USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 16
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Pitcairn or not, seems to have been from a pistol, - perhaps accidentally, - not with any execution so far as appears ; but it was soon fol- lowed by a few muskets, and then by a volley of the British vanguard. Pitcairn and his officers aver that the first shot came from the Provin- cials. (See Stiles's Diary, quoted in Frothing- ham's Siege of Boston, p. 62; and Irving's Washington.) The Provincials, scores of them, report that it came from the Regulars. Nei- ther side intended to fire first, and it is not easy to determine to whose door what was probably an accidental discharge is to be laid. There has been some discussion as to the per- son who first shed British blood. (Magazine of American History, April, 1880, p. 308.) At all events, it may be worth while in passing to note that these "embattled farmers" stood where the parallel lines are marked on the annexed plan of the triangular Lexington Green ; which also shows where Percy planted his cannon to keep the Provincials at bay, while Smith's re- tiring force sought shelter in the opened ranks
** Concord
Clark's House
To Bedford
Buckman Tavern
LEXINGTON
a paccy's cannon
To WoDUTTI SE
Bercys an
. To Boston
= Americans
British
Humanas Tavern
of Percy's detachment. The royal side pro- fessed not to look upon the affair as we are ac- customed to now-a-days. " Each side is ready to swear the other fired first," says a letter of the time, describing the after effects in Boston. " The country-people call this a victory, and the retreat of the troops a precipitate flight. They don't consider that when the King's troops had effected what they went for, they had only
103
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
to come home again." Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., 1873, P. 57.
Major Pitcairn, a few weeks later at Bunker llill, fell back into his son's arms as he was scaling the redoubt, shot by a negro, - Peter Salem. (See George Livermore's " Historical Research " in Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., August, 1862, p. 176.) Ile was brought over the ferry to Mr. Stoddard's, near the landing, and here bled to death. His remains were placed under Christ Church ; and the story goes that when, some years after, they were sought to be sent to his relatives in England, another body, through the difficulties of identification, was sent instead. Drake's Landmarks, p 217.
The reader must seek detailed accounts of this eventful day in Frothingham's Siege of Bos- ton, and in the smaller monographs and in- cidental accounts, of which full enumeration is given in Winsor's Readers' Handbook of the Rev- olution, pp. 26-33; and in J. L. Whitney's Lit- erature of the Nineteenth April, 1775. Gage's public statement is given in the fac-simile of his " Circumstantial Account " in the present chap- ter, which is not, by the way, accurately nor wholly reprinted in Mass. Hist. Coll., ii .; nor in The Cambridge of 1776, p. 103. Percy's account - and Smith's report are in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May, 1876; and Smith's is also in Mahon's Eng- land, vi. app. ; and in Mass, Hist. Soc. Proc., May, 1876, p. 350. It is interesting to compare the account given in the Memoir and Letters of Captain WV. G. Evelyn, Ox- ford, 1879, pp. 53, 121.
April, 1858;, Siege of Boston, p. 86. What are called the Lexington alarm rolls, or the lists of minute-men who turned out as the news spread, are contained in Massachusetts Revolutionary Kolls, xi .- xvi., with indexes.
THE LITERATURE OF BUNKER HILL - This is voluminous, and is set forth on different plans in Winsor's Readers' Handbook of the American Revolution, pp. 35-59; and in J. F. Hunnewell's Bibliography of Charlestown and Bunker Hill, pp. 13-29. It is enough to mention here, of the more extended accounts, that in Frothingham's Siege of Boston, Dawson's in an extra number of the Historical Magazine, June, 1868, and that of Dr. George E. Ellis. Colonel Prescott wrote a brief and unsatisfactory account in the follow- ing August, addressed to John Adams, which is printed by Frothingham and Dawson; and his son, Judge Prescott, wrote a narrative, which rep- resents presumably the views of I'rescott, and which Frothingham printed in his centennial ac- count of the battle, and in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1875. Two contemporary accounts are preserved from eye-witnesses on opposing sides, and from opposite points of view. Burgoyne saw the battle from Copp's Hill and described it in a letter to Lord Stanley, which is printed in Fonblanque's Burgoyne and in other places. The Rev. Peter Thacher, of Malden, saw it from the farther side of the Mystic, and wrote an ac-
Malden May 25. 175- the
The Provincial Congress, on its side, issued a Narrative of the Incursions, etc., - which was printed in its journal, also separately by Isaiah Thomas, and often since, -and took numerous depositions of participants in the fight, the princi- pal men, like Colonel Barrett, deposing separate-
Janey Bavislit
ly, -the originals of which, or those sent to England, are preserved in the libraries of Har- vard College and the University of Virginia. They have been often printed. These, with other papers, were entrusted to Richard Derby, of Sa- R Duby lem, and he despatched Captain John Derby with them on a swift vessel, so that the pro- vincial accounts of the day's work reached Lon- don and the Government eleven days in advance of Gage's despatches. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
Peter Thacker
count which is preserved in the American Anti- quarian Society's Library, and is printed by Dawson. This was the basis of the narrative set forth by the Provincial Congress, which is printed by Frothingham and others. Gage's official report was printed in Almon's Re- membrancer.
