The Siege of Boston Part 7

[51] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 413

[52] Bulletin of Boston Public Library, x, No. 87, 320.

[53] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 435-436.

[54] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 281.

[55] Andrews Letters.

CHAPTER VII

MILITARY PREPARATIONS

As the spring of 1775 advanced, matters took on a constantly more threatening aspect. The governor's force in Boston was steadily increasing, and was approaching a total of four thousand men. Vessels of war were with equal steadiness being added to the little fleet in the harbor. With each budget of news from England it became evident that Parliament would not yield, and at last came word that Lord North had offered a joint resolution that New England was in a state of rebellion, which both houses pledged their lives and fortunes to suppress. With such a military force at his command, and with such moral support from King and Parliament, Gage was in a position to take decided action.

No one could doubt what that action would be. Since September the province had been gathering its meagre military supplies. It was but common sense to seize them before they could be used. Soon after the new year Gage began his measures. "Genl. Orders," writes disgruntled Lieutenant Barker. "If any officers of the different Regts. are _capable_ of taking sketches of a Country, they will send their names to the Dep. Adj. Genl ... that is an extraordinary method of wording the order; it might at least have been in a more genteel way; at present it looks as if he doubted whether there were any such." However, there were such, and in February the governor chose Captain Brown and Ensign De Berniere (or Bernicre, as the name is sometimes spelled) and sent them out to map the roads.

The little expedition was somewhat absurd, for the disguise which the officers wore was sufficient to conceal them only from their friends.

When, at the first tavern at which they stopped, they remarked that it was a very fine country, the black woman who waited on them answered, "So it is, and we have got brave fellows to defend it, and if you go any higher you will find it so." "This," admits Ensign De Berniere, whose account of the expedition was left in Boston at the evacuation, and was "printed for the information and amus.e.m.e.nt of the curious," "this disconcerted us a good deal." From that time on, any one who took the trouble to "eye them attentively" was in no doubt as to their real character.

They went first to Worcester, where it was possible that the governor might wish to send troops, to protect the courts as well as to seize stores. The weather was rough and snowy, and the officers' task correspondingly difficult; the countrymen, by persevering sociability, kept them in an uneasy state of mind. After roughly mapping roads concerning which the general should long before have had accurate information, the two officers made their way to Sudbury, where they hoped to rest with a sympathizer, after walking in a snow-storm for hours. But the town doctor, though long a stranger at the house, came to call, and the townspeople showed their host various other undesirable attentions, so that in twenty minutes the two officers were glad to leave the place. They arrived again safely at Worcester, "very much fatigued, after walking thirty-two miles between two o'clock and half-after ten at night, through a road that every step we sunk up to the ankles, and it blowing and drifting snow all the way."

In spite of this experience, the two officers, a month later, undertook a similar journey to Concord. In this they succeeded, returning with a rough sketch of the roads, but bringing also their Concord host, who did not think it safe to remain after entertaining them. They brought information that in Concord there were "fourteen cannon (ten iron and four bra.s.s) and two cohorns," with "a store of flour, fish, salt, and rice; and a magazine of powder and cartridges."

They might, in their two journeys, have brought better information than that the Concord Whigs "fired their morning gun, and mounted a guard of ten men at night." The stores at Concord had far better protection than these, as the two officers should have learned at Framingham, where they watched the drill of the militia company. "After they had done their exercise, one of their commanders spoke a very eloquent speech, recommending patience, coolness, and bravery (which indeed they very much wanted), particularly told them they would always conquer if they did not break, and recommended them to charge us coolly, and wait for our fire, and everything would succeed with them--quoted Caesar and Pompey, brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men; put them in mind of Cape Breton, and all the battles they had gained for his majesty in the last war, and observed that the regulars must have been ruined but for them."

Had the two officers known it, every town in the province had just such a militia company, which at set seasons met, and drilled, and listened to good old-fashioned exhortations to valor. It would not take long, therefore, for the neighboring towns to send their companies to reinforce the guard of ten men which Concord set over its stores every night. And yet the province was not satisfied with this ancient militia organization, for it had set up another to strengthen it.

