To the victor - The spoils

Ft. Ticonderoga as seen from Mount Defiance

With a commission from Congress, the enthusiastic and patriotic Arnold began his trip north toward Ticonderoga. He stopped in as many towns as he could trying to drum up enlistees for the attack on the British Arsenal. His hopes were to attract enough men to be a formidable force once the fort was taken and that he would retain his commission as their Brigadier General for the rest of the war. Arnolds hopes were high and his zeal for the patriot cause was only to be rivaled by that of General George Washington. Arnold found gathering recruits difficult, however, as many of the towns and cities stopped in had already sent many men to join up with the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief.




En route to Ticonderoga, Arnold received a bit of discouraging news. He was to be joined by another commander, the famous Ethan Allen. Arnold would no longer be the Brigadier to his recruits but would be co-commander of any troops raised. In truth, Allen was more veteran in both experience and rank. Allen had been fighting for years in the Vermont-New York Grants war where Allen had lead the Green Mountain Boys, a crack unit of some of the harshest and crudest mountain-men patriots the fledgling US had to offer. These men had grown up in the back woods, making their living as trappers, hunters, loggers and farmers. They were used to the territory and most had weapons that had been tested in combat against the encroaching New Yorkers. They now served the US but more importantly, they served Allen.

Flag of the Green Mountain Boys Militia

To add insult to injury, Arnold, who had hoped to recruit 400 men, arrived with himself and two other men who had set out with him. They joined ranks with Allen and a little over 100 Green Mountain Militia. Allen became the default leader of the group and Arnold knew it.

After preliminary scouting, Allen found out that the fort was garrisoned by only a handful of troops whose powder had been ruined by the heavy rainfall and whose ammunition had dwindled to shockingly low levels. He was also able to gather inteligence that the British were to be reinforced any day by a force of unknown size. The time to act was upon them. he two leaders laid out plans to assault the fort. Arnold suggested a bold attack, but was quickly countermanded by Allen who dismissed Arnold's ideas as foolish and glory seeking. They settled on their best strategy, a sneak attack on the garrison at three points along the fort.

Modern view of Ticonderoga

The plan was exicuted almost perfectly. The attack was launched mid-day just after tea time when the garrison was in the process of winding down for the day, relaxing and getting ready to change the guard. The militia poured over the walls of the fort and captured it in a bold stroke aided partly by briliant planning and partly by blind dumb luck. Upon seeing the commosion, the British commander of the fort called out "By whose authority do you enter this fort?!" to which Allen replied "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"

Within minutes the fort had been taken without a shot fired. The only recorded casualty was a slight wound suffered by an american who had tried to wrest a rifle from one of the sentries on guard duty. Quickly the fort filled with over 400 men who began looting and pilfering anything that was not bolted down. Arnold tried to stop it all and when he saw that he could not, he retired to the captain's quarters and began to write his action report. Allen, who was now seeing to the transportation of the over 30 artillery pieces entered the quarters and inquired as to the nature of the document at which Arnold was feverishly writing. When the reply came that it was an action report, Allen snatched the page, glanced over it and burned it in the fireplace declaring that it was his right, as commanding officer to detail the actions of the day. It is no doubt then, to see why Allen was hailed as the hero of Ticonderoga and Arnold was largely marginalized in the dispatches back to Congress.

This would not be the last time Arnold would be snubbed where credit was due.

Off on the wrong foot

Less than a month after the astounding victory at Lexington and Concord, the fledgling government of the Rebellious States of America found themselves faced with the painful realization that the road to independence would not be paved with hopes and good intentions. Rather that road would be one much like the British took from Concord back to Lexington, one fraught with chaos, casualties, loss depression. The truth of the matter was that this haphazard gaggle of militia, rebels and patriots was engaged in a war against the super power of its day - Britain.

The saying was that the sun never set on the British Empire and the British lived up to the Latin proverb of "Empires are not kept through timidity". Their soldiers had fought hard for years to carve out their empire at the point of sword, spear bayonet and by the flash of musket, cannon and horse hoof.

