Tag:

siege of Boston

Prudence Cummings Wright, Patriot Militia Commander, Captures 2 British Spies

During those confusing, intense first weeks of the American Revolution, Prudence Cummings Wright organized a ladies group — to capture Loyalist spies in Massachusetts.

Her husband had just marched off to the Siege of Boston in the aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. So had the husbands of most of the other ladies.

Rumors flew that British spies were passing information from Canada to Boston through the town of Pepperell, Mass.

She decided to do something about it — even if one of the spies was a blood relation.

Prudence Cummings Wright

Prudence Cummings Wright was born Nov. 26, 1740, in Hollis, N.H., the daughter of Prudence and Samuel Cummings, the town clerk for 22 years. She had two sisters and three brothers, two of whom were Loyalists.

Prudence was a patriot. An ardent one.

She married another patriot, David Wright, in 1761. They lived in Pepperell, Mass., the next town over from Hollis, about 20 miles northwest of Concord. He had joined the militia as a private.

They had 11 children, though two of their children died young: six-year-old Mary died of fever on July 1, 1774, and on March 11, 1775, Liberty died. Prudence Cummings Wright, bereft, returned home to her parents in New Hampshire for comfort.

While there, she overheard her brother Samuel talk to his friend Leonard Whiting, a British army officer, about passing information to the British.

Prudence returned to Pepperell and gathered the women of the town. Then a 35-year-old mother of five, she organized 30 or 40 of them into a militia called ‘Mrs. David Wright’s Guard.’ The youngest, Elizabeth Hobart, was only 17.

Farm Implements

The women dressed in their husbands’ clothes and carried whatever they could for weapons. As the men had probably taken muskets with them, the women probably used farm implements such as pitchforks.

The women elected Prudence their leader, and she appointed Sarah Shattuck as her lieutenant. The women patrolled the roads leading into town.

Nehemiah Jewett Bridge, successor to the one the ladies’ militia staked out. Courtesy Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey.

They knew Jewett’s Bridge over the Nashua River was the only way through Pepperell. The Loyalists would have to cross it on their way to Boston.

Susan J. Smith, writing for the Pepperell Historical Commission, described what happened.

“Then they waited at the bridge, into the night, shielding the lantern, totally silent until two horsemen approached from the north,” she wrote. “Taking advantage of surprise Prudence burst upon them with lantern bright demanding to know their identity and business. Her brother Samuel knew the depth of his sister’s commitment to the cause and immediately turned tail avoiding possible fatal injury.

“Leonard Whiting pushed forward, believing he couldn’t be stopped by a bunch of women. He was wrong of course. Both were dragged off their mounts and searched. Dispatches intended for the British were found. The men were escorted to Solomon Roger’s tavern. There the prisoners were detained for the rest of night before being taken to Groton and the Committee of Safety in the morning.”

The committee gave the two men their liberty once they promised to leave the colony. Prudence never saw Samuel, her favorite brother, again.

Finally, Recognition

The women’s militia disbanded after that exciting night.

The town couldn’t pay the women for what they’d done until town meeting on March 19, 1777. Then Pepperell voted to pay Wright’s guard for their service. They referred to the volunteer ladies’ militia as “Leonard Whiting’s Guard.”

Prudence Cummings Wright died Dec. 2, 1823. Jewett’s Bridge has been replaced several times, and a covered bridge now stands at the crossing, along with a stone marker memorializing Prudence Cummings Wright.

With thanks to An Encyclopedia of American Women at War: From the Home Front to the Battlefields edited by Lisa Tendrich Frank. This story about Prudence Cummings Wright was updated in 2023.

2 comments 4.3K views

Six Courageous Heroes From New England

Not all courageous heroes receive their due on Veterans or any other day. So many sacrifices have gone unheralded, so many men and women who risked their lives for their country were all but forgotten.

For all of New England’s courageous heroes and veterans, we mention these six on Veterans Day. One comes from each state. If you know of another courageous hero who deserves accolades, please share it in the comments section.

Henry Mucci, Bridgeport, Conn.

Henry Mucci, one of many courageous heroes who rescued POWs.

One of the most courageous heroes of World War II, Lt. Col. Henry Mucci led a daring rescue mission in the South Pacific.

Stationed in New Guinea during World War II, he created a new Army Ranger unit, the 6^th Ranger Battalion.

In October 1944, the Japanese held more than 500 mostly American survivors of the Bataan Death March in the Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the 6th Army was marching toward Manila to liberate it from the Japanese. The American prisoners were in imminent danger of being massacred by the Japanese before their countrymen could save them.

