Author: Duane Kartchner

The Battle of Great Bridge

Several hundred American troops, led by Colonel William Woodford, were on their way toward Norfolk, Virginia, to attack the British, when they were stopped by a smaller British force at Great Bridge. This bridge was the only practical place for them to cross the river, but the British had removed the planks from the bridge and had built a fort at the northern end. The Americans made their own fortifications on the other side of the river, but they couldn’t cross.

This 1791 map shows Norfolk, which was the troops’ destination, and Great Bridge, where the battle took place. On this map, North is down and South is up, which makes it somewhat confusing.

They were stuck like this for a couple of weeks. Then, early on the morning of December 9, 1775, Captain Samuel Leslie and a couple hundred British soldiers joined the forces already in the fort, which included some American Loyalist volunteers, as well as some slaves who had been given their freedom in exchange for fighting for the British.

Led by Captain Charles Fordyce, the combined British forces put the planks back on the bridge and charged the American fortifications. The Americans, however, were awake and ready for them — it was just after reveille — and when the British got close, they fired. Captain Fordyce was killed, and a few dozen other officers and soldiers were either killed or wounded. Colonel Woodford described the battle:

[Captain] Leslie with all the regulars [British soldiers] (about 200)…arrived at the bridge about 3 o’clock in the morning, joined about 300 black and white slaves, laid planks upon the bridge, and crossed just after our reveille had beat; a lucky time for us, and you’ll say rather an improper season for them to make their push, when, of course, all our men must be under arms….capt. Fordyce of the grenadiers led the van with his company, who, for coolness and bravery, deserved a better fate, as well as the brave fellows who fell with him, who behaved like heroes. They marched up to our breastwork with fixed bayonets, and perhaps a hotter fire never happened, or a greater carnage, for the number of troops. None of the blacks, &c. in the rear, with capt. Leslie, advanced farther than the bridge.

I have the pleasure to inform you, that the victory was complete…. This was a second Bunker’s Hill affair, in miniature; with this difference, that we kept our post, and had only one man wounded in the hand.

Letter from Colonel William Woodford to Edmund Pendleton, in Naval Documents of the American Revolution, vol. 3, pp. 39-40.

Although small in terms of the number of troops involved, the battle was a significant victory for the Americans. The British soon left their fort, and the Americans marched on and soon drove the British out of Norfolk.

1775: The Year in Review

Let’s take a look at what happened in the American Revolutionary War in its first year. Here are some — but certainly not all — of the most important and notable events, starting with the beginning of the war in April, 1775:

April

  • The war starts at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.
  • New England militia besiege Boston. Some soldiers from other colonies arrive later. The siege will last almost a year.

May

  • The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia, as had been agreed the previous fall. Georgia does not send delegates at first.
  • Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold capture Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain.

June

  • The Continental Congress takes charge of the army (which becomes known as the Continental Army), and appoints George Washington as commander-in-chief.
  • A sea fight takes place near Machias, Massachusetts. This is sometimes referred to as “the Lexington of the sea.”

July

  • The Continental Congress sends a petition to King George III, asking him to intervene and repeal the British laws that are oppressing the colonists. This becomes known as the Olive Branch Petition. (When the petition reaches England several weeks later, the king ignores it.)
  • Congress also publishes an address to the people of Britain, and an official declaration of why the Americans have taken up arms.

August

  • King George III proclaims the colonies to be in rebellion.

September

  • Americans invade Canada from two directions: the main force goes by way of Lake Champlain, while a smaller force under Benedict Arnold goes through the wilderness, hoping to capture the city of Quebec by surprise.
  • Delegates from Georgia join the Continental Congress.

October

  • Congress authorizes construction of two warships, thus establishing the beginnings of a navy. This becomes known as the “birthday” of the Continental Navy.
  • The British Royal Navy bombards and burns most of Falmouth (now Portland), Maine.
  • The British Parliament meets and takes measures to suppress the rebellion in America.

November

  • Congress establishes the Marines.
  • Benedict Arnold’s forces reach Quebec but are unable to effectively attack or besiege it, so they withdraw to meet the American forces that are coming up the St. Lawrence River.
  • Other American forces capture St. John’s and Montreal, Canada. The governor, Sir Guy Carleton, manages to escape to Quebec before Montreal is captured.