It was this ugly realization that aroused the new continental congress in the days following Lexington. They ordered a full accounting of all available stores, munitions, guns, powder, cannon and wagons. They found themselves severely wanting in all regards. Ammunition, powder and guns would be easy to come by as most of the men who had already volunteered would bring their own weapons, and what the men would not supply, the continental government would contract from some of the best gunsmiths in the world - the Quakers whose fabrication and rifling technique was begining to be duplicated in the southern colonies, could fabricate. The terrain was unforgiving to the use of cavalry who relied on large open spaces to maneuver into the flanks of the enemy, thus leaving only one issue - cannons.

Cannons were vital to any siege or defense of a city as cannons could fire heated shot* into blockading ships. They were also effective at long range engagements of tightly packed troops, the common formation of the day. The issue was that when the Americans tallied the total number of artillery in their possession, they found less than twenty pieces and only five of which were larger caliber than a 4pound gun**. 

Fort Ticonderoga

Something had to be done and the best solution is often the simplest. What do you do when you don't have something and don't have an easy way to get it? Find someone that does have it and take it from them. That someone just happened to be the British. The were the best soldiers and they knew it. This air of superiority served to be their arrogant downfall. Just across the border from modern day Vermont was a fort called Ticonderoga. The fort served as an arsenal and housed over thirty pieces of heavy artillery. The best part of the situation was that there were more cannons defending the fort than there were Red Coats.

Benedict Arnold

Ethan Allen

Congress had its desired target, all it needed was a leader for the attack and the men to carry it out. Congress appointed a young officer whose only desire was to gain fame and glory in the revolution - Benedict Arnold. Arnold was to go north and gather as many volunteers as he could, attack the fort and bring back the much needed guns to aid in the siege of Boston. Congress, however, like any true gambler, chose to hedge its bets. Why send one man with a mission when you can send two? Enter Ethan Allen - the rough-neck backwoods hero of the Hampshire Grants and veteran of the New York/Vermont boundary war and leader of the Green Mountain Boys.


Join us next week as we find how the Patriot started down the path to infamy and how the Backwoods hick became a hero.

*Heated shot was an ammunition type where gun crews would put the cannon ball into a furnace and heat it till it glowed read. The shot was then loaded into the cannon which was quickly fired at an enemy ship. The glowing shot would act as a tracer round and when it struck the ship that was highly sealed with pine tar and coated in oil to keep the wood from rotting, the round would explode into firey fragments that would send the ship up like a torch. This tactic was only employed by gun crews on the ground as no ship commander would be silly enough to allow a red hot glowing ball of death to have the possibility of slipping out of a crewman's control and rolling around a crowded gun deck.

** Cannon gun calibers were designated by the weight of the shot it fired. A 3# gun fired a cannon ball that weighted 3 pounds. A 6# gun fired a 6 pound shot and so on. While this may not seem like a large difference, the weight of the shot determined the distance the round could accurately be fired and the destructive capability the round would have when it arrived at its target. To paint the contrast, Americans were dealing with 3-6 pound guns where the British had whole batteries of 6 pound, 12 pound and 24 pound guns. To say that the Americans were out gunned would be an apropos pun.

Let it start here!" prt 2

With the first shots of the war already fired, the match of rebellion had been irrevocably laid to the powder keg that was the unrest in the colonies. Men on both sides had been killed in open conflict, now, like it or not, the colonies were in open war against the greatest military power of the time. Britain's Vietnam had begun and Concord would prove a fatal error in judgement and logistics and tactics on the part of Gage, the British commanding officer.

It was 8am when the British entered from the east of Concord, looking for militia weapon stores stored up by the rebels. The men had been marching since 8pm the night before and were in full pack and gear, weighing close to 75lbs. The men were tired and hungry as they marched into the town. They searched house to house for weapons, some men finding weapons, business end first as the residents of Concord had been warned of the British attack by Paul Revere.

In another hour, once the British realized the weapons stores had been moved, Colonial militia had formed across the river and had begun firing into the British. Colonials had been trained to aim for officers, and soon the formations of Redcoats were falling back without commanders. The British mounted an offensive and were able to control most of the important points of the town, both the bridges and the main road were under control, but soon the men ran low on ammunition. Each man had been given 36 rounds before marching, but many had fired shots at Lexington, and with their training, most would fire 3 aimed shots in a minute. This meant that in a direct fire fight, most men ran out of ammunition within 12 minutes. The fighting lasted until 11am with the British taking heavy casualties.

