Tag Archives: American revolution

Of walking sticks, canes, scepters, and wands.

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Franklin’s walking stick, willed to General Washington. Now in the Smithsonian.

Many famous people carried walking sticks Washington, Churchill, Moses, Dali. Until quite recently, it was “a thing”. Benjamin Franklin willed one, now in the Smithsonian, to George Washington, to act as a sort of scepter: “My fine crab-tree walking stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a Scepter, he has merited it, and would become it. It was a present to me from that excellent woman, Madame de Forbach, the dowager Duchess of Deux-Ponts”. A peculiarity of this particular stick is that the stick is uncommonly tall, 46 1/2″. This is too tall for casual, walking use, and it’s too fancy to use as a hiking stick. Franklin himself, used a more-normal size walking stick, 36 3/8″ tall, currently in the collection of the NY Historical Society. Washington too seems to have favored a stick of more normal length.

Washington with walking stick

Walking sticks project a sort of elegance, as well as providing personal protection. Shown below is President Andrew Jackson defending himself against an assassin using his walking stick to beat off an assassin. He went on to give souvenir walking sticks to friends and political supporters. Sticks remained a common political gift for 100 years, at least through the election of Calvin Coolidge.

Andrew Jackson defends himself.

I started making walking sticks a few years back, originally for my own use, and then for others when I noticed that many folks who needed canes didn’t carry them. It was vanity, as best I could tell: the normal, “old age” cane is relatively short, about 32″. Walking with it makes you bend over; you look old and decrepit. Some of the folks who needed canes, carried hiking sticks, I noticed, about 48″. These are too tall to provide any significant support, as the only way to grasp one was from the side. Some of my canes are shown below. They are about 36″ tall, typically with a 2″ wooden ball as a head. They look good, you stand straight, and they provides support and balance when going down stairs.

Some of my walking sticks.

I typically make my sticks of American Beech, a wood of light weight, with good strength, and a high elastic modulus of elasticity, about 1.85 x106 psi. Oak, hickory, and ash are good options, but they are denser, and thus more suited to self-defense. Wood is better than metal for many applications, IMHO, as I’ve discussed elsewhere. The mathematician Euler showed the the effective strength of a walking stick does not depend on the compressive strength but rather on elastic constant via “the Euler buckling equation”, one of many tremendously useful equations developed by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783).

For a cylindrical stick, the maximum force supported by a stick is: F = π3Er4/4L2, where F is the force, r is the radius, L is the length, and E is the elastic modulus. I typically pick a diameter of 3/4″ or 7/8″, and fit the length to the customer. For a 36″ beech stick, the buckling strength is calculated to be 221 or 409 pounds respectively. I add a rubber bottom to make it non–scuff and less slip-prone. I sometimes add a rope thong, too. Here is a video of Fred Astaire dancing with this style of stick. It’s called “a pin stick”, in case you are interested because it looks like a giant pin.

Country Irishmen are sometimes depicted with a heavy walking stick called a Shillelagh. It’s used for heavier self-defense than available with a pin-stick, and is generally seen being used as a cudgel. There are Japanese versions of self defense using a lighter, 36″ stick, called a Han-bo, as shown here. There is also the wand, as seen for example in Harry Potter. It focuses magical power. Similar to this is Moses’s staff that he used in front of Pharaoh, a combination wand and hiking stick as it’s typically pictured. It might have been repurposed for the snake-on-a-stick that protects against dark forces. Dancing with a stick, Astaire style, can drive away emotional forces, while the more normal use is elegance, and avoiding slips.

Robert Buxbaum, April 20, 2023.

Hamilton and his slave-trading father in law.

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Philip Schuyler as a Major General in the Revolution. His statue was removed.

What most folks know about Alexander Hamilton’s father in law, Philip Schuyler, is that he was “loaded”, that he had three daughters, and that he quickly took to young Alexander. But an important fact varnished over is that Schuyler made his money in the slave trade, a trade that Hamilton was likely in when he met the young Schuyler daughters. Schuyler was also a slave owner, owning 13 slaves, by his record, and perhaps another 17 indentured servants working at two mansions. So far, only the Philip Schyler statue has been taken down. It seems possible that many monuments to Hamilton may follow.

Statue of Alexander Hamilton, proudly stands in front of Columbia University. The ten dollar founding father.

The play “Hamilton” proclaims Hamilton’s genius and exceptional work ethic, mentioning that, at the young age of 14 (more likely 16) he was left in charge of a trading company. This was for 5 months in 1771, while the owner was over seas doing business. Hamilton knew the business well; he’d been hired as a clerk at 11 at Beekman and Cruger, a similar import-export trading firm. What items did these firms trade — cotton, sugar, rum, and most profitable slaves. This likely was the business that kept the owner overseas for 5 months while Alexander ran the shop. There are at least two notifications of slave ships entering the harbor with human good for sale. Among Hamilton’s likely jobs would have been fattening and oiling the goods for sale. Hamilton himself seems to have owned a slave-boy named Ajax who he inherited (briefly) from his mother, Rachel. His mother is listed on the tax records as white. She owned five saves at one time, suggesting she was not entirely impoverished. Hamilton’s father, though a failed businessman, was a Scottish Laird (a Lord). As for the court-mandated transfer of Ajax from Alexander, it was to his half-brother James because James was “Legitimate.”

