American Spring

by Walter R. Borneman

  The first question that must be asked is, did Dr. Warren really have a secret informant close to General Gage? The Sons of Liberty intelligence network was full of rebels who routinely gleaned information from sources that ran the gamut from British officers who haughtily ignored locals as they conversed in taverns to enlisted men who spilled their guts in Boston whorehouses. Paid informants who provided information for a fee likely augmented these sources. But if Warren also had a highly placed source in Gage’s headquarters—paid or otherwise—would he have risked exposing this spy in the rush of a few hours on the night of April 18 only to confirm what was increasingly obvious from other indications?

  Six months after the fact, Jeremy Belknap, a Congregationalist minister from New Hampshire who became an early American historian, wrote in his diary of his visit to New Hampshire troops stationed at Cambridge with what was becoming the Continental Army. Either upon Belknap’s return to Dover or while he was in Cambridge, a Mr. Waters gave him a detailed account of the British preparations on the evening of April 18. (The diary entry was dated October 25, the day after Belknap’s return to Dover, but whether the conversation with Waters happened in Dover or in Cambridge is not clear.)

  Belknap recorded Waters as saying, “The design of the regular troops, when they marched out of Boston the night of April 18, was discovered to Dr. Warren by a person kept in pay for that purpose.” After a lengthy description of the British attempts to keep the expedition a secret and the circumstances that contributed to its discovery—including the movements of the longboats and the advance patrol—Waters concluded that after these reports were communicated to Dr. Warren, “he applied to the person who had been retained, and got intelligence of their whole design.” Upon this bit of hearsay—and who knows where Mr. Waters got the information?—rests the existence of Dr. Warren’s secret informant, a paid one at that.18

  But suppose one did exist. Would this person have had knowledge of what Gage considered a top-secret operation? Here is the oft-repeated second piece of the puzzle. By one account, as the longboats were gathering beneath the Boyne on the evening of April 18, General Gage summoned Lord Percy, the commander of his First Brigade, who was not yet directly involved with Colonel Smith’s expedition. Gage told Percy of the orders he had given Smith to seize the stores in Concord. Despite the flurry of activity about them, Gage supposedly admonished Percy that the mission was “a profound secret” and that he should tell no one.

  As Percy left their meeting and returned to his quarters, he passed a group of local men talking in whispers on the Common. When he asked the gist of their conversation, one man replied, “The British troops have marched, but will miss their aim.”

  “What aim?” Percy demanded incredulously.

  “Why, the cannon at Concord,” came back the reply.

  Percy did an about-face and hurried back to Gage to tell him that the mission had been compromised. Upon hearing this, Gage reportedly confessed great anguish that “his confidence had been betrayed, for he had communicated his design to one person only besides his lordship.”19 The truth is, of course, Gage was likely aware from his own secret informant that the cannons at Concord had been dispersed.

  This story of Percy eavesdropping, and Gage’s response, has appeared in one form or another in almost every account of the march on Concord. All references can be traced, directly or via subsequent secondary sources, to Charles Stedman’s history of the American Revolution, written from the British point of view and first published in London in 1794. Where Stedman got the story is not documented, but it is not unheard of for military commanders to blame subsequent operational shortcomings on some form of betrayal. In any event, from this one account and its many progeny springs the assertion that Gage told only “one person” of his plans and that person must have betrayed him. The truth of the matter was that while General Gage may have told only “one person” of his plans, as he supposedly claimed, he had telegraphed them to all of Boston. No informant was necessary to observe that British troops were about to leave Boston and to guess that Concord was their likely aim.

