by Ray Raphael
12.Stephen Salisbury to Samuel Salisbury, July 22, 1774, Salisbury Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; Ray Raphael, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord (New York: The New Press, 2002), 108; documents page of rayraphael.com: http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm.
13.The story of the 1774 overthrow of British authority throughout Massachusetts, outlined in this and subsequent paragraphs, is told and referenced in Raphael, First American Revolution, 59–168.
14.Joseph Clarke to unknown recipient, August 30, 1774, in James R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its Settlement in 1654 (Northampton, MA: Gazette Printing Co., 1902), 346–348; reprinted in Raphael, First American Revolution, 98–101.
15.Gage to Secretary of State Lord Dartmouth, August 27, 1774, Correspondence of General Thomas Gage, Clarence E. Carter, ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), 1: 366.
16.Raphael, First American Revolution, 130–138. Meanwhile, in Cambridge, some four thousand patriots forced the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, the second highest official in the province, to resign his seat on the Council.
17.Ezra Stiles, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, Franklin B. Dexter, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901), 479–481.
18.John Adams, Diary and Autobiography, L.H. Butterfield, ed. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1961), 2: 160.
19.Gage to Dartmouth, September 2, 1774, Gage, Correspondence, 1: 370.
20.American Political Society, Records.
21.Ebenezer Parkman, Diary, American Antiquarian Society; documents page of rayra phael.com: http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm.
22.Proceedings of the Worcester County Convention, September 6–7, William Lincoln, ed., The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix, containing the Proceedings of the County Conventions (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 635. Access at documents page of rayraphael.com: http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm. From this source, with the Parkman diary, we can reconstruct the events of the day.
23.Lincoln, Journals and Proceedings, 637.
24.John Andrews to William Barrell, October 6, 1774, in Massachusetts Historical Society, “Letters of John Andrews of Boston, 1772–1776,†Proceedings 8 (1864–1865), 373–374.
25.Andrews to Barrell, August 29, 1774, in Andrews, “Letters,†348.
26.Proceedings, Worcester County Convention, September 20–21, 1774, Lincoln, Journals and Proceedings, 643.
27.Jonathan Judd Jr., Diary, vol. 2 (1773–1782), Forbes Library, Northampton, entry for September 7, 1774.
28.Worcester Town Records, Worcester City Hall, reprinted in Franklin P. Rice, ed., Worcester Town Records from 1753 to 1783 (Worcester: Worcester Society of Antiquity, 1882), 244. These instructions can be viewed in Ray Raphael, “Instructions: The People’s Voice in Revolutionary America,†Common-Place 9:1 (October 2008), http://www.common-place.org/vol-09/no-01/raphael/ or on the documents page of rayraphael.com: http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm.
29.Samuel Adams to Joseph Warren, September 25, 1774, Harry Alonzo Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams (New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1907), 3: 159.
30.John Adams to Joseph Palmer, September 26, 1774, and John Adams to William Tudor, October 7, 1774, in Robert J. Taylor, ed., Papers of John Adams (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 2: 173 and 2: 187.
31.Journal of First Provincial Congress, Lincoln, Journals and Proceedings, 30.
32.A good account of the storming of Fort William and Mary appears in Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 52–58. Documentary sources are reprinted in Charles L. Parsons, “The Capture of Fort William and Mary, December 14 and 15, 1774,†New Hampshire Historical Society Proceedings 4 (1890–1905), 18–47.
33.Providence Gazette, December 23, 1774; Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 57; J.L. Bell, “Behold, the Guns Were Gone!â€: Four Brass Cannon and the Start of the American Revolution (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2001).
34.L. Kinvin Wroth, ed., Province in Rebellion: A Documentary History of the Founding of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1774–1775 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), document 671, page 1969. Benjamin Church, an informant who was a member of the Provincial Congress’s key Committee of Safety, was the likely source of this intelligence. Three days earlier, an intelligence report stated that “Twelve pieces of Brass Cannon mounted, are at Salem and lodged near the North River, on the back of the town.†(Ibid., document 670, page 1968.)
35.Henry S. Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by the Participants (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), 1: 63–65.
36.Andrews, “Letters,†401.
37.Allen French, General Gage’s Informers (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 15; “General Gage’s Instructions of 22d February, 1775, to Captain Brown and Ensign D’Bernicre,†and “Narrative, &c.,†Massachusetts Historical Society Collections 4 (1916): 204–218.
38.James Warren to Mercy Otis Warren, April 6, 1775, Warren-Adams Letters (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1917), 1: 44–45.
39.The Annual Register for the Year 1775 (London: J. Dodsley, 1776), 2–3, 16–17.
40.David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: R. Aitken and Son, 1789; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1990), 1: 106–107.
41.William Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America, reprint edition (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969; first published in 1788), 1: 382, 380, 377.
