Best Little Stories from the American Revolution

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Best Little Stories from the American Revolution Page 11

by C. Brian Kelly


  But Howe would have to scramble to line up boats and fully equipped personnel, if he was to make good use of the day’s high tide, due at 2:30 P.M. As events turned out, he indeed did manage to move his first wave of one thousand grenadiers and light infantry across the Charles River on the favorable tide. They came ashore at Moulton’s Point at the tip of the peninsula, beyond reach of the American guns.

  When Howe saw the extent of the American defensive lines shortly after he stepped ashore, he called for even more men. In a short time, he had almost 2,200 redcoats on the ground and at his disposal. For the first head-to-head battle of the American Revolution, most of the British soldiers wore full gear and packs weighing fifty to one hundred pounds, by various estimates available today. With some of Howe’s light infantry beginning a flanking movement to the American left, along the Mystic River shoreline to the rear, the redcoats assigned to a frontal assault wave formed their traditional close ranks and stepped out.

  When newly fortified Breed’s Hill rose in front of them, no great matter. They simply marched onward in the hot June sun and started up the incline. But not for long. The first ranks were struck down by sheets of musket and light-artillery fire from the entrenched rebels. The survivors reeled back, leaving inert forms on the ground.

  In short order, the ranks closed up and a fresh assault went forward…in the old, European style. Again the crashing waves of Patriot gunfire took their toll and sent survivors reeling back.

  Now, with the Americans running low on powder, came General Sir Henry Clinton with four hundred to five hundred fresh men to join in the fight. And now came a third and final British assault, with heavy packs thrown aside, bayonets fixed. This time it was the outnumbered Americans who had to give way, first at Breed’s Hill, next at adjoining Bunker Hill as well.

  In the end, the Americans would have to retire from the field. First, though, the British left had suffered from snipers firing from the vacated houses in Charlestown itself. Then, fiery-hot shot lobbed from the ship cannon had set ablaze the entire town, about three hundred homes, an event shocking the Bostonians watching the battle unfold from their own windows and rooftops.

  As they and their fellow Colonials would soon learn, they had witnessed an historic American defeat…and yet not entirely a defeat.

  True, the British had gained possession of the high ground, but Howe had only pursued his enemy to the base of the peninsula, then stopped. The redcoats now held the Charlestown peninsula as hoped, but they had lost in the numbers game accompanying any battle—in casualties. Overall, out of 1,600 American men deployed, 140 had been killed, an estimated 271 wounded, and 30 captured. The British, on the other hand, could count 226 killed and a total casualty list of 1,054, nearly one-half the force of 2,200 they had deployed. Many of the British killed or wounded were officers, prime targets for the sharpshooting Americans. Among the fallen officers on this day in June was Marine Major John Pitcairn, whose troops had fired the first shots of the Revolutionary War on the Lexington Common back in April.

  Every battle has its difficult moments for either side—sometimes its inspiring moments, too. On Breed’s Hill that morning, Colonel Prescott certainly had been the inspiring hero for his virginal Americans, new as they were to set-piece battle. Before he leaped to the top of the earthen wall, however, the otherwise ineffective fire from the British warships Lively and Somerset had so shattered the nerves of Prescott’s militiamen that two of the Massachusetts regiments had withdrawn, decamped. Their officers and men explained they were exhausted by the night’s labors—after their leave-taking, Prescott for a time was left with only five hundred men.

  But Israel Putnam was back in Cambridge, where he successfully talked the timid Ward and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety into sending reinforcements over to the Charlestown high ground. Later in the day, Putnam and New Hampshire’s John Stark commanded sharpshooting Americans placed behind hastily erected barricades to halt British General Howe’s attempted flanking movement along the Mystic River shoreline on the northeast side of the peninsula. “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” Putnam told his compatriots behind a rail fence blocking Howe’s path. Putnam, incidentally, had been with the British when they failed in an attempt to seize Fort Ticonderoga from the French in 1758, an action costing the British a ranking officer who had died in Putnam’s arms. The officer was George Howe, older brother of General William Howe, who was now attacking Putnam and his American compatriots outside of Boston.

  In the end, the British flanking movement was beaten back, but the outnumbered and poorly supplied Americans on the two hills simply couldn’t hold out against the repeated frontal assaults. Many of their casualties for the day, in fact, stemmed from their withdrawal, even though it was an orderly one, considering the circumstances and their inexperience. “My God, how the balls flew!” exclaimed Connecticut Lieutenant Samuel Webb. “Four men were shot dead within five feet of me.”

  As details of the day’s battle spread, it was obvious to most that the moral victory, at least, lay with the Americans. That was the message quickly grasped by Nathanael Greene, Rhode Island’s neophyte brigadier general. “I wish we could sell them another hill at the same price,” said Greene, who was destined to become possibly the most brilliant of George Washington’s subordinates.

  The British, of course, were well aware that they had failed to break the siege, that they had seen nearly a third of their force in Boston become casualties…and that the Americans were prepared to fight and die for their cause. The flashpoint events of Lexington, Concord, and Menotomy on April 19 could no longer be written off as some sort of accidental friction between angry men armed with guns.

