humble themselves before G.o.d, under the heavy judgments felt and feared, to confess the sins that have deserved them, to implore the forgiveness of all our transgressions, a spirit of repentance and reformation, and ... that America may soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven for the redress of her many grievances, the restoration of all her invaded liberties, and their security to the latest generations" (JEPC, p. 145). Captain George Harris's May 5, 1775, letter describing the beauty of what he sees from his tent door on Boston Common is in The Life and Services of General Lord Harris, edited by Stephen Lushington, p. 39. Nathaniel Ames records "Public Fast for the times. Dr. Warren here" in the May 11, 1775, entry of his Diary, p. 280; Ames also indicates that the weather was fair on that day.

Warren's confidential May 10, 1775, letter to Gage in which he says "no person living knows, or ever will know from me of my writing this," is in PIR, 3:2076. On the significance of the ceremony of the fast to New England and America in general in the eighteenth century, see Perry Miller's "The Moral and Psychological Roots of American Resistance"; according to Miller, "New England clergy had so merged the call to repentance with a stiffening of the patriotic spine that no power on earth ... could separate the acknowledgment of depravity from the resolution to fight" (p. 256). The May 12, 1775, reference to Congress debating "where there is now existing in this colony a necessity of taking up and exercising the powers of civil government, in all its parts" is in JEPC, p. 219. On May 10, 1775, the Congress considered accusations of disloyalty against Samuel Paine, who was accused of claiming "that those quartered in the colleges were lousy" (JEPC, p. 214). James Stevens tells of the difficulty Captain Thomas Poor had with his men in a May 10 entry in his Journal, p. 44. David Avery refers to the muskets being fired, "one out of our window," in the May 8 entry of his Diary, p. 27. Amos Farnsworth's reference to "e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, prayers, and praise" is in the June 56, 1775, entry of his Diary, p. 82. Ezekiel Price speaks of the "high spirits" of the provincial soldiers in Roxbury in the June 7, 1775, entry of his Diary, p. 188. The unnamed British surgeon's description of the provincial encampment in Cambridge is in a May 26, 1775, letter in LAR, p. 120. A June espionage report speaks of hearing officers "complaining much of the private men having the superiority over the officers, rather than the officers over the men," in PIR, 4:2779. Allen French in FYAR includes the quote (from Benjamin Edwards) describing the Committee of Safety as "a pack of sappy-headed fellows," p. 70. Abijah Brown's complaints against the Provincial Congress are in AA4, 2:72021. Joseph Warren's May 17, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams, in which he talks about how "the strings must not be drawn too tight at first" when it comes to applying discipline to the provincial army, is in Frothingham's LJW, p. 485.

John Barker's May 1, 1775, reference to the "Pretty Burlesque!" of the provincial claims of loyalty to the king is in his Diary, p. 40. Joseph Warren writes of the need for a "generalissimo" in his May 17, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams in Frothingham's LJW, p. 485. Warren writes of his affection for the provincial soldiers in a May 26, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams in Frothingham's LJW, pp. 49596. John Eliot writes of Warren's "influence" with the army and how "he did wonders in preserving order among the troops" in Brief Biographical Sketches, p. 473. Joseph Warren speaks of the "errors [the soldiers] have fallen into" in a May 26, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams in LJW, p. 496. Frothingham, in HSOB, cites an article in the June 8, 1775, issue of the Ess.e.x Gazette that refers to "the grand American army" (p. 101). Benjamin Church's espionage report to Gage, in which he speaks of the "vexation" he feels at having been chosen to go to Philadelphia at the end of May, is in PIR, 3:199293. On Church's return to the Boston area on the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill, see Clifford Shipton's "Benjamin Church," SHG, 13:388. John Barker describes Israel Putnam's brazen march into Charlestown in front of the guns of the Somerset in the May 13 entry of his Diary, p. 46. For an account of the incident at Grape Island on Sunday, May 21, 1775, see the article, probably written by Joseph Warren, that appeared in the Ess.e.x Gazette and is reprinted in Frothingham's LJW, pp. 49293, as well as Abigail Adams's May 24, 1775, letter to John Adams in Adams Family Correspondence, edited by L. H. b.u.t.terfield, pp. 2046. For my account of the Battle of Chelsea Creek, I have depended on Chelsea Creek: First Naval Engagement of the American Revolution, by Victor Mastone, Craig Brown, and Christopher Maio; and Vincent Tentindo's and Marylyn Jones's Battle of Chelsea Creek, May 27, 1775: Graves' Misfortune. Both studies contain extensive amounts of primary source material from contemporary diaries, letters, logs, and newspapers. See also NDAR, 1:54446. Amos Farnsworth writes about his experiences during the skirmishes a.s.sociated with the battle in the May 27, 1775, entry of his Diary, pp. 8081. Charles Chauncy, in a July 8, 1775, letter to Richard Price, writes, "I heard General Putnam say, who had the command of our detachment, that the most of the time he and his men were fighting there was nothing between them and the fire of the enemy but pure air"; Tentindo and Jones, Battle of Chelsea Creek, p. 102. The account of the conversation among Putnam, Ward, and Joseph Warren after the Battle of Chelsea Creek is in "Colonel Daniel Putnam's Letter Relative to the Battle of Bunker Hill and General Israel Putnam," p. 285.

Chapter Nine-The Redoubt

My account of the Quero's arrival in England is based on Robert Rantoul's "The Cruise of the Quero," which includes Walpole's reference to John Derby as the "Accidental Captain," as well as the letter referring to the "total confusion and consternation" of the ministers, along with Gibbon's remarks on the incident, and Dartmouth's frustrated letter to Gage, pp. 430. I've also consulted James Phillips, Salem in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 36769, and George Daughan, If by Sea, pp. 1416. Richard Frothingham quotes the doggerel about the three British generals from The Gentleman's Magazine in HSOB, p. 8. Frothingham quotes a contemporary newspaper report describing the meeting of the Cerberus and a packet bound for Newport during which Burgoyne made the comment about "elbowroom" in HSOB, p. 114. On Burgoyne I have consulted Edward De Fonblanque's Life and Correspondence and George Athan Billias's "John Burgoyne: Ambitious General," in George Washington's Generals and Opponents, edited by George Athan Billias, pp. 14265; on Howe I have looked to Bellamy Partridge, Sir Billy Howe, pp. 125; Troyer Anderson, The Command of the Howe Brothers, pp. 4284; Ira Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution, pp. 371; and Maldwyn Jones, "Sir William Howe: Conventional Strategist" in George Washington's Generals and Opponents, edited by George Athan Billias, pp. 3950. On Clinton, I have consulted William Willc.o.x's Portrait of a General, pp. 4050 (which contains Clinton's description of himself as a "shy b.i.t.c.h"); and Willc.o.x's "Sir Henry Clinton: Paralysis of Command," in George Washington's Generals and Opponents, edited by George Athan Billias, pp. 7376. Gage's June 12, 1775, Proclamation (ghostwritten by Burgoyne) is in PIR, 4:276972; Gage's letter of the same date to Lord Dartmouth, in which he explains that there is no longer any "prospect of any offers of accommodation," is in DAR, 9:171. Burgoyne complains of the "vacuum" that surrounds him in a June 25 letter to Rochford in E. D. de Fonblanque, Political and Military Episodes, p. 143. Howe's June 12, 1775, letter to his brother Richard, in which he explains the plan to take Dorchester Heights, Charlestown, and ultimately Cambridge, is in Proceedings of the Bunker Hill Monument a.s.sociation, 1907, pp. 11217.

