Fusiliers (56 page)

19 ‘
redcoats of Major John
Pitcairn’s
battalion
’: the early Lexington section of this narrative is based on
The British in Boston, Being the Diary of
Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment
, edited by Elizabeth Ellery Dana, Cambridge
MA
1924;
Transactions of the British Troops
previous to, and at the Battle of Lexington
[of Captain Brown, 52nd, and Ensign de Berniere, 10th],
Massachusetts Historical Society Collections
, series 2, vol. 4, 1816; ‘Statement of Lt Edward Thoroton Gould, 4th Regiment’, in
The Public Advertiser
, Lexington, 25 April 1775;
Concord Fight
, Ensign Jeremy Lister, Cambridge Mass 1931 (Lister was another officer of the 10th, he was wounded); Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, letter to Major Robert Donkin, 8 October 1775, in Thomas Gage papers, wlcl.

— ‘
Disperse! Disperse you damned rebels!
’: variations on these words appear in numerous accounts, including de Berniere. Allen French,
The Day of
Lexington and Concord
, Boston 1925, is a rounded account based on many sources, but a particularly useful compilation of the American ones, which agree that Parker’s company had begun to disperse when trouble started.

20 ‘
many redcoats started shouting and cheering
’: the circumstances of how the ‘Shot Heard Around the World’ came to be fired were the subject of intense debate at the time and subsequently. Many statements were taken by American observers with the intention of proving that the British fired first. The idea that a rush forward by shouting British troops may have triggered a panic response by one or more militia seems the most convincing to me, and is supported by Gould, Barker and de Berniere’s accounts. No British officer accepted that the redcoats fired first at Lexington and since observers like Barker were quite happy to concede, for example, that the British fired first at Concord’s north bridge, triggering the battle to get under way in earnest, I am inclined to believe them.

— ‘
Finding the Rebels
scamping
off
’: Smith’s letter to Donkin, above.

— ‘
the men were so wild they could hear no orders
’: Barker.

21 ‘
Three companies from
Pitcairn’s
battalion
’: details of the arrangements in Concord come from Barker, de Berniere, French and the account of ‘an officer of one of the flank companies’ appended to Mackenzie’s
British
Fusilier
. It is likely that these notes saved by Mackenzie belonged to an officer of one of the grenadier companies. An anonymous account of events in Concord, to be assumed by another officer of Smith’s force, was published in
Scots Magazine
, June 1775 issue, and contains much interesting detail, including some about the later discovery of the scalped soldier.

23 ‘
they had taken up some of the planks of the bridge
’: de Berniere, who was an officer in the 10th Regiment light company with Parsons’s column.

24 ‘
They hardly ever fired but under cover
’: Mackenzie, describing, presumably the later sniping on the road back to Boston, but a concise description equally applicable here.

— ‘
We at first kept our order
’: de Berniere.

— ‘
We had been flattered ever since the morning
’: Barker.

— ‘
We began to run rather than retreat in order
’: de Berniere.

— ‘
critical situation
’: Barker.

— ‘
if they advanced they should die
’: a hair-raising moment from de Berniere’s narrative, not explicitly endorsed by others, but with various writers describing the panic and lack of order.

25 ‘
we were ordered to form the line
’: Mackenzie,
British Fusilier
.

— ‘
saving them from inevitable destruction
’: Percy’s description is in Bolton.

27 ‘
We were now obliged to force almost every house
’: Barker. Other officers such as Mackenzie and de Berniere also describe the breaking into houses and theft.

— ‘
issued with only thirty-six rounds each
’: Percy mentions the number of musket rounds per man; the number of artillery rounds is mentioned in a letter of Lord Rawdon’s of 3 August 1775, found in
HMC, Report on the
Manuscripts of the late Reginald Rawdon Hastings
, edited by Francis Bickley, HMSO 1934.

— ‘
In the village of Menotomy
’: several diarists mention fighting in Menotomy and several list the wounded, but only de Berniere among those I consulted helpfully notes where during the fighting each officer was wounded.

28 ‘
they did everything possible to help them back across the bay
’: de Berniere.