  Letter to Martha

  UPON HIS APPOINTMENT AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE NEWLY CREATED Continental Army in June 1775, a humble, almost chastened George Washington wrote to his wife, Martha:

  MY DEAREST,—I now sit down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my Care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it. You may believe me, my dear Patsy [his pet name for her], when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor 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 great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years. But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking is designed to answer some good purpose. You might and I suppose did, perceive from the tenor of my letters, that I was apprehensive I could not avoid this appointment, as I did not pretend to intimate when I should return. That was the case. It was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment without exposing my character to such censures as would have reflected dishonor upon myself and given pain to my friends. This, I am sure, could not, and ought not to be pleasing to you, and must have lessened me considerably in my own esteem. I shall rely, therefore, confidently on that Providence which has heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return safe to you in the fall. I shall feel no pain from the toil or the danger of the Campaign; my unhappiness will flow from the uneasiness you will feel from being left alone. I therefore beg that you will summon your whole fortitude, and pass your time as agreeably as possible. Nothing will give me so much sincere satisfaction as to hear this and to hear it from your own pen…

  A Feat Like Hannibal’s

  FORT TICONDEROGA, THAT FIERCELY NAMED BASTION OF THE ENGLISH DURING the French and Indian War, lay far off, at a conjunction of Lakes George and
Champlain in northern New York, up there near Canada. Dorchester Heights, on the other hand, overlooked Boston from the southeastern side of a bay.

  In the summer of 1775, the British held the city and its port facilities, along with the knob known as Bunker Hill, to the north. The aroused colonists of Great Britain, the Patriots, still held the countryside all around. They still held Boston in their grip, down there, below a ring of hills.

  This was the scene that greeted the newly appointed commander in chief of the Americans when he arrived that summer, fresh from Philadelphia and the rebel Congress that had named and dispatched him to direct the siege of Boston.

  But truly, was it much of a siege? Or merely a stalemate? George Washington’s own men, twice the number of the British inside the Patriot ring, were themselves wondering. For many enlistments soon would expire—Washington’s restive army could simply melt away overnight. The British, easily resupplied by sea, could simply wait…and wait.

  If only the Americans, unprepared for war with a great world power, had some artillery!

  And, yes, that was the key. Move a few pieces to the top of Dorchester Heights, and the Patriots would have the city below at their mercy. But where…where could they find the necessary guns?

  Heavy guns, real cannon…that was what was so badly needed.

  Enter now a young, overweight, inexperienced bookseller from Boston itself, one Henry Knox, twenty-five, member of the colonial militia—and proprietor of Boston’s ironically titled London Bookstore.

  Soon introduced to the new commander from Virginia, the bookseller was also a book-reader and self-appointed student of military affairs. As John Adams explained to George Washington, young Henry Knox, self-tutored or not, really knew his artillery. He, in fact, could be appointed a colonel in charge of the fledgling army’s artillery. Could be, should be…and was. But still, what artillery?

  It was Knox, himself, who said the solution to the problem was the recent capture of Fort Ticonderoga (in May of 1775, the feat engineered by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold). There the Patriots had come into possession of cannon that could serve as siege guns for the force surrounding Boston.

  The only trouble was that the sixty or so most-serviceable guns, weighing more than 120,000 pounds, were a good three hundred miles away, separated from the American army at Boston by a combination of mountains and untracked wilderness. Hercules was not available, but Knox, a “can do” young man if there ever was one, not only was available but was volunteering to undertake the seemingly impossible task of hauling the Ticonderoga guns to Cambridge and Boston.

  It was an offer the hard-pressed Washington could not refuse. Hoping for the best, he urged Knox on with the project and ordered that “no trouble or expense must be spared to obtain them [the guns].” With that endorsement, Henry Knox and his brother William set off for Ticonderoga in late November of 1775—already wintertime in New England and upper New York.

  It took them a mere four days to reach Ticonderoga, but it would be a much longer trip coming back. First, quite naturally, Henry Knox had to determine how great a treasure trove he might have…and, yes, he discovered, it would be an artillery assemblage well worth the effort to be expended on the arduous journey back to Boston.

  After discarding guns that were broken or worn out, Knox counted fifty-nine usable pieces, from little four-pounders all the way up to big twenty-fourpound cannon, along with assorted mortars and howitzers.

  And now came the hard part…all in stages, and no comfort to the impatient. Stage One, after dismantling the guns, was carrying their pieces across a peninsula—consisting of both swamp and woodland—to three bargelike boats that were waiting on the waters of Lake George.

  That done, the boats, with William in charge, navigated thirty or more miles down the narrow lake to Fort George, despite the ice rimming the lake shoreline a mile out and the grounding of one boat, a scow, that forced a redistribution of its cargo.

  That was the easy part, actually. Now, with various river and lake crossings en route, would come the overland part of the trip, including treks up and down mountainsides. For this task, Henry Knox had gone ahead and assembled a “fleet” of forty-two great sledges to be hauled by eighty horses and oxen. They, together with a mixed force of Revolutionary soldiers, teamsters, and other civilian volunteers, were assembled at Fort George to take the guns on from there.