The militia was composed, as it had been since the foundation of the colony, of the whole body of male inhabitants of proper military age. In some cases even clergymen drilled in the ranks. More than once this militia had gathered to repel an expected attack of French or Indians; it had stood between the settlers and their foes from the days of Miles Standish down to the French and Indian War. The martial spirit still prevailed among the youth of the colony, and each town took pride in its company. In 1774 John Andrews thus records his innocent delight in the appearance of the Boston trainbands:--

"Am almost every minute taken off with agreeable sight of our militia companies marching into the Common, as it is a grand field day with us.... They now vie with the best troops in his majesties service, being dress'd all in blue uniforms, with drums and fifes to each company dress'd in white uniforms trim'd in y^e most elegant manner; with a company of Grenadiers in red with every other apparatus, that equal any regular company I ever saw both in appearance and discipline, having a grand band of musick consisting of eight that play nearly equal to that of the 64th. What crowns all is the Cadet company, being perfectly compleat and under the best order you can conceive of, with a band of musick likewise, that perform admirably well. What with these and Paddock's company of artillery make y^e completest militia in America; not a drummer, fifer, and scarcely a soldier but what are in compleat uniforms and thoroughly instructed in the military exercises."

It was this Boston Cadet company that, at the affront to its leader Hanc.o.c.k had returned its standard to the governor and disbanded. Gage knew too well that others of the companies were thoroughly disaffected.

In fact, many of the Boston young men left the town before hostilities began, and were ready to join with their country brethren in showing that their military training was worth something.

Yet early in the fall it was recognized in the colony that the militia system was not sufficient, being too slow of movement to meet any such sudden expedition as that which Gage sent to seize the powder. It is not surprising, therefore, to find John Andrews reporting on October 5 the existence of a new body of troops, "which are call'd _minute men_, _i.e._ to be ready at a minute's warning with a fortnight's provision, and ammunition and arms." There is doubt of the origin of this body, but it was first officially accepted in Concord, where the town adopted definite terms of enlistment, the more important of which reads:--

"We will ... to the utmost of our power and abilities, defend all and every of our charter rights, liberties, and privileges; and will hold ourselves in readiness at a minute's warning, with arms and ammunition thus to do."[56]

Tradition says that the terms of the enlistment were interpreted literally, and that wherever the minute men went, to the field, the shop, or to church, gun and powder-horn and bullet-pouch were ready to hand. It is scarcely an exaggeration to suppose that, as represented by French's statue, the farmers actually left the plough in the furrow and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the ready rifle.

One further preparation was also made. The rallying point was possibly Worcester, where were the courts and some few stores; but it was more probably Concord. The shortest route to Concord, or to the road between Concord and Boston, was known to the captain of every company of minute men within a hundred miles. But that the captains should be notified of any emergency was essential. A complete system of couriers for spreading news was projected in September, and now was in good working order, so that, with Boston as a radiating point, the summons could be sent over the province with the greatest rapidity. By virtue of his efficiency, trustworthiness, and picturesque personality, Paul Revere is accepted as the type of the men who stood ready for this service.

This system, further, had been tested. The spontaneous response to the Powder Alarm in September had been ready enough, for the men of Connecticut and New Hampshire were in motion before the next day. But through the winter of 1774-1775 there had been minor alarms at each little expedition on which Gage sent his soldiers. By these the new system was proved efficient. Whether the troops marched to Jamaica Pond, to the "punch bowl" in Brookline, or even went, by sea and land, as far as Salem, the militia of the surrounding towns showed a prompt curiosity as to the object of the excursion. These fruitless musters, far from making the minute men callous to alarms, served to prepare them to meet the great occasion which they foresaw would finally come. For that they were in excellent practice.

As to Concord itself, it had become very important. The Congress, which after its first week in Concord had been sitting in Cambridge, now returned, and from the 22d of March until the 15th of April[57] sat daily in the meeting-house. The Committee of Safety remained still longer, busy with the gathering of supplies. It is within this period that Berniere and Brown came on their spying expedition to Concord, and were directed by a woman to the house of Daniel Bliss. A threat of the Whigs to tar and feather her sent her to the officers for refuge, and word presently came to Bliss that the Whigs "would not let him go out of the town alive that morning." This fate the officers and their host avoided by leaving in the night. What became of the woman is not said, but we may be easy about her: no injury, and in fact no serious indignity, was put upon a woman in New England at this period. The officers returned to Boston with a report of the stores in Concord.

This may have increased the anxiety of the Committee of Safety. Already they had voted, "requiring Colonel Barrett of Concord to engage a sufficient number of faithful men to guard the Colony's magazines in that town; to keep a suitable number of teams in constant readiness, by day and night, to remove the stores; and to provide couriers to alarm the neighboring towns, on receiving information of any movements of the British troops."[58] A watch was kept upon the British movements; and finally, when, on the 15th, Warren sent Paul Revere from Boston with warning of suspicious movements, the Committee felt that soon Gage must strike. On the 18th it ordered the removal of some of the stores. "That very night," says Tolman, without knowledge of affairs in Boston, the work was begun.

