Founding Myths (50 page)

10
.
  
A “revolution,” according to the
Random House Webster's College Dictionary
, is “a complete and forcible overthrow and replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.” By this definition, the people of Massachusetts staged a textbook example of a revolution.

11
.
  
American Political Society, Records, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; documents page of
rayraphael.com
:
http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm
.

12
.
  
Stephen Salisbury to Samuel Salisbury, July 22, 1774, Salisbury Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; Ray Raphael,
The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord
(New York: The New Press, 2002), 108; documents page of
rayraphael.com
:
http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm
.

13
.
  
The story of the 1774 overthrow of British authority throughout Massachusetts, outlined in this and subsequent paragraphs, is told and referenced in Raphael,
First American Revolution
, 59–168.

14
.
  
Joseph Clarke to unknown recipient, August 30, 1774, in James R. Trumbull,
History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its Settlement in 1654
(Northampton, MA: Gazette Printing Co., 1902), 346–348; reprinted in Raphael,
First American Revolution
, 98–101.

15
.
  
Gage to Secretary of State Lord Dartmouth, August 27, 1774,
Correspondence of General Thomas Gage
, Clarence E. Carter, ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), 1: 366.

16
.
  
Raphael,
First American Revolution
, 130–138. Meanwhile, in Cambridge, some four thousand patriots forced the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, the second highest official in the province, to resign his seat on the Council.

17
.
  
Ezra Stiles,
The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles
, Franklin B. Dexter, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), 479–481.

18
.
  
John Adams,
Diary and Autobiography
, L.H. Butterfield, ed. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1961), 2: 160.

19
.
  
Gage to Dartmouth, September 2, 1774, Gage,
Correspondence
, 1: 370.

20
.
  
American Political Society, Records.

21
.
  
Ebenezer Parkman, Diary, American Antiquarian Society; documents page of rayra
phael.com
:
http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm
.

22
.
  
Proceedings of the Worcester County Convention, September 6–7, William Lincoln, ed.,
The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix, containing the Proceedings of the County Conventions
(Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 635. Access at documents page of
rayraphael.com
:
http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm
. From this source, with the Parkman diary, we can reconstruct the events of the day.

23
.
  
Lincoln,
Journals and Proceedings
, 637.

24
.
  
John Andrews to William Barrell, October 6, 1774, in Massachusetts Historical Society, “Letters of John Andrews of Boston, 1772–1776,”
Proceedings 8
(1864–1865), 373–374.

25
.
  
Andrews to Barrell, August 29, 1774, in Andrews, “Letters,” 348.

26
.
  
Proceedings, Worcester County Convention, September 20–21, 1774, Lincoln,
Journals and Proceedings
, 643.

27
.
  
Jonathan Judd Jr., Diary, vol. 2 (1773–1782), Forbes Library, Northampton, entry for September 7, 1774.

28
.
  
Worcester Town Records, Worcester City Hall, reprinted in Franklin P. Rice, ed.,
Worcester Town Records from 1753 to 1783
(Worcester: Worcester Society of Antiquity, 1882), 244. These instructions can be viewed in Ray Raphael, “Instructions: The People's Voice in Revolutionary America,”
Common-Place
9:1 (October 2008),
http://www.common-place.org/vol-09/no-01/raphael/
or on the documents page of
rayraphael.com
:
http://www.rayraphael.com/documents.htm
.

29
.
  
Samuel Adams to Joseph Warren, September 25, 1774, Harry Alonzo Cushing, ed.,
Writings of Samuel Adams
(New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1907), 3: 159.

30
.
  
John Adams to Joseph Palmer, September 26, 1774, and John Adams to William Tudor, October 7, 1774, in Robert J. Taylor, ed.,
Papers of John Adams
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 2: 173 and 2: 187.

31
.
  
Journal of First Provincial Congress, Lincoln,
Journals and Proceedings
, 30.

32
.
  
A good account of the storming of Fort William and Mary appears in Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 52–58. Documentary sources are reprinted in Charles L. Parsons, “The Capture of Fort William and Mary, December 14 and 15, 1774,”
New Hampshire Historical Society Proceedings
4 (1890–1905), 18–47.

33
.
  
Providence Gazette
, December 23, 1774; Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 57; J.L. Bell,
“Behold, the Guns Were Gone!”: Four Brass Cannon and the Start of the American Revolution
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2001).

34
.
  
L. Kinvin Wroth, ed.,
Province in Rebellion: A Documentary History of the Founding of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1774–1775
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), document 671, page 1969. Benjamin Church, an informant who was a member of the Provincial Congress's key Committee of Safety, was the likely source of this
intelligence. Three days earlier, an intelligence report stated that “Twelve pieces of Brass Cannon mounted, are at Salem and lodged near the North River, on the back of the town.” (Ibid., document 670, page 1968.)

35
.
  
Henry S. Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds.,
The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by the Participants
(Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), 1: 63–65.

36
.
  
Andrews, “Letters,” 401.

37
.
  
