Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Washington’s whole impulse was to put on to Boston. Boston was “the front,” Boston the place where, if anywhere, success might produce an honorable settlement, without the acute agony and ruinous cost of a long struggle. Even if that contest was unavoidable, the camps around Boston must be the training school of victory. The sooner the start, the earlier the ending.

  The ride to Springfield June 30 put Washington in touch for the first time with men who were sharing as Massachusetts legislators in the contest with the British in Boston. Dr. Benjamin Church and Moses Gill presented themselves as a committee named by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts to receive the Generals “with every mark of respect due to their exalted characters and stations.” These hosts explained that the Massachusetts Congress had directed that gentlemen of the larger towns on the road to Cambridge serve as an escort to the new Commander-in-Chief and his second. That prospect was equivalent to lengthening the highway to the besieged city, but there was no avoiding what manifestly was meant to be honor and courtesy.

  With Church and Gill and a number of the leading men of Springfield, Washington rode July 1 to Brookfield, where his escort was changed, and thence to Worcester, where the same thing happened. From Worcester the next stage was to Marlborough. July 2 he covered early the distance to Watertown. The Provincial Congress was holding its sessions there and the week previously had named a committee to prepare for the reception of the General. At the head of the committee was the President of the body, James Warren. The entire Congress gave him a grateful welcome and presented him an address that was cordial in spirit and honest in warning the General he would not find “such regularity and discipline” in the Army as he might expect.

  Then Washington was able to start on the last stretch of his journey, the three miles to Cambridge. There he was conducted to the residence of Pres. Samuel Langdon of Harvard where, he was advised, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had given orders that he and General Lee were to have all the rooms, except one allotted Langdon. Washington met the officers who already had assembled or who called as soon as they heard of his arrival. Conspicuous among them was Artemas Ward, in general command. Another was Israel Putnam. As Putnam had been the choice of Congress for one of the commissions as Major General, Washington thought it appropriate to hand him the formal paper that attested his rank. Some incident of the meeting brought Washington a first, unpleasant surprise: It was manifest that the seniority prescribed by Congress for the New England Generals did not accord with the opinion the leaders had formed of the relative merits of those commanders. Soon he learned that Seth Pomeroy, for whom he had a brigadier’s commission, had left the Army because of disappointment. Another new Brigadier, Joseph Spencer, was said to be angry because Putnam, whom he had outranked in the service of Connecticut, had been given a higher continental commission. This was not the last or the most embarrassing case. Dr. John Thomas was regarded as one of the best officers of Massachusetts, but in ignorance of existing seniority Congress had made him a Brigadier and had listed him as junior to William Heath and Pomeroy, both of whom he had outranked in Massachusetts service. Washington was immediately on the alert. Quarrels must not divide the leadership of the Army on which the vindication of the Colonial cause depended.

  Washington rode out in the company of Putnam, Lee and other officers in the afternoon for a view of the fortifications. In a short time the horsemen covered the three-quarters of a mile to Prospect Hill. Washington had almost immediately in front of him at a little more than a quarter of a mile an excellent gun position his guides called Cobble Hill. Across a wide millpond was Bunker Hill where he could see British sentinels. Below their post and under Breed’s Hill were the ruins of Charlestown, which had been set afire and almost consumed in the fighting of June 17. The entire Charlestown Peninsula was British ground, isolated and easily defended, except perhaps against night raids by men in boats. Southeastward he could see a considerable part of Boston, distant about two miles. Beyond Boston, in the fine harbor, were the ships of the British fleet. The waters in which the vessels were riding could be swept by the naval guns. Two miles and a half from the eastern rim of Boston, Castle Island had its armament and its garrison. Thus land and harbor were commanded by the King’s long arm, his cannon. Washington saw at a glance that the redoubts prepared by the Americans were feeble and in several instances badly placed, but he could observe, also, that some of the positions were strong naturally. With vigor and good engineering, he could hope to confine the British to Boston and the hills above Charlestown. By choosing advantageous ground for batteries he might discourage landings from the fleet. Together, these possibilities shaped his first mission: He must bottle up the British while he trained his Army.

  MAP / 7

  BOSTON, 1775-1776

  Transfer of command by Ward on July 3 was more or less formal, but did not impress itself on witnesses as ceremonious. Morning General Orders, the first issued by Washington, included a call for a “return” of the troops to ascertain immediately the number of men under his direct command and the strength of the different regiments. Along with their returns, the colonels were to file a statement of the ammunition in the hands of their men. To Washington’s annoyance he found that the returns could not be supplied that day, but he had a satisfying report on powder: The store was 308 barrels, or roughly sixteen tons. For the moment, as the shortage of powder would not be serious, Washington could devote his energies primarily to strengthening the fortifications. Not a day must be lost in making the defences as nearly impregnable as they could be in the hands of inexperienced troops.

