USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Old landmarks and historic fields of Middlesex > Part 22
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Imagine such an army, without artillery or effective small- arms, without magazines or discipline, and unable to execute the smallest tactical manœuvre should their lines be forced at any point, laying siege to a town containing ten thousand troops, the first in the world. It was, moreover, without a flag or a commander having absolute authority until Washington came.
Picture to yourself a grimy figure behind a rank of gabions, his head wrapped in an old bandanna, a short pipe between his teeth, stripped of his upper garments, his lower limbs encased in leather breeches, yarn stockings, and hob-nailed shoes, indus- triously plying mattock or spade, and your provincial soldier of '75 stands before you. Multiply him by ten thousand, and you have the provincial army.
It is certain that no common flag had been adopted by any authority up to February, 1776, though the flag of thirteen stripes had been displayed in January. The following extract from a regimental order book will answer the oft-repeated in- quiry as to whether the contingents from the different Colonies fought under the same flag in 1775 : -
" HEAD QUARTERS 20th February 1776. " Parole Manchester : Countersign Boyle.
" As it is necessary that every regiment should be furnished with colours and that those colours bear some kind of similitude to the regiment to which they belong, the colonels with their respective Brigadiers and with the Q. M. G. may fix upon any such as are proper and can be procured. There must be for each regiment the standard for regimental colours and colours for each grand division, the whole to be sınall and light. The number of the regiment is to
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be marked on the colours and such a motto as the colonels may choose, in fixing upon which the general advises a consultation among them. The colonels are to delay no time in getting the mat- ter fix'd that the Q. M. General may provide the colours for them as soon as possible. G. WASHINGTON."
Washington's first requisition on arriving in camp was for one hundred axes and bunting for colors. At the battle of Long Island, fought August, 1776, a regimental color of red damask, having only the word "Liberty " on the field, was captured by the British. As late as Monmouth there were no distinctive colors.
The whipping-post, where minor offences against military law were expiated, was to be met with in every camp. The prison- ers received the sentence of the court-martial on their naked backs; from twenty to forty lashes (the limit of the Jewish law) with a cat-o'-nine-tails being the usual punishment. This barbarous custom, inherited from the English service, was long retained in the American army. Its disuse in the navy is too recent to need special mention. Incorrigible offenders were drummed out of camp ; but though there are instances of the death-penalty having been adjudged by courts-martial, there is not a recorded case of military execution in the American army during the whole siege.
The men in general were healthy, - much more so in Rox- bury than in Cambridge, and Thomas had the credit of keep- ing his camps in excellent order. In July, 1776, a company of ship carpenters was raised and sent to General Schuyler at Albany for service on the lakes. A company of bread-bakers was another feature of our camp.
The troops did not pile or stack their arms. They had few bayonets. The custom was to rest the guns upon wooden horses made for the purpose. In wet weather they were taken into the tents or quarters. We have dwelt upon details that may appear trivial, unless the reconstruction of the Continental camps, with fidelity in all things, and dedicated in all honor to the patriot army, be our sufficient warrant.
Pope Day, the anniversary of Guy Fawkes's abortive plot
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(November 5, 1605), had long been observed in the Colonies. It was proposed to celebrate it in the American camp on the return of the day in 1775, but General Washington character- ized it as a ridiculous and childish custom, and expressed his surprise that there should be officers and men in the army so void of common-sense as not to see its impropriety at a time when the Colonies were endeavoring to bring Canada into an alliance with themselves against the common enemy. The General argued that the Canadians, who were largely Catholic, would feel their religion insulted. The British, on the con- trary, celebrated the day with salvos of artillery. As the crisis of the siege approached, Washington sternly forbade all games of chance.
The glorious evening in June came, when the dark clusters of men gathered on the greensward for Breed's Hill. Silently they stood while Dr. Langdon knelt on the threshold of yonder house and prayed for their good speed. The men tighten their belts and feel if their flints are firmly fixed. Their faces we cannot see, but we warrant their teeth are shut hard, and a strange light, the gleam of battle, is in their eyes. A nocturnal march, with conflict at the end of it, will try the nerves of the stoutest soldier. What will it then do for men who have yet to fire a shot in anger ? They whisper together, and we know what they say, -
" To-morrow, comrade, we On the battle plain must be, There to conquer or both lie low !"
