Nowadays, you can tell that something belongs (or belonged) to the army by the fact that it has “US” or “USA” marked on it. In June of 1776, there was no United States yet, so how did the army mark its equipment? General George Washington gave orders to address this issue on June 18th:
to prevent the embezzlement of the public tools, the Quarter-Master General shall cause all the Tools, of every kind, belonging to the United Colonies, or at any time purchased for them, to be marked, with the following brand or stamp.
What was the mark they were to use? I’ll bet you can’t guess.
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
“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.]
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.]
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.]
“I think it best to introduce Mr. Maxwell to General Washington,” wrote Henry Ward to General Nathanael Greene, “and for you and the General, with not more than one trusty person besides, to consider as to the most prudent measures to discover the traitor.” This was the first hint that George Washington and his fellow officers had of a high-ranking spy in their midst.
Dr. Benjamin Church, a prominent revolutionary, was arrested as a spy in September 1775.
The detection of the spy happened largely by accident. A baker named Godfrey Wainwood, living in Newport, Rhode Island, had received a visit from an acquaintance of his, a young woman from Massachusetts. She wanted his help to deliver a letter to a British official who could send it into Boston (then besieged by American troops) by ship. Wainwood thought this a bit odd, but he agreed to help. She left the letter with him, trusting that he would deliver it soon, and went back to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That was in late July 1775. Wainwood was suspicious that somebody at Cambridge — the American army headquarters — might be acting as a spy and trying to secretly send information to the British army in Boston. But if the letter had been written by a spy, what should he do about it? Who should he tell?
Weeks went by. Unsure what to do, Wainwood simply kept the letter. After a while, in need of advice, he turned to a schoolteacher named Adam Maxwell. Together they decided to open the letter, and found that it was written in code, which increased their suspicions. When the woman wrote to Wainwood, expressing uneasiness that he might not have delivered the letter, they decided to share their suspicions with Henry Ward, secretary of Rhode Island.
So it was that Ward wrote to General Greene in late September, urging him to “discover the traitor.” Greene immediately told Washington, and the molehunt began. The woman, “a suttle, shrewd Jade,” was arrested; after a night of being in custody and a great deal of questioning, she finally admitted that Doctor Benjamin Church had written the letter and given it to her to take to Newport.
That was enough to rock the world of the American revolutionaries. Dr. Church had seemed to be an outstanding patriot for years. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Committee of Safety, and he was currently serving as director of the American army hospitals. But on 29 September 1775, after the woman (who was Church’s mistress) had confessed, he was arrested and the detective work began.
Three people — Samuel West, Elisha Porter, and Elbridge Gerry — went to work on the letter. As they deciphered it, they learned what Church had been trying to communicate to the British in Boston:
I hope this will reach you—three Attempts have I made without Success in effecting the last the Man was discovered in attempting his Escape, but fortunately my Letter was sewed in the Waisband of his Breeches…. for the Sake of the miserable convulsed Empire solicit Peace, repeal the Acts, or Britain is undone. this Advice is the Result of warm Affection to my King & to the Realm. … A View to Independance gr[ows] more & more General—should Britain declare War against the Colonies they are lost forever. … I wish you could contrive to write me largely in Cypher by the Way of New Port…. make Use of every Precaution or I Perish.
Church admitted that he had written and sent the letter, which was intended for his brother-in-law, John Fleming, “a warm stickler for the Honour, Dignity & Power of Britain”, in Boston. But he still claimed that he wasn’t a traitor: the letter, he said, intentionally exaggerated American military strength; by feeding this information to Fleming (and, through him, to the British commanders), Church was trying to influence the British to give up the war and make a peaceful compromise with the colonists’ demands — or so he said.
It was hard to absolutely prove that Church was a spy, but a council of war and the Massachusetts House of Representatives both pronounced him guilty — and they were right. However, the Articles of War — the regulations established by the Continental Congress for the American army — didn’t provide a severe enough punishment for the kind of crime he had committed, and nobody was quite sure what to do with him. After being imprisoned for a couple of years, Church was finally allowed to leave the country in January 1778. He sailed for the West Indies, but the ship he sailed on was lost at sea.
I have nothing Remarkebel to rite Except that geaneral Washington & Leas got into Cambridge yesterday and to Day thay are to take a vew of ye Army & that will be atended with a grate deal of grandor there is at this time one & twenty Drummers & as many feffors a Beting and Playing Round the Prayde.
No, that’s not a foreign language. It’s just a beautiful example of why spellcheck and grammar check were invented. Here’s how it would be with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation:
I have nothing remarkable to write except that Generals Washington and Lee got into Cambridge yesterday, and today they are to take a view of the army, and that will be attended with a great deal of grandeur; there are at this time one-and-twenty drummers and as many fifers a-beating and playing round the parade.
This was a letter from Massachusetts Lieutenant Joseph Hodgkins to his wife, Sarah. Besides being interesting from a historical standpoint, their letters are all kinds of fun to read; sometimes a word is spelled so strangely that it takes a minute to figure out what it is.
Hodgkins was at the American army camp around Boston, and he was writing about how General George Washington, the newly-appointed commander-in-chief, was taking command of the American forces. Washington arrived at Cambridge, which was the army’s headquarters, on Sunday, July 2, along with Charles Lee, who had been appointed a major-general. The next day they “reviewed” the army; that is, the army marched around the parade ground, and the generals observed them. (Maybe that’s not the most accurate description of it, but it’ll do.) Washington and Lee had been welcomed and honored all along their way from Philadelphia to Cambridge, but now they were up against their real work. And neither one of them realized how hard it would turn out to be.
Here’s an artistic rendition of General Washington “reviewing” the colonial troops at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1775. Although it’s not historically accurate in some things — such as the stars-and-stripes flag, which hadn’t been designed yet — it gives an idea of what a “review” might have been like. The smoke in the background is from a salute being fired.
Source
This Glorious Cause: The Adventures of Two Company Officers in Washington’s Army, p. 171.
Before the Revolutionary War, George Washington’s military experience was serving in the Virginia militia during the French and Indian War. This portrait, painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, shows him as a militia colonel.
When the Continental Congress was getting ready to choose a commander-in-chief of the American army, they decided that he would be paid $500 a month, which was quite a lot for that time. George Washington, a wealthy Virginian, was unanimously chosen. Despite his wealth, it would have been perfectly understandable for him to take the salary that was offered, and most people would have done so. But instead, he decided to serve without pay. Here is the speech he made to the Congress when accepting his appointment (as was usual, he addressed his remarks to John Hancock, the president of congress, but he was really speaking to the whole group):
Mr President, Tho’ I am truly sensible of the high Honour done me in this Appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities & Military experience may not be equal to the extensive & important Trust: However, as the Congress desire it I will enter upon the momentous duty, & exert every power I Possess In their service & for the Support of the glorious Cause: I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for this distinguished testimony of their Approbation.
But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavourable to my reputation, I beg it may be rememberd by every Gentn in the room, that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think my self equal to the Command I am honoured with.
As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to Assure the Congress that as no pecuniary [i.e., monetary] consideration could have tempted me to have accepted this Arduous emploiment at the expence of my domestk ease & happiness I do not wish to make any proffit from it: I will keep an exact Account of my expences; those I doubt not they will discharge & that is all I desire.
Washington did indeed serve without pay for the whole war, and he definitely has my respect for that. He also kept a record of his expenses during all that time and submitted it to Congress after the war was over; if you’d like to look at it, go to the Library of Congress website.
Source
“Address to the Continental Congress, 16 June 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0001. [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. 1–3.]
