USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Old landmarks and historic fields of Middlesex > Part 14
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Dr. Thacher, who was a surgeon's mate in Asa Whitcomb's regiment in barracks on Prospect Hill, in 1775, says : -
" Before our privateers had fortunately captured some prizes with cannon and other ordnance, our army before Boston had, I believe,
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only four * small brass cannon and a few old honey-comb iron pieces with their trunnions broken off ; and these were ingeniously bedded in timbers in the same manner as stocking a musket. These machines were exceedingly unwieldy and inconvenient, requiring much skill to elevate and depress them."
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CARRIAGE FOR CANNON WITHOUT TRUNNIONS, USED BEFORE BOSTON.
As early as January, 1775, four brass pieces, two seven-inch mortars, and an unknown number of battering cannon, were in possession of the provincial committees. Besides these, oth- ers are obscurely hinted at without mentioning the number. Worcester and Concord were selected as the places of deposit for all the artillery and munitions of war. Even as far back as November, 1774, the committees had begun to purchase heavy cannon, which could be found in all the seaports from Boston to Falmouth. Many of these were ship's guns. Others had been purchased to defend the ports during the frequent wars with France ; and not a few had come from the fortifications of Louisburg and Annapolis Royal. It appears that the Revolu- tionary executive had voted to equip a park of sixteen field- pieces, in which those brought out of Boston were to be in- eluded. This will serve to show that, long before Lexington, the Americans were earnestly preparing for war, and that although the artillery in their hands was generally of light calibre, they were by no means as defenceless as has been supposed. The sixteen field-pieces were, in February, voted to be distributed among the seven regiments of militia, in the pro-
This was an underestimate.
7 *
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portion of two to each, and two to the Boston company, lately Paddock's, it being the intention to have an artillery company in each regiment of minute-men. In March eight field-pieces and two brass mortars, with their ammunition, were ordered to be deposited at Leicester.
At Concord, on the 19th of April, the British disabled three iron 24-pounders by knocking off the trunnions. These were too heavy to remove as readily as had been done in the case of the lighter pieces, but Yankee ingenuity made the guns ser- viceable. Dr. Preserved Clap invented the carriage which is described by Thacher, and in our drawing made by an officer of artillery present at the siege. There were also field-pieces concealed at Newburyport, and cannon at Malden, Watertown, and Marlborough. Four light brass pieces (3-pounders), two of which had belonged to Paddock's Artillery, were, in the early days of the blockade, brought out of Boston under the very noses of the British officers.
Two days after the battle of Lexington the Provincials began to collect their warlike material, and couriers were despatched to Gridley, at Stoughton, and to David Mason,* then upon furlough at Salem. Mason was ordered to provide the neces- sary implements for eight 3- and three 6-pounders.
On the 29th of April the Committee of Safety reported to the Provincial Congress that there were in Cambridge six 3-pounders complete, with ammunition, and one 6-pounder. In Watertown there were sixteen pieces of artillery of differ- ent sizes. The Committee say : -
" The said 6-pounder and sixteen pieces of artillery will be taken out of the way; and the first-mentioned six pieces will be used in a proper way of defence." +
Measures were taken on the same day to organize two com- panies of artillery, Captain Joseph Foster being appointed to the command of one and Captain William Lee of Marblehead to the other. This appears to be the first step taken towards organizing the subsequently famous regiment of Massachusetts
* Afterwards major of Knox's Artillery.
+ Records of the Provincial Congress.
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artillery, which Gridley, Knox, and Crane commmanded. The pieces first used were 3-pounders, and were those taken to Bunker Hill, where five of the six were captured by the enemy.
Among the Rhode Island troops which arrived at Cambridge early in June was a fine company of artillery, with four excel- lent field-pieces. On the 12th of June Edes's Gazette stated that
" Many large pieces of battering cannon are expected soon from different places ; twelve pieces, 18 and 24 pounders, with a quan- tity of ordnance-stores, we are informed, are already arrived from Providence."
A train with four field-pieces had also arrived in camp from Connecticut. We have been thus circumstantial because much curiosity has existed in relation to the Provincial artillery before the arrival of Knox from Crown Point with fifty-five pieces of various calibres. In the autumn of 1776 Massa- chusetts began to cast cannon.