  Richard Frothingham’s 1865 biography of Joseph Warren, which is the first major account of Warren’s life, is one early source that repeats this story of Percy and Gage, but it makes no mention of Warren obtaining information from a secret informer or of Warren seeking to obtain confirmation of the intelligence reports flowing into his office. Quoting an earlier history, Frothingham says that Warren reportedly learned of the British troops embarking from the Common only “by a mere accident.”20

  This brings us to Margaret Kemble Gage. On the basis of sketchy information that Joseph Warren had a highly placed informant in Gage’s headquarters, and the even more dubious claim that General Gage believed the Concord operation had airtight secrecy and that he confided in only one person about it, historians have long pointed fingers at possible suspects. No one has appeared a more intriguing possibility than Mrs. Gage.

  There is strong evidence that Margaret Gage was deeply conflicted by the events around her. Born in America, daughter of colonial aristocracy, married to arguably the most powerful Englishman in America, mother of a brood of children who were being educated in England, Margaret Gage was seeing her placid lifestyle turned upside down. But then so, too, were a great many others. Some, such as Abigail Adams and Mercy Warren, were unequivocally on the rebel side. Others, such as former governor Thomas Hutchinson, had already sailed for refuge in England. There were still many others deeply troubled by the question of where their ultimate loyalties lay. And sometimes making that determination disrupted marital bonds.

  One of the early American histories of the Revolution is William Gordon’s The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America, published in 1788. Without initially mentioning Dr. Warren, Gordon wrote of the warning of the British march: “A daughter of liberty, unequally yoked in point of politics, sent word, by a trusty hand, to Mr. Samuel Adams, residing in company with Mr. Hancock at Lexington, about thirteen miles from Charlestown, that the troops were coming out in a few days.” Only a page later does Warren make an appearance and learn “by mere accident” of the threat.21

  Once again, this one reference has spawned a plethora of blind repetition. It is easy enough to translate. “A daughter of liberty, unequally yoked in point of politics” refers to a woman of rebel sympathies married to a man who did not share her politics and who was probably a loyalist. The rift that Abigail Adams had noted between Samuel and Hannah Quincy was but one example of this. But does it apply to Thomas and Margaret Gage? We know relatively little about Margaret’s political beliefs, but even if such a rift existed, would Margaret choose to betray her husband so aggressively? Even more incredibly, if Thomas had had the slightest hint of Margaret’s rebel leanings—if indeed she had them—would he have confided his secret plans to her, of all people?

  Assuming that Gage told only “one person” of his plans and was obtuse enough not to recognize that Boston was full of rumor, gossip, and misinformation, whom else might he have told? Margaret’s brother Major Stephen Kemble was the general’s good friend, faithful adjutant, and trusted specialist in intelligence matters. Another Kemble sibling, Samuel, served as the general’s private secretary. Samuel may even have transcribed Gage’s final orders to Colonel Smith.

  While no one will ever know what pillow talk may or may not have taken place between the general and his American-born wife, if the strict, by-the-book—some might even say stodgy—Gage should have trusted anyone with a highly confidential matter of a military nature, it seems far more likely that Gage, in the manner of the time, would have confided in one of his closest aides, not his wife.

  No less a hated symbol of the loyalists than exiled Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson spoke in Margaret’s defense when her loyalty to her husband was questioned. A Mr. Keen visited Hutchinson in London in the summer of 1775 and complained of Gage’s previously lenient condu
ct toward the rebels. As for Mrs. Gage, Keen reported, “She hoped her husband would never be the instrument of sacrificing the lives of her countrymen.” Hutchinson replied that he doubted Margaret had made such a statement, and Keen retorted that he did not doubt it, “but did not chuse to be quoted for it.”22

  Margaret Gage’s subsequent accusers have pointed to this statement—once again in the form of hearsay—to suggest her willingness to betray her husband. But even if Margaret did utter such a comment, is it really anything more than evidence of her inner turmoil? After all, what wife would not abhor the thought of her husband at war, let alone a war against her neighbors?

