Killing England Read online

  In September 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage receives news from England that he has been relieved of command because of his failures at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. The new commander in Boston is Gen. William Howe, a dark-haired, brooding, extremely wealthy forty-six-year-old career soldier who spends most nights in the arms of a Boston Loyalist’s wife.4

  Elizabeth Loring is blond, blue-eyed, and at age thirty-one has just given birth to her first son. Despite having a newborn at home, Mrs. Loring gambles and drinks most evenings at General Howe’s side, sometimes losing enormous sums in a single hand. One local paper describes her as a “brilliant and unprincipled woman,” while Howe’s staff simply calls her “the Sultana.” Mrs. Loring’s husband has learned how to accept the gossip about his wife’s affairs, and ignores those who call him a cuckold.5

  And for good reason. The British government has rewarded Joshua Loring Jr. well. Born in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1744 and raised as a staunch British Loyalist, Loring was appointed to the lucrative position of Boston’s vendue master and auctioneer, which allowed him to earn commissions on the sale of captured goods. “He fingered the cash,” one British observer will later write, “the General enjoyed madam.”

  The British general is over six feet tall, like his foe George Washington. Howe’s courage under fire has never been questioned. As commander in chief, Howe is responsible for the entire population of Boston, military and civilian, and the city is a chaotic place after residents have fled and refugees have poured in. In November, as the weather gets colder and troops must be moved from encampments into quarters, he makes the difficult decision to send three hundred civilians out of the city and into American lines.

  “Destitute of almost everything … in the most miserable and piteous condition,” George Washington wrote of these men, women, and children who were sent on boats to the mainland northeast of the city.

  Meanwhile, Howe and his officers socialize, spending their nights attending concerts and plays, drinking, and gambling. One general, “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne, spends much of the winter writing and producing well-attended theatrical plays before he is finally ordered home to London.

  British regular soldiers are not as refined. They battle the boredom of winter garrison duty in the manner of occupying armies since the dawn of war: getting falling-down drunk, chasing whores, and repressing the locals. Drinking has long been a staple of life in Boston, despite its Puritan origins. Yet the debauched behavior of the British soldiers is so appalling that it is a common worry among local women that it will have an adverse effect on their children. Those fears pale in comparison with the threat of greater abuses, for even though martial law is in effect and the punishment for rape is death, it is impossible to prevent crime in a garrison of ten thousand bored, opportunistic soldiers.6

  One British officer will write home describing the British attitude toward violently defiling American women: “A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have the most entertaining courts-martial every day.”

  Beyond the fortified city, the entire Boston Harbor is ringed by artillery—all except a set of low, barren hills at the windy southern entrance. This area is known as Dorchester Heights. Just as Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill control the high ground to the north of Boston, so the Heights overlook the city from the south.

  Both the British and Americans keep a sharp eye on this vital tactical location, but it remains unoccupied. The base of the heights is a collection of farmhouses, fields, and orchards, but the hillsides are completely exposed, making it easy for either side to bombard any troops erecting fortifications. Even if the slopes weren’t so vulnerable, the cold winter has frozen the soil to a depth of two feet, making it impossible to build foundations.

  Even more than Bunker Hill, possession of the Dorchester Heights, in the words of heavyset British general Henry Clinton, is “absolutely necessary for the security of Boston.”

  General Howe, commander of British troops in Boston, is even blunter. He promises that any rebel attempt to fortify the Heights will be met “with our full force.”

  For good reason. Should George Washington take control of Dorchester Heights, the high ground will allow his gunners to bombard the British day and night, while simultaneously closing the southern entrance of Boston Harbor to all British shipping. The British Army would then be almost completely cut off. Any British ship trying to run the blockade would be within reach of the American guns.

  Most Americans sympathetic to the rebel cause have fled across the causeway. The majority have settled in towns nearby, such as Braintree and Weymouth, while others have fled Massachusetts entirely, to make a new life far from the fighting. What remains in the city are British soldiers and colonists loyal to the king, suffering through the most wretched winter they have ever known.

  It’s not just the single-digit temperatures and biting winds that have taken their toll, nor the blizzards that turn a ship into a “cake of ice,” in the words of one British admiral. Something as simple as writing a letter becomes a challenge, as the cold freezes ink inside quills.

  The misery is made all the more unbearable by Washington’s military siege. He has deprived Bostonians of almost every amenity. The cattle that once grazed on Boston Common were slaughtered months ago, their grazing land replaced by a campsite for British troops. The vegetable gardens of summer are now covered in a deep layer of snow. What scant food that exists is greedily claimed by the wealthy and elite, leaving little for the poor and dying, soldier and citizen alike.

  Early in the winter, before the harbor iced over, it was possible for British ships to resupply the city with food, rum, and winter clothing. The frozen harbor, the foul weather, and the American privateers so fond of hijacking British cargo now make that impossible.