With regard to small-arms the difficulties were even greater. Spears were largely used to supply the want of bayonets, and were kept within all the works to repel assault. They were frequently examined, cleaned, and kept ready for service. As for muskets, the General Court, as far back as 1770, had tried to wheedle Hutchinson out of the Province arms, but he refused to distribute them to the militia as recommended. The arms were seized, however, in February, 1775, and removed from Harvard College, where they were deposited, to Worcester, to be out of Gage's clutches. Private sources were soon exhausted, and there were no public workshops. Washington paid £ 3 for a gun on his arrival at Cambridge; and by September, 1776, the price for a serviceable musket with bayonet made in the State was £ 4. During the siege the scarcity became so great that the muskets had to be taken by force from soldiers whose term of enlistment had expired, and who brought their own guns, in order to supply those coming to take their places.
Rev. William Emerson, grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emer- son, who was a chaplain in the army at this time, affords us glimpses of the Continental camps after the arrival of Wash- ington : -
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" My quarters are at the foot of the famous Prospect Hill, where such great preparations are made for the reception of the enemy. It is very diverting to walk among the camps. They are as different in their form as the owners are in their dress, and every tent is a portraiture of the temper and taste of the persons who encamp in it. Some are made of boards and some of sail-cloth. Some partly of one and some partly of the other. Again, others are made of stone and turf, brick and brush. Some are thrown up in a hurry; others curiously wrought with doors and windows done with wreaths and withes in the manner of a basket. Some are your proper tents and marquees, looking like the regular camp of the enemy. In these are the Rhode-Islanders, who are furnished with tent-equipage and everything in the most exact English style. However, I think this great variety is rather a beauty than a blemish in the army."
Rhode Island has always sent her sons to the field in a man- ner highly creditable to herself. As in the Revolution so in the late Rebellion her troops presented themselves supplied with every necessary for active service. When the Rhode-Islanders reached Washington, in 1861, their commander was asked, " What are your wants ?" "Nothing," was the reply ; "my State has provided for everything."
It was on Prospect Hill that Putnam raised, on the 18th of July, 1775, his celebrated flag, bearing on one side the motto, " An Appeal to Heaven !" and on the reverse the three vines, which are the armorial bearings of Connecticut, with the legend, " Qui Transtulit Sustinet !" The shouts that rent the air when Old Put gave the signal are said to have caused the British on Bunker Hill to rush to arms, in the fear of an immediate attack.
Among Greene's officers Colonel Whitcomb of Lancaster has been mentioned. The Deacon, as he was usually called, was left out in the new organization of the army, on account of his age. His men, who were much attached to him, highly re- sented this treatment of the old man, and declared they would not re-enlist. The Colonel told them he did not doubt there were good reasons for the regulation, and said he would enlist as a private soldier. Colonel Brewer, who heard of this deter- mination, offered to resign in favor of Whitcomb. The affair
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coming to Washington's knowledge, he permitted Brewer to carry his proposal into effect, giving him at the same time an appointment as barrack-master until a vacancy should occur in the line. The General then published the whole transaction in orders.
On New-Year's Day, 1776, the Union Flag, bearing thirteen stripes, was hoisted at Prospect Hill, and saluted with thirteen guns. This was the birthday of the new Continental army of undying fame. Now, for the first time, the thirteen united Colonies had a common flag. From this lofty height the colors were plainly distinguishable in the enemy's camps, and were at first thought to be a token of submission, - the king's speech having been sent to. the Americans the same day. But the enemy were speedily undeceived ; the proclamation was not re- ceived until after the flag had been flung to the breeze. There it continued to fly until raised in triumph on the abandoned works of the British.