Some one who has fairly judged of the raw recruit in general doubts if the Americans reserved their fire at Bunker Hill. The answer is conclusive. As the enemy marched to the attack a few scattering shots were fired at them, soon checked by the leaders. This is the testimony of both sides, and is, in this case, perhaps, exceptional. But the best answer is in the enemy's frightful list of casualties, -a thousand and more men are not placed hors du combat in less than two hours by indiscriminate popping.
The first attempts at uniforming the Continentals were any-
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thing but successful, the absence of cloth, except the homespun of the country, rendering it impracticable. Chester's company, which was clothed in blue turned up with red, is the only one in uniform at the battle of Bunker Hill of which we have any account. In Edmund Phinney's regiment, stationed in Boston after the departure of the English, the men were supplied with coats and double-breasted jackets of undyed cloth, just as it came from the looms, turned up with buff facings. They had also blue breeches, felt hats with narrow brims and white bind- ing. Another regiment, being raised in the same town, wore black faced with red. The motto on the button was, " Inimica Tyrannis," above a hand with a naked sword. During this year (1776) homespun or other coats, brown or any other color, made large and full-lapelled, with facings of the same or of white, cloth jackets without sleeves, cloth or leather breeches, large felt hats, and yarn stockings of all colors, were purchased by the Continental agents. Smallwood's Maryland regiment was clothed in red, but Washington eventually prohibited this color, for obvious reasons. In November, 1776, Paul Jones captured an armed vessel, which had on board ten thousand complete sets of uniform, destined for the troops in Canada under Carleton and Burgoyne. The American levies in the British service were first attired in green, which they finally and with heavy hearts exchanged for red, as a prelude to their being drafted into British regiments.
The term "Continent " was applied to the thirteen Colonies early in 1776, to distinguish their government from that of the Provinces, and hence the name Continental, as applied to the army of their adoption.
The surroundings of Cambridge Common invite our attention, and of these the old gambrel-roof house, situated between Kirk- land Street and North Avenue, naturally claims precedence. To the present generation this is known as the birthplace of our Autoerat of the Breakfast-table, our songster in many keys, ever welcome in any guise, whether humorous, pathetic, or even a little satirical withal. It was a good house to be born in, and does honor to the poet's choice, as his bouquet of
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fragrant memories, culled for the readers of the " Atlantic," does honor to the poet's self. It is certainly no disadvantage to have first drawn breath in a house which was the original headquarters of the Ameri- can army of the Revolution, and in which the battle of Bunker Hill was planned and ordered. The old house is pleasant to look at, though built originally for nothing more pretending than a farm-house. It has a thoroughly sturdy and honest look, like its old neighbor, the President's house, and in nothing except its yellow and white paint does it seem to counterfeit the royalist man- WENDELL. sions of Tory Row. The Professor tells us it once had a row of Lombardy poplars on the west, but now not a single speci- men of the tree can be found of the many that once stood stiffly up at intervals around the Common. The building fronts the south, with the College edifices of its own time drawn up in ugly array before it. Beyond, in unobstructed view, are the Square, the church with its lofty steeple, and its Anglican neighbor of the lowlier tower, where, -
"Like sentinel and nun they keep Their vigil on the green ; One seems to guard and one to weep The dead that lie between."
The west windows look upon the Common, with its beautiful monument in its midst, and bordered by other houses with walls as familiar to the scenes of a hundred years ago as are those of our present subject. Were we to indulge our fancy, we might as easily invest these old houses with the gift of vision through their many glassy eyes, as to give ears to their walls ; we might imagine their looks of recognition, doubtful of their own identity, amid the changes which time has wrought in their vicinage.