December

  • American forces under Richard Montgomery besiege the city of Quebec.

All in all, it was quite an eventful year, and many of the important events are unknown to most people today. But even though the colonies didn’t declare independence until the next year, the events of 1775 had far-reaching consequences.

A Wartime Thanksgiving, 1775

Thanksgiving Day was a well-established tradition in New England at the time of the Revolutionary War. The government of each colony would generally proclaim a “Publick Thanksgiving” each year on a Thursday in late November or early December. It was often on different days in different colonies; for example, in 1775, Connecticut held it on November 16th, Massachusetts and Rhode Island on the 23rd, and New Hampshire on the 30th.

Food seems to have been part of the tradition, but churches were also encouraged to hold worship services on that day, and people were encouraged to attend and (of course) to literally give thanks to God.

In Massachusetts in 1775, it was only natural that the Thanksgiving proclamation dwelt a lot on how the war was going. Among other things, it encouraged people to thank God “That the Lives of our Officers and Soldiers have been so remarkably preserved, while our Enemies have fell before them … And to Offer up humble and fervent prayer to Almighty God for the whole British Empire, especially for the United American Colonies”.

General George Washington ordered the American soldiers at the siege of Boston to observe Thanksgiving as proclaimed by the colony of Massachusetts. But there were still military duties to be done. Here’s how one American lieutenant, Jabez Fitch, described the day in his diary:

The 23d. This is Thanksgiving Day in this province. After breakfasting on chocolate and bread and cheese I went on the duty of fatigue. Our regt [regiment] were assign’d with Col. Wyllys’ to cut apple trees and make a brush fence from our front on the right of the lines down toward Dorchester, and we were stinted to extend it this day as far as the next intrenchment, which we accomplish’d by about 2 o’clock. We were directed in the work by one Lt. Cole of Wyllys’ regt, and after we had done work he came home with me calling in at the main guard, &c. After we came into camp we had a very good dinner on a piece of roast pork and a turkey, which we had prepar’d for that purpose. Capt. Bissell, Lt. Cole, Mr. Hillyer, Lt. Gove and I din’d together, and in the evening all of us, except Lt. Cole, went up to Jamaica Plain to make Capt. Rowley a visit, we also found Lt. Gillett there, he sung us several songs, made us a shoe, &c. A little after 8 o’clock we came home, had orders to turn out on the shortest notice, as an alarm was expected this night on account of our people beginning to intrench on Cobble Hill.

(I’m guessing that the phrase “to make a shoe” meant “to dance.”)

Interestingly, in addition to all the thanks and prayers that Massachusetts said should be offered regarding the war, their proclamation ended by encouraging people to pray

That he [God] would graciously pour out of his Spirit upon all order of men through the land, bring us to a hearty Repentance & Reformation Purity and Sanctify all his Churches

That he would make ours Emanuels Land

That he would spread the Knowledge of the Redeemer through the whole land and fill the World with his Glory, and all servile Labour is forbiden on said day.

GOD SAVE THE PEOPLE

Sources

Smith, Charles C., and Samuel A. Green. “May Meeting, 1894. Diary of Jabez Fitch, Jr.; New Volume of Proceedings.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 9 (1894): 40-95. www.jstor.org/stable/25079765. Page 83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079765?seq=44#metadata_info_tab_contents

The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, vol. 19 (vol. 14 of the appendix), pp. 136-37.
https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespass7576mass/page/136

“General Orders, 18 November 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0362. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 392–393.]

Passamaquaddy!?

I had only heard of Passamaquoddy in the old movie Pete’s Dragon (where, as you may remember, it is the name of the town, and the travelling quack doctor can never say it right), until I came across it the other day in the journals of the Continental Congress. I didn’t know it was a real place, so I looked it up, and sure enough, there’s a Passamaquoddy Bay on the border between the U.S. and Canada: specifically, between Maine and New Brunswick.

However, there’s not actually a town named Passamaquoddy, so I guess the screenwriters made that part up. On the other hand, the journals of the Continental Congress refer simply to “Passamaquaddy” (note the spelling difference), rather than “Passamaquaddy Bay,” so maybe there was a town called Passamaquaddy at the time, but I’m inclined to think that “Passamaquaddy” referred to the area around the bay, rather than a specific town.