The earliest anniversary oration was Josiah Bartlett's, in 1794, which was printed the next year in Boston by B. Edes.
The bibliographical history of a somewhat needless controversy, which at one time was mixed with political recriminations, as to the command in a battle which was too unexpected and unorganized for any individual and regular management of the whole extent of it, is traced in Winsor's Handbook, p. 48. There can be no question of Prescott's military superiority at the redoubt ; all else was supplementary, contingent certainly, hut mainly independent, though a par-
104
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tial concert of action obtained throughout the day, rather by mutual apprehension of the ne- cessities of the case than by fixed direction.
In the parade at the time of laying the corner- stone of the monument in 1825 one hundred and ninety Revolutionary soldiers appeared; and of these, forty professed to have been in the battle. Under the fervor of the hour, some of these were appealed to to revive their recollections, and a mass of depositions were taken by William Sul- livan and others; but those instrumental in pro- curing them soon became satisfied that such "old men's tales" drew more on the imagination than was fit for historical evidence. Colonel Swett, however, used them to some degree in the addi- tions which he made to his account of the battle. These papers, in 1842, were for a while in the hands of a committee of the Historical Society, who saw no reason to value them differently ; and being returned to the Sullivan family, it is supposed that they were destroyed. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., ii. 224-231.) Some papers, presum- ably of the same character, were offered at auc- tion in New York in 1877 ; but without finding a purchaser. There is an amusing account of one of the so-called veterans of Bunker Hill in No. 1 of the "Recollections of Amer- ican Society," in Scribner's Monthly, January, 1881, p. 420. Numerous pa- pers relating to individual losses at Bunker Hill are in Massachusetts Ar- chives, cxxxix. ; and papers relating to the official return of the damage done by the burning of Charlestown, communicated to the Governor Jan. 11, 1783, are in Massachusetts Archives, cxxxviii. 393. So late as 1834 memorials were presented to the Legislature, asking satisfac- tion for losses suffered on June 17, 1775. See House Document of that year, No. 55.
THE AMERICAN LINES. - These can be traced in Pelham's Boston and Vicinity, and Trumbull's Boston and the Surrounding Country ; both of which are given in reduced fac-simile in this volume, and are noted in the Introduction, together with various eclectic maps of a later day, useful in fixing the localities.
There were four points of attack which the besieging force guarded against: first, by Charlestown Neck, where the left wing, under Lee, would have to bear the brunt of the onset; second, by boats across the Back Bay, where the British would have to effect a landing in the face of the centre under Putnam; third, by a sortie from the Neck lines toward Roxbury; fourth, by Dorchester Neck, where, by landing on that peninsula, the enemy might attempt to turn the extreme right of the right wing. This part of the lines, both at Roxbury and Dorchester, was held by the right wing, which was commanded by Ward after Washington took the general com- mand.
The fortified positions and associated land- marks along this line of circumvallation may perhaps be traced with interest.
Going out over Charlestown Neck the road forked at the Common, just west of the narrowest part. The right hand fork came soon to Ploughed Hill, the modern Mount Benedict; and it was here that the Americans took an advanced post August 26, bringing them within range of the Brit- ish guns on Bunker Hill. It was an act intended
Joe Sullivan
to invite an attack, which was, however, declined. General Sullivan fortified it under a heavy fire, and pushed ont his picket line till it confronted the enemy's within ear-shot; and the place be- came the scene of much sharpshooting, chiefly conducted by Morgan's Virginia riflemen, who
Dan Morgen
had reached the camp during the summer. There were redoubts also at Ten Hills Farm, which Sullivan had erected to protect his post at Ploughed Hill from assault on the Mystic side ; and some traces of them are still left.
