Paul Revere's Ride (67 page)

Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, 23rd Foot, or Royal Welch Fusiliers: Diary, in Regimental Museum, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Caernarfon Castle, Wales, published as
A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston,
ed. Allen French (Cambridge, 1926), the most meticulous of British accounts. The Regimental Museum also has a portrait of Mackenzie, painted on his retirement as lieutenant-colonel.

Pvt. James Marr, 4th Regiment: Deposition after capture April 23, 1775, published in
AA4,
II, 500.

Capt. John Montresor, Corps of Engineers:
The Montresor Journals,
ed. G. D. Scull, N-YHS
Collections for the Year 1881
(New York, 1882).

Col. Hugh Percy, 5th Foot, commander relief expedition:
Letters,
ed. C. K. Bolton (Boston, 1902); his report on the battle is in the Public Record Office, London, CO5/92-93; other correspondence is in the Haldimand Papers, BL.

Major John Pitcairn, Royal Marines: Letters and reports to Admiralty, published in
Sandwich Papers,
Navy Records Society; report to Gage, published in
General Gage’s Informers,
55; correspondence with Col. John Mackenzie in Mackenzie Papers, vol. IV, add. ms. 39190, BL.

Richard Pope: Narrative, Huntington Library, California, photostat, NYPL. Published as
Late News of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops on the 19th of April
(Boston, 1927). The author of this document has not been conclusively identified. French thought him a private or noncommissioned officer, 47th Regiment. Tourtellot believed that he was a Boston Loyalist who marched with the Regulars as a volunteer
(Bibliography,
19).

Lord Rawdon, subaltern in the 5th Foot: Papers in the British Library, London.

Richard Reever: Letters from America, 1775-77, in the Buckinghamshire Record Office, Aylesbury.

Earl of Sandwich:
The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich.
3 vols. (London, Navy Records Society, 1932—38), the correspondence of the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Lt.-Col. Francis Smith, 10th Foot: Report to General Gage, April 22, 1775, PRO, CO5/92; printed in
MHSP
14 (1876): 350-51; letter to Major R. Donkin, Oct. 8, 1775, Gage Papers, WCL, published in part in
General Gage’s Informers,
61.

Capt. William Soutar, Royal Marines: Narrative, published in part without citations in Hargreaves,
Bloodybacks,
219—22.

Charles Stedman:
History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War.
2 vols. (London and Dublin, 1794). The author was a serving British officer in the American War of Independence. He knew and interviewed many participants; primary materials on Lexington and Concord (I, 116-20). For a critique, see R. Kent Newmeyer, “Charles Stedman’s History of the American War,”
AHR
63 (1957-58): 924-34.

Lt. William Sutherland, 38th Foot: Narrative letter to Kemble, April 27, 1775, Gage Papers, WCL, published in Wroth
et al.
(eds.),
Province in Rebellion
(Cambridge, 1975), doc. 721, pp. 2024—29; narrative letter to General Clinton, April 26, 1775, published in
Late News of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops on the Nineteenth of April, 1775,
ed. Harold Murdock (Boston, 1927).

Maj. James Wemyss: “Character Sketches of Gage, Percy and Others,” Sparks Papers, Harvard University, xxii, 214.

Lt. Richard Williams, Royal Welch Fusiliers: Jane van Arsdale (ed.),
Discord and Civil Wars; Being a Portion of a Journal Kept by Lieutenant Williams of His Majesty’s Twenty-Third Regiment While Stationed in British North America During the Time of the Revolution
(Buffalo, 1954). Williams arrived after the battles; graphic accounts of Boston, but troubling questions of authenticity.

American Government Documents

Among province and colony records, an important source for this inquiry are the records of the Provincial Congress in William Lincoln (ed.),
The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts (Colony) in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix
(Boston, 1838). A more generous selection of materials pertaining mainly to the Provincial Congresses has been issued in microfiche as L. Kinvin Wroth
et al.
(eds.),
Province in Rebellion; A Documentary History of the Founding of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1774—1775
(Cambridge, Mass., 1975).

Other sources include “Letters and Doings of the Council,” manuscript notebook covering period April g, 1774—April 21, 1776, Massachusetts Archives. The Massachusetts Tax List for 1771 is in the Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, and has been published in summary form by Bettye Hobbs Pruitt.

The Town Records of Boston have been published as Boston Record Commissioners Report, 39 vols. (Boston, 1876-1909). Specially helpful are vol. 1,
Boston Tax Lists, 1674-1675;
vol. 18,
Boston Town Records, 1770 Through 1777;
vol. 24,
Boston Births, 1700—1800;
vol. 28,
Boston Marriages, 1700—1751;
vol. 30,
Boston Marriages, 1752—1800;
and vol. 22,
The Direct Tax of 1798.