I base Hamilton’s age on the Nevis-St Kitts record of his birth, January 11, 1755.”[1] The play takes as a fact Hamilton’s claim to have been born two years later, January 11, 1757. I trust the written records here, and imagine Hamilton wanted to present himself as a young genius, rather than as a bright, but older fellow. In 1772, at at age 17, Hamilton wrote a “fire and brimstone” description of a deadly hurricane, describing it as “divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity.”[2] Between this, and his skill at trading, the community leaders collected money to send him to New York, but unlike the play’s description, it was not only for further education. The deal was that he continue trading for the firm,[3] and this is likely how he met his future father in law. “[4] 

Hercules Mulligan, a revolutionary tailor: He was a spy. According to the CIA, much of the work was through his black slave, Cato.

In New York, Hamilton met Schuyler and his daughters. It seems likely that he met the father first, likely as possible customer for the slave trade from the Caribbean, or perhaps as a customer for rum and sugar. A 1772 letter in Hamilton’s handwriting [4] asks for the purchase of “two or three poor boys” for plantation work, “bound in the most reasonable manner you can.” As in the play, Hamilton was friends with John Laurens, an abolitionist, and among his first lodgings was with Hercules Mulligan, a tailor’s apprentice. Hercules is presented as black in the play, but he was quite white (see picture) with a black slave, Cato. Cato ran most of the messages. According to the play, “I’m joining the rebellion cuz I know it’s my chance
To socially advance, Instead of sewin’ some pants, I’m taking my shot. No, Hercules was socially advanced ,married into the British Admiralty, even. He was a true believer in freedom and a slave-holder. His older brother, Hugh Mulligan, was one of the traders that Hamilton was supposed to work with.[5] As for Laurens and his anti-slavery organization, most of those in the organization owned slaves, and though they opposed slavery, they could never decide on when or how to end it. There is no evidence that Cato was ever set free.

The appointment to Washingtons staff was not likely a coincidence. The elder Schuyler was one of the four top generals appointed in 1775 to serve directly under Washington. Phillip oversaw, at a distance, the disastrous attack on Quebec and the victory at Saratoga– both, Burr served admirably. Phillip’s main role was as a quartermaster/supplier, and this is not a small role. Phillip Schuyler had been a quarter-master in the French and Indian war. It’s likely that it was Schuyler who got Hamilton his appointment to Washington’s staff.

Once on Washington’s staff, Hamilton served admirably. Originally serving as a secretary, Hamilton wrote many of Washington’s dispatches. Then, according to tradition, as a cannon commander, he took particular pleasure in the attack on Princeton University. He then served well as secretary of the Treasury, and as head of the Bank of The United States, the only major US bank until Burr opened the Bank of the Manhattan company. Despite his aversion to slavery, Hamilton also continued to deal in slaves. A 1796 cash book entry records Hamilton’s payment of $250 to his father-in-law for “2 Negro servants purchased by him for me.” This is only 3 years before 1799, when New York began to end slavery in the state with the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Children of slaves born after July 4, 1799, were to be legally free, but required indentured servitude: to age 28 for males and 25 for females. Those born before July 4, 1799 became free in 1817. There is no evidence that Hamilton was a leader in any of this, but Burr, another slave-owning abolitionist, was a leader in the NY legislature at the time.

I’m with Burr.He was flawed, a slave-owning abolitionist, but vehimently against the Alien and Sedition Acts, a Hamiltonian horror.

It seems that Robert Morris introduced Hamilton to the importance of tariffs, and to the idea of using debt service as a backing to currency. It’s brilliant idea, but Hamilton understood it and took to it. Hamilton also understood the need for a coast guard to enforce the tariffs. As for Hamilton’s character, or Burr’s. Both, in my understanding, were imperfect people who did great deeds. I’ve already written that Hamilton was likely setting up Burr for murder, perhaps because of Burr’s vehement opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts — That’s why Hamilton wore his glasses and fiddled with the gun so much. Burr was also gaining power through his Manhattan corporation and Tammany organization. both of which got his support among the immigrants.

My intent here is not to knock the image of Hamilton, Schuyler, Laurens and Mulligan, nor to raise that of Burr, but to correct some current fictions in the play “Hamilton”, and to fight a disease of our age, the cancel culture. The cancel culture elevates their heroes (Hamilton, Mulligan) to god-status. They will lie to cover the flaws of their heroes, and will lie also to claim a drop of black blood in them; neither Hamilton nor Mulligan were black and both owned slaves, as did Burr. The other side of the cancel culture is to cancel — to eliminate the validity — of the reactionaries, the non-revolutionary. In the play, these include Samuel Seebury and Aaron Burr. Great building is almost always the work of contradictory people. They need some talent, and a willingness to act, and because building requires a group, they have to work in a group, tolerating flaws of the others in the group. It is just these flawed, contradictory builders that are being cancelled, and I don’t think that’s right or healthy.

Robert Buxbaum, August 4, 2020.

