Meanwhile, the rough numerical parity of our forces was threatening to disappear. Most of these men had short-term enlistments. The Connecticut and Rhode Island troops’ enlistments expired in December of 1775; the New Hampshire and Massachusetts troops’ enlistments expired in January. As some men departed, others arrived from these states. The numbers dipped to eight thousand, then rose back up to twelve thousand. This didn’t exactly help training. It seemed like every day in December the General was out addressing another regiment, urging the men to continue until the end of the Boston siege. Nothing irritated the General more than the states’ unwillingness to enlist men for long periods.
That December, as we sat by the fire in his Cambridge headquarters looking out at the freezing Charles River, his frustration at the states erupted. “Josiah, they are so enraged at the British troops that have been quartered here that they will not support a standing army. Do they realize the average British private has served and trained for years? And they expect me to drive these troops out of Boston without powder while disbanding one army and recruiting and training another, all within musket shot of twenty British regiments. If I had the power”—there was an uncomfortable pause as there always was when the General talked about what he would do if he had the power—“we would establish a national standing army.”
“If I had the power . . .” The General used that phrase hundreds of times, and I kept thinking of those words during that week in Newburgh.
The General’s irritation at the huge turnover would continue throughout the war, but with the help of cash bounty and land grant offers, and improving prospects, we were able to enlist men for longer terms, some for the duration of the war.
General Gage, the first British commander in Boston, was the only British commander who personally irritated the General. The cause of the irritation was General Gage’s insistence on treating American prisoners of war as common criminals and putting them in jail. This treatment was extended to American officers because Gage would not recognize any rank not given by the king. To the General, this violated not only the rules of war but the treatment expected by those of English descent. The General did not respond in kind to the British prisoners we held, despite the urging of many subordinates and congressmen. “We will not, Josiah, sink so low. Our struggle must be based on the principles that Englishmen have adhered to for centuries.”
It was in the early months of 1776 that there occurred a series of events that the General’s admirers attributed to his skill, his critics attributed to either luck or British incompetence, and the General attributed to Providence.
First General Knox was able to drag almost sixty captured mortars and howitzers from Fort Ticonderoga in New York all the way to the outskirts of Boston. This was an outstanding feat, but Knox’s movement of artillery was helped when the roads, usually muddy in the spring, mysteriously froze.
Then the General ordered our troops, under cover of darkness, to seize the surprisingly unoccupied Dorchester Heights that loomed above Boston. With the help of covered wagon wheels and salvos from our troops elsewhere, the British neither saw nor heard the operation—a fog enshrouded the lower parts of the Heights—and were unable to stop us. With no fog at the top of the Heights, in one night thousands of our troops dug fortifications and entrenched our newly arrived cannon. I heard the General exhorting the New Englanders, “Remember, it is the fifth of March [the anniversary of the Boston Massacre]. Avenge the deaths of your brethren.” I watched those nearby pass the General’s words to the men out of earshot and imagined the message spreading throughout the troops.
The next morning, with the weather fine, the General and I climbed the Heights again to see what the troops had accomplished. It was exhilarating to see Boston and the British troops spread out beneath the Ticonderoga cannon and the General standing among our dirty, triumphant men.
I later heard from a captured British officer that General Howe, who had replaced General Gage, looked through his telescope in the morning and remarked, “The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could do in months.” The British told the citizens of Boston that a force of ten thousand had dug such fortifications in one night. Actually, it was less than two thousand, but with the General’s words of urging and praise ringing in their ears, they may have dug like ten thousand.
With the guns looking down on them, the British started sending troops by boat across the Charles River to mount an assault on the Heights. Again, however, another of those providential events occurred. The fine day suddenly turned stormy; wind and fog wrecked many boats and drove others back. As night fell, so did snow and sleet. At that point, the British realized they faced a devastating bombardment from above, to which they could not respond, and started negotiations. Their message essentially was: “Give us safe passage by ship out of Boston; in return, we will not harm any inhabitants or buildings in Boston.”
The General readily agreed. “Josiah, we not only save the city from destruction and give assurance to other seaboard cities the enemy may occupy, but this withdrawal will be regarded by the public both here and across the seas as a great victory.”
He was right. The British people looked on the withdrawal as a huge defeat—Blundering Tom was the label they applied to poor General Gage—but the colonists marveled at how Boston had been reclaimed with so little loss of life.
As I’ve mentioned several times, the General would probably have denied it, but I don’t think he made a decision without considering what today we are starting to call public opinion.
In the intervening years, I’ve read that every commander in our army who attended the council of war claimed credit for the Dorchester Heights strategy. It is true that the General first advanced the idea of a frontal assault and then was gradually persuaded to mount the move on the Heights. I remember the General at the time commending his commanders for their wisdom, but did they really convince him? Or did the General just allow them to bring him to the decision he favored all along? With the General, I never could be sure.