Winter hill 9 July 1775 The of Ezuk Giver Esq" Eight plank 142 Just for platforms on grinder hill
The Learned
105
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
The road by Ploughed IIill led on to Winter Ifill, which was fortified immediately after the battle of Bunker Hill, and garrisoned chiefly by New Hampshire troops. The main defence was on the summit, where the road to Medford now diverges. Much of the proficiency of Sullivan's camp was due to his brigade-major, Alexander Scammell. (See Historical Magazine, September,
al I cammelli
1870.) A good deal of the military spirit of the camp was derived from a veteran of the French
In" Nixon
wars, John Nixon, who had been very busy on the Lexington day, been wounded at Bunker Hill,
valley toward Winter Hill, and on the other toward the Cambridge lines. Putnanı had be- gun work here immediately after the retreat from Charlestown. When Washington arrived
most entirely Charles Lec
and the army was brigaded, Greene was sta- tioned here under Lec, assuming command on July 26, with a force of three or four thou- sand men, including his Rhode Islanders, who had been earlier encamped at Jamaica Plain. It was on Prospect Hill that Putnam hoisted his Connecticut flag, - "An appeal to Heaven," -on July 18; and again on Jan. 1, 1776, what
Camp Prospect Hill Sep. 15 75 Nathanael June Bug adiegenen
and was made a brigadier in August. Henry they called the Union flag of the Confederated Dearborn and John Brooks, both later known in Colonies, -a banner with thirteen stripes. Boston history, were also officers of this camp.
From this Winter Hill fort, one road leading to Medford passed the old Royall mansion, where Lee and Sullivan each at one time made their quarters, and where Stark held his command. The story of the famous old mansion is told in Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, ch. vi. About equally distant on the road to Concord was the old Powder Tower, whose remains are to-day one of the most characteristic relics of the past near Boston. Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, ch. v. It was to this magazine that Gage sent the expe- dition in September, 1774, to seize the powder, as told in the preceding chapter.
The uneven valley between Winter and Pros- pect hills was guarded by more than one re- doubt ; and in the rear of one of them, in an old farm-house still standing on Sycamore Street, known as the Tufts house, Lee had his head- quarters.
Pelham's map shows the extensive works and out-works which crowned the summit of Pros- pect Hill, and extended on the one hand into the
The road which ran from Charlestown Com- mon to Cambridge Common passed just below Prospect Hill (the present Washington Street in Somerville, and Kirkland Street in Cam- bridge), and between it and the lesser eminence, called then Cobble or Miller's Hill, - now the site of the Insane Asylum, - where Putnam and Knox on the night of November 22, with the regiments of Bond and Bridge as a supporting force, threw up breastworks which afterward
We" Bon
became one of the strongest points of the Amer- ican lines, and when mounted with IS and 24 pounders served effectually to keep the enemy's vessels from moving too near.
Just South of Cobble IIill, the marshy land intersected by Willis's Creek made an island of the region now known as East Cambridge, but
VOL. III. - 14.
106
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
which was then called Phips's farm, or Lech- mere's Point, the old farm-house standing near where the modern court house is. Richard Lech-
bben Bridge, Cola 27AS Regimento
nov 30. 175
structed earlier by Gridley, consisted of detached works, extending from a point on the Charles, where now the Riverside Press is, over Butler (or Dana) Hill, in the direction of Prospect 1Jill, and ending near Union Square in Somer- ville. They can be traced on Pelham's map, and are de- scribed in Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 186. Finch, in 1822, could find little trace of them.
Just in advance of this linc, in the house of the Tory Ralph Inman, Putnam had his head-quarters. He left his son, Colonel Putnam, here to guard the ladies during the action
Ralph Inman
mere, who owned it, had acquired it by marrying the daughter of Spencer Phips, the royal Lieut .- Governor, whence the two names. He was now a Tory, and the upland was soon put to good use. Gage had found it convenient to land his detachment here, which marched to Lexington; and how Boston looked from this point may be seen from one of the heliotypes in the preceding chapter. There was already one causeway, connecting by a bridge over Willis's Creek the neigh- borhood of Prospect Hill, when Washington determined to fortify the point, and then to extend the road now called Cambridge Street over the marsh, so as to bring the new fort into more direct communication with his centre. Having protected these two approaches by small works on the main land, and Manly's capture of an ordnance ship supplying him with a 13-inch mortar, he began to extend a covered way there on the night of November 29, and broke ground for his main work on December 11, which he was obliged to complete under heavy fire from the Boston side. This, and the frozen ground, delayed the completion till the latter part of February, 1776. Knox's cannon from Ticonder- oga played here a good part in the bombard- ment of March 2, when one of the shot struck the tower of the Brattle Street Church, and was to be seen there to our day.