Mucci received orders to save them.

On Jan. 28, 1945, Mucci led a march 30 miles through Japanese territory and rendezvoused with Filipino guerillas near the POW camp. A total of 378 rangers and guerillas faced 3,000 Japanese. Some of the guerillas didn’t even have weapons.

At dusk on January 30, the guerrillas set up ambushes along the highway. Mucci led the Rangers on a half-mile crawl across an open field to a ditch outside the POW camp. An Army Air Force fighter buzzed the Japanese to distract them.

The surprise attack lasted but half an hour. None of the Japanese troops or tanks got past the guerrillas along the highway. Many didn’t survive the strafing by the 547th Night Fighter Squadron. The Rangers liberated all but one of the 513 prisoners.

Cabanatuan POWs celebrate their liberation.

More than 500 Japanese troops were killed or wounded. Only two Rangers died and 21 Filipino guerillas suffered wounds.

Some prisoners, weakened from disease and starvation, couldn’t walk, so the Rangers carried them, sometimes two at a time.

More…

Henry Mucci came home to Bridgeport, welcomed as one of the war’s most courageous heroes. He received the Distinguished Service Cross.

A section of Route 25 between Bridgeport and Newtown was named the Col. Henry A. Mucci Highway. Additionally, a film, The Great Raid, was released in 2005.

To see a videos and photos of the liberation of Cabanatuan, click here, here and here.

Donald Skidgel, Bangor, Maine

Sgt. Donald Skidgel

Sgt. Donald Skidgel of Bangor, Maine, gave his life at the age of 20 to save others on a battleground in Vietnam.

He joined the Army in 1968 and soon rose to sergeant. On Sept. 14, 1969, his unit guarded a convoy near Song Be. The enemy began firing from hiding places in tall grass and bunkers.

Skidgel maneuvered off the road and started shooting, silencing one enemy position. Then he ran across 60 meters of bullet-raked ground and fired at other enemy positions.

Suddenly Skidgel saw the convoy’s command group coming under intense attack. He tried to draw the enemy’s attention by manning a machine gun while his driver steered through the hostile fire.

An exploding grenade knocked him onto the rear fender, but he staggered to his feet and continued firing. Finally, small arms fire killed him.

He saved the convoy command and inspired his fellow soldiers to defeat the enemy.

Donald Skidgel received the Medal of Honor posthumously.

On Oct. 15, 2011, the bridge on Route 2 over the Sebasticook River in Newport Maine was dedicated as ‘The Donald Sidney Skidgel Memorial Bridge.’

John Mihalowski, Worcester, Mass.

John Mihalowski

When Worcester, Mass., native John Mihalowski enlisted in the Navy in 1927, he couldn’t know he would play a key role in the greatest submarine rescue in history.

Mihalowski trained as a Navy diver and rose to chief torpedoman. As the U.S. entry into World War II loomed, he joined the crew of the U.S.S. Falcon.

On May 23, 1939, the Falcon raced from New London, Conn., to rescue the U.S.S. Squalus. The submarine sank during a test dive from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

Some of the men survived, but they probably wouldn’t last long because they had so little air. Besides, no one had ever survived a submarine sinking.

Once the Falcon reached the Squalus, Mihalowski and several other divers managed to make four dangerous, difficult trips to the sub in an experimental diving ball. At great risk, they carried all 33 survivors to the surface.

John Mihalowski received the Medal of Honor ‘for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession.’ Read more of the dramatic story of the greatest submarine rescue ever here.

The Kittery Historical and Naval Museum in Kittery has an exhibit dedicated to the Squalus rescue.

Alexander Scammell, Durham, N.H.

Alexander Scammell

George Washington thought Alexander Scammell one of the funniest men in the Continental Army. Washington enjoyed the company of the tall, handsome and charming soldier.

Scammell was born in Mendon (now Milford), Mass., but spent most of his adult career in New Hampshire after graduating from Harvard. He studied law in Durham, N.H., with John Sullivan, who became a general and a governor.

Alexander Scammell saw action even before the Revolution began. He seized the British flag during a raid on Fort William and Mary in New Castle, N.H., in December 1774.

He joined the 2^nd New Hampshire Regiment during the Siege of Boston and eventually joined Washington’s Army. Scammell remained with Washington as the British chased the shrinking American army through New Jersey. On Christmas night 1776, Alexander Scammell crossed the Delaware in Washington’s boat before the morale-boosting victory of the Battle of Trenton.