  At the river crossings lying ahead, Knox had to hope for open water—to accommodate scow or barge—or for ice solid enough to hold his men, their animals, and the enormously heavy sleds carrying the dismantled guns, plus a goodly store of muskets and cannonballs. Any in-between conditions, such as a river partially iced over, would only delay his progress.

  By early January of 1776, however, he and the artillery train had reached Albany, New York. He crossed the Hudson River and inched on southward to Claverack, where he turned onto an old Indian trail—today’s U.S. Route 23, actually. It ran eastward, through the southern Berkshire Mountains, past Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Monterey. By then, Knox later wrote, his caravan had climbed mountains “from which we might almost have seen all the Kingdoms of the Earth.”

  Next came a difficult stretch of unspoiled pine forests, on to Blandford and today’s Westfield Mountain, notable during the tedious winter journey of 1776 for the fact that the teamsters with Knox had to take great care going down the mountain—take care that the heavy sleds would not careen downhill upon the men and oxen ahead.

  Advancing cautiously and gingerly, they employed tricks such as restraining lines fastened to trees alongside, check poles thrust under the runners, and drag chains, all of which conspired to bring the heavy loads slowly and safely down the mountainside.

  A bit more prosaically, the artillery train soon crossed the Connecticut River at Springfield, Massachusetts, on ice but then, caught by a sudden warming trend that softened the ground, became stuck in mud.

  Rarely discouraged, Knox simply waited for the weather to turn cold again, then moved his sledges on, over once-more frozen ground.

  From there, his artillery train was able to grind its tough way to Framingham, outside of Boston. At this point, Knox transferred the lighter, more mobile guns to Cambridge and left the heavier, slower-moving cannon for a later but still-imminent day.

  All in all, it had taken him about six weeks to move the guns from Ticonderoga to George Washington’s side at Cambridge. Moreover, Knox arrived with his shipment just about intact—when on occasion one of his sleds had broken through thin ice, his men had been able to recover the artillery pieces aboard. Overall, it had been an amazing operation, a feat not unlike either Hannibal or Napoleon and their armies crossing the Alps to take their respective enemies by surprise.

  Knox and his “noble train of artillery,” as it is often called, arrived in early February. The Patriot bombardment of Boston began on March 2, even as many of the guns were still being moved to the Dorchester Heights. Before all of the new guns had even unleashed their shot and shell, however, the British left the city on March 17, evacuating the port by sea. Fittingly, when George Washington rode into the newly abandoned town at the head of his momentarily triumphant Continental Army, Henry Knox, the onetime bookseller, was riding beside him.

  Son Unlike Father

  WHAT’S THIS? BEN FRANKLIN’S SON WILLIAM ACCUSED OF TREASON BY THE Patriots? Arrested, booted out of New Jersey, and thrown into jail in Connecticut?

  Obviously, there’s been a mistake here. Why else would George Washington consider William Franklin an enemy to the cause? Why, even a year later, would he refuse the younger Franklin permission to visit his dying wife in British-occupied New York?

  But no, there was no mistaking the clear cut loyalty of the royal governor of New Jersey—Ben Franklin’s illegitimate son, William—to the British Crown.

  It really did happen that way.

  Once upon a time, they were a close father and son. Those experiments by Ben Franklin to see if lightning packed an ele
ctrical wallop? By some historical accounts, son William held the kite string during the thunderstorm.

  Young William, born in 1730 or 1731, eventually would be honored with a doctorate from Oxford University for the role he played—starting as a teenager—in his father’s scientific experiments, but that recognition would come only when he and his father traveled to London together shortly before George III’s ascension to the throne of England in 1760.

  Before undertaking the Atlantic crossing with his father, William had quite a few accomplishments to his credit—or were they products of his father’s political influence? One may ask, but the fact is, while he “read the law” as a student of the legal process, young William served as postmaster of Philadelphia. Then, too, since he had been a useful aide to his activist father in the art of politics as well as in scientific experimentation, no surprise that William should appear for a time as clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Indeed, young “Billy” was only following in his father’s footsteps in both of these politically appointed jobs.

  The young man also put in time soldiering in the French and Indian War, even to the extent of leading a small force into the Ohio Territory.

  During all these highly visible activities, separately and together, Benjamin Franklin never denied fathering William, raised as his eldest son. William may or may not have been a premarital infant born to Benjamin Franklin and his common-law wife, Deborah Read. The situation simply comes down to us today as a muddled one…and it no doubt was rankling at moments to all in the immediate family. Oddly enough, William in time would produce an illegitimate son of his own. And the son would produce an illegitimate daughter of his own, as well.

  But first, with his venerable father known as the American Revolution’s unofficial ambassador to one and all in Europe, how and why did son William wind up as royal governor of rebellious New Jersey? The ironic contretemps stems in large part from the joint trip to London undertaken by father and son before the French and Indian War was concluded.

 

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