USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Celebration of the centennial anniversary of the evacuation of Boston by the British Army, March 17th, 1776 > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
101
EVACUATION OF BOSTON.
places. This deeply and well-carved oaken tablet, bearing the royal arms, was attached to the Province House, as the official residence of his Majesty's Governor. Of conrse it then came down from its place of dignity, for it had then, like Cromwell's mace, become a bauble. But, - happily, it was not destroyed. It has its welcome abiding- place in the cabinet of the Historical Society. Its gilding has yielded to time. I have not brought this royal armorial tablet here, and put it to this use to-day, with any intent to do it slight or dishonor, but as a valued relic, suggestive of days and relations long past. I do not for- get, but rather tenderly remember, that the Queenly Lady who now bears that proud escutcheon, with her lamented Prince Consort, restrained her royal power from any other exercise than that of a noble and generous sympathy, during the distractions of our sad civil conflict. I saw the crown placed upon her head, on her coronation day in Westminster Abbey, and have loved ever since to trace her serene course of dignity and fidelity as wife, mother and queen of her magnificent empire. And if our story to- day has dealt harshly with one who filled the throne before her, let us not close it without the expression of our pro- foundest homage and respect to Queen Victoria, not our sovereign, - except that, as the highest lady in the world, she should be such to all men, - but as our ally and our friend.
Two suggestive thoughts burdened, the one with his- toric facts, the other, with a modern, and we trust, a perpetual interest, come to our minds after the rehearsal of the story of Boston's humiliation and restoration. First: it was right and fair in the ordering of the method and
102
CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE
action of our Revolutionary War, that the brunt of the struggle should have come first, most severely, protract- edly, and decisively here. Boston had generated, pro- voked, invited the contest with the mother-country. She herself boasted in her town-meeting that she had been " stationed by Providence in the front rank of the conflict."
Here were first uttered calm and passionless, but earnest and cogent protests, manly remonstrances, dignified peti- tions. As these were dallied with and failed, it was natural that they should have been followed, as they were first, here, with threats, defiances, insults and outrages. Truly was the town described, and not defamed, in Parlia- ment, as " the hot-bed of disaffection." Truly did Gen. Gage write to Lord Dartmouth, "In this town the arch- rebels formed their scheme long ago." With all justice were the sharpest censures and invectives uttered in the House of Lords against that pestilent nuisance, a Boston Town-Meeting, whose unknown origin and authority, and perpetual vitality by adjournment, seemed to have given it a start at the creation of all things, and to make it inde- pendent even of a resurrection, because it never died. Those meetings originated the measures of concert and action for the province and continent. Here, too, was the largest group of clear-headed individuals conferring and working together as patriots, by method and progress, as popular speakers and writers, skilled in argument and pleading, reading old laws and learning how to put new and better ones on the statute-book. Here, too, were clubs of patriots and liberty-men, whose prejudices were so in- tense against tea-pots, that they ventured to run the greater risk of punch-bowls. It was wholly right and
£
103
EVACUATION OF BOSTON.
fair, then, that Boston should have been the first victim of the vengeance it provoked.