  Washington rode over the ground, examined the works, and had his first glance at the Colonial troops around Roxbury, two Connecticut and nine Massachusetts Regiments. The discipline of none of these was good, by professional standards. Arms were poor and of every age and type; many men were almost naked because they had lost their clothing at Bunker Hill and had not received that which the Provincial Congress had voted them. Many officers did not know their duties or how to do them. Washington was tolerant and was resolved to be patient because he knew the human material out of which the Army and its command had to be created.

  Washington took up his administrative duties vigorously and with his usual regard for detail. Warren and Joseph Hawley, leading members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, believed they had found a way of righting the wrong they thought Congress had done General Thomas when the Philadelphia lawmakers had put Pomeroy and Heath ahead of Thomas in continental service. The inactive Pomeroy was a hundred miles away. If the Commander-in-Chief found it consistent with his instructions to withhold Pomeroy’s commission until he could hear from Congress, they would try to prevail on Heath to acquiesce in the restoration of Thomas’s seniority. Washington had no objection to this and realized that it would be desirable to give seniority to Thomas if that officer was as good as Massachusetts leaders said he was.

  This affair out of his way, Washington could devote himself to fundamental needs of the Army that were plainer every day, secure fortification, accurate intelligence, the discipline of understanding minds and the strength of good organization. Cover and training both might soon be imperative, because Gen. Thomas Gage’s men gave every indication of a purpose to attack somewhere on the American defences. Washington had first to build up his Army defensively but he saw at the same time an opportunity of using his extended works as a cordon to intercept the supply of the British in Boston from the surrounding country. If the summer’s campaign would end the war, then he had no greater duty than that of confining the British, hungry and helpless, in Boston.

  Discipline, order and sound organization could not wait on the raising of parapets to the required height. Washington set out to train the troops to make their numbers count to the fullest. During the first days that fortification and discipline were being improved, Washington was calling for returns of the strength of the Army. He was told that from 18,000 to 20,000 men were on the lines, but
nobody could speak with certainty. He fretted over the delay in compiling figures he thought every regimental commander would have had at hand. As delivered on July 9, the returns were alarming. Washington found only about 16,600 enlisted men and NCOs, of whom the rank and file, present for duty, fit, numbered 13,743 foot. The artillery were listed as 585.

  Effective strength was so much below estimates that it raised immediately a question larger than any that Washington ever had been called upon to answer: Should these half-trained and poorly disciplined Colonials attempt to continue the siege and to invite attack, or for safety’s sake should they retire beyond the range of the British heavy guns? Washington determined immediately to refer it to a council of war and, regardless of his Generals’ advice on the question of siege or withdrawal, to proceed at once, by every legitimate means, to get more men into the Army. The answer of the council was that the Army must continue the siege, and must offer the sternest resistance it could in event the British made a sally.

  If the Army was to stand in front of Boston, it must stand on the A-B-Cs of war: it must be thoroughly disiplined, well organized, ceaselessly vigilant and numerically stronger. To this basic policy, after the council of war, Washington returned even more positively than ever. He stressed it in his initial dispatch to the President of Congress. The one cheerful passage in a realistic report was that “there are materials for a good army, a great number of men able bodied, active, zealous in the cause and of unquestionable courage.” At Headquarters there were other encouraging conditions. Gates assumed his duties as Adjutant General, greatly to the relief of Washington. When the Massachusetts Provincial Congress learned that the President’s house at Harvard was not altogether adequate as Headquarters, it directed the Committee of Safety to place at Washington’s disposal and at Lee’s any other dwelling that suited them. As a result, the two Generals transferred Headquarters to the house of John Vassall, who had gone to Boston when the Colonials occupied Cambridge.

  Another encouragement was a new turn in the case of General Spencer. After that Connecticut commander had taken offence at the appointment of Putnam over him, he had left his quarters on July 6 without leave from the new Commander-in-Chief, and he either inspired or else said nothing to prevent a written protest on July 5 by forty-nine of his officers. The effect was to bring Spencer into general disfavor. In the end, he had the good sense to swallow his pride and return on July 18, at the rank assigned him by the Continental Congress. This relieved Washington of a delicate situation which he had not created and could not himself correct. Wooster’s discontent persisted; Pomeroy might perhaps be disregarded; if Thomas could be reconciled to the rank given him or could be made the senior Brigadier, then jealousies of this nature might cease for the time to threaten the cause of the Colonies. Washington deferred action temporarily, but Congress promptly voted to make Thomas senior Brigadier, vice Pomeroy. To remove all ground of future difference, the Delegates stipulated that Thomas’s commission bear the same date as Pomeroy’s. If this displeased Heath, he made no formal protest and by his silence let the controversy end. Washington could mark off his list of difficulties the “great dissatisfaction” with the appointments of general officers. Not till this was past did he admit the full seriousness of the danger he thought the controversy carried. Then he confided to Philip Schuyler that because of the incompetence and clashes among the officers, “confusion and disorder reigned in every department, which in a little time must have ended either in the separation of the army or fatal contests with one another.”

