This allegation was repeated in two biographies of Paul Revere, Charles Ferris Gettemy’s The True Story of Paul Revere, published in 1905, and Elbridge Henry Goss’s The Life of Colonel Paul Revere, first published in 1891. Goss repeated Drake’s error of adding Stedman’s secondary account of the Gage-Percy conversation and Gordon’s description of a “daughter of Liberty” and categorically assuming, in Goss’s words, that “this ‘daughter of Liberty’ was undoubtedly the wife of General Gage.”15 Gettemy went to some lengths to debunk this myth, at one point calling the tale “the most romantic theory that has been advanced to account for the foreknowledge possessed by the patriots relative to the British movements.”16
If such a circuitous and shadowy trail of dubious facts got Margaret Gage on the list of suspects, what evidence exists to exonerate her? Even the historian David Hackett Fischer, so meticulous and careful in so many things, rather cavalierly brushed off any chance of her innocence by citing “much circumstantial evidence” of her guilt, including “her husband’s decision to send her away from him after the battles, and the failure of their marriage.”17 Neither of those points stands up very well under scrutiny.
Margaret Gage’s departure from Boston for England on board the Charming Nancy in mid-August was hardly banishment. Thomas Gage wrote to his brother, Lord Gage, as early as May 13, saying that it was his intention to send Margaret and his children home to England.18 Given Thomas and Margaret’s pleasant year together in England and the grueling year just passed in Boston, who could blame either of them? Boston was full of people—rebels, loyalists, and British soldiers—who could think of little else but escaping its confines and its harsh living conditions. Duty, it is safe to say, was the only thing keeping General Gage himself in town.
At the time Gage wrote his brother of his plans for Margaret’s return, the trio of Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne had not quite arrived in Boston, but Gage was well aware from Dartmouth that they were coming. And he was far too experienced an officer not to know that their appearance was strong evidence that his own days as commander in chief were numbered. It was for Margaret’s well-being and that of their children that he wanted them out of the turmoil of Boston and safely across the Atlantic before the gales of another winter. He knew that he would follow them in due course; indeed, he appears to have heartily wished for that end.
There is no hint in any record that Margaret was anything but relieved to go. The truth of the matter was that the lifestyle to which she had been born and to which she was accustomed was far more readily had in England, particularly as it seemed increasingly likely that her husband would inherit his childless brother’s peerage. To be sure, there were many rebels who chose liberty’s cause over such earthly considerations, but there is nothing in Margaret Kemble Gage’s past to suggest that she might embrace that kind of sacrifice even if she had been so inclined politically. Without a doubt, she was anxious to reunite her children, three of whom she had left in school in England the previous summer as she had followed the general back to Boston. One of those, eleven-year-old William, had died in the interim.
And what of the reported failure of their marriage? Once again, David Hackett Fischer, despite what reservations he may have had, nonetheless summarized the speculation of earlier secondary sources by writing of Gage’s later years, “His shattered marriage with Margaret Gage was never repaired.”19 There is, however, no direct evidence that it was ever shattered, and circumstantial evidence supports just the opposite.
After leaving Boston, Thomas and Margaret Gage had two more children. Daughter Emily was born in London on April 25, 1776, eight months after Margaret sailed on the Charming Nancy. The timing is such that probably neither Thomas nor Margaret yet knew she was pregnant as they parted, but Margaret was no stranger to childbearing and may have had an inkling. Providentially for her, the Charming Nancy made the eastbound crossing in the very fast time of only twenty-four days.
Their last child, William Hall Gage, was born in England on October 2, 1777, when Margaret was forty-three.20 (As a captain in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and later an Admiral of the Fleet, William Hall Gage would become arguably a greater military commander than his father.) Childbearing is certainly not dispositive of marital bliss; however, short of questioning Margaret’s fidelity, these children are evidence of their continuing intimacy just prior to Margaret’s leaving Boston and well after Thomas returned to England.
There is one further point often raised by those who would condemn Margaret as a rebel spy in General Gage’s bedchamber: a dubious report of Gage’s philandering after he returned to England. This came, some years after the birth of their last child, in the pages of the Town and Country Magazine, a publication best described as one of the leading scandal sheets of the day—one that in later times might have printed headlines proclaiming that aliens rode with Paul Revere. Town and Country’s subtitle termed itself a “universal repository of knowledge, instruction, and entertainment.” Indeed, the story in question spends pages recounting the favors that a fallen young woman bestowed on various military types before her liaison with an older gentleman called “the lenient commander” and presumed by some to be Gage.21
Finally, however, Margaret Kemble Gage held the general’s love and esteem—and by all accounts returned it—to their dying days. After Gage died on April 2, 1787, Margaret and the general’s brother, Lord Gage, were named coexecutors of his will. After distributions to their surviving children, Gage left “a considerable part” of his estate “in a trust for his widow during her life.” Margaret outlived the general by almost thirty-seven years, never remarried, and died on February 9, 1824, near the age of ninety years old.22 That Margaret Kemble Gage, glamorous American-born wife of the British commander in chief, should have betrayed her husband and her loyalist upbringing in the rebel cause makes a great story, but it does not hold up under careful scrutiny.23
Chapter 22
What Course Now, Gentlemen?