The other suggestion comes in this form of question: Why is it that, when dire disaster, by flood or fire, pesti- lence or famine, is visited upon any spot, town or country, of this far-spread continent, the first appeal for sympathy and aid, as swiftly as the throbbing wires can bring it, is to Boston? And why is it that the more distant the scene, and the more strange even the name of the place of the disaster to us, the nearer and more familiar does Boston seem to the sufferers? The answer made by some will be, Because Boston is rich and thrifty, and its people have a repute for kindliness. Without disputing that, we must avow that there is a deeper reason, one that rests on debt and obligation. With all the drafts on our purses, we have but paid simple interest on a bonded claim. In the dismal and crushing fate visited upon trading and commer- cial Boston by the parliamentary act which hermetically closed our port to all entrance, exit and traffic, our House of Representatives resolved that this tyrannous blow, struck against this town, was aimed equally against the province, and the colonized continent. The province and continent took us at our word. They recognized the truth and acted upon it. In deliberating upon a letter received from Boston, the Congress, at Philadelphia, October 10, 1774, resolved unanimously, that if the people of Boston should find it necessary to leave it and seek the country, "all America ought to contribute towards recompensing them for the injury they may thereby sustain; and it will be recommended accordingly." "The Poor of Boston " was a phrase familiar over the continent, and it included,
£
£
£
104
CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE
for some articles of need, all the inhabitants. The letters of sympathy which came from the whole length and breadth of the country, from town and city, hamlet and solitary settlement, and the replies to them, fill two stout volumes. And the sympathy in these letters always took the form of invoices, inventories and manifests of all sub- stantial gifts, food, commodities, money. Even these had to reach the town by tedious land circuits. Virginia, too, besides sending the deliverer of Boston, sent us some of her riflemen, as did also Maryland, to join our provincial forces for sharper service than the farmers' old muskets could perform. Truly, then, does all that Boston can do for the victims of calamity over the whole Union urge itself as an entailed obligation recognized by admitted claims.
Twice in the century has this blessed and privileged heritage of ours been rescued and redeemed; - once by ourselves, and then against and for ourselves. I have not the heart to recognize the lugubrious utterances heard among us just now over the commercial troubles and the wrecks of honor in high places, which have thrown a shadow upon our otherwise jubilant centennials. The times are not dreary ; the men who live are not degenerate. The capital stock of our public wisdom, happiness and virtue has steadily increased. He who, because of exceptional cases or forms of evil and wrong, consigns his own age or heritage to decay, shows only his ignorance of the truth of history, and his distrust of the Divine working's in all progressive good. The most depraving and fatal influence that can possibly work through a community is the allow- ance, as if unquestioned, of a prevailing decay of public
105
EVACUATION OF BOSTON.
and private virtue. Our brightest hope is in disbelieving that, and our noblest security is in disproving it.
As I read the history of our fathers, in all their genera- tions, their toil and virtue seem to me to have been the noblest, in their steady regard for the welfare and happi- ness of their posterity. And, as I firmly believe that no single individual can follow the highest pattern of an earthly life, unless his hope and faith link on to a future, so I find it proved in all biographies and annals, that all unselfish, noble and heroic lives are those which parents lead for their children and their children's children. We have such lives among us in city, state and nation, private and public, high and humble. The three generations that have lived and died in this City of Boston, since its year of desolation, have wrought with diligence in all the tasks of duty; have been protected and controlled by wise and good laws; have lavishly sustained all institutions of learning, benevolence and mercy, and have enjoyed in their homes - under providential limitations only - the measurements and the sum of all earthly happiness. We have had able and faithful magistrates, - truly select-men. And as for pure and upright citizens, let us venture to in- vite the trial of the old Bible test with which the patriarch Abraham was so sorely exercised. He was promised that an imperilled city should be spared destruction if fifty righteous men could be found in it. As soon as he ac- cepted the condition, he felt a misgiving, and pleaded that the requisite number might be reduced to forty-five. This being yielded, as he thought more and more of the severity of the test of righteousness, he begged to be answerable for finding only forty, then thirty, then twenty, then ten. 14
.
£
106
CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY, ETC.
Now do we not all feel that if our honored Mayor was set to answer for this city, after that fashion, and was allowed to begin with the smallest number, ten, he would dare to go up on the schedule and be responsible for twenty, thirty, forty, forty-five and fifty? I have known that full number here, in every year of my mature life.
So, let me close with a slight expansion of the motto on our City Scal: "As God was with our Fathers, and has been and is with us, so may He be with our posterity."
At the conclusion of the oration, which was listened to with the closest attention, and received with hearty applause, the audi- ence united in singing " America," after which the benediction was pronounced by Rev. Mr. Manning, and the services were brought to a close.
