This week in Revolutionary War history, let’s check up on what was going on 250 years ago in and around the colonial Province of Massachusetts Bay. Last week, Americans are crushed outside Quebec City, ensuring Canadian independence and sovereignty. General Richard Montgomery was killed, Major General Bennedict Arnold is severely injured, 50 Americans are killed and another 400 captured for no British fatalities. At this time, Colonel Henry Knox march east has been halted due to changing weather and thawing rivers.
On January 7, 1776, General George Washington writes to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, at first thanking the governor for his help and loyalty, he then makes a tactical assessment that foreshadows battles to come. Through his extensive spy network throughout Boston, Washington has uncovered the British are outfitting ships in Boston Harbor for combat, and embarking troops out to sea. He says, “from the season of the year and other circumstances, [the ships] must be destined for some expedition south of this; and having such information as I can depend upon, -if not immediately designed against the City of New-York is nevertheless intended for Long Island; and as it is a matter of the utmost importance to prevent the enemy from possessing themselves of the city of New York.”
While jumping the gun a bit, Washington’s assessment would seem prophetic, as The Battle of Long Island is about 8 months away from this point, correctly judging the inclination of the British to attempt to capture New York. On January 8, Washington would order Major General Charles Lee to New York City to bolster defenses.
On January 10, a 47-page pamphlet is published in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense would ultimately call for the full separation of Great Britian and the “Inhabitants of America.” It also notably pushes ideas of more equal governance, enshrining the ideas of democracies in the colonies. In its first three months of publication, the booklet would sell 120,000 copies. By the end of the Revolutionary War, it would sell 500,000, with the total population of the United States being around 2.5 million. Proportional to population, that makes it the most bought and circulated American publication being read by 20% of them.
Paine was born in Norfolk, England and would emigrate to Philadelphia in late 1774. After a turbulent journey and a long recovery, he began the publication of the Pennsylvania Magazine and began the release of regular political writings. After only about a year in the area, he would spark a huge flame. The pamphlet was quickly circulated around, through taverns and local squares, boosting Continental Army recruitment dramatically just after many contracts had ended on January 1.
Paine would write, “For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever.” He pushed egalitarian ideas, being a true student of the Enlightenment. Not knowing how fervently his message would spread, he also put down, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” He pushed for the use of one’s “common sense” to strive for liberty and equality at a time of increased absolutism.
On January 13, not yet having read Common Sense nor anything from Quebec, Washington tragically writes to General Montgomery, not knowing he was killed nearly two weeks prior. He says, “our hopes that you will get possession of Quebec, if not already in your hands – I must beg therefore your attention to the wants of the Army here.” Washington would note the needs of the army around Cambridge while, again, not yet knowing the man he writes to is dead and nor his commanding army was functionally dispersed across the fridged north.
This Week in Revolutionary War History
By Sam Bishop