Meanwhile, in response to another vote of the committee, the British had been under close observation. The vote was that "members of this Committee belonging to the towns of Charlestown, Cambridge, and Roxbury, be required at the Province expense to procure at least two men for a watch every night to be placed in each of these towns, and that said members be in readiness to send couriers forward to the towns where the magazines are placed, when sallies are made by the army by night." In view of these preparations, it scarcely needs to be said that there was nothing accidental about Concord fight. Some day Gage was bound to strike at Concord, and for that day the Whigs were ready.

It is now that Paul Revere comes prominently into the course of events.

Revere was a Boston craftsman of Huguenot descent, who was and is well known as a silversmith, engraver, and cartoonist. His prints and articles of silverware sell to-day for high prices, and his house in North Square has recently been fitted up as a public museum, chiefly on account of a single act at a critical moment. One is glad to know, however, that Revere's fame is not accidental. His pictures are historically interesting; we should be the poorer without his prints which give views of Boston, and without his picture of the Ma.s.sacre. His silver--we have mentioned his punch-bowl for the "immortal Ninety-two"--is usually beautiful. From the foundry which he established later in life came cannon, and church-bells which are in use to-day. And finally his famous ride, the object of which would have been brought about had Revere been stopped at the outset, was but one out of many.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REVERE'S PICTURE OF BOSTON IN 1768.]

"In the year 1773," says Revere of himself,[59] "I was employed by the selectmen of the town of Boston to carry the account of the Destruction of the Tea to New York, and afterwards, 1774, to carry their despatches to New York and Philadelphia for calling a Congress; and afterwards to Congress several times." Revere does not mention the fact that he was himself a member of the Tea-Party. When he goes on to speak of still more important events, he suppresses the fact that he was one of the leaders, if not the chief leader, of the Boston artisans.

"In the fall of 1774, and winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a committee for the purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers, and gaining every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green Dragon Tavern. We were so careful that our meetings should be kept secret, that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible that they would not discover any of our transactions but to Messrs. Hanc.o.c.k, Adams, Doctors Warren, Church, and one or two more....

In the winter, towards the spring, we frequently took turns, two and two, to watch the soldiers, by patrolling the streets all night."

Such was the watch, then, kept upon the royalists, and such were the preparations to receive the troops when they should march out. We know now that Gage was informed of them, for among those whom Revere names as confidants of the mechanics there was a traitor to the cause. Yet though Gage knew of the organization of the Whigs, of its efficiency he had apparently not the glimmer of an idea. It was with no expectation of serious results that, when at last he learned that the resolution declaring the colonies to be in rebellion had pa.s.sed Parliament, he slowly put himself in motion to seize the stores of the provincials.

The Americans were keenly aware of all his movements. There were two common methods of leaving the town, one by the Neck, the other over Charlestown ferry. But these routes lay through towns, either Roxbury or Charlestown, and to march so openly meant to give the alarm. The Americans were ready for Gage to take a third route: across the Charles by means of boats, and then by unfrequented roads until striking the highway at Cambridge Common. This way the Whigs suspected he might choose, and this they found he did.

Gage's preparations were almost open. The boats of the men-of-war were hauled up and repaired at the foot of the Common. On the 14th, in the night, they were launched, and moored at the sterns of the men-of-war.

On the 15th was given out in general orders that "'The Grenadiers and Light Infantry in order to learn Grenadrs. Exercise and new evolutions are to be off all duties till further orders.'--This," remarks Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own, "I suppose is by way of a blind. I dare say they have something for them to do."

This "something" was either one or both of two objectives: the stores at Concord, and the persons of Adams and Hanc.o.c.k, then known to be staying at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. That this latter objective was seriously considered, at least by the Americans, we shall see from Revere's narrative. There never has been proof that Gage endeavored to seize either them or Warren. But in any case the stores were in danger, and strict watch was kept.

There was evidence enough of a coming expedition. As before the Ma.s.sacre, there were soldiers' rumors that something was to happen, and the name of Concord was whispered about. On the night of the 18th word came in from the country that parties of officers were riding here and there. This same notice was sent by vigilant patriots to Hanc.o.c.k at Lexington. In Boston itself different persons noticed that the troops were astir. Word of all this came from various sources to Warren who, relinquishing for a while his sittings with the Committee of Safety, had for some days been working for it at the post of responsibility and danger. Warren finally decided that he must act. He sent for the men who had pledged themselves for this service, and gave them his directions.