As Margaret Gage packed her trunks and prepared to leave Boston, the deliberations of the Second Continental Congress continued in Philadelphia. President John Hancock was feeling increasingly comfortable in the presiding chair, but then again Hancock rarely felt uncomfortable anywhere. Some of the delegates were on a fast track to declaring independence; others still harbored hopes for reconciliation or at least a peaceful parting. Hancock’s task was to keep a steady rein on the body and maintain some sense of unity and cooperation among all factions. It was, as John Adams remembered, like driving “a Coach and six—the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.”1
Two matters continued to command the attention of all delegates: an army and the means to pay for it. On Monday, June 12, in recognition of “the present critical, alarming and calamitous state of these colonies,” the congress voted July 20 to be “a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer” and “recommended to Christians, of all denominations, to assemble for public worship, and to abstain from servile labour and recreations.” Then it resolved itself into a committee of the whole to “take into consideration the ways and means of raising money.”2
These matters occupied the attention of the congress during the following two days, and at the day’s adjournment on June 14, it was ordered that consideration of the ways and means of raising money “be a standing order, until the business is compleated.” But even if they were not yet agreed on how to pay for it, the delegates also authorized “six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania; two in Maryland, and two in Virginia.” John Adams went to some length to explain to Abigail that the difference between smoothbore muskets and rifled bores made these men “the most accurate Marksmen in the World.” Each company was to consist of eighty-one men—a captain, three lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter, and sixty-eight privates. As soon as it was formed, each unit was to march to Boston for service as light infantry. Perhaps somew
hat optimistically, the term of enlistment was to be one year.3 At the time, few could imagine a longer conflict.
These ten companies, totaling slightly more than eight hundred men, were hardly an army, but added to the provincial troops in the field around Boston—the leaders of which were clamoring for some sort of continental structure—they were proof that the Continental Congress was slowly but surely assuming a national role. Who was to command this assemblage was another matter.
In making this decision, the congress faced its strongest test of colonial unity since the economic sanctions it had passed the previous fall. From New Hampshire to South Carolina and initially reluctant Georgia, there were men on the same page for revolution, but would Virginia or Maryland soldiers take orders from a Massachusetts general and vice versa?
On June 15, the congress debated the matter at length and resolved “that a General be appointed to command all the continental forces, raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty.”4 This description of the proceedings in the journal of the Continental Congress is almost maddening in its brevity. The truth is, there had already been a flurry of private conversations—“canvassing this Subject out of Doors,” as John Adams termed it—and Adams and his Massachusetts comrades were well aware that a commander in chief of a Continental Army from Massachusetts would be met with “a Jealousy” by the southern colonies.
Adams, his cousin Samuel, and John Hancock were equally aware at the political level that binding Virginia and the southern colonies to Massachusetts and the rest of New England was in their long-term interests. If John Adams’s later recollections are to be taken at face value—he did have a tendency in retrospect to place himself at the center of every event—Adams promoted a Massachusetts-Virginia accord and particularly ingratiated himself with Virginia’s George Washington. John Hancock had already been the beneficiary of this Massachusetts-Virginia alliance when Adams helped to broker Hancock’s election as president to succeed Peyton Randolph. Now that it was time to appoint a commander in chief, many reasoned it was Virginia’s turn.