Other town records are included with local history, below

British Government Documents

In the new Public Record Office, Kew, official materials relevant to this inquiry are mainly to be found in three broad record-groups: the Colonial Office, War Office, and the Admiralty.

Colonial Office records on military affairs in CO5/92-93 are especially rich on events of 1774-75, and include the official reports on the battles from Smith, Percy, and Gage. Also helpful are Colonial Office records on admiralty matters in CO5/120-21. Orders in Council are in CO5/29-30, and letters to the secretary of state from Massachusetts are in C05/769. Instructions to Provincial Governors of Massachusetts, 1631-1775, available to American readers in eight volumes of transcripts at the MHS.

Military records in the Public Record Office include Secretary at War. In-Letters W01; Out-Letters, W04; Commander in Chief, WO3; Marching Orders, W05; Headquarters Papers, WO28, and Troop Movements, WO379. The Amherst Papers, WO34, contain much on America, but little about Lexington and Concord. Service records of officers and printed Army Lists are in WO 65, are on open shelves in the Public Record Office; they include officers of the Royal Marines for this period. American Rebellion Entry books, WO 36, include orders for the Boston garrison from June 10, 1773, to Jan. 10, 1776, Gage’s orderbook from July 10, 1774, to Dec. 9, 1774, is in N-YHS. His orderbook from Dec. 10, 1774, to June 6, 1775, is at BPL. For individual regiments, the surviving Monthly Returns, W017, hold much material before 1773 and after 1783, but very little in between.

Another record-group in the Public Record Office of special importance for the battles of Lexington and Concord is a large collection of regimental rosters, muster books, and paylists (WO12). They are nearly complete for the British regiments in Boston during the period Nov. 1774—Oct. 1775. These are huge red-bound elephant folios with separate sheets for each company in every regiment. They identify by name, rank, and record of service for this period virtually all British troops who served in Boston and fought at Lexington and Concord. The important materials are in Wo 12/2194 (4th Foot); 2289 (5th Foot); 2750 (10th Foot); 3501 (18th Foot); 3960 (23rd Foot); 5171 (38th Foot); 5561 (43rd Foot); 5871 (47th Foot); 6240 (52nd Foot); 6786 (59th Foot); 7313 (64th Foot); and 7377 (65th Foot).

Some official British military records have found their way into other archives. Summaries of monthly returns by regiment for January and April 1775 are to be found (filed under later dates) in the British Library, add. ms., 29259/I-L. The records of the 52nd Foot, later the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, for the period 1775-1822, are in the Bodleian Library. Orderly Books of the 10th and 23rd Foot are in WCL.

Douglas Sabin, historian of the Minuteman National Historical Park, with the endorsement of the British Military Attache in Washington, wrote to every regimental association and museum for units present at Lexington and Concord. Virtually no manuscript material was turned up by this inquiry, but a generous file of photocopies from published regimental histories was forthcoming. The material is in the Library of the Minuteman National Historical Park, Concord, Massachusetts.

Admiralty Records in the Public Record Office include Admirals Dispatches, North America, ADM 1/484-90. Among the more important ships’ logs for these events are those of HMS
Canceaux,
ADM 51/4136; HMS
Kingfisher,
ADM 51/506; HMS
Preston,
ADM 51/720; HMS
Scarborough,
ADM 51/867; and HMS
Somerset,
ADM 51/906. Fragmentary records of the Royal Marine battalions serving with the army are in Muster Books and Pay Lists, ADM 96/153. Records of individual Marine officers appear in ADM 157, 159, 192/2, 196/1, and 196/68.

Documentary Collections

Peter Force (ed.),
American Archives,
4th series., 6 vols., March 7, 1774, to Aug. 21, 1776, and 5th series, 3 vols., May 3, 1776, to Dec. 31, 1776 (Washington, D.C., 1837-53), a vast compilation in nine large folio volumes of primary materials, many of which are relevant to this inquiry, and some of which have been lost since Force published them.

Vincent J. R. Kehoe (ed.), “We Were There!” 2 vols, (mimeographed typescript, Chelmsford, 1975). This is a full collection of primary materials on the fighting at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, compiled with great care and attention to detail. One volume is devoted to “The American Rebels” and another to “British Accounts.” Complete sets are nonexistent in academic libraries, and very rare in other institutions, but may be found at the Watertown Public Library, the Arlington Public Library, and the Library of Minuteman National Historical Park.

Benson J. Lossing,
Hours with Living Men and Women of the Revolution
(New York, 1889). Frank Moore (ed.),
The Diary of the American Revolution.
2 vols. (New York, 1858, rpt. 1967), consists mostly of extracts from newspapers. Margaret Wheeler Willard (ed.),
Letters on the American Revolution, 1774-1776
(Boston, 1925), includes many relevant epistolary materials.

Newspaper Accounts