Samuel Johnson and British elitism during the revolution.

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A common opinion of Samuel Johnson was that “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”. It’s recorded by Boswell on April 5, 1776 well into the revolution, and applied equally to the American revolutionaries and all other unpaid enthusiasts. Johnson wrote for money. He wrote sermons for priests, he wrote political speeches for Troys, he wrote serialized travel logs, and at one point a tearful apology for a priest about to be hanged for forgery. That he was paid was proof that he was good at writing, though not 100% convincing. The priest was forgiven and acquitted in the public eye, but he was hanged for the forgery none-the-less. 

Some Samuel Johnson Quotes about America

Johnson was unequivocal in his opinion of American independence. His pamphlet ,”Taxation no Tyranny” 1775 (read it here) makes a semi-convincing Tory argument that taxation without representation is in no way tyranny, and is appropriate for America. America, it’s argued, exists for the good of the many, and that’s mainly for the good of England. He notes that, for the most part, Americans came to the land willingly, and thus gave up their rights: “By his own choice he has left a country, where he had a vote and little property, for another, where he has great property, but no vote.” Others left other lands or were sent as criminals. They “deserved no more rights than The Cornish people,” according to Johnson. Non-landed people, in general had no vote, and he considered that appropriate. Apparently, if they had any mental value, they’d be able to afford an estate. His views of Irish Catholics were somewhat similar , “we conquered them.” By we, Johnson meant Cromwell over a century earlier, followed by William of Orange. Having beat the Irish Catholics at the battle of the Boyne meant that that the Protestants deserved to rule despite the Catholics retaining a substantial right to land. I am grateful that Johnson does not hide his claim to rulership in the will of God, or in some claim to benefit the Irish or Americans, by the way. It is rule of superior over inferior, pure and simple. Basically, ‘I’m better than you, so I get to rule.’

One must assume that Johnson realized that the US founders wrote well, as he admitted that some Whigs (Burke) wrote well. Though he was paid for writing “Taxation no Tyranny”, Johnson justifies the rejection of US founding fathers’ claims by noting they are motivated by private gain. He calls American leaders rascals, robbers, and pirates, but is certain that they can be beat into submission. The British army , he says, is strong enough that they can easily “burn and destroy them,” and advises they should so before America gets any stronger. He tells Boswell, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.” Even after a treaty was signed, he confides, “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.”

I’ve come to love Johnson’s elitism, his justification for rule and exploitation based purely on his own superiority and that of his fellow British. It allows him to present his prejudices uncommonly clearly, mixing in enough flattery to be convincing to those who accept his elitist perspective. That makes his words eminently quotable. It doesn’t make them right, nor does it mean that his was a useful way to deal with people or problems. Adam Smith was willing to admit that the Americans had a gripe, and suggests the simple remedy of giving Americans a voice in Parliament. His solution might have kept the empire whole. Edward Gibbon, an expert on Rome who opposed rights for Americans, at least admitted that we might win the war. Realistic views like this are more productive, but far less marketable. If you are to sell your words, it helps to be a pig-headed bigot and a flatterer of those who agree with you. This advantage of offending your opponents was not lost on Johnson as the quote below shows.

Johnson writing about notoriety, a very American attitude.

I’m left to wonder about the source of Johnson’s hatred for Americans though — and for the Irish, Cornish, and Scots. In large part, I think it stems from a view of the world as a zero-sum game. Any gain for the English servant is a loss to the English gentleman. The Americans, like the Irish and Cornish, were subject peoples looking for private benefit. Anything like low taxes was a hurt to the income of him and his fellows. The zero sum is also the view of Scrooge in a Christmas Carol; it is a destructive view.

As for those acted in any way without expectation of pay, those who would write for posterity, or would fight the Quixotic fight, such people were blockheads in his view. He was willing to accept that there were things wrong in England, but could not see how an intelligent person would favor change that did not help him. This extended to his beliefs concerning education of children: “I would not have set their future friendship to hazard for the sake of thrusting into their heads knowledge of things for which they might not perhaps have either taste or necessity. You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder when you have done that they do not delight in your company. No science can be communicated by mortal creatures without attention from the scholar; no attention can be obtained from children without the affliction of pain, and pain is never remembered without resentment.” This is more of Johnson’s self-interest: don’t teach anything that will bring resentment and no return benefit. Teach the sons of the greats that they are great and that they are to lead. Anything more is a waste or an active harm to the elite.

But what happens when America succeeds? Johnson was still alive and writing in 1783. If the Americans could build an army and maintain prosperous independence, they would have to be respected as an equal or near-equal. Then what of the rest of the empire? How do you admit that this one servant is your equal and not admit that your other servants may be too? This is the main source of his hatred, I think, and also of the hatred the Scrooge has for mankind. It’s the hatred of the small soul for the large, of the sell-out for the enthusiast. If the other fellow’s sacrifice produces a great outcome, that suggests a new order in the stars — it suggests that everything you’ve done was wrong, or soon will be. The phrase “novus ordo seclorum” on our dollars alludes to just that idea, ‘there is a new order in the heavens.’. He must have realized the possibility, and trembled. Could there be something to the rabble, something beyond cash, safety and rule by the elite? I suspect the very thought of it insulted and angered poor Samuel. At his death, he could be comforted that, at least the Irish, Indians, and Canadians remained subservient.

