Paul Revere's Ride (65 page)

Personal Records: Thomas Gage

One of the best documented public careers in the old British Empire was that of General Thomas Gage. Every year during his tenure as commander in chief he sent home a large wooden chest full of papers—twelve chests altogether. That collection was bought by American collector William L. Clements and moved to the United States, where it was sumptuously bound in leather folios, and housed in the William L. Clements Library on the campus of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Gage’s official correspondence is at the Public Record Office in Kew, outside London. Much (but not all) of his correspondence with the Secretaries of State, the War Office, and the Treasury has been published in a generally accurate but idiosyncratic work by Clarence E. Carter (ed.),
The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage.
2 vols. (New Haven, 1933; rpt. 1969). Unofficial documents in the Gage Papers relevant to Paul Revere, and to the battles of Lexington and Concord, have also been published in whole or part in Allen French,
General Gage’s Informers: New Material Upon Lexington and Concord …
(Ann Arbor, 1932).

Gage himself also published his own short account of Lexington and Concord as “A Circumstantial Account of an Attack that happened on the 19th of April, 1775.” A copy of the first edition, with Joseph Warren’s pungent marginalia, is in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Reprints have appeared in Peter Force (ed.),
American Archives,
4th ser., II, 435; and
MHSC
II, 224. Also of much interest are Gage’s “Replies to Queries by Historian George Chalmers,” MHSC, 4th ser., 4 (1858): 369-70, and his letters on the battle to colonial governors: Trumbull of Connecticut, Colden of New York, and Dunmore of Virginia, also in
AA4,
II, 434-37, 482-83, and in
Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden,
vol. VIII,
N-YHS Collections
66 (1923): 283-87. Many other letters from Gage are published in the Colden Papers. Others appear in Sylvester Stevens
et al., The Papers of Col. Henry Bouquet
(Harrisburg, 1940-42), and James Sullivan
et al., The Papers of Sir William Johnson
(Albany, 1921). Gage’s papers concerning the Boston Massacre have been published in Randolph G. Adams (ed.),
New Light on the Boston Massacre
(Worcester, 1938).

Less abundant are materials on Gage’s private life. One of his biographers complains that the Gage Papers “contain almost nothing of a personal nature, and after all my research I felt that I knew Gage the military bureaucrat but not Gage the man” (John Shy,
A People Numerous and Armed
(New York, 1976), 73). It is also important to remember that
Gage’s papers document in a meticulous way what he wanted us to know. They must be cross-examined for the truths that they betray.

Other unpublished Gage manuscripts are in the Haldimand Papers (British Library, London), which reveal more of Gage’s personality than any other source, especially in letters written during Gage’s leave in England. Other items are in the Amherst Papers at the Public Record Office, but this collection holds very little on the events of 1774—75.

Personal Records of American Participants

Particularly helpful to this inquiry were the many diaries kept in New England. A new computer data base at the Massachusetts Historical Society was used to identify systematically all diaries in that repository within the period Sept. 1, 1774 to May 17, 1775. Other materials are in the form of correspondence, memoirs, and narratives, as follows:

John Adams:
Diary and Autobiography.
4 vols. Ed Lyman Butterfield (Boston, 1961; rpt. 1964);
Papers of John Adams.
3 vols. Ed. Robert J. Taylor
et al.
(Cambridge, 1977).

John Quincy Adams:
Memoirs.
12 vols. Ed. Charles F. Adams (Philadelphia, 1874-77).

Samuel Adams:
Writings.
4 vols. Ed. Harry A. Cushing (New York, 1904).

Hannah Adams: Memoir, May 17, 1775, published in S. A. Smith,
West Cambridge on the 19th of April 1775
(Boston, 1864), and Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 128.

Nathaniel Ames: Diary, 1756-1821, ms., Dedham Historical Society, one of the great American diaries, an extraordinary record of events in a New England town by its physician, who also describes his trip to the battlefield after the fighting.