— ‘
As for British losses overall
’: I have used Mackenzie’s figures although there are some discrepancies and his were higher than those in the official account. French is the best guide to American casualties.

29 ‘
William Gordon, minister of the Congregational Church
’: his account in the
Journal of American History
, vol. 4, January–March 1910.

— ‘
They pillaged almost every house
’: the
Essex Gazette
account was reprinted in
Scots Magazine
, May 1775 issue.

— ‘
as ill planned and as ill executed
’: Barker.

31 ‘
taking post at Boston
’:
The Journal of Captain John Montresor
, New-York Historical Society Collections, 1881.

— ‘
men still lost in a sort of stupefaction
’: Burgoyne’s letter of 25 May 1775 printed in
Political and Military Episodes in the Latter Half of the
Eighteenth Century Derived from the Life and Correspondence of The Right
Hon. John Burgoyne, General, Statesman, Dramatist
by Edward Barrington De Fonblanque, Macmillan and Co., London 1876.

32 ‘
when troops see others advance
’:
A Treatise of Military Discipline: In
which is Laid down and Explained The Duty of the Officer and Soldier,
Through the several Branches of the Service
, Humphrey Bland, Lieutenant General, London 1762 edition. With regard to Bland’s influence, a letter by Evelyn notes an earnest young officer in Boston being teased as ‘Humphrey Bland’ and some of William Howe’s orders about attacking and using the bayonet.

33 ‘
instantly determined
’: Howe in a letter of 22 June 1775, assumed to be to the Adjutant General, in
The Correspondence of King George the Third,
From 1760 to 1783
, arranged and edited by the Hon. Sir John Fortescue, 6 vols, London 1928. This work also contains a memorandum of 12 June that sets out the strategy to be followed in attacking the Americans and Gage’s prior fears that his troops might be massacred by the inhabitants.

34 ‘
Thomas Mecan joined the boats in command
’: this is revealed in his memorial to Gage of 19 June 1775 in the Gage Papers,
WLCL
. The other officers’ names all appear on the casualty returns
IN TNA: PRO CO
5 papers and an interest handwritten note of the 23rd’s casualties that day is found on the War Office copy of the Army List at
TNA
.

— ‘
It certainly occurred to some
’: Henry Clinton for example, in a handwritten note in his papers, claimed to have suggested it at the meeting and is cited by Allen French in
The First Years of the American Revolution
, New York 1934. William B. Willcox, editor of Clinton’s private memoir,
The American
Rebellion
, Hamden
CT
1971, takes issue with some of French’s interpretations of Clinton’s difficult handwriting.

35 ‘
flower of the army
’: the phrase is used in a letter of 27 June 1775 by Charles Stuart (then a captain commanding the grenadiers of the 37th) to his father in
A Prime Minister and His Son From the Correspondence of the
3rd Earl of Bute and of Lt General The Hon. Sir Charles Bute
, edited by the Hon Mrs E. Stuart Wortley, London 1925.

— ‘
a strike force under the hand of Major General William Howe
’: many of the details in this narrative, for example of the 2 p.m. landing or the number of troops in the first wave of boats, or the distances used in Howe’s appreciation of the ground, come from two private letters written by Howe after the battle, one on 22 June to his brother Admiral Lord Howe, which is in
HMC, Reports on the Manuscripts of Mrs Stopford-Sackville of
Drayton
House Northamptonshire
, vol. II (London 1910). Howe’s other letter, in Fortescue, was written on the same date and is thought to have been sent to the Adjutant General in London.

37 ‘
When we saw our danger
’: Brown’s letter to his mother is dated 25 June and has been reproduced in various publications of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

— ‘
The veteran and gallant Stark
’: this comes from Henry Dearborn’s account in
History of the Battle of
Breed’s
Hill, by Major Generals William Heath,
Henry Lee, James Wilkinson and Henry Dearborn
, compiled by Charles Coffin, Portland 1835.

38 ‘
take them in the flank
’: Howe’s letter to his brother.

— ‘
Push on! Push on!
’: this detail comes from Rawdon’s letter of 20 June to his uncle, in Bickley.