Robert Buxbaum, December 2, 2019. This essay started out as a discussion of paid writing. But I’ve spent many years of my life dealing with elitists who believed that being paid proved they were right. I too hope that my writing will convince people, and maybe I’ll be paid as an expert (Water commissioner?) To hope for personal success, while trying to keep humble is the essential glorious folly of man.

Cornwallis attacks. Washington goes to Princeton.

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In the previous post, I asked what you would do as a general (Cornwallis), December 27, 1776. You command 30,000 troops, some 12,000 at Princeton of at total 50,000 against Washington’s 3500. Washington is camped 12 miles to the south just outside of Trenton with a majority of his men scheduled to leave in three days when their enlistments expire.

In fact, what Cornwallis did, is what every commenter recommended. He attacked at Trenton, and lost New Jersey. Cornwallis left 2-3000 troops at Princeton and marched south. Despite fallen trees, swollen rivers, destroyed bridges — all courtesy of Washington’s men –Cornwallis reached Trenton and attacked. By the time he got there, 2000 of Washington’s men had left, partially replaced by untrained militia. After a skirmish, Washington set up 400 militia to keep the fires burning, and without telling them where he was going “Fall back if the British attack”, he took the rest of his forces east, across frozen fields and swampland, then north to Princeton along the Quaker-bridge road. He later said the reason was to avoid looking like a retreat.

He split his forces just outside of Princeton, and a detachment, led by Hugh Mercer and 350  regulars had the first battle as they ran into the 17th and 55th British regiments as they prepared to escort supplies to Trenton. The British commander, Lt.colonel Mawhood, seeing how few men he faced, sent the 55th and most of the supplies back to Princeton, and led his men to shoot at the Americans from behind a fence. Mercer’s men fired back with rifles and cannon, doing little. Then, the trained British did what their training demanded: they rose up and charged the rebels with fixed bayonets. Mercer, having no bayonets, called “Retreat!” before being stabbed repeatedly, see painting. Mawhood’s men seized the cannon, turned it on the fleeing remnants of Mercer’s men.

General Mercer defeated at Princeton, as Washington shows up.

General Mercer defeated at Princeton, as Washington shows up.

It looked like a British victory, but then General Nathaniel Greene (the fighting Quaker) showed up with several hundred Pennsylvania militiamen. The militiamen had never seen battle, and many fled, after shooting into the British lines with rifles and another cannon and grape-shot. At this point it looked like a draw, but then, Washington himself joined the battle with two brigades of regulars: Hitchcock’s 253 New Englanders and Hand’s 200 Pennsylvania riflemen.

Washington managed to rally the fleeing Pennsylvanians; “Parade with us, my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy and we will have them directly!” And Mawhood, now without most of his officers, ordered a last bayonet charge and fled down the Post Road to Trenton. Washington rode after for a bit “It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!”

James Peale, 1783. John Sullivan and his forces at Frog Hollow. Battle of Princeton

James Peale, 1783. John Sullivan and his forces at Frog Hollow. Battle of Princeton

The rest of the British along with Mawhood, met the rest of Washington’s men, lead by John Sullivan, at a place called Frog Hollow, near where Princeton Inn College (Forbes College) now stands. The Americans opened with grape-shot and the British put up little resistance. Those who did not surrender were chased into town, taking refuge in Nassau Hall, the central building of the university. Alexander Hamilton’s men (he’d been rejected by Princeton) took special enjoyment in shooting cannon into the building. A hole remains in the college walls and a cannonball supposedly decapitated a portrait of George II. About then the New Jersey militia broke in a door, and the British surrendered.

Washington had captured, killed, or destroyed most of three English regiments, took a wagon train of supplies, and left going north following a bit of looting. “Loyalists” were relieved of coins, liquor, shoes, blankets. They ate the breakfast prepared for the 40th, and were gone by 11 AM, heading north — to where?. Cornwallis returned before noon “in a most infernal sweat — running, puffing, blowing, and swearing.” His men looted the town again, but now what?

Was Washington headed to New Brunswick where a handful of British soldiers guarded Cornwallis’s supplies and a war chest of £70,000? He didn’t go directly, but perhaps by a circuitous route. Cornwallis went straight to New Brunswick and jealously guarded the place, its money and supplies. Washington meanwhile ran to safety in the Watchung Mountains outside Morristown. Cornwallis’s 17th claimed victory, having defeated a larger group, but Cornwallis gave up Princeton, Trenton, and the lives of the New Jersey loyalists. Rebels flocked to Washington. Loyalists were looted and chased. Hessians were shot in “a sort of continual hunting party.” Philip Freneau expressed the change thus:

When first Britannia sent her hostile crew; To these far shores, to ravage and subdue, 

We thought them gods, and almost seemed to say; No ball could pierce them, and no dagger slay.

Heavens! what a blunder—half our fears were vain; These hostile gods at length have quit the plain.