  Washington proceeded to battle with mounting duties and, in particular, to execute a plan for dividing the Army into three “Grand Divisions” of two brigades each. Ward was named to command the right, with the brigades of Thomas and Spencer. The central Grand Division, lacking as yet an organized second brigade, was to be Putnam’s. Its existing brigade, in which Putnam had been ranking officer, was entrusted to its senior colonel. On the left were the brigades of Sullivan and Greene, with Lee in general command. A Judge Advocate General was named to organize the work of the military courts; similarly, a Commissary General was appointed in the person of Joseph Trumbull. Many articles required for the camps would be crude, and some were unprocurable in a region deprived of imports; but Washington found he could count on everything the New England Colonies could supply.

  Abatement of jealousies over rank, first steps in organization and discipline, the progress of fortification, the support of the New England Colonies—all these were facilitated by hearty acceptation of Washington as a man of character and a leader of judgment and resolution. In the Bay Colony as in Pennsylvania, he was credited with so great a fortune that his willingness to risk it in the Colonial cause bred confidence in him. Henry Knox told his wife: “General Washington fills his place with vast ease and dignity, and dispenses happiness around him.” Abigail Adams assured her husband: “You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of General Washington, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.”

  Washington was fortunate, more than fortunate, in his adversary. Bunker Hill had shaken both the strength and the confidence of the British. Although some of the officers around Charlestown expressed special confidence in Gen. William Howe, they had respect for American marksmanship and resentment of the Colonials’ vigilance. The British delayed the attack Washington expected. On July 8 some of General Thomas’s men surprised the guard at an advanced post on the Roxbury line and destroyed the dwelling and barn there. On the twenty-fifth three men-of-war and six transports sailed out of Boston and disappeared on a raid on the smaller islands of Long Island Sound.

  Indications multiplied that the enemy might be preparing to break the siege. On the night of the twenty-ninth, two patrols were sent out to capture a prisoner and ascertain what was happening at Charlestown. The patrols crept forward and were about to join forces when they ran into the British relief guard and had an exchange of fire. Two British prisoners were taken without loss. This brush led to scattered fire along the line and two small actions. On the thirtieth, the British demonstrated on Boston Neck and west of Bunker Hill. Late in the night of July 30/31, a British party advanced towards Roxbury but failed to gain surprise because a deserter had slipped ahead and given warning. An American force of three hundred landed that same night on the island where the British were repairing the Light House. The object was to stop the work and capture the carpenters and a guard of thirty-two marines under a subaltern. American success was complete.

  These activities might forecast major attack. The American commander knew that a fleet of transports had brought reenforcements to Boston, and he had learned that these consisted of four regiments, “a miserable relief,” as one British officer put it. Washington’s estimate of the total strength of the British was 10,000 to 12,000, admirably equipped in every particular, with good artillery. The effectiveness of this force was increased vastly by its ability to concentrate at almost any point in superior numbers.

  Washington never let himself forget that British advantage. He increasingly suspected that the British would begin heavy bombardment of the American lines in the hope of driving the troops from them. He scarcely could hope to answer this fire because he did not have the powder for such an exchange, even though nothing had occurred during July to reduce materially the stock of 308 barrels he had been told was in store. In any event, cartridges must be issued the men. As the continental stock amounted to 35,000 only, appeal was made forthwith to the Massachusetts authorities to furnish the remainder from their store. Elbridge Gerry replied that the supply of the Bay Colony amounted to no more than thirty-six barrels of powder. Thirty-six barrels? Impossible. What did the troops of the other Colonies have? Their total was about fifty-four barrels. Thirty-six and fifty-four—ninety barrels or 9900 pounds. Was that all? Absolutely! When the return had been made after Washington’s ar
rival, the men who gave the General the figure of 308 barrels had included all the powder that had been collected—what had been fired as well as what remained. If the British attacked, the Army had barely powder enough to issue each man nine cartridges. One brisk action might render the Army defenceless: it must not be!

  The next day brought reports that eighty thousand flints and eight tons of lead were in transit to the Army and that “fifteen hogsheads of powder” had been received in New York and would be reported to the Commander-in-Chief; but “reports” were one thing and deliveries quite another. Washington had to be miserly with every grain of explosive the Army possessed, and he had to call for every pound left in New England, without being at liberty to tell the people how overwhelming was the need. Unless there was the tightest secrecy, the British would hear of the Colonials’ plight. Faced with that prospect the Army must stop wasting cartridges. Every man’s ammunition was to be examined at evening roll call. Those soldiers who were short of their allotment were to be confined. The Governors must be acquainted with the essentials. The next step was to report the stark danger to the President of the Continental Congress. This was done as briefly as might be, with the stern conclusion: “I need not enlarge on our melancholy situation. It is sufficient to say that the existence of the Army and salvation of the country depends upon something being done for our relief both speedy and effectual and that our situation be kept a profound secret.”