The meeting between Joseph Warren and John Jeffries is described in a May 22, 1875, letter written by Jeffries's son and "derived from statements of my father," t.i.tled "A Tory Surgeon's Experiences," pp. 72932. J. L. Bell, in the October 18, 2007, entry of his blog Boston 1775 (http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2007/10/dr-joseph-warrens-body-first.html), expresses his doubts that the meeting between Warren and Jeffries ever happened-quite rightly describing Jeffries as a "slippery character" and pointing out that when Jeffries later returned to Boston after years away in England, it was useful to have been once sought after by Joseph Warren. I am inclined, however, to believe Jeffries's account. Given Warren's difficulties with Benjamin Church and his willingness to communicate directly with the supposed enemy (as attested to by his correspondence with Gage), as well as his obvious love of risk, this sounds like just the kind of thing he would have done when circ.u.mstances required him to find a surgeon general. Also, Jeffries's account as reported by his son gets corroboration of sorts in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill, which includes a reference to Warren's visit to Jeffries (p. 58). Another intriguing reference comes from the loyalist Peter Oliver, who writes of "a gentleman who was tampered with by ... Major Genl. Warren... . Warren was in hopes to take this gentleman into their number, and laid open their whole scheme. He told him that 'Independence was their object; that it was supposed that Great Britain would resent it and would lay the town of Boston in ashes, from their ships; that an estimate had accordingly been made of the value of the estates in town; and that they had determined to pay the losses of their friends from the estates of the loyalists in the country.' The gentleman refused to join with them, but Warren replied that they would pursue their scheme" (OPAR, p. 148). Was Jeffries the "gentleman" referred to by Oliver? If he was, the midnight conversation between the two men appears to have been in line with the earlier impression Timothy Pickering had of Warren after the postLexington and Concord meeting on April 20 in Cambridge.

The May 30, 1775, espionage report to Gage describing the North End as "a nest of very wicked fellows" is in PIR, 3:199495. The espionage report claiming that "the men that go in the ferry-boats are not faithful" is in PIR, 4:277677. John Adams's memory of how Joseph Warren spoke of "the selfishness of this people, or their impatient eagerness for commissions" is in a February 18, 1811, letter to Josiah Quincy in his Works, 9:633; in the same letter Adams also makes the claim that "there is no people on earth so ambitious as the people of America ... the lowest can aspire as freely as the highest." John Bell's July 30, 2006, entry to his blog Boston 1775 describes how John Jeffries worked the British patronage system once he moved to London after the evacuation of Boston (http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2006/07/dr-john-jeffries-physician-loyalist_30.html). Edmund Morgan in Inventing the People writes of how the "decline of deference and emergence of leadership signaled the beginnings ... [of] a new way of determining who should stand among the few to govern the many" (p. 302). Joseph Warren's May 14, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams in which he writes of his hope that in the future "the only road to promotion may be through the affection of the people. This being the case, the interest of the governor and the governed will be the same" is reprinted in Frothingham's LJW, pp. 48384.

The statement that Warren had "fully resolved that his future service should be in the military line" is also in LJW, p. 510, as is the statement that Warren was "proposed as a physician-general; but preferring a more active and hazardous employment, he accepted a major-general's commission" (p. 504). Allen French writes that the "choice of Joseph Warren [as major general] was strange... . Not one high office had yet been given to an inexperienced man... . But such were his enthusiasm and magnetism, and so great was the confidence felt in his talents and devotion, that the position was given him, with tragic results" (FYAR, pp. 7273). French claims that Warren's only relevant experience was his time with the Committee of Safety but makes no reference to his conspicuous role on April 19 and his presence at the skirmishes at Grape Island and Chelsea Creek. French also writes of Heath's less than enthusiastic reaction to Warren's elevation to major general despite Warren's letter to him "urging him to apply for his colonelcy... . Stubbornly, perhaps, Heath made no move" (p. 73). Warren's June 16, 1775, letter to Heath is reprinted in LJW, p. 507. In his June 16 diary entry Ezekiel Price writes, "Colonel Richmond from the Congress says that Dr. Warren was chosen a major-general; that Heath was not chosen any office, but it was supposed that no difficulty would arise from it" (p. 190). John Adams's statement that Joseph Warren "made a harangue in the form of a charge ... to every officer, upon the delivery of his commission, and that he never failed to make the officer as well as all the a.s.sembly shudder" is in Works, 3:12.