801
In ton owi ob wolf i got Jowens of ged of
0
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
£
£
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
The writer of the preceding Address, in compliance with the wishes which have been expressed to him, has brought together from authentic sources the matter of the following pages, illustrative of the period and incidents of local history, which are here commemorated.
THE PROVINCIAL FORCES SUMMONED.
The Second Provincial Congress, which had met at Concord, had adjourned, on April 15th, 1775, to the 10th of May following. Two days afterwards, the apprehensions of immediate events of a startling character induced the committees of several neighboring towns, on April 18th, to summon the members to meet again as soon as possible. Such of them as could be reached convened at Concord on the twenty- second, and adjourned to Watertown on the same day, the object being to bring the executive and legislative body of the province as near as possible to the gathering military forces. The summons from the com- mittee was made more effective, if not anticipated, by the alarming crisis brought on by the affair of the nineteenth.
In the interval, the following circular letter had been addressed by the Committee of Safety to the several towns. Before these letters could reach those to whom they were sent, the object they were designed to secure had been to some extent realized by the gathering of excited masses of people from quite a large circle of territory, Cambridge, Med- ford and Roxbury being the chief centres of the concourse.
" April 20, 1875.
"GENTLEMEN : - The barbarous Murders on our innocent Brethren on Wednesday, the nineteenth Instant, has made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an Army to defend our Wives and our Children from the
110
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
butchering Hands of an inhuman Soldiery, who, incensed at the Obstacles they met with in their bloody Progress, and enraged at being repulsed from the Field of Slaughter, will, without the least doubt, take the first Opportunity in their Power to ravage this devoted Country with Fire and Sword. We con- jure you, therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all Assistance possible in forming an Army. Our all is at Stake; Death and Devastation are the certain Consequences of Delay; every Moment is infinitely precious; an Hour lost may deluge your Country in Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your Posterity who may survive the Carnage. We beg and entreat as you will answer it to your Country, to your own Consciences, and above all, as you will answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible Means the Inlistment of Men to form the Army, and send them forward to Head-Quarters, at Cambridge, with that Expedition, which the vast Importance and instant Urgency of the Affair demands.
" JOSEPH WARREN, President P. T."
On the twenty-sixth of the month the committee addressed a second circular to the other New England provinces, asking that all the soldiers they could spare might be sent with provisions, ammunition and officers, and, if possible, artillery, to Cambridge, as our own men, so hurriedly assembled, would many of them need, temporarily, to return to their homes.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
A British officer writing from Boston to a friend in England, soon after his return from the affair at Concord and Lexington, gives us this precise date for the opening of the siege : " Abont seven o'clock in the evening we arrived at Charlestown, and took possession of a hill that commanded the town. The rebels shut up the Neck, and placed sen- tinels there, and took prisoner one officer of the 64th Regiment, so that in the course of two days we were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of living on salt provisions, and fairly blocked up in Boston."
Of similar purport is the disclosure in a long, confidential letter, written from Boston, under the pledge of secrecy, by Gen. Burgoyne to his friend Lord Rochfort, which, by. a singular coincidence, is first brought to light in the publication of the General's private papers this year, a century after it was written : -
111
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
" I arrived in Boston, together with Generals Howe and Clinton, on the twenty-fifth of May. It would be unnecessary, were it possible, to describe our surprise, or other feelings, upon the appearances which at once, and on every side, were offered to our observation. The town, on the land side, in- vested by a rabble in arms, who, flushed with success and insolence, had advanced their sentries to pistol-shot of our out-guards; the ships in the har- bor exposed to, and expecting, a cannonade or bombardment; in all com- panies, whether of officers or inhabitants, men still lost in a sort of stupefaction, which the events of the nineteenth of April had occasioned, and venting expressions of censure, anger or despondeney. The principle of seizing arms, and thereby bringing the designs of the malcontents to a test and a decision, was certainly just. We can only wonder that it was not sooner adopted."
