Selected Primary Sources
Amid all the terrors of battle I was so busily engaged in Harvard Library that I never even heard of … [it] until it was completed.”
—a scholar on the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775 1
No other happening in early American history has left such an abundance of evidence as did the events of April 19, 1775. This selected survey is limited to primary materials (and the means of access to them). Secondary and tertiary works are included only if they contain primary materials. The survey is organized in the following parts:
Bibliographical sources
Primary sources
Depositions
Depositions taken from American militia
Depositions taken from British troops
Pension applications
Claims for damages
Personal papers and accounts
Papers of Paul Revere
Papers of Thomas Gage
Personal records of other American participants
Personal records of other British participants
Official records
American government documents
Provincial and State Records
Town Records
British government documents
Colonial Office
War Office
Admiralty
Other primary sources
Published collections of primary documents
Newspaper accounts
Anniversary sermons and orations
Material artifacts
Terrain studies
Secondary works that contain primary materials
Biographical studies
Paul Revere
Thomas Gage
Other participants
Local histories
Town studies
County histories
Histories of military units
The British army
The American militia
Naval history
Weapons and equipment
Histories of events
The coming of the Revolution
The Powder Alarms
The Midnight Ride
The Battles of Lexington and Concord
The aftermath
Historiographic Studies
Bibliographies
The most comprehensive general bibliography of the American Revolution is Ronald Gephart, Revolutionary America, 1763-1789: A Bibliography. 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1984). Dwight L. Smith and Terry A. Simmerman, Era of the American Revolution: A Bibliography (Santa Barbara, 1975), is a helpful compilation of 1400 abstracts from America, History and Life. A remarkably comprehensive work is Lawrence H. Gipson, A Bibliographical Guide to the History of the British Empire, 1748-1776, published as Volume 14 in his History of the British Empire Before the American Revolution (New York, 1968).
W. J. Koenig and S. L. Mayer, European Manuscript Sources of the American Revolution (London and New York, 1974), surveys primary materials in foreign archives.
On the coming of the Revolution: a helpful work is Thomas R. Adams, American Independence, The Growth of an Idea: A Bibliographical Study of the American Political Pamphlets Printed Between 1764 and 1776 Dealing with the Dispute Between Great Britain and Her Colonies (Providence, 1965); and idem, The American Controversy: A Bibliographical Study of the British Pamphlets About the American Disputes, 1764-1783. 2 vols. (Providence, R.I., 1980).
J. Todd White and Charles H. Lesser (eds.), Fighters for Independence: A Guide to Sources of Biographical Information on Soldiers and Sailors of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1977), lists 538 narratives, diaries, journals, and autobiographies by men and a few women who fought for American independence. Many of these works refer to events at Lexington and Concord.
In 1959 Arthur Tourtellot printed privately A Bibliography of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (New York, 1959). A much abridged version was appended to his own popular history of these events, first published as William Diamond’s Drum (New York, 1959) and then reissued as Lexington and Concord; The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution (New York, 1963).
The Paul Revere Memorial Association maintains an unpublished bibliography, “Research Papers on File in the PRMA Library” (revised to Sept, 1992), which lists the studies of Paul Revere in its holdings at the Revere House in Boston.
Depositions: American Militia and Minutemen
Among the richest source material for this inquiry are American depositions taken a few days after the fighting on April 19, 1775. They were recorded for the specific purpose of proving that British soldiers fired the first shots at Lexington Green and Concord’s North Bridge. Depositions that supported this case were published as A Narrative of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops (Worcester, 1775). This pamphlet has often been reissued: in print by Peter Force (ed.), American Archives, 4th ser., II, 487-501; on microprint in the Readex microprint edition of Early American Imprints, Evans 14269; and on microfiche in Kinvin Wroth et al. (eds.), Province in Rebellion, document 591, pp. 1804-29. Depositions not clearly supportive of the American position were revised before publication, or not published at all.
The manuscript depositions themselves are scattered through several repositories. Many are at the University of Virginia and Harvard University. John Parker’s deposition is in the Lexington Historical Society. Paul Revere’s depositions (not published by the Provincial Congress) are in the Revere Family Papers, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Early transcripts of Lexington depositions are in WCL.
American signers from Lexington include: James Adams, Joseph Abbott, Ebenezer Bowman, John Bridge, Jr., James Brown, Solomon Brown, John Chandler, John Chandler, Jr., Isaac Durant, Thomas Fessenden, Isaac Green, William Grimer, Micah Hagar, Daniel Harrington, John Harrington, Levi Harrington, Moses Harrington, Moses Harrington III, Thaddeus Harrington, Thomas Harrington, Isaac Hastings, Samuel Hastings, Thomas Headley, Jr., John Hosmer, Benjamin Lock, Reuben Lock, Jonathan Loring, Abner Mead, Levi Mead, John Monroe, Jr., William Munroe, William Munroe III, Nathaniel Mullekin, John Muzzy, Ebenezer Parker, John Parker, Jonas Parker, Nathaniel Parkhurst, Solomon Pierce, Joshua Reed, Joshua Reed, Jr., Nathan Reed, John Robbins, Philip Russel, Elijah Sanderson (2 documents), Samuel Sanderson, Joseph Simonds, John Smith, Phineas Smith, Timothy Smith, Simon Snow, Phineas Stearns, Jonas Stone, Jr., Benjamin Tidd, Samuel Tidd, William Tidd, Joel Viles, Thomas Price Willard, Enoch Willington, John Winship, Simon Winship, Thomas Winship, and James Wyman.
From the town of Lincoln: John Adams, Abraham Garfield, John Hoar, William Hosmer, Benjamin Munroe, Isaac Parks, Gregory Stone, John Whitehead.
From the town of Concord: Thaddeus Bancroft, James Barrett, John Barrett, Nathaniel Barrett, Samuel Barrett, John Brown, Joseph Butler, Nathaniel Buttrick, Joseph Chandler, Jonathan Farrer, Stephen Hosmer, Jr., Thomas Jones, Ephraim Melvin, Timothy Minot Jr., Nathan Peirce, Edward Richardson, Bradbury Robinson, Samuel Spring, Silas Walker, Francis Wheeler, and Peter Wheeler.
From other towns: Paul Revere (2 drafts).
More depositions were collected through the next half-century for other purposes, mainly by local historians in various controversies that arose among the towns. These materials were recorded long after the event, and are sometimes inaccurate in matters of detail, but they tend to be more full and comprehensive than the earlier depositions.
Elias Phinney, History of the Battle at Lexington (Boston, 1825), printed depositions by Abijah Harrington, Amos Lock, Ebenezer Munroe, John Munroe, Nathan Munroe, William Munroe, James Reed, Elijah Sanderson, William Tidd, and Joseph Underwood.
Ezra Ripley, History of the Fight at Concord (Concord, 1827, 2nd ed., 1832), a reply to Phinney, included four new depositions from five participants: Robert Douglass (May 3, 1827), John Harwell (July 19, 1827), John Richardson (June 25, 1827), Joseph Thaxter (Feb. 24, 1825), and Sylvanus Wood (June 17, 1826).
Josiah Adams, Centennial Address on Acton (Boston, 1835), and Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, Esq., of Boston … in Vindication of the Claims of Capt. Isaac Davis, of Acton … (Boston, 1850), published eight new depositions from six participants: Charles Handley, Hannah Davis Leighton, Solomon Smith (2 depositions), Thomas Thorp (2 depositions), all sworn in 1835; plus Bradley Stone (sworn Aug. 16, 1845) and Amos Baker (sworn April 22, 1850).
For another history of Concord, Lemuel Shattuck interviewed eyewitnesses including Mrs. Peter Barrett (Nov. 3, 1831); Abel Conant (Nov. 8, 1832), Reuben Brown, and others. His manuscript notes are in the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, Boston.
A deposition by Tilly Buttrick, at the age of 78, is in Letterfile 7, B6, CFPL.
The last deposition from a participant was recorded seventy-five years after the battle. It was taken from Amos Baker of Lincoln in 1850, when he was ninety-four years old and was thought to be the last survivor of the American militia at the North Bridge. The document was sworn as an affadvit before three witnesses. Baker’s memory misled him in a few details, but was still crystal clear and can be confirmed by other accounts. It was published in Robert Rantoul, Jr., Oration and Account of the Union Celebration at Concord, Nineteenth of April, 1850 (Boston, 1850), 133-35.
Depositions of British Troops
Nothing as full as the systematic collection of sworn testimony from the American side is available from British participants. But there are several bodies of depositional materials that have yet to be used extensively by historians. Among them are depositions by British soldiers stationed in Boston during 1769-70. They were taken with particular attention to the Boston Massacre, and also contained much information about conditions of British troops in Boston and the repeated violence of the inhabitants toward them, all of which help to explain hostile attitudes of British regulars toward Americans in general and New Englanders in particular. These documents were not used in the Massacre trial, and have not been published in any study or compilation. They are in manuscript in the Public Record Office (CO 5/88). Transcripts are in the author’s possession.
They include depositions from Lt. Alexander Ross, Capt. Charles Fordyce, Sgt. John Phillips, Cpl. Samuel Heale, Pvt. Jonathan Stevenson, Ens. John Ness, Sgt. Samuel Hickman, Pvt. William Fowler, Pvt. John Kirk, Lt. Daniel Mather, Ens. Cornelius Smelt, Cpl. Thomas McFarland, Pvt. Samuel Bish, Pvt. Stephen Cheslett, Sgt. Thomas Light, Pvt. Samuel Unwin, Pvt. Jessey Lindley, Pvt. John Park, Pvt. Thomas Sherwood, Pvt. Robert Holbrook, Pvt. William Morburn, Pvt. Richard Ratcliff, Pvt. John Woolhouse, Cpl. William Lake, Sgt. Thomas Hood, Drummer John Gregory (2 depositions), Pvt. Thomas Smith, Sgt. Hardress Gray, Pvt. Roger McMullen, Sgt. John Norfolk, Pvt. William McCracken, Pvt. William Browne, Pvt. Joseph Whitehorse, Cpl. Robert Balfour, Pvt. David Young, Pvt. William Banks, Cpl. William Halam, Pvt. Thomas Lodger, Pvt. Richard Henley, Cpl. John Arnold, Pvt. John Shelley, Pvt. Dennis Towers, Pvt. Jacob Brown, Sgt. Thomas Thornby, Cpl. John Shelton, Pvt. James Botham, Pvt. William Mabbot, Pvt. William Wilson, Pvt. William Barker, Pvt. Gavin Thompson, Sgt. John Ridings, Sgt. John Eyley, Pvt. George Smith, Pvt. John Care, Sgt. William Henderson, Pvt. William Leeming, Pvt. Eustace Many-weather, Pvt. Edward Osbaldistan, Pvt. Jacob Moor, and Pvt. George Barnet all of the 14th Foot.
Also Ens. Alexander Mall, Pvt. William Godson, Pvt. Henry Malone, Pvt. William Normanton, Pvt. Cornelius Murphy, Sgt. Thomas Smilie, Cpl. Alexander McCartney, Pvt. Patrick Donally, Pvt. John Rodgers, Sgt. Hugh Broughton, Pvt. John Dumphy, Pvt. James McKaan, Pvt. John Croker, Cpl. John Fitzpatrick, Cpl. Hugh McCann, Pvt. James Corkrin, Cpl. Thomas Burgess, Pvt. Joshua Williams, Sgt. William James, Sgt. Richard Pearsall, Pvt. John Timmons, Cpl. Henry Cullin, Pvt. Patrick Walker, Cpl. William Murray, Pvt. Richard Johnson, Pvt. Robert Ward, Pvt. John Addicott, Pvt. George Irwin, Surgeon’s Mate Henry Dougan, Ens. Gilbert Carter, Capt. Jeremiah French, Cpl. John Eustace, and Drummer Thomas Walker of the 29th Foot.
