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Siege of Boston
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The Siege of Boston was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War, in which New England militiamen—and then the Continental Army—surrounded the city of Boston, Massachusetts, to prevent movement by the British Army garrisoned within. As a siege it was only partially successful, but it played an important role in the creation of the Continental Army and promoting the unity of the Thirteen Colonies. It also served to shape the attitudes and character of participants on both sides. The most important single event of the siege was the Battle of Bunker Hill.
BackgroundThe Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 drew thousands of militia forces from throughout New England to the land surrounding Boston. These men remained in the area and their numbers grew. At first, General Artemas Ward, as the head of the Massachusetts militia, was in charge of the siege. He set up his headquarters at Cambridge and positioned his forces at Charlestown Neck, Roxbury, and the Dorchester Heights. Initially, the 6,000 to 8,000 rebels faced some 4,000 British regulars under General Thomas Gage and had them trapped in the city. General Gage wrote of his surprise of the amount of rebels that had surrounded the city:
SiegeEscalationThe British were surrounded on land north, west, and south of Boston, but the harbor side of the city remained open for the Royal Navy under Vice Admiral Samuel Graves to sail in supplies from Nova Scotia, Providence, and other places. Colonial forces could do little to stop these shipments due to the naval supremacy of the British fleet and the complete absence of a Continental Navy in the spring of 1775. Nevertheless, the town and the British forces were on short rations, and prices rose quickly. Another factor was that the American forces generally had information about what was happening in the city, but General Gage had no effective intelligence of rebel activities.
As soon as the siege began, Gage turned his attention to fortifying easily defensible posistions. In the south, at Roxbury, Gage ordered lines of defenses with 10 twenty-four pound guns. On the penisula of Boston itself, four hills were quickly fortified. They were to be the main defense of the city. Over time, each of these hills were strenghtened.
During this period of time, many Loyalists who lived outside of Boston left their home and fled into the city. Most of them felt that it was not safe to live outside of the city. Some of the men, after arrving in Boston, joined the army.
Gage had no supply of fresh meat, and many horses needed hay. On the 21st, he orded a party to go to Grape Island, in the harbor, and bring hay to Boston. When the Americans heard of this, they took the alarm, and the militia came out. As the British party arrived, they were under fire from the American milita. The milita set fire to the barn, destroyed 80 tons of hay, and prevented the British from taking anymore than 3 tons.
On May 25, 1775, Gage received about 4,500 reinforcements and three additional Generals: Major Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton. Gage began plans to break out of the city.
On May 27, American forces strengthened the siege during the Battle of Chelsea Creek by removing British supplies of livestock from the islands of Boston Harbor. American fire prevented British Marines from landing to recover the animals, and the British schooner Diana was destroyed.
In an attempt to help quell the rebellion, on June 12, Gage offered to pardon all of those who would lay down their arms except John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Instead of quelling the rebellion, it ignited anger amongst the Americans, as more began to take up arms.
Bunker HillOn June 15, the Committee of Safety learned of Gage's plans to attack at Dorchester Heights and the Base of the Charlestown Peninsula. They sent word to General Ward to fortify Bunker Hill and the heights; he assigned Colonel William Prescott the Bunker Hill task.
On June 17, as the result of the Battle of Bunker Hill, British forces under General Howe seized the Charlestown peninsula. (The battle was somewhat misnamed since most of the fighting was done at Breed's Hill next to Bunker Hill.) The British did take their objective, only after two failed charges, but did not break out of Boston because the Americans held the ground at the base of the peninsula. With some 1000 men killed or injured the British losses were so heavy that there were no more direct attacks on American forces. From this point, the siege essentially became a stalemate.
StalemateOn July 3, George Washington arrived to take charge of the new Continental Army. Forces and supplies came in from as far away as Maryland. Trenches were built at the Dorchester Neck, and they were extended toward Boston. Washington reoccupied Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill without opposition. However, these activities had little effect on the British occupation.
On November 11, 1775, Washington wrote to Congress of an incident during the siege, in which Col. Woodbridge and part of his 25th Regiment (Massachusetts) joined with Col. William Thompson’s Pennsylvania Regiment, defending against a British landing at Lechmere’s Point, and “gallantly waded through the water, and soon obliged the enemy to embark under cover of a man-of-war…”
During the siege, there were occasional raids and sniper fire from each side. On July 30, in retaliaton for an American attack, the British drove in an American advanced guard, and burned a few houses in Roxbury. On August 30, the British made a surprise breakout from the neck, set fire to a tavern, and withdrew to their defences. On the same night, 300 Americans attacked Lighthouse Island, killing several British soldiers and capturing 23 at the loss of one life. On another August night, Washington sent 1,200 men to dig entrenchments on a hill near the Charlestown Neck. Despite a British bombardment, the Americans successfully dug the trenches.