Allen French writes of the June 13 warning from the New Hampshire Committee of Safety about a report from "a gentleman of undoubted veracity" concerning an attack on Dorchester Heights on June 18 in FYAR, p. 209. Daniel Putnam recounts the conversation that Joseph Warren had with Putnam and others about Putnam's early proposal to entrench Bunker Hill in his "Letter Relative to the Battle of Bunker Hill," pp. 24849. Allen French relates the process by which provincial leaders came to the decision to reinforce Bunker Hill on June 17 in FYAR, pp. 21114; French repeats the claim that portions of Charlestown Neck were only thirty feet wide (p. 220). According to Francis Parker in Colonel William Prescott: The Commander in the Battle of Bunker's Hill, "a serious engagement was neither intended nor expected as a result of the entrenching expedition," adding that the decision to build on Breed's Hill "was to change the whole character of the expedition" (p. 11). Samuel Gray, writing from Roxbury on July 12, 1775, makes the claim that "one general and the engineer were of opinion we ought not to entrench on Charlestown [i.e., Breed's] Hill till we had thrown up some works on the north and south ends of Bunker Hill, to cover our men on their retreat ... but on the pressing importunity of the other general officer, it was consented to begin as was done," in the appendix to HSOB, p. 394. Ebenezer Bancroft, in John Hill's Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, believed it was Putnam who voted to go with Breed's instead of Bunker Hill: "The dispute which delayed the commencing of the work was probably on the part of Prescott insisting that his orders were to fortify Bunker's Hill, and Putnam and Gridley insisting that Breed's Hill was the proper place" (p. 66). Prescott's son, however, saw it differently: "Colonel Prescott conferred with his officers and Colonel Gridley as to the place intended for the fortification; but Colonel Prescott took on himself the responsibility of deciding, as well he might, for on him it would rest"; Frothingham, The Battle Field of Bunker Hill, p. 29. In an August 25, 1775, letter to John Adams, William Prescott makes the technically inaccurate statement "I received orders to march to Breed's Hill... . The lines were drawn by the engineer and we began the entrenchment about 12 o'clock," in the appendix to HSOB, p. 395. The Committee of Safety's account of the battle, in which they refer to the placement of the redoubt on Breed's Hill being "some mistake," is also in the appendix to HSOB, p. 382. In a July 20, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams, John Pitts wrote in French, FYAR, "Never was more confusion and less command," adding, "No one appeared to have any but Col. Prescott whose bravery can never be enough acknowledged and applauded" (p. 228). French also describes the dimensions of the redoubt in FYAR, p. 216.

Amos Farnsworth recounts how he and the others had "orders not to shut our eyes" as they waited in the Charlestown town house as sentries patrolled the waterfront and those on Breed's Hill dug the redoubt in the early morning of June 17 in his Diary, p. 83. In Frothingham, The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, William Prescott's son tells of his father's being "delighted to hear 'All is well,' drowsily repeated by the watch on board the king's ships" (p. 19). Henry Clinton's claim that "in the evening of the 16th I saw them at work, reported it to Genls Gage and Howe and advised a landing in two divisions at day break" is quoted in French, FYAR, pp. 20910. According to Howe, Clinton wasn't the only one who heard the provincials digging that night: "The sentries on the Boston side had heard the rebels at work all night without making any other report of it, except mention it in conversation" (CKG, p. 221). Peter Brown's June 28, 1775, letter to his mother is quoted in Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, 1:59596. On the death of Asa Pollard, see Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 22; Swett also cites a claim that Pollard's heart "continued beating for some time after it was cut out of him by the cannonball" (p. 52). Prescott's son tells in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill how his father "mounted the parapet, walked leisurely backwards and forwards ... It had the effect intended. The men soon became indifferent to the fire of the artillery" (pp. 1920); Prescott's son also wrote of his father's determination to "never be taken alive" (p. 26). Prescott tells of how Gridley "forsook me" in an August 25, 1775, letter to John Adams in the appendix to HSOB, pp. 39597. John Brooks, the twenty-three-year-old doctor who carried Prescott's call for reinforcements to General Ward, later became governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, and in 1818 he along with several of his staff walked Breed's Hill, where he told William Sumner about Prescott's histrionics on the redoubt wall; William Sumner, "Reminiscences of Gen. Warren and Bunker Hill," p. 228. Prescott's son recounts his father's stubborn insistence that the men who had built the redoubt "should have the honor of defending [it]"; Frothingham, Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 19.

The claim that if Gage and Howe had followed Clinton's advice they would have "shut [the provincials] up in the peninsula as in a bag" appears in a July 5, 1775, letter from an anonymous British officer in SSS, p. 135; this same account discusses the lack of reconnaissance on Howe's part and its tragic consequences. In a June 20, 1775, letter, Lord Rawdon writes in SSS that the "men-of-war in the harbor could not elevate their guns sufficiently to bear upon [the redoubt]" (p. 130). Prescott's son told of Gage's conversation with Prescott's brother-in-law Abijah Willard in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 2627. Paul Lockhardt in The Whites of Their Eyes is justifiably skeptical that this interchange ever occurred, claiming that "the idea that Willard could have seen and recognized Prescott, given the primitive optics of the day and the amount of gunsmoke that must have hung in the air, seems implausible at best" (footnote, p. 227). However, given that Prescott was dressed in a much-commented-on banyan (a loose-fitting coat), facial recognition probably was not required, and I'm inclined to believe the anecdote, particularly given the source and my own experience with telescopes from the eighteenth century.

The activities of the Committee of Safety on June 17 can be traced to a limited extent in its minutes in JEPC, p. 570. Charles Martyn provides a useful a.n.a.lysis of the activities at Hastings House involving General Ward and the Committee of Safety in The Life of Artemas Ward, pp. 12527, as does Paul Lockhardt in The Whites of Their Eyes, pp. 23133. According to Samuel Swett, soon after the arrival of Major Brooks, Richard Devens's "importunity with the general and the Committee [of Safety] for an ample reinforcement was impa.s.sioned and vehement, and his opinion partially prevailed; the committee recommended a reinforcement, and the general consented that orders should be dispatched immediately to Colonels Reed and Stark"; History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 25. There are several accounts of Warren stating that it was his intention to join the fighting at Bunker Hill. Warren's roommate Elbridge Gerry later told his biographer that Warren "entrusted to Mr. Gerry alone the secret of his intention to be on the field"; James Austin, The Life of Elbridge Gerry, 1:79. Warren's apprentice David Townsend tells of Warren being "sick with one of his oppressive nervous headaches and, as usual, had retired to rest" in Hastings House on the morning of June 17; "Reminiscence of Gen. Warren," p. 230. William Heath writes of Putnam and Prescott's interchange about the entrenching tools in his Memoirs, p. 13. Ebenezer Bancroft's account of using a cannon to blast out an embrasure is in his Narrative in John Hill's Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, pp. 5960. Bancroft later learned that the two cannonb.a.l.l.s he had fired through the redoubt sailed all the way into Boston, with one landing harmlessly in Brattle Square, the other on Cornhill (p. 60). In a June 19, 1775, letter to Isaac Smith Jr., Andrew Eliot describes the provincials being "up to the chin entrenched" (p. 288). Colonel Jones's June 19, 1775, account of what he appears to have seen while watching with Generals Burgoyne and Clinton on Copp's Hill is in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, pp. 4546. Burgoyne tells of his concern that the battle might result in "a final loss to the British Empire in America" in his June 25, 1775, letter to Lord Stanley in SSS, pp. 13334.