A week later, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Princeton.

Alexander Scammell saw the American forces being badly beaten and, in a daring move, rode to the fore to lead a charge against the enemy. Washington rode up moments later. They rallied the troops, turning a defeat into victory and putting the British on the defensive.

Scammell didn’t survive the war. He died from his wounds during a skirmish before the Battle of Yorktown.

Alexander Scammell’s portrait hangs at the New Hampshire Statehouse, along with dozens of other portraits of military heroes. They belong to the Collections of the New Hampshire Statehouse & State Library. Scammell’s likeness may be viewed in the Visitor’s Center, Rooms 118 and 119. Fort Scammell in Casco Bay, Maine, and the Alexander Scammell Bridge over the Bellamy River near Durham were named after him.

Esek Hopkins, Scituate, R.I.

Esek Hopkins

Esek Hopkins, born in 1718 in Scituate, R.I., had sailed to nearly every part of the globe by the time the American Revolution broke out.

On Dec. 22, 1775, the Continental Congress appointed him to head America’s infant navy. He ignored his orders to head to the Chesapeake Bay, and took eight merchant ships outfitted for war to the Caribbean.

He defied orders because he risked annihilation of his small fleet in the Chesapeake. Hopkins decided instead to divert the British Navy from the American coast and capture a prize.

On March 3, 1776 Esek Hopkins launched the Battle of Nassau in the first U.S. amphibious landing. Sailors and marines captured munitions and two ships, while severely injuring another. Hopkins received praise by some, condemnation by others for the bold stroke.

Esek Hopkins got no medals during the war. He had a hot temper and criticized Congress, which did not view him as one of the war’s courageous heroes. Finally, Congress relieved him of his command in July 1778.

Esek Hopkins’ home in Providence is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Willie Johnston, Derby, Vt.

Willie Johnston

Willie Johnston of Salem (now Derby), Vt., received the Medal of Honor as the youngest and one of the most courageous heroes of the Civil War.

When his father enlisted in the Union Army in December 1861, 11-year-old Willie begged to join him as a drummer boy. He mustered into the 3d Vermont Infantry Regiment on May 1, 1862, and soon saw action.

During the Seven Days Battles near Richmond, Va., the Confederate Army drove the Union Army down the Virginia peninsula. Many men threw away their guns to lighten their load while retreating. Willie hung on to his drum and brought it safely to Harrison’s Landing.

As the only drummer boy left with a drum, he was given the honor of drumming for the division parade. President Abraham Lincoln heard the story and recommended the boy receive a medal. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton presented the Medal of Honor on Feb. 15, 1864, when Willie was 13 years old – for something he did when he was 11.

Willie Johnston mustered out of the army on Dec. 30, 1864, the second-ever recipient of the Medal of Honor.

You can see Willie Johnston’s drumsticks and a photograph of him at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury. A statue of him stands in Santa Clarita, Calif., and a book, Mr. Lincoln’s Drummer, came out in 1995.

0 comment 796 views

Captain Gideon Olmsted Fights the American Revolution – For 30 Years

Gideon Olmsted, a Connecticut sea captain, departed Hartford and put to sea in December 1777 with a cargo of horses, onions, tobacco, barrel hoops and bricks. He sailed his ship, the Seaflower, to Guadaloupe. There he off-loaded his wares and took on a cargo of molasses, coffee, tea and salt. But on his return trip to Connecticut, in April of 1778, the British warship Weir seized the Seaflower.

Gideon Olmsted as an old man

The capture of Olmsted’s vessel would lead to bloody battles at sea, near-civil war in Pennsylvania, a 32-year legal fight and the publication of a long-lost journal by Olmsted’s great nephew, Frederick Law Olmsted.

It also resulted in a landmark legal victory that established the authority of the Constitution of the United States.

Gideon Olmsted

He was born on Feb. 12, 1749, in East Hartford. His ancestors had arrived with the dissident Puritans led by Thomas Hooker. Olmsted grew up on his father’s farm, but he found the ships plying Hartford’s crowded waterfront more interesting than agriculture.

He shipped out to sea at age 20 as an apprentice seaman. For the next five years he sailed merchant ships between the West Indies and Connecticut. Then soon after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he and his brothers joined the 50-man East Hartford militia and marched to Boston. When the British evacuated, he went home and started looking for a ship.

In July 1776, he bought a one-third share in the Seaflower, a 75-ton sloop. But that’s all he and his partner could afford. The Seaflower, with no cannon, made an easy target.

The Continental sloop Providence.