Thus the advanced posts of the besieging army from their extreme left at Ploughed Hill were continued through Cobble Hill and Phips's farm ; while, to protect the centre front, in No- vember two small redoubts were thrown up, bordering on the marshes, further on toward the Charles. One of these, which was intended to repel boats, was found in complete preservation by Finch, in 1822. The further waste by time was repaired by the Cambridge city authorities, in 1858, who enclosed the earthwork, and named it Fort Washington. Pelham's map, and so does Marshall's, places the other battery nearer the Charles; but Finch could find no trace of it. It probably occupied the knoll in the marsh to which Magazine Street now conducts. Paige's History of Cambridge, p. 422.
The interior line of defence, which was con-
on Bunker Hill. Drake reports the house in 1873 as being cut asunder and wheeled off. It stood on Inman Street, where the road from the college to Phips's farm made a sharp turn to join the Charlestown road. It is shown in l'elham's map. The house before the war was a centre of attraction for the royalist officers in Boston; for Inman kept good cheer, and had pretty daugh- ters. One of them married John Linzee, who commanded the " Falcon " on Bunker-Hill day.
Putnam, on reaching Cambridge, had occu- pied the Borland house, popularly known as the Bishop's Palace, directly opposite Gore Hall, on Harvard Street. It had been built about fifteen years before by the Rev. East Apthorp of Christ Church, Cambridge, a son of Charles Apthorp, a Boston merchant. John Adams says it was " thought to be a splendid palace, and was supposed to be intended for the residence of the first royal bishop." Another Boston merchant, John Borland, occupied it up to the outbreak; and it was he who added the third story, to give more accommodation for his household slaves, -as the tale goes. The true front is toward Mount Auburn Street.
A little further west, and within the college yard, is the present Wadsworth House, the for- mer home of the presidents of the college.
The cut on the next page follows a drawing made by Miss E. S. Quincy during the presi- dency of her father.
The house in 1776 was fifty years old, having been built in 1726 for the occupancy of Presi- dent Wadsworth; and it did not have the late- ral projections, which were put on in Treasurer Storer's time to enlarge the dining and drawing rooms. It was in this house that quarters were assigned to Washington, by provision of the Congress at Watertown, on his coming to Cam-
107
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
bridge ; as Mr. Deane has conclusively shown in a paper in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., September, 1872, p. 257. See also Harvard Book ; Cam- bridge of 1775; Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 206; Quincy's History of Harvard University. Miss Quincy thinks that a British shell, which passed over the house and fell in Harvard Square, probably showed that a remoter head- quarters were safer for the General. See Dr. Holbrook's account in Memoirs of Mrs. E. S. M. Quincy, p. 223.
Hist. Soc. Proc. for 1881. The old Stoughton was to disappear, however, before the war ended. Hollis Hall was also then standing; but hardly a dozen years old. Holden Chapel was thirty years old, and became the place for courts-mar- tial to be held. In May, 1775, the Provincial Con- gress had taken possession of these buildings, and on the day before Bunker Hill the College library had been removed to a place of safety. The original records of this Provincial Congress are in Mass. Archives, cxl .; they have been
THE WADSWORTH HOUSE.
It was in the old meeting-house shown in the engraving, which stood where now the Law School stands, that the Provincial Congress of 1774 held its sessions. Washington attended Sunday services here, occupying a wall pew on the left of the pulpit.
The principal college buildings at this time were Harvard IIall, which, after the fire of 1764, had been rebuilt ; Massachusetts Hall; and the Stoughton of that day (scen in the por- trait of Wm. Stoughton in Vol. I1. 166), which, with the highway opposite, formed a quad- rangle of the space now lying between Harvard and Massachusetts, as shown in the old " Prospect of the Colledges in Cam- bridge in New England," of which there are two conditions of the plate : one in Lieut .- Gov. William Dummer's time, as issued by W. Burgis, and the other in the days of Lieut .- Gov. Spencer Phipps, when William Price issued it. A heliotype, considerably reduced, is given in Muss.
printed. In the winter of 1775-76, nearly two thousand men were sheltered in these and the lesser college buildings, and they made use of all the college property. On May 3, 1777, the col- lege steward, Jonathan Hastings, made a return of " the utensils left in the college kitchen, which [words carefully erased, evidently "the colony "] of the Massachusetts Bay have not replaced." (Mass. Archives, cxlii. 57.)