Prospect Hill is occasionally mentioned as Mt. Pisgah. It could be reached by the enemy's battery at West Boston, which threw a 13-inch shell into the citadel during the bombard- ment preceding the possession of Dorchester Heights. The missile exploded without doing any injury. The hill, too, is associated with the last days of the siege by two incidents. An accidental fire which occurred in the barracks was conceived by Howe to be a signal for calling in the militia from the country, and probably accelerated his preparations to depart. The fol- lowing order was issued to the army from headquarters, March 4,1776 :-
" The flag on Prospect Hill and that at the Laboratory on Cam- bridge Common are ordered to be hoisted only upon a general alarm: of this the whole army is to take particular notice, and immediately upon these colors being displayed every officer and soldier must re- pair to his alarm-post. This to remain a standing order until the commander-in-chief shall please to direct otherwise."
Prospect Hill next demands attention from the circumstance that in November, 1777, it became the quarters of the British portion of Burgoyne's army ; the Hessians occupied the barracks
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on Winter Hill. The British arrived at Cambridge on Thurs- day the 6th, and the Germans on the following day.
The English entered Cambridge, via Watertown, in the midst of a pelting storm, and, without halting, proceeded quickly onward to Prospect Hill. The officers had their side- arms, which they were allowed by the treaty to retain ; but the men, unarmed, gloomy, and sullen, wore little of the defiant air of British soldiers.
As for the Hessians, the appearance they presented was truly pitiable. The men were ragged and filthy, from the effects of the long marches and bivouacs without shelter. Most of them had their tobacco-pipes, with which, with the national phlegm, they were solacing their misfortunes, so that a cloud of smoke enveloped them as they moved along. They were fol- lowed by numbers of their women, staggering under the bur- dens of camp utensils, with huge hampers on their backs, from which peeped infants, some of them born on the road. That the Germans were regarded with the utmost curiosity by the population we can well believe, for the most frightful stories were current concerning their prowess and bloodthirstiness. The American ladies, ignorant that at home these women per- formed their share of the labor of the fields, looked with compassion on what they considered evidence of the brutal- ity of the men. What with the tobacco-smoke and effluvia arising from this motley horde, the air was tainted as they passed by.
The Hessian officers politely saluted the ladies whom they saw at the windows, but the Britons, ever selfish and intract- able in misfortune, kept their eyes upon the ground. Burgoyne rode at the head of his men, behind the advanced guard. He and his officers went to Bradish's tavern, afterwards Porter's, where they remained temporarily. The animals which drew the prisoners' baggage-wagons seemed to partake of the sorry condition of their masters, being lean and half starved.
General Phillips, during the early part of the march from Saratoga, is said to have expressed his astonishment that so great an expenditure of money and life should have been made
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to conquer so barren and unattractive a region as that through which they were then passing. When they came to the beau- tiful and fertile valley of the Connecticut, General Whipple observed : "This, General, is the country we are fighting for." " Ah !" replied Phillips, " this is a country worth a ten years' war." ,
The British officers soon became familiar objects to the people of Cambridge, some of whom did not care to conceal their dis- content at the airs these sons of Mars gave themselves. They lived on the best the country and the times afforded, prom- enading the College grounds, and appearing in public with their swords belted about them. A slight check to their self- sufficiency was the sight of their whole train of artillery, which was parked on the Common.
There were two rows of barracks situated outside the citadel. These barracks were enclosed by a fence, at the entrance gate of which a sentinel was posted. Within the citadel was the guard-house, always occupied by a strong detachment of our troops. Sentinels were placed on the Charlestown and Cam- bridge roads, and at the provision barracks at the foot of the hill. A chain of sentinels extended across the valley between Prospect and Winter Hills, the line passing immediately in rear of Oliver Tufts's farm-house. The peculiarity of the terms granted to Burgoyne and his soldiers under the convention with Gates caused the British officers and men to reject the name of prisoners. They were styled "the troops of the Convention."
The American guards were drawn from the militia of Massa- chusetts expressly for this service. They were, for the most part, ignorant of camp discipline, and were ridiculed and abused by the prisoners whenever an opportunity presented itself. The guards, therefore, did not go beyond the letter of their orders to show respect to the prisoners.
The Britons, on the other hand, were not of a better class than was usual in the rank and file of that service. Many rob- beries were committed by them on the roads and even within the towns. Moreover, the apprehensions caused by the pres- ence of so large a body of turbulent spirits near a populous
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place justified the enforcement of stringent regulations. As for the officers, they were supercilious to a degree, and one of them was shot dead for neglecting to answer the challenge of a sentry.