Prisoner and Privateer

After the British seized Seaflower, they held Olmsted and his crew on board ships and took them to Jamaica. After a short stay in a jail, Olmsted was released at liberty. His captors had taken all his valuables and left him with only the clothes on his back.

Interior of a British prison ship

He signed onto a privateer, the 200-ton Polly, as captain. Four days after setting sail from Port-au-Prince, he encountered the Royal Navy’s Ostrich, a vessel closely matched in size, cannon and crew. After a battle in which Olmsted lost half his men, he prevailed. But just as he was about to take Ostrich as a prize, another British warship sailed into view and opened fire.

Once again, Olmsted found himself in a British dungeon in Montego Bay. It was not a good place to be, as more American soldiers died in British prisons than in battle during the revolutionary war.

Montego Bay around 1820

Impressed Into Service

In August 1778 Olmsted was put aboard the British merchant vessel Active, along with three other prisoners. The British had learned that Olmsted had often navigated the dangerous waters off the Bahamas and thought he could prove useful.

They set sail for New York from Haiti under Capt. John Underwood in a convoy bringing supplies to loyalists and British troops. The Active had the protection of a 20-gun British vessel, Glasgow, and two warships. Also in the convoy was the Seaflower, sailing for New York under its new British captain.

The Active made its way up the Atlantic Coast, approaching the Virginia shore. A friendly British privateer with 16 guns pulled alongside the Active with a dire warning. The British had left Philadelphia and the waters around the city teemed with American privateers.

Captain Underwood of the Active adjusted his course to sail well east of the coast, working north off New Jersey. Another British ship pulled alongside the Active. Its captain had more bad news. All along New Jersey, the American privateers had control of the waters.

If the Active saw any sail at all, the captain could be certain it was an unfriendly privateer because the British had blocked any vessels from leaving New York harbor. Further, he warned, an encounter with a British warship would prove equally unfriendly. The British were capturing any seamen they found and pressing them into service aboard British vessels.

Line engraving depicting the Active hove to with a fishing vessel port side of its bow. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.

Victory for Gideon Olmsted

The captain of the Active adjusted course once again. He would try to reach Long Island. On deck, he mounted two small guns that he would use if small boats tried harassing him. Musket shot was brought to the deck to be ready for any fight.

Knowing they sailed in friendly waters, Olmsted and his fellow American crew members hatched a plan. The following night, as the watch changed over at midnight, the Americans put their plan in action to capture the Active. They tightly secured the companionway, sealing the captain inside. The men had assumed that there were no usable weapons below deck. They were wrong.

A standoff followed. The captain and remaining crew fired from below deck attempting to kill Olmsted and his men. They also jammed the vessel’s rudder, restricting the ship’s movements. Captain Underwood threatened to blow up the ship’s gunpowder and send everyone to the bottom. “Do it and be damned,” shouted Olmsted.

Olmsted and his men, meanwhile, worked to seal off the cabin completely. The British melted spoons for shot, and the captain kept up his firing. Olmsted was hit in the leg. Finally, Olmsted’s men fired grapeshot with one of the small cannon into the cabin. That brought the fighting to an end. The ship’s captain agreed to cease hostilities and freed up the rudder, with promises from Olmsted to harm no one.

With that, Olmsted set course for Egg Harbor, N.J. But before he could bring the ship in, it was waylaid by an American privateer, the Convention, from Pennsylvania. Olmsted tried to convince the captain of the Convention that he should pursue the Seaflower and her rich cargo, bound for New York.

Philadelphia Bound

But the Pennsylvania captain had other plans. The Active, he said, was now his prize because Olmsted was acting without commission and thus could not legally seize the vessel. Unswayed by any arguments, the Convention led the Active toward Philadelphia.

As soon as he got off the ship, Olmsted sought out Benedict Arnold, American military commander at Philadelphia. He then explained to Arnold, a fellow Connecticut sailor, what had happened. Arnold assured Olmsted that he should have the Active as his prize, because he was acted under orders of the Continental Congress.

Benedict Arnold

The Philadelphia Court of Admiralty didn’t agree with Arnold’s interpretation. The court ordered that the proceeds from the sale of the Active should be divided. Olmsted and his fellow crew members would receive one quarter of the money. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the owners of the Convention, and another vessel that was sailing in support of the Convention, would divide the remainder.

Olmsted and his compatriots were due roughly $24,000. A healthy sum. But Olmsted rejected the offer and appealed to the Congress itself for justice. Congress did, in fact, side with Olmsted. But it would take 30 more years before he received his money.