“Passamaquaddy” Bay is in the upper left corner of this 1775 map of the New England and Canadian coastline.

At any rate, there were enough people in the area or town of Passamaquaddy (also spelled Passamaquady, or even Pesmocadie) to be politically active, and to send a petition to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Here’s the record from the journal of the Continental Congress on November 2, 1775:

The Inhabitants of Passamaquaddy in Nova Scotia, having chosen a com[mitt]ee of Safety, and having, by their petition, applied to the Congress to be admitted into the association of the North Americans, for the preservation of their rights and liberties,

On motion made, Resolved, That a com[mitt]ee of 5 be appointed to take this matter into consideration, and report what steps, in their opinion, it will be proper to take, in consequence of this application, for the preservation of the liberties of America.

The members chosen, Mr. [Silas] Deane, Mr. [John] Jay, Mr. [Stephen] Hopkins, Mr. [John] Langdon, and Mr. John Adams.

What steps did the congress decide to take regarding the inhabitants of Passamaquaddy? I haven’t found out yet, but if I do, I’ll let you know.

In case you’re wondering why the congress said that Passamaquaddy was in Nova Scotia, when I said that the bay was on the border of Maine and New Brunswick, it’s because the province of New Brunswick hadn’t been created yet, and that territory was considered part of Nova Scotia.

And in case you’re wondering why the Passamaquaddians (I just had to use that word) wanted to be allowed to join “the association of the North Americans,” it was surely at least partly a matter of business. The “association” was an agreement by the First Continental Congress in 1774, and it involved boycotting certain British goods and not shipping certain things to other British territories. Since the Passamaquaddians were out of Maine (which was actually part of Massachusetts at the time), they weren’t included in the association, which meant that they couldn’t do as much business with their New England neighbors as they used to. If the congress would allow them to join the association, then they would be able to go back to doing business as before.

Sources

A Plan of the coast from Cape Anne in north latitude 42⁰42ʹ & 70⁰33ʹ west longitude from Greenwich: … to Isle Scattery in long. 50⁰40ʹ & latitude 46⁰ 0ʹ north, … including the isle of Sable. [?, 1775] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/74694110/.

Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 3, p. 316.

Birth of the Marine Corps

The “birthday” of the American Marines is not very exciting to read about; just a paragraph in the Journals of the Continental Congress:

Resolved, That Two Battalions of marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or inlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required: that they be inlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.

But, just as with the Continental Army and Navy, those few sentences from the records of Congress were the start of something big; and those two battalions eventually turned into the United States Marine Corps, which celebrates November 10 as its birthday.

One thing that strikes me is that the Congress didn’t just want the Marines to enlist for a certain amount of time; they wanted them to enlist for the rest of the war.

Source

Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 3, p. 348.

What’s for Dinner?

What did Revolutionary War soldiers eat? One of the questions that a group of American leaders debated was what and how much should food should be given to the soldiers. They decided on:

One Pound of Beef or ¾ lb. Pork or one Pound of Salt Fish.

One Pound of Bread or Flour per Diem.

Three Pints of Pease or Beans per Week or Vegetables equivalent at 6/ [i.e., 6 shillings] per Bushel for Pease & Beans.

One Pint of Milk per Man per Day or at the Rate of 1d [i.e., 1 penny] per Pint.

One half Pint of Rice or one Pint of Indian Meal per Man per Week.

One Quart of Spruce Beer or Cyder per Man per Day or 9 Gallons of Molasses per Compy [company] of 100 Men per Week.

Three Pounds of Candles to 100 Men per Week for Guards &c.

Twenty four lb. of soft Soap or 8 lb. hard Soap for 100 Men per Week.

Whether they always got all of those things was a different question, but the American soldiers besieging Boston generally seemed to have enough to eat.

Notes

This was one of many things decided on during a conference of New England political leaders and George Washington at Cambridge (the Continental Army headquarters) on October 18-24, 1775.

Note that they didn’t actually write the word “per.” Instead, they used a symbol that looked like a fancy “P”.

I think that “Indian Meal” was cornmeal. As for spruce beer, I hadn’t heard of it except in Revolutionary War writings, so I was a little surprised when I found out that people still drink it today.

Source

“II. Minutes of the Conference, 18–24 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0175-0003. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 190–205.]

