by Rick Beyer
But this time it was the colonials who were singing it, throwing the insulting tune back in the face of the British troops as they retreated back to Boston under heavy fire. “Damn them,” said one British officer later, “they made us dance it till we were tired.” After that it never sounded as sweet to British ears again.
Colonists claimed it as their own, sometimes referring to it now as the “Lexington March,” and taking a new delight in the self-mocking words. The song came to haunt the British, who had to listen to it being played when they surrendered at Saratoga and Yorktown.
And that’s how a ditty written to ridicule became America’s first national song.
The origin of the word “Yankee” is disputed, but the most likely explanation is that it is from the Dutch form of the name Johnnie, “Jancke” (pronounced yan-kee), which was used by Dutch colonists in New Amsterdam as a dismissive word for English residents of New England.
YANKEE DOODLE CAME TO TOWN RIDING ON A PONY, STUCK A FEATHER IN HIS HAT, AND CALLED HIM MACARONI.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of verses were written for the song in colonial times. These lines, among the earliest, refer to a class of foppish dandies in London who wore outlandish clothes and tried to throw around Italian phrases to show how cultured they were. They were called “Macaronies.”
“IT WAS NOT A LITTLE MORTIFYING TO HEAR THEM PLAY THIS TUNE, WHEN THEIR ARMY MARCHED DOWN TO OUR SURRENDER.”
— BRITISH OFFICER TOM ANBURY, FOLLOWING THE BRITISH SURRENDER AT SARATOGA
1775
OLD MAN’S FIGHT
Respect your elders . . . especially when they’re armed!
War is usually considered a young man’s endeavor. But on April 19, 1775, the first day of the American Revolution, the older generation got their licks in too.
At the battles of Lexington and Concord, colonial militia clashed with the dread Redcoats and sent them fleeing back to Boston. One militiaman who answered the call that day was Samuel Whittemore.
Whittemore was seventy-eight years old and crippled, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He headed out to join the fight, and he didn’t go lightly armed, either. He carried a rifle, two pistols, and an old cavalry saber.
As the British approached, he took up a position behind a stone wall and got off such accurate fire that the British sent a detachment to rout him out. As they drew close, the old man killed one with a rifle, and shot two more with his pistol. He was reaching for his cavalry saber when they finally fell upon him. One British soldier shot him in the face, while others, whipped into a frenzy, bayoneted him time after time.
Samuel Whittemore suffered fourteen separate wounds. When he was brought to a doctor, the man just shook his head. It was clear that Whittemore had little chance of surviving.
But Samuel Whittemore defied the odds and lived on. He lived long enough to see the British defeated, the Constitution ratified, and George Washington become president. He was ninety-six when he finally died, a remarkable eighteen years after the battle in which that senior soldier fought to make America free.
In another episode, a group of old men ambushed a British ammunition wagon, gunning down two British soldiers and driving off the rest. Several of the soldiers fleeing the ambush came upon an impoverished old woman named Mother Bathrick and begged her to accept their surrender and escort them to safety. This led critics of the war back in England to pose this rhetorical question: “If one old Yankee woman can take six Grenadiers, how many soldiers will it take to conquer America?”
1775
FIGHTING WORDS
The outdated weapon that we can’t stop talking about.
The flintlock was invented in France in 1610 and came to American shores shortly thereafter. For more than 200 years, the flintlock played a major role in American history. Flintlock muskets and pistols were the weapons of choice in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.
And though they have been obsolete for more than a century, they live on in our language.
To fire a flintlock, the shooter first cocked the hammer partway so that he could sprinkle some powder onto the priming pan—but he had to remember to cock the hammer the rest of way before firing. Otherwise the gun would go off half-cocked.
When the trigger was pulled, the hammer brought down a piece of flint with great force, creating a shower of sparks. If the powder in the pan ignited but failed to set off the charge inside the barrel, the result was a showy but useless flash in the pan.
When that happened, no one knew when or if the gun was going to go off. It was said to be hanging fire.
By the way, the “lock” in flintlock referred to the firing mechanism. It was one of three major parts of the gun: only if you had the lock, stock, and barrel did you have everything.
Remember the flintlock!
The most famous flintlock was the “Brown Bess,” used by British soldiers for more than a century, and eventually immortalized by Rudyard Kipling:
It was a flintlock rifle that fired the “shot heard round the world” on April 19, 1775, that began the American Revolution.
Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise . . .
With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes.
At Blenheim and Ramillies, fops would confess They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.
1776
THE GENERAL’S GAMBIT
A bold deception gave George Washington his first victory in the American Revolution.
After spending the winter holed up in Cambridge, General George Washington was determined to drive the British from Boston. One morning when the Redcoats there awoke, they were shocked to find that the hills looking down on Boston were bristling with cannon. Washington was throwing down the gauntlet, his guns poised to blow the enemy to kingdom come.
The British chose not to fight. They evacuated ten thousand men and two hundred warships. Boston was free without a shot being fired.