Allen French,
General Gage's Informers
(New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 15; “General Gage's Instructions of 22d February, 1775, to Captain Brown and Ensign D'Bernicre,” and “Narrative, &c.,” Massachusetts Historical Society
Collections
4 (1916): 204–218.

38
.
  
James Warren to Mercy Otis Warren, April 6, 1775,
Warren-Adams Letters
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1917), 1: 44–45.

39
.
  
The Annual Register for the Year 1775
(London: J. Dodsley, 1776), 2–3, 16–17.

40
.
  
David Ramsay,
The History of the American Revolution
(Philadelphia: R. Aitken and Son, 1789; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1990), 1: 106–107.

41
.
  
William Gordon,
The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America
, reprint edition (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969; first published in 1788), 1: 382, 380, 377.

42
.
  
Mercy Otis Warren,
History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations
(Boston: E. Larkin, 1805; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1988), 1: 145–146. In 1776 Samuel Adams himself took note of the dramatic turn of events “since the stopping of the Courts in Berkshire.” In context, he seemed to be marking the beginning of the Revolution by this event. (Samuel Adams to Joseph Hawley, April 15, 1776, in Cushing,
Writings of Samuel Adams
, 3: 281.)

43
.
  
Paul Allen,
A History of the American Revolution: Comprising All the Principal Events Both in the Field and in the Cabinet
(Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1819), 1: 180–198.

44
.
  
Salma Hale,
History of the United States, from their First Settlement as Colonies, to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815
(New York: Collins and Hannay, 1830; first published in 1822), 142–144.

45
.
  
Charles A. Goodrich,
A History of the United States of America
(Hartford, CT: Barber and Robinson, 1823), 154.

46
.
  
Richard Snowden,
The American Revolution Written in the Style of Ancient History
(Philadelphia: Jones, Hoff and Derrick, 1793), 1: 14.

47
.
  
George Bancroft,
History of the United States of America
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1879; first published in 1854), 4: 379, 389, 390.

48
.
  
William V. Wells,
The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams
(Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969; first published in 1865).

49
.
  
Commager and Morris,
The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six
, 31–38, 45–56, 66–97.

50
.
  
Here is one telling example. On a September evening in 1774, Abigail Adams, at home in Braintree, Massachusetts, observed from her window some two hundred men who had gathered to seize gunpowder from the local powder house and force the sheriff to
burn two warrants he was attempting to deliver. Some might call these men a “mob,” but Adams observed otherwise. Successful in their missions, the men wanted to celebrate with a loud “huzzah.” Normally they would, but there were extenuating circumstances this time. Should they, or should they not, disturb the Sabbath? “They call'd a vote,” Abigail reported to John, who was in Philadelphia at the time attending the First Continental Congress, and “it being Sunday evening it passed in the negative.” (Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 14, 1774, in Adams Family Correspondence, L.H. Butterfield, ed. [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963], 1: 152.)

51
.
  
For the mislabeling of “Shays' Rebellion,” see “Conclusion: Why We Tell Tall Tales.”

52
.
  
French,
General Gage's Informers
, 20–21.

53
.
  
Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 249.

54
.
  
Some examples: As they mustered in the early morning hours at Wright's Tavern, Concord's farmers-turned-soldiers debated with each other the prospect of defending their town. When the Regulars finally reached Concord, no militiamen stood in the way; some had wanted to make a stand there, but they were outvoted. The younger, more impetuous minute men then sallied forth to the east, thinking they might face off against the Regulars from that stance, but upon viewing the enemy's vast numbers, they wisely retreated. Again on Meetinghouse Hill, with a commanding view of Main Street, the Concord militiamen debated whether to stand and fight or stage a strategic retreat, and again they settled on the wiser course, waiting for their numbers to grow. At the North Bridge they also consulted each other and debated the wisest course. These were collective strategic decisions, not knee-jerk individual responses. Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 204–205, 208–209.

55
.
  
Herbert T. Wade and Robert A. Lively, eds.,
This Glorious Cause: The Adventures of Two Company Officers in George Washington's Army
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 9.

56
.
  
Timothy Pickering,
An Easy Plan of Discipline for a Militia
(Boston: S. Hall, 1776), 9–10, quoted in Justin Florence, “Minutemen for Months: The Making of an American Revolutionary Army before George Washington, April 2–July 2, 1775,”
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
, 113: 1 (2003), 76–77.

57
.
  
John Shy,
A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 238.

5: Winter at Valley Forge

  
1
.
  
F. Van Wyck Mason,
The Winter at Valley Forge
(New York: Random House, 1953), 1, 6, 7, 8. In full disclosure, this was among the first serious books I read; it had just come out, I was in fifth grade, and I loved it.

  
2
.
  
Howard Peckham, in his tabulation of battlefield casualties, lists only fifteen American deaths during the three winter months that the Continental Army was camped at Valley Forge—and not a single one of these occurred in Pennsylvania. The deadliest skirmish in this period was an Indian attack at Dunkard Creek, in western Virginia. (Peckham,
The Toll of Independence
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974], 46–48.)