She also reported that her fellow New Englanders appeared to have already forgotten about her beloved Joseph Warren. “Instead of seeing people look dejected with the dire calamities that are impending over our heads, they appear like frolic coming to [a Harvard] commencement. My melancholy countenance is a novelty in this place. . . . Everything appears with a different affect to me now and the sight of my friends gives a keener edge to my grief.” She still had trouble believing that Warren was dead—especially since she could find no one who had actually seen his body. “Pray heaven,” she wrote, “I may some time or other be able to acquiesce in the received opinion or else be confirmed in my own hopes and ardent wishes [that he is alive].”
But the most devastating blow had come from Warren’s own family. His brother John, she had just learned, had sold Warren’s “every feather bed” to George Washington. Another man—and not just any other man—was literally sleeping in her dead fiancée’s bed. She poured out her heart to John Hancock, who “appeared,” she wrote to Mrs. Dix, “much affected by my relation [and] said his brother had no right to do those things without proper authority.”
What, if anything, Hancock ever did to appease Mercy Scollay is unknown. There is evidence, however, that she found a way, if indirectly, to stake her claim to Warren’s legacy. Later that year an elegy to Joseph Warren appeared as a broadside. This poem by an anonymous author is not about a noble warrior dying heroically on the battlefield; it is about a loving father and friend, “faithful, gentle and sincere,” whose “orphan babes” deserve the sympathy and support “of every parent through the extensive land.” More significantly, the poem, almost certainly penned by Scollay, contains a rhetorical question:
Nor were the duties of a friend and sire
Neglected midst those busy scenes of life:
Speak, speak thou spark of bright immortal fire,
Who claimed on Earth the tender name of wife?
A conjecture haunted Mercy Scollay for the rest of her life, and still has import today: What if Joseph Warren had survived the Battle of Bunker Hill? Would the course of American history have been any different? One person, at least, believed he knew the answer to that question. If Joseph Warren had lived, the loyalist Peter Oliver maintained in 1782, Washington would have been “an obscurity.”
—
Siege warfare dates back to before 3000 BC, by which time settlements in the Middle East had begun to defend themselves from attack by building large stone walls, ditches, towers, and other protective structures. Sieges were conducted by the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and Romans; in the Middle Ages, siege warfare led to the construction of castles throughout Europe and beyond. Although the development of heavy artillery rendered these once impregnable structures obsolete, engineering advances in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to the creation of a new breed of fortifications that proved surprisingly durable even in the face of severe cannon fire. Despite all these technological advances, the basics of a siege were the same in 1775 as they’d been at the Battle of Jericho: an army surrounds a city with the intent of conquering its inhabitants through a combination of attrition, intimidation, and, if necessary, force.
By the fall, Washington’s army had succeeded in creating what was known as a line of contravallation: a ring of earthworks that encircled Boston. But there was a fatal flaw. As long as the British maintained control of the harbor, their supply ships from Canada and England could provide the regulars with food. Gage’s army could no longer get any fresh provisions from the country, but as long as their warships succeeded in keeping the entrance to Boston Harbor open, they were not going to starve.
Washington had to somehow force the issue, either by an outright assault on the city or, as had occurred at Breed’s Hill, by luring the British soldiers out from behind their defensive walls and engaging them in a pitched battle. But here too Washington was stymied by a lack of gunpowder and artillery. As a consequence, he could do little to displace the more than eight thousand British troops who remained in Boston.
Occasional bursts of activity broke the monotony—when, for example, New Hampshire’s General John Sullivan advanced the American lines to Plowed Hill near Charlestown Neck in an operation that had all of the discipline and rigor that had been missing from the Battle of Bunker Hill. For the most part, however, the summer and fall of 1775 settled into a militarily listless stalemate. The Continental forces would launch an annoying jab at the British that was inevitably answered by a cannonade. “At one time a horse would be knocked in the head, and at another time a man would be killed,” a loyalist wrote; “it seemed to be rather in jest than in earnest. At some times, a shell would play in the air like a sky rocket, rather in diversion, and there burst without damage; and now and then, another would fall in the town, and there burst to the terror or breaking of a few panes of glass. . . . Little else was done but keeping both armies out of the way of idleness, or rather the whole scene was an idle business.” According to a British officer stationed on Bunker Hill, “The regulars and the provincials squint at one another like wild cats across a gutter.”
By September Washington’s frustrations had reached the point that he had decided he must launch an assault on Boston. He didn’t have much gunpowder, but his already meager supplies were dwindling every day. If he didn’t attack soon, he might lose forever the chance to engage the enemy. As was quickly becoming apparent, maintaining an army of this size was extraordinarily expensive. The Continental Congress was issuing paper currency, but who knew how much longer the people would be willing to pay for a war—especially if it did not yield significant results. And besides, by the new year, Washington might not have an army to command when the soldiers’ terms of enlistment came up in December.