Mrs. John Amory: Diary, published as
The Journal of Mrs. John Amory with Letters from Her Father Rufus Greene,
ed. Martha Codman (Boston, 1923). Katherine Green Amory: Diary, 1775, MHS.

John Andrews: “The Andrews Letters, 1772-76,” ms., MHS, pub. in
MHSP
8 (1865): 316-412; very rich for life in Boston.

Joseph Andrews: Diary, 1752—81, MHS, events in Hingham, Mass.

James Baker: Diary, 1775, MHS.

Loammi Baldwin: Diary, 1775, Harvard

Amos Barrett (var. Barret) Concord militiaman: Narrative published in Henry True,
Journal and Letters
(Marion, Ohio, 1906), copy in CFPL; a major document on the battle.

Jeremy Belknap: Journal, published as “Journal of my tour to the camp …,”
MHSP
4 (1858): 77-86; includes interviews with Bostonians on events of April 18 and the beginning of Paul Revere’s ride; Diary, 1774—75, MHS.

Joshua Bentley: Reminiscence, communicated by his grandson, Charles Wooley, to Elbridge Goss, May 1886, published in Goss,
Revere,
I, 189n; one of the men who rowed Revere across the Charles River.

William Bentley:
The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Mass.
4 vols. (Salem, 1905—14); the son of Joshua Bentley. The published edition is incomplete and inaccurate; for any serious purpose the original manuscripts should be consulted at the American Antiquarian Society.

Samuel Bixby, a militiaman from Sutton, Mass.: Diary, 1775,
MHSP
14 (1875-76), 285.

Thaddeus Blood, Concord militiaman: Narrative, ms. CFPL; published in the (Boston)
Daily Advertiser,
April 20. 1886; especially valuable for the North Bridge and Meriam’s Corner.

Benjamin Boardman: Diary, 1775,
MHSP2
7 (1891-92): 400-413.

John Boyle: “Journal of Occurrences in Boston, 1759-1778,”
NEHGR
84 (1930): 142-71, 248-72, 357-82; 85 (1931): 5-28, 117-33; a very full account of events in Boston, with details of Paul Revere’s earlier rides.

James Boynton: Diary, 1775, MHS.

Thomas Boynton: Journal, April 19, 1775,
MHSP
15 (1877): 254—55.

Chelmsford Bridge: Diary, April 19-21, 1775, published in Brown,
Beside Old Hearthstones,
253—54.

John Buttrick, Lincoln, Mass.: Deposition, Nov. 1776, published in Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
68, and Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 619.

John Checkley: Diary, published as
Diary of Reverend Samuel Checkley,
ed. Henry Winchester (n.p., n.d.).

William Cheever: Diary, MHS.

William Clark: Diary, 1775-1812, ms. transcript, Dedham Historical Society.

Elizabeth Clarke, “Extracts from Letter of Miss Betty Clarke, Daughter of Rev. Jonas Clarke,”
Lexington Historical Society Proceedings
4 (1905—10): 91—93.

Jonas Clarke, minister in Lexington: Almanac Diary, 1774—75, LHS and MHS; “Narrative of events on April 19,” ms., LHS; published in Hudson,
History of Lexington,
I, 1-7, “The Fate of the Bloodthirsty Oppressers,” Sermon, 1776 (Lexington, LHS, 1901), includes the narrative of events as an appendix;
Opening of the War of the Revolution, 19th of April,
1775,
A Brief Narrative of the Principal Transactions of That Day
(Lexington, n.d.), a participant history.

Benjamin Cooper: Memoir, May 19, 1775, in S. A. Smith,
West Cambridge on the 19th of April 1775
(Boston, 1864); Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 128.

Rachel Cooper: Memoir, May 19, 1775, in Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 128.

Samuel Cooper, a refugee in Weston: Diary, 1775-76, MHS, published by Frederick Tuckerman (ed.),
AHR
6 (1901): 301-41.

Richard Devens: Memorandum, n.d., published in Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
57—58. Devens was an important Whig leader in Charlestown who helped Revere to “git” his horse.