The Nearly Endless Court Battle

Pennsylvania argued that Congress did not have authority to overrule a state court. Congress, meanwhile, needed Pennsylvania’s support for the Revolutionary War. It was reluctant to press the point.

Olmsted pursued his prize for decades. Finally, in 1809, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Olmsted’s favor. The landmark ruling established the supremacy of federal courts. The win, though, was somewhat of a pyrrhic victory. By the time Olmsted received payment, he was 84 and the value of the Active was adjudged to be just $27,000 in total. Deducting his legal fees, Olmsted made little for the capture of the Active.

John Marshall by Henry Inman

The case, however, was a victory for the U.S. Supreme Court over the state courts. Chief Justice John Marshall read the opinion.

If the legislature of the several states may at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery, and the nation is deprived of the means of enforcing its laws by the instrumentality of its own tribunals.

By then, the claimant who held Olmsted’s share had died, and his two daughters named executrixes of his estate. The high court ordered them to give Gideon Olmsted his money. The governor of Pennsylvania then called out the militia to prevent the court order from being carried out.

In March of 1809, the federal marshal, John Smith, tried to serve the women. He met the militia’s resistance at their house. So he went back and assembled a posse of 2,000 men. After broadcasting the incorrect date on which he intended to serve them again, he and his men sneaked past the militia and arrested the two women. The Pennsylvania Legislature then caved and ordered the militia back home.

Gideon Olmsted Rediscovered

After the Civil War, Supreme Court Justice Stanley Matthews gave an address to Yale Law School in which he explained the importance of the Olmsted case. “This appears to have been the first case in which the supremacy of the Constitution was enforced by judicial tribunals against the assertion of state authority,” he said.

Gideon Olmsted by then had faded into obscurity — until the discovery of his journal in his great-nephew’s papers. The Library of Congress published his journal in 1979.

Thanks to: The Journal of Gideon Olmsted. Also Treacy, Kenneth W. “The Olmstead Case, 1778-1809.” The Western Political Quarterly 10, no. 3 (1957): 675–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/443540. And A Privateer’s Tale: From Cannon Fire To Courtroom by Edmund H. Mahony, Hartford Courant, May 30, 2014.

Image of Continental sloop By U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Painting in oils by W. Nowland Van Powell – Naval Historical Center Photo # NH 85201-KN (color), CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9103147.

This story last updated in 2022.

0 comment 2.9K views

The Capture of Nathan Hale, a Hidden History Surfaces After 224 Years

More than two centuries after Nathan Hale was hanged, a sharp-eyed librarian discovered the hidden truth about his capture.

Nathan Hale has long been a legend, the martyred hero of the American Revolution. Librarian James Hutson found out that another legendary American tricked Hale into revealing his spy mission.

Nathan Hale by Bela Pratt (Washington, D.C.)

Hutson in 2000 was chief of the manuscript division of the Library of Congress when the library received an unexpected gem: a history of the American Revolution written by a Connecticut Loyalist, Consider Tiffany. The Tiffany family had held the manuscript for generations when G. Bradford Tiffany donated it to the Library of Congress.

And in that manuscript James Hutson learned that none other than Robert Rogers captured Nathan Hale.

Robert Rogers

Robert Rogers was an Indian fighter well known to this day for his daring exploits as commander of Rogers Rangers. Described as ‘subtil and deep as hell itself,’ Rogers was a master of deceptions and ambushes.

The U.S. Army Rangers adopted his rules for guerilla warfare. Kenneth Roberts celebrated Rogers in his novel, Northwest Passage, later made into a film starring Spencer Tracy.

Gen. Thomas Gage

Some people, like Thomas Gage, couldn’t stand Robert Rogers. He gambled and sold himself out as a soldier. After the French and Indian War ended, Rogers was tried for treason, but exonerated.

He ran up debts from his gambling and landed in prison. After his release he went to London to capitalize on his fame. Then in 1775 he returned to America, looking to sell his services to the highest bidder.

What Might Have Been

If George Washington hadn’t avoided Robert Rogers, Nathan Hale might have survived the war. Hale and Rogers were both in the Boston area during the Siege of Boston.

Rogers was staying in Medford, Mass., 20-odd miles from his birthplace.

Hale served with Connecticut forces besieging Boston. He befriended Washington’s comrades Israel Putnam and Charles Lee.

Rogers tried to get an appointment with Washington at his headquarters in Cambridge. Washington kept his distance and asked Gen. John Sullivan to interview Rogers in Medford. Sullivan talked to the guerilla fighter twice and advised Washington to shun him.

