Generations of Americans have recalled with pride these words that were supposedly spoken during the