Depositions were also taken after the fighting at Lexington and Concord from British troops who bore witness to the American atrocity committed on a wounded British soldier near Concord’s North Bridge. Deponents included Cpl. Gordon, Pvt. Thomas Lugg, Pvt. William Lewis, Pvt. Charles Carrier, and Pvt. Richard Grimshaw of the 5th Foot; all sworn on April 20, 1775, and witnessed by Capt. John G. Battier, 5th Foot. They are published in part by Allen French in General Gage’s Informers, 111.
Pension Applications
A large body of sworn testimony by veterans of the War of Independence also appears in records of Federal pension applications submitted under U.S. pension acts of 1818 and 1832. These acts required veterans to submit a narrative of Revolutionary service, sworn in a court of law, and supported by two character witnesses, one of whom had to be a clergyman. Pension agents played an active role in this process. Many accounts were dictated to court stenographers, sometimes in front of a large crowds. John Dann writes, “The pension application process was one of the largest oral history projects ever undertaken.” Altogether, under all the pension acts, as many as 80,000 narratives were processed. They are available on microfilm from the National Archives, in a collection of 898 reels. The author used the set at the New England Regional Center of the National Archives, in Waltham, Mass. The records are indexed by name (not, unhappily, by subject, date, or place of service), in Index of Revolutionary War Pension Applications in the National Archives (Washington, D.C., 1976). These materials must be used with caution. Problems of evidence are complex, but not more or less than for other historical sources. Among the narratives used for this study were those of Jonathan Brigham (Marlborough, Mass.), Richard Durfee (Tiverton, R.I.), Nathan Fisk (Northfield, Mass.), Robert Fisk, Abel Haynes (Barre, Mass.), Robert Nimblet (Marblehead, Mass.), John Nixon (Sudbury, Mass.), Abel Prescott (West-field, Mass.), Jesse Prescott (Kensington, N.H.), Richard Vining (East Windsor, Conn.), Ammi White (Concord, Mass.), Cuff Whittemore, Sylvanus Wood (Woburn, now Burlington, Mass., 1830), and Hannah Davis Leighton, the widow of Captain Isaac Davis (Acton, Mass).
Claims for Damages, April 18-19, 1775
Many householders who lived along the Battle Road submitted claims for losses. These records also document some of the events of the day. They are in the Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston. Some are published in the Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts: Joseph Loring, Jonathan Harrington, Lydia Winship, John Mason, Matthew Mead, Benjamin Merriam, Nathaniel Farmer, Thomas Fessenden, Benjamin Fiske, Jeremiah Harrington, Robert Harrington, Joshua Bond, Benjamin Brown, Hepzibah Davis, Benjamin Estabrook, Samuel Bemis, Nathan Blodget, Elizabeth Samson, Jonathan Smith Jr., John Williams, John Winship, Margaret Winship, Marrett Monroe, William Munroe, Amos Muzzy, Lydia Mulliken.
Another file of damage claims by Concord residents, including Ezekiel Brown, Reuben Brown, William Emerson, Abel Fisk, Timothy Minot, and others, is in the 1775 Folder, Concord Archives, CFPL
Personal Records: The Papers of Paul Revere
The Revere Family Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society include a large quantity of business records, but less in the way of materials of a personal or political nature. They are stronger for Revere’s life after the American Revolution than for the period before 1776. The collection is available on microfilm, with a calendar. Many scholars since Elbridge Goss have worked through the Revere Papers, but much remains to be gleaned from them. Of particular value are Paul Revere’s letters to and from his relatives abroad, and his correspondence with public figures in the early republic. This collection also includes some business records before 1776, and Paul Revere’s three accounts of the midnight ride, which have been published many times. The standard edition is Edmund S. Morgan (ed.), Paul Revere’s Three Accounts of His Famous Ride (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1968). Serious students should read these works in manuscript (or in the facsimiles published by Morgan), for Revere deleted important passages that do not appear in printed texts.
Many other American repositories have a few Revere manuscripts in autograph collections and vertical files. Scattered items are also to be found in the Massachusetts Archives, which has bills and receipts by Paul Revere for courier service, 1774-75. The Paul Revere Memorial Association holds a pass signed by James Otis for Revere to ride express to the Continental Congress, November 12, 1775.
Much Revere material also appears in the papers of other American Whig leaders. The manuscripts that survive in these collections were carefully pruned by American leaders. Benjamin Edes kept the records of the Boston Tea Party under lock and key for many years, and deliberately destroyed them before he died. In Samuel Adams’s house it was said that “trunks and boxes were filled, and shelves around the walls of the garret piled high with letters and documents” (William Wells, Samuel Adams. 3 vols. [Boston, 1865], I, xi). Many were destroyed by Adams himself, who was observed by others in his late years reading through his papers and throwing them one by one onto the fire. After his death, an “ignorant servant” was discovered using much of what survived for kindling. The remnant found its way to the New York Public Library, and includes correspondence to and from Paul Revere, with many references to his activities.
Also in the New York Public Library (among the papers of the historian George Bancroft) are the records of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, which were specially helpful to this inquiry for letters from other towns, and for material on the Powder Alarm. A small but very important set of letters to and from Revere and about him is in the John Lamb Papers at the New-York Historical Society.
Other relevant materials are in the Sparks Papers and the Palfrey Family Papers in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Also useful are the papers of William Heath, John Thomas, Henry Knox, Thomas Young, and various members of the Warren family in the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the papers of John Hancock and Isaiah Thomas at the American Antiquarian Society.
Personal Records: Thomas Gage
One of the best documented public careers in the old British Empire was that of General Thomas Gage. Every year during his tenure as commander in chief he sent home a large wooden chest full of papers—twelve chests altogether. That collection was bought by American collector William L. Clements and moved to the United States, where it was sumptuously bound in leather folios, and housed in the William L. Clements Library on the campus of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Gage’s official correspondence is at the Public Record Office in Kew, outside London. Much (but not all) of his correspondence with the Secretaries of State, the War Office, and the Treasury has been published in a generally accurate but idiosyncratic work by Clarence E. Carter (ed.), The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage. 2 vols. (New Haven, 1933; rpt. 1969). Unofficial documents in the Gage Papers relevant to Paul Revere, and to the battles of Lexington and Concord, have also been published in whole or part in Allen French, General Gage’s Informers: New Material Upon Lexington and Concord … (Ann Arbor, 1932).
Gage himself also published his own short account of Lexington and Concord as “A Circumstantial Account of an Attack that happened on the 19th of April, 1775.” A copy of the first edition, with Joseph Warren’s pungent marginalia, is in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Reprints have appeared in Peter Force (ed.), American Archives, 4th ser., II, 435; and MHSC II, 224. Also of much interest are Gage’s “Replies to Queries by Historian George Chalmers,” MHSC, 4th ser., 4 (1858): 369-70, and his letters on the battle to colonial governors: Trumbull of Connecticut, Colden of New York, and Dunmore of Virginia, also in AA4, II, 434-37, 482-83, and in Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden, vol. VIII, N-YHS Collections 66 (1923): 283-87. Many other letters from Gage are published in the Colden Papers. Others appear in Sylvester Stevens et al., The Papers of Col. Henry Bouquet (Har-risburg, 1940-42), and James Sullivan et al., The Papers of Sir William Johnson (Albany, 1921). Gage’s papers concerning the Boston Massacre have been published in Randolph G. Adams (ed.), New Light on the Boston Massacre (Worcester, 1938).
Less abundant are materials on Gage’s private life. One of his biographers complains that the Gage Papers “contain almost nothing of a personal nature, and after all my research I felt that I knew Gage the military bureaucrat but not Gage the man” (John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed (New York, 1976), 73). It is also important to remember that Gage’s papers document in a meticulous way what he wanted us to know. They must be cross-examined for the truths that they betray.
Other unpublished Gage manuscripts are in the Haldimand Papers (British Library, London), which reveal more of Gage’s personality than any other source, especially in letters written during Gage’s leave in England. Other items are in the Amherst Papers at the Public Record Office, but this collection holds very little on the events of 1774—75.
Personal Records of American Participants
Particularly helpful to this inquiry were the many diaries kept in New England. A new computer data base at the Massachusetts Historical Society was used to identify systematically all diaries in that repository within the period Sept. 1, 1774 to May 17, 1775. Other materials are in the form of correspondence, memoirs, and narratives, as follows:
John Adams: Diary and Autobiography. 4 vols. Ed Lyman Butterfield (Boston, 1961; rpt. 1964); Papers of John Adams. 3 vols. Ed. Robert J. Taylor et al. (Cambridge, 1977).
John Quincy Adams: Memoirs. 12 vols. Ed. Charles F. Adams (Philadelphia, 1874-77).
Samuel Adams: Writings. 4 vols. Ed. Harry A. Cushing (New York, 1904).
Hannah Adams: Memoir, May 17, 1775, published in S. A. Smith, West Cambridge on the 19th of April 1775 (Boston, 1864), and Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 128.
Nathaniel Ames: Diary, 1756-1821, ms., Dedham Historical Society, one of the great American diaries, an extraordinary record of events in a New England town by its physician, who also describes his trip to the battlefield after the fighting.
Mrs. John Amory: Diary, published as The Journal of Mrs. John Amory with Letters from Her Father Rufus Greene, ed. Martha Codman (Boston, 1923). Katherine Green Amory: Diary, 1775, MHS.
John Andrews: “The Andrews Letters, 1772-76,” ms., MHS, pub. in MHSP 8 (1865): 316-412; very rich for life in Boston.
Joseph Andrews: Diary, 1752—81, MHS, events in Hingham, Mass.
James Baker: Diary, 1775, MHS.
Loammi Baldwin: Diary, 1775, Harvard
Amos Barrett (var. Barret) Concord militiaman: Narrative published in Henry True, Journal and Letters (Marion, Ohio, 1906), copy in CFPL; a major document on the battle.
Jeremy Belknap: Journal, published as “Journal of my tour to the camp …,” MHSP 4 (1858): 77-86; includes interviews with Bostonians on events of April 18 and the beginning of Paul Revere’s ride; Diary, 1774—75, MHS.
Joshua Bentley: Reminiscence, communicated by his grandson, Charles Wooley, to Elbridge Goss, May 1886, published in Goss, Revere, I, 189n; one of the men who rowed Revere across the Charles River.
William Bentley: The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Mass. 4 vols. (Salem, 1905—14); the son of Joshua Bentley. The published edition is incomplete and inaccurate; for any serious purpose the original manuscripts should be consulted at the American Antiquarian Society.
Samuel Bixby, a militiaman from Sutton, Mass.: Diary, 1775, MHSP 14 (1875-76), 285.
Thaddeus Blood, Concord militiaman: Narrative, ms. CFPL; published in the (Boston) Daily Advertiser, April 20. 1886; especially valuable for the North Bridge and Meriam’s Corner.
Benjamin Boardman: Diary, 1775, MHSP2 7 (1891-92): 400-413.
John Boyle: “Journal of Occurrences in Boston, 1759-1778,” NEHGR 84 (1930): 142-71, 248-72, 357-82; 85 (1931): 5-28, 117-33; a very full account of events in Boston, with details of Paul Revere’s earlier rides.
James Boynton: Diary, 1775, MHS.
Thomas Boynton: Journal, April 19, 1775, MHSP 15 (1877): 254—55.
Chelmsford Bridge: Diary, April 19-21, 1775, published in Brown, Beside Old Hearthstones, 253—54.
John Buttrick, Lincoln, Mass.: Deposition, Nov. 1776, published in Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, 68, and Hurd, Middlesex County, II, 619.
John Checkley: Diary, published as Diary of Reverend Samuel Checkley, ed. Henry Winchester (n.p., n.d.).
William Cheever: Diary, MHS.
William Clark: Diary, 1775-1812, ms. transcript, Dedham Historical Society.
Elizabeth Clarke, “Extracts from Letter of Miss Betty Clarke, Daughter of Rev. Jonas Clarke,” Lexington Historical Society Proceedings 4 (1905—10): 91—93.
Jonas Clarke, minister in Lexington: Almanac Diary, 1774—75, LHS and MHS; “Narrative of events on April 19,” ms., LHS; published in Hudson, History of Lexington, I, 1-7, “The Fate of the Bloodthirsty Oppressers,” Sermon, 1776 (Lexington, LHS, 1901), includes the narrative of events as an appendix; Opening of the War of the Revolution, 19th of April, 1775, A Brief Narrative of the Principal Transactions of That Day (Lexington, n.d.), a participant history.