Rogers eventually ended up with the British fleet off the Long Island coast, because British Gen. William Howe commissioned him to raise a battalion of rangers.

Nathan Hale, Miscast Spy

Historians conclude it was folly to send Nathan Hale to Long Island on a spy mission.

First of all, he came from Connecticut. Many Connecticut Loyalists had fled the rebel government or wanted to fight for the British. Connecticut Tory Moses Dunbar, for example, went to the gallows after signing up with the British army on Long Island.

Secondly, Nathan Hale had a Loyalist cousin, Samuel Hale, who served as a soldier with General William Howe’s forces in the New York area.

Thirdly, Hale stood out in a crowd because of his unusual height and his face scarred by gunpowder burns.

Finally, Nathan Hale was a rank amateur. He knew nothing about espionage, had no training, no code words, no secret ink. He simply went as a sacrificial lamb to a place where a Loyalist would likely recognize him.

Consider Tiffany

Consider Tiffany was a storekeeper in Barkhamsted, Conn., and a feisty Loyalist. He spent 15 months under house arrest. During, or soon after, the American Revolution, Tiffany wrote a history of the war that he never published.

The Library of Congress wanted to acquire the manuscript, wrote Hutson. That’s because no good New England Tory histories exist describing the American Revolutionary period.

About Nathan Hale, historians had ‘very few nuggets of hard intelligence and a great deal of … outright speculation,’ according to Maj. Gen. E.R. Thompson, an intelligence historian.

Nathan Hale, illustration, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

All that was certain was that Nathan Hale went ashore on Long Island sometime in mid-September 1776 and disappeared. And three nuggets of information:

An orderly book reported Hale was apprehended Sept. 21, confessed and was hanged on Sept. 22nd at 11 a.m.
A diary entry by British Lt. Frederick Mackenzie reported on the capture of Hale on Long Island.
A diary entry by Capt. William Bamford of the 40th Regiment of Foot, which surfaced in 1933, reported Maj. Rogers took Nathan Hale.

Also, Robert Rogers and his men hovered off the coast of western Long Island in 1776 from September 16 to 21, according to the log of the Halifax.

Capture of Nathan Hale

According to Tiffany, Rogers knew American spies on Long Island had a mission to learn if the Long Islanders sympathized with the patriots.

Robert Rogers (artist conception)

Rogers kept an eye on Hale, thinking him an enemy in disguise. Rogers put on his own disguise and visited Hale in his quarters. Then he told Hale he was troubled at being stuck on Long Island, where the inhabitants sided with the British. He suggested he wanted to spy on British troop movements.

The hapless Hale believed Rogers, his new best friend, and invited him to have dinner with him the next day. They met in a tavern, where Rogers brought three or four men who also pretended interest in spying for the Americans. As they talked, a company of soldiers surrounded the house and seized Hale. Hale denied his identity, but several Connecticut Loyalists recognized him. The British hanged him immediately without a trial.

So goes Consider Tiffany’s account of Nathan Hale’s capture. But should we believe it?

Wrote Hutson, it ‘fits the facts as we know them so well that one is tempted to accept it as being substantially true.’

This story about Nathan Hale was updated in 2023.

8 comments 6.2K views

Joseph Warren, The Patriot Who Might Have Made Us Forget George Washington

Joseph Warren, say some today, would have been the first president of the United States had he not been killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Joseph Warren about 1765, by John Singleton Copley

Had Warren lived, said Loyalist Peter Oliver in 1782, George Washington would have been ‘an obscurity.’

British Gen. Thomas Gage said the death of Joseph Warren was ‘worth the death of 500 men.’

Counties in 14 states bear the name of Joseph Warren, as do four towns in New England (New Hampshire and Rhode Island each have a Warren named after Sir Peter). Five ships were named after him, four statues bearing his likeness are on display and a street in Detroit is named ‘Warren Avenue.’

So what was so special about Joseph Warren?

Joseph Warren

Unlike John Hancock, Joseph Warren didn’t have a wealthy uncle who took him under his wing when his father died. But Joseph Warren was ambitious, both for wealth and for glory.

He had taken to heart the words of his father: “I would rather a son of mine were dead than a coward.”

Joseph Warren was just 14 and about to enter Harvard in 1755 when his father was killed falling off a ladder while picking apples. His mother, Mary Stevens Warren, mortgaged the farm to send him to Harvard, though she probably could have used more of his help to run it.