Ebenezer Dorr: Account Book, 1766—1776, MHS.

William Dorr: Diary, 1775, MHS.

Eliphalet Downer, Recollections, ms., NEHGS.

Peter Edes: Diary kept in Boston Gaol, June 19—Oct. 3, 1775, ms., MHS; harrowing account of his arrest and confinement.

Andrew Eliot: Diary, 1740-84, MHS.

John Eliot: Diary, 1775, MHS.

William Emerson: Diary, 1775, published in
Proceedings of the Centennial Celebration of Concord Fight
(Concord, 1876), and Amelia Forbes Emerson (ed.),
Diaries and Letters of William Emerson, 1743—1776, Minister of the Church in Concord, Chaplain in the Revolutionary Army
(Boston, 1972). A leading source for events in Concord.

Joseph Fairbank, militia captain in Harvard, Mass.: Papers, 1775, in Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men,
123, includes records of the “Alarm Men,” who are not in the town’s militia and minute companies.

Amos Farnsworth: Diary, 1775-79, published in S.A. Greene (ed.), “Three Military Diaries,”
MHSP
12 (1873): 74.

Elijah Fisher:
Journal, 1775-1784
(Augusta, 1880).

John Fitch: Diary,
MHSP2
9 (1894-95): 41-91.

Edmund Foster: letter to Col. Daniel Shattuck, March 10, 1825; Coburn,
Battle of April 19, 1775, 34;
Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 253-56.

Joshua B. Fowle: Letters to Samuel H. Newman, July 28, 1875, and August 1876, on the signal lanterns; Wheildon,
Paul Revere’s Signal Lanterns,
34-36. The Rev. Caleb Gannett: Diary, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

John Gates: Diary, April 1775, MHS.

Ebenezer Gay, Suffield, Conn.: Diary, 1738-94, MHS.

William Gordon, minister in Roxbury: Narrative published as “An Account of the Commencement of Hostilities Between Great Britain and America, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay,” May 17, 1775,”
AA4,
II, 625-31.

Joshua Greene: Diary, 1775, extracts, MHS.

The Rev. Cyrus Hamblin:
My Grandfather, Colonel Francis Faulkner
(Boston, 1887); valuable for the Lexington alarm west of Concord.

Samuel Hawes: Diary, in
The Military Journal of Two Private Soldiers, 1758—1775,
ed. Abraham Tomlinson (Poughkeepsie, 1875), the alarm in Wrentham, Mass.

William Heath, militia general: Memoir, published as
Memoirs
(Boston, 1798); manuscripts in the Massachusetts Historical Society are available on microfilm and are published in part in
MHSC5
4 (1878): 1-288);
MHSCy
4 (1904): 1-354; 5 (1905): 1-419.

George R. T. Hewes:
A Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party, with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes, by a Citizen of New York
(New York, 1834), an important source for life in Boston, and the revolutionary movement.

Robert Honyman:
Colonial Panorama, 1775; Dr. Robert Honyman’s Journal
(San Marino, Calif., 1939).

Jonathan Hosmer: Letter to Oliver Stevens or Joseph Standley, April 10, 1775, privately owned; excerpts published in a dealer’s catalogue, Joseph Rubenfine,
The American Revolution, List 114
(West Palm Beach, Fla., n.d), n.p.; a copy is in the Concord Antiquarian Museum.

Thomas Hutchinson:
The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq.
2 vols. (Boston, 1884), helpful on the impact in Britain of the news of the battle; Hutchinson’s manuscripts include correspondence from Massachusetts, on the events of 1774-75. They are in the British Library, Egerton ms. 2659, 1670-73

Phineas Ingalls, minuteman from Andover, Mass.: Diary, 1775, transcript, MHS.

Edward Jarvis, “Traditions and Reminiscences of Concord, Massachusetts; or a Contribution to the Social and Domestic History of the Town, 1779 to 1878,” ms., CFPL.

John Jenks, Salem, Mass.: Diary, 1775, MHS.