General Greene Takes Command of Boston

Despite the evacuation of British troops from the town of Boston on the 17th of March 1776, the town would not be immediately free from military control.  Though the British had boarded their ships and sailed into the harbor, they lingered in sight of the town for several days.  Washington was anxious to rush to New York where the British might strike next, but with the British ships still in the outer harbor, he could hardly leave the town unprotected. 

On March 20th, General Washington left General Nathanael Greene in charge of a force of troops left behind to protect Boston from re-invasion.  Greene immediately put Boston back into a state of martial law, only this time under the authority of the Continental Army.  Under Greene’s command, Greene ordered his soldiers to make a good show of themselves, condemning plundering and abuse of Boston residents and promising punishment for any soldier or officer caught doing so.  He expected his soldiers to maintain an appearance of a clean uniform, face, and hands, and ordered his men to keep their weapons in good condition.  Greene felt that it was necessary that his soldiers be on double duty while the town’s defenses were low, ordering nightly patrols until the British left the harbor.

As the days wore on, it became unclear why the British were still lingering in the harbor.  The original assumption had been that they were preparing to sail, but when days of good weather came and went with no movement of the British fleet, General Greene and General Washington grew anxious that they might be preparing for a surprise attack.  Greene warned his men of the possibility and ordered some of his troops to man boats in the harbor to watch for any indication of the enemy’s next move, prepared to fortify the town, and advised his troops to be ready for an alarm at a moment’s notice.

General Greene’s command in Boston lasted two weeks, which was just long enough to see the British fleet eventually sail from the harbor.  It is interesting to note the success of Greene’s command in Boston.  He states in one of his letters that during his entire stay in Boston there were only one or two complaints from the inhabitants regarding plundering, and those complaints could not even be proven.  In addition, when Greene left, he was replaced by Artemis Ward who the inhabitants complained got nothing done to help strengthen the defense of the town.  A letter written by William Cooper to John Adams, explained that there was nothing being done under Ward’s care and explicitly asks for the command of Boston to be placed back in the care of General Greene or another equally capable officer.  It had become clear that General Greene had impressed the people of Boston with his command.

Ever Wonder Why Bostonians Today Celebrate an Evacuation Day? It Marks the End of the Siege of Boston and the End of an Era of British Authority

On this day in 1776, The Siege of Boston ended with the British Evacuation of Boston.  The siege lasted for 11 months starting on April 19, 1775 after the battles of Lexington and Concord.  The Colonial Militia had chased the British back to Boston from Concord where they remained defending the town until March 17, 1776.  During those 11 months, the one road in and out of Boston was closed off as well as the port of Boston.  This meant that there were little supplies coming into the town, and soldiers soon ran out of supplies and ended up having to tear apart fences and church pews, not to be malicious, but to provide themselves with basic needs such as firewood.  In addition to lack of supplies, the soldiers and Loyalists holed up in Boston faced an outbreak of small pox with no way out of the small and crowded town without the permission of the commander-in-chief in charge of the troops.

When General Gage was recalled from Boston in October of 1775, the position of commander-in-chief fell upon General Howe.  General Howe, before arriving in America, had been a member in Parliament and had promised his constituency he would never fight against the American colonists, for he viewed them as fellow and civilian Englishmen, but now he found himself in a position where he might have to do just that.

General Howe arrived in 1775 on a ship called the Cerberus and arrived just in time to view the less than adequate conditions that the British soldiers were living in.  As a result, Howe began to feel that Boston really wasn't the best strategic position and began writing to his superiors in the mother country, asking permission to move his troops somewhere more valuable such as Newport or New York.  His requests were not approved.

If General Howe needed an honorable excuse to evacuate Boston, he needed to wait no longer than March 4, 1776.  By March 4, fifty-nine cannons which had been recovered and brought from Fort Ticonderoga to the surrounding countryside of Boston had arrived in the camp of the newly formed Continental Army under General Washington.  The man who had undertaken the journey to retrieve them was Colonel Henry Knox, who before the war had been a bookkeeper in Boston.  General Washington now planned to use the cannon brought from Fort Ticonderoga to the advantage of the Continental Army surrounding the British in Boston.  Washington ordered the cannons be used to fortify Dorchester Heights in the hopes of drawing General Howe out into an attack on the Heights while Washington himself hoped to send men across the Charles River to attack Boston.  General Howe knew that by attacking Dorchester Heights, the British soldiers might suffer more casualties than they experienced during their pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill, on the other hand, Howe was also aware that the cannons on the heights could bombard the British soldiers within the city if left untouched and therefore planned for an attack.

On March 5 and 6 a storm came through the area and ruined any plans for any attack on either side.   Howe was now left with the decision of whether or not it was worth losing so many of his men's lives for a position that he did not even view as strategic.  Howe decided to then take the cannons on Dorchester Heights as an honorable excuse to evacuate his soldiers from Boston and on March 17, 1776 he and his soldiers, and the Loyalists of the town of Boston boarded ships to sail north to Nova Scotia, ending British Authority in Boston, and allowing the Patriots to reoccupy the town.

Mezzotint of General Sir William Howe. Thought to be American Revolution but uniform style suggests French and Indian War era with the Order of the Bath badge added later.

Portrait of a young George Washington at 40 years old in 1772. At the time of his appointment as commander in chief of the newly formed Continental Army, Washington was only 43, and would have been 44 at the time of the British evacuation of Boston.

Colonel (later General) Henry Knox.  Knox began as a bookkeeper in Boston but when Revolution broke out he joined the Continental Army, volunteering to retrieve fifty-nine cannon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York, several miles away, and to bring them back to Boston in an attempt to drive the British out of his hometown.

Map of the peninsula of Boston with Dorchester Heights circled in red off to the right.

Map of the peninsula of Boston in comparison to the location of Dorchester Heights, labeled right of Boston Neck.