After graduating from Harvard, he married a 17-year-old heiress, Elizabeth Hooten, in 1764. She died eight years later, leaving him with two young sons and two young daughters.

Joseph Warren became the youngest doctor in Boston and one of the best, with a stellar list of clients including Sam Adams, John Hancock, John Adams and his family. He saved 7-year-old John Quincy Adams’ finger from amputation.

Paul Revere

Warren also had Loyalist patients: the children of Thomas Hutchinson, British Gen. Thomas Gage and his wife Margaret. After his wife died, Joseph Warren is believed by some to have had an affair with Margaret Gage. She may have tipped him off about the British plans to raid Concord and arrest Hancock and Adams.

It was Joseph Warren who enlisted Paul Revere and William Dawes to spread the alarm on April 19, 1775.

Most Influential Patriot

Of Joseph Warren, military historian Ethan Rafuse wrote, “No man, with the possible exception of Samuel Adams, did so much to bring about the rise of a movement powerful enough to lead the people of Massachusetts to revolution.”

The Old South Meeting House in 1898

Joseph Warren was gregarious, charming and a powerful speaker who enlisted in the patriot cause. He became Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew when Paul Revere was the secretary. He was also a member of the Sons of Liberty, and he tried to save Christopher Seider, the young boy killed in 1770 by British soldiers.

To commemorate the second anniversary of the Boston Massacre, he delivered a speech at the Old South Meeting House while wearing a toga.

In the fall of 1774, Joseph Warren wrote the Suffolk Resolves, which supported a boycott of British goods and urged armed resistance to the British.

By the first months of 1775 he was the most influential patriot leader in Massachusetts. Hancock and the Adamses were in Philadelphia attending the Second Continental Congress, and Warren, just 33, was the president of the Provincial Congress – Massachusetts’ shadow government.

Bunker Hill

The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull.

Joseph Warren belonged to the Committee of Safety. He had made sure powder and arms were stored in towns throughout Massachusetts. He also tried to organize Massachusetts’ fighting forces into an ‘army of observation,’ and he propagandized so they’d be willing to fight.

On the day of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he sneaked out of Boston and led militia in harassing the British returning to the city. He then returned to Boston, where he organized soldiers for the siege of Boston and negotiated with Gage.

Joseph Warren Dies in the Battle of Bunker Hill

On June 13, colonial leaders learned the British planned to send troops to take the unoccupied hills surrounding the besieged city. That night, 1,200 colonial troops stealthily occupied Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill and built an earthworks.

Warren had been commissioned a major general in the Massachusetts militia. However, he insisted on fighting as a private in the thick of the battle. He asked Gen. Israel Putnam where the heaviest fighting would be.

Joseph Warren conferring with Israel Putnam before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

During the battle he fought behind the earthworks until the patriots exhausted their ammunition. He stayed there to give the militia time to escape while the British made their final assault. A British officer then recognized him and shot him in the head. He died instantly, six days after his 34^th birthday.

The British stripped his body and stabbed it beyond recognition, then threw him into a shallow grave with another patriot killed in the battle. Paul Revere later identified his body.

The day after the battle, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband:

I have just heard that our dear Friend Dr. Warren is no more but fell gloriously fighting for his Country-saying better to die honourably in the field than ignominiously hang upon the Gallows. Great is our Loss. He has distinguished himself in every engagement, by his courage and fortitude, by animating the Soldiers & leading them on by his own example.

More on that Battle

Interested in the Battle of Bunker Hill? You might want to read what it was like for Abigail Adams and her young son to watch it from 10 miles away.

Many others watched the battle from hills and rooftops, including this 10-year-old Loyalist who told her granddaughter what it was like.

Or you might want to read about the printer’s apprentice who spent 107 days in a British prison for cheering the patriot side while watching the battle.

The most detailed account of the battle came from someone who fought in it: a private named Peter Brown who enlisted after he heard the news of Lexington and Concord. The British, he wrote, got a ‘choaky mouthful.’

The news about the Battle of Bunker Hill threw the surrounding towns into a panic. Read the first-person account of a Salem doctor who thought the British had reached the next town.

Here is a more detailed description of the death of Joseph Warren.

Paul Revere was a man of many talents. He became the first odontologist when he identified the Warren’s body nine months after the battle ended.

This story was updated in 2023.

5 comments 4.1K views

How the Daughters of Liberty Fought for Independence

On August 14, 1768, the Daughters of Liberty cheered from windows as the Sons of Liberty paraded through Boston to commemorate their riots against colonial officials three years earlier.