Chapter Ten-The Battle

John Chester's account of the alarm in Cambridge and of how he and his men hid their uniforms beneath their civilian clothes is in the appendix to HSOB, pp. 39091. A transcript of Azor Orne's June 17, 1775, letter to General John Thomas in which he tells Thomas to "judge whether this is designed to deceive or not" is in a February 7, 2012, auction lot description, http://www.nhinsider.com/press-releases/2012/2/7/rare-doc.u.ments-artifacts-of-new-hampshire-representative-up.html. On the confusion emanating from Ward's headquarters in Cambridge, see French's FYAR, pp. 24647. On the mechanics of firing a cannon, I have looked to Michael McAfee's Artillery of the American Revolution, p. 16, and S. James Gooding's An Introduction to British Artillery, p. 38. Peter Brown writes of the artillery officer swinging his hat around his head in his June 28, 1775, letter to his mother in Diary of Ezra Stiles, 1:59596. Richard Ketchum in Decisive Day cites a June 22, 1775, letter that describes how the rebels fell to the ground when they saw the flash of the British cannon (p. 250); Ketchum also cites James Thacher's account of how cannon b.a.l.l.s "are clearly visible in the form of a black ball in the day, but at night they appear like a fiery meteor with a blazing tail," and how "When a sh.e.l.l falls, it whirls around, burrows, and excavates the earth to a considerable extent" (p. 249). Prescott recounts how he "ordered the train, with two field-pieces" to go and oppose the landing of the British in his August 25, 1775, letter to John Adams in the appendix to HSOB, p. 395. French provides an excellent summary of the various descriptions of the rail fence in a footnote in French's FYAR, p. 227. Howe describes the rail fence as "cannon proof" in his June 2224, 1775, letter in CKG, p. 221.

My account of John Stark is based on Caleb Stark's Memoir and Correspondence of General John Stark, pp. 1129, and Ben Rose's John Stark, pp. 951. Frothingham in HSOB describes Andrew McClary as "of an athletic frame," p. 186. Peter Brown tells of three men being cut in half by a single cannonball in his letter in Diary of Ezra Stiles, 1:59596. Henry Dearborn tells of Stark's insistence that they maintain a "very deliberate pace" across Charlestown Neck in "An Account of the Battle of Bunker Hill," pp. 67. The description of Putnam's "summer dress" is in Henry Dawson's Gleanings, pt. 4, p. 157. Francis Jewett Parker describes Putnam as "one to whom constant motion was almost a necessity" in Colonel William Prescott, p. 18. James Wilkinson walked the battlefield with John Stark after the evacuation and his account, not published until 1816, was based on notes taken during that interview; in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, Wilkinson describes how Stark directed "his boys" to build the stone wall at the Mystic River beach (pp. 917). Samuel Swett cites a Dr. Snow's claim that "rivalry and jealousy" existed not only between Stark and Putnam but also between Stark and Reed in History of Bunker Hill Battle, supplement, p. 9; Swett also cites Reverend William Bentley's claim that Stark said that if Putnam had "done his duty, he would have decided the fate of his country in the first action," as well as Stark's description of the redoubt as "the pen" and "the want of judgment in the works" (supplement, p. 9). Allen French discusses how "localism" was a persistent problem during the early days of the provincial army in FYAR, pp. 6061. Francis Parker in Colonel William Prescott writes of the presence of "too much intercolonial jealousy" among the provincial ranks (p. 20).

David Townsend recounts his finding Joseph Warren at Hastings House in "Reminiscence of Gen. Warren," p. 230. As Samuel Forman points out in a personal communication, Townsend, like William Eustis, was one of Warren's medical apprentices, and in the months after Warren's death, both Townsend and Eustis ended up paying Sally Edwards's bills at the Ames tavern. Since Townsend's is the only account we have of Warren at Hastings House on June 17, the possibility exists that Townsend was, in Forman's words, "covering for Warren, who maybe did go to Dedham that morning." Warren's claim that he "should die were I to remain at home while my fellow citizens are shedding their blood for me" is in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 25. Jeremy Belknap was told by Joseph Henderson, who was a clerk of "the board of war" during the battle, about how Warren "was very desirous to go" to Breed's Hill and how he deceived his a.s.sociates when "he pretended that he was going to Roxbury," in "Extracts from Dr. Belknap's Note-books," pp. 9198. Edward Warren writes about his conversation with a woman who claimed that Joseph Warren visited her pregnant mother on the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill, in The Life of John Warren, pp. 22. Allen French discusses Howe's strategy and quotes the oft-cited words of Howe's mentor James Wolfe on how to attack an entrenchment, in FYAR, pp. 23435; French also cites Clinton's account of how the floating batteries were unsuccessfully moved over to the Mystic River, p. 230. Burgoyne describes Howe's deployment of troops as "perfect" in his June 25, 1775, letter to Lord Stanley in SSS, pp. 133; Burgoyne also describes how he and Clinton on Copp's Hill received the order to burn Charlestown. The detail that one British carca.s.s "fell short near the ferry way; a second fell in the street, and the town was on fire" is in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 38, as is the mention of the detachment of men from the Somerset. Henry Dearborn writes in "An Account of the Battle of Bunker Hill" of how the smoke from Charlestown "hung like a thundercloud" (p. 9). According to John Clarke, who quotes Howe's speech to his officers and soldiers in Samuel Drake's Bunker Hill: The Story Told in Letters, Howe made his remarks as Charlestown went up in flames beside them (p. 43). The presence of "innumerable swallows" is mentioned in a footnote in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 33. William Prescott in his August 25, 1775, letter writes of being left with "perhaps 150 men in the fort" in the appendix to HSOB, p. 396. Ebenezer Bancroft in his Narrative, in John Hill's Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, writes of how "our men turned their heads every minute to look on the one side ... for the reinforcements" (p. 60).

