Boston – Salina B Baker

The Battle of Chelsea Creek

On May 24, three days after British General Thomas Gage sent four sloops to tiny Grape Island near the town of Weymouth to pick up some recently harvested hay from the loyalist Elijah Leavitt, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety ordered all livestock and hay removed from nearby Noddle’s and Hog Island. The two contiguous islands lay east of Charlestown and formed a peninsula that reached from the town of Chelsea toward Boston to the southeast with the town of Winnisimmet on the opposite shore directly north.

Those who sold their goods to the British faced the wrath of rebels, just as Elijah Leavitt had, and those who sold to the rebels faced the wrath of the British. One resident of Hog Island had been warned that if he sold anything to the British, the rebels would take all the cattle from the island and … handle him very roughly.

On the evening of May 26, American General Artemas Ward sent Colonel John Nixon of Sudbury and Colonel John Stark and his New Hampshire regiment to implement the committee’s directive. On the morning of May 27, approximately 500 rebels waded across the Chelsea-Hog Island channel, which at low tide became an easily fordable, knee-high creek with wide mudflat banks. A detachment of 30 men continued on to Noddle’s Island to corral livestock and burn hay. About 40 British marines occupied buildings on the island to warehouse stores and stockpile hay there for its horses in Boston.

1200px-Admiral_Samuel_Graves_(1713-1787),_by_James_Northcote — Admiral Samuel Graves

As the rebels rounded up sheep and cattle, British Admiral Samuel Graves was celebrating his promotion to vice admiral of the white squadron. His nephew, Lieutenant Thomas Graves, commander of the schooner Diana, sailed into Boston Harbor and joined the festivities.

Amid the pomp of his promotion ceremony, Admiral Graves was aware of an urgent message from General Gage dated two days before, reporting that “the Rebels intend this Night to destroy, and carry off all the Stock & on Noddles Island for no reason but because the owners having sold them for the Kings use.” This piece of intelligence may have come from Dr. Benjamin Church, but Church wasn’t Gage’s only spy and at that time, Church was on the road to Philadelphia to deliver missives from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to the Continental Congress.

Around 2:00 p.m., the admiral was notified that smoke could be seen rising from Noddle’s Island. Stark and Nixon and their men had set fire to a barn full of hay and had killed some of the livestock drawing the attention of the marines stationed on the island. Admiral Graves responded by ordering his nephew to sail Diana up the narrow waterway that lay between the islands and the mainland while 170 marines were sent to pursue the rebels on foot on Noddle’s Island. Armed with four six-pounders and a dozen smaller swivel guns, Diana fired on the rebels on Noddle’s Island while the larger force of marines splashed ashore from longboats. The Noddle’s Island rebel forces slaughtered some of the livestock they had corralled and retreated across Crooked Creek.

Half the rebels continued on with the livestock while the other half jumped into a ditch and commenced a rear guard action to keep the schooner and the marines at bay. By 5:00 p.m. Diana was in the shallows between Hog Island and the mainland. Diana exchanged heavy fire with the rebels on Hog Island and the rebels on the Chelsea mainland. Under heavy rebel fire and with an outgoing tide threatening to ground his schooner, the commanding officer, Lieutenant Graves, sought the aid of a dozen longboats to tow him back down the creek in the dying breeze. In hopes of ambushing Diana before she reached the safety of the harbor, the rebels rushed down the north shore of Chelsea Creek toward Winnisimmet.

By 9:00 p.m., the sun was setting. Colonel Israel Putnam and Dr. Joseph Warren arrived at Newgate Landing with two field pieces and more men. Putnam directed his cannon fire at Diana that was now slowly drifting south along the shore.

Joseph Warren

Israel Putnam

The Royal Navy marines had transported several cannons to a hill on Noddle’s Island. Out of the darkness, cannonballs whistled down at the rebels as they waded into the creek and fired at the longboats towing Diana past the Winnisimmet shore. The rebel cannons returned fire with such effectiveness that the British longboat crews were forced to abandon Diana. The schooner soon drifted toward shore and grounded on the wooden rails extending from the ferry dock.

Lieutenant Graves and his men attempted to use their anchor to drag the schooner to deeper water, but as the tide ebbed, the schooner began to roll onto her side. They had no choice but to abandon her for the sloop Britannia anchored in deeper waters. Later that night, the rebels plundered Diana of her guns, rigging, and equipment, and then set her on fire. Around 3:00 a.m., the fire reached the vessel’s powder magazine and the schooner exploded.