Benjamin Cooper: Memoir, May 19, 1775, in S. A. Smith, West Cambridge on the 19th of April 1775 (Boston, 1864); Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 128.
Rachel Cooper: Memoir, May 19, 1775, in Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 128.
Samuel Cooper, a refugee in Weston: Diary, 1775-76, MHS, published by Frederick Tuckerman (ed.), AHR 6 (1901): 301-41.
Richard Devens: Memorandum, n.d., published in Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, 57—58. Devens was an important Whig leader in Charlestown who helped Revere to “git” his horse.
Ebenezer Dorr: Account Book, 1766—1776, MHS.
William Dorr: Diary, 1775, MHS.
Eliphalet Downer, Recollections, ms., NEHGS.
Peter Edes: Diary kept in Boston Gaol, June 19—Oct. 3, 1775, ms., MHS; harrowing account of his arrest and confinement.
Andrew Eliot: Diary, 1740-84, MHS.
John Eliot: Diary, 1775, MHS.
William Emerson: Diary, 1775, published in Proceedings of the Centennial Celebration of Concord Fight (Concord, 1876), and Amelia Forbes Emerson (ed.), Diaries and Letters of William Emerson, 1743—1776, Minister of the Church in Concord, Chaplain in the Revolutionary Army (Boston, 1972). A leading source for events in Concord.
Joseph Fairbank, militia captain in Harvard, Mass.: Papers, 1775, in Castle et al. (eds.), The Minute Men, 123, includes records of the “Alarm Men,” who are not in the town’s militia and minute companies.
Amos Farnsworth: Diary, 1775-79, published in S.A. Greene (ed.), “Three Military Diaries,” MHSP 12 (1873): 74.
Elijah Fisher: Journal, 1775-1784 (Augusta, 1880).
John Fitch: Diary, MHSP2 9 (1894-95): 41-91.
Edmund Foster: letter to Col. Daniel Shattuck, March 10, 1825; Coburn, Battle of April 19, 1775, 34; Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 253-56.
Joshua B. Fowle: Letters to Samuel H. Newman, July 28, 1875, and August 1876, on the signal lanterns; Wheildon, Paul Revere’s Signal Lanterns, 34-36. The Rev. Caleb Gannett: Diary, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
John Gates: Diary, April 1775, MHS.
Ebenezer Gay, Suffield, Conn.: Diary, 1738-94, MHS.
William Gordon, minister in Roxbury: Narrative published as “An Account of the Commencement of Hostilities Between Great Britain and America, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay,” May 17, 1775,” AA4, II, 625-31.
Joshua Greene: Diary, 1775, extracts, MHS.
The Rev. Cyrus Hamblin: My Grandfather, Colonel Francis Faulkner (Boston, 1887); valuable for the Lexington alarm west of Concord.
Samuel Hawes: Diary, in The Military Journal of Two Private Soldiers, 1758—1775, ed. Abraham Tomlinson (Poughkeepsie, 1875), the alarm in Wrentham, Mass.
William Heath, militia general: Memoir, published as Memoirs (Boston, 1798); manuscripts in the Massachusetts Historical Society are available on microfilm and are published in part in MHSC5 4 (1878): 1-288); MHSCy 4 (1904): 1-354; 5 (1905): 1-419.
George R. T. Hewes: A Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party, with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes, by a Citizen of New York (New York, 1834), an important source for life in Boston, and the revolutionary movement.
Robert Honyman: Colonial Panorama, 1775; Dr. Robert Honyman’s Journal (San Marino, Calif., 1939).
Jonathan Hosmer: Letter to Oliver Stevens or Joseph Standley, April 10, 1775, privately owned; excerpts published in a dealer’s catalogue, Joseph Rubenfine, The American Revolution, List 114 (West Palm Beach, Fla., n.d), n.p.; a copy is in the Concord Antiquarian Museum.
Thomas Hutchinson: The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. 2 vols. (Boston, 1884), helpful on the impact in Britain of the news of the battle; Hutchinson’s manuscripts include correspondence from Massachusetts, on the events of 1774-75. They are in the British Library, Egerton ms. 2659, 1670-73
Phineas Ingalls, minuteman from Andover, Mass.: Diary, 1775, transcript, MHS.
Edward Jarvis, “Traditions and Reminiscences of Concord, Massachusetts; or a Contribution to the Social and Domestic History of the Town, 1779 to 1878,” ms., CFPL.
John Jenks, Salem, Mass.: Diary, 1775, MHS.
John Jones, Jr., captain of minutemen, Princeton, Mass.: Letter on the alarm, muster, and aftermath, published in Frank Smith, History of Dover, Mass. (Dover, 1897), 93.
John Kettell: Diary, 1775, MHS, a Charlestown source, good for the siege of Boston.
John Leach: “Journal Kept … During his Confinement by the British in Boston Gaol, in 1775,” NEHGR 19 (1865): 255.
Paul Litchfield: Diary, ms., MHS, published in part in MHSP 19 (1882): 377-79; the alarm in Scituate, Mass.
Israel Litchfield: “Diary,” NEHGR 129 (1975): 152.
Jeremiah Loring: Letter, n.d. [Oct. 1876], on the signal lanterns; Wheildon, Paul Revere’s Signal Lanterns, 34—36.
Benjamin Lynde: Diary, 1775, MHS; events in Salem.
David McClure: Diary, MHSP 16 (1878): 155-61, includes an interview after the battles with British Lieutenant Edward Hull.
Isaac Mansfield, Jr.: Thanksgiving Sermon in Camp at Roxbury, Nov. 23, 1775, in J. W. Thornton (ed.), Pulpit of the American Revolution (Boston, 1860), 236; includes material on the battles of Lexington and Concord.
John Marrett, minister in Woburn: Interleaved almanac diary entries from Jan. 1, 1775, to Dec. 31, 1776, published in part in Samuel Dunster (ed.), Henry Dunster and His Descendants (Central Falls, 1876). Extracts are also printed in Hurd, Middlesex County,674-80. The entry for April 19 was omitted by Hurd, as it had been published previously in Samuel Sewall’s History of Woburn, 363, 78, 573.
Thompson Maxwell, a Medford teamster: Narrative published in Drake, History of Middlesex County I, 244-45; on the Boston Road, April 18, 1775.
Joseph Merriam, militiaman: Diary, 1775, BPL.
Timothy Merriam: Narrative of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1830, MHS.
Martha Moulton, Concord: Petition to General Court, Feb. 4, 1776, published in Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, 369-70.
Thomas Newell: Diary, 1773-74, MHS.
Timothy Newell: Diary, 1775-78, published as “A Journal During the Time Yt Boston Was Shut Up in 1775-76,” MHSC4 1 (1852): 260-76; an important source on Boston affairs.
Peter Oliver: Origin and Progress of the American Revolution (Palo Alto, 1961); a Tory polemic. Its story of the “remarkable heroine” who fired at a “house door” and was killed by British troops on the Battle Road,” is often reprinted as fact (e.g., Boston Globe, April 19, 1993), but appears to have no foundation. Oliver’s account is more useful for its insight into the mind of an American Loyalist. The manuscript of the work, and the Oliver Letter Book, are in the British Library, Egerton ms. 2670.
Harrison Gray Otis, a Boston schoolboy: Memoir of April 19, 1775, Boston Advertiser, April 19, 1858; it was reprinted in Edward Everett Hale, One Hundred Years Ago (Boston, 1875), 156-57.
Robert Treat Paine: Papers, ca. 1743-1814, MHS; include material on Whig activities at the beginning of the American Revolution.
James Parker: Diary, published as “Extracts from the Diary of James Parker of Shirley, Mass.,” NEHGR 69 (1915): 117-27.
Henry Pelham: Family Correspondence, a large body of materials especially strong on events in Boston and Newton, Mass., is in “Intercepted Copley-Pelham letters,” PRO, C05/39.
Timothy Pickering: Papers, MHS. In 1775, Pickering was a colonel of militia whose reluctance to march or engage allowed Percy to escape. His papers include two letters describing events of April 19; published in part in French, Day of Concord and Lexington,261.
Robert Pierpont: Record of interview with General Gage, March 20, 1775, Adams Mss, NYPL.
Levi Preston: Interview by Mellen Chamberlain, published as “Why Captain Preston Fought,” Danvers Historical Collections 8 (1920): 68—70.
Dorothy Quincy, John Hancock’s fiancee: Narrative to William H. Sumner, 1825, published as “Reminiscences by Gen. William H. Sumner,” NEHGR 8 (1854): 188—91; colorful details of the Clarke parsonage and the rescue of Hancock and Adams.
Experience Wight Richardson, Sudbury: Diary, 1775, microfilm, MHS; useful for the alarm and Great Fear.
Jacob Rogers: Petition, Oct 10, 1775, MA.
John Rowe, Boston merchant: Diary, ms., MHS; published in part as Diary of John Rowe (Cambridge, 1895); and Anne Rowe Cunningham (ed.), Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant (Boston, 1903). Published editions are incomplete; the manuscript should be consulted for any serious purpose.
Samuel P. Savage II: Papers, MHS; include 3 letters and a memorandum on April 19, 1775.
Hezekiah Smith, Haverhill, Mass.: Diary, 1773-74, MHS.
Luke Smith, son of Acton militiaman Solomon Smith: Boston Globe, April 18, 1893; Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 308-9.
William Smith: Petition and Account, MA, vol. 182, 199—300, published in Hudson, History of Lexington, 189; pagination varies in other editions.
James Stevens: Journal, April 19, 1775; published as “Journal of James Stevens,” EIHC 48 (1912): 41.
Nathan Stow: Journal, 1776-80, Stow Family Papers, CFPL; “Sergeant Nathan Stow’s Orderly Book,” Putnam’s Monthly Magazine 1 (1892—93): 307—8. William Tay, Woburn: Petition Sept. 20, 1775, published in Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston,368-69.
Joseph Thaxter: Letter dated Nov. 30, 1824, Historical Magazine 15 (2nd ser. V: 206— 7); also in United States Literary Gazette 1 (1825): 264.
John Tudor: Diary, typescript, MHS, on the alarm in Cambridge; published as William Tudor, Deacon Tudor’s Diary (Boston, 1896).
Mary Palmer Tyler: Grandmother Tyler’s Book; The Recollections of Mary Tyler [Mrs. Royall Tyler], ed. Frederick Tupper and Helen Tyler Brown (New York, 1925). She was the daughter of Revere’s friend Joseph Palmer.
Artemas Ward: Papers, MHS. The general who wasn’t there, but his manuscripts hold much material about the Massachusetts militia.
Dr. John Warren: Diary, April 19, 1775-May 11, 1776, reported in private hands many years ago; not found.
Samuel Weld, Roxbury: Diary, 1773-76, Rhode Island Historical Society.
John Whiting: Diary, 1743-84, ms., Dedham Historical Society.
Stephen Williams, minister in Longmeadow, Mass.: Diary, 1775, in Castle et al. (eds.), The Minute Men, 147.
Hannah Winthrop: Letter (n.d.) to Mercy Warren, MHSP 14 (1875): 29-31; a good source on the Great Fear.
Anna Green Winslow: ed., Diary of Anna Green Winslow: A Boston School Girl of 1771. ed. George Francis Dow (Cambridge, Mass., 1894).
Personal Records of British Participants
Many British soldiers who marched to Concord left written accounts of their experiences. Some were published immediately after the event. Others were found in British archives by American Anglophiles; a remarkable number are still coming to light. Among the most useful are the following (in alphabetical order):
Anonymous officer in the 5th Regiment: Letter of July 5, 1775, published in Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, 75.
Anonymous officer of the 59th Regiment: Undated letter in Ezra Stiles, Literary Diary, II, 575 (June 22, 1775).
Anonymous officer who marched to Concord: Letter dated April 20, 1775, Farley’s Bristol Journal, June 17, 1775; Willard (ed.), American Letters on the Revolution, 76-77; Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 165.