Exhaustion had set in and ammunition was all but expended,but the rebels still came on. The ranks began to break and the men began their 20 mile retreat back to the safety of Boston. Militia and Minutemen harassed the Redcoats all along the way, small groups popping up out of fields to fire a few rounds and disappear. Ten or twelve would pop up from behind a wall or fence, fire a volley and leave. It was a masacre, the dead littering the 5 mile path from Concord back to Lexington, some from musket ball, others from exhaustion.

When the sun set on Boston, over 300 redcoats were dead, wounded or missing in action. The colonists had lost less than a third of that number. The realization set in on the British High Command that the Colonists were not just a rag-tag group of untrained rabble that would be easily dissuaded from their rebellion with a few pounds of powder and a few musket rounds. Their resolve could not be broken even at bayonet point. One thing was clear, this only the beginning of a long and dangerous conflict.

"Let it start here!"

Many are the personalities we remember from the American revolution. We remember the founding fathers, George Washington both as the general and the eventual first president. We remember the great traitor Benedict Arnold and maybe even a few of the the English personalities. As a whole though, many people today don't remember much about what happened during that long struggle all those many years back. They don't remember that this was a war not fought by professional armies in the fields of Europe or the Jungles of Southeast Asia. This was a war on the American continent, in the backyards of the men doing the fighting. This war was fought by men with passion for freedom in their hearts and muskets in their hands. Victories were won and lost on the backs of the American fighting man, the militia and the minuteman.

Minute Man Memorial

  With the Seven years war, Stamp and Townsend acts in the past and the open wound from the Boston massacre and subsequent closure of the port still open and festering, the pot of American discontentment had begun to boil over. Boston was the hotbed and Lexington and Concord would provide the spark needed to turn the American colonists from disgruntled subjects into fighting men and women.

British Grenadiers

"The shot heard round the world" as many now call it happened late in the evening of April 18, 1775. The British were moored in Boston Harbor and had received word that the Colonials had been stockpiling a cache of weapons, powder, ammunition and cannons at Concord. It was a target that Gage, the commanding officer could not pass up. At 8pm, Gage mobilized his troops and gave them marching orders to Concord - a destination of some 20 miles distant. The officers were informed of the target but the men were not told anything. They knew there was a high chance of contact with rebel elements, though no one expected the rabble to be stupid enough to attack the most professionally trained army on earth.

Advanced elements were made up of Light infantry (marksmen) and Grenadiers (Heavy, strong and tall troops) under the command of John Pitcairn. They marched with their heavy packs from Boston to Lexington where they arrived at around 5am, having marched all night long. 77 militiamen under the command of Veteran John Parker who told his men through his rough tuberculosis ridden voice told his men
"Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

"Let it start here!"

Over 350 Redcoats were assembled on Lexington Green with the rag-tag militia assembled on the opposite end, less than 100 paces distant. A single shot fired. Some sources credit it coming from a rooftop, others claim it was fired from behind a wall on the common. What all sources agree upon is the fact that it was neither the British nor the Militia on the Green that fired the opening shot. What they also agree is that the next shot came from the British infantry. The first volley wounding 7 men and killing the first official recorded KIA of the conflict - Prince Estabrook, a black slave, serving in place of his master.

Estabrook Memorial

After the initial volley, the British troops broke rank and charged the Americans with their bayonets. The colonists let out a volley that felled a few troops before their lines broke and fled. It would be another hour before the British troops were recalled and reformed to continue their march on to Concord.

More next week!

"Just Infantry, Poor Beggars"

At 18 years old I was not the smartest person. I didn't make the best life choices, but none of my choices precipitated a revolution. The poor souls we met last week were not much older when their actions were borne onto the world's stage, their every act under intense scrutiny.