Inside their barracks the Convention troops were allowed to manage for themselves. They were paraded, punished, and re- ceived from their own officers orders pertaining to their comfort or discipline precisely as if under the protection of their own flag. There was a British and a Hessian officer of the day who saw that the police of the barracks was properly performed. The barracks were, of course, at all times subject to the inspec- tion of the Continental officer of the guard.
Many of the Germans were received into families in Boston as servants, or found employment as farm-laborers in the neighbor- ing towns by their own desire. Numbers of them, after having been clothed and well fed, absconded. Five of the British were in Boston jail at one time, charged with highway robbery ; on one of them was found a watch taken from a gentleman on Charlestown Common. Numerous instances occurred where houses in and around Boston were robbed of weapons only, while more valuable booty was left untouched. This created an impression that a conspiracy existed among the prisoners to obtain their freedom, especially after the refusal of Congress to carry out the provisions of the capitulation became known in the camp of the Convention troops.
Matters soon came to a crisis. Some of the British one day knocked down a sentinel and took away his gun, which they concealed in their quarters and refused to give up. At another time they rescued a prisoner from a guard, and showed every disposition to turn upon their jailers. After this last occur- rence, Colonel David Henley, who commanded at Cambridge, ordered a body of the prisoners who had collected in front of his guard on Prospect Hill to retire to their barracks. One of the prisoners refusing to obey, Colonel Henley wounded him with his sword. On a previous occasion he had, in endeavor- ing to silence an insolent prisoner, seized a firelock from the guard and slightly wounded the man in the breast.
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For these acts Colonel Henley was formally accused by Gen- eral Burgoyne " of behavior heinously criminal as an officer and unbecoming a man; of the most indecent, violent, vindictive severity against unarmed men, and of intentional murder." Colonel Henley was placed in arrest and tried by a mili- tary court at Cambridge, of which Colonel Glover was presi- dent, and Colonel William Tudor judge-advocate. General Burgoyne appeared as prosecutor. His address to the court was a model of wheedling, cajolery, and special pleading. He complimented the president for his honorable treatment of the Convention troops on the march to Boston. To Col- onel Wesson, who had immediate command in the district when the troops arrived, he also paid his respects, and even the judge-advocate came in for a share of his persuasive eloquence.
It was believed that Burgoyne undertook the rôle of pros- ecutor, not only to recover in some degree his waning influence with his troops, but to retrieve, if possible, his reputation at home, by appearing in the guise of the champion of his soldiers.
Henley owed his acquittal mainly to the exertions of Colonel Tudor in his behalf. The evidence showed that the prisoner had acted under great provocation ; but what most influenced the result was the startling testimony adduced of the mutinous spirit prevalent among the British soldiers.
A day or two after this trial the judge-advocate and Colonel Henley met at Roxbury in making a visit to a family where a lady resided to whom Colonel H. was paying his addresses. He fancied himself coldly received, and was in rather a melan- choly humor as they rode into town together. In coming over the Neck he abruptly said to his companion, " Colonel Tudor, I will thank you to shoot me!" "Why, what is the matter now ?" asked Tudor. " You have ruined me." "I thought I had rendered you some assistance in the trial." "You said I was a man of passionate, impetuous temper ; this has destroyed me in the estimation of the woman I love ; you see she received me coldly. You have destroyed my happiness. You may now
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do me a favor to shoot me." Colonel Tudor was vexed for a moment at this sort of return for the services he had ren- dered, but these feelings were transient on both sides; they continued friends, and Colonel Henley married the lady he loved. *
Henley had served at the siege of Boston as brigade-major to General Heath. In December, 1776, he was lieutenant-colonel of Rufus Putnam's regiment. He commanded the rear-guard in the disastrous retreat through the Jerseys, gaining the opposite shore of the Delaware at midnight, just as Cornwallis reached the river.