Anonymous officer: Diary 1775-77, reported sold Jan. 10, 1921, by the Anderson Auction Co. to a private collector; said to include an account of the capture of Paul Revere (Forbes, New England Diaries, 334). Not found.
Anonymous seaman? on board a British ship in Boston harbor: Letter dated April 21, 1775, Letters of the American Revolution, 77-79; Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 184.
Anonymous soldier, 23rd Foot (Welch Fusiliers): Letter, April 30, 1775, published in Essex Gazette, May 12, 1775; rpt. AA4, II, 440-41.
Anonymous soldiers (3?), units unknown: Intercepted letters, AA4, II, 439—40.
Anonymous soldier’s wife: Letters, AA4, II, 439—40.
Lt. Col. James Abercrombie, 22nd Foot: Letter to Colden, May 2, 1775, MHSP2, 11 (1897): 306.
Lt. John Barker, 4th (King’s Own) Foot: Diary, published in part as “A British Officer in Boston,” Atlantic Monthly 39 (1877): 389—401, 544—54; a more complete transcription appears in Harold Murdock and Elizabeth E. Dana (eds.), The British in Boston(Boston, 1924); a most important first-hand account of the Concord expedition.
Major William Basset, 10th Foot?: Letter April 23, 1775, published with Lister, narrative; a few helpful vignettes.
Pvt. John Bateman, 52nd Foot: Deposition after capture, April 23, 1775, AA4, II, 496.
Lt. William Carter, 40th Foot: Letters dated 1775—76, published as Genuine Detail … (London, 1784), copy in Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Col. Samuel Cleveland, Royal Artillery: Narrative; Kehoe, “We Were There!” II, 179, citing MSS Royal Artillery Record Office.
Gen. Sir Henry Clinton: William B. Willcox (ed.), The American Rebellion (New Haven, 1954). Clinton did not arrive in America until after the battles, but had interesting comments on Gage’s performance.
J[ohn?] [Crozier?], master of British transport Empress of Russia: Letters dated April 23, 1775, et seq., in Rockingham Mss., City Library, Sheffield, published as “An Account of Lexington in the Rockingham Mss. at Sheffield,” ed. J. E. Tyler, WMQ3 10 (1953): 99-107.
Ens. Henry De Berniere, 10th Foot: Narrative, published as Narrative of Occurrences, (Boston, 1779), rpt MHSC2, 4 (1816): 204-15; idem, General Gage’s Instructions (Boston, 1779), a very full account of the reconnaissance missions and the Concord expedition.
Major Robert Donkin: Military Collections and Remarks (New York, 1777).
Capt. W. Glanville Evelyn, 4th Foot: Letter, April 23, 1775, published in Memoir and Letters of Captain W. Glanville Evelyn, of the 4th Regiment (“King’s Own”) from North America, 1774—1776, ed. G.D. Scull (Oxford, 1879), 53-55; valuable for the life of a junior officer in Boston.
Lt. Edward Thoroton Gould, 4th (King’s Own) Foot: Deposition after capture, April 25, 1775, published in AA4, II, 500-501.
Vice Admiral Samuel Graves, Royal Navy, commanding at Boston: “The Conduct of Vice Admiral Samuel Graves in North America in 1774, 1775 and January 1776,” a defense of his acts, with copious extracts from his papers by his flag secretary, George Gefferina, dated Dec. 11, 1776, and signed Dec. 1, 1777; two ms. vols., British Library, add. m. 14038-39; transcripts in MHS; published in part in NDAR, 1, 193, 206; his official correspondence is in the Public Record office, ADM 1/485.
Frederick Haldimand: Papers, British Library, add. ms., 21665-97; Gage’s second in command, an exceptionally full and revealing correspondence, Haldimand writing in French, Gage in English. See also Allen French, “General Haldimand in Boston,” MHSP66 (1942): 91.
Capt. George Harris, 5th Foot: Stephen R. Lushington, The Life and Services of General Lord Harris, GCB (London, 1840), colorful details.
John Howe, alleged British spy: Journal, published as The Journal Kept by John Howe, as a British Spy (Concord, N.H., 1827). The authenticity of this source is very doubtful. No use of it has been made in this inquiry.
Ens. Martin Hunter, 52d Foot: The Journal of General Sir Martin Hunter (Edinburgh, 1894), vignettes.
Lt. Edward Hull, 43rd Foot: Narrative, MHSP 16 (1878): 155-58.
Lt.-Col. Stephen Kemble: Deputy Adjutant General to Gage, Journals, published in The Kemble Papers, N-YHS Collections for the Year 1883 (New York, 1884), offers many insights into the operation of Gage’s staff.
Capt. Walter S. Laurie, 43rd Foot: Letter to Gage, April 26, 1775, published in General Gage’s Informers (Ann Arbor, 1932), 95-98; another letter, dated April 21, in Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, III, American Papers (London, 1887-96), 292; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fourteenth Report, Appendix, part 10; a letter about his living arrangements in Boston is in the Copley-Pelham Papers, PRO.
George Leonard: Loyalist volunteer with Percy’s brigade: Deposition, May 4, 1775, General Gage’s Informers, 57.
William Lewis: see Gordon.
Ens. Jeremy Lister, 10th Foot: Narrative, 1782, published as Concord Fight, ed. Harold Murdock (Cambridge, 1931), rpt. Spartanburg, S.C, 1969; rpt. in The Nineteenth of April, 1775, ed. Clement Sawtell (Lincoln, Mass., 1968), a major narrative of the expedition by an officer in the lead company. His account of the battles of Lexington and Concord and other letters are in the Lister Family Papers, Shibden Hall Folk Museum of West Yorkshire, Halifax.
Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, 23rd Foot, or Royal Welch Fusiliers: Diary, in Regimental Museum, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Caernarfon Castle, Wales, published as A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston, ed. Allen French (Cambridge, 1926), the most meticulous of British accounts. The Regimental Museum also has a portrait of Mackenzie, painted on his retirement as lieutenant-colonel.
Pvt. James Marr, 4th Regiment: Deposition after capture April 23, 1775, published in AA4, II, 500.
Capt. John Montresor, Corps of Engineers: The Montresor Journals, ed. G. D. Scull, N-YHS Collections for the Year 1881 (New York, 1882).
Col. Hugh Percy, 5th Foot, commander relief expedition: Letters, ed. C. K. Bolton (Boston, 1902); his report on the battle is in the Public Record Office, London, CO5/92-93; other correspondence is in the Haldimand Papers, BL.
Major John Pitcairn, Royal Marines: Letters and reports to Admiralty, published in Sandwich Papers, Navy Records Society; report to Gage, published in General Gage’s Informers, 55; correspondence with Col. John Mackenzie in Mackenzie Papers, vol. IV, add. ms. 39190, BL.
Richard Pope: Narrative, Huntington Library, California, photostat, NYPL. Published as Late News of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops on the 19th of April (Boston, 1927). The author of this document has not been conclusively identified. French thought him a private or noncommissioned officer, 47th Regiment. Tourtellot believed that he was a Boston Loyalist who marched with the Regulars as a volunteer (Bibliography, 19).
Lord Rawdon, subaltern in the 5th Foot: Papers in the British Library, London.
Richard Reever: Letters from America, 1775-77, in the Buckinghamshire Record Office, Aylesbury.
Earl of Sandwich: The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich. 3 vols. (London, Navy Records Society, 1932—38), the correspondence of the First Lord of the Admiralty.
Lt.-Col. Francis Smith, 10th Foot: Report to General Gage, April 22, 1775, PRO, CO5/92; printed in MHSP 14 (1876): 350-51; letter to Major R. Donkin, Oct. 8, 1775, Gage Papers, WCL, published in part in General Gage’s Informers, 61.
Capt. William Soutar, Royal Marines: Narrative, published in part without citations in Hargreaves, Bloodybacks, 219—22.
Charles Stedman: History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War. 2 vols. (London and Dublin, 1794). The author was a serving British officer in the American War of Independence. He knew and interviewed many participants; primary materials on Lexington and Concord (I, 116-20). For a critique, see R. Kent Newmeyer, “Charles Sted-man’s History of the American War,” AHR 63 (1957-58): 924-34.
Lt. William Sutherland, 38th Foot: Narrative letter to Kemble, April 27, 1775, Gage Papers, WCL, published in Wroth et al. (eds.), Province in Rebellion (Cambridge, 1975), doc. 721, pp. 2024—29; narrative letter to General Clinton, April 26, 1775, published in Late News of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops on the Nineteenth of April, 1775, ed. Harold Murdock (Boston, 1927).
Maj. James Wemyss: “Character Sketches of Gage, Percy and Others,” Sparks Papers, Harvard University, xxii, 214.
Lt. Richard Williams, Royal Welch Fusiliers: Jane van Arsdale (ed.), Discord and Civil Wars; Being a Portion of a Journal Kept by Lieutenant Williams of His Majesty’s Twenty-Third Regiment While Stationed in British North America During the Time of the Revolution (Buffalo, 1954). Williams arrived after the battles; graphic accounts of Boston, but troubling questions of authenticity.
American Government Documents
Among province and colony records, an important source for this inquiry are the records of the Provincial Congress in William Lincoln (ed.), The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts (Colony) in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix (Boston, 1838). A more generous selection of materials pertaining mainly to the Provincial Congresses has been issued in microfiche as L. Kinvin Wroth et al. (eds.), Province in Rebellion; A Documentary History of the Founding of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1774—1775 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975).
Other sources include “Letters and Doings of the Council,” manuscript notebook covering period April g, 1774—April 21, 1776, Massachusetts Archives. The Massachusetts Tax List for 1771 is in the Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, and has been published in summary form by Bettye Hobbs Pruitt.
The Town Records of Boston have been published as Boston Record Commissioners Report, 39 vols. (Boston, 1876-1909). Specially helpful are vol. 1, Boston Tax Lists, 1674-1675; vol. 18, Boston Town Records, 1770 Through 1777; vol. 24, Boston Births, 1700—1800; vol. 28, Boston Marriages, 1700—1751; vol. 30, Boston Marriages, 1752—1800; and vol. 22, The Direct Tax of 1798.
Other town records are included with local history, below
British Government Documents
In the new Public Record Office, Kew, official materials relevant to this inquiry are mainly to be found in three broad record-groups: the Colonial Office, War Office, and the Admiralty.
Colonial Office records on military affairs in CO5/92-93 are especially rich on events of 1774-75, and include the official reports on the battles from Smith, Percy, and Gage. Also helpful are Colonial Office records on admiralty matters in CO5/120-21. Orders in Council are in CO5/29-30, and letters to the secretary of state from Massachusetts are in C05/769. Instructions to Provincial Governors of Massachusetts, 1631-1775, available to American readers in eight volumes of transcripts at the MHS.
Military records in the Public Record Office include Secretary at War. In-Letters W01; Out-Letters, W04; Commander in Chief, WO3; Marching Orders, W05; Headquarters Papers, WO28, and Troop Movements, WO379. The Amherst Papers, WO34, contain much on America, but little about Lexington and Concord. Service records of officers and printed Army Lists are in WO 65, are on open shelves in the Public Record Office; they include officers of the Royal Marines for this period. American Rebellion Entry books, WO 36, include orders for the Boston garrison from June 10, 1773, to Jan. 10, 1776, Gage’s orderbook from July 10, 1774, to Dec. 9, 1774, is in N-YHS. His orderbook from Dec. 10, 1774, to June 6, 1775, is at BPL. For individual regiments, the surviving Monthly Returns, W017, hold much material before 1773 and after 1783, but very little in between.
Another record-group in the Public Record Office of special importance for the battles of Lexington and Concord is a large collection of regimental rosters, muster books, and paylists (WO12). They are nearly complete for the British regiments in Boston during the period Nov. 1774—Oct. 1775. These are huge red-bound elephant folios with separate sheets for each company in every regiment. They identify by name, rank, and record of service for this period virtually all British troops who served in Boston and fought at Lexington and Concord. The important materials are in Wo 12/2194 (4th Foot); 2289 (5th Foot); 2750 (10th Foot); 3501 (18th Foot); 3960 (23rd Foot); 5171 (38th Foot); 5561 (43rd Foot); 5871 (47th Foot); 6240 (52nd Foot); 6786 (59th Foot); 7313 (64th Foot); and 7377 (65th Foot).
