Footnote 185:That was the British storeshipNancy, captured off Cape Anne, and carried into that harbor, by Captain John Manly, commander of the American armed schoonerLee, one of the six vessels fitted out at Boston under the direction of Washington, before Congress had yet taken any measures to establish a navy. So valuable were the stores of theNancy, that Washington supposed General Howe would immediately make efforts to recover her, and he had an armed force sent to Cape Anne to secure them. There were two thousand muskets, one hundred thousand flints, thirty thousand round shot for one, six, and twelve pounders, over thirty thousand musket-shot, and a thirteen-inch brass mortar that weighed twenty-seven hundred pounds. The arrival of these produced great joy in the camp. Colonel Moylan, describing the scene, says: "OldPut[General Putnam] was mounted on the mortar, with a bottle of rum in his hand, standing parson to christen, while god-father Mifflin [afterward General Mifflin] gave it the name ofCongress."On the 29th of November, Washington commenced planting a bomb-battery on Lechmere's point, with the intention of bombarding the British works on Bunker hill. They completed it in the course of a few days, entirely unmolested.(Back)
Footnote 185:That was the British storeshipNancy, captured off Cape Anne, and carried into that harbor, by Captain John Manly, commander of the American armed schoonerLee, one of the six vessels fitted out at Boston under the direction of Washington, before Congress had yet taken any measures to establish a navy. So valuable were the stores of theNancy, that Washington supposed General Howe would immediately make efforts to recover her, and he had an armed force sent to Cape Anne to secure them. There were two thousand muskets, one hundred thousand flints, thirty thousand round shot for one, six, and twelve pounders, over thirty thousand musket-shot, and a thirteen-inch brass mortar that weighed twenty-seven hundred pounds. The arrival of these produced great joy in the camp. Colonel Moylan, describing the scene, says: "OldPut[General Putnam] was mounted on the mortar, with a bottle of rum in his hand, standing parson to christen, while god-father Mifflin [afterward General Mifflin] gave it the name ofCongress."
On the 29th of November, Washington commenced planting a bomb-battery on Lechmere's point, with the intention of bombarding the British works on Bunker hill. They completed it in the course of a few days, entirely unmolested.(Back)
Footnote 186:The author did not expect to have his Journal published, or he would have omitted the entry here made. There seems nothing in it derogatory to his character, yet he has chosen words to express his thoughts not suited "to ears polite."(Back)
Footnote 187:Washington was now in hourly expectation of an attack from the British, and, knowing his own weakness, he considered his situation very critical. In vigilance alone seemed a security for safety.(Back)
Footnote 188:The Yankee love of trade and barter appears to have been very prevalent in the camp.(Back)
Footnote 189:New militia recruits from the country, who had never seen service.(Back)
Footnote 190:General Joseph Spencer, of East Haddam, Connecticut. He remained in service until 1778, when he resigned, left the army, and became a member of Congress. He held rank next to Putnam in the army at Boston. He died in 1789, at the age of seventy years.(Back)
Footnote 191:Cobble.(Back)
Footnote 192:These, it is said, were the most perfect of any of the fortifications raised around Boston at that time.(Back)
Footnote 193:Seven miles northwest from Boston. It was then the seat of the revolutionary government in Massachusetts.(Back)
Footnote 194:Washington issued a notice, on the 28th of October, that tailors would be employed to make coats for those who wished them.(Back)
Footnote 195:This was a mistake. On the 13th of September, Colonel Benedict Arnold left Cambridge with a detachment to cross the country by the way of the Kennebec, to invade Canada and capture Quebec. Arnold's army suffered terribly on the march, and arrived at Point Levi, opposite Quebec, on the 9th of November, and prepared to attack the city. He was obliged to postpone his attack, and Quebec never fell into the hands of the patriots.(Back)
Footnote 196:Lechmere's.(Back)
Footnote 197:A nickname given to Bunker's hill.(Back)
Footnote 198:On the night of the 28th, an unsuccessful attempt was made to surprise the British outposts on Charlestown neck, and then to attack the enemy on Bunker's hill. The Americans started to cross from Cobble hill, on the ice. One of the men slipped and fell when they were half way across, and his gun went off. This alarmed the British, and they were on their guard. It was computed that, from the burning of Charlestown, on the 17th of June, until Christmas day, the British had fired more than two thousand shot and shells. They hurled more than three hundred bombshells at Plowed hill, and one hundred at Lechmere's point. Gordon says that, with all this waste of metal, they "killed only seven men on the Cambridge side, and just a dozen on the Roxbury side."(Back)
Footnote 199:Anno Domini.(Back)
Footnote 200:Fascines.(Back)
Footnote 201:Delightfully.(Back)
Footnote 202:When Charlestown was burned, fourteen houses escaped the flames. These were occupied by the British; and, on the 8th of January, General Putnam sent Major Knowlton (afterward killed at Harlem), with a small party, to set those houses on fire. The affair was injudiciously managed, and, before all could be fired, the flames of one alarmed the British in the fort. They discharged cannons and small-arms in all directions, in their confusion and affright. At that moment a play, called "The Blockade of Boston," written for the occasion by General Burgoyne, was in course of performance in the city. In the midst of the scene in which Washington was burlesqued, a sergeant dashed into the theatre and exclaimed, "The Yankees are attacking Bunker's hill!" The audience thought it was part of the play, until General Howe said, "Officers, to your alarm-posts!" Then women shrieked and fainted, and the people rushed to the streets in great confusion.(Back)
Footnote 203:Sir James Wallace commanded a small British flotilla in Narraganset bay, during the summer and autumn of 1775. He was really a commissioned pirate, for he burnt and plundered dwellings, and stores, and plantations, wherever he pleased. The fact above alluded to was the plunder and destruction of the houses on the beautiful island of Providence (not the town of Providence) by that marauder, at the close of November, 1775. He also desolated Connanicut island, opposite Newport; and every American vessel that entered that harbor was seized and sent to Boston.(Back)
Footnote 204:Arnold, with only seven hundred men, appeared before Quebec on the 18th of November, and demanded its surrender. He was soon compelled to retire, and, marching up the St. Lawrence twenty miles, he there met, in December, General Montgomery, with a small force, descending from Montreal. They marched against Quebec, and, early in the morning of the 31st of December, proceeded to assail the city at three distinct points. Montgomery was killed, Morgan and many of the Americans were made prisoners, and Arnold, who was severely wounded, retired to Sillery, three miles above Quebec.(Back)
Footnote 205:Several of the prizes captured by Manly and others contained powder and arms; and late in December, Colonel (afterward General) Knox arrived from Ticonderoga with forty-two sled-loads of cannons, mortars, lead, balls, flints, &c. By the close of January, powder became quite plentiful in the American camp.(Back)
Footnote 206:Militia-men.(Back)
Footnote 207:Here the Journal ends abruptly, and we have no clew to the writer afterward. As he had enlisted for the campaign of 1776, he doubtless remained with the army until after the expulsion of the British from Boston, in March following, unless he was killed in some of the skirmishes that frequently occurred, or was obliged to leave the army on account of sickness. Whatever was his fate, the veil of oblivion is drawn over it, for he was one of the thousands who with warm hearts and stout hands struggled in the field for the liberties of their country, lie in unhonored graves, and have had no biographers. If he lived until the conflict ended, and died in his native town, no doubt his grave is in the old churchyard at Wrentham. His family was among the earliest settlers there, for Daniel Haws was a resident of the village when it was burnt, in the time of King Philip's war, almost two hundred years ago; and on a plain slab in that old burial-place is the name of Ebenezer Haws, who died in 1812, at the age of ninety-one years.(Back)