He also had to consider the British army, which continued to grow with the arrival of each new transport full of troops. Perhaps Gage had been waiting all this time, gathering steam before launching one last, furious assault. Washington did not have enough soldiers to cover almost ten miles of fortifications; those that he did have were still so poorly equipped that spears—spears!—had been provided in the event of another British sortie. If Gage managed to find one of the many weak points in the Continental lines, his regulars might send the American army reeling. Better to attack now, before the British had a chance to break out of Boston.
But perhaps Washington was most powerfully motivated by the expectations that had surrounded his arrival in early July. He had inherited an army that had a fighting reputation, a reputation, he was convinced, it did not deserve. And yet so far he had done nothing that could compare to the achievements of Bunker Hill and Lexington and Concord. Ready or not, he must act.
But he could not act alone. The Continental Congress had insisted that he must consult his council of war, made up of Generals Ward, Lee, Gates, Putnam, Thomas, Heath, Sullivan, and Greene. On September 8 he proposed “to make a successful attack upon the troops in Boston, by means of boats, cooperated by an attempt upon their lines at Roxbury.” They would use the small boats that had been assembled in Cambridge to launch an amphibious assault on Boston. Given Washington’s reservations about the fighting capabilities of his army and the lack of arms and ammunition, it was an extraordinarily imprudent proposal. These New Englanders were reliable enough when fighting from behind a wall; to expect them to assault the many entrenchments surrounding Boston was another matter altogether. Even if they did somehow manage to make it past the entrenchments, the assault would transform Boston’s crooked streets into a horrifying labyrinth of house-to-house fighting. By attacking now, Washington stood a good chance of destroying his own army and handing the British yet another undeserved victory. Three days later, the council of war, which met at Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge, unanimously decided that “it was not expedient to make the attempt at present, at least.”
On October 18, in anticipation of the arrival of a committee of three delegates
from the Continental Congress, which included Benjamin Franklin, Washington once again proposed that they attack. Once again the council voted unanimously against the proposal, but this time there were some qualifications. Nathanael Greene said it might work “if 10,000 men could be landed at Boston.” John Sullivan said that “winter gives a more favorable opportunity,” while Charles Lee claimed that he was “not sufficiently acquainted with the men to judge—therefore thinks it too great a risk.”
At the end of October, after a nearly week-long summit with the congressional committee, during which guidelines were drawn up for creating a more “regular” continental army (one of which required that even free African Americans be excluded), Washington formally asked for guidance on the all-important issue of attacking Boston: “The general wishes to know how far it may be deemed proper and advisable to avail himself of the season to destroy the troops who propose to winter in Boston by a bombardment, when the harbor is blocked up, or in other words whether the loss of the town and the property therein are to be so considered.”
Franklin and the other committee members decided that this was “a matter of too much consequence to be determined by them” and that they must first “refer it to the Honorable Congress.” For now, Washington would have to wait.
In the meantime, his predecessor General Artemas Ward was of the opinion that instead of attacking Boston, Washington should be more concerned with the strategic importance of Dorchester Heights. As early as August 25, Ward advised, “We . . . ought carefully to consider what steps may be taken, consistent with prudence and safety should an enemy in part gain such an ascendency. . . . I beg Your Excellency to give me some instructions relative to my duty in that case.” It was a theme Ward would return to in the months ahead.
—
By the end of October, Washington was facing a new and completely unexpected crisis. Evidence had come forward that Benjamin Church, the controversial head of the army’s medical corps, was a British spy. In September, Church’s mistress confessed that the coded letter she had unsuccessfully attempted to deliver to British authorities in Newport, Rhode Island, had been authored by Church. The letter, written in cipher, had been quickly decoded. It was hardly the kind of document one would have expected from a spy. Instead of revealing any secrets, it overstated the strength of Washington’s army in a way that seemed helpful to the Continental cause. According to Church, he had written the letter “to impress the enemy with a strong idea of our strength and situation . . . and in hopes of effecting some speedy accommodation of the present dispute.” He wasn’t a traitor, he insisted; instead, he was using his loyalist family connections (the letter had been addressed to his brother-in-law in Boston) to bring about peace.
A court-martial found him guilty “of holding a criminal correspondence with the enemy.” Unfortunately, the Continental Congress had not yet contemplated the possibility of treason, and the worst punishment a court-martial could inflict was a whipping and expulsion from the service—hardly a sufficient sentence, given the nature of the crime. But was Church truly guilty of treason? According to Massachusetts law, treason was defined as a crime against the king, and no one claimed that anything Church had done had been intended to undermine George III. Massachusetts might be in a state of armed rebellion, but even the most ardent patriots still claimed loyalty to their sovereign; that’s why Washington referred to his adversaries as the “ministerial” (as opposed to king’s) troops. To find Church guilty of treason was, in effect, to declare independence. And no one, at this point, was willing to do that. This meant that there was no legitimate way to punish Church for his crime. Indeed, under the law as currently written, Church, the spy, was the most loyal patriot of them all.