The siege may properly be distinguished into two stages, the one fol- lowing the affair at Lexington and Concord, the other ensuing upon the battle at Bunker's Hill. The latter, of course, in its strietness, its pro- traction, the critical events which it involved, and in the triumph of the patriotic cause with which it closed, was far more interesting and momentous. But the earlier stage of the siege, -covering two months of the eleven of the investment of the town, - presented many exciting incidents and issues. In the first stage the British forces on the single peninsula of Boston, under Gen. Gage, were in duress ; afterwards those who had fortified the heights of Charlestown, under command of Gen. Howe, were also beleaguered.
Even before the affair at Concord and Lexington the inhabitants of Boston were virtually under most of the disabilities and sufferings of an invested town. The civil power was in subjection to the military. Boston was a garrison. Large bodies of soldiers were quartered in its forts, on its open fields, and in its public and private buildings. The trades and occupations of peace were suspended or fettered. The people were exposed to insults and alarms, to mobs, riots and con- flagrations from an unbridled and mocking soldiery, even the officers sometimes being far from blameless. There was much of putrid and in- feetious disease in the barracks and hospitals. The lower part of the Common was appropriated for a burial-ground for soldiers, who died in such numbers as to be interred in trenches. There was a constant rush
£
£
£
112
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
of deserters, either singly or in company, into the open country, by boats, by swimming, or over the Neck. The appearance of these in the country towns often caused annoyance or embarrassment. They might be spies, they might be profligates, but they professed to be disgusted with the service, and were ready to work in the inland towns, often sup- plying the places of men who had gone to the provincial camp. . The loss and disaffection and demoralization visited upon the British army by the number and frequency of these desertions caused the commander to impose a most rigid surveillance over his men, with constant roll-calls, and to inflict the severest penalties of the lash and death upon culprits.
Ile had in the previous season most strongly fortified the lines at the Neck, with brick works, with ditches and strong wickets. A most pos- itive and threatening protest from the selectmen alone prevented the opening of a trench to let in tide-waters across the causeway.
THE POOR IN BOSTON.
From the closing of the port in the previous June the inhabitants had been subjected to a series of inconveniences and inflictions steadily accumulating and intensifying. The generous sympathy of the other towns in this province, and of fellow-patriots all over the continent, including Montreal, was sending a steady stream of donations for the relief of the poor in Boston. But these for the most part reached the town by costly land-travel, as the water ways were closed. A com- mittee for distributing these gifts dispensed them for a time, except to the sick, on condition of the performance of some work for the public. Provisions became scarce, and were held at an enormous cost, so that those who had been wont to enjoy variety and abundance of meats and vegetables, and milk and fresh fish and fuel, were even in fear of famine. The cows were denied their usual pasturage on the Common and other fields. Sentinels guarded every way of access to the town or exit from it.
GENERAL BURGOYNE ON THE SITUATION.
The confidential letter from Burgoyne to Lord Rochfort, previously quoted, greatly strengthens the evidence which we had before, that the two encounters which the British troops had had in April and June with
113
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
" the provincial rabble " had given them a somewhat more adequate sense of the spirit and courage of the people whom they had outraged. After informing his lordship, of what he no doubt believed, that the provincials at Charlestown had treble the force of the British, - the truth being that the British, independently of their war-vessels, actually outnumbered the provincials, - he proceeds to approve the making the utmost for popular effect of the alleged British victory on Bunker Hill. But he most significantly adds : -
" It may be wise policy to support this impression to the utmost, both in writing and discourse ; but when I withdraw the curtain, your lordship will find much cause for present reflection, much for the exercise of your judg- ment upon the future conduct of the scene. Turn your eyes first, my lord, to the behavior of the enemy. The defence was well-conceived and obsti- nately maintained ; the retreat was no flight ; it was even covered with bravery and military skill, and proceeded no farther than to the next hill, where a new post was taken, new intrenchments instantly begun, and their numbers affording constant reliefs of workmen, they have been continued day andl night ever since. View now, my lord, the side of victory ; and first the list of killed and wounded. If fairly given, it amounts to no less than ninety-two officers, many of them an irreparable loss-a melancholy disproportion to the number of the private soldiers - and there is a melancholy reason for it. Though my letter passes in security, I tremble while I write it; and let it not pass even in a whisper from your lordship to more than one person [the king]. The zeal and intrepidity of the officers, which was without ex- ception exemplary, was ill-seconded by the private men. Discipline, not to say courage, was wanting. In the critical moment of carrying the redoubt, the officers of some corps were almost alone; and what was the worst part of the confusion of these corps, all the wounds of the officers were not received from the enemy."