These boys were young, not liked and above all, not in their native land. They were not surrounded by their countrymen, but a whole city of angry colonists crying for their blood to run in the streets. They were scared and no one wanted to help them. They were the "Lobsterbacks" the "Red Coats", in short, the enemy. The war for America's independence had not officially begun, but one of its first battles was about to begin in a courtroom in Boston Proper. Their only advocate was a man dedicated to the preservation of liberty at all costs, John Adams.

John Adams, the "younger years"

Adams was a young lawyer who had struggled to make a living. He knew that by taking this case, he was not only subjecting himself to peril from the incensed city, but his law practice and his family would also be thrown into the hazard. The gamble for the lives of 8 lowly infantrymen had begun.

The prosecutors started their case, painting the gory picture of 5 patriots, innocent and harmless men, killed in that cobbled square. They presented evidence of the British troops harassing the "peaceful" assembly of colonists, attempting to rile the crowd to violence with murderous intent. The whole city's rage was kindled against the 8 personifications of the tyrannical oppression of the British government. As in all wars, truth was the first casualty. fabrications and false testimony permeated the courtroom. Men that were at home, asleep in their beds testified as eye witnesses to the "massacre" as Paul Revere would deem it. The men were guilty, and anyone who thought else-wise was a traitor against God, liberty and common sense.

It appeared to all the world that John Adams had lost the case before it had even begun. Might as well give up now and save the shame, but John loved a good challenge, especially when liberty was on the line. He knew that these raids on customs houses, looting, rioting and lynchings happened, just as any Bostonian did. The burned effigies of King George were still smoldering outside the courtroom from the night before, the lingering smoke and ash a testament of the common displays of the discontent. Like any Bostonian, he knew the violence that happened and knew how a dog reacts when backed into a corner. The truth was there, but he had to bring it to light, or 8 unfortunate boys would see the gallows and have their bodies paraded through the streets.

Adams found his redemption in two unlikely places. His witnesses were not high standing members of society as the prosecution had called, but simple men, hard men, workers and patriots, ropers and dock-hands. His key witness was a black man, Holmes, bore witness that the shots were not fired into the crowd until after snowballs, rocks, clubs, oyster shells and chunks of ice were thrown at the customs house guards, clearly showing that this "peaceful gathering" had quite the opposite intention. His other key witness was a man by the name of Richard Palms, a roper by trade. Palms testified that Preston, the Captain of the 8 men, was not behind his men screaming "Fire, Damn your blood FIRE!" as the prosecution's key witness alleged, but that he was in front of them, making a fire command counter-productive to a long and happy life.

Roper's club used to beat the slack out of rope under tension, or to throw at Red Coats!

All but two of the soldiers were acquitted. Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Killroy were let go with a branding on their right thumbs.

Though Adams would count the defense of the patrol as one of the highlights of his legal career, it carried terrible consequences for his practice as his clientele dropped by half and, as seen in an entry in his journal depicts after leaving the courthouse after the sentencing hearings:

"a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes, and mulattos, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars...shouting and hazing and threatening life...whistling, screaming, and rending an Indian yell... throwing every species of rubbish the could pick up in the street."

Next week, we'll discuss the opening moves of the revolution. The pot finally boils!

For your viewing pleasure:

John Adams - Courtroom scene - HBO Series staring Paul Giamatti

Lost before it began

From my last post, I promised a synopsis of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Well, I apologize, but I forgot that there were a few conflicts that happened before it, and were vital to the escalation of the war. 

Many people look at the American War of Independence (AWI) with a certain degree of almost mythological inaccuracy. Many of the characters have been popularized, ingratiated or overly vilified. My goal is to tell it like it was, not embellish with patriotic rhetoric or overly critical analysis, but to call the shots as they happened.