38 ‘
his men were directed to reserve their fires
’: James Wilkinson in Coffin.

— ‘
began firing, and by crowding fell into disorder
’: Howe’s letter in Fortescue.

— ‘
received a volley which mowed down the whole front ranks
’: Wilkinson in Coffin.

39 ‘a moment that I never felt before’: (emphasis in original) Howe in Fortescue.

— ‘
The officer commanding the grenadier battalion and many of its men were
thus killed by British fire
’: Rawdon talks about redcoats being killed by their own side in his account, but the key source is Brigadier James Grant (who arrived in Boston after the battle); he reported to General Harvey in a letter of 10 August 1775 that ‘poor Abercrombie was killed by our own men, and many of the grenadiers under his command fell by the fire of the light infantry’,
NAS GD
494/1/29.

— ‘
Our men were intent on cutting down every officer
’: Dearborn in Coffin.

— ‘
Around two-thirds of the Welch Fusiliers engaged
’: the casualty figures are taken from the annotated Army List at tna; the figure of five grenadiers being fit at the end comes from
Historical Record of the Twenty Third Regiment,
or Royal Welch Fusiliers
, compiled by Richard Cannon, London 1850.

— ‘
The fire of the enemy was so badly directed
’: Dearborn in Coffin.

40 ‘
prospect of the neighbouring hills
’: Burgoyne’s letter to Lord Stanley, in De Fonblanque.

41 ‘
Brown wanted court martial and the death sentence
’: in fact a letter of George Washington’s of 20 July 1775 suggested that the artillery officer concerned, Captain Callender, be cashiered. It is in vol. 3 of
The Writings of
George Washington
(39 vols, ed. by John C. Fitzpatrick, Washington, 1931–34).

— ‘
retreating, seemingly without any excuse
’: Chester’s account is in French’s book of 1934.

— ‘
Finding our ammunition was almost spent
’: Prescott’s letter to John Adams, 25 August 1775 is in various Massachusets Historical Society publications, as is Lieutenant Waller’s.

42 ‘
One officer of the 52nd explained
’: Martin Hunter of the grenadier company in
The Journal of Gen. Sir Martin Hunter
by Miss A. Hunter (The Edinburgh Press, Edinburgh 1894). He also described the mixed-up units in front of the rail fence and Rawdon’s bravery in front of the breastwork.

— ‘
Captain Harris of the 5th
’: Harris letter in Lushington.

43 ‘
to let those damned rascals see that the
Yankees
will fight
’: Warren’s words were reported by Wilkinson (as he heard it from Prescott) in Coffin.

— ‘
this unhappy day
’: Howe in Fortescue.

— ‘
All was in confusion
’: Clinton’s note as quoted by French,
The First Years
of the American Revolution
.

44 ‘
As I am certain that every letter from America
’: Rawdon’s letter of 3August 1775 to his uncle, full of wise reflections for a man of 21, also in Bickley.

— ‘
The zeal and intrepidity of the officers
’: great wisdom from Burgoyne too in this letter of late June to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in De Fonblanque.

45 ‘
the Americans, if they are equally well commanded
’: an interesting letter from an anonymous officer reproduced in
The Services of Lieutenant
Colonel Francis Downman, RA
, edited by Colonel F. A. Whinyates, printed by Royal Artillery Institution 1898.

45 ‘
The Welch
Fuzileers
were nearly all cut off
’: I have found this dispatch in a few newspapers including the
Boston Gazette
of 26 June and
Massachusetts
Spy
of the same date.

46 ‘
The events of that day made several vacant companies
’: Mecan’s memo of 19 June to Gage,
WLCL
.

— ‘
do everything that he can to contribute to the happiness of deserving
officers
’: General Amherst to Mecan, 13 October 1775,
TNA: PRO WO
3/23.

— ‘
Lord Rawdon behaved to a charm
’: the full Burgoyne letter to his wife is in De Fonblanque, but sections were published, for example in
Scots Magazine
, August 1775.

— ‘
Mecan was given several assignments by the general
’: see Howe’s Orderly Book,
TNA: PRO
30/55/106.

47 ‘
been entirely set aside
’: Howe in Fortescue.