This very remarkable disclosure will bring to the mind of the reader the contrast, to some extent, of what was experienced on the provincial side, where it was thought at the time that - of course, allowing for very marked exceptions - the men exhibited more prowess than the officers.
A reason why, independently of what has just been quoted, Burgoyne
15
£
114
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
may have "trembled " while he wrote this letter, is found in the follow- ing criticism upon his superior officer : -
" I think General Gage possessed of every quality to maintain quiet govern- ment with honor to himself and happiness to those he governs; his temper and his talents, of which he has many, are calculated to dispense the offices of justice and humanity. In the military I believe him capable of figuring upon ordinary and given lines of conduct; but his mind has not resources for great and sudden and hardy exertions which spring self-suggested in extraordinary characters, and generally overbear all opposition. In short, I think him a contrast to that cast of men, somewhere described -
" ' Fit to disturb the peace of all the world, And rule it when 'tis wildest.'
" Unfortunately for us that cast of character, at least the latter part of it, is precisely what we want here ; and I hope I shall not be thought to disparage my General and my friend, in pronouncing him unequal to his situation, when I add that I think it one in which Cæsar might have failed."
INTERCOURSE BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY.
To all the inflictions visited upon the inhabitants of the town was soon added the risk to which they were subjected from any violent or warlike acts or demonstrations from the patriots gathering around the invested peninsula, who might feel prompted to measures ruinous alike to friend and foe.
The relation was for a while a strange and perplexing one between the parties who had not as yet irrevocably defined the issues and chosen sides. The forms of peaceful and respectful official intercourse were kept up, with a conscious sense of their hollowness and insincerity. In spite of the efforts of restraint there was none the less a constant com- munication between the town and country. There was a coming and a going, sometimes openly, sometimes furtively ; various pretences se- cured liberty, and money brought privileges then and there, as elsewhere and always. Indeed, even in the later and the longer stage of the siege everything that occurred in town or country, in either camp, was speedily known to the other party. Deserters, spies, and those who contrived to evade all guards, and to surmount all difficulties, got out of the town,
115
CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE.
and usually went to give information at head-quarters. True, this was not always to be relied on. Wild rumors, silly tales, mischievous in- ventions, fabrications and exaggerations, taught a practised caution. A Mr. Mellicant, of Watertown, an officer on half-pay in the royal service in Boston, was said to have frequently received information from our camp, by means of his wife, who passed the lines ; and the Committee of Safety, acting on this case, were induced to provide as effectually as possible against such intercourse. We must remember that the wide expanse of the water and the marsh land then surrounding the peninsula required much prowess of a rower or a swimmer in passing over it.
COVENANT BETWEEN GENERAL GAGE AND THE INHABITANTS.
Very soon after the affair at Lexington, the whig, or patriotic inhabi- tants of Boston, realizing their anxieties and dangers, applied to Gen. Gage for liberty to leave it. At first he positively refused. The case was an embarrassing one, and, as he saw, had two sides to it. For two reasons he would gladly have been rid of them ; as, first, they might keep up intercourse, exchange signals, and give information to those outside, and even aid them in case they made an assault ; and, second, he would be relieved of an element of disaffection near his soldiers, and of the probable necessity of providing the citizens with fuel and the means of sustenance. On the other hand, it was to be considered that, if the patriotic citizens were allowed to go out, with arms, money and goods, they would strongly reinforce and encourage the rebels outside, while their continued presence in the town was some security for internal quiet, and against an assault. The latter considerations had sway with Gage.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.