But what the British didn’t know was that Washington’s gambit was an enormous bluff. Despite the awesome display of force, he lacked one key ingredient to back it up: gunpowder.
Washington was so short on gunpowder that his army would have been able to throw only a few shots at the British before retreating. So severe, in fact, was the colonial powder shortage that the British could have easily taken Washington’s army and crushed the nascent rebellion any time during the previous six months.
If only they had known, American history might have taken a very different turn.
Washington may have lacked gunpowder, but he proved to have something more important: the nerve and audacity that would be needed to see the Revolution through to the finish.
Shortly after taking command of the army in June of 1775, Washington discovered that he had only enough gunpowder for each soldier to fire a handful of bullets. Brigadier General John Sullivan described the moment. “The General was so struck that he did not utter a word for half an hour.”
Gunpowder was in short supply because the British had long discouraged its manufacture in the colonies. The problem was eventually eased by importing large quantities from French traders. But even five years later, just before the Battle of Yorktown, Washington’s supply of powder was reported to be in a “wretched and palsied state.”
“TO MAINTAIN A POST WITHIN MUSKET SHOT OF THE ENEMY FOR SIX MONTHS TOGETHER WITHOUT POWDER . . . IS MORE THAN PROBABLY EVER WAS ATTEMPTED.”
— GEORGE WASHINGTON, IN A LETTER TO CONGRESS, JANUARY 1776
With Washington’s cannons frowning down on them, Lord Howe and his British army completed their evacuation of Boston by sea in less than two weeks.
1776
FORGOTTEN FIGHT
Big battle in the Big Apple.
The biggest battle of the American Revolution is, oddly enough, also one of the least remembered. It was fought on the streets of New York. The British invasion fleet contained more than four hundred ships and transports carrying thirty-five thousand so
ldiers and sailors, the biggest British Expeditionary Force until World War I. Facing them were twenty-five thousand inexperienced men under the command of George Washington, who himself had never led a large army into battle.
It was the first and only full-scale conflict of the war. From August until November of 1776, these two armies clashed in a series of engagements that ranged across Brooklyn, up and down the streets of Manhattan, into Harlem and Westchester, and finally across to New Jersey.
It’s largely forgotten today, for a simple reason: the colonials suffered a crushing defeat. Washington lost more than three-quarters of his army. Who would want to remember that?
The battle, however, deserves to be remembered. This is where America could have lost the fight for independence in an afternoon . . . but didn’t. Instead, it became the place where an army of green soldiers began to learn the trade of war.
The Battle of Trenton, fought by Washington’s decimated army a few weeks later, is celebrated as a great American victory. The Continental Army won that fight using lessons learned the hard way in the battle for New York.
The most famous casualty of the battle was a captain from a Connecticut regiment named Nathan Hale, remembered romantically as the spy who “had but one life to give his country.” The British viewed him far less romantically: they believed that in addition to being a spy, Hale was one of the colonial arsonists who had torched New York days before, destroying one-quarter of the city.
The British came ashore in Brooklyn, using landing craft that they had constructed on Staten Island. The boats had hinged bows that could be let down and used as ramps, much like the Higgins boats of World War II.
1777
MIRACLE AT SARATOGA
The debt of gratitude we owe to a most unlikely hero.
On a hillside near Saratoga, New York, a bitter battle was raging between a ragtag American army and crack British troops. One of the Americans’ best officers was stewing on the sidelines. He’d been quarreling with the commanding general for days, and just hours before, he had been dismissed for insubordination.
But once the battle began, the headstrong officer couldn’t stay away. Damning his orders, he downed a slug of rum, leaped onto a borrowed horse, and raced up to the front lines, saber flashing! Men rallied around him, and he led them into the teeth of British fire. He galloped his horse from one part of the field to another, under constant fire, leading devastating attacks on enemy positions. A bullet shattered his leg and down he went—but not before helping to rout the Redcoats.
The victory at Saratoga, proving as it did that the British were not invincible, convinced France to enter the war on America’s side. That turned out to be the key to ultimate triumph. Thanks in large part to the heroic officer who just a few years later would make his name a synonym for treachery and betrayal:
Benedict Arnold.
In joining the battle, Arnold waved his sword so wildly that he inadvertently injured one of his fellow officers.
It was just three years later that Arnold, angry at what he felt was shabby treatment by Congress, offered to hand over the American fort at West Point to the British for £20,000. When the plan was found out, he escaped to a waiting British ship and later became a brigadier general in the British army.
The American commander at Saratoga, Horatio Gates, didn’t have to be introduced to defeated British general Johnny Burgoyne at the surrender ceremony. They had both been junior officers in the same British regiment thirty years before.
1778
TRICK OR TREASON
A frontier folk hero accused of being a traitor.
While other captives were treated badly and forced to run the gauntlet, Boone was adopted by the Shawnee chief and given the name Big Turtle. This alone convinced several of the other captives, who were later ransomed, that Boone had betrayed them. But the incident may just have been one example of Boone’s legendary survival skills.
