CHAPTER VIII.AMERICA AGAINST BRITAIN.—BOSTON TAKEN.
On the thirty-first day of December, 1775, Admiral Shuldham reached Boston with reënforcements for its garrison, and relieved Admiral Graves in command of all British naval forces. The troops within the lines were held under the most rigid discipline, although amusements were provided to while away the idle hours of a passive defence.
The winter was memorable for its mildness, so that the American troops, encamped about the city in tents, did not suffer; but the in-gathering of recruits, to replace soldiers whose enlistments had just expired, involved the actual creation of a new army, directly in the face of a powerful, well-equipped, and watchful adversary. And yet, this very adversary must be driven from Boston before the American patriot army could move elsewhere, and engage actively against the combined armies and navy of the British crown.
Indications of increasing hostilities on the part of royal governors of the South were not wanting to stimulate the prosecution of the siege to its most speedy consummation; and although unknown to Washington at the time, the city of Norfolk, Va., had been bombarded on New Year’s day by order of Lord Dunmore.
Boston and Vicinity.
Impressed by the urgency of the crisis, Washington, on the same day, was writing to Congress in plain terms, as follows, leaving the last wordblank, lest it might miscarry: “It is not, perhaps, in the power of history to furnish a case like ours; to maintain a post within musket-shot of the enemy, within that distance of twenty, old British regiments without——”
General Greene kept his small army well in hand, watchful of the minutest detail, inspecting daily each detachment, as well as all supplies of ammunition and food; and on the fourth of January, writing from Prospect Hill (see map of Boston and Vicinity), thus reported his exact position to the Commander-in-Chief: “The night after the old troops went off, I could not have mustered seven hundred men, notwithstanding the returns of the new enlisted men amounted to nineteen hundred and upwards. I am strong enough to defend myself against all the force in Boston. Our situation has been critical. Had the enemy been acquainted with our situation, I cannot pretend to say what might have been the consequences.”
The reader will appreciate at a glance the real opinion of the American Commander-in-Chief as to his own immediate future, and the general scope of operations which he regarded as supremely important in behalf of American Independence. He understood thoroughly, that Lord Dartmouth originally opposed the military occupation of Boston in order to prevent a collision between British troops and the excited people, which he regarded as an inevitable result. That distinguished and far-sighted statesman, in order to prevent any overt acts of resistance to the established representatives of the crown at business or social centres, wrote to Lord Howe as early as October 22, 1775, to “gain possession of some respectable port to the southward, from which to make sudden and unexpected attacks upon sea-coast towns during the winter.” But British pride had forced the increase of the army in Massachusetts Colony, andinitiated a disastrous campaign. Lord Dartmouth never wavered in the opinion that New York was the only proper base of operations in dealing with the Colonies at large. Lord Howe himself had advised that New York, instead of Boston, should be made the rendezvous and headquarters of all British troops to be sent to America. Only the contumacy of General Gage had baffled the wiser plans of superior authority.
During the first week of the new year, and while the American army was under the stress of reconstruction, Washington learned that General Clinton had been promised an independent command of a portion of the fresh troops which accompanied Admiral Shuldham to America, and would be detailed on some important detached service remote from New England waters. As a remarkable fact, not creditable to the king’s advisers, the Island of New York, at that time, was practically without any regular military garrison; but its aristocratic tory circles of influence could not conceive of a popular uprising against the supremacy of George III. within their favored sphere of luxury and independence.
Washington appreciated the situation fully. He recognized the defenceless condition of New York and its adaptation for the Headquarters of the Army of America. He was also thoroughly convinced that General Clinton’s proposed expedition would either occupy New York, or make the attempt to do so. He acted without delay upon that conviction, although reserving to himself the responsibility of first reducing Boston with the least possible delay. General Lee, then upon detached service in Connecticut, had written to him, urging, in his emphatic style, “the immediate occupation of New York; the suppression or expulsion of certain tories of Long Island; and that not to crush the serpents before their rattles were grown, would be ruinous.”
Washington was as prompt to reply; and ordered Lee to “take such Connecticut volunteers as he could quickly assemble in his march, and put the city in the best possible posture of defence which the season and circumstances would admit of.”
Meanwhile, every immediate energy of the Commander-in-Chief was concentrated upon a direct attack of the British position. The business capacity of Colonel Knox had already imparted to the Ordnance Department character and efficiency. Under direction of Washington he visited Lake George, during December, 1775, and by the last of February hauled upon sleds, over the snow, more than fifty pieces of artillery to the Cambridge headquarters. This enabled him to make the armament of Lechmere Point very formidable; and by the addition of several half-moon batteries between that point and Roxbury, it became possible to concentrate upon the city of Boston the effective fire of nearly every heavy gun and mortar which the American army controlled.