 

Robert Buxbaum. December 21, 2016. So now that you know what happened, what SHOULD Cornwallis have done? Clearly, it’s possible to do everything right militarily, and still lose. This is an essence of comedy. The British had a similar Pyrrhic victory at Bunker Hill. I suspect Cornwallis should have fortified Trenton with a smaller force; built a stockade wall, and distributed weapons to the loyalists there. That’s a change in British attitude, but it’s this dynamic of trust that works. The British retreat music, “the world turned upside down“, is a Christmas song.

You are Cornwallis, Dec 29, 1776. What should you do?

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Here’s a military thought question: what would you do? It is Dec 29, 1776, and you are General Howe and/or Cornwallis. You command 32,000 troops, a big chunk of the largest and finest expeditionary force that England has ever mustered. Washington’s rag-tag army has shrunk from 25,000 at the beginning of the year to 3335 now. They’re arrayed outside of Trenton NJ following their one victory of the year. Their Christmas raid on Trenton killed 100 Hessians and captured 900. In that raid Washington lost only 6 (two to frostbite), but otherwise his year has been nothing but defeats, and you’d like to make sure his string of bad luck continues.

Washington at Trenton with captured regimental flag. December 25, 1776. Peale.

Washington at Trenton with a captured British flag. Dec. 25, 1776. Peale. What should Cornwallis do now?

You’ve retaken the city and have 4000 or so at Trenton and another 10,000 at Princeton, 12 miles to the north. You can march or stay. In favor of staying: the enlistment of 3000 or so of Washington’s army is up Dec. 31, and they’ve not been fed or paid. They will almost certainly quit. You can thus wait and attack Jan. 1, or attack now and give the rabble another reason to quit. Two other options: hole up and let the weather do the job, or bypass Washington, cross the Delaware, and attack Philadelphia, the colonial capital. Philadelphia is completely undefended. What would you do? What should you do? Making the decision somewhat pressing, Washington’s men keep making skirmish raids in and around Trenton. Shooting cannon or rifles in, killing here and there.

Please post your opinion of what Cornwallis should have done, and in a week or so, I’ll post an account of what Cornwallis actually did and how it played out (not well for Cornwallis).

Robert E. Buxbaum, December 8, 2016, roughly 240 years after the events described. I’ve written about other great revolutionary mistakes, and about the battle of Bunker hill.

Winning at Bunker Hill lost America for Britain.

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The greatest single victory of the American Revolution in terms of British soldiers killed or wounded was the battle of Bunker Hill. It was won without global strategy, or any real sense of victory. The British captured the hill but their loss of soldiers and reputation was such that one can echo British General, George Clinton’s comment: “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.” How the British came to blunder this way is a lesson in group-think management; it lead to the destruction of an army of the finest soldiers on earth by a band of untrained, leader-less rabble.

A map of metropolitan Boston in May 1775 shows that it was already a major port with far less dry land than it has today. It consisted of a knob-hill peninsula, British-controlled Boston city, cut off from the rest of the colonies except for one narrow road, called “The Neck,” or The Roxbury Neck. The later name was used to distinguish it from a similar neck road that connected the colonies to nearby Charlestown peninsula; Bunker Hill is on Charlestown peninsula. Following the rumpus battles of Lexington and Concord, Boston’s suburbs were over-filled by 15,000, ill-clad, undisciplined colonials who ate, drank, and shot at random stuff in plain view of Boston’s 6000 trained soldiers and four Generals. The Colonials set up barriers and cannon at their end of the Neck road. These were not particularly good barriers, and the British army could leave at any time by the neck to control of the colonies, but only at a cost in men. This potential cost  kept rising as more colonials came to camp around Boston. What would you do?

The British had sea-power that they felt they could use: excellent ships and excellent admirals; the colonies had neither. The British navy could attack anywhere on the American coast, but only at a risk of further alienating the colonials. They thus used their power judicially. E.g., for the attack on Lexington, April ’75, navy ships took the 2000 soldiers from Boston, landing them at Charlestown, at the foot of Breed’s hill. The army then marched out over the Charlestown neck to Lexington and Concord, but not to a smashing success. Many soldiers lost their lives, and not much was captured.

Back in Boston, the four British generals: Gage, Burgoyne, Howe, and Clinton, decided that, to quash the revolt/revolution, they had to break out of Boston and quarter in Massachusetts proper, on some easily defended ground on the mainland, preferably high ground. They needed to establish a base with good connections to the rest of colonies, plus good access to the sea. Looking about, the obvious spot for this base was the heights of Dorchester, a set of hills that overlooked Boston Harbor from the south. Eventually the British would flee Boston because George Washington would capture and hold these heights. The reason the British didn’t capture the heights or at least defend them was the result of group-think ignorance, on the morning of June 17. The British changed their goals, and decided to attack at Charlestown (Breed’s Hill) instead of Dorchester. Capturing Charlestown left Britain with many dead and no good connection to the colonies; it was just another isolated peninsula barely attached to the mainland by an easily defended road.