Some official British military records have found their way into other archives. Summaries of monthly returns by regiment for January and April 1775 are to be found (filed under later dates) in the British Library, add. ms., 29259/I-L. The records of the 52nd Foot, later the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, for the period 1775-1822, are in the Bodleian Library. Orderly Books of the 10th and 23rd Foot are in WCL.
Douglas Sabin, historian of the Minuteman National Historical Park, with the endorsement of the British Military Attache in Washington, wrote to every regimental association and museum for units present at Lexington and Concord. Virtually no manuscript material was turned up by this inquiry, but a generous file of photocopies from published regimental histories was forthcoming. The material is in the Library of the Minuteman National Historical Park, Concord, Massachusetts.
Admiralty Records in the Public Record Office include Admirals Dispatches, North America, ADM 1/484-90. Among the more important ships’ logs for these events are those of HMS Canceaux, ADM 51/4136; HMS Kingfisher, ADM 51/506; HMSPreston,ADM 51/720; HMS Scarborough, ADM 51/867; and HMS Somerset, ADM 51/906. Fragmentary records of the Royal Marine battalions serving with the army are in Muster Books and Pay Lists, ADM 96/153. Records of individual Marine officers appear in ADM 157, 159, 192/2, 196/1, and 196/68.
Documentary Collections
Peter Force (ed.), American Archives, 4th series., 6 vols., March 7, 1774, to Aug. 21, 1776, and 5th series, 3 vols., May 3, 1776, to Dec. 31, 1776 (Washington, D.C., 1837-53), a vast compilation in nine large folio volumes of primary materials, many of which are relevant to this inquiry, and some of which have been lost since Force published them.
Vincent J. R. Kehoe (ed.), “We Were There!” 2 vols, (mimeographed typescript, Chelmsford, 1975). This is a full collection of primary materials on the fighting at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, compiled with great care and attention to detail. One volume is devoted to “The American Rebels” and another to “British Accounts.” Complete sets are nonexistent in academic libraries, and very rare in other institutions, but may be found at the Watertown Public Library, the Arlington Public Library, and the Library of Minuteman National Historical Park.
Benson J. Lossing, Hours with Living Men and Women of the Revolution (New York, 1889). Frank Moore (ed.), The Diary of the American Revolution. 2 vols. (New York, 1858, rpt. 1967), consists mostly of extracts from newspapers. Margaret Wheeler Willard (ed.), Letters on the American Revolution, 1774-1776 (Boston, 1925), includes many relevant epistolary materials.
Newspaper Accounts
Boston newspapers of general interest in the period 1774-75 include Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy and Benjamin Edes’s and John Gill’s Boston Gazette, both strongly Whig; the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter, a moderate Tory paper; theMassachusetts Gazette and Boston Post Boy, a strong Tory paper; and the Boston Evening Post, which tried to remain neutral.
Specially helpful were the Salem Gazette, April 21, 1775; Salem’s Essex Gazette, April 25, 1775; (Worcester) Massachusetts Spy, May 3, 1775; (Portsmouth) New Hampshire Gazette, April 21, 28, 1775; New York Journal, May 25, 1775; New York Gazetteer,April 27, 1775; New York Weekly Gazette and Mercury, April 1775.
Anniversary Sermons and Orations
Every year on the day of the battle, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress sponsored sermons to mark the event. Some were delivered by eyewitnesses, and included primary material. Those published during the War of Independence included: Jonas Clarke of Lexington, The Fate of Blood-thirsty Oppressers and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People (Boston, 1776); Samuel Cooke of Cambridge, The Violent Destroyed and Oppressed Delivered (Boston, 1777); Jacob Cushing of Waltham, Divine Judgments(Boston, 1778); Samuel Woodward of Weston, The Help of the Lord, in Signal Deliverances and Special Salvation, to be Acknowledged and Remembered (Boston, 1779); Isaac Morrell of Wilmington, Faith in Divine Providence (Boston, 1780); Henry Cummings of Billerica, A Sermon Preached in Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1781 (Boston, 1781); Phillips Payson of Chelsea, A Memorial of Lexington Battle and of Some Signal Interpositions of Providence in the American Revolution (Boston, 1782); Zabdiel Adams of Lunenberg, The Evil Designs of Men Made Subservient by God to the Public Good, particularly illustrated in the Rise, Progress and Conclusion of the American War (Boston, 1783).
Military Manuals
These works are indispensable for a study of formations and tactics used by both sides on April 19, 1775. Some of the relevant works are as follows: Gentleman’s Compleat Military Dictionary (18th ed., Boston, 1759); The Manual Exercise, as Ordered by His Majesty in 1764 (Boston, n.d. [late 1774 or early 1775?]); William Windham, Plan of Discipline Composed for the Use of the Militia of the County of Norfolk (London, 1759); Humphrey Bland, A Treatise of Military Discipline (7th ed., London, 1753); William Brattle, Sundry Rules and Directions for Drawing Up a Regiment, Posting the Officers, etc. (Boston, 1773); Richard Draper, “A Plan of Exercise for the Militia of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay,” Extracted from the Plan of Discipline for the Norfolk Militia(Boston, 1772); Phineas Lyman, General Orders of 1757, ed. William S. Webb (New York, 1899); Timothy Pickering, Jr., Easy Plan of Discipline for a Militia (Salem, 1775); Thomas Simes, The Military Guide for Young Officers (3rd ed., London, 1781).
Material Artifacts
Any student of Paul Revere’s life has much to learn from his silver, and that of his father. The major public collections are in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Worcester Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at Yale University. Their work contains many clues to character and personality, as well to the culture within which they lived. There is today much fashionable interest in the study of “material culture,” but scholars have so far had little success in moving beyond an academic antiquarianism and linking material culture to large historiographical questions. With imagination and creativity, important work can be done, but here is an interpretative problem that remains to be solved. Paul Revere offers many possibilities.
The Revere House itself is a primary source, much altered through the years, but still the building speaks to us of Paul Revere’s world; as also do Old North Church, Fanueil Hall, the Old Boston State House, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, and the streets of the North End. Of the wooden buildings that stood along the Battle Road in 1775, a remarkable number survive, some still bearing the scars of the conflict more than two centuries later. The Lexington Historical Society maintains the Hancock-Clarke house (with a very strong collection of original furnishings), the Buckman Tavern and the Munroe Tavern, and welcomes many thousands of visitors each year.
For the battles of Lexington and Concord, many material artifacts have survived. With others of the period, they may be studied in the British National Army Museum, and in regimental museums, as well as in the Concord Museum and the Museum of Our National Heritage (Lexington, Mass.).
Terrain Studies
The historian of any battle must attend carefully to the ground. The scene of the events of April 18 and April 19, is today much changed. All of it lies within metropolitan Boston, and most of the Battle Road is today a busy suburban highway. I was fortunate to be able to tour the road with Douglas Sabin, historian of the Minuteman National Historical Park, who himself has written a detailed history of the battles. It is still possible today to observe major terrain features at the North Bridge, Ripley’s Ridge, Revolutionary Ridge, Meriam’s Corner, Brooks Hill, the Bloody Curve, Nelson Road, and Parker’s Hill, Fiske Hill, and Concord Hill. A not entirely successful attempt was made some years ago to restore the Nelson Road area to something like its appearance in 1775
A pioneering terrain study is Joyce Lee Malcolm, The Scene of the Battle, 1775, Historic Grounds Report (Boston, 1985), a published examination of land use along the Battle Road, mainly from an investigation of deeds and other records. Another general project is presently under way by Brian Donahue, Brandeis University, linking deeds to topographical surveys, soil maps, and other sources in computer-generated maps of the area.
The staff of the Minuteman National Historical Park has sponsored many specialized studies in the form of National Park Service Reports. All can be consulted at the library at the Park. Among the most useful for this project are: L.J. Abel and Cordelia T. Snow, “The Excavation of Sites 22 and 23, Minuteman National Historical Park, Massachusetts” (Concord, 1966), a study of the area where Paul Revere is thought to have been captured; Cynthia E. Kryston, “The Muster Field: Historical Data” (Concord, 1972), on the field near the Buttrick house; John F. Luzader, “Elisha Jones or ‘Bullet Hole House’” (1968), on Monument Street in Concord; idem, “Samuel Hartwell House and Ephraim Hartwell Tavern” (1968), on the Battle Road in Lincoln; David H. Snow, “Archeological Research Report, Excavation at Site 264” (1973), on the Thomas Nelson house near the Lincoln-Lexington line; Clifford A. Kaye, The Geology and Early History of the Boston Area of Massachusetts, a Bicentennial Approach U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1476 (Washington, D.C., 1976); Ricardo Torres-Reyes, Captain Brown’s House: Research Report (Washington, D.C., 1969).
Biographical Works on Paul Revere
This list is confined to works that contain primary material not available elsewhere. For secondary and tertiary interpretations of Paul Revere, see Historiography, pp. XX, above.
[Joseph Buckingham], “Paul Revere,” New England Magazine 3 (1832): 304-14, was an early biography by an author who knew him well, and included some primary material that has not appeared in any subsequent biography before the present volume. Elbridge Henry Goss, The Life of Colonel Paul Revere. 2 vols. (Boston, 1891), is a documentary history, still very useful for the materials that it includes. Charles F. Gettemy, True Story of Paul Revere (Boston, 1905), has somewhat of a debunking flavor. Harriet E. O’Brien, Paul Revere’s Own Story; An Account of His Ride as Told in a Letter to a Friend, Together with a Brief Sketch of His Versatile Career (Boston, privately printed, 1929), is especially valuable for its rich trove of illustrative materials. Esther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (1942, rpt. Boston, 1969), is a lively modern biography by a New England novelist, weak on the ride and political and military events but very strong on the details of domestic life. In general, it was carefully done, but it must be approached with caution in matters of fact. Walter S. Hayward, “Paul Revere and the American Revolution, 1765-1783,” is an unpublished Harvard dissertation, 1933. Nina Zannieri, Patrick Leehey, et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot (Boston, Paul Revere Memorial Association, n.d. [1988]), is an important collection of scholarly essays on various aspects of Paul Revere’s career, and also the catalogue of an exhibition, sponsored by the PRMA. A review of the exhibition itself by Alfred Young appears inJournal of American History 76 (1989): 852—57. The volume includes Patrick M. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere; An Overview of His Ancestry, Life and Work.” pp. 15-40, a meticulous work by an able and very careful scholar who is head of research at the Paul Revere House.
Paul Revere’s Family
Elizabeth Grundy and Jayne Triber, “Paul Revere’s Children: Coming of Age in the New Nation,” unpublished essay, in the Paul Revere Memorial Association, adds biographies of Paul Revere, Jr., Joseph Warren Revere, Harriet Revere, and Maria Revere Bal-estier. Donald M. Nielsen, “The Revere Family,” NEHGR 145 (1991): 291-316, corrects earlier studies.
Paul Revere: The Copley Portrait
Robert Dubuque, “The Painter and the Patriot: John Singleton Copley’s Portrait of Paul Revere,” Revere House Gazette 17 (1989): 1-5. Paulette Marie Kaskinen, “Artists, Craftsmen and Patriots: Social Pretensions and Propaganda in John Singleton Copley’s Portraiture,” unpub. master’s thesis, Univ. of Virginia, 1992.
Paul Revere: Huguenot Origins
Charles W. Baird, History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, 2 vols. (New York, 1885; rpt. Baltimore, 1966); Jon Butler, The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1983); Patrick M. Leehey, “The Huguenot Communities in New England: Boston, New Oxford, Narragansett and Dresden, Maine,” unpublished ms., 1988, Paul Revere Memorial Association.