It had been the intention of Washington to march against Boston, across the ice, so soon as the Charles river should freeze sufficiently to bear the troops. Few of the soldiers had bayonets, but “the city must be captured, with or without bayonets,” and his army released for service elsewhere. In one letter he used this very suggestive appeal: “Give me powder, or ice, and I will take Boston.” Upon the occasion of “one single freeze and some pretty strong ice,” he suddenly called a council of war, and proposed to seize the opportunity to cross at once, and either capture or burn the city. Officers of the New England troops who were more familiar with the suddenness with which the tides affect ice of moderate thickness, dissuaded him from his purpose; but in writing to Joseph Reed, for some time after his Adjutant-General, he thus refers to the incident: “Behold, while we havebeen waiting the whole year for this favorable event, the enterprise was thought too hazardous. I did not think so, and I am sure yet, that the enterprise, if it had been undertaken with resolution, would have succeeded; without it,anywould fail.” “P.S.—I am preparing to take post on Dorchester Heights, to try if the enemy will be so kind as to come out to us.” This postscript is an illustration of Washington’s quick perception of the strategic movement which would crown the siege with complete success. He added another caution: “What I have said respecting the determination in Council, and the possession of Dorchester, is spokensub-rosa.”
The month of February drew near its close, when Washington, in the retirement of his headquarters, decided no longer to postpone his attack upon the city and its defences. Two floating batteries of light draught and great strength were quickly constructed, and forty-five batteaux, like the modern dredge-scow, each capable of transporting eighty men, were assembled and placed under a special guard. In order to provide for every contingency of surmounting parapets, or improvising defences in streets, or otherwise, fascines, gabions, carts, bales of hay, intrenching-tools, two thousand bandages, and all other contingent supplies that might, under any possible conditions, be required, were also gathered and placed in charge of none but picked men. Gen. Thomas Mifflin, his Quartermaster-General, who had accompanied him from Philadelphia, shared his full confidence, and was unremitting by night and by day in hastening the work intrusted to his department.
The inflexibility of purpose which marked Washington’s career to its close, asserted its supremacy at this crucial hour of the Revolutionary struggle, when, for the first time, America was to challenge Britain to fight, and fight at once. It had begun to appear as if his submissionof a proposition to a council of officers implied some doubt of its feasibility, or some alternate contingency of failure. Washington discounted all failure, by adequate forethought. Jomini, who admitted that Napoleon seemed never to provide for a retreat, very suggestively added: “When Napoleon was present, no one thought of such a provision.” In like manner Washington had the confidence of his troops.
It certainly is not anticipating the test of Washington, as Soldier, to state some characteristics which were peculiarly his own. His most memorable and determining acts were performed when he was clothed with ample authority by Congress, or the emergency forced him to make his own will supreme. In the course of this narrative it will appear that Congress did at last formally emancipate him from the constraint of councils. Whenever he doubted, others doubted. Whenever he was persistent, he inspired the nerve and courage which realized results, even though in a modified form of execution. Partial disappointments or deferred realization did not shatter nor weaken his faith. Washington, the American Commander-in-Chief, was in such a mood on the first day of March, 1776. He had a plan, a secret plan, and kept his secret well, until the stroke was ready for delivery.
And yet, the progress of the siege up to this date, and through two long winter months, had not been wholly spent in details for its certain success. Even after the first day of January, when he became acquainted with the proposed movement of General Clinton, he began to anticipate such a movement as an indication of his own future action. A selection of guns for field service was carefully made; batteries were organized and thoroughly drilled. Then, as ever after, during the war, artillerists were few in number, and the service was never popular. The hauling of heavy guns by hand, then with rareexceptions habitual, made the service very hard; and accuracy of fire cost laborious practice, especially where powder was scarce, even for exigent service. Wagons were also provided. Medical supplies were collected and packed in portable chests. He also inquired into the nature of the New England roads when the frosts of spring first tweak the soil, and was informed that they would be almost impassable for loaded wagons and heavy artillery.
During the same months the condition of Canada had become seriously critical, through the activity of General Carleton who expected reënforcements from England, and had already threatened the northern border. It seemed to Washington that Congress might even divert a part of his own army to support the army in Canada, upon the acquisition of Boston and the retirement of its British garrison. The ultimate destination of that garrison, in whole or in part, was full of uncertain relations to his own movements. The disposition of the large royalist element in Boston was also an object of care; but looming above all other considerations was the supreme fact that the war now begun was one which embraced every Colony, every section; and that the conflict with Great Britain was to be as broad and desperate as her power was great and pervasive.
And yet, under so vast and varied responsibilities, he matured and withheld from his confiding troops the secret of his purpose to capture Boston suddenly and surely, until the day of its crowning fulfilment arrived.