A June 26, 1775, letter from an unnamed American tells of the provincials being "arrayed in red worsted caps and blue great coats, with guns of different sizes," in LAR, p. 150; this same writer speaks of Joseph Warren having "dressed himself like Lord Falkland in his wedding suit and distinguished himself by unparalleled acts of bravery during the whole action" (p. 151). Falkland was a royalist during the English Civil War who, growing increasingly disillusioned with the conflict, reputedly courted death and was killed in the Battle of Newbury in 1643. On Warren's activities after leaving Townsend prior to crossing Charlestown Neck, see Frothingham's LJW, pp. 51315. Samuel Swett tells how Warren was greeted in the redoubt "with loud hurrahs," p. 32. James Wilkinson is the source for Warren's words to Prescott, reported to Wilkinson by Warren's apprentice William Eustis, who was at the redoubt that day, in History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 15. John Jeffries's claim that the younger son of John Lovell, loyalist master of the Boston Latin School, was responsible for the improperly sized cannonb.a.l.l.s is in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, supplement, p. 24. The terrain through which the regulars advanced toward the provincial forces is described in "The Criticism of the Battle ... , August 3, 1779" in the appendix to HSOB, p. 399. Henry Clinton's description of Howe's troop formation as "one long straggling line two deep" is cited by Allen French in FYAR, p. 235. Burgoyne's description of Charlestown burning is in his June 25, 1775, letter to Lord Stanley in SSS, pp. 13334. Henry Lee writes of "the conflagration of a town ... blazing in their faces," in "Reflections on the Campaign of Sir William Howe," in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 8. John Eliot's claim that Joseph Warren believed Britain "never would send large armies" is in Brief Biographical Sketches, p. 472.

Prescott's son recounts how his father told the men in the redoubt to hold their fire and "aim at their hips," in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 20. Ebenezer Bancroft recounts how Prescott instructed them "to take particular notice of the fine coats" in John Hill's Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, p. 61. James Wilkinson recounts how Stark had made a mark in the bank along the Mystic to indicate when the provincials should open up on the British; Stark also recounted how he had told his men to hold their fire till they saw the enemy's "half-gaiters" in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 13. Philip Johnson remembered Putnam saying, "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes," in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, supplement, p. 17. Wilkinson describes how the Fusiliers advanced "as if not apprised of what awaited them," in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 13. On the formation of the provincials behind the stone wall, John Elting writes, "Most of the American infantry originally seems to have been formed in the usual three ranks behind their defenses, each rank to fire in turn on order and then drop back to reload so that a steady fire could be maintained," in The Battle of Bunker's Hill, p. 31. The description of "a continued sheet of fire" from the provincials is in a July 5, 1775, letter from an unnamed British officer quoted by French in FYAR, p. 239. A British surgeon named Grant writes in a June 23, 1775, letter that given the large number of men "wounded in the legs, we are inclined to believe it was their design, not wishing to kill them, but leave them as burdens on us, to exhaust our provisions and engage our attention, as well as intimidate the rest of the soldiery," in LAR, p. 141; Grant also complains that the provincials charged their muskets "with old nails and angular pieces of iron." Stark's description of the dead at the beach being as "thick as sheep in a fold" is in Wilkinson's account in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 13. Peter Thacher was the minister watching from the opposite sh.o.r.e of the Mystic River; his observations became the basis of the Committee of Safety's account in the appendix to HSOB, pp. 38283.

Howe tells how the grenadiers disobeyed orders and stopped to fire at the provincial lines in his June 2224, 1775, letter in CKG, p. 222. A provincial soldier's claim that "there was no need of waiting for a chance to fire" comes from an account in the August 3, 1775, Rivington Gazette in the Appendix to HSOB, p. 397. Henry Dearborn tells how the provincials sought out the British officers in "An Account of the Battle of Bunker Hill," p. 11. John Clarke's account of the rebel sharpshooter who killed or wounded "no less than 20 officers" is in Samuel Drake's Bunker Hill, pp. 4849. John Chester writes of the disorder they found on Bunker Hill in a July 22, 1775, letter in the appendix to HSOB, p. 391. Samuel Webb writes of the terrifying scene as they descended "into the valley from off Bunker Hill," in a July 11, 1775, letter in Frothingham, The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 33. The description of "an incessant stream of fire" from the provincials and of the futility of attempting to advance is from a July 5, 1775, letter from an unnamed British officer, quoted by French in FYAR, p. 239. Samuel Swett in History of Bunker Hill Battle writes of how the regulars piled the bodies of their dead into a "horrid breastwork," claiming that his information came from "Mr. Smith of Salem," and was "unquestionable" (p. 37). An unnamed officer in a June 19, 1775, letter writes "we may say with Falstaff ... that 'they make us here but food for gunpowder,' " in LAR, p. 136. Samuel Swett writes about how Captain Ford brought up an abandoned cannon to the American lines in History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 31; in the supplement to this work he also includes the testimony of several men who saw Putnam firing one of the abandoned fieldpieces (pp. 6, 16) as well as Amos Foster's account of Hill, "a British deserter," shouting "You have made a furrow through them!" (p. 14).

According to Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, Prescott was a.s.sisted by both Colonels Robinson and b.u.t.trick (both of whom were at the North Bridge on April 19) when it came to running "round the top of the parapet and [throwing] up the muskets," p. 34. Peter Brown writes of how the regulars "found a choky mouthful of us" in his June 28, 1775, letter to his mother quoted in Diary of Ezra Stiles, 1:59596. Prescott writes in an August 25, 1775, letter of how he "commanded a cessation till the enemy advanced within 30 yards, when we gave them such a hot fire that they were obliged to retire nearly 150 yards," in the appendix to HSOB, p. 396. The reference to Pigot's force being "staggered" is in a July 5, 1775, letter from an unnamed British officer quoted by French in FYAR, p. 239. Frothingham in HSOB quotes an article in a British journal that recounts that Howe's servant (a "Mr. Evans") "attended the whole time with wine and other necessaries ... during which, Evans had one of the bottles in his hand dashed to pieces, and got a contusion on one of his arms at the same time, by a ball from some of the provincials," p. 199. In a June 23, 1775, letter an unnamed officer writes that "for near a minute [Howe] was quite alone," in LAR, p. 144. Howe tells of experiencing "a moment I have never felt before" in his June 2224, 1775, letter in CKG, p. 222.

Lord Rawdon recounts how the men "at last grew impatient and all crying out, 'Push on! Push on!' advanced" in a June 20, 1775, letter in SSS, pp. 130. Prescott's son writes of Howe marching at the head of his troops, "distinguished ... by his figure and gallant bearing," in Frothingham, The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 22. A provincial soldier whose letter appeared in the August 3, 1775, Rivington Gazette writes of the "extraordinary deep files" of the British column during the third and final advance and how the regulars "pushed over the walls with their guns in their left hand and their swords in their right," in the appendix to HSOB, p. 398; this same soldier writes of how the dust and smoke in the redoubt made it "so dark in the square that he was obliged to feel about for the outlet." In a July 11, 1775, letter Samuel Webb writes that "Fight, conquer, or die was what [the British] officers was plainly heard to say very often," in Frothingham, The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 32. Samuel Swett recounts how the British used artillery to "turn the left of the breastwork [and] to enfilade the line," in History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 41. Thacher's account of how those behind the breastwork were forced to "retire within their little fort" is in the Committee of Safety's Account in the appendix to HSOB, p. 383. Wilkinson tells of Stark's decision to "retreat reluctantly" in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 14. Prescott's son recounts how his father told his men to make "every shot ... tell" and how they broke open an abandoned cartridge in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, pp. 2122. John Clarke recounts the inspiring words a grenadier sergeant delivered to the surviving privates in his company, as well as the testimony of a marine captain as to how this was on three accounts the "hottest" action he'd ever experienced, in Samuel Drake's Bunker Hill, pp. 46, 4950.

