American Spring

by Walter R. Borneman

  14. French, First Year, 221; Lockhart, Whites of Their Eyes, 212, maintains Clinton’s plan was from the Mystic side.

  15. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Great Britain Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of Mrs. Stopford-Sackville, of Drayton House, Northhamptonshire, vol. 2 (Boston: Gregg Press, 1972), 4, http://books.google.com/books?id=X9JRQTECDuYC&pg=PP6&lpg=PP6&dq=stopford-sackville+papers+report+2&source=bl&ots=zDOp1M8LQZ&sig=EZkE7ASTv3DfVi2I1M00QB7WfAk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=28KrUK2wAcOzywG0oIDgCA&ved=0CC4Q6AewAA.

  16. French, First Year, 222. Howe’s infantry might well have splashed ashore and gotten their gaiters wet at less than high tide, but the high tide was essential to landing Howe’s few pieces of artillery.

  17. “General Morning Orders, Saturday, June 17th 1775,” French, First Year, 740.

  18. Lorenzo Sabine, The American Loyalists, or Biographical Sketches of Adherents to the British Crown in the War of the Revolution (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1847), 706.

  19. The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 333, entry dated June 14, 1775.

  20. Warren to S. Adams, May 26, 1775, Richard Frothingham, The Life and Times of Joseph Warren (Boston: Little, Brown, 1865), 495.

  21. There are a number of sources for these events—some conflicting—but this summary is generally from Frothingham, Life of Warren, 509–15.

  22. Percy to Northumberland, June 19, 1775, Charles Knowles Bolton, ed., Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York 1774–1776 (Boston: Charles E. Goodspeed, 1902), 57; John Richard Alden, General Gage in America: Being Principally a History of His Role in the American Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1948), 267–68.

  23. French, First Year, 223–24.

  24. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:4.

  25. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:4.

  26. “An Account of the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, by Major General Henry Dearborn,” in Charles Coffin, ed., History of the Battle of Breed’s Hill (Saco, Maine: William J. Condon, 1831), 18.

  27. “Dearborn Memoir,” Coffin, History of the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, 18–19.

  28. French, First Year, 227.

  29. French, First Year, 230.

  30. “Narrative of Vice Admiral Samuel Graves,” June 17, 1775, NDAR, 1:704; see also French, First Year, 742–43.

  31. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:4.

  32. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:4.

  33. P. Brown to S. Brown, 2–3.

  34. Massachusetts Provincial Congress Minutes, June 23, 1775, AA4, 2:1438.

  35. French, First Year, 235n8.

  36. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:4.

  37. French, First Year, 234.

  38. Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Committee of Safety Report, July 25, 1775, AA4, 2:1374.

  39. Burgoyne to Stanley, June 25, 1775, AA4, 2:1095.

  40. Coffin, History of the Battle of Breed’s Hill, 12; Lloyd A. Brown and Howard H. Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775–1783 (Chicago: Caxton Club, 1939), 5–6.

  Chapter 24 — “A Dear Bought Victory”

  1. Burgoyne to Stanley, June 25, 1775, AA4, 2:1095.

  2. Allen French, The First Year of the American Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), 233.

  3. French, First Year, 237.

  4. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, August 3, 1775.

  5. Howe to [? Adjutant-General], June 22 and 24, 1775, Sir John Fortescue, ed., The Correspondence of King George the Third, from 1760 to December 1783, vol. 3, July 1773 to December 1777 (London: Frank Cass, 1967), 222.

  6. French, First Year, 238–39.

  7. French, First Year, 242n.

  8. French, First Year, 243.

  9. French, First Year, 246.

  10. In Ward’s defense, see Charles Martyn’s highly pro-Ward biography, particularly p. 131, as to dispatching troops, as well as French, First Year, 246.

  11. Chester to Fish, July 22, 1775, Richard Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849), 391.

  12. Isaac J. Greenwood, ed., The Revolutionary Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York, 1775–1783 (New York: De Vinne Press, 1922), 12–13.

  13. French, First Year, 242.

  14. Prescott to Adams, August 25, 1775, Massachusetts Historical Society, “ ‘The Decisive Day Is Come’: The Battle of Bunker Hill,” http://www.masshist.org/bh/prescott.html.

  15. Waller to friend, June 21, 1775, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/bh/wallerp2text.html; for one account of Peter Salem, see J. H. Temple, History of Framingham, Massachusetts (Framingham, Mass.: Town of Framingham, 1887), 324–25.

  16. French, First Year, 250.

  17. French, First Year, 247.

  18. Waller to friend, June 21, 1775.

  19. C[harles]. Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War (London, 1794), 127.

  20. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Great Britain Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of Mrs. Stopford-Sackville, of Drayton House, Northhamptonshire, vol. 2 (Boston: Gregg Press, 1972), 5, http://books.google.com/books?id=X9JRQTECDuYC&pg=PP6&lpg=PP6&dq=stopford-sackville+papers+report+2&source=bl&ots=zDOp1M8LQZ&sig=EZkE7ASTv3DfVi2I1M00QB7WfAk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=28KrUK2wAcOzywG0oIDgCA&ved=0CC4Q6AewAA.