Before we dive into the blow by blow of the conflicts I wish to set the stage by saying that in 1770, what we now call the USA was a colony of Great Britain. Big surprise right? Not really. What we take for granted in that though is exactly what it would have meant to be a colony of the UK or better said what difference the common person, you or I 250 years ago would have noticed between being a colonist of the UK or being a citizen of the US. In reality, the American colonies, by 1770, when the Boston Massacre happened, the Colonies were already almost fully autonomous. They clamored for no taxation without representation due to the Stamp act and Townsend acts that put taxes on goods that the colonists were consuming and buying already when in reality, they simply ignored the Stamp act, didn't buy the stamps and published their goods and burned down the houses of those that collected the tax on the stamps. On top of this, rather than pay the taxes levied on sugar based goods from the Townsend Acts, "Americans" simply turned to to nothing short of piracy. Rather than dock at port and offload cargo to be counted and taxed, they would offload their cargo further down shore and not have to pay the tax. The reality of the matter is that as colonists called for reform. they were paying less than 1.9% of what British citizens in London were paying (Americans paid sixpence to the British average of 25 shillings, or rather 302 pence). So really, what were they crying about?

The other myth I wish to dispel is that ALL colonists wanted independence. The truth of the matter is that the split was more 50% Patriot, 25% Loyalist and 25% Neutral. When hostilities broke out in Boston in 1775, a majority of the push for change came from citizens north and east of the Hudson. So it is with this framework in place that we descent upon Boston in the winter of 1770. 

As a British soldier you were promised sixpence a month and 3 square a day. You were promised to see the world and indeed you could. As a 17-23 year old boy from mostly poor families, the prospects otherwise were bleak to say the least. The adventure of the American colonies would have seemed like a dream. With no barracks, most of these boy-soldiers would have quartered with American families who would bed and feed the troops and often launder their clothes. For some this was a welcome opportunity for enterprise, a great symbiotic relationship, the soldiers had a place to stay and the quarters would often get paid for the extra services rendered. as summer wears on though, the British begin to wear out their welcome. Many misdeeds of the troops are published, tales of wanton and craven acts visited upon the chastity of virtuous colonial women who were powerless to stop the advances of the Lobsterback cretins. Soldiers begin to slack on their debts and cause further strife. By the time winter rolls around soldiers are sock of the ungrateful colonists and the colonists are sick of everything British. 

While on patrol a group of soldiers come across a group of angry settlers near the customs house. The mob is vicious and numbers near the hundreds. They throw insults, chunks of ice, snow and bits of rock at the vastly outnumbered patrol. They yell out things like "Go on now, you cant kill us all!" and "Fire damn ye, Fire!", the crowd willing to commit suicide by scared young redcoat. A shot is fired. The scared British discharge their weapons into the crowd and 5 are killed where they stand. The first "victims" of a war that would not start for another 5 years. 

Tune in next week for the spirited defense of the perpetrators of the smallest "massacre" to be so named. 

Where'd you get your information from?

Recently, my studies have deviated from my normal field of the Napoleonic era to that of the American War for Independence. I have been reading two really great books on the subject, Hibbert's Redcoats and Rebels and W.J. Wood's Battles of the Revolutionary War. Though they may sound dry, both of these books have brought the conflict to life in a way I have never before experienced.

                                                       Lexington Green

Redcoats and Rebels is a rather unconventional take on the subject as most books tend to be from American colonial perspective,  rather patriotic volumes glorifying a war well fought. This book, however, is written from the perspective of the side that lost. Using almost exclusively English source documents, Hibbert is able to put together a view of the war through the eyes of the Lobster-backs. It brings a fresh approach to the conflict as it gives eyes to what King George and all his white wigged friends in Parliament and the military were doing while Washington and Adams had a war to win and a nation to forge.

Battles of the Revolutionary War takes a little more conventional approach, the typical "so and so moved his troops here, they did this and this happened" type of feel, though the delivery is almost Hollywood-ized in that it is presented in an almost theatric approach that makes the battles come to life.

                                                   American Minutemen

The way I am reading them helps out as well. I will read in Redcoats and Rebels until I reach a battle. Then I will read the account of the battle first in Battles of the Revolutionary War, then in R&R. using the two together sheds light on the war in a way that almost makes you want to sign the enlistment papers outside your local tavern. They both discuss the follies and strengths of the leaders involved but do so from a boots in the mud perspective gathering direct info from the diaries of soldiers that were there. This flesh and blood, smoke and powder feel make these both a must read for anyone interested in the war.

My next post will deal with the Battle of Bunker Hill...there are some pretty interesting turns of events that made this almost sure victory into the noteworthy first near defeat the British had of the War.

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