Adjutant John Waller's account of the fighting comes from two different accounts: the first written on June 21, 1775, at MHS, and the second written on June 22, 1775, and in Samuel Drake's Bunker Hill, pp. 2830. Captain George Harris writes of his vegetable garden in a June 12, 1775, letter printed in Stephen Lushington, The Life and Services of General Lord Harris, p. 40, which also includes his account of being wounded on the parapet of the redoubt (pp. 4142). Henry Dearborn tells of how every regular who first mounted the parapet was shot down in "Account of Bunker Hill," p. 8. Allen French quotes from an August 3, 1775, letter written by Lord Rawdon in which he describes the tenacity of the provincials in the redoubt, in FYAR, pp. 24748. Needham Maynard's account of how the provincial fire "went out like an old candle" is in J. H. Temple's History of Framingham, p. 291. Ebenezer Bancroft writes of firing his last shot at a British officer and his struggle to escape the redoubt in "Bunker Hill Battle" in John Hill's Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, pp. 6162. On the possibility that Major Pitcairn was killed not by Bancroft but by the African American Salem Poor, see the evidence presented by J. L. Bell in Washington's Headquarters, pp. 27981. Samuel Paine's June 22, 1775, account of what he saw from Beacon Hill is in AAS Proceedings 19 (19089):43538. Thomas Sullivan compares the provincial soldiers to "bees in a beehive" in "The Common British Soldier-from the Journal of Thomas Sullivan 49th Regiment of Foot," p. 233. Prescott's son describes his father's sword-wielding exit from the redoubt in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 22.

Mercy Otis Warren claims that Joseph Warren chose "rather to die in the field than to grace the victory of his foes by the triumph they would have enjoyed in his imprisonment," in History of the ... American Revolution, p. 122. As Samuel Forman points out in DJW, given that he died with several important letters in his pocket, it's highly unlikely that he sought death (p. 305). On the possible circ.u.mstances surrounding Warren's death, see Frothingham's LJW, pp. 51720. Based on a photograph that survives of Warren's skull, in which the entry wound of the bullet is clearly visible, Samuel Forman has determined that Warren must have been killed by an officer's pistol instead of a regular's musket, thus making one of the accounts collected by Frothingham (in which an officer's servant seizes his pistol and shoots Warren in the face) the likeliest of the many scenarios that have been attributed to Warren's death, in Forman's DJW, pp. 3034, 36566. Samuel Swett cites the Reverend Daniel Chaplin and John Bullard's claim that Prescott asked Putnam, "Why did you not support me?" in History of Bunker Hill Battle, supplement, p. 9. Prescott's son relates that his father a.s.sured Ward that "the enemy's confidence would not be increased by the result of the battle," in Frothingham's Battle-Field of Bunker Hill, p. 23. Howe writes that the victory at Bunker Hill was "too dearly bought" in his June 2224, 1775, letter in CKG, p. 223. The reference to the soldiers being "charmed with General Howe's gallant behavior" is in a June 19, 1775, letter written by an unnamed British naval officer, in LAR, p. 137. Swett attributes the detail that Howe "at last received a ball in the foot" to Dr. John Jeffries, in History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 42. Charles Lee writes of the effect of this "murderous day" on Howe in Charles Coffin's History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, p. 8. Dr. John Jeffries's account of identifying Warren's body and Howe's response are given in Samuel Swett's History of Bunker Hill Battle, p. 58.

Chapter Eleven-The Fiercest Man

The reference to the vehicles used to transport dead and wounded British soldiers is from "Clarke's Narrative," in Samuel Drake's Bunker Hill: The Story Told in Letters, p. 49. Peter Oliver's description of the mortally wounded officer is in OPAR, pp. 12728. Rufus Greene writes of the funeral of "Uncle Coffin" in a July 3, 1775, letter in Journal of Mrs. John Amory, p. 82. Jonathan Sewall writes of the omnipresence of death in Boston in a July 15, 1775, letter cited in French's FYAR, pp. 33738; French also discusses Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to convince Gage to take Dorchester Heights, p. 260. The letter from the British officer who writes of how they "shall soon be driven from the ruins of our victory" is in LAR, pp. 14041. Allen French in FYAR relates the account of the dying Lieutenant Colonel Abercrombie claiming that "we have fought in a bad cause," p. 318. In a November 1, 1775, letter that appeared in the Calendar of Home Office Papers, 17731775, edited by Richard Arthur Roberts, an unnamed correspondent in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, recounts a conversation with Margaret Gage "the day after that dreadful one, when you thought the lines so expressive," then quotes the relevant pa.s.sage from Shakespeare's King John, p. 479. Gage writes of his wish that "this cursed place was burned" in a June 26, 1775, letter to Lord Barrington in Correspondence of Thomas Gage, pp. 68667. John Warren writes of his desperate attempts to find out his brother's fate at Bunker Hill in his diary, which is quoted in Edward Warren's Life of John Warren, pp. 4546; according to his son, the sentry's bayonet thrust gave John Warren a scar "which he bore through life." John Eliot writes of the "sincere lamentation and mourning" after Joseph Warren's death in Brief Biographical Sketches, p. 473. Frothingham in LJW quotes Samuel Adams's letter to his wife about the "greatly afflicting" news of Warren's death (p. 521). John Adams writes of Warren taking on "too much for mortal" in a July 6, 1775, letter to James Warren in Warren-Adams Letters, 1:74; Adams continues in that letter: "This acc.u.mulation of admiration upon one gentleman, which among the Hebrews was called idolatry, has deprived us forever of the services of one of our best and ablest men. We have not a sufficient number of such men left to be prodigal of their lives in future." Abigail Adams writes of the profound sense of loss felt in the wake of Joseph Warren's death in a July 5, 1775, letter in Adams Family Correspondence 1:240.