One of these men was William Dawes, of whom, except for his actions on this night, we know little. Obeying his instructions, he took horse, and rode across the Neck to go to Lexington by way of Roxbury and Watertown.

"About ten o'clock," writes Revere, "Dr. Warren sent in great haste for me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hanc.o.c.k and Adams were, and acquaint them of the movement, and that it was thought they were the objects." Revere was ready. In returning on the 15th he had arranged signals to his friends in Charlestown to inform them what route the British would take; he knew, also, how he should cross--for the ferry was closed at nine o'clock--and where he should get his horse. From Warren's Revere went home, got his "boots and surtout," and started. Two of his friends rowed him to Charlestown in a boat which was kept ready for the purpose, another was already despatched to make certain of the route the British would take.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD NORTH CHURCH

(From which Paul Revere's signals were displayed.)]

Of the person and the actions of this other friend there has been much dispute. The weight of evidence seems to show that on making sure of the route of the British, he went to the Old North Church, still standing in Salem Street, and from its steeple displayed the signal. I make no positive a.s.sertion that he spent any time in watching the British; Revere, knowing the route, may have signalled in order to make sure that the news crossed the river, even though he himself might fail. The person who displayed the signals seems to have been one Newman, the s.e.xton of the church, rather than Captain Pulling, a friend of Revere's.

At any rate, the signals were hung while Revere was crossing the river to Charlestown. He pa.s.sed un.o.bserved not far from the _Somerset_ man-of-war, and remarks that "it was then young flood, the ship was winding, and the moon was rising." On landing, his Charlestown friends told him they had already seen the signals. Revere (if we still suppose that he needed to make sure of the route) himself must have taken a look at the signal lanterns, as in Longfellow's poem. "Two if by sea." This poetical language means merely that the troops were preparing to cross the river in their boats. This is the traditional account of Revere's action. A contemporary memorandum states, however, that on landing Revere "informed [us] that the T [troops] were actually in the boats."

"I got a horse," says Revere, "of Deacon Larkin," which horse the deacon never saw again. Before Revere started he again received warning that there were British officers on the road, but he was quite cool enough to take note of the beauty of the night, "about eleven o'clock and very pleasant." Crossing Charlestown Neck, he started on the road for Cambridge, when he saw before him two hors.e.m.e.n under a tree. As Revere drew near, they pushed out into the moonlight, and he saw their uniforms. One of them blocked the road, the other tried to take him, and Revere, turning back, galloped first for Charlestown and then "pushed for the Medford road." Revere made the turn successfully; the officer who followed, ignorant of the locality, mired himself in a clay pond. Revere's road was now clear. He reached Medford, and roused the captain of the minute men; then, hastening on through Menotomy, now Arlington, and thence to Lexington, he "alarmed almost every house." He reached Lexington about midnight, and went directly to the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark, where Hanc.o.c.k and Adams were sleeping under a guard of the militia. Revere asked admittance, and the sergeant informed him that the family had requested that no noise be made.

"Noise!" replied Revere in the phrase familiar to every schoolboy, "you'll have noise enough before long--the regulars are coming out!"[60]

The family was accordingly at once aroused.

Meanwhile the troops had actually started. "Between 10 and 11 o'clock,"

says Lieutenant Barker, "all the Grenadiers and Light Infantry of the Army, making about 600 Men, (under command of Lt. Coll. Smith of the 10th and Major Pitcairn of the Marines,) embarked and were landed on the opposite sh.o.r.e of Cambridge Marsh." This phrasing is not immediately clear to one of to-day. In those days every regiment had two special companies, the heavy-armed grenadiers, so called because they originally carried hand-grenades, and the light-infantry company. These were frequently detached for special duty, as the present, when the Light Infantry would be used for flanking purposes. Thus every regiment in Boston was represented in the expedition--and we may add in the list of killed and wounded on the following day. The number is generally estimated at eight hundred. They were commanded by the colonel who had been longest on duty in New England. Smith was in character too much like Gage himself. The general would have done better to send one of his brigadiers.

One at least of the brigadiers was reasonably alert. According to Stedman, Lord Percy was crossing the Common after learning from the general that a secret expedition had just started. Perceiving a group of men talking together, the n.o.bleman joined them in time to hear one say, "The British troops have marched, but have missed their aim."

"What aim?" asked Lord Percy.