He spent the following weeks confined to his quarters in a house on Tory Row (where he carved “B. Church, Jr.” in a closet door). Finally, on October 27, he was brought before the House of Representatives in Watertown. “The galleries being opened upon the occasion,” he wrote in his own account of the proceedings, “were thronged with a numerous collection of people of all ranks, to attend so novel and important a trial.”
For years Church had been at the forefront of the patriot movement. To think that a man of his standing and obvious abilities (even Washington admitted that Church had already done much to overhaul the army’s hospitals) was capable of betraying everything that he claimed to stand for was difficult to comprehend. In Philadelphia, John Adams responded, “Good God! What shall we say of human nature? What shall we say of American patriots?” Many tried to attribute Church’s betrayal to a personal failing. If a man had been unfaithful to his wife, it was natural then that he would be unfaithful to his country. At least that’s how Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren saw it. But as became clear, most of Church’s male compatriots had long since known about his infidelities. And Church was by no means the first noted patriot to be guilty of moral turpitude. One of England’s most cherished friends of America, John Wilkes, an outspoken member of Parliament and the current mayor of London, made no secret of his sexual profligacy, and he was still looked to as an inspiration by almost all New Englanders.
Church was at his audacious best before the House of Representatives on October 27. So far, he explained, he had been denied the benefit of counsel. He hadn’t learned that he was going to appear before the House until that morning. How could a people who claimed to be fighting for liberty and freedom deny him due process?
It has been frequently objected to us by our adversaries, [he pointed out,] that we were struggling to establish a tyranny much more intolerable than that we meant to oppose. Shall we justify the prediction of our enemies . . . ? Am I impertinent in claiming the rights of Magna Carta, and bill of rights; have I no title to a trial by jurors, or the benefit of the Habeas Corpus act . . . ? Why are the rules and articles framed by the Continental Congress for the government of the army violated in every letter to accumulate distress on me?
On November 11 the House voted that Church be “utterly expelled,” even though he had long since offered his resignation. Neither the Massachusetts General Court nor the Continental Congress wanted anything to do with the case, and Church was eventually transported to Norwich, Connecticut, where he was placed under the custody of Governor Trumbull, who had been a classmate of Church’s father at Harvard. There Church would remain for the rest of the siege, a troubling reminder that when it came to the question of loyalty all of them were, in a sense, guilty.
—
On September 26, Thomas Gage learned that he had been recalled to London. Margaret had preceded him by a month and a half, leaving Boston on August 21 in a ship loaded with 170 sick and wounded survivors of the Battle of Bunker Hill. When the Charming Nancy stopped briefly at Plymouth before continuing on to London, the locals were horrified by the handful of officers and men who came ashore, “some without legs and others without arms and their clothes hanging on them like a loose morning gown.” Back in Boston, Gage was no doubt relieved to learn that it was William Howe’s turn to, in words Gage had used to the ministry, “take the bull by the horns,” and on October 11 Gage departed on the Pallas, accompanied by Lucy Knox’s father, Secretary Thomas Flucker.
In November, Howe received orders to evacuate the troops from Boston before the arrival of winter. He regretted to inform the ministry that there were not enough ships in Boston Harbor to handle all his army, as well as the artillery and “stores of all denominations, [and] the well-disposed [i.e., loyalist] inhabitants with their effects and such merchandise as it may be thought prudent to remove.” They must wait until spring. But not to worry. “We are not under the least apprehension of an attack upon this place . . . ,” he assured Lord Dartmouth; “on the contrary it were to be wished that they would attempt so rash a step and quit those strong entrenchments to which alone they may attribute their present security.”
A poisonous languor settled upon the British army in Boston. With no militar
y objective left to achieve other than simple survival, the officers and their men settled in for a long, futile winter. Dysentery and smallpox ravaged soldiers and civilians alike, to the point that twenty to thirty people were reported to be dying a day. Howe’s confidence in his army’s security was apparently not shared by his own officers. “Boston . . . may very justly be termed the grave of England,” one of them wrote, “and the slaughterhouse of America. . . . If we hear a gun fired upon the Neck, we are all under arms in a moment and tremble least the provincials should force their way into the town and put us all to the sword for our cruelty at Lexington and setting fire to the large, ancient and flourishing town of Charlestown . . . But the glorious expedition we are upon is approved of by an all-wise, all-merciful ministry; and therefore all must be right.” Wrote another, “Our barracks are all hospitals and so offensive is the stench of the wounds that the very air is infected with the smell. What, in God’s name are ye all about in England? Have you forgot us?”
And in fact, many back in Britain had done exactly that. The boycott of British goods that the colonials hoped would bring the mother country to her knees was having no visible effect. After the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War in 1774, Great Britain enjoyed what Edmund Burke described as the “most astonishing market.” “The poor are industrious,” one observer wrote from London, “and the manufacturers have full employment. . . . And were it not for the newspapers, the people at large would hardly know there was a civil war in America.” By the fall, the ministry had decided to do what Gage had proposed the year before and mount an army of twenty thousand British soldiers and mercenaries for the war in America. These military preparations also helped to stimulate the economy. “War, indeed,” Burke wrote, “is become a sort of substitute for commerce.”