In a June 20, 1775, letter to John Adams (also in Warren-Adams Letters), James Warren claims that "had a Lee or a Washington instead of a general dest.i.tute of all military ability [i.e., Artemas Ward]" been in command at Bunker Hill, the battle "would have terminated with as much glory to America as the 19th of April," p. 63. Samuel Gray writes of the battle being of "infinite service to us" in a July 12, 1775, letter in HSOB, p. 394. The reference to the provincial soldiers returning to Cambridge "like troops elated with conquest" is in a June 23, 1775, anonymous letter in LAR, p. 142. Nathanael Greene writes of wishing to sell the British "another hill at the same price" in a June 28, 1775, letter in PNG, p. 92. George Washington's insistence that he did not "think myself equal" to commanding the American army is from a June 16, 1775, "Address to the Continental Congress," in PGW, 1:1. Allen French describes Washington's positive response to the news of Bunker Hill ("Then the liberties of our country are safe") in FYAR, p. 267. Peter Thomas in Tea Party to Independence describes how the ministry quickly decided after hearing about Bunker Hill on July 25 that New York, not Boston, should "become the seat of the war," p. 270. Eliphalet Dyer describes Washington as "sober, steady, and calm" in a June 17, 1775, letter in PGW, 1:3. Ron Chernow cites Gilbert Stuart's description of Washington as "the fiercest man among the savage tribes" in Washington: A Life, p. xix.

My account of Washington's early military experience is indebted to Chernow's biography, Joseph Ellis's His Excellency George Washington, David Clary's George Washington's First War, Edward Lengel's General Washington: A Military Life, and Fred Anderson's Crucible of War, as well as his article "The Hinge of the Revolution: George Washington Confronts a People's Army." Washington's letter to Governor Dinwiddie claiming that his "troops of Virginia" were "as regular a corps as any upon the continent" is cited by Ellis in His Excellency George Washington, p. 26; Ellis also argues that Washington was in "emotional turmoil" during the Forbes campaign "because he had fallen in love with one woman and was about to marry another," p. 35. Fred Anderson writes of Washington's effort to "become more British than the British," in "The Hinge of the Revolution," p. 42. Gouverneur Morris's description of Washington having pa.s.sions that were "almost too mighty for man" is in an "Oration upon the Death of General Washington," in Eulogies and Orations on the Life and Death of General George Washington, pp. 4445. James Thacher's description of first seeing Washington is in his Military Journal, p. 30. Washington's stepson George Custis's description of the general's "surpa.s.sing grip with his knees" is cited by Richard Brookhiser in George Washington: Founding Father, p. 111; Brookhiser also cites Benjamin Rush's claim that the typical European king would "look like a valet de chamber by his side," 114. John Trumbull's description of being temporarily part of "the family of one of the most distinguished and dignified men of the age" is in his Autobiography, p. 23. On daily life at Washington's headquarters, see J. L. Bell's General George Washington's Headquarters and Home, especially pp. 16384.

Fred Anderson writes insightfully about Washington's reaction to the provincial army in "The Hinge of the Revolution," commenting that in "the New Englanders' squalid camps ... Washington saw the symbol of a mixed mult.i.tude in peril of becoming a mob" (p. 29). On the Native American composition of the provincial army, particularly the "Stockbridge Indians," see Colin Calloway's The American Revolution in Indian Country, pp. 8594. William Emerson's account of the soldiers' living quarters, including his description of a meal with the Stockbridge Indians in their wigwams, is in a July 7, 1775, letter included in his Diary, pp. 8081. Washington calls the New Englanders "exceeding dirty and nasty people" and describes their "unaccountable kind of stupidity" in letters to Lund Washington on August 20, 1775, and Richard Henry Lee on August 29, 1775, both in PGW, 1:336, 372. On Charles Lee's differing reaction to the typical American militiaman, see John Shy's "Charles Lee: The Soldier as Radical" in George Washington's Generals and Opponents, edited by George Billias; according to Shy, "Washington and Lee looked at the same troops but where the Virginia planter saw only surliness and disobedience, the British radical saw alertness and zeal" (p. 34). In an October 21, 1775, entry in his journal, Jeremy Belknap records that Horatio Gates "said he never desired to see better soldiers than the New England men made" (p. 83). My statement that Washington believed the "ultimate aim of an army was ... not to generate violence but to curtail it" is based in large part on Fred Anderson's a.s.sertion in "The Hinge of the Revolution" that "the control, not the propagation, of violence was for him the core of military service... . To allow war to become the engine of revolution-would be to imperil the social order, together with all the laws, rights, and liberties that he hoped to preserve"; Anderson also discusses Washington's concerns about recruitment and tour-of-duty as well as his realization that "local sympathies could tear an army to shreds" (pp. 3134, 44, 45).

Washington writes of making "a pretty good slam" among the officers from Ma.s.sachusetts in an August 29, 1775, letter to Richard Henry Lee in PGW, 1:373. William Emerson writes of the "great overturning in camp" in a July 7, 1775, letter contained in his Diary, p. 79. J. L. Bell in General George Washington's Headquarters describes how Washington dealt with the difficulties created among his officers by the commissions granted by the Continental Congress in the chapter "Generals Old and New," pp. 87128; Bell provides an overview of how Washington went about reinventing the provincial army in the chapter "Remaking the Troops into a Continental Army," pp. 21959; see also his "Engineering a New Artillery Regiment," pp. 287314. Israel Trask's account of Washington's handling of the two combative riflemen is in John Dann, The Revolution Remembered, p. 409. John Sullivan's August 5, 1775, letter in which he tells of Washington's stunned reaction to the lack of gunpowder is in Thomas Amory's John Sullivan, p. 16. Washington writes of how "no consideration upon earth should have induced me to accept this command" in a November 28, 1775, letter to Joseph Reed, in PGW, 2:449. Abigail Adams's comment that if Washington wasn't "one of the best-intentioned men ... he might be a very dangerous one" is cited by Richard Brookhiser in George Washington, p. 115. On Washington's efforts to create the beginnings of a navy, see James Nelson's George Washington's Secret Navy and Chester Hearn's George Washington's Schooners. Allen French provides an account of the beginnings of the Arnold campaign up the Kennebec River to Quebec in FYAR, pp. 43135. On Washington's advocacy of the young Nathanael Greene and the even younger Henry Knox, Ron Chernow in Washington writes of how his "meritocratic bent ... clashed with his aristocratic background and grew more p.r.o.nounced with time. With Greene and Knox, he encouraged two aspiring young men who bore psychological scars from their childhood" (p. 205).

