The Command in the Battle of Bunker Hill

4. The next alleged error relates to the case of Captain Callender. Mr Swett lets his pen run as follows: "If any thing could be more wonderful than the author's mistaking one hill for another, when both have been before his eyes from his birth, it would be his adducing this case as one of disobedience, or a case of any kind to disprove that Putnam was the commander," p. 12. This indeed would be wonder upon wonder – if it were only true. But that I mistook Prospect Hill for Bunker Hill is one fancy; that this case of Callender is cited to disprove that Putnam was the commander, is another fancy. Where is it so "adduced?" Really Mr Swett's devotion to his hero leads him into strange misapprehensions. The reader will look in vain for such mistakes and citations in the pages of the Siege of Boston. Once more I ask, what in the name of common sense does Mr Swett mean? On page 164 of the Siege this very case is "adduced" among the things that bear in favor of Putnam, and no where is it cited against his "claims!" The very report made to the provincial congress, which Mr Swett accuses me of neglecting, was thoroughly studied, (and Mr Swett knew it) and is fairly quoted, and in favor of Putnam! Indeed this report, and the evidence given on the trial of Colonel Scammans were the main authorities for stating that General Putnam gave orders to the reinforcements.

But the strictures on pages 12, 13, relative to Callender, were not enough, and so Mr Swett (p. 22) adverts to this case again, and says: – "But allow the gentleman, as in regard to Callender, to manufacture his own case, grossly regardless of all known facts." What case have I manufactured? What "known facts" have I been regardless of? The chief thing that appears to be specified in this case is this: – "The author's declaration that Callender was tried for disobedience 27th June, seems to be a poetic license. Ward orders the court martial at that time, without the slightest intention of such a charge," p. 13. Why does not Mr Swett quote my language? But 1. He alludes here, I presume, to a remark (p. 185) of the Siege, when the question of command is not alluded to, but where an account is given of Callender, and it reads – "Capt. Callender, for disobedience of orders and alleged cowardice was tried June 27th." And again I say – "Captain Callender despised the charge of cowardice, and determining to wipe out the unjust stigma," &c. Now what sort of "license" has Mr Swett taken with my "declaration"? Something more than a poet's license, I fancy! 2. Any one would suppose, from Mr Swett's words, that Ward's order for a court martial specified what the charge was. Here it is – June 27, "The general orders that a general court martial be held this day at the lines, to try Captain Callender of the train of artillery. Witnesses on both sides to be duly summoned to attend a court which is to sit at 8 o'clock A. M., Col. Little president, Capt. Mosely judge advocate." What light does this throw on the matter? And what must be said of the character of Mr Swett's appeal to it?

5. Mr Swett, in denying that a portion of the troops refused to obey General Putnam, writes as follows: – "Now, we say with the utmost confidence, that, any few cases of cowardice out of the question, no military despot was ever obeyed with more implicit subjection than Putnam was throughout the battle, by every one, officers and men," – p. 10. This, coming from so thorough an investigator, from a thirty years' student of the battle, is worth examination; though, had it come from another, it might be passed over with the simple remark, that it indicated more dogmatism than knowledge. Mr Swett, however, confesses that he is leading "a forlorn hope."

Now General Putnam had little or nothing to do with the original detachment, if the two hundred Connecticut men, after they got to the rail fence, be excepted. There is no proof that he gave an order to it throughout the whole affair, but on the contrary, this is denied in the strongest terms. But his principal service was rendered in connection with the reinforcements, which arrived at the scene of action in the afternoon. After the first attack, he rode to Bunker Hill, and to the rear of it, to urge them forward. But they hesitated. He used every effort, especially, it is stated, at Charlestown Neck and on Bunker Hill, to overcome this reluctance. He ordered, entreated, encouraged and threatened, but all in vain. "The plea was" – I quote a report made in 1775 – "the artillery was gone, and they stood no chance for their lives in such circumstances, declaring they had no officers to lead them." They could not be prevailed upon to go where fighting was, and so large bodies of the troops remained out of the action. This fact is one of the most reliable, as well as most discreditable, relative to the battle. In truth, the state of things on Bunker Hill and in the rear of it, during the afternoon, was more like positive disobedience, than like "implicit subjection." However it may have been at Prescott's post there was no such efficient command in other parts of the field as is expressed in Mr Swett's language, anything he has written, or may write, to the contrary notwithstanding. There was confusion when he leaves the inference that there was order. The evidence on this point is conclusive – overwhelming.

Thus Captain Chester (1775) states: – "Those that came up as recruits were most terribly frightened, many of them, and did not march up with that true courage that their leader ought to have inspired them with." William Tudor (1775) says – "They were discouraged from advancing." Rev. John Martin (1775) says – "During the whole or most of the action Colonel Gerrish, with one thousand men was at the bottom of Bunker Hill and ought to have come up but did not." Contemporary authority as decisively connects General Putnam with the reinforcements. This is not denied. Thus Daniel Putnam, his son, states that he rode to the rear "to urge on reinforcements;" and Stiles states that he left the field to urge them on. Mr Swett, in his history, has no such "implicit subjection." He relates (p. 35) the efforts Putnam made at Charlestown Neck to induce the reinforcements that reached there to pass across; and although he "entreated, encouraged, and threatened," he could only get "some of the troops" "to venture over." Again, when Gerrish was on Bunker Hill with part of his regiment, the men disorganized and dispersed, "Putnam" —it is Mr Swett who writes this – "ordered them on to the lines; he entreated and threatened them, and some of the most cowardly he knocked down with his sword, but all in vain!" Once more, p. 41, he says – "Putnam rode to the rear and exhausted every art and effort to bring them on. Capt. Bailey only reached the lines." The evidence as to the confusion is equally clear. John Pitts (1775) says – "There never was more confusion and less command." In Major Gridley's sentence (1775) emphatic allusion is made to "the great confusion that attended" the transactions. Captain Chester (1775) says of things on Bunker Hill near the close of the battle – "When we arrived there was not a company in any kind of order." But why multiply testimony on this point? Mr Swett himself says, in his history, p. 50 – "Great allowance must be made for those unable, and those unwilling to go on; the men went on or off as they pleased and when they pleased!"