In the fall, Washington ordered a party to burn the lighthouse in the harbor. The first party was unable to do so, but a second one was able to finish the job. More expeditions were sent out in an attempt to disrupt the British supply of the city. In early November, the British attacked Lechmere's Point, engaged the Americans, losing some men, and then retreated having taken a couple of cows.
On November 29, Captain John Manley, commanding the schooner Lee, captured one of the most valuable prizes of the war—the British brigantine Nancy carrying much ordnance and military stores for British troops in Boston. The arms, powder and ammunition proved invaluable to the Continental Army during the fortification of Dorchester Heights the following March.
As winter approached, both sides faced their own problems. The Americans were so short on gunpowder, that soldiers were given a spear to fight with in the event of a British attack. Many of the American troops remained unpaid and many of their enlistments would be up at the end of the year. On the British side, wood was so scare that they began cutting down trees and tearing down old houses. To add to this, supplying the city had become increasingly difficult because of winter storms and American privateers patroling the waters outside of Boston. The British troops were so hungry that many were ready to desert as soon as they could. Worst, scurvy and smallpox had broken out in the city.
Washington had always been anxious to make an assault on Boston. The Congress had urged it in the autumn of 1775. It might have involved the burning and destruction of the town; but John Hancock, whose large fortune was invested there, wrote that he was willing to sacrifice every penny and become a pauper. Washington's officers were opposed to it as hazardous. Washington again propossed a plan to assault Boston in October, but his officers thought it best to wait until the harbor had frozen over. In February, when the water had frozen between Roxborough and Boston Common, Washington thought that in spite of his deficiency in powder he would like to try an assault by a rush across the ice; but his officers again advised against it. His anxiety to risk such a hazardous enterprise arose from his knowledge of the weak condition of his army, which he felt might melt away during the winter, and the ease with which Howe might at any moment break up the patriot besieging line. He had not yet learned how completely he could trust to Howe's inactivity ; and he abandoned the dash across the ice with great reluctance in exchange for a more cautious plan well suited to the British general's temperament, and which was crowned with success.
In mid-January, on orders from London, British Major General Henry Clinton and a small fleet were sent to the Carolinas with 1,500 men. In early February a British raiding party crossed the ice and burned several farmhouses in Dorchester.
End of the Siege
In the winter of 1775–76, Henry Knox and his engineers used sledges to retrieve 60 tons of heavy artillery that had been captured at Fort Ticonderoga. Bringing them across the frozen Connecticut River, they arrived back at Cambridge on January 24, 1776.
With some of the guns captured from Ticonderoga, the Americans began to bombard the city on March 2. The British responded with a cannonade. The American guns, led by Knox, continued to exchange fire with the British until March 4. The exchange of fire did little damage to either side, although it did damage houses and kill some British soldiers in Boston.
On March 5, in an amazing feat of deception and mobility, Washington moved artillery and several thousand men overnight to occupy Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston. Since it was the middle of winter and the continental army was unable to dig into the frozen ground on Dorchester Heights, rather than entrenching themselves, Washington's men used logs, branches and anything else available to fortify the position overnight. General Howe observed that it would have taken his army weeks to build Washington's earth fort. The British fleet ceased to be an asset, because it was anchored in a shallow harbor with limited maneuverability, and the American guns on Dorchester Heights were aimed at the fleet.
The immediate response of the British was a two hour cannon barrage at the heights, which had no affect because the British guns could not reach the American guns at such height. After the failed attempt, Howe and his officers agreed that the colonists must be removed from the heights if they were to hold Boston. They agreed to launch an assault on the heights, however, due to a storm the attack never took place.
On March 8, a letter was sent to Washington that if allowed to depart unmolested, they had no intention of destroying the town. Although Washington never received the letter, word got around about it. On March 9, after seeing movement on nook's hill on Dorchester, the British opened a massive fire barrage. It killed four men with one cannonball, but that was all the damage that was done. The next day, the colonists went out and collected the 700 cannonballs that had been fired at them.
Over the next week, the British fleet sat in Boston harbor waiting for favorable winds, while loyalists and the remaining British soldiers were loaded onto the ships.
AftermathThe British set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia on March 17, 1776. The militia went home, and in April, Washington took most of the Continental Army forces to fortify New York City.
Since 1901, Suffolk County, Massachusetts has celebrated March 17 as a holiday known as Evacuation Day.
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