  There is little doubt that Margaret Gage was anguished by the prospect of her husband’s country—indeed, it was her mother country as well—drawing the blood of those in the land of her birth. But perhaps the person even more troubled by such a prospect was General Gage himself. If Gage had been a strict royalist, he might well have attempted to crush the rebels’ streaks of independence with overwhelming force long before their movement could gain any traction. But Gage was politically a Whig, one from a long line of political thought that recognized not only certain limits to the power of the monarchy but also the basic rights of all men. How could he deny to some subjects of George III—who had fought alongside him as brothers in arms during the French and Indian War—those privileges he believed were foundational to all Englishmen? Edmund Burke was right. Englishman Gage was ill suited to argue another Englishman into slavery.

  SO AS THE SUN SET over Boston’s Back Bay on the evening of April 18, 1775, General Thomas Gage faced not one, not two, but perhaps as many as three dilemmas. First, despite his orders to Colonel Smith to take care not to plunder or disturb individuals or private property, what might happen to Gage’s cherished views of English liberties if Smith were opposed by armed force? Second, with his plans for marching on Concord apparently exposed to the point that rebels had moved major stockpiles of munitions, could the mission still meet with success? And third, despite his attempts at secrecy, if Gage did have the reported conversation with Lord Percy and it was in fact true that the general had “told” but one other person, who was his betrayer? Meanwhile, his troops were on the march.

  Chapter 9

  Two Lanterns

  Despite the day’s activities in Boston Harbor and the obvious signs of unusual troop movements around town, some British soldiers would later remember making stealthy preparations for their departure from Boston late on the evening of April 18. By most accounts, it had been a rather rainy day. Evening brought clearing skies and shifting easterly winds. In some quarters, sergeants moved among their sleeping troops and, “putting their hands on them, and whispering gently to them,” urged them to rise quietly and don their gear. They were ordered to “equip themselves immediately with their arms and 36 rounds of powder and ball.” They had not been asleep for very long. Other troops likely had only the benefit of late-afternoon naps before pulling on their field uniforms and forming ranks with full cartridges boxes, heavy muskets, and haversacks filled with one day’s provisions. There would not be any sleep that night.1

  The companies of the Royal Welch Fusiliers were “conducted by a back-way out of their barracks, without the knowledge of their comrades, and without the observation of the sentries.” They made their way through deserted streets and were the first to arrive at the embarkation point, on a remote beach below the Common at the edge of the Back Bay. This location was across the Charles River from Cambridge and was chosen on the Boston side because it was “in the most unfrequented part of town.”2

  Next at the rendezvous were companies from the Fourth Regiment of Foot, the storied King’s Own, which was bivouacked near the Common. Other companies soon arrived from all over Boston, including from Fort Hill, near Roxbury, encampments around Boston Neck, and warehouse barracks near the Long Wharf. Several companies formed below the spire of the North Church in the North End and slipped quietly southward to below the Common. Altogether about seventy-five officers and eight hundred enlisted men from twenty-one companies assembled that evening for the expedition to Concord.3

  That they deployed as individual companies rather than as part of their full regiment would contribute to a serious lack of command and control as the evening and following day progressed. Each of the twelve British regiments then in Boston was composed of approximately thirty-five officers, twenty noncommissioned officers (sergeants), a dozen or so fifes and drums, and about four hundred rank and file organized into about ten companies. The total effective strength of any particular regiment varied widely from time to time because of deaths, desertions, sick call, underenlistments, or, occasionally, postings of some companies of a regiment in other locations.4

  Within each regiment there were two special-purpose units accorded elite status. These were the grenadier and light infantry companies. They were, as one contemporary put it, “the flower of the army.”5 The grenadiers were tall, husky lads whose original task in the European wars of the eighteenth century had been to hurl rudimentary hand grenades at their opponents. Over time, the grenadier companies evolved into a tough band of shock troops designed to lead ferocious assaults and punch a hole in an enemy’s line or storm a fortified position. The light infantry company had just the opposite composition and role. These soldiers were smaller, leaner, and more agile men chosen for stealth and speed. To the light infantry fell the roles of advance and flank guards, skirmishers, sharpshooters, and special operations troops. The light infantry companies owed their existence to the British experiences in the French and Indian War, when General Gage himself had recommended the establishment of units in the British regular army modeled after colonial forces like Robert Rogers’s backwoods rangers. Initially organized into their own regiment, the light infantry companies were subsequently scattered among regiments.