They were far more than cheerleaders, though they did rally the men in Newport, R.I., to steer clear of taverns selling English whiskey. The women organized boycotts of British goods, especially tea, and they manufactured replacement products, especially cloth. They pressured men to embrace the patriot cause, refusing to date anyone unwilling to risk life and property for freedom. Some even took on dangerous military missions.

The Daughters of Liberty, though not as celebrated as the Sons, were crucial to the cause of liberty in the run-up to the American Revolution.

“With ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble,” Samuel Adams said.

Daughters of Liberty

The Daughters of Liberty didn’t always organize and people didn’t always call them the Daughters of Liberty. Some newspapers called them ‘Daughters of Industry’ or ‘noble-hearted nymphs.’

Abigail Adams, 1766 (Benjamin Blythe)

Abigail Adams is often linked with the Daughters of Liberty, though she wasn’t a card-carrying member. So are Deborah Sampson and Prudence Cummings Wright. Sampson dressed as a man and joined the Continental Army, while Wright led a group of women in capturing two British spies. Sarah Bradlee Fulton, a card-carrying Daughter of Liberty, was the ‘mother of the Boston Tea Party’ and spied for George Washington.

Well before the Revolution, though, the ladies formed chapters throughout New England to free themselves from British economic tyranny. The ladies equated political independence with economic independence.

A Daughters of Liberty chapter branched off from the Sons of Liberty in Providence in 1766, followed in Rhode Island in East Greenwich and Newport.

Parliament unintentionally provoked more resistance among the colonial women when it passed the Townshend Acts in 1767, taxing imports of British glass, lead, paints, paper and tea.

In Massachusetts, there were 300 daughters of Liberty in Boston by February 1770; they were also in Beverly, Byfield, Ipswich, Newbury, Rowley and Salisbury.

Spinning for Freedom

From early in 1766 to about 1771, spinning bees were all the rage in New England. Women wanted independence from British textile manufacturers, and started making their own cloth. Homespun became the politically correct fashion item.

On April 7, 1766, the Boston Gazette reported 18 daughters of liberty gathered at the house of Dr. Ephraim Brown. “There they exhibited a fine example of industry, by spinning from sunrise until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking country, rarely to be found among persons of more age and experience,” reported the newspaper.

Spinning for freedom

Newspapers continued to report on the smallest cloth-making development.

Spinning schools were revived and awards were offered for the person who wove the most cloth. A woman raised 6,000 silk balls from a single mulberry tree in Windham, Conn. A 70-year-old woman in Newport, R.I., learned to spin for the first time. In February 1769, two Connecticut women held an all-day spinning contest in which the winner spun seven skeins and two knots of fine linen yarn, just a little more than her competitor.

Women began gathering in large groups, often at ministers’ homes, along the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. For 32 months starting in March 1768, more than 60 spinning meetings were held from Harpswell, Maine, to Huntington, Long Island.

“I presume there never was a Time when, or a Place where, the Spinning wheel could more influence the Affairs of men, than at present, in this and the neighbouring colonies,” wrote one contemporary writer in the newspaper series, A Journal of the Time.

The boycott worked: The value of imported goods from Great Britain fell by half in 1769 over the previous year, from 420,000 to 208,000 pounds.

Sarah Bradlee Fulton

In 1770, Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea. The Daughters of Liberty had already pledged not to drink the stuff. They made ‘liberty tea’ from currant and raspberry, basil, mint, even birch bark.

Then the Tea Act of 1773 gave a virtual monopoly on tea to the floundering Dutch East India Company. It also inspired the Boston Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party

Sarah Bradlee Fulton was a Medford, Mass., housewife and leader of the Daughters of Liberty.

She is credited with the idea of disguising the men who dumped the tea into Boston Harbor as Mohawk Indians. She painted their faces and found Native American clothing for them. After the Tea Party, the men returned to her home to clean off the paint and get rid of their disguises.

When war broke out, the Daughters of Liberty melted metal for bullets and sewed soldiers’ uniforms. Fulton organized women to nurse soldiers wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill. She also served as one of George Washington’s spies.

During the siege of Boston, Maj. John Brooks had important dispatches to send from Medford to Washington. Fulton volunteered, thinking the British wouldn’t suspect a woman of spying. She walked across enemy lines at night, rowed to Charleston and delivered the message.

Sarah Bradlee Fulton died in 1835, and 65 years later a memorial stone was placed at the Salem Street Burying Ground in Medford.

This story was updated in 2022.

2 comments 6.6K views

Newer Posts

Older Posts