Best Little Stories from the American Revolution

by C. Brian Kelly

  Peyton Randolph of Virginia was chosen presiding officer, while Charles Thomson, a Philadelphian (and not a delegate), became secretary. The first speaker of the session would be New Hampshire’s Sullivan, it turned out. He reported his constituency’s desire for measures securing colonial rights but also restoring “that peace, harmony and mutual confidence which once subsisted between the parent country and her colonies.”

  In the days ahead men of many views and backgrounds spoke, argued, cajoled, pleaded, thundered, even “shook their fists in angry debate,” noted historian Lancaster.

  From Edward Rutledge of South Carolina came words expressing the common concern of all, “That the Acts and Bills of Parliament in regard to Massachusetts Bay affect the whole Continent of America.” Gradually, however, two competing streams of political thought emerged. There were those who argued American rights were based upon legal precedent such as English common law, the British constitution, and the original colonial charters. Others would add, above all else, the laws of nature to those legal foundations as the true basis for human rights.

  It was the latter view that finally prevailed as a subcommittee busily set to work composing the Declaration of Rights destined to be adopted by the full Congress on October 14, 1774. Stating that the Colonials were still loyal subjects of the king, this document asserted that only the colonies could tax the colonies, that only they could legislate their own internal affairs. It took Parliament to task for the so-called Intolerable Acts, the Quebec Act, and the quartering of British troops in a peaceable America. It objected strenuously to the various revenue acts imposed upon the colonists since the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763. Further, it claimed for all Americans the rights to “life, liberty and property.”

  A good part of the Rights statement could be attributed to the flurry of excitement created by news of the “Suffolk Resolves,” a stern declaration of colonial rights written by Dr. Joseph Warren, a leading Massachusetts Patriot, and adopted by his colony’s Suffolk County on September 9. It was the ubiquitous rider Paul Revere who galloped into town on October 6 with this condemnation of the Intolerable Acts as “murderous.”

  Soon endorsed by the assemblage in Philadelphia, the Suffolk Resolves went so far as to urge Massachusetts citizens to place their tax payments in escrow in anticipation of later, more lenient treatment by England—but in the meantime, prepare for possible war.

  Now, though, came a jolting debate as conservatives led by Pennsylvania’s Joseph Galloway proposed a new form of colonial government called “The Plan of Proposed Union between Great Britain and the Colonies.” Joining future Loyalist Galloway in this venture were some “big names” from the delegate ranks, such as South Carolina’s Rutledge and John Jay of New York. (Jay, incidentally, goes down in history as the delegate who resolved an earlier hot debate over the issue of voting representation in the Congress. His simple expedient: Each colony’s delegation would have but a single vote to cast.) Galloway’s plan, calling for an American Parliament more or less matching the English Parliament in powers and an American president-general appointed by the king, eventually was tabled and thus killed by a close six-to-five vote.

  Before turning for home late in October, the delegates agreed upon a boycott of trade with England. They established a Continental Association (to be complemented by local Association committees) to enforce the cutoff of imports from England and like economic sanctions—all hopefully pending a change of heart by the Mother Country.

  So they had come together, these first members of a real American Congress, disparate men from disparate backgrounds.

  As all had known from the start, had hoped and prayed, their work had been to one concerted purpose—joint actions, joint declarations on behalf of all the colonies. History might note what they said and did before going home, but more significant was the very fact that they met at all, and then presented a united front.

  Whatever they actually accomplished, it may have been Patrick Henry of Virginia who expressed the historical import best when one day in Carpenters’ Hall he shouted: “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, New Englanders are no more well-suited. I am not a Virginian, but an American!”

  The Well-Suited Cat

  LIFE ALWAYS DOES GO ON, EVEN ON THE EVE OF A WORLD-SHAKING REVOLUTION, and so it was one eighteenth-century day that a young tailor’s apprentice in the Carolinas found himself alone in his master’s house without much to do… except perhaps to stare at the large family cat “that generally lay about the fire.”

  It was close to the Christmas after Lexington and Concord to the north, or perhaps it was the year before. James P. Collins, born in 1763, couldn’t be sure when writing his autobiography decades later, but he estimated his age as “about twelve” when he was “bound” to a tailor to learn the clothing trade. Two months later came Christmas, and one day the tailor and his wife left the young apprentice alone in their home to attend a party.

  Alone, that is, except for the cat. And it was the cat that would give young Collins something useful to do.

  “In order to try my mechanical powers,” he wrote years later as an old man, “I concluded to make a suit of clothing for puss, and for my purpose gathered some scraps of cloth that lay about the shop-board, and went to work as hard as I could.”

  It was late afternoon before he finished, but when he did, he had created an entire suit—“coat, vest and smallclothes.” Then he had to catch the cat. He succeeded and buttoned “all on tight,” then set down the cat “to inspect the fit.”

  The fit was just fine, but now came the unexpected: “Unfortunately for me, there was a hole through the floor close to the fireplace, just large enough for the cat to pass down.”