  “The distresses of the inhabitants and troops in Boson exceed the possibility of description,” one soldier writes in his journal. “They are almost in a point of starvation, for want of food or fuel. The inhabitants, totally destitute of vegetables, flour and fresh provisions, have actually been obliged to feed on horse flesh, and the troops confined to salt provisions, by which means they have become sick.”

  The British contempt for the civilian population, even those loyal to the king, is total. Citizens are beaten for no reason, the cries of the suffering almost completely unheard by the occupying forces.

  * * *

  Firewood has become the essence of life. The city’s trees have been chopped down, rows of church pews ripped out, and entire houses demolished to quench the need for kindling.

  Even worse than the cold and starvation is the smallpox. The disease is epidemic in Boston, taking far more lives than the war. Highly contagious and incredibly painful, smallpox starts with a flu-like fever and then develops into a rash with sores that cover the mouth, throat, and inside of the nose. Bleeding from the gums, orifices, and eyes occurs next. Soon, every part of the body, even the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, are covered in painful bright red pustules. As the infection enters its second week, the victim begins to reek of decay and the pustules pop. There is no cure for smallpox, though some lucky victims recover. Others go blind. Many simply die.

  George Washington is well acquainted with the blinding headaches and crippling back pain that can precede the outbreak of smallpox sores, having survived his own scare with the killer disease decades before.7 He is so concerned about the epidemic spreading to his troops that he will not allow any individual fleeing Boston to come in contact with his army, knowing smallpox can be transferred by something as simple as a handshake.

  Washington understands that the British may be making an even more deliberate attempt to use biological warfare against his troops. “By recent information from Boston, General Howe is going to send out a number of the inhabitants in orde
r, it is thought, to make more room for his expected reinforcements,” Washington writes to John Hancock during the course of the winter. “A sailor says that a number of these coming out have been inoculated, with design of spreading the smallpox.”8

  General Washington is now personally responsible for the siege of Boston. This makes him accountable for the suffering now being experienced by its inhabitants, British troops, Loyalists, and their families.

  But Washington does not care.

  The general is known as a man of compassion. Yet, as one soldier writes, “General Washington possesses an inflexible firmness of purpose, and is determined that discipline and subordination in camp shall be rigidly enforced and maintained.”

  Washington has shot soldiers for desertion, flogged men who disobeyed orders, and once even erected a forty-foot-tall gallows to remind troops what would become of them if they did not do their duty.

  In a letter recently circulated among his troops, Washington made it very clear what would happen to any soldier refusing to do his duty: “If any man in action shall presume to skulk, hide himself, or retreat from the enemy, without the orders of his commanding officer, he will be instantly shot down as an example of cowardice.”

  So, if the general has no problem treating his own men in this manner, he surely doesn’t give consideration to the British and their supporters enduring the deprivation brought on by the military siege.

  In fact, Washington’s bold new plan of action will make their lives even more unbearable.

  * * *

  The strategy begins to unfold just after dark on March 4. After two days of firing, the British have become desensitized to the sound of American cannon. They do not expect an American ground attack, and they plan no offensive action of their own. As the rebel guns begin firing again, the British fire back as usual. In doing so, they play into George Washington’s hands. The deafening pounding of the cannon now conceals the sound of hundreds of rebel infantrymen sprinting toward Dorchester Heights. Strategically placed sheaves of hay lining the road provide a protective screen, allowing the rebels to move into position without being seen or heard.

  Washington himself conducted some of the reconnaissance for this risky mission—and for good reason. The Continental Army has just come into possession of fifty-nine British cannon and mortars captured in upstate New York. The general now plans to place them atop the Heights.9

  The infantry is soon followed by an unlikely force of twelve hundred men driving teams of oxen pulling carts piled high with prebuilt log fortifications. A full moon will provide all the light they need to transport these loads to the summit of Dorchester Heights and set them in place. The night air is unusually warm, letting both men and animals labor without the hindrance of biting wind or a snowstorm.

  At the base of the heights, a low haze settles over the infantry as they cut down orchards and use the toppled trees to form a defensive line. But the real work takes place as the oxen slowly drag their heavy loads up the hillside. As Washington planned, the clank of harnesses and yokes is muffled by the nightlong cannon fire. The men do their best to maintain silence, lest a sharp word carry across the water to Boston and alert the British.

  “The whole procession moved on in solemn silence, and with perfect order and regularity,” one eyewitness will write, “while the continued roar of cannon serves to engage the attention and divert the enemy from the main object.”

  A first load of fortifications reaches the bluff top and is set in place. Then the oxen are guided back down the hill for another. While they are gone, a second rebel group, armed with pickaxes, goes to work on the frozen soil, slowly breaking up chunks of rock-hard earth that will fill spaces between the logs in the hastily erected fortifications. Fresh hay will be added, pressed into the gaps to form a solid seam that will prevent even a sliver of British canister and grape from passing through.