“Whether this Jealousy was sincere, or whether it was mere pride and a haughty Ambition, of furnishing a Southern General to command the northern Army,” Adams recalled, “the Intention was very visible to me, that Col. Washington was their Object, and so many of our staunchest Men were in the Plan that We could carry nothing without conceeding to it.”5
A further wrinkle was John Hancock’s aspirations to be appointed commander in chief himself—or at least to have the opportunity to decline the honor of the position. John Adams was polite enough to term Hancock “an excellent Militia Officer” for his showy service with Boston’s First Corps of Cadets, but Adams found Hancock’s “entire Want of Experience in actual Service” to be a decisive objection to him.6
Once again, John Adams claimed that he took a walk with his cousin Samuel “for a little Exercise and fresh Air” to ponder this situation and propose a plan. Samuel was noncommittal, but John nonetheless returned to the session and called for the appointment of a commander in chief, further declaring that he “had but one Gentleman in my Mind for that important command.” According to Adams’s recollections, which are not readily supported by other participants, John Hancock’s ears perked up at this, and he waited expectantly for Adams to put forth his name. But the name that rolled off the tongue of Hancock’s fellow Massachusetts delegate was that of “a Gentleman from Virginia who was among Us and very well known to all of Us.” According to John Adams, when George Washington heard his name mentioned in this manner, he rose from his seat and with “his Usual Modesty darted into the Library Room” to escape attention.7
John Hancock just as quickly was said by John Adams to have undergone a “sudden and sinking Change of Countenance” that covered his face with “Mortification and resentment.” If this was indeed the case, it added insult to injury that Hancock’s mentor, Samuel Adams, quickly seconded his cousin’s motion to appoint a commander in chief and said nothing to detract from the suggestion that, once the position was created, Washington should be the obvious choice to fill it.8
The congress then passed the resolution to appoint a commanding general and provide five hundred dollars per month for his pay and expenses. Next, Thomas Johnson of Maryland, a lawyer whom George Washington would one day appoint to the Supreme Court, rose to nominate the Virginian for the position. In spite of some lingering sentiments in favor of appointing a New Englander, Washington appears to have been unopposed and “was unanimously elected.”9
Eliphalet Dyer of Connecticut wrote home to his future son-in-law, Joseph Trumbull, that Washington had received “the Universal Voice of the Congress.” Dyer speculated that Washington would be “Very agreable to our officers and Soldiery” and called him a gentleman “highly Esteemed by those acquainted with him.” As to Washington’s military service, Dyer didn’t believe that “he knows more than some of ours” but was satisfied that his appointment “removes all jealousies [and] more firmly Cements the Southern to the Northern.”10
If he did indeed carry some of the resentment that John Adams later attributed to him, John Hancock certainly did not show it when he notified Joseph Warren of Washington’s appointment. “He is a gentleman who all will like,” Hancock assured his Massachusetts friend. “Pray do him every honor.”11
The day after his election, forty-three-year-old George Washington, who as yet had somewhat of a dubious military record, rose to accept his appointment. “Tho’ I am truly sensible of the high Honour done me, in this Appointment,” Washington began, “yet I feel great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust.”12 Perhaps Washington was merely being modest, but perhaps he was also truthfully remembering his surrender of Fort Necessity in the opening days of the French and Indian War, his role in Braddock’s Defeat the following year, and his less-than-enthusiastic participation in the retaking of Fort Duquesne as a disgruntled subordinate under General John Forbes.13
“Lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavourable to my reputation,” Washington continued, “I beg it may be remembered, by every Gentleman in the room, that I, this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the Command I am honored with.” But he would accept it, of course, and take pains to assure the congress that, “as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have accepted this arduous employment, at the expence of my domestic ease,” he would serve without compensation, save for his expenses, which he was never shy about submitting.14
Congress officially passed Washington’s commission as “General and Commander in chief, of the army of the United Colonies,” and the new general sat down to write a lengthy letter to his wife. For reasons known best to her, Martha Washington burned most of the letters she received from her husband. The one he wrote from Philadelphia two days after accepting command of the Continental Army survives as an exception. Saying that he was writing on a subject that filled him “with inexpressable concern,” Washington acknowledged in his first sentence that this concern was “greatly aggravated and Increased” by “the uneasiness I know it will give you.”
Telling Martha that duty required him “to proceed immediately to Boston,” Washington tried to assure her “that, so far from seeking this appointment I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the Family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too far great for my Capacity.”15
Here again was a shade of modesty, perhaps, but far from evidence of genuine reluctance on Washington’s part, this letter was much more the careful communication of a husband to a wife assuring her that he had at least tried to avoid a situation where he would be both in danger and away from her for an extended period. His requisite modesty and spousal attentiveness aside, Washington had accepted command of Virginia militia units and routinely worn his military uniform to sessions of the congress. He may have
been somewhat humbled when the moment came, but it was a role he welcomed.
The congress went on to appoint two major generals, including Artemas Ward as first major general, eight brigadier generals, and assorted officers to staff the new army. And there would be funds with which to fight a war. The ways and means debate resulted in an agreement to issue the sum of two million dollars (almost sixty million in 2010 dollars) in bills of credit—essentially continental paper currency—that were due in seven years. These were backed by all the colonies, except Georgia, in proportion to the number of inhabitants in each colony: thus New York was on the hook for a much larger share of the debt than tiny Delaware.16
On Tuesday, June 20, the congress gave Washington his marching orders. He was “to repair with all expedition to the colony of Massachusetts bay and take charge of the army of the united colonies.”17 That same morning the man who was now General Washington reviewed about two thousand troops from nearby militias, including Philadelphia’s artillery company and a troop of light horse assembled on the town common. They were said to have gone through the manual of arms and various maneuvers “with great Dexterity and exactness.”18 The next day, Washington left Philadelphia for Boston not knowing that several days earlier a bloody battle had occurred on the hills above the town.
MEANWHILE, AS MUCH AS DELEGATES to the Second Continental Congress accomplished in those hectic days of May and June, 1775, there was no attempt—and apparently little, if any, discussion on the matter—to broaden the reach of their cherished concepts of liberty and freedom to a wider segment of the population. There were white males in low social and economic classes who were accorded lesser rights than men of property, but the major categories of people who had little hope of achieving equality were women and slaves. It is difficult to say which group then stood the better chance.
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