It is at least a singular chance that fixed the homes of Long- fellow, Holmes, Lowell, Hawthorne, and Everett in houses of greater or less historic celebrity ; but it is not merely a coinci-
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dence that has given these authors a decided preference for his- torical subjects. All are students of history ; all either are or have been valued members of our historical societies. Evan- geline, The Scarlet Letter, and Old Ironsides are pledges that the more striking subjects have not escaped them.
In the roll of proprietors of the old gambrel-roof house, which Dr. Holmes supposes to be about one hundred and fifty years old, but which we should judge even more ancient, the first to appear is Jabez Fox, described as a tailor, of Boston, to whom the estate was allotted in 1707, and whose heirs sold it to Farmer Jonathan Hastings thirty years later, with the four acres of land pertaining to the messuage.
The first Jonathan Hastings is the same to whom Gordon attributes the origin of the word "yankee." He says :-
" It was a cant, favorite word with Farmer Jonathan Hastings of Cambridge about 1713. Two aged ministers who were at the College in that town have told me they remembered it to have been then in use among the students, but had no recollection of it before that period. The inventor used it to express excellency. A Yankee good horse, or Yankee good cider, and the like, were an excellent good horse and excellent cider. The students used to hire horses of him, and the use of the term upon all occasions led them to adopt it, and they gave him the name of Yankee Jon."
Gordon supposes that the students, upon leaving College, circulated the name through the country, as the phrase " Hob- son's choice " was established by the students at Cambridge, in Old England, though the latter derivation is disputed by Mr. Ker, who calls it " a Cambridge hoax."
The second Jonathan Hastings, long the College Steward, was born in 1708, graduated at Harvard in 1730, and died in 1783, aged seventy-five. It was during his occupancy that the house acquired its paramount importance. He was appointed postmaster of Cambridge in July, 1775, as the successor of James Winthrop ; and his son Jonathan, who graduated at Harvard in 1768, was afterwards postmaster of Boston. Walter Hastings, also of this family, was a surgeon of the 27th regi- ment of foot (American), from Chelmsford, at the battle of
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Bunker Hill, and rendered efficient service there. Walter Hastings, of Boston, has a pair of gold sleeve-buttons worn by his grandsire on that day. His father, Walter Hastings, com- manded Fort Warren, now Fort Winthrop, in 1812.
As early as April 24, 1775, and perhaps immediately after the battle of Lexington, the Committee of Safety established themselves in this house, and here were concerted all those measures for the organization of the army created by the Provin- cial Congress. It was here Captain Benedict Arnold reported on the 29th of April with a company from Connecticut, and made the proposal for the attempt on Ticonderoga, prompted by his daring disposition. It was, without doubt, in the right- hand room, on the lower floor, that Arnold received his first commission as colonel from the Committee, May 3, 1775, and his orders to raise a force and seize the strong places on the lakes. Thus Massachusetts has the dubious honor of having first commissioned this eminent traitor, whose authority was signed by another traitor, Benjamin Church, but whose treason was not then developed.
"'Tis here but yet confused :
Knavery's plain face is never seen till used."
Arnold was the first to give information in relation to the number and calibre of the armament at Ticonderoga.
As all that relates to this somewhat too celebrated personage has a certain interest, we give the substance of a private letter from a gentleman who was in Europe when General Arnold arrived there, and whose acquaintance in diplomatic circles placed him in a position to be well informed.
The revolution in England respecting the change of ministry was very sudden, and supposed to have been influenced by the honest representations of Lord Cornwallis relative to the im- practicability of reducing America, which rendered that gen- tleman not so welcome in England to the late Ministry as his brother-passenger, General Arnold, who, from encouraging in- formation in favor of the conquest of America, was received with open arms by the king, caressed by the ministers, and
Q
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all imaginable attention showed him by all people on that side of the question. , He was introduced to the king in town, with whom he had the honor of many private conferences ; and was seen walking with the Prince of Wales and the king's brother in the public gardens. The queen was so interested in favor of Mrs. Arnold as to desire the ladies of the court to pay much attention to her. On the other hand, the papers daily con- tained such severe strokes at Arnold as would have made any other man despise himself; and the then opposition, after- wards in power, had so little regard for him, that one day, ' he being in the lobby of the House of Commons, a motion was about to be made to have it cleared in order to get him out of it, but upon the member (the Earl of Surrey) being assured that he would not appear there again, the motion was not made.