  By 10:00 p.m., the fortifications are durable enough to withstand British cannonballs. And still the Americans solidify their stronghold, working to exhaustion. At 3:00 a.m., a force of three thousand men relieves the first shift. The pace quickens with the approach of dawn. Storage barrels are filled with rocks and sand—in case of a surprise British attack, the impromptu weapons will be rolled down the slopes at the advancing army.

  As the first rays of morning sun break the darkness over the Atlantic Ocean, the oxen no longer drag fortifications up the hill.

  Instead, they haul cannon.

  “These are the preparations,” one soldier will write in his journal, anticipating that the British will send men across the harbor to do battle “for blood and slaughter.”

  * * *

  The battle never comes.

  “My god,” a stunned General Howe exclaims as he studies the new fortifications: “These fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.” Howe’s admiration is quickly replaced by action. He orders the rebels’ fortifications to be tested with a withering cannon barrage.

  But, as Howe perhaps already suspected would happen, the British guns do little damage—most cannonballs are deflected, and cause little fear among the Americans. Throughout the long night of digging and the day of cannonading, just two rebel soldiers lose their lives.

  Even as the British pound the hillside, Washington gallops Blueskin up Dorchester Heights to congratulate his troops. “His Excellency General Washington is present, animating and encouraging the soldiers, and they in turn manifest their joy, and express a warm desire for the approach of the enemy,” one soldier will later write.

  George Washington has his first great victory—and he has yet to lead his men into battle.10

  * * *

  General Howe is not a fool. He knows his army will be destroyed if Washington continues to bombard the city. In return for a British promise not to burn Boston to the ground shortly after the occupation of Dorchester Heights, the Americans allow a flotilla of British ships to line up at the docks and load eight thousand redcoats in a humiliating evacuation of the city. Many of these men have lived in Boston long enough to take wives and start families, so these dependents are let on board as well.

  Hundreds of nonmilitary civilians who consider themselves Loyalists, and who swear fealty to the king in spite of the rebellion, also find their way into steerage. Among them are Boston’s leading bankers, lawyers, preachers, shipowners, and politicians. These proud men who once dictated the ebb and flow of the city’s daily life will never again be welcome to return.11

  Also on the ship are Elizabeth Loring and her husband, Joshua. They will follow Howe’s army, he being appointed to the important and well-salaried post of commissary of prisoners in New York, she becoming the focus of accusations that Howe never put his all into fighting the American war.

  George Washington is not just driving away the British Army. He is ripping the Loyalist heart and soul out of Boston—and with great relish. There is no room for disloyalty in his world. On March 17, 1776, his army marches across the neck into Boston as a drum and fife play “Yankee Doodle.” It is a song the British have long used to deride the Americans as buffoons, but which the rebels have instead adopted as a badge of honor. In time, it will become their anthem.

  As the British fleet sails out into the Atlantic, Washington realizes he will have to confront his enemy in another place. King George is not going to cede the fight easily.

  Washington does not know where the next battle will take place.

  He suspects it will be in New York City.

  4

  PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

  JUNE 7, 1776

  11:00 A.M.

  Thomas Jefferson is thinking about death.

  His personal losses are overwhelming, but now, as a congressional delegate, he has to put his pain aside.

  It is almost a year since Congress named George Washington commander in chief, and three months since British troops fled Boston. The thirty-three-year-old Jefferson sits in a high-backed Windsor chair
near the oak fireplace in the Assembly Room, torn between the personal grief that would have him home in western Virginia instead of in this sweltering chamber and the destiny that demands he be in Philadelphia to hear all that will transpire today.

  So far, it hasn’t been much.

  This morning’s session began an hour ago. The red-haired Jefferson, who stands six feet two inches tall and has a face dotted in freckles, quietly listens to the agenda items, beginning with the shipowner seeking restitution for lost cargo. This is the grinding daily business of Congress. Or, in the words of the outspoken John Adams of Massachusetts, “drudgery of the most wasting, exhausting, consuming kind.”

  Jefferson remains quiet throughout the discussion. He is prone to extreme introversion, so he is comfortable with solitude and silence. He is a brilliant writer but is not adept at public speaking, often stumbling over the same words in speech he so easily employs on the page. These failings might be a detriment to most political careers, but Jefferson succeeds thanks to a quick mind and intense focus. In the three weeks since his arrival in Philadelphia, his fellow representatives have taken note of his understated genius. John Adams considers the young Virginian to be “prompt, frank, explicit, decisive.”

  Those qualities are not on display at this moment. Jefferson barely notices as the sloop owner’s appeal ends and a new agenda item is introduced, this one concerning the procurement of defective gunpowder in South Carolina.

  The athletic-looking Jefferson knows this drudgery will soon end. Moments from now, his fellow Virginia delegate, Richard Henry Lee, will rise to his feet and make a startling pronouncement. Lee’s words will have nothing to do with mindless minutiae or trivial agenda items. Rather, the stentorian Virginian will cut to the very quick of why this Continental Congress exists in the first place, challenging each colony to vote one way or the other on America’s most divisive issue: independence.