42.Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations (Boston: E. Larkin, 1805; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1988), 1: 145–146. In 1776 Samuel Adams himself took note of the dramatic turn of events “since the stopping of the Courts in Berkshire.†In context, he seemed to be marking the beginning of the Revolution by this event. (Samuel Adams to Joseph Hawley, April 15, 1776, in Cushing, Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 281.)
43.Paul Allen, A History of the American Revolution: Comprising All the Principal Events Both in the Field and in the Cabinet (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1819), 1: 180–198.
44.Salma Hale, History of the United States, from their First Settlement as Colonies, to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815 (New York: Collins and Hannay, 1830; first published in 1822), 142–144.
45.Charles A. Goodrich, A History of the United States of America (Hartford, CT: Barber and Robinson, 1823), 154.
46.Richard Snowden, The American Revolution Written in the Style of Ancient History (Philadelphia: Jones, Hoff and Derrick, 1793), 1: 14.
47.George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1879; first published in 1854), 4: 379, 389, 390.
48.William V. Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969; first published in 1865).
49.Commager and Morris, The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, 31–38, 45–56, 66–97.
50.Here is one telling example. On a September evening in 1774, Abigail Adams, at home in Braintree, Massachusetts, observed from her window some two hundred men who had gathered to seize gunpowder from the local powder house and force the sheriff to burn two warrants he was attempting to deliver. Some might call these men a “mob,†but Adams observed otherwise. Successful in their missions, the men wanted to celebrate with a loud “huzzah.†Normally they would, but there were extenuating circumstances this time. Should they, or should they not, disturb the Sabbath? “They call’d a vote,†Abigail reported to John, who w
as in Philadelphia at the time attending the First Continental Congress, and “it being Sunday evening it passed in the negative.†(Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 14, 1774, in Adams Family Correspondence, L.H. Butterfield, ed. [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963], 1: 152.)
51.For the mislabeling of “Shays’ Rebellion,†see “Conclusion: Why We Tell Tall Tales.â€
52.French, General Gage’s Informers, 20–21.
53.Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 249.
54.Some examples: As they mustered in the early morning hours at Wright’s Tavern, Concord’s farmers-turned-soldiers debated with each other the prospect of defending their town. When the Regulars finally reached Concord, no militiamen stood in the way; some had wanted to make a stand there, but they were outvoted. The younger, more impetuous minute men then sallied forth to the east, thinking they might face off against the Regulars from that stance, but upon viewing the enemy’s vast numbers, they wisely retreated. Again on Meetinghouse Hill, with a commanding view of Main Street, the Concord militiamen debated whether to stand and fight or stage a strategic retreat, and again they settled on the wiser course, waiting for their numbers to grow. At the North Bridge they also consulted each other and debated the wisest course. These were collective strategic decisions, not knee-jerk individual responses. Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 204–205, 208–209.
55.Herbert T. Wade and Robert A. Lively, eds., This Glorious Cause: The Adventures of Two Company Officers in George Washington’s Army (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 9.
56.Timothy Pickering, An Easy Plan of Discipline for a Militia (Boston: S. Hall, 1776), 9–10, quoted in Justin Florence, “Minutemen for Months: The Making of an American Revolutionary Army before George Washington, April 2–July 2, 1775,†Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 113: 1 (2003), 76–77.
57.John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 238.
5: Winter at Valley Forge
1.F. Van Wyck Mason, The Winter at Valley Forge (New York: Random House, 1953), 1, 6, 7, 8. In full disclosure, this was among the first serious books I read; it had just come out, I was in fifth grade, and I loved it.
2.Howard Peckham, in his tabulation of battlefield casualties, lists only fifteen American deaths during the three winter months that the Continental Army was camped at Valley Forge—and not a single one of these occurred in Pennsylvania. The deadliest skirmish in this period was an Indian attack at Dunkard Creek, in western Virginia. (Peckham, The Toll of Independence [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974], 46–48.)
3.Washington to John Hancock, September 24, 1776, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1931–1944), 6: 107–108.
4.John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 173.
5.Soldiers John Brooks and Isaac Gibbs, cited in Wayne Bodle, The Valley Forge Winter: Civilians and Soldiers in War (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), 127, 202.
6.Cited from the diary of Albigence Waldo in Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775–1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 191.
7.Bodle, Valley Forge Winter, 134.
8.Joseph Plumb Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier (New York: Signet, 2001; originally published in 1830), 245.
9.Bodle, Valley Forge Winter, 165–169; Washington to Nathanael Greene, February 12, 1778, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 10: 454–455.
10.Martin, Narrative, 90.
11.Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 196.
12.Bodle, Valley Forge Winter, 180; Washington to Thomas Wharton, February 12, 1778, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 10: 452–453.
13.Washington to the president of Congress, December 23, 1777, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 10: 193.
14.Washington to William Smallwood, February 16, 1778, and Washington to George Clinton, February 16, 1778, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 10: 467, 469.
15.Washington to John Banister, April 21, 1778, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 11: 285.
16.Thomas Fleming, Liberty! The American Revolution (New York: Viking, 1997), 20.