  21. P. Brown to S. Brown, June 25, 1775, Massachusetts Historical Society, “The Coming of the American Revolution,” https://www.masshist.org/revolution/image-viewer.php?item_id=725&mode=transcript&img_step=3&tpc=#page3, accessed October 26, 2012, pp. 3–4.

  22. Chester to Fish, July 22, 1775, Frothingham, Siege of Boston, 291; Webb to Webb, June 19, 1775, Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb, vol. 1, 1772–1777 (Lancaster, Pa.: Wickersham Press, 1893), 64.

  23. French, First Year, 251–52.

  24. French, First Year, 253.

  25. French, First Year, 253.

  26. Letter from Boston to Scotland, June 25, 1775, AA4, 2:1094.

  27. “Dearborn Memoir,” Charles Coffin, ed., History of the Battle of Breed’s Hill (Saco, Maine: William J. Condon, 1831), 22.

  28. French, First Year, 255.

  29. French, First Year, 254.

  30. For a British historian’s perspective on British mistakes, see Stedman, Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War, 128–29.

  31. French, First Year, 256–57. That Howe was stunned by these losses and never recovered emotionally as a military leader is a theory that grew after he abandoned Boston and after his hesitant performances at the battles of Long Island and White Plains. Nonetheless, Howe managed to best George Washington at Brandywine and Germantown and capture Philadelphia before resigning his command. For different recent interpretations of the influence of the Battle of Bunker Hill on Howe’s subsequent career, see James L. Nelson, With Fire and Sword: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Beginning of the American Revolution (New York: St. Martin’s, 2011), and Paul Lockhart, The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington (New York: Harper, 2011).

  32. Ann Hulton, June 20, 1775, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), 137.

  33. Jeremy Lister, Concord Fight, Being So Much of the Narrative of Ensign Jeremy Lister of the 10th Regiment of Foot as Pertains to His Services on the 19th of April, 1775, and to His Experiences in Boston during the Early Months of the Siege (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), 43.

  34. Richard M. Ketchum
, Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1962), 193.

  35. N. Greene to J. Greene, June 28, 1775, AA4, 2:1126.

  36. Ketchum, Decisive Day, 199.

  37. J. Warren to M. Warren, June 18, 1775, H. C. Lodge, et al., eds., Warren-Adams Letters, Being Chiefly a Correspondence among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1917), 59–60.

  38. G[ideon]. D[elaplaine]. Scull, ed., Memoir and Letters of Captain W. Glanville Evelyn, of the 4th Regiment, (“King’s Own,”), from North America, 1774–1776 (Oxford: James Parker, 1879), 71.

  39. W. Howe to R. Howe, June 22, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:5.

  40. Burgoyne to Germain, August 20, 1775, Stopford-Sackville Manuscripts, 2:6–7.

  41. Gage to Dartmouth (no. 33), June 25, 1775, Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage with the Secretaries of State, and with the War Office and the Treasury, 1763–1775 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1969), 1:406.

  42. Gage to Dartmouth (private), June 25, 1775, Correspondence of Gage, 1:406–7.

  43. Gage to Barrington, June 26, 1775, Correspondence of Gage, 2:686–87.

  44. John Richard Alden, General Gage in America: Being Principally a History of His Role in the American Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1948), 283.

  Epilogue — Monday, July 3 , 1775

  1. JCC, June 27, 1775, 2:109–10.

  2. George III to Sandwich, July 1, 1775, G. R. Barnes and J. H. Owen, eds., The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1771–1782 (London: Naval Records Society, 1932),1:63.

  3. Bradford to Madison, July 18, 1775, J. C. A. Stagg, ed., The Papers of James Madison Digital Edition (subscription only), Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2010, congressional ser., 1, 157, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/JSMN-01-01-02-0049, accessed December 18, 2012.

  4. Mercy [Otis] Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (Boston: E. Larkin, 1805), 3:392.

  5. S. Ward to H. Ward, October 11, 1775, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), 736.

  6. The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 439, entry dated July 1, 1775.

  7. Reports of Washington’s arrival in Cambridge and assuming command the next day are sketchy and frequently coated with the hyperbole of hindsight. This description is based on analysis in Charles Martyn, The Life of Artemas Ward: The First Commander-in-Chief of the American Revolution (New York: Artemas Ward, 1921), 150–51, and Paul Lockhart, The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington (New York: Harper, 2011), 331–32.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Abbreviations

  AA 4—American Archives, fourth series. Edited and compiled by Peter Force (1790–1868), the American Archives, comprising six series, were originally published under an act of Congress in 1833. The fourth series, itself consisting of four volumes, is subtitled Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, from the King’s Message to Parliament, of March 7, 1774, to the Declaration of Independence by the United States. Accessed online at http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarch/contents.php.

  Franklin Papers—The papers of Benjamin Franklin as collected and edited by scholars at Yale University and digitized by the Packard Humanities Institute, accessed at http://www.franklinpapers.org.

  JCC—Journals of the Continental Congress, accessed online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwjclink.html#vol.

  NDAR—Naval Documents of the American Revolution, originally published by the United States Government Printing Office in 1964 and electronically published by the American Naval Records Society of Bolton Landing, New York, in 2012. Accessed online at www.navalrecords.org.

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