It is probable that the earliest works raised after Lexington day were some breastworks
Ephm Doolittle Col.
thrown up across what is now the college yard, and it is probable also that they were raised early in May by Colonel Doolittle and his men ; and Drake says, Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 243, that they extended to the right as far as Holyoke
108
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Place. North of the college buildings and front- ing on the Common was the house still standing, now owned by the University and occupied by Professor James B. Thayer, by whose permission the view of the old hall, given in the annexed cut, was taken. The door to the right opens into the room in which General Ward held
the night before the battle; that President Lang- don went forth from the western door and prayed for God's blessing on the men just set- ting forth on their bloody expedition, - all these things have been told and perhaps none of them need be doubted." (Poet at the Break- fast Table. Also see Harvard Book, ii. 424; Still-
THE HOLMES HOUSE.
his council of war, when it was resolved to occupy the heights in Charlestown. In the exterior view, the lower windows to the right of the entrance belong to this room. Dr. Holmes says in his "Gambrel-roofed Ilouse and its Outlook :" " I retain my doubts about those dents on the floor of the right-hand room, the 'study' of the suc- cessive occupants, said to have been made by the butts of the Continental militia's firelocks; but this man's Poetic Localities of Cambridge : Drake's was the cause the story told me in childhood laid Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 255; and Middlesex County, j. 337; Mckenzie's History of First Church in Cambridge.) It is well known that the house was the birthplace of Dr. Holmes. At the outbreak of the war it was occupied by Jonathan Hastings, the college steward who, in July, 1775, became the postmaster of Cambridge; and it was them to. That military consultations were held in that room when the house was General Ward's headquarters; that the Provincial generals and colonels, and other men of war, there planned the movement which ended in the fortifying of Bunker Hill; that Warren slept in the house
109
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
his son Jonathan who was later postmaster of Bos- ton. Very soon after Lexington the Committee of Safety took possession, and the original minutes of their doings here are now preserved in the Mass. Archives, cxl. It was to this committee that Benedict Arnold, with his Connecticut com- pany, reported, April 29; and from them, May 3,
relating to his subsequent resignation, are in the Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., July, 1871. Colonel Car- rington, in his Battles of the American Revolu- tion, speaks of Ward, then less than fifty, "as advanced in years and feeble in body." Drake gives the same false impression in speaking of "his age and infirmity " two years later.
M. Comifary Supply ten men with of Common allowance of num. June 13. 1775 Artemas Hand
he received his colonel's commission ; and here Ward, upon receiving his commission from the l'rovince to be the ranking general of the Massa- chusetts forces, fixed his headquarters.
This commission was dated May 19, 1775; and that from the Continental Congress, making Ward the second major-general in the service, bears date June 22. These, with other papers
Almost directly west from this house, and on the other side of the Common, still stands the old elm under which Washington, July 3, 1775, first took command of the unorganized army of soldiers then laying siege to Boston. (Cambridge in the Centennial, 1875.) The arrival of Wash- ington was anxiously waited, and his assuming command was expected to "be attended with a
110
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
great deal of grandeur. There are," writes Lieu- tenant Hodgkins, that morning, " one and twenty drummers.and as many fifers a beating and play- ing round the parade." - Ipswich Antiquarian Papers, 1881.
The annexed cut follows a painting which represents this historic tree before it had begun to show many signs of age. The house in the background occupied the site of the present Shepard Memorial Church, and was standing during the Revolution. It was known as the Moore House, the home of a certain Deacon Moore, whose wraith was said to haunt it. When it was destroyed some years since, two skele- tons were found beneath it, walled up in a cavity.
Press is all there is left of the old Brattle Estate. The beautiful and extensive gardens with mall and grotto, and stretching to the river, have all disappeared. William Brattle, who occupied it at this time, deserted it, and fled to his friends in Boston. He was the universal genius of his time, and of course was called superficial. A graduate of Harvard, he served by turns as a theologian and preacher, a physician and blood- letter, a lawyer and attorney-general, a politician and counsellor; and then, to make a Tory of him, the place of brigadier in the militia was conveniently found empty. When he went off to Halifax with Gage, they called him "commis- sary and cook." The place had been vastly im-
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