17.Edmund Lindop, Birth of the Constitution (Hillside, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1987), 16.
18.Martin, Narrative, 157.
19.Ibid., 161–162.
20.David M. Ludlum, The Weather Factor (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 50–51.
21.Temperatures for the winter of 1777–1778 come from Thomas Coombe, who resided in what is now West Philadelphia, near Sixty-Third Street and Market Street, about seventeen miles southeast of Valley Forge. Coombe took at least two readings every day from an outdoor thermometer, one at 8:00 a.m. and one at 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., roughly corresponding to the low and high temperatures of the day. Most evenings, he also recorded temperatures at 9:00 or 10:00. The vast majority of the “low†temperatures tabulated in this chart are from the 8:00 a.m. readings. (David M. Ludlum, Early American Winters, 1604–1820 [Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1966], 1: 101.) The historic average comes from the low daily temperatures reported on the Internet by CityRatings.com.
22.Ludlum, Weather Factor, 57.
23.Joseph Lee Boyle, “The Weather and the Continental Army, August 1777–June 1778,†unpublished manuscript, available electronically by contacting the Valley Forge National Historical Park, www.nps.gov/vafo/. Boyle’s masterful work is a chronological compilation of primary sources that mention the weather and its impact on the army, for both the winter of 1777–1778 and the winter of 1779–1780. Because the manuscript is transmitted electronically, pagination is not reliable. Boyle’s entries appear in chronological order, however, so citation should be easy to locate. The section on the 1779–1780 winter at Morristown appears at the end of the manuscript.
24.Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.†In Elizabethtown, near Morristown, the indoor temperature in the morning never rose above freezing for the entire month. (See “The Hard Winter of 1779–1780,†available electronically from the Morristown National Historical Park. www.nps.gov/morr/.)
25.Ludlum, Weather Factor, 57.
26.Ludlum, Early American Winters, 1: 115.
27.Ludlum, Weather Factor, 56.
28.Ludlum, Early American Winters, 1: 114–116; Ludlum, Weather Factor, 56–58; Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.â€
29.Martin, Narrative, 147–148.
30.Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.â€
31.Ibid.
32.Washington to magistrates of Virginia, January 8, 1780, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 17: 362–363; cited in Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.â€
33.Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.â€
34.Ibid.
35.Washington to Lafayette, March 18, 1780, in Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 18: 124–125. Cited in Ludlum, The Weather Factor, 59, and Boyle, “Weather and the Continental Army.â€
36.According to Eric P. Olsen, park ranger and historian at Morristown National Historical Park: “Parts of the Continental Army spent four winters around Morristown during the Revolutionary War. The first two winters featured General Washington and the bulk of the ‘main’ Continental Army. The later two winters did not include Washington and featured only small parts of the Continental Army. First winter, January 1777 to May 1777—Washington stays at Ar
nold’s Tavern in Morristown [building no longer exists]. The troops stay in private homes and public buildings spread out from Princeton through Morristown to the Hudson Highlands. Second winter, December 1779 to June 1780—Washington stays at the Ford Mansion [part of Morristown NHP] and up to 13,000 soldiers camp 5 miles south of Morristown in Jockey Hollow [also part of Morristown NHP]. Third winter, November 1780 to January 1781—The Pennsylvania Line camps in Jockey Hollow while Washington is in New Windsor, NY. The Pennsylvania Line mutinies on January 1, 1780, and most of them leave Jockey Hollow. Later in January/February 1781 the Pennsylvania Line is replaced in Jockey Hollow by the New Jersey Brigade. The NJ Brigade had been camped further north in New Jersey and had also mutinied but their mutiny, unlike the PA Line mutiny, was suppressed. The NJ Brigade stays in Jockey Hollow until sometime in the Spring/Summer of 1781. Fourth winter, 1781–1782—The New Jersey Brigade returns to Jockey Hollow for this winter.†(Personal correspondence, September 2003.)
37.According to military historian Howard Peckham, about seven thousand American soldiers lost their lives in battle, while ten thousand American soldiers perished from disease. (Peckham, Toll of Independence, 130.)
38.Washington to Congress, December 22 and 23, 1777, Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 10: 183, 195–196.
39.Washington to Congress, December 22, 1777, Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 10: 183. Washington was also the source of the defining metaphor of the soldiers’ plight: on April 21, 1778, he wrote that because the soldiers had no shoes, “their Marches might be traced by the blood from their feet.†(Washington to John Banister, April 21, 1778, Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 11: 291.) William Gordon, in his 1788 history of the Revolution, claimed that Washington had told the story to him personally at a dinner party after the war: “Through the want of shoes and stockings, and the hard frozen ground, you might have tracked the army from White Marsh to Valley-forge by the blood of their feet.†(William Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America, reprint edition [Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969, first published in 1788], 3: 11–12.) Writers for over two centuries have followed Gordon’s lead, using this catchy image to sum up the winter’s experience. Lost in the translation has been a practical aspect of this quaint remark: tracking footprints in those days was a matter of military importance.