British Ships Destroy Falmouth, Maine

“The Town of Falmouth, Burnt, by Captain Moet, Octbr. 18th 1775.”

For the most part, the British Royal Navy in America in 1775 was busy capturing American vessels and gathering food and supplies for the besieged army in Boston. But in October, British Admiral Graves sent Lieutenant Henry Mowat to “chastize” a number of New England towns — or, to put it more bluntly, to “lay waste burn and destroy such Seaport Towns as are accessible to his Majesty’s Ships”. Graves gave the order on October 6, and Mowat sailed with four ships — the Canceaux, Symmetry, Spitfire, and Halifax — to carry it out.

Mowat decided to go first to Falmouth (now Portland), Maine. It was the 17th when he arrived there and lined up his ships in position to bombard the town. He sent an officer on shore with a letter, telling the people that he would give them two hours to “remove…the Human Species out of the…town”, and then he would start firing. Three leading citizens went out to talk with Mowat aboard his ship, the Canceaux, and he agreed to wait until the next morning so that the people would have enough time to get out of the town. He also told them that if they would “surrender their cannon and musketry, and give hostages for their future good behaviour,” then he would try to convince the Admiral to change his mind about destroying Falmouth.

Not surprisingly, although the people were given until the next morning to leave, they didn’t surrender their firearms. The whole town was thrown into a panic, and people started working frantically to get themselves and their belongings out of town. The Reverend Jacob Bailey described what happened the next day:

The morning was calm clear and pleasant, without a breath of wind, and the town was crowded with people and carts from the country to assist in removing the goods and furniture of the inhabitants. At exactly half an hour after nine the flag was hoisted at the top of the mast [as a signal], and the cannon began to roar with incessant and tremendous fury. … The oxen, terrified at the smoak and report of the guns ran with precipitation over the rocks, dashing everything in pieces, and scattering large quantities of goods about the streets. In a few minutes the whole town was involved in smoak and combustion. … The bombardment continued from half after nine till sunset, during which all the lower end and middle of the town was reduced to an heap of rubbish. … In a word about three quarters of the town was consumed and between two and three hundred families who twenty four hours before enjoyed in tranquility their commodious habitations, were now in many instances destitute of a hut for themselves and families; and as a tedious winter was approaching they had before them a most gloomy and distressing prospect.

In some places where the buildings weren’t very close together, and so the fire wouldn’t spread very well, Mowat sent men ashore to set the buildings on fire. The British also destroyed some ships in the harbor.

Mowat moved his ships down the harbor the next morning, and reported that the fire was still raging in the town that evening.

The destruction of Falmouth was a forceful display of British military might, and an example of how the rebellious Americans could be punished. But while it might have made some Americans think twice about rebelling, it also gave them another reason to hate the British.

Fortunately, Mowat’s ships had used up most of their ammunition, and some of his guns and one of his ships were damaged, so he didn’t try to destroy the other towns that Admiral Graves had singled out.

Sources

Naval Documents of the American Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 324, 471, 487-8, 500, 516.

“Tarred and Feathered” at a Quilting Bee

Here’s a rather amusing account of something that happened in New York in September 1775. A young man was “tarred and feathered” (but not with tar and feathers) by some young women for badmouthing the Continental Congress at a quilting bee:

The following droll affair lately happened at Kinderhook, New York. A young fellow, an enemy to the liberties of America, going to a quilting frolic, where a number of young women were collected, and he the only man in company, began his aspersions on Congress, as usual, and held forth some time on the subject, till the girls, exasperated at his impudence, laid hold of him, stripped him naked to the waist, and instead of tar, covered him with molasses, and for feathers took the downy tops of flags, which grow in the meadows, and coated him well and then let him go. He has prosecuted every one of them, and the matter has been tried before Justice S—–. We have not as yet heard his worship’s judgment. It is said Parson Buel’s daughter is concerned [i.e., involved] in the affair.

Source

Diary of the American Revolution, vol. 1, p. 141.

Birth of an American Navy

The American Navy (more properly, the Continental Navy) started humbly on Friday, October 13, 1775, when the Second Continental Congress voted to equip two ships to intercept supplies that the British were shipping to their troops in America. The decision was recorded in the journal of the congress:

Resolved, That a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible despatch, for a cruize of three months, and that the commander be instructed to cruize eastward, for intercepting such transports as may be laden with warlike stores and other supplies for our enemies, and for such other purposes as the Congress shall direct.