  Well, guess what? After various gyrations intended to shake off the fine new suit, the frustrated feline disappeared down the hole in the floor. “The floor was tight and the house underpinned with brick, so there was no chance of pursuit.”

  Young Collins, soon to be a teenage militiaman fighting the British and their Loyalist allies, could only hope the cat would come out of its own accord.

  But it was not to be—at least not right away. Indeed, “night came and I had made a good fire and seated myself for some two or three hours after dark, when who should make their appearance but my master and mistress and two young men, all in good humour, with two or three bottles of rum.”

  Now the cat, secreted under the floor boards, apparently had second thoughts. After all, instead of the new apprentice with his infernal ideas of dressing up felines, those above were the familiar voices of Master and Mistress. With all comfortably seated about the fireplace, “who should appear amongst us but the cat in his uniform.”

  By his own account, the young apprentice “was struck speechless.” Further, “the secret was out and no chance of concealing; the cat was caught, the whole work inspected and the question asked, is this your day’s work?” Young Collins, his heart in his mouth, of course answered yes. “I would then have been willing to have taken a good whipping and let it stop there…”

  But on the contrary, to complete his “mortification,” the cat’s suit was carefully removed and “hung up in the shop for the inspection of all the customers that came in.”

  Obviously, the tailor had liked his apprentice’s suit design for the family cat…and approved of young James himself, who stayed on with the tailor and his family for another two years and two months, by which time “the revolutionary war began to make some interruption in the South.”

  Soon young Collins, despite his still-downy cheeks, would have more serious matters on his mind, such as spying on Tory partisans on behalf of his own Patriot militiamen, and fighting in the Battle of King’s Mountain. For now, though, it was almost Christmas, and he was more concerned with the glad tidings of the season—and his well-suited cat.

  Orders from General Gage

  FROM LIEUTENANT GENERAL THOMAS GAGE, MILITARY GOVERNOR OF THE Province of Massachuse
tts Bay, to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, Tenth Regiment of Foot (a true copy):

  Boston, April 18, 1775

  Lieut. Colonel Smith, 10th Regiment ’Foot,

  Sir,

  Having received intelligence, that a quantity of Ammunition, Provision, Artillery, Tents and small Arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will March with the Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores whatever. But you will take care that the Soldiers do not plunder the Inhabitants, or hurt private property.

  You have a Draught of Concord, on which is marked the Houses, Barns, &c, which contain the above military Stores. You will order a Trunion to be knocked off each Gun, but if it’s found impracticable on any, they must be spiked, and the Carriages destroyed. The Powder and flower [flour] must be shook out of the Barrels into the River, the Tents burnt, Pork or Beef destroyed in the best way you can devise. And the Men may put Balls of lead in their pockets, throwing them by degrees into Ponds, Ditches &c., but no Quantity together, so that they may be recovered afterwards.

  If you meet any Brass Artillery, you will order their muzzles to be beat in so as to render them useless.

  You will observe by the Draught that it will be necessary to secure the two Bridges as soon as possible, you will therefore Order a party of the best Marchers, to go on with expedition for the purpose.

  A small party on Horseback is ordered out to stop all advice of your March getting to Concord before you, and a small number of Artillery go out in Chaises to wait for you on the road, with Sledge Hammers, Spikes, &c.

  You will open your business and return with the Troops, as soon as possible, which I must leave to your own Judgement and Discretion.

  I am, Sir,

  Your most obedient humble servant

  Thos. Gage

  Alarums in the Night

  IT WAS AFTERNOON ON APRIL 18, 1775, AND IN MASSACHUSETTS SOMETHING WAS brewing, some kind of British action. For many years a stone tablet today marked the spot on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington where the Black Horse Tavern once stood, where members of a British patrol stopped and ate the afternoon of April 18.

  That very morning, the Patriots had moved four 6-pounder cannons from Concord to Groton, eighteen miles to the northwest. The Patriot Committees of Safety and Supplies not only ordered the precautionary move, but had made plans to hold their next meeting at the Black Horse Tavern.

  In Boston the afternoon of April 18, meanwhile, a stableman at Province House, the residence of Military Governor Thomas Gage, heard someone say there would be “hell to pay tomorrow.” Others in Boston heard the British were about to march.

  In Lexington that evening, a local man returning from the markets in Boston reported he had passed the British patrol on the road to Lexington and Concord. His report was buttressed by a rider from Menotomy—at the time, the name for the future Arlington—carrying news for John Hancock, head of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, that the British patrol had been in Menotomy, site of the Black Horse Tavern.

  In fact, both John Hancock and the fire-eating rebel Samuel Adams were staying in Lexington at the home of local minister Jonas Clarke. The Provincial Congress, in fact, had just adjourned its latest session three days before, on April 15—at Concord.

  But back to the eighteenth: Hearing about the British patrol, Sergeant William Munroe of the Lexington Minutemen, himself a tavern-keeper, hastily made arrangements to post an eight-man guard at the minister’s house—the Hancock-Clarke House, still standing today and open to the public as a historical site.