Just after sunset, on that New England spring evening, from Lechmere Point, past Cobble Hill, and through the long range of encircling batteries, clear to the Roxbury line on the right, every mortar and cannon which could take Boston in range opened fire upon the quiet city.
But this was only a preliminary test of the location, range, and power of the adversary fire. The British gunsresponded with spirit, and equally well disclosed to competent artillery experts distributed along the American lines, the weight, efficiency, and disposition of their batteries so suddenly called into action.
At sunrise of March 2d, the American army seemed not to have heard the cannonading of the previous night; or, wondering at such a waste of precious powder, shot, and shell, rested from the real experience of handling heavy guns against the city and an invisible foe, at night. And through the entire day the army rested. No parades were ordered. Only the formal calls of routine duty were sounded by fife and drum. No heads appeared above the ramparts. The tents were crowded with earnest men, tilling powder-horns, casting or counting bullets, cleaning their “firelocks,” as they were called in the official drill manual of those times, and writing letters to their friends at home. The quiet of that camp was intense, but faces were not gloomy in expression, neither was there any sign of special dread of the approaching conflict, which everybody felt to be immediately at hand. As officers went the rounds to see that silence was fully observed, it was enough to satisfy every curious inquirer as to its purpose,—“It is Washington’s order.” And all this time, behind the American headquarters, Rufus Putnam, civil engineer, Knox, Chief of Artillery, Mifflin, Quartermaster-General, and General Thomas, were ceaselessly at work, studying the plans and taking their final instructions from the Commander-in-Chief.
On the night of the third of March, soon after that evening’s sunset-gun had closed the formal duties of the day, and seemingly by spontaneous will, all along the front, the bombardment was renewed with the same vigor, and was promptly responded to. But some of the British batteries had been differently disposed, as ifthe garrison either anticipated an attack upon their works on Bunker Hill, or a landing upon the Common, where both land and water batteries guarded approach. (See map.)
This second bombardment had been more effective in its range. One solid shot from the city reached Prospect Hill, but no appreciable damage had been done to the American works; but some houses in Boston had been penetrated by shot, and in one barrack six soldiers had been wounded. Places of safety began to be hunted for. Artificial obstructions were interposed in some open spaces for protection from random shot and shell. No detail under orders, and no call for volunteers, to break up the investment of the city, had been made. No excited commander, as on the seventeenth of June, 1775, tendered his services to lead British regulars against Cambridge, to seize and bring back for trial, as traitor, the arch-rebel of the defiant Colonists. Red uniforms were indeed resplendent in the sunlight; but there was no irrepressible impulse to assail earthworks, which had been the work of months, and not of a single night, and behind which twenty thousand countrymen eagerly awaited battle. And on this day, as before, the quiet of the graveyard on Beacon Hill was no more solemn and pervasive than was the calm and patient resting of the same twenty thousand countrymen, waiting only for some call to duty from the lips of their silent Commander-in-Chief.
The fourth of March closed, and the night was mild and hazy. The moon was at its full. It was a good night for rest. Possibly such a whisper as this might have pervaded the Boston barracks, and lulled anxious royalists to slumber. “Surely the rebels cannot afford further waste of powder. They impoverish themselves. Sleep on! Boston is safe!” Not so! As the sun went down, the whole American camp was alive with its teemingthousands; not ostentatiously paraded upon parapet and bastion, but patiently awaiting the meaning of a mysterious hint, which kept even the inmates of hospital tents from sleeping, that “Washington had promised them Boston on the morrow.”
From “early candle-lighting” to the clear light of another dawn, incessant thunder rolled over camp and city. The same quick flashes showed that fire ran all along the line; and still, the occupants of camp and city, standing by their guns, or sheltered from their fire, dragged through the night, impatiently waiting for daylight to test the night’s experience, as daylight had done before.
At earliest break of day it was announced to General Howe that “two strong rebel redoubts capped Dorchester Heights.” The news spread quickly, after the excitements of the night. There was no more easy slumber in the royal bed-chamber of British repose, nor in the luxurious apartments of the favored subjects of George III., in the city of Boston, on that fifth day of March, 1776.
“If the Americans retain possession of the Heights,” said Admiral Shuldham, “I cannot keep a vessel in the harbor.”
General Howe advised Lord Dartmouth that “it must have been the employment of at least twelve thousand men.”
Another British officer said, “These works were raised with an expedition equal to that of the genii belonging to Aladdin’s lamp.”
Lord Howe said, further, “The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army would have done in a month.”
“Perhaps,” said Heath, “there never was as much done in so short a space.”
The reader of this narrative, whether citizen or soldier,cannot fail to be interested in some account of the extreme simplicity with which the construction of these works had been carried on. The earth, at that time, was frozen to the depth of eighteen inches, rendering the use of pick-axe and shovel, and all intrenching-tools, of little use; besides, the noise of their handling would have betrayed the workmen. The secret of Washington’s silent preparatory work, and the accumulation of such heaps of material behind his headquarters, is revealed. Hoop-poles, for hurdles and fascines,—branches cut from apple orchards, and along brooks, for abatis, even as far out as the present suburban towns of Brookline, Milton, Mattapan, and Hyde Park, had been accumulated in great quantities. Large bales of compressed hay, which were proof against any ordinary cannon-ball, had been procured also, so that the merely heaping up and arranging these under the personal direction of Engineer Putnam, according to a plan fully digested in advance, was but easy work for a class of country soldiers peculiarly “handy” with all such materials. Then, on the tops of the improvised redoubts, were barrels filled with stones. These, at the proper time, were to be rolled down the hill, to disconcert the formal array of steadily advancing British regulars.
The management of the whole affair was hardly less simple. Eight hundred soldiers, not needed during the cannonading, quietly marched out of camp the night before,—some between Boston and Dorchester Heights, and others at the east end of the peninsula, opposite Castle Island; while still others, with tools, and a supporting party of twelve hundred soldiers under General Thomas, followed the advance. Three hundred carts, loaded with suitable material, followed.
All this movement was liable to be discovered in spite of the incessant roar of heavy ordnance over the worksof besiegers and besieged. The flash of heated guns or bursting bombs might light up the trail of this slowly crawling expedition, and vast interests were staked upon the daring venture. But, along the most exposed parts of the way, the bales of pressed hay had been placed as a protecting screen; and behind its sufficient cover, the carts passed to and fro in safety. Even the moon itself only deepened the shadow of this artificial protector, while in position to light, as by day, the steps of the advancing patriots. And there was, also, a brisk north wind which bore away from the city, southward, all sounds which were not already lost in the hurricane of war that hushed all but those of battle.
But the American Commander-in-Chief had fully anticipated the possible incident of a premature discovery of his design against Dorchester. The success of his plans for the night did not wholly depend upon the undisturbed occupation and fortification of Dorchester Heights. That silent procession of two thousand countrymen was not, as at Bunker Hill, a sort of “forlorn-hope” affair. It was not hurried, nor was it costly of strength or patience. Reliefs came and went; and the system, order, and progress that marked each hour could not have been better realized by day. Instructions had been explicit; and these were executed with coolness and precision, as a simple matter of fact, to be done as ordered by Washington.
The silent preparations of the preceding day had provided for the main body of the American army other employment than a listless watch of a vigorous bombardment and its pyrotechnic illumination of the skies. At battery “Number Two,” the floating batteries and batteaux were fully manned, for crossing to Boston. Greene and Sullivan, with four thousand thoroughly rested troops, and these carefully picked men, were ready tomove on the instant, if the garrison attempted to interfere with Washington’s original purpose.
An eminent historian thus characterized the event: “One unexpended combination, concerted with faultless ability, and suddenly executed, had, in a few hours, made General Howe’s position at Boston untenable.”
As soon as General Howe appreciated the changed conditions of his relations to the besieging rebels, he despatched Earl Percy, who had met rebels twice before, with twenty-four hundred troops to dislodge the enemy from Dorchester Heights. The command moved promptly, by boats, to Castle Island, for the purpose of making a night attack. Sharp-shooting, by the American “Minute Men,” in broad daylight, behind breastworks, was not courted by Percy on this occasion, nor desired by General Howe. During the afternoon a storm arose from the south, which increased to a gale, followed at night by torrents of rain. Some boats were cast ashore, and the entire expedition was abandoned.
By the tenth of March, the Americans had fortified Nook’s Hill; and this drove the British from Boston Neck. During that single night, eight hundred shot and shell were thrown into the city from the American lines.
On the seventeenth of March, the British forces, numbering, with the seamen of the fleet, not quite eleven thousand men, embarked in one hundred and twenty transports for Halifax. The conditions of this embarkation without hindrance from the American army had been settled by an agreement on the part of the British authorities that the city should be left intact from fire, or other injury, and that the property of royalists, of whom nearly fifteen hundred accompanied the troops, should be also safe from violation by the incoming garrison. As the last boats left, General Ward occupied the city with a garrison of five thousand troops.
WASHINGTON AT BOSTON.[From Stuart’s painting.]
WASHINGTON AT BOSTON.[From Stuart’s painting.]
WASHINGTON AT BOSTON.[From Stuart’s painting.]
Of two hundred and fifty cannon left behind, nearly one-half were serviceable. Other valuable stores, and the capture of several store-vessels which entered the harbor without knowledge of the departure of the British troops, largely swelled the contributions to the American material of war.
The siege of Boston came to an end. New England was free from the presence of British garrisons. The mission of Washington to Massachusetts Colony, as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army of America, had fulfilled its purpose.