Now with such evidence – and this is but a tithe of what may be adduced – is it not surprising that such a claim of efficient command should be set up at this late day, with nothing but bare assertion to support it? If it were so, if there were this implicit subjection, this ready obedience, the enemies of General Putnam might ask with force, what they have asked in weakness – 'Why, if he was so obeyed, were not the troops at the lines? Could he not have led them up?' To affirm that he was obeyed implicitly, by officers and men, and then to be obliged to admit that those he commanded were not in battle raging a stone's throw off, is to place the brave old general in an awkward position, a position he never filled in his life time. Mr Swett's zeal here lacks discretion.

6. Another mistake seems to astonish Mr Swett "by its magnitude, nay its sublimity." He says – "According to him, the great battle of Bunker Hill was fought, on our side, by a headless mob; and, to prove this, he adduces the most incontrovertible argument in the world, were it true, that the army at Cambridge, which had been for two months collecting and organizing under the able and experienced Gen. Ward, assisted by a host of accomplished veteran officers, was itself a mob," – p. 3. No quotation is made to sustain these remarks, and none can be made. Nothing to warrant it can be found in the book, and it is enough to stamp it as glaring misrepresentation. I hold no such opinion. I adduce no such argument. It may be cruel to annihilate so much "magnitude" and "sublimity," but I must state that they have no better basis than Mr Swett's imagination.

In opposition to this "mob" theory, Mr Swett goes to the other extreme, and affirms, p. 18 – "That the army at Cambridge was regularly organized and consolidated under Ward, Warren, Putnam, and other officers in regular gradation, without any distinction in regard to the colonies whence the troops came." And this is repeated on p. 21, and again on p. 29. In fact this constitutes the foundation of one of Mr Swett's "incontrovertible" proofs that Putnam was the commander. It is strange that Mr Swett should venture upon such assertions flatly in the face of the most positive evidence. He makes no attempt to disprove the facts, first brought together in the Siege of Boston, (pp. 98 to 104) relative to the action of the colonies, and which were drawn entirely from contemporary MSS. and authorities. It is not necessary to repeat them here. They show that each of the four colonies commissioned its troops, supplied them with provisions, directed their disposition, and that it was not until after the battle of Bunker Hill that the Committee of War of Connecticut ordered Generals Spencer and Putnam, while their troops were in Massachusetts, to obey General Ward as commander-in-chief, in order that there might be "a due subordination;" and also advised the colonies of Rhode Island and New Hampshire to do the same respecting their troops. That the army (June 17, 1775) was regularly organized and consolidated is not true.

The evidence in relation to the want of organization in the Massachusetts army is ample. This army certainly cannot be said to have been settled under officers in "regular gradation." I have a report made to the provincial congress of Massachusetts, dated June 15, 1775, by a committee appointed "to consider the claims and pretensions of the colonels," which goes with much particularity into many cases, and recommends several to be commissioned, which was not done, however, until after the battle. On the 21st of June an important committee was raised "to inquire into the reason of the present want of discipline in the Massachusetts army, and to report to this congress what is the proper way to put said army into a proper regulation;" and on the next day, the congress ordered the committee of safety to present lists of persons worthy to be commissioned, "that so our army may be organized as soon as possible." The army regularly organized and consolidated! I beg Mr Swett will make himself acquainted with the facts, from authentic sources, before he writes again.

The old soldiers gave Mr Swett, when he prepared his history, better information than he writes in his last pamphlet. On page 11 (edition of 1826) he says: – "They (the troops) were strangers to discipline and almost to subordination. Though nominally organized into regiments, these were deficient in numbers, many of them only skeletons, and their respective ranks not ascertained. Some of the troops were yet serving as minute men, and the officers in a number of regiments were not yet commissioned." Again, p. 14: The Americans "were unable to appreciate the necessity of discipline or to understand the unorganized state of the army in every department!!" But in 1850 the same writer has it that this same army was "regularly organized and consolidated

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1

Mr Swett, on the publication of the Siege of Boston, favored me with the following note, which, in another note written subsequently to the publication of his pamphlet, he informed me was intended for publication. Under the present circumstances I hope to be excused for printing it: —

"Richard Frothingham, Jr., Esq., —

My dear Sir: For your history of the Siege of Boston I am very much obliged to you. Without time to have read it critically, I find it a remarkable monument of diligent and successful research, candor, impartiality and judgment. It is a very valuable addition to history. The subject of Bunker Hill battle I thought I had exhausted thirty years ago, but your additional information is interesting and important. We differ on one point only I believe worth mentioning, and that important only as a matter of curiosity, the commander in the battle, which we may discuss hereafter.

With friendly regard and respect,

With friendly regard and respect, S. Swett."