  Gage might well have chosen two or three full regiments for the Concord mission. Instead, he cherry-picked the companies of grenadiers and light infantry from each regiment and placed them under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, with Royal Marine Major John Pitcairn as Smith’s second in command. This had the disadvantage of placing many company-level officers under the command of superior officers they did not know and likewise gave Smith and Pitcairn command of junior officers with whose strengths and weaknesses they were not closely acquainted.

  This arrangement also placed company commanders from different regiments, who had not regularly trained or maneuvered together, side by side. All were trained officers following orders, but in no force was regimental esprit de corps and routine more fiercely revered than in the British army. Individual companies, no matter how well trained, simply did not respond as effectively in nonregimental conglomerations without their practiced lines of communication.

  This lack of regimental structure carried a potential for confusion that manifested itself when the first independent companies began to arrive on the Back Bay beach. Frederick Mackenzie of the Royal Welch Fusiliers was admittedly somewhat of a perfectionist, but he was appalled at the disorganization he found as companies from other regiments joined the grenadier and light infantry companies of his own. Company commanders milled around with their troops, but without any regimental structure there was no general direction, in part because Smith and Pitcairn were slow in arriving. Lieutenant John Barker of the Fourth Regiment found that “few but the Commandg. Officers knew what expedition we were going upon.”6

  The longboats from the Royal Navy were indeed on the beach, but they numbered only about twenty—half the number required to transport the eight-hundred-plus troops in one trip. Thus the boats were required to make two trips across the Charles River estuary. This left half the command standing around on the Boston side for nearly an hour as the first wave was rowed across by British seamen, and then the other half, similarly, stood idling around on the western shore while the second wave crossed. At some point early in the course of the first wave’s crossing, a waning m
oon, three days past full, began to climb above Boston Neck.

  The water crossing itself was a little over a mile and ran diagonally downstream from the Back Bay beach toward Lechmere Point, near Cambridge. It didn’t help matters that an incoming tide on the Charles River slowed progress on the outbound leg and pushed the boats farther upstream from Lechmere Point than intended. This meant that the landing point on the Cambridge shore, while indeed isolated and unpopulated, was squarely in the middle of the wetlands of the Cambridge marshes. With the incoming tide just beginning, the boats grounded in knee-deep water and four hundred pairs of boots were quickly soaked. Once the men were ashore, the swampy ground offered no respite for those wishing for a quick hour’s nap while the boats made a second trip.7

  Not until after midnight, more than two hours after assembling on the Back Bay, were all Smith’s troops disembarked on the Cambridge shore. But there was more confusion there. Without regimental structure, the companies once again looked about for direction. Colonel Smith prided himself on strict, by-the-book formations, but open-field, parade-ground maneuvers were ill suited for the soggy banks of the Charles River in the middle of the night—moonlit or not.

  In arranging his order of march, Smith chose to follow the established practice of the British army. The light infantry company from his own Tenth Regiment of Foot would go first, as Smith was the overall formation commander. This company was followed by the light infantry companies in order of seniority as determined by their regiment’s number. Hence the light infantry of the King’s Own (formally the Fourth Regiment of Foot) came next, followed by those of the regiments of the Fifth, Eighteenth, Twenty-Third (Mackenzie’s Royal Welch Fusiliers), and so on. These were followed by the companies of grenadiers in the same order of regimental seniority. Pitcairn’s marine detachment of one company each of light infantry and grenadiers trailed this formation, as marines were clearly part of the navy—to their pride, but to the disdain of the army.