  That was at 7 P.M., and at 8 P.M. the mounted British patrol actually rode through Lexington and continued on the road to Lincoln, between Lexington and Concord. In short order, members of the Lexington Minuteman Company began to gather in Buckman’s Tavern, next to the Common, or green, in the center of town.

  By 8:30, the British patrol had passed Lincoln Minuteman Samuel Hartwell’s farmhouse on the road to Concord. Shortly after that, however, the horsemen turned back toward Lexington. In Lexington, meanwhile, three men from the Minuteman Company saddled up and rode out on the trail of the mysterious British horsemen to see what they were up to.

  To their regret, the three scouts found out all too well…but would not be able to report their findings until too late. In a joint affidavit, they later said that while riding the road to Concord about ten o’clock that night, they were “suddenly surprised by nine persons whom we took to be regular [British] officers, who rode up to us, mounted and armed, each holding a pistol in his hand, and after putting pistols, to our breasts, and seizing the bridles of our horses, they swore that if we stirred another step we should all be dead men.”

  At this point, and for the next four hours or so, the three scouts were prisoners of the British patrol—whose members questioned them about the stores held at Concord and the potential guard force to be encountered there, then announced that “four or five regiments of regulars would be in possession of the stores soon.”

  In Boston at ten o’clock, those “regulars,” seven hundred to eight hundred strong, were just being alerted and ordered to prepare for a lengthy night’s march under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith. At 10:30, the men quietly assembled at the foot of the Boston Common, then started boarding boats to cross Boston’s Back Bay to Lechmere Point on the opposite shore. Their expedition was still supposedly a secret, but Paul Revere and William Dawes Jr. were already on their way to warn their fellow Patriots on the road to Lexington and Concord. Departing by way of the north section of Boston, Revere crossed the Charles River in a boat rowed by two friends, the oars muffled with a petticoat.

  By prearrangement, two signal lanterns in the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church (today’s Christ Church) alerted Revere confederates that the British initially were moving by water—one lantern would have meant a longer march by land alone. The signal lanterns would have been vital if Revere had not been able to skirt the British man-of-war Somerset in the Charles River…but he had.

  A helpful chronology of events compiled by the Concord Chamber of Commerce reports that Revere came to shore at a wharf in Charlestown “off Water Street, just north of the present Charlestown Bridge and near City Square.” Borrowing a horse from his awaiting Patriot comrades, the Boston silversmith then hastened off for Cambridge and points beyond by way of today’s Main Street.

  Also galloping up the road to Lexington with the grim message that the British were coming was Dawes, a tanner by trade, and he would be taking a somewhat longer route through Boston Neck, Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Menotomy.

  In Boston about this time, Lord Hugh Percy heard a man on the Common say, “The British have marched, but they will miss their aim.” When he asked what “aim,” the man said, “Why, the cannon at Concord.” (Percy didn’t know it yet, but he himself would be on the road to Lexington the very next morning with one thousand men and two light field cannon as welcome relief for the British column just now setting off for Concord.)

  Revere, at about 11:30 P.M., had to change course after encountering two mounted British at the site of the future Sullivan Square. Eluding them, he continued on toward his goal. He stopped at Medford to warn a Minuteman officer, then passed through Menotomy, frequently pausing to knock on a door and shout the alarm to those inside. He arrived in Lexington about midnight.

  There, tavern-keeper (and Sergeant) Munroe allegedly barred Revere entry to the minister’s home where Hancock and Adams were staying, saying his arrival would create too much noise. “Noise!” Revere reportedly exclaimed. “You’ll have noise enough before long. The Regulars are coming out!”

  By 12:30 A.M., Dawes also had ridden into town. Having alerted Lexington, he and Revere hurried on toward Concord, several miles beyond. About the same time, a b
elfry on the Lexington Common sounded the alarm and summoned members of the local Minuteman Company. In minutes, too, Concord resident Samuel Prescott, a physician, also set out for Concord—he had spent the evening in Lexington courting a young lady named Mulliken.

  In a short time, he overtook Dawes and Revere. At the Lexington-Lincoln line, they passed the word to another courting couple, Nathaniel Baker of Lincoln, also a Minuteman, and Miss Elizabeth Taylor, visiting in Lincoln from her home in Concord. Baker then rode off to warn his own neighbors.

  Still on the road to Concord, Revere, with Dawes and Prescott riding about two hundred yards behind him, was surprised by the British patrol that had seized Lexington’s three scouts earlier in the night. “I saw four of them, who rode up to me, with their pistols in their hands, [and] said…if you go an Inch further, you are a dead Man,” Revere later related.

  Dawes managed to turn quickly and gallop off in the direction of Lexington. Doctor Prescott came up to where the British officers had stopped Revere in the road and seemed docile enough as the British forced both men to turn into an adjacent pasture. But the good doctor had other intentions entirely, it turned out.

  As Revere later told the story, “[W]hen we got in, Mr. Prescott said put on. He took to the left, I to the right.” Revere tried to break away and reach a woods at the pasture bottom, then abandon his horse and flee on foot. “Just as I reached it [the woods], out started six officers, siesed [sic] my bridle, put their pistols to my Breast, ordered me to dismount, which I did,” Revere added.