This week in Revolutionary War history, let’s check up on what was going on 250 years ago in New England and the northern Thirteen Colonies. Last week, General George Washington recognized one year since the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Though there were no events to commemorate it, as fighting continues and fortifications around New York require the full focus of the army as Washington is generally disappointed in the current state of the city. To the south, Charlestown, South Carolina presets arguments against the King and calls for a new government.
On April 26, 1776, Washington writes to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. There has been pressures to send men and munitions to Canada, and the general writes, “I could wish indeed that the army in Canada should be more powerfully reinforced. At the same time I am conscious, that the trusting this important post (which is now become the Grand Magazine of America) to the handful of men remaining here is running too great a risk – the securing this post & Hudsons River, is to us also, of so great importance, that I cannot at present advise the sending any more troops from hence.”
Though he states the city has become a hub of troops and arms, he adds, “our strength at present is, in reality, on paper only.” Men are untrained, undisciplined, and still under-armed for what will likely be a vengeful counter-attack from the British.
Speaking of undisciplined troops, the next day, in his General Orders, Washington condemns “The riotous behavior of some soldiers of the Continental Army.” The day prior, soldiers staged a riot near Washington’s headquarters at 1 Broadway. In response to this, he writes, “the authors will be brought to the severest punishment if taken, or treated as a common enemy, if they dare to resist.”
The same day, the general receives a letter from Captain Henry Miller in New Utrecht, a small town today a part of Brooklyn on Long Island. Miller writes, “this morning a small sloop came down the river the sentry on Staten Island hailed her as also those on our side but she would not come too each of the sentries fired several guns at her which she disregarded & passed under a smart breeze to the Asia Man of War.” Worrying reports that if true, showing a ship left New York and met with the British ship the Asia, signify British surveying or espionage.
On April 28, Washington writes to Rhode Island Governor Nicholas Cooke, who had written to ask for supplies and personnel for the defense of Narragansett Bay. He says, “we have no engineer that can possibly be spared from hence, indeed we are very deficient in that department, & the state of this place is such, that had we many more than we have, there would be full employment for them.”
This day would also be important in a different sense, as April 28, 1776 is the 18th birthday of James Monroe, the man who would eventually become the 5th President in 1817. Though he had taken up arms in Williamsburg, Virginia the year prior, he maintained his attendance at school up until the time around his 18th birthday, when he dropped out of school and joined the Continental Army.
Though Washington is urging focus on New York, on April 29, a delegation arrives in Montreal. Benjamin Franklin and other delegates from the Continental Congress meet with General Bennedict Arnold in the city to assess the status of the northern campaign. Though the delegates received a warm welcome from the general and the troops, it ultimately pushed congress to oppose Canadian campaigns. Franklin would leave a little under two weeks later, remarking “it would have been easier if the Americans had tried to buy Canada than invade it.”
May 2, 1776 may be one of the most consequential days of the Revolutionary War. 22-year-old King Louis XVI of France secretly agrees to provide funds and arms to the American revolutionaries. The material would be discretely given to America through the French company Rodrigue Hortalez et Compagnie. That same day, King Charles III of Spain also vowed to secretly support the rebels.
This Week in Revolutionary War History
By Sam Bishop