The name of the corporal who with eight privates constituted the crew of the barge in which Arnold made his escape from West Point to the Vulture, was James Lurvey, of Colonel Rufus Putnam's regiment. He is believed to have come from Worcester County. Arnold meanly endeavored to seduce the corporal from his flag by the offer of a commission in the Brit- ish service, but the honest fellow replied, " No, sir ; one coat is enough for me to wear at a time."
This mansion was probably occupied by General Ward at a time not far from coincident with its possession by the Commit- tee of Safety, but of this there is no other evidence than that his frequent consultations with that body would seem to render it necessary. He received his commission as commander-in- chief of the Massachusetts forces on the 20th of May, 1775, at which time headquarters were unquestionably established here. It must be borne in mind, however, that the committee exer- cised the supreme authority of directing all military movements, and that General Ward was a subordinate.
The fact that this was the Provincial headquarters has been doubtfully stated from time to time, but is settled by the fol- lowing extract from the Provincial records, dated June 21, 1775 :-
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" Whereas, a great number of horses have been, from time to time, put into the stables and yard of Mr. Hastings, at headquarters, not belonging to the Colony, the Committee of Safety, or the gen- eral officers, their aids-de-camp, or post-riders, to the great expense of the public and inconvenience of the committee, generals, &c."
General Ward's principal motive for quitting the army was a painful disease, which prevented his mounting his horse. His personal intrepidity and resolution are well illustrated by the following incident of Shays's Rebellion.
The General was then chief justice of the court to be held in Worcester, September, 1786. On the morning the court was to open, the Regulators, under Adam Wheeler, were in possession of the Court House. The judges had assembled at the house of Hon. Joseph Allen. At the usual hour they, together with the justices of the sessions and members of the bar, moved in procession to the Court House.
A sentinel challenged the advance of the procession, bringing his musket to the charge. General Ward sternly ordered him to recover his piece. The man, an old soldier of Ward's own regiment, awed by his manner, obeyed. Passing through the multitude, which gave way in sullen silence, the cortege reached the Court House steps, where were stationed a file of men with fixed bayonets, Wheeler, with a drawn sword, being in front.
The crier was allowed to open the doors, which, being done, displayed another party of infantry with loaded muskets, as if ready to fire. Judge Ward then advanced alone, and the bayo- nets were presented at his breast. He demanded, repeatedly, who commanded the people there, and the object of these hos-
tile acts. Wheeler at length replied that they had met to prevent the sitting of the courts until they could obtain redress of grievances. The judge then desired to address the people, but the leaders, who feared the effect upon their followers, re- fused to permit him to be heard. The drums beat and the guard were ordered to charge. "The soldiers advanced until the points of their bayonets pressed hard upon the breast of the chief justice, who stood immovable as a statue, without stirring a limb or yielding an inch, although the steel, in the hands of
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desperate men, penetrated his dress. Struck with admiration by his intrepidity, the guns were removed, and Judge Ward, ascending the steps, addressed the assembly."
" Says sober Will, well Shays has fled, And peace returned to bless our days. Indeed, cries Ned, I always said, He'd prove at last a fall back Shays."
When the army first assembled under Ward, officers were frequently stopped by sentinels for want of any distinguishing badge of rank. This led to an order that they should wear ribbons across the breast, - red for the highest grade, blue for colonels, and other colors according to rank.
It is well known that Washington spoke of the resignation of General Ward, after the evacuation of Boston, in a manner approaching contempt. His observations, then confidentially made, about some of the other generals, were not calculated to flatter their amour propre or that of their descendants. It is said that General Ward, learning long afterwards the remark that had been applied to him, accompanied by a friend, waited on his old chief at New York, and asked him if it was true that he had used such language. The President replied that he did not know, but that he kept copies of all his letters, and would take an early opportunity of examining them. Accordingly, at the next session of Congress (of which General Ward was a member), he again called with his friend, and was informed by the President that he had really written as alleged. Ward then said, " Sir, you are no gentleman," and turning on his heel quitted the room.