J. L. Bell describes the various ways that Bostonians, including the swimming barber Richard Carpenter, managed to get in and out of the city in Washington's Headquarters, pp. 36166. Joseph Tinker Buckingham in Specimens of Newspaper Literature recounts Benjamin Russell's adventures in Cambridge during the Siege (2:45); see also Francis Baylies's Eulogy on the Honorable Benjamin Russell, pp. 812. Mercy Scollay writes of how the death of Joseph Warren "rendered me for a time incapable of ... feeling any animating sensations" in a May 21, 1776, letter to John Hanc.o.c.k at CHS. She writes of her "uncertain situation" and her distress at discovering that John Warren had sold his brother's "every feather bed to General Washington" in an August 17, 1775, letter to Dr. Dix in Worcester, also at CHS. Samuel Forman was the first to identify Mercy Scollay as the probable author of "An Elegy, Occasioned by the Death of Major-General Joseph Warren," which he reprints in DJW, pp. 37678. Peter Oliver makes the claim that "Had [Warren] conquered, Washington had remained in obscurity" in OPAR, p. 128.

On the history of siege warfare, I have consulted several books by Christopher Duffy-Siege Warfare, vols. 1 and 2, and Fire and Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare, 16601860-as well as Paul Davis's Besieged. Allen French in FYAR compares the taking of Plowed Hill to that of Breed's Hill, "but better ordered," p. 481. Peter Oliver describes the "idle business" of the siege in OPAR, p. 131. The description of the armies squinting at each other "like wild cats across a gutter" is in a December 4, 1775, letter in LAR, p. 231. Nathanael Greene mentions the spears that had been provided in lieu of bayonet-equipped muskets in a November 15, 1775, order: each regiment was to appoint thirty men "to stand ready to push the enemy off the breastwork if they should attempt to get over the parapet into the lines," in PNG, 1:151. Washington mentions the many factors contributing to his proposal to attack in his September 8, 1775, "Circular to the General Officers," in PGW, 1:43234. The September 11, 1775, council of war decision that "it was not expedient to make the attempt at present at least" is in PGW, 1:45051. The proceedings of October 18, 1775, are in PGW, 2:18384. The minutes of the conference with the committee from the Continental Congress, in which Washington asks for advice about whether it is "advisable ... to destroy the troops who propose to winter in Boston," are in PGW, 2:190203. Artemas Ward's August 25, 1775, letter to Washington about Dorchester Heights is in PGW, 1:36263. See Charles Martyn's Artemas Ward for a discussion of Ward's largely unacknowledged advocacy of the strategy that ultimately won the Siege and prevented "the hotheaded Virginian ... [from] wrecking the careful work of Ma.s.sachusetts patriots" through what would have surely been a disastrous attack on Boston (pp. 17172).

Benjamin Church's October 3, 1775, letter to Washington, in which he claims he wrote the coded letter "to impress the enemy with a strong idea of our strength and situation," is in PGW, 2:8587. David Kiracofe discusses the philosophical dilemma of both the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives and the Continental Congress when it came to dealing with Church in "Dr. Benjamin Church and the Dilemma of Treason in Revolutionary Ma.s.sachusetts," pp. 44350. Church describes his appearance before the House in "Account of the Examination of Doctor Benjamin Church," pp. 8494. Clifford Shipton, in his biography of Church in SHG, recounts that when Church was confined in the Va.s.sall House (a different house from Washington's headquarters), he carved "B. Church, Jr." in a closet door (12:390). Allen French in General Gage's Informers provides a detailed account of the proceedings surrounding Church's arrest and quotes John Adams's comment, "Good G.o.d! What shall we say of human nature?" (p. 195). Kiracofe in his "Dilemma of Treason" writes of how Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams felt that a man's personal sins "undermine the very bonds of society," as well as the recognition among many patriots, including Samuel Adams, that Church's infidelities were "notorious" (pp. 45556). Church's claim that his liberties had been violated by the House of Representatives is in his "Examination," p. 87.

Allen French in FYAR quotes the account of the "shocking spectacle" of the Bunker Hill survivors on the Charming Nancy, pp. 32324. Gage writes of "taking the bull by the horns, attacking the enemy in their strong parts," in his June 26, 1775, letter to Barrington in Correspondence, p. 687. In a November 26, 1775, letter to Dartmouth, Howe explains that he'll have to delay the evacuation until at least the spring with the a.s.surance that "we are not under the least apprehension of an attack" (DAR, 9:191). Boston is described as "the grave of England" in an August 18, 1775, letter in LAR, pp. 19091, which describes as many as thirty bodies being "thrown into a trench at a time, like those of so many dogs." An August 27, 1775, letter, also in LAR, asks the question, "Have you forgot us?" (p. 205). Peter Thomas in Tea Party to Independence includes Edmund Burke's reference to "the most astonishing market" and the fact that "war ... is become a sort of subst.i.tute for commerce," as well as the remark that were it not for the newspapers, the British people "would hardly know there was a civil war in America" (pp. 27071). The Old North Meetinghouse, which was demolished and burned by the British, should not be confused with Christ Church of Paul Revere fame, which is often referred to today as "Old North." In his Diary, Boston selectman Timothy Newall writes of the many old houses being burned for fuel as well as "the most savage manner" with which the regulars have turned the Old South Meetinghouse into "a riding school," pp. 26970. Allen French writes of Faneuil Hall's transformation into a playhouse in FYAR, p. 537.

My account of the confrontation between Benjamin Hallowell and Admiral Graves is based largely on French's "The Hallowell-Graves Fisticuffs, 1775," pp. 4145. An August 19, 1775, letter in LAR, speaks of Graves's "black eye," p. 195; a December 13, 1775, letter, also in LAR, describes how Graves's secretary extorted bribes for fishing permits, p. 238. Ezekiel Price writes of American whaleboat attacks on the Boston lighthouse in his diary on July 20, p. 198, and on July 31, p. 201. John Tilley cites Sandwich's letter telling Graves that he "can never be censured for doing too much" in The British Navy and the American Revolution, p. 48. Allen French tells of the burning of Falmouth, Maine (and includes the reference to the town being "one flame"), in FYAR, p. 54043; see also James Nelson's George Washington's Secret Navy, pp. 13947. The outrage created by the burning of Falmouth was so extensive that the incident is even referred to in the catalogue of complaints contained in the Declaration of Independence. The comment that the British were "almost as much blocked up by the sea as we have been ... by land" is in a December 4, 1775, letter in LAR, p. 231. For an account of John Manley's capture of the Nancy, see James Nelson's Washington's