Why did four, trained Generals attack this worthless spot instead of Dorchester? It was the luck of American disarray and mob-rule. Looking at the Colonials disarray, each of the four generals saw an opportunity for personal glory; the colonials were inept and would never improve. The same British group-think that reawakeneded in the Crimean war with Russia. The American defense of Charleston and Breeds Hill was done so incredibly poorly that the Americans were left as sitting ducks, waiting to be taken. A poor location was chosen for the fort and only 1200 Colonials came to defend it. We’d meant to build a fort on a better location, Bunker Hill, the tall hill overlooking Boston, and we’d meant to build a minor respite foxhole on Breeds hill, but we screwed up.

Our soldiers were digging  at night, fueled with much rum and little or no leadership. When the sun rose on June 17, we found that we’d built next to nothing on Bunker hill, and a vastly too-large, uselessly deep, square hole at Breed’s Hill: a doubtful redoubt. The square was open at back, and too large for the number of soldiers. It was also too deep for people to shoot out of easily. Looking with spyglasses from Boston, the British generals saw that we had no idea what we were doing. Gage and co., thought to show us the consequences of our incompetence. A few thousand British soldiers could easily take this redoubt and its 1200 defenders, and that thought clouded his mind and the minds of his fellows. They forgot that this was not a hill worth taking, and never imagined that we might fix our defenses. Even if Gage could win without a single lost man, he should have realized that a victory would leave him in a worse position than before. His forces would then be divided between two peninsulas both separated from the mainland, and separated from each other by neck-roads. Coordinating an attack from this position would be a logistic nightmare, and any one of the co-Generals should have alerted him to this.

The attack was supposed to work this way: a sea landing at Moulton's hill. two side actions, SA, at the fronts of the Colonial defenses, and a sweeping main attack, MA, at the edge.

The attack was supposed to work this way: a sea landing at Moulton’s hill. two side actions, SA, at the fronts of the Colonial defenses, and a sweeping main attack, MA, at the edge.

But four generals working together were stupider than Gage alone. Their glee at our incompetence made them forget why Dorchester Heights was the right military target. The prospect of personal glory made attacking Charlestown and its hills too tempting to ignore. Their superior force of trained men would land and march forward to an easy victory. They might even do it with bayonets alone, as the Continentals had too few men, no training, and no bayonets. If the Continentals were able to muster together at all (unlikely), they were unlikely to reload fast enough to shoot more than once — that took special guns and training. Under pressure, the colonials would likely miss with most of the only shot they got, and would find themselves over-run before they could reload. The British force could shoot therebels at close range, or they could hold their fire and spear them with bayonets as the rebels tried to reload, or run out of the hole they were in.

It was a perfect plan with only a minor problem, easily addressed: the Americans had a cannon brought to the hill, and a trained cannoneer could kill many with a few follies of grape-shot. Gage and co. thus decided on a complex attack that would avoid the cannon. It included a feint to the front and a side run. This “wheeling motion” was completely unnecessary: the Americans had little powder and no idea what to do with a cannon, the generals didn’t know that.  The plan was to form a single line across from the fort (hole), fake a frontal attack to draw American shots while staying out of range, and then wheel right. That is, on command, every British soldier was to turn right and march, as a column, north to the trench’s right side (the left side if you look as a Colonial). They’d avoid the cannon rifle shots, and take the redoubt from the north side, perhaps without taking a single loss. It should have been a piece of cake, but was not.

Landing the British troops and forming them up took longer than expected, as often happens, and during this time, more Colonials showed up, and some of them took pot-shots at the British officers. What’s more, the rebels began to fix the more-glaring flaws in their defenses. Potshots from Charlestown windows slowed British efforts at mustering into an appropriate line while the Continentals built up the left (north) side of their redoubt — the side the British wished to attack. The colonials added triangular sub forts (Friches) at both sides of their square trench, somewhat in front, and added a wooden fence rail from the hill to the sea somewhat behind. The British naval commander wasted yet more time with a cannon barrage from his ships. He imagined he was softening the defense, but the barrage managed to kill only one colonial, decapitated by a cannon-ball, while providing time for the colonials to build their friches and fence, and allowing for more sniper work. Col. Stark put colonials at the sense with shot markers at 100 feet in front. He then passed the now-famous instruction: don’t shoot till they passed these markers and you see the whites of their eyes.  He needed to preserve ammunition, and assumed that, at 50 to 100 feet, his colonials would not miss, and could fall back. Any British who passed the fence would be taken out by defenders shooting down from Bunker Hill, or up from the hole.

The second attack at Breeds Hill

The second attack at Breeds Hill

At first the British tried the frontal feint attack with a wheel to the north. When this attack failed to heavy losses, they tried again before realizing this attack was ill-suited to the terrain and troops. The British front line was composed of crack Hessians who marched perfectly in step, wearing bright red coats and heavy bear-skin, “Busby hats” to make them look more formidable. It might have worked on even ground, this ground was uneven and mucky, and the hats kept the Hessians from looking down at the brambles and rocks. Their stumbling motion, always aligned, was so slow that the colonials had time to fire and reload. The Hessians who survived the first shots never managed to wheel. Meanwhile, the main British attack, the one at the rail fence, failed because a colonial fired early by mistake. The British force should have ignored it, but instead, stopped and fired back. Hearing the shooting, more Colonials showed up and shot at British soldiers (more or less in range) using the fence to steady their aim. Only a few British got past the fence and these were shot by the retreating Americans and by the garrison on Bunker Hill. The attack was called back, allowing the British to re-muster while the Americans reloaded and repositioned.