It is certain that the seizure of Dorchester Heights was re- solved upon early in May, 1775, or nearly a year before it was finally done by Washington. Information conveyed to the besiegers from Boston made it evident that the enemy were meditating a movement, which we now know from General Burgoyne was to have been first directed upon the heights of Dorchester, and secondly upon Charlestown.
On the 9th of May, at a council of war at headquarters, the question proposed whether such part of the militia should be
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called in to join the forces at Roxbury as would be sufficient to enable them to take possession of and defend Dorchester Hill, as well as to maintain the camp at Roxbury, was passed unani- mously in the affirmative. Samuel Osgood, Ward's major of brigade, signed the record of the vote. On the 10th of May an order was sent to all the colonels of the army to repair to the town of Cambridge, - " as we are meditating a blow at our restless enemies," - the general officers were directed to call in all the enlisted men, and none were allowed to depart the camps till the further orders of Congress.
For some reason the enterprise was abandoned, but it shows that both belligerents were fully conscious from the first that the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown were the keys to Boston. Burgoyne says the descent on Dorchester was finally to have been executed on the 18th of June, and gives the par- ticulars of the plan of operations, - a scheme which the in- trenchment on the heights of Charlestown rendered abortive.
The next whose personality is involved with the old house is Joseph Warren. The account preserved in the Hastings family is, that the patriot President-general was much pleased with Rebecca Hastings, who was then residing with her father, the College steward. The previous day the General had pre- sided at the deliberations of the Congress at Watertown, where he passed the night, coming down to Cambridge in the morning. His steps tended most naturally to the old house where were his associates of the Committee, and the commanding general. There was perhaps a fair face at the window welcoming him with a smile as he, for the last time, drew up before the gate and alighted from his chaise.
Warren, risen from a sick-bed, to which overwork and mental anxiety had consigned him, dressed himself with more than ordinary care, and, silencing the remonstrances of his more cautious colleague, Elbridge Gerry, proceeded to the scene of action at Bunker Hill on foot.
The old farm-house is not yet to lose its claim as a visible memorial of the varying destinies through which our country passed. Washington made it his headquarters upon his arrival
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at camp, remaining in it three days, or until arrangements for his permanent residence could be made. He first dined at Cambridge with General Ward and his officers, -an occasion when all restraint appears to have been cast aside in the sponta- neous welcome which was extended him. After dinner Adjutant Gibbs, of Glover's, was hoisted (English fashion), chair and all, upon the table, and gave the company a rollicking bachelor's song, calculated to make the immobile features of the chief relax. It was a generous, hearty greeting of comrades in arms. Glasses clinked, stories were told, and the wine circulated. Washington was a man ; we do not question that he laughed, talked, and toasted with the rest.
The headquarters being here already, it was natural for the General to choose to remain for the present where the archives, staff, and auxiliary machinery enabled him to examine the condition and resources of the army he came to command. Consultations with General Ward were necessarily frequent. It was no doubt in this house Washington penned his first official despatches.
Eliphalet Pearson, Professor of Hebrew and Oriental lan- guages, became the next inhabitant after what may be called the Restoration, when the sway of warlike men gave place on classic ground to the old reign of letters. Professor Pearson was noted for the sternness of his orthodoxy, as ex- hibited in his resistance to the entrance of Rev. Henry Ware into the Hollis professorship, and for his opposition to Andrew Craigie's efforts to secure a charter for his bridge, - efforts exerted in both instances for the behoof of the College, though in widely different spheres of action.
Following him came Rev. Abiel Holmes, pastor of the First Church, early historian of Cambridge, whose ministry was suspended by a revolution in his parish, which resulted in the overthrow of the old and the elevation of the new. Dr. Holmes's widow, the daughter of Judge Oliver Wendell, con- tinued to live in the house some time after the decease of her husband in 1837. Oliver Wendell Holmes, their son, did not permanently reside in the old house after he left college.
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