Rick Atkinson - The British Are Coming

The violences committed by those who have taken up arms in Massachusetts have appeared to me as the acts of a rude rabble, without concert, without conduct; and therefore I think that a small force now, if put to the test, would be able to conquer them.… It is the opinion of the King’s servants, in which His Majesty concurs, that the essential step to be taken toward reestablishing government would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors and abettors in the provincial congress, whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason and rebellion.

There was more: reinforcements were en route, though hardly the twenty thousand that Gage thought necessary. Twice Dartmouth conceded that “your own judgment and discretion” must shape any operation; yet, with proper preparation and secrecy, “it can hardly fail of success, and will perhaps be accomplished without bloodshed.… Any efforts on their part to encounter a regular force cannot be very formidable.” It was agreed in London that Gage had demonstrated restraint to the point of lamentable indulgence; now he must be firm, come what may. “The king’s dignity and the honor and safety of the empire require that in such a situation, force should be repelled by force.”

Although clear enough, this dispatch from Dartmouth was actually a duplicate. The original, with appended documents, was aboard the Falcon , and Gage, ever scrupulous, ever cautious, would await that vessel’s arrival in Boston before striking. Meanwhile, there was plenty to do, and orders flew from Province House. Newly repaired navy longboats were to be lashed to the sterns of the Somerset , Boyne , and Asia for quick repositioning. The fortifications at Boston Neck, the slender isthmus leading into the town from Roxbury, would be double-checked for strength and security. Rumors were afoot that insurgents intended to burn Boston before British reinforcements arrived. A moat now stretched across the Neck, filled by each rising tide, and the defenses included a drawbridge, mud breastworks with walls twelve feet thick, wooden blockhouses, and more than twenty cannons.

Gage had no cavalry for a quick, bold strike into the countryside. Few enlisted regulars had ever heard a shot fired in anger, although a substantial number had been in uniform for five to ten years, or longer. The most agile and many of the strongest were grouped into elite light infantry and grenadier companies; regiments usually had one of each, typically with three dozen soldiers apiece. Forced to rely on infantry plodders, Gage ordered these elite troops relieved of their regular duties on Saturday, April 15, and formed into a makeshift brigade with twenty-one companies—eleven of grenadiers and ten of light infantry, some eight hundred men altogether. Gage, the man who had formed the Anti-Gambling Club, was betting that the advantage of concentrating these companies—with their skirmishing skills, marksmanship, and ferocity—would outweigh the disadvantage of severing them from their accustomed regiments and senior officers. Word of this improvisation quickly spread through Boston. “I dare say they have something for them to do,” Lieutenant Barker told his diary.

But what, and where? Small, daylong expeditions had marched beyond Boston repeatedly in recent weeks—five regiments here, two there, trampling grain fields, toppling fences, gathering intelligence, and, not least, spooking the Jonathans. Gage also had dispatched officers “capable of taking sketches of a country.” Dressed in country clothes—the disguises fooled no one—British scouts wandered into Suffolk and Middlesex Counties with instructions to “mark out the roads and distances from town to town.” They also were to note the depth and breadth of rivers, to determine the steepness of creek banks, and to assess whether various churchyards “are advantageous spots to take post in, and capable of being made defensible.”

Gage also had a clandestine espionage network. Through American spies on the British payroll, he knew that militia generals had been appointed. He knew that several dozen men, mostly artisans and mechanics, routinely met at the Green Dragon Tavern, a two-story brick building with symmetrical chimneys, to coordinate surveillance of British troop movements; at each meeting they swore themselves to secrecy on a Bible. Further, Gage had been told that mounted rebel couriers could quickly rouse 7,500 minutemen, and that caches of military stores were hidden in Worcester, Watertown, and other settlements. Even so, he doubted the Americans had a field marshal “capable of taking the command or directing the motions of an army.”

That steady gaze of his had fixed on Concord, said to be the first village founded in Massachusetts Bay “beyond the sight and sound of the sea.” Eighteen miles from Boston and now home to 265 families, it was a place where church attendance was compulsory, where the provincial congress sometimes met, and where, according to Gage’s spies, munitions and other war supplies had been secreted in bulk. He even had a hand-drawn map, crude but detailed, showing the houses, outbuildings, and other hiding places where caches could be found.

The Americans, too, had informants. Gage would complain that the rebels collected “good, full, and expeditious intelligence on all matters transacting in England.” Reports sent from London to patriot leaders warned of regiments preparing for deployment and of the blunt new instructions sent Gage. Since early April, many families had fled Boston for country refuges. Among the most prominent patriot leaders, only Dr. Warren remained in town. Samuel Adams and John Hancock had retired to Lexington, east of Concord. The provincial congress adjourned on April 15 for three weeks—entrusting the Committee of Safety to oversee military matters—and various false alarms kept the province on edge. Gage’s concentration of longboats, grenadiers, and light infantry companies hardly passed unremarked. “Some secret expedition,” one merchant noted, was no doubt afoot.

On Sunday, April 16, the Falcon glided into Boston Harbor. “In want of many men and stores, and very leaky” after her rough passage, as the Royal Navy reported, the sloop nonetheless carried Dartmouth’s original orders. Now Gage could complete his preparations. Using the discretion permitted him, he chose to ignore Dartmouth’s proposal of targeting “actors and abettors” like Hancock and Adams; chasing such scoundrels across the province seemed futile, if not capricious. A hard strike against the depot in Concord would be more fruitful, although disappointing late intelligence indicated that the cagey rebels had evacuated at least some military stocks to other sites. Opposition seemed unlikely except perhaps from scattered “parties of bushmen.”

Gage drafted a 319-word order for Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith of the 10th Foot, appointed to lead the strike brigade. If corpulent and edging toward retirement, Smith was mature, experienced, and prudent. He was to march “with the utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord,” Gage noted, adding,

You will seize and destroy all artillery, ammunition, provisions, tents, small arms, and all military stores whatever. But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants, or hurt private property.

The map enclosed with the order illustrated Gage’s demand that two bridges over the Concord River be secured by an advance “party of the best marchers.” Captured gunpowder and flour were to be dumped into the river, tents burned, salt pork and beef supplies destroyed. Enemy field guns should be spiked or ruined with sledgehammers. The expedition would carry a single day’s rations and no artillery; speed and surprise were essential. Sentries on horseback would be positioned to prevent rebel couriers from sounding an alarm.