Paul Revere’s Business Activities
A Brief Sketch of the Business Life of Paul Revere (Taunton, 1928); Mark Bortman, “Paul Revere and Son and Their Jewish Correspondents,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 43 (1953-54): 199—229; Clarence S. Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings (Worcester, 1954); Kathryn C. Buhler, “The Ledgers of Paul Revere,” Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, June 1936, pp. 38-45; Renee Ernay, “The Revere Furnace, 1787-1800,” unpub. master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1989; Ruth L. Friedman, “Artisan to Entrepreneur: The Business Life of Paul Revere,” unpublished research paper, Paul Revere Memorial Association Library, 1978; John J. Kebabian, “Paul Revere and His Water Dam,” CEAIA 30 (1977): 12—13; Maurer, Maurer, “Copper Bottoms for the United States Navy, 1794—1803,” The United States Naval Institute Proceedings 17 (June 1945); Edward Moreno, “Patriotism and Profit: The Copper Mills at Canton,” Zannieri. Leehey, et al, Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot, 95-116; James A. Mulholland, A History of Metals in Colonial America (Birmingham, 1981); Arthur H. Nichols, “The Early Bells of Paul Revere,” NEHGR 48 (April 1904): 151-57; Arthur H. Nichols, “The Bells of Paul and Joseph W. Revere,” EIHC 47 (Oct. 1911): 293-316; Jane Ross, “Paul Revere—Patriot Engraver,” Early American Life 6 (April 1975): 36-37; Edward Stickney and Evelyn Stickney. The Bells of Paul Revere, His Sons and Grandsons (Bedford, Mass., 1976).
Paul Revere’s Silver
A leading authority is Kathryn C. Buhler, who has given us American Silver (Cleveland, 1950); American Silver, 1655—1825, in the Museum of Fine Arts. 2 vols. (Boston, 1972); American Silver from the Colonial Period Through the Early Republic in the Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, 1979); “Master and Apprentice: Some Relationships in New England Silversmithing,” Antiques 68 (1955): 456—60; “Paul Revere, Patriot and Silversmith,” Discovering Antiques 57 (1971): 1350-54; and Paul Revere, Goldsmith 1735—1818 (Boston, n.d.). Louisa Dresser, “American and English Silver Given in Memory of Frederick William Paine, 1866—1935,” Worcester Art Museum Annual 2 (1936—37): 89—98; Deborah A. Federhen, “From Artisan to Entrepreneur: Paul Revere’s Silver Shop in Operation,” in Zannieri, Leehey, et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman and Patriot, 65—93; Morrison H. Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo: Elegance in Ornament (New York, 1992); Janine E. Skerry, “The Revolutionary Revere: A Critical Assessment of the Silver of Paul Revere,” Zannieri, Leehey, et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman and Patriot, 41-63.
Paul Revere’s Military Service
Two accounts of the Penobscot Expedition are Russell Bourne, “The Penobscot Fiasco.” American Heritage, Oct. 1974, pp. 28—33, 100—101; William M. Fowler, Jr., “Disaster in Penobscot Bay,” Harvard Magazine, July-Aug. 1979, pp. 26-31. Chester B. Kevitt, General Solomon Lovell and the Penobscot Expedition, 1779 (Weymouth, 1976), reproduces many relevant documents. James S. Leamon, Revolution Downeast: The War for American Independence in Maine (Amherst, Mass., 1993), includes an excellent bibliography. Linda Webster, “The Penobscot Expedition: A Study in Military Organization,” is an unpublished senior thesis, Bates College, 1983; a copy is in the Paul Revere Memorial Association.
Paul Revere’s Masonic Activities
Edith J. Steblecki, Paul Revere and Freemasonry (Boston, 1985), is the best study of its subject, with much valuable data in its appendices and a good bibliography; the same author also has published “Fraternity, Philanthropy and Revolution: Paul Revere and Freemasonry,” in Zannieri, Leehey, et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman and Patriot, 117—47. Other works in a large literature include: Harry Carr, Six Hundred Years of Craft Ritual (Grand Lodge of Missouri, 1977); and The Constitutions of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons Containing Their History, Charges, Addresses and Collected and Digested from Their Old Records, Faithful Traditions and Lodge Books. For the Use of Masons to Which Are Added the History of Masonry in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the Constitution, Laws and Regulations of Their Grand Lodge Together with a Large Collection of Songs, Epilogues, etc. (Worcester, 1792).
Paul Revere’s Horse
William Ensign Lincoln, Some Descendants of Stephen Lincoln, Edward Larkin, Thomas Oliver, Michael Pearce, Robert Wheaton, George Burrill, John Porter, John Ayer (New York, 1930), is the nearest thing to a primary source. Also helpful is Patrick M. Leehey, “What was the Name of Paul Revere’s Horse?” Revere House Gazette 16 (1965): 5; and idem, “A Few More Words on ‘Paul Revere’s Horse,’” ibid. 17 (1989): 6.
Biographies of Thomas Gage
By comparison with the vast outpouring of scholarship on Paul Revere, remarkably little has been published on General Gage. The standard biography is John R. Alden, General Gage in America (Baton Rouge, 1948), now much in need of revision. A short study by a leading historian of the British army in the Revolution is John Shy, “Thomas Gage: Weak Link of Empire,” in George A. Billias (ed.), George Washington’s Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution (New York, 1969), 3—38. An important study of Gage’s career is Frederick Bernays Wiener, Civilians Under Military Justice; The British Practice since 1689, Especially in British North America (Chicago, 1967). The author was a Washington lawyer with much practical experience in related fields.
Biographies (Alphabetical by Subject)
Some of these works belong more to the realm of memory than history. They are filiopietistic in tone and substance, and enter exaggerated claims for the acts of ancestors. But they also contain many memoirs, family stories, and personal documents. When used with care and caution they greatly enrich our knowledge of the event.
On Samuel Adams: Ralph Volney Harlow, Samuel Adams, Promoter of the American Revolution: A Study of Psychology and Politics (New York, 1923), is occasionally useful, despite its Freudian bias; John C. Miller, Sam Adams, Pioneer in Propaganda(Boston, 1936), is still the standard work, stressing his Puritan roots. Clifford Shipton, “Samuel Adams,” Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, is a serious work of scholarship, but colored by a strong Tory bias.
Other biographical material on April 19 appears in: Robert L. Volz, Governor Bowdoin and His Family (Brunswick, Me., 1969); George Tolman, John Jack, the Slave, and Daniel Bliss, the Tory (Concord, Mass., 1902); G. W. Brown, “Sketch of the Life of Solomon Brown,” Proceedings, LHS II (1890): 124; Charles F. Carter, “The Rev. Jonas Clarke, Minister and Patriot,” Lexington Historical Society Proceedings IV (1905—10): 82—90. Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley. 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1966); Henry W. Holland, William Dawes and His Ride with Paul Revere (Boston, 1878); Cyrus Hamlin, My Grandfather, Colonel Francis Faulkner (Boston, 1887); George Billias, Elbridge Gerry (New York, 1976); idem, General John Glover and His Marblehead Mariners(New York, 1960); Hall Gleason, “Captain Isaac Hall,” Medford Historical Register 8 (1905): 100—103.
On John Hancock: A large but thin literature includes: James Truslow Adams, “Portrait of an Empty Barrel,” Harper’s Magazine 161 (1930): 425—34; Oliver M. Dickinson, “John Hancock, Notorious Smuggler or Near Victim of British Revenue Racketeers?”MVHR 32 (1945-46): 517-40; Herbert Allen, John Hancock: Patriot in Purple (New York, 1948).
Also, Josephine Hosmer, “Memoir of Joseph Hosmer,” The Centennial of the Concord Social Circle (Cambridge, Mass., 1882), 116-17; and the larger ms., “Memoir of Joseph Hosmer,” Concord Antiquarian Society Papers, CFPL; Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1974); Joseph Grafton Minot, A Genealogical Record of the Minot Family in America and England (Boston, 1897); Robert Newman Sheets, Robert Newman; His Life and Letters in Celebration of the Bicentennial of His Showing of Two Lanterns in Christ Church, Boston, April 18, 1775 (Denver: Newman Family Society, 1975); Andrew Oliver, comp., Faces of a Family (Boston: privately printed, 1960).
Much has been written on James Otis: William Tudor, Life of James Otis (Boston, 1823), is still the best biography, despite its age; Alice Vering, “James Otis,” is a dissertation at the University of Nebraska, 1954; Ellen Brennan, “James Otis, Recreant and Patriot,” NEQ XII (1939): 691-725, centers on his early writings; John J. Waters, Jr., The Otis Family In Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (1968; New York, 1975), is an excellent social history of the family.
Other biographical materials include Elizabeth S. Parker, “Captain John Parker,” LHS Proceedings 1 (1866-89): 43; Theodore Parker, letter of Feb. 16, 1858, published in Lexington Townsman, April 21, 1932, copy in LHS; Denison Rogers Slade, “Henry Pelham, the Half-Brother of John Singleton Copley,” Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 5 (1897-98): 193-211; Usher Parson, The Life of Sir William Pepperrell, Bart. (Boston, 1855); Henry Winchester Cunningham, Christian Remick: An Early Boston Artist (Boston, 1904).
On Joseph Warren: There are many studies, and still a need for a comprehensive modern biography; still useful are: Alexander Everett, Joseph Warren, in Jared Sparks (ed.), Library of American Biography (Boston, 1838), 1st series, X, 91—183; A Bostonian [Samuel Adams Wells], Biographical Sketch of General Joseph Warren (Boston 1857); Richard Frothingham, Jr., The Life and Times of Joseph Warren (Boston, 1866); John Cary, Joseph Warren, Physician, Politician, Patriot (Urbana, 1961).
Local Histories: Boston
General works include: Justin Winsor (ed.), The Memorial History of Boston. 4 vols. (Boston, 1880—81); Gerald B. Warden, Boston, 1689—1776 (Boston, 1970); Annie Haven Thwing, The Crooked and Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston, 1630-1822(Boston, 1920); Samuel Adams Drake, Old Landmarks and Historical Personages of Boston (1872; rev. ed., Boston, 1906; rpt. 1971, 1986).
On topography and terrain: Samuel Barber, Boston Common: A Diary of Notable Events, Incidents and Neighboring Occurrences (Boston, 1916); Walter M. Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History (Cambridge, 1959; 2nd ed., 1968, 1975); idem, “Paul Revere’s Boston, 1775—1818,” Harvard Magazine 77 (1975): 28—36; Wendy A. Cooper, “Paul Revere’s Boston,” Antiques 108 (July 1975): 80-93.
On demographic history: John B. Blake, Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630—1822 (Cambridge, 1959).
On social and economic structure: Boston Board of Assessors. “Assessors ‘Taking Books’ of the Town of Boston, 1780.” The Bostonian Society Publications 9 (1912): 9—59; James Henretta, “Economic Development and Social Structure in Colonial Boston,”William and Mary Quarterly 22 (1965): 75-92.
On politics and the Boston town meeting: A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Boston Town Records,1770—1777 (Boston, 1887).
On the military occupation: Oliver M. Dickerson, Boston Under Military Rule, IJ68— 1769 (1936; rpt. Westport, Conn., 1971), is a compendium of materials culled mostly from newspapers.
On neighborhoods: William Sumner, The History of East Boston (Boston, 1858), has primary material on April 19, 1775; Carol Ely, “North Square: A Boston Neighborhood in the Revolutionary Era,” unpublished paper, Brandeis University, 1983, PRMA, applies the methods of New England town histories to the study of Paul Revere’s urban neighborhood.
On patterns of association: Allan Forbes, Taverns and Stagecoaches of New England. 2 vols. (Boston, 1954), 18-27; Walter K. Watkins, Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs (Boston, 1917); and Samuel Adams Drake, Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex(Boston, 1873), with a quantitative appendix drawn from 18th-century tax lists.
Massachusetts Town Histories and Town Records
Secondary works of this genre must be approached with caution; the same local pride that inspired them often colored the substantive result. But they include much primary material that is no longer available. Specially valuable for primary materials on the events of April 19 are the works listed below by Josiah Adams on Acton; Ripley, Shattuck, and Wheeler on Concord; Charles Hudson and Elias Phinney on Lexington, Alfred Hudson on Sudbury, Wayland, and Marlborough, and Smith and Cutler for Arlington.