That a Committee of three be appointed to prepare an estimate of the expence, and lay the same before the Congress, and to contract with proper persons to fit out the vessel.

Resolved, That another vessel be fitted out for the same purposes, and that the said committee report their opinion of a proper vessel, and also an estimate of the expence.

Up to this point, some individual colonies had sent out ships on military missions, but these were the first ships to act under the direction of the united colonies. Some people might think it unlucky that the Navy began on Friday the 13th, but the Navy made it through the war, so I guess it was OK.

Arnold’s March to Quebec: A Story of Daring…and Some Disaster

When the Revolutionary War began in Massachusetts, the Americans were defending their home turf. But only five months later, they were invading a colony that wasn’t involved in the war at all: Canada.

Canada had only been part of the British empire since the end of the French and Indian War in the previous decade, and most of the people who lived there (other than the Indians) were French Catholics, which made them quite different from most of the people in the other colonies. It wasn’t exactly a foreign country, but it wasn’t too far from it — and there were plenty of people alive who still remembered fighting the French. Now they were trying to convert the Canadians to their cause. As George Washington put it in a printed appeal to the Canadians:

We have taken up Arms in Defence of our Liberty, our Property, our Wives, and our Children, we are determined to preserve them, or die. We look forward with Pleasure to that Day not far remote (we hope) when the Inhabitants of America shall have one Sentiment, and the full Enjoyment of the Blessings of a free Government.

… The Cause of America, and of Liberty, is the Cause of every virtuous American Citizen; whatever may be his Religion or his Descent, the United Colonies know no Distinction but such as Slavery, Corruption and arbitrary Domination may create. Come then, ye generous Citizens, range yourselves under the Standard of general Liberty—against which all the Force and Artifice of Tyranny will never be able to prevail.

At first, the American revolutionary leaders hesitated to authorize an invasion of Canada, but finally they decided to go ahead with it. In New York, Generals Schuyler and Montgomery led the main invasion up Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River. But a smaller force — about 1,100 men — took what was supposed to be a shortcut through Maine.

They were led by bold Benedict Arnold. If you think that Benedict Arnold was a traitor, you’re right — but not in 1775. He was dedicated and daring then and for years afterward. And he had a plan.

American colonel Benedict Arnold used this map to plan his expedition to Quebec in the fall of 1775.

Using a map that had been made around 1761 by a British officer, John Montresor, he planned to take a relatively small force in flat-bottomed boats called batteaux, and go up the rivers and through the wild, unsettled areas of Maine, and so take the city of Quebec by surprise.

It didn’t work nearly as well as they had hoped. For one thing, the “shortcut” — as often happens with shortcuts — wasn’t so short after all. Their batteaux had been hastily and poorly made; their food went bad and ran out. Sometimes they had to haul the batteaux up the swift, shallow streams with ropes and by holding on to the bushes along the banks. Sometimes they had to carry the batteaux (and all their equipment, including guns, food, ammunition and more) around waterfalls, or over hills from one river to the next. Nowadays we call that kind of thing a portage (which is a French word, pronounced por-TAWZH); back then they stuck with an English term and simply called it a “carrying place.” Arnold summed it up quite nicely when he said, “I have been much deceived in every Account of our Rout, which is longer, and has been attended with a Thousand Difficulties I never apprehended.”

Some of the companies in the rear decided to turn back, since food was rapidly running out (as I mentioned in my previous post). I won’t call them cowards, though; I wasn’t there, and I’ve never been in danger of starving to death. Some men did in fact die of hunger and disease.

At any rate, with great daring and perseverance, Arnold reached the St. Lawrence River with about 700 men in early November and looked at his goal — the city of Quebec — across the river. But it was just a little out of reach…

Notes

By the way, Maine was not its own colony, but there were some settlers there, and the region had its own name.

Sources

“Address to the Inhabitants of Canada, 14 September 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0358. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 1, 16 June 1775 – 15 September 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985, pp. 461–463.]

Montrésor, John. A map of the sources of the Chaudière, Penobscot, and Kennebec rivers. [?, 1761] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/74692578/.

“To George Washington from Colonel Benedict Arnold, 27–28 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0224. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 244–246.]