Daniel Boone: charged with treason and facing the gallows. It doesn’t quite fit with his heroic image, but that’s what happened during the American Revolution.
Captured by Shawnee Indians in 1778, Boone convinced the other members of his hunting party to surrender to the Shawnee without firing a shot. He was then overheard conspiring with the Shawnee and British officers to surrender the town of Boonesboro, Kentucky, which he himself had founded. One of the captives even said Boone took an oath of allegiance to the British.
All of this painted a picture of treachery and betrayal. After returning to Boonesboro, Boone was placed under house arrest, charged with treason, and tried by court-martial.
Surprisingly, Boone denied none of the facts. But he said it was part of a “stratagem” to deceive the British and save Boonesboro. He got captured by the Indians himself, he said, because he was in his mid-forties and not as fast as he used to be. He surrendered the hunting party rather than see them all get killed. He had spun tales to the British and Indians to buy time, so that he could escape and warn the town.
Boone must have been convincing, because he was found innocent on all charges. But hard feelings remained. The famous frontiersman moved away from Boonesboro a year later, leaving the treason charges behind him, and traveling a path that would one day see him elevated into an American legend.
“WE WERE ORDERED BY COLONEL BOONE TO STACK OUR GUNS AND SURRENDER.”
— MEMBER OF THE HUNTING PARTY, TESTIFYING AT THE TRIAL
Boone founded Boonesboro in 1775, after leading a party that blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap and built the Wilderness Road.
1788
BULLDOG OF THE BLACK SEA
The last cruise of Admiral Pavel.
In 1788, Catherine the Great appointed a combative new commander to a squadron of Russian warships. “One more bulldog for the Black Sea,” said the Russian empress, who charged Rear Admiral Pavel Dzhones with the task of liberating that body of water from the Turks.
Admiral Pavel took command of twelve warships at the mouth of the Dnieper River and quickly lived up to Catherine’s expectations. His mastery of tactics enabled him to prevail over larger Turkish forces in several engagements, and he demonstrated great personal courage by leading his own ship alongside a Turkish galley to engage in fierce hand-to-hand combat.
The admiral hoped his efforts would bring him great fame. “Loving glory,” he wrote to Catherine, “I am perhaps too attached to honors.” But it wasn’t to be. Back-stabbing colleagues reaped the credit he deserved. He was dismissed from his command and never went to sea again.
But while political intrigue denied Admiral Pavel the chance to become a revered Russian hero, he is remembered for earlier exploits on different oceans. For the man who fought his last battles under the Russian flag was Scottish by birth and American by choice, a fighting captain whose stirring victories in the American Revolution live on today.
His service as a Russian admiral is long forgotten. His immortal words “I have not yet begun to fight” can never be forgotten.
Pavel Dzhones: John Paul Jones.
Jones’s finest hour came in 1779. Commanding the Bonhomme Richard, he fought a fierce three-hour battle with the larger British ship Serapis off the coast of England. Called upon to strike his flag and surrender, he famously refused and eventually won the battle even though his own ship was so badly damaged that it later sank.
America’s first naval hero was born John Paul. The Scottish-born captain of a merchant ship in the Caribbean, he killed a sailor during an attempted mutiny in 1773. He fled to the colony of Virginia to avoid trial and added the name Jones to further cover his trail.
Did Jones actually utter the phrase he is credited with, “I have not yet begun to fight”? An officer aboard the Bonhomme Richard recalled those were the words Jones used—but his account came forty-six years later. Several accounts written shortly after the battle have Jones saying, “I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike.” And another eyewitness wrote that Jones shouted, “Yankees do not haul down
their colors until they are fairly beaten.” Whatever his actual words, his spirited refusal to give up was more than clear.
1794
REVOLUTIONARY PENCIL
How a wartime crisis transformed the way we write.
In 1794, just five years after the French Revolution, France was at war with just about everyone else in Europe: England, Spain, Prussia, and Austria. Worse still, the beleaguered French were in short supply of a precious military weapon.
Pencils.
Quill pens were messy and hard to use, especially for an army on the move. If you wanted to jot down a message or sketch enemy fortifications, a pencil was invaluable. But the graphite needed to make pencil lead was found mostly in England and Prussia—now France’s enemies. With a dwindling supply of graphite, and no way to get more, France faced a potential paucity of pencils.
The French minister of war decided to draw on the expertise of a highly talented inventor named Nicolas-Jacques Conté.
Conté’s idea was to make a little graphite go a long way by grinding it into a fine powder and mixing it with something else. But what? Other inventors had tried glue, gum, shellac, even whale oil—but none worked.
The inventor experimented for eight days and nights without stopping. Finally, he discovered the answer. He combined the graphite with clay, pressed the mixture into molds, and then fired them inside a kiln. The result: dozens of pencils from a very small amount of graphite. Conté’s new method was a stunning success. It is still the way pencils are made today.