Many town histories published in the late 19th century also included genealogical appendices which are useful for the identification of participants. The genealogical data are also useful checks for the accuracy of historical materials. Some of the more helpful works used in this inquiry are:
Acton: Josiah Adams, Acton Centennial Address (Boston, 1835); idem, Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, Esq. (Boston, 1850); Harold R. Phalen, History of Acton (1954).
Andover: Sarah L. Bailey, Historical Sketches of Andover, Massachusetts (Boston, 1880).
Arlington, formerly called West Cambridge and Menotomy: Benjamin & William Cutler, The History of the Town of Arlington (Boston, 1880); Samuel A. Smith, West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775 (Boston, 1864).
Attleborough: John Daggett, A Sketch of the History of Attleborough (Boston, 1894).
Bedford: Abram English Brown, The History of the Town of Bedford (Bedford, 1891).
Beverly: Charles F. Smith, Proceedings of the Beverly Historical Society of Massachusetts on the Occasion of the Presentation of a Tablet Commemorating the Minute-Men of Beverly, 1st Ser., no. 1 (New York, 1896); E. M. Stone, The History of Beverly(Boston, 1843); Thomas A. and Jean M. Askew, Beverly, Massachusetts, and the American Revolution (Beverly, 1525).
Billerica: John Farmer, Historical Memoir of Billerica (n.p., n.d.); Henry A. Hagen, History of Billerica (Boston, 1883).
Braintree: Samuel A. Bates (ed.), Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640-1793 (Randolph, Mass., 1886). Charles F. Adams, History of Braintree, the North Precinct of Braintree, and the Town of Quincy (1891).
Brookline: Muddy River and Brookline Records, 1634-1839 (Brookline, 1875). Charles Knowles Bolton, Brookline, the History of a Favored Town (Brookline, 1897); John W. Curtis History of the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts (Boston, 1933). David Hackett Fischer (ed.), Brookline: The Social History of a Suburban Town, 1705—1850 (Waltham, 1986).
Cambridge, Town Records of Cambridge, 1630-1703 (Cambridge, 1896). J. W. Freese, Historic Houses and Spots in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Near-by Towns (Boston, 1897); Lucius Paige, History of Cambridge, 1630-1877 (Boston, 1877).
Carlisle: Sidney, History of Carlisle (Cambridge, 1920).
Charlestown: Richard Frothingham, Jr., The History of Charlestown, Massachusetts (Boston, 1845). James F. Hunnewell, A Century of Town Life: Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1775— 1887. 2 vols. (Boston, 1888).
Chelsea: A Documentary History of Chelsea. 2 vols. Ed. Mellon Chamberlain (Boston, 1908).
Concord: David Hackett Fischer, Concord: The Social History of a New England Town, 1750-1850 (Waltham, 1983); Robert Gross, The Minutemen and Their World (New York, 1976); Lemuel Shattuck, History of the Town of Concord to 1832 (Concord, 1835); Ruth Wheeler, Concord, Climate for Freedom (Concord, 1967); Ezra Ripley, History of the Fight at Concord (Concord, 1827; 2nd ed., 1832); Alfred S. Hudson, History of Concord (Concord, 1904); Social Circle Memoirs, vols. I, II.
Danvers: Daniel P. King, Address Commemorative of Seven Young Men of Danvers Who Were Slain in the Battle of Lexington (Salem, 1835). J. W. Hanson, History of the Town of Danvers (Danvers, 1848).
Dedham: Robert Brand Hanson, Dedham, Massachusetts 1635-1890 (Dedham, 1976); Erastus Worthington, The History of Dedham (Boston, 1827); Erastus Worthington II, Proceedings at the 250th Anniversary … of the Town of Dedham (Cambridge, 1887).
Deerfield: George Sheldon, A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts. 2 vols. (Deerfield, 1896).
Dover: Frank Smith, A History of Dover, Massachusetts (Dover, 1897).
Dudley: Town Records of Dudley, 1732-1754 (Pawtucket, 1893).
Duxbury: The Records of Duxbury, 1642-1770 (Plymouth, 1893).
Framingham: William Barry, History of Framingham (Boston, 1847); Josiah Temple, The History of Framingham (Framingham, 1887).
Fitchburg: James F. D. Garfield, “Fitchburg’s Response to the Lexington Alarm,” Fitchburg Historical Society Proceedings 1 (1892-94): 113-122. idem, “Fitchburg’s Soldiers of the Revolution,” ibid. 4 (1908): 172-232.
Groton: Caleb Butler, The History of the Town of Groton (Boston, 1848); Samuel Abbot Green, Groton During the Revolution’, Groton Historical Series (4 vols., 1887—99).
Harvard: H. S. Nourse, History of Harvard, Massachusetts, 1732—1893 (Harvard, 1984).
Ipswich: Joseph B. Felt, History of Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton (1834); Arlin Ira Ginsberg, “Ipswich, Massachusetts, during the American Revolution,” diss., University of California, Riverside).
Lexington: Elias Phinney, History of the Battle of Lexington … (Boston; 1825, rpt. 1875). Charles S. Hudson, History of the Town of Lexington, Mass. … (Boston, 1868; 2 vols., 1913).
Lincoln: Paul Brooks, Trial by Fire: Lincoln, Massachusetts, and the War of Independence (Lincoln, 1975); John C. Maclean, A Rich Harvest; The History, Buildings, and People of Lincoln, Massachusetts (Lincoln, 1987).
Lynn: Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall, History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts … (Boston, 1865; Lynn, 1890, 1897); Howard K. Sanderson, Lynn in the Revolution. … 2 vols. (Boston, 1919).
Lynnfield: Thomas B. Wellman, History of the Town of Lynnfield, Massachusetts, 1635— 1895 (Boston, 1895).
Medford: Charles Brooks and James M. Usher, History of Medford (Boston, 1886); Helen Tilden Wild, Medford in the Revolution; Military History of Medford, Massachusetts, 1765-1783 (Medford, 1903); Richard B. Coolidge, “Medford and Her Minute Men,”Medford Historical Society Register 28 (1927): 40-51; Jason L. Tiner, “The Role of Medford, Massachusetts, in the Revolutionary War,” paper, Brandeis University, May 7, 1992, includes a quantitative study of Medford men serving in the War of Independence.
Melrose: Elbridge H. Goss, The History of Melrose (Melrose, 1902).
Natick: Oliver Bacon, History of Natick from Its First Settlement in 1651 (Boston, 1856).
Needham: George K. Clarke, History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711—1911 (Cambridge, 1912).
Newton: S. F. Smith, The History of Newton (Boston, 1880); Francis Jackson, A History of the Early Settlement of Newton (Boston, 1854).
Roxbury: Francis S. Drake, The Town of Roxbury (Boston, 1905); idem, The Town of Roxbury; Its Memorable Persons and Places (Roxbury, 1878).
Salem: Sidney Perley, History of Salem. 2 vols. (1924—26); James Duncan Phillips, Salem in the Eighteenth Century (Boston, 1937).
Sudbury: Alfred Sereno Hudson, The History of Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1638—1889 (Sudbury, 1889); Idem, The Annals of Sudbury, Wayland and Maynard (n. p., 1891); The War Years in the Town of Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1765—1781 (Sudbury, 1975), extracts from military records.
Waltham: David Hackett Fischer (ed.), Waltham: A Social History (Waltham, 1994); Charles A. Nelson Waltham, Past and Present … (Cambridge, 1882); Edmund L. Sanderson, Waltham as a Precinct of Watertown and as a Town, 1630—1884 (Waltham, 1936).
Watertown: Watertown Records, Fifth Book, 1745-1769; and Sixth Book, 1769-1702, ed. William McGuire (Newton, 1928). G. Frederick Robinson and Ruth Robinson Wheeler, Great Little Watertown; A Tercentenary History (Watertown, 1930); Watertown’s Military History: Authorized by a Vote of the Inhabitants of the Town of Watertown, Massachusetts (Boston, 1907).
Weston: Weston Town Records, 1754—1803 (Boston, 1893); Brenton H. Dickson and Homer C. Lucas, One Town in the American Revolution; Weston, Massachusetts (Weston, 1976).
Westford: Rev. Edwin Hodgman, History of the Town of Westfield, 1659—1883 (Lowell, 1883).
Henry S. Chapman, History of Winchester, Massachusetts (Winchester, 1936).
Woburn: Samuel Sewall, The History of Woburn, 1640—1860 (Boston, 1868).
Town Histories: New Hampshire
Many people who participated in the events of April 19 later moved to New Hampshire. Local histories with primary materials include: William Willes Hay ward, The History of Hancock, New Hampshire, 1764—1889. 2 vols. (Lowell, Mass., 1889); Charles Henry Chandler, The History of New Ipswich, New Hampshire (Fitchburg, Mass., 1914); Henry Ames Blood, The History of Temple, New Hampshire (Boston, 1860).
County Histories
By comparison with the wealth of town histories, and the abundance of county studies in other parts of the United States, county histories in New England tend to be impoverished. But there are important exceptions. Two works of Duane Hamilton Hurd, History of Essex County, Massachusetts (Philadelphia, 1888) and History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1890), are careful, informed, and accurate. They reproduce much reprinted primary material that can be found nowhere else—for example, the diary of Loammi Baldwin, a leading source for the fighting at the Bloody Curve. Hurd is specially valuable for the spread of the Lexington alarm, which he followed with more attention than any other work. Also useful in a heuristic way is Samuel A. Drake,Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex (Boston, 1873), also published as Old Landmarks and Historic Fields of Middlesex Drake scooped up vast quantities of material and published them in his many antiquarian volumes. Used with caution, his writings are still valuable as a source of leads and possibilities. Also very helpful is Ronald N. Tagney, The World Turned Upside Down; Essex County During America’s Turbulent Years, 1763—1790 (West Newbury, Mass., 1989).
Political History of the Revolution
In a very large literature, the following monographs were specially helpful for this inquiry: David Ammerman, In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774 (Charlottesville, 1974); Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1967); idem, Faces of Revolution (New York, 1990); Richard D. Brown, Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns, 1772— 1774 (Cambridge, 1970); Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1951); Francis S. Drake, Tea Leaves: Being a Collection of Letters and Documents … (Boston, 1884); Bernhard Knollenberg, Origin of the American Revolution, 1759—1766 (rev. ed., New York, 1961); Benjamin Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (New York, 1964); Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution (New York, 1972, 1974); Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis; Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1953); Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York, 1957); Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York, 1970).
The Powder Alarms
On the Charlestown Alarm: Robert P. Richmond, Powder Alarm, 1774 (Princeton, 1971), is the fullest account, with a bibliography.
On the Portsmouth Alarm: Charles L. Parsons, “The Capture of Fort William and Mary, December 14 and 15, 1774,” New Hampshire Historical Society Proceedings 4 (1899— 1905): 18—47; Ballard Smith, “Gunpowder for Bunker Hill,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine 73 (1886): 236-43; Elwin L. Page, “The King’s Powder, 1774,” NEQ 18 (1945): 83-92.
On the Marblehead and Salem Alarm: William Gavett, Samuel Gray, Samuel Holman, Abijah Northey, Joseph Story, EIP 1 (1859): 120-35; John Pedrick, “Narrative,” EIHC 17 (1880): 190-92; Susan Smith, “Memoir,” (Boston) Columbian Centinel, Sept. 19, 1794; anonymous account, EIHC 38 (1901): 321-52; Essex Gazette, Feb. 28, Mar. 7, 1775; Charles M. Endicott, “Leslie’s Retreat,” EIP 1 (1859): 89-120; James Duncan Phillips, “Why Colonel Leslie Came to Salem,” EIHC 90 (1953): 313; Essex Journal Mar. 1, 1775; Salem Gazette, Feb. 28, Mar. 3, 1775.