Before the second British attack, more colonials wandered onto the peninsula, and built a quick platform in the redoubt so they could shoot better over the top. Some defenders of Bunker Hill — folks who’d seen little action so far — moved forward to get better shots, defending at the fence, and some Colonials wandered off, too. There was still no one in charge. Just everyone doing what seemed right to him.

meanwhile, the generals burnt Charlestown as a way of stopping the snipers, and mustered their men for a simpler attack with a simpler troop arrangement, see map above and picture below. Three ranks of soldiers were set to march straight at the fort without trying to wheel. Those with Busby hats were largely dead or wounded, so the attackers could see where they were stepping. Still, without the wheel, the result was many British dead or wounded, and this second attack was called off.

The second attack: Three ranks and no Busby hats this time, with Charlestown burning in the background. Their's not to question why, their's but to do and die.

The second attack: Three ranks and no Busby hats this time, with the dead strewn around and Charlestown burning in the background. Their’s not to question why; their’s but to do and die. Painting by Pyle.

About at this time, the British should have decided to go home and attack elsewhere (Dorchester), but they persisted, not willing to accept defeat. For the third attack, the soldiers were told to attack as two single, long columns. The generals added some 400 marines (ship-board soldiers) plus some 200 wounded who were now ordered to re-muster. The columns waled straight up to the fort. The folks in front pushed by those behind; the soldiers at the front were killed, but the attack worked, sort of. The British took the fort, but most of the defenders avoided capture. They retreated across the neck and rejoined the main mob. The British captured or killed some 400 at the expense of 1,054 men lost; 226 were killed in the immediate battle, including most of the junior officers, with the rest lost as a result of wounds. The soldiers also lost the sense of invincibility; unorganized colonials could fight, inflicting serious damage at minimal cost.

There arose a myth of the backwoods shooter, but it was largely a myth. The Colonials were able to pick off British officers because the officers dressed to be noticed. It was a mistake the British would keep making. At Bunker Hill, the British lost 1 lieutenant colonel (killed), 5 majors (3 killed), 34 captains (7 killed) 41 lieutenants (9 killed), 57 sergeants (15 killed), and 13 drummers (1 killed). A lesson we learned: don’t dress so fancy. Tactically, the British victory at Bunker hill left their forces divided between two peninsulas. The men defending these peninsulas were unavailable for any attack at Dorchester heights. Thus the British forces lost the opportunity to escape Boston and take positions that could hold the colonies. By January, 1776 Washington Controlled Dorchester heights, and the British left Boston and Charlestown by ship. They would try taking Dorchester again in 1776 and 1777, but by then the continental army was more of an army, less of a rabble with rifles. A life lesson: only fight for something that you really want, a pointless win can be a lost opportunity.

After the battle, the back-stabbing and group think continued among the British generals, while the colonials got a single commander, General Washington. Meanwhile,  a new British general arrived, Burgoyne, who blamed Generals Clinton, Howe, and Gage for the loss of men and opportunity. Burgoyne got to lead an attack from Canada, but stung by Burgoyne’s blame-game, Clinton and Howe did not come his aid at Albany in June 1777. Instead, Clinton left Burgoyne to fend for himself (and be captured) while Howe was sent to attack the continental congress at Philadelphia. Burgoyne lost his army and reputation, and Howe captured Philadelphia, restoring his reputation, sort-of.  The Continental Congress fled Philadelphia ahead of the Brits, and Burgoyne’s defeat led to the French joining in on our side. Burgoyne blamed Clinton and Howe for his defeat, but was really done in by over confidence. He could not see that the chaotic leadership of a rabble was better than a fixed command without real communication, even with the best generals and soldiers.

The colonial chaos was horrible, but workable. The fixed-command mistakes on the British side were not as bad, but disastrous, since they required a coordinated effort that could not be produced. Had there been fewer British generals and a simpler plan, the better-trained British army would have won at Charlestown, or they would have left and attacked at Dorchester and won the war. One on one, General Howe’s forces repeatedly beat Washington, meeting in New York and New Jersey in the summer and fall of 1776. These were the same soldiers who lost at Bunker Hill, but with a simple command structure: one general not four. It was only George Washington’s genius that saved some semblance of an army to keep fighting into 1777.

This is not to say that chaos is good, but that it can work, especially with Americans. We tolerate chaos and fractured leadership better than most, I think, because we are, by nature, chaotic. As Bismarck put it: “God protects children, fools, and the United States of America.”

Robert Buxbaum, August 16, 2015 (edited June, 2024). There were several other howler mistakes of the American Revolution discussed here.  British generals took useless victories while losing opportunities that mattered. Don’t fight readily; only to win something of value that can be won.

Major blunders of the American Revolution

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As nice as it is to discuss the brilliant men and great battles that allowed the American colonials to win the American Revolution, there is another way to see things –perhaps less enjoyable, but just as legitimate: looking at the great dunderheads and mistakes that allowed the greatest military power on earth to be defeated by a small group of undisciplined rabble. Here follows brief essays on my three top dunderheads: two British, one French. No one realized they were dunces until much later.