Colonel William Tudor presided over the courts-martial at Cambridge after the arrival of Washington. He was the class- mate and chum of Chief Justice Parsons at Harvard, graduating in the class of 1769. In 1777 he was appointed lieutenant- colonel of Henley's regiment. His courtship of the lady who afterwards became his wife was prosecuted under very romantic circumstances. By the hostilities which had broken out he was separated from the object of his affections, who was residing on Noddles Island (East Boston), in the family of Henry Howell Williams. The British fleet, which lay off the island, rendered it dangerous to approach it in a boat. A boyish acquisition was now of use to the gallant colonel. He was an excellent swimmer. Tying his clothes in a bundle on his head. he, like another Leander, swam the strait between the island and the main, paid his visit, and returned the way he came. Miss Delia Jarvis - that was the lady's name - became Mrs. Tudor. The Colonel's son, William, is well known in literature as one of the founders of the Anthology Club, and first editor of the North American Review. The eldest daughter of Colonel Tudor married Robert Hallowell Gardiner, of Gardiner, Maine ; the youngest married Commodore Charles Stuart of the United States Navy.
It is related of Colonel Tudor, that when a boy, being on a visit on board an English line-of-battle ship in Boston harbor, the conversation turned upon swimming. Tudor proposed to
* Mass. Historical Collections.
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jump from the taffrail rail, which in ships of that time was at a considerable height from the water, if any one would do the same. A sailor accepted the challenge. The boy took the leap, but the man was afraid to follow.
As mention has been made of Colonel James Wesson in con- nection with the trial of Henley, we may be permitted to intro- duce an anecdote of the manner in which that brave officer's active career was brought to a close. He had been commissioned major of Samuel Gerrish's regiment as early as the 19th May, 1775, by Joseph Warren, and served at the siege of Boston. In November, 1776, he was made colonel. He fought with credit at Saratoga and Monmouth. In the latter battle our artillery under Knox opened an unexampled cannonade, to which the British guns fiercely replied. Colonel Wesson, who then commanded the 9th Massachusetts, was in the front line. Leaning over his horse's neck to look under the cannon smoke, which enveloped everything, a ball from the enemy grazed his back, tearing away his clothing, and with it fragments of his flesh. Had he re- mained upright an instant longer he would have been killed ; as it was, he remained a cripple for life.
In the summer of 1778 the British prisoners were transferred to Rutland, Massachusetts ; a certain number went to Barre, in the same State. Some thirty or forty of the worst characters, known to have been implicated in the riots which preceded the Henley affair, were placed on board the guard-ships at Boston.
On the 28th July the 20th British regiment, numbering then about four hundred men, marched for Rutland, under escort of a detachment of Colonel Thatcher's regiment. They were followed on the 2d of September by the 21st and 47th, and on the 5th by the 24th regiment. The last of the English troops marched for the same destination on the 15th of October, and the people of Boston breathed freer than they had done for months.
Mrs. Warren, who was an eyewitness, thus speaks of the effects produced by the presence of the British soldiery : -
"This idle and dissipated army lay too long in the vicinity of Boston for the advantage of either side. While there, in durance,
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they disseminated their manners ; they corrupted the students of Harvard College and the youth of the capital and its environs, who were allured to enter into their gambling-parties and other scenes of licentiousness. They became acquainted with the designs, resources, and weaknesses of America ; and there were many among them whose talents and capacity rendered them capable of making the most mischievous use of their knowledge."
As might have been expected, there were a great many de- sertions among the foreign troops. Before the end of December four hundred of the English were missing, while the Bruns- wickers lost no fewer than seventy-three in a single month. Colonels Lee, Henley, and Jackson were all recruiting in Bos- ton in 1777 - 78, and, as men were very scarce, they were not averse to enlisting the English soldiers. Burgoyne gave out publicly that neither he nor his troops were prisoners, but only an unarmed body of men marching through a country to the nearest seaport to embark for their homes. The men them- selves, or many of them, were anxious to enlist, and the regi- ments then in Boston would have had no difficulty in filling up, had it not been that this course was discountenanced at the headquarters of the army as repugnant to the good of the ser- vice. The Hessian general was obliged to place non-commis- sioned officers as sentinels, -privates could not be trusted, -to prevent his men from running away. Some of them entered the American service, and the descendants of some are now living among us.
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