The Midnight Ride, and Signals from Old North Church
Remarkably little has been published in a scholarly way on the midnight ride. The few recent works are written mainly as popular history: e.g., Bernard A. Weisberger, “Paul Revere, the Man, the Myth, and the Midnight Ride,” American Heritage 28 (1977): 24—37; Richard W. O’Donnell, “On the Eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five … “Longfellow didn’t know the half of it,’” Smithsonian 4 (1973): 72-77; and Thomas J. Fleming, “Paul Revere— He Went Thataway,” Yankee 39 (1975): 94, 98-103, 112-14, 116. Gwen Ellen Brown, “A Study of Paul Revere’s Ride,” is an unpublished essay, at the Paul Revere House.
On the signal lanterns, there are: Richard Frothingham, The Alarm on the Night of April 18, (Boston, 1876); John Lee Watson, “Revere’s Signal,” MHSP 15 (1876): 163-77; idem, Paul Revere’s Signal (Boston, 1876), (Cambridge, 1877) also MHSP1 15, 163; William W. Wheildon, History of Paul Revere’s Signal Lanterns (Boston, 1878); and Charles K. Bolton, Christ Church, A Guide (Boston, 1941).
The Battles of Lexington and Concord
Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston, 1851), publishes primary materials no longer available elsewhere.
Works published for the centennial include: Frederic Hudson, “The Concord Fight,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine 50 (1875), a monograph on the battle with much useful material; and the Rev. Artemas B. Muzzey, “The Battle of Lexington, with Personal Recollections of Men Engaged in It” (Boston, 1877), reprints material that appeared in NEHGR, 31 (1877): 377; and Grindall Reynolds, Concord Fight, April 19, 1775 (Boston, 1875).
Frank Warren Coburn, The Battle of April 19th, 1775 (Lexington, 1912; rev. ed., 1922), is specially helpful on the march out, and on the fighting in Menotomy and Cambridge. The second edition publishes many, but not all muster rolls; also Frank Warren Coburn, Truth and Fiction About the Battle on Lexington Common (Lexington, 1918).
Harold Murdock, The Nineteenth of April, 1775 (Boston, 1923), is a collection of essays by an American Anglophile; an intelligent and suggestive work, but with a strong bias.
Ellen Chase, The Beginnings of the American Revolution. 3 vols. (New York: Baker & Taylor, 1910), is a remarkable work which gleaned much valuable material from antiquarian sources; very carefully done, with excellent citations and many good leads.
Allen French published many important monographs, including The Day of Concord and Lexington: The Nineteenth of April, 1775 (Boston, 1925); General Gage’s Informers: New Material Upon Lexington and Concord. Benjamin Thompson as Loyalist & the Treachery of Benjamin Church, Jr. (Ann Arbor, 1932); and The First Year of the American Revolution (Boston, 1934).
Douglas P. Sabin, “April 19, 1775: A Historiographical Study” (Concord, 1987), is a major study, historical as well as historiographical, of the battles by the historian at Minute-man National Historical Park. For many aspects of its subject, this is the most full and careful investigation. It is an indispensable work for serious students of the battles and deserves to be published by the National Park Service.
Many works center on the role of militia from individual towns. Ezra Ripley, History of the Fight at Concord, on the 19th of April 1775 (Concord, 1827; 2nd ed., 1832), stresses the role of Concord men; William W. Wheildon, New Chapter in the History of the Concord Fight (Boston, 1885), centers on the Groton minutemen. Abram English Brown, Beneath Old Roof Trees (Boston, 1896); idem, Beside Old Hearthstones (Boston, 1897), two volumes of stories and legends by a historian of Bedford. Frederick Brooks Noyes, The Tell-tale Tomb (n.p., n.d.), stresses “Acton aspects of the Concord fight.”
Specialized studies include John R. Alden, “Why the March to Concord,” AHR 49 (1943-44): 446-54, on Gage’s secret orders of Jan. 27, 1775; George Lincoln Goodale, British and Colonial Army Surgeons on the 19th of April, 1775 (Cambridge, 1899).
W. E. Griswold, The Night the Revolution Began (Brattleboro, Vt., 1972), and Frank Wilson Cheney Hersey, Heroes of Battle Road (Boston, 1930).
Military and Naval Histories: The British Army
Richard Cannon, Historical Records of the British Army (London, 1850—70). Edward E. Curtis, The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution (New Haven, 1926). Sir John Fortescue, History of the British Army. 13 vols, in 20 (London, 1899-1930), a monument of military historiography, with an extreme Tory bias, not at its best on the American Revolution, but the maps are excellent. Sylvia Frey, The British Soldier in America (Austin, 1981). J. F. C. Fuller, British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century (London, n.d.). Charles Hamilton (ed.), Braddock’s Defeat (Norman, Okla., 1959). Reginald Hargreaves, The Bloody-backs; The British Serviceman in North America and the Caribbean, 1655—1783 (New York, 1968), anecdotal. J. A. Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715—1795 (Oxford, 1981). Robin May, The British Army in North America, 1775—1783 (London, 1974), is helpful on uniforms and equipment. Stanley Pargellis, “Braddock’s Defeat,” AHR 41 (1936): 253—69. John Shy, Toward Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (Princeton, 1965).
British Unit Histories
4th Foot (King’s Own): L. I. Cowper, The King’s Own: The Story of a Royal Regiment (Oxford, 1939), one of the best of the British regimental histories.
5th Foot (Northumberland Fusiliers): Lt.-Col. R. M. Pratt, The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (Alnick, 1981); H. M. Walker, A History of the Northumberland Fusiliers, 1674—1919 (London, 1919); Walter Wood, The Northumberland Fusiliers (London, n.d.).
10th Foot: Albert Lee, History of the Tenth Foot (The Lincolnshire Regiment) (London, 1911); Col. Vincent J.-R. Kehoe, A Military Guide: The Tenth Regiment of Foot of 1775, 2d edition enlarged, 4 vols. (Somis, Calif., 1993).
18th Foot: G. E. Boyle, “The 18th Regiment of Foot in North America,” Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research 2 (1923): 65.
23rd Foot; or Royal Welch Fusiliers: A. D. L. Cary and Stouppe McCance (eds.), Regimental Records of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Late the 23rd Foot), Vol. I, 1689-1815 (London, 1921); also The Regimental Museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, 23rd Foot(n.p., n.d.).
43rd Foot: Sir Richard G. A. Levinge, Historical Records of the Forty-Third Regiment, Monmouthshire Light Infantry (London, 1868).
47th Foot: H.G. Purdon, An Historical Sketch of the 47th (Lancashire) Regiment and the Campaigns Through Which They Passed (London, 1907); Col. H. C. Wylie, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. 2 vols. (London, 1933).
59th Foot: Anonymous, “Notes for a History of the 59th Foot,” ca. 1920, Regimental Headquarters, Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, Fulwood Barracks, Preston, Lancashire; photocopies in the library of the Minuteman National Historical Park, Concord.
64th Foot: H. G. Purdon, Memoirs of the Services of the 64th Regiment (Second Staffordshire) 1758 to 1881 (London, n.d.).
Royal Regiment of Artillery: Francis Duncan, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. 2 vols. (London, 1872). Royal Marines: Col. C. Field, Britain’s Sea Soldiers. 2 vols. (Liverpool, 1924); Capt. Alexander Gillespie, Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps (Birmingham, 1803); J. L. Moulton, Royal Marines (London, 1972); Lt. P. H. Nicolas, Historical Records of the Royal Marine Forces. 2 vols. (London, 1845).
Naval and Maritime History
William Bell Clark, NDAR, Vol. I, American Theatre: Dec. 1, 1774-Sept. 2, 1775 … (Washington, D.C., 1964), a very full collection of documents. Marjorie Hubbell Gibson, H. M. S. Somerset, 1746-1778: The Life and Times of an Eighteenth Century British Man-o-War and Her Impact on North America (Cotuit, Mass., 1992).
The New England Militia
General studies include: Fred Anderson, A People’s Army, Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (Chapel Hill, 1984), an academic monograph, strong on the social history of its subject. John R. Galvin, The Minute Men: A Compact History of the Defenders of the American Colonies, 1645-1775 (New York, 1967), an important and useful work by an experienced infantry officer and onetime commanding general of NATO. Two of the most valuable works are unpublished dissertations: Archibald Hanna, Jr., “New England Military Institutions, 1693-1750,” unpub. diss., Yale, 1951; John Murrin, “Anglicizing an American Colony: The Transformation of Provincial Massachusetts,” unpub. diss., Yale, 1966. Norman Castle et al. (eds.), The Minute Men, 1775—1975 (Southborough, Mass., 1977), is a collection of fifty essays on minutemen in individual towns, with much material not available elsewhere.
Weapons and Equipment
In this highly specialized field, some of the leading works include: Anthony D. Darling, Red Coat and Brown Bess (Ottawa, 1970); Lindsay Merrill, The New England Gun (New Haven, 1975); Howard Blackmore, British Military Firearms, 1650-1850 (New York, 1968); Warren Moore, Weapons of the American Revolution … and Accoutrements (New York, 1967); George C. Neumann, History of the Weapons of the American Revolution (New York, 1967); George C. Neumann and Frank J. Kravic, Collectors’ Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the American Revolution (Harrisburg, 1975).
Charles ffoulkes and E. C. Hopkinson, Sword, Lance and Bayonet (London, 1938); George C. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution (Harrisburg, 1973); R.J. Wilkinson-Latham, British Military Bayonets, from 1700 to 1845 (New York, 1969); Graham T. Priest, The Brown Bess Bayonet, 1720—1860 (Wiltshire, 1968); R. D. C. Evans and F. J. Stephens, The Bayonet: An Evolution and History (London, 1985); Robert M. Reilly, American Socket Bayonets and Scabbards (Lincoln, R. I., 1990), with a bibliography of the journal literature.
Madison Grant, Powder Horns and Their Architecture (York, Pa., 1987); Nathan L. Swayze, Engraved Powder Horns of the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War Era (Yazoo City, Miss., 1978); William H. Guthman, Drums A’beating, Trumpets Sounding; Artistically Carved Powder Horns in the Provincial Manner, 1746-1781 (Hartford, Conn., 1993), with an excellent bibliography of the large journal literature.
Frank E. Schermerhorn, American and French Flags of the Revolution, 1775—1783 (Philadelphia, 1948); anonymous, “The Bedford Flag,” MHSP (1885): 166, 199; NEHGR 25 (1871): 138-39.
The Aftermath
Richard D. Brown, “Knowledge is Power”: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700—1865 (New York, 1989); Philip Davidson, Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763-1783 (Chapel Hill, 1941); Fred J. Hinkhouse, The Preliminaries of the American Revolution as Seen in the English Press, 1763—1775 (New York, 1926; rpt. 1969); Frank L. Mott, “The Newspaper Coverage of Lexington and Concord,” NEQ 17 (1944): 489—505; Ian M. G. Quimby, “The Doolittle Engravings of the Battle of Lexington and Concord,” Winterthur Portfolio Four (Charlottesville, 1968), 83—108; Robert S. Rantoul, “The Cruise of the ‘Quero’: How We Carried the News to the King,” EIHC 36 (1900): 5—13; J.H. Scheide, “The Lexington Alarm,” AAS Proceedings 50 (1940): 49—79; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764—1776 (New York, 1958).
The Myth of the Midnight Ride
General studies include: Sidney George Fisher, “The Legendary and Mythmaking Process in Histories of the American Revolution,” APS Proceedings 51 (1912): 53—76; Dixon Wecter, The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero Worship (New York, 1941), chap. 5, “The Embattled Farmers”; Wesley Frank Craven, The Legend of the Founding Fathers (New York, 1956); Jayne Triber, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: From History to Folklore (Boston, n.d.); and an unpublished research report for the Paul Revere Memorial Association; Michael Kammen, The Mystic Chords of Memory (New York, 1991), a major work; Susan Wilson, “North Bridge: Span of History,” Boston Globe, April 15, 1993, an excellent and informative essay; Arthur Bestor, “Concord Summons the Poets,” NEQ 6 (1934) 602-13; Josephine L. Swayne (ed.), The Story of Concord, Told by Concord Writers (Boston, 1905); George L. Varney, The Story of Patriots’ Day … (Boston, 1895).