Pride of place goes, I think, to King Louis 16th of France. He helped us to win the war, and lost his own empire in the process. King Louis had nothing to gain by funding the American cause. And he had quite a lot to lose in men and money. He lost his ships and men in Rhode Island, lost colonies in India and the Seychelles, and spent millions he’d need when the famine of 1789 came. Worse, by supporting America, Louis put the bug of Liberty in the French ear. Far better (for Louis) would have been if he had waited, non-committally for another 3-5 years as the Dutch and Spanish did. He could have continued to host and honor Franklin, could have continued to sell weapons (to both sides) and could have even encouraged hot-head volunteers like Lafayette to go over and fight. We might still have won (see below) but at a greater cost to us and a fraction of the cost to the French monarchy. Let us thank God for fools. Here are my thoughts on when to get involved in a foreign war.

The basic issue of big-scale blunders is not seeing the disaster that hides behind a small-scale victory. And that tends to be funny.

The basic of every great dunderhead is not seeing the disaster that hides behind a small-scale victory. And that tends to be funny.

British admiral George Rodney is my second, honored dunce. He had many victories, especially after the war was lost, but his major war achievement was not-relieving Cornwallis at Yorktown, and thus losing the war. In early 1781, Rodney was defending Jamaica and other British “Sugar Islands” in the Caribbean while waiting for orders to either fight the French fleet or relieve Cornwallis. As it was, he did neither but instead attacked a Dutch-held, Caribbean island, St. Eustatius. Rodney noticed that British freighters were being hijacked by pirates and that the island was a major trading port to the American colonists. By going after these pirates, he gained booty, but left the rest of the empire under-gunned. This allowed French Admiral, de Grasse Tilly to defeat Admiral Hood in the Caribbean; allowed him to take Tobago for the French. And then, while Rodney was still protecting his St Eustatius booty, de Grasse circled back to Virginia in time to bottle up Cornwallis. British Admiral Graves tried twice to dislodge de Grasse, but without Rodney he hadn’t the firepower. Cornwallis surrounded the day Graves gave up his second, failed attempt.

Rodney’s choice was one of greed, self-interest, and glory-seeking at the expense of British national interest. It isn’t unique in the Revolution or in British military history. Clinton’s move to attack Philadelphia when he was supposed to aid Burgoyne caused the loss of Burgoyne’s army and got the French in on our side, but I judge Rodney’s screw-up bigger if only because Cornwallis’s defeat ended the war and lost America.

Finally, I give the third-place dunce cap to General Banastre Tarleton, otherwise known as “Bloody Ban,” the most hated man in America. Tarleton was the son of a noted slave trader and mayor of Liverpool. He tended to win battles, but as fictionalized in the movie, The Patriot, he rarely differentiated rebel from loyalist, burning farms and churches of both. He also became known for “Tarleton’s quarter”, killing his enemies after they had surrendered. In the long run, this sort of thing turns your friends in to your enemies, and so it did here.

The view, common in Tarlton’s regiment, was that this was at least partially a religious war. If a congregation wasn’t Anglican — a church with the king as its head — it was a “sedition shop” and needed to be eliminated. He wasn’t totally wrong, but it rarely goes down well; for example the Sunni vs Shiite, Hamas vs ISIS wars. He certainly undermined Benedict Arnold’s claims that King George was serious in granting religious freedom.

A religious dissertation on why resistance to the king is obedience to God.

A religious dissertation: resistance to a tyrant is obedience to God.

When Tarleton was given the job of capturing Marion Francis, the Swamp Fox, his approach, with Major James Wemyss and Captain Christian Hock (or Hook), was to burn the farms, churches, and plantations of anyone in the area. In one of Wemyss memoranda, he writes he had “burnt and laid waste about 50 houses and Plantations, mostly belonging to People who have either broke their Paroles or Oaths of Allegiance, and are now in Arms against us.” Note the word, “mostly.” These methods did succeed in drawing out the Swamp Fox, but it also drew out most everyone else in the south, even those who’d given up on the revolution. The now-farmless farmers enlisted and produced enthusiastic counter-attacks at Gibson’s Meeting House, Hill’s Iron Works, Fishdam Ford (Wemyss capture), Williamson’s Plantation (Huck’s Defeat), Blackstock’s farm and Cowpens. By the end, the colonials had even figured out how to use Tarleton’s enthusiasm against him.The right way to deal with your enemy is with focus and mercy, as Grant treated Lee at Appomattox. Tarleton’s methods would have made the Revolution a centuries-long, religious war IMHO, if the French had not gotten involved on our side.

Robert Buxbaum. July 16, 2015. If you have other classics of stupidity, please tell me. I’d like to recommend two books by A. J. O’Shaughnessy: “An Empire Divided,” and “The men who lost America.” As a final note: after the war Tarleton retired to Parliament where he served until 1833 as a fierce advocate for British slavery. Britain ended their use of slave workers in the Caribbean and south Africa in 1833, but didn’t stop their use in Ceylon and areas of East India company until 1843. Most Slaves who came to the new world did so in British ships.