That night, Israel Putnam and Joseph Warren returned to Cambridge to report to General Ward.

“I wish we could have something of this kind to do every day,” Putnam crowed.

General Ward was concerned that the engagement might provoke the British to launch a sortie from Boston.

The skirmish at Chelsea Creek was a humiliating defeat for Admiral Graves and his nephew. It was a clear rebel victory, but it had also consumed a large amount of rebel gunpowder. Joseph Warren had been in favor of an attack on Boston. He now had a more realistic view of his army’s preparedness.

Rather than agree with Putnam, Warren said, “I admire your spirit and respect General Ward’s prudence. Both will be necessary for us, and one must temper the other.”

Resources:

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Bunker Hill A City, A Siege, A Revolution New York: Penguin Books, 2013. Print.

Borneman, Walter R. American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014. Print.

Dr. Joseph Warren is an important character in my award-winning historical fantasy novel Angels & Patriots Book One, Sons of Liberty, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill Available on Amazon in paperback or KU or eBook.

Evacuation Day: The End of the Siege of Boston

On March 5, 1776, as the sun rose over Boston, the British were shocked to see two American redoubts atop the hills of Dorchester—one facing east toward Castle Island and the other facing north toward Boston, with two smaller works on their flanks and heavy artillery staring down on the town.

British General William Howe was said to have exclaimed, “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months!”

Howe had been confident that the rebels would never make a move on Boston, and had promised to sally forth if they did so. As a matter of pride, he would have to attack as he vowed. His council of war believed an attack would be a terrible mistake. Despite their objections, Howe ordered 3000 troops to embark down the harbor to Castle Island from where an assault on the Heights would be launched at nightfall.

Among General Howe’s council, Captain Archibald Robertson, Captain John Montresor, and Lord Hugh Percy contended that they “ought to immediately embark” Boston all together. By nightfall, a storm that some judged to be a hurricane, raged. Howe was glad to accept this interruption as an excuse for not undertaking an attack that would have cost the lives of many of his regulars. The following morning, he called back the detachment and informed his war council of his intentions of evacuating Boston and going to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

WilliamHowe1777ColorMezzotint_(crop) — General William Howe

After Howe made his announcement ordering the army and fleet to prepare to evacuate, Boston became a scene of utmost frenzy. Howe had received no orders or word of any kind from the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Germain, since October. He had no long-standing plan for a withdrawal of such magnitude, or any comparable past experience to draw upon.

It was not just the thousands of troops and military stores to transport. Howe intended to take every loyalist who chose to go. The necessary care of women and children, and the sick and wounded required every assistance that could be given. There were a sufficient number of ships at hand, but these all needed sailors and had to be supplied with provisions and water; which were scarce.

High winds continued to blow and churn the waters of Boston Harbor. The rebel guns (Henry Knox captured from Fort Ticonderoga) remained silent while they strengthened their position on Dorchester Heights.

On March 8, American selectman Deacon Timothy Newell and other intermediaries crossed through the lines at Boston Neck carrying a white flag, and delivered a message informing Washington that the city would not be burned to the ground if the British were allowed to leave unmolested.

The alarm and anxiety among the loyalists was extreme. “The Tories…carried death in their faces…some run distracted.” They had no idea where they were heading, nor did they know if there was room for all who wanted to go. Most of them had never lived anywhere else. They were disillusioned and disoriented. They saw themselves as the true American patriots; loyal to their King and to the rule of law. Britain had failed to protect them from what, in their opinion, had become mob rule.

These fourth and fifth generation Americans began boarding ships on March 10. Accommodations on the overcrowded ships were wretched. There were no berths in which to sleep. Families, some as large as seventeen members, were forced to sleep on the crowded floor like “pigs“. There was little food and water. All wondered, what miseries lay at sea?

In the next days, the ships began falling down the harbor with the tide as far as the Nantasket Roads, below Castle Island, to anchor out of range of the rebel cannon and to provide space for other vessels to tie up at the wharves. There the exiles sat on the rocking waves, day after day. Not until Sunday, March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, did the wind turn fair and favorable.

British Captain Archibald Robertson exuberated in his journal: “It was the finest day in the world.”

Image from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. — General Artemas Ward

Led by General Artemas Ward, on horseback, the Americans entered the town with drums beating and flags flying. By all rights, it should have been Washington leading the troops, but in a gracious gesture he gave the honor to Ward, his predecessor as commander of the Provincial Army.

American General William Heath wrote in his memoirs:

“In the morning [of the 17th] the British evacuated Boston; their rear guard with some marks of precipitation. A number of cannon were left spiked, and two large marine mortars, which they in vain attempted to burst. The garrison at Bunker’s Hill practised some deception to cover their retreat. They fixed some images, representing men, in the places of their centinels, with muskets placed on their shoulders, &c. Their immovable position led to the discovery of the deception, and a detachment of the Americans marched in and took possession.

The troops on the Roxbury side, moved over the Neck and took possession of Boston; as did others from Cambridge, in boats. On the Americans entering the town, the inhabitants discovered joy inexpressible. The town had been much injured in its buildings, and some individuals had been plundered. Some British stores were left. The British army went on board their transports below the Castle. A number of American adherents to them, and the British cause, went away with the army.”

More than twenty-five British brigs, schooners, sloops, and ships had been abandoned, some loaded with stores and all of them scuttled. The dragoons had left horses in the stables along with tons of hay. Broken carriages and chaises littered Long Wharf.

After entering Boston, Dr. John Warren, General Joseph Warren’s youngest brother noted:

“The houses, I found to be considerably abused inside, where they had been inhabited by the common soldiery but the external parts of the houses made a tolerable appearance. the streets were clean. . .The inhabitants, in general, appeared to rejoice at our success, but a considerable number of Tories have tarried in the town to throw themselves on the mercy of the people.”

But William Howe had no intention of leaving Boston without a parting demonstration. His fleet came to anchor at King’s Road, and with the arrival of his flagship, Chatham, every warship fired a roaring 21-gun salute. The full guns of Chatham answered in kind—a reminder of King George III’s royal might.

On March 19, the last of the British might in Boston Harbor blew up Castle William and burnt some of the barracks. There was a lazy attempt to cannonade Dorchester Neck. Then, on March 27, they headed for open sea.

George Washington was convinced that their destination was New York. Howe’s fleet disappeared over the horizon, bound not for New York, but Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The siege, which had begun on April 19, 1775, had been a success, and George Washington’s performance had been exceptional. He had indeed bested Howe and his regulars, despite the Continental Army’s insufficient arms, ammunition, shelter, illness, inexperience, lack of discipline, clothing and funds.

By purging itself of loyalists, Boston had reaffirmed its origins and was, once again, its own “city on a hill.”

6055534625_65297500c9_z — Lithograph: Boston From Dorchester Heights

Resources:

Flexner, James Thomas. Washington The Indispensable Man. 1974: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY.

Memoirs of Major-General Heath. Containing Anecdotes, Details of Skirmishes, Battles, and other Military Events, During The American War. Written Br Himself. publithtrt accorying to 3ft of Congrefa. Printed at Boston, Bt I. THOMAS and E. T. ANDREWS, Faust’s Statue, No. 45, Newburt-Street. Sold by them; by I. Thomas, Worcefter; by Thomas, Andrew! Is” Pen- himam, Albany j by Thomas, Andrews (9* Butler, Baltimore; and by the Bookfellers throughout the Continent. MUG. I798.

McCullough, David. 1776. 2005: Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Bunker Hill A City, A Siege, A Revolution. 2013: Penguin Books, New York, NY.

Warren, M.D., Edward. The Life of John Warren, M.D. Surgeon-General During The War Of The Revolution; First Professor Of Anatomy And Surgery In Harvard College; President of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Etc. 1874: Noyles, Holmes, and Company, Boston

Lithograph. Title: Boston from Dorchester Heights Creator/Contributor: Coke, E. T. (Edward Thomas), 1807-1888 (artist) Date created: 1830 – 1839 (approximate) Provenance: Statement of responsibility: Drawn on stone by Punser from a sketch by E. T. Coke Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Dr. Joseph Warren’s 1775 Boston Massacre Oration

On the night of March 5, 1770, a conflict occurred between eight British soldiers and their captain and a crowd of citizens angered that British regiments occupied their town. The crowd threw snowballs, oyster shells and wielded clubs to taunt the soldiers near the Custom House. The confrontation resulted in the soldiers firing into the crowd, killing five and wounding others. Dr. Joseph Warren was one of the doctors called to treat the wounded and perform autopsies on the dead. The Patriots vowed not to forget “the bloody massacre” that would later become known as The Boston Massacre. Each year after, on March 5, they held an oration to remind the town of the event.

Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre copied from an earlier version by Henry Pelham. Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History.

In 1775, March 5 fell on the Sabbath. Therefore, “at a Meeting of the Freeholders & other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston…The Comittee appointed by the Town…to apply to a proper Gentleman to deliver an Oration…had made Choice of Joseph Warren Esq. to deliver an Oration on the 6th. of March instant, who had accordingly accepted of said Service.” It was voted that the oration be delivered “at the Old South Meeting House half past 11 O’Clock A.M.”

Boston buzzed with excitement. The oration was considered a town meeting—illegal under the Massachusetts Government Act. Unlike previous occasions of the commemoration, British troops were abundant in Boston (they had been removed to Castle William after the massacre). The British soldiers were going to resent an oration whose purpose was, in the words of Samuel Adams, “to commemorate a massacre perpetuated by soldiers and to show the danger of standing armies.” Dr. Joseph Warren had delivered the oration in 1772. Samuel Adams wanted Warren’s experience in the pulpit. He knew that Warren would not be intimidated.

In his diary for September 6, 1775, from England, former Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson mentioned a call from a Colonel James. “He tells an odd story of the intention of the Officers the 5 [six] March that 300 were in the Meeting to hear Dr Warrens oration— that if he had said anything against the King &c an Officer was prepared who stood near, with an Egg to have thrown in his face and that was to have been a signal to draw swords & they would have massacred Hancock Adams & hundreds more & he added he wished they had.” Hutchinson commented, “I am glad they did not for I think it would have been an everlasting disgrace to attack a body of people without arms to defend themselves.”

A crowd of 5,000 gathered at Old South Meeting House including those British officers. Samuel Adams “had long expected they would take that Occasion to beat up a Breeze” and invited them to sit in the pews directly in front of the pulpit so they “might have no pretence to behave ill.” This put the soldiers uncomfortably close to the many leading patriots in attendance. The officers were not only sitting in the pews, some were seated on the steps leading up to the pulpit, and some were sitting on the pulpit itself.

The pulpit today at Old South Meeting House circa 2017.

After spending the morning treating patients, Dr. Warren arrived around eleven o’clock. Rivington’s New York Gazette reported, “A single horse chair stopped at the apothecary’s opposite the meeting, from which descended the orator [Warren]…and entering the shop, was followed by a servant with a bundle, in which were the Ciceronian toga…Having robed himself, he proceeded across the street to the meeting.” A toga was worn by a citizen of Rome and distinguished him from a soldier or a slave. As a student at Harvard, Warren had performed the popular play Cato with his classmates. By wearing a toga, Warren was sending a strong message: citizens would not be intimidated by tyrannical threats.

Since the meetinghouse was jammed with people, he was taken around to the back of the building, where he climbed a ladder to access the pulpit through the rear window. The pulpit was covered in black cloth provided by John Hancock. A soldier grunted. One barked, “Scoundrel.” Warren ignored the British officers who meant to coerce him, looked out over the audience and began to speak. “My ever honored fellow citizens, it is not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability that I now appear before you: but the sense I have of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with an animating recollection of your indulgence exhibited upon so many occasions, has induced me once more, undeserving as I am, to throw myself upon that candor which looks with kindness on the feeblest efforts of an honest mind.”

He contended that personal freedom is the natural right of every man. “And no man or body of man, can without being guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the person or acquisitions of any other man, or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between the parties in which it has been explicitly and freely granted.”

He spoke of their forefathers having nobly resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism, but tyranny, when once established, entailed its curses on a nation. Yet, there was a time when America and Great Britain became so united in affection both countries flourished due to mutual prosperity. He proclaimed, “The hearts of Britons and Americans, which lately felt the generous glow of mutual confidence and love, now burn with jealousy and rage. The many injuries offered to the town, I pass over in silence. I cannot now mark out the path which led to that unequaled scene of horror, the sad remembrance of which, takes the full possession of my soul. The sanguinary theatre again opens itself to view. The baleful images of terror crowd around me, and discontented ghosts, with hollow groans, appear to solemnize the anniversary of the fifth of March. Approach we then the melancholy walk of death.”

When Warren spoke of the events of March 5, 1770, he focused on the agony and despair of the families who had lost loved ones that night. “Come widowed mourner, here satiate thy grief; behold the murdered husband gasping on the ground, and to complete the pompous show of wretchedness, bring in each hand thy infant children to bewail their father’s fate. Take heed, ye orphan babes, lest, whilst your streaming eyes are fixed upon the ghastly corpse, your feet glide on the stones bespattered with your father’s brain.”

Warren’s voice rose to an emotional crescendo. “Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determine to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. An independence from Great Britain is not our aim. No, our wish is that Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and the ivy, grow and increase in strength together. The interest and safety of Britain, as well as the colonies, require that the wise measures, recommended by the honourable Continental Congress, be steadily pursued. But if these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety, is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from your foes, but will, undauntedly, press forward, until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess Liberty on the American throne.”

He finished by stating, “With having redeemed your country, and secured the blessing to future generations, who, fired by your example, shall emulate your virtues, and learn from you the heavenly art of making millions happy; with heart felt joy, which transports all your own, you cry, the glorious work is done. Then drop the mantle to some young Elisha, and take your seats with kindred spirits in your native skies.”

The audience stood to a thundering applause. What happened next was recorded in the diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment. “…when after he [Warren] had finished a most seditious inflammatory harangue, John Hancock stood up and made a short speech in the same strain, at the end of which some of the Officers cried out, fie! fie! Which being mistaken for the cry of fire an alarm immediately ensued, which fill’d the people with consternation that they were getting out as fast as they cou’d by the doors and windows. It was imagined that there wou’d have been a riot, which if there had wou’d in all probability have proved fatal to Hancock, Adams, Warren, and the rest of those Villains as they were all up in the pulpit together, and the meeting was crowded with Officers and Seaman in such a manner that they cou’d not have escaped; however it luckily did not turn out so, it wou’d indeed have been a pity for them to have made their exit that way, as I hope we shall have the pleasure before long of seeing them do it by the hands of the Hangman.”

The British responded to Warren’s Boston Massacre Oration with ridicule. On March 15, 1775, British officers and Loyalists gathered on King Street and then proceeded to the nearby British Coffee House where they conducted a mock town meeting. Loyalist physician Thomas Bolton, read a satirical lampoon of Warren’s oration. In addition to his assault on Warren, Bolton reviled other prominent Patriots including John Adams, John Hancock, John Rowe, Charles Lee, William Molineux, Samuel Cooper, Josiah Quincy, and Dr. Thomas Young. Bolton accused that William Molineux, who died in 1774, “through the Strength of his own Villiany, and the Laudanum of Doctor Warren, he quitted this planet and went to a Secondary one, in search of Liberty.”

Despite the Loyalist reaction, “the Thanks of the Town [Boston] be & hereby are given to Joseph Warren Esq. for the Elegant & Spirited Oration delivered by him at their Request.”

References:

Photos of Old South Meeting House by Salina B Baker.

Barker, John. The British in Boston Being the Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment from November 15, 1774 to May 31, 1776.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1924. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_British_in_Boston/fY0rAQAAIAA

City of Boston. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing the Boston Town Records, 1770-1777. Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, City Printers, 1887. https://archive.org/details/recordsrelatingt18bost

Cushing, Harry Alonzo. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume III,1773-1777. The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Writings of Samuel Adams – Volume 3, 2015. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2093/pg2093-images.html

Di Spigna, Christian. Founding Martyr: The Life and Times of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero. New York: Crown, 2018.

MHS Collections Online. An Oration delivered March 15th 1775 from the Coffee House by Doctor Thomas Bolton. https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=3034&img_step=1&pid=34&mode=dual

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARY, M|LIBRARY Digital Collections. An oration; delivered March sixth, 1775. At the request of the inhabitants of the town of Boston; to commemorate the bloody tragedy of the fifth of March, 1770. / By Dr. Joseph Warren. ; [Two lines of quotations in Latin] https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;cc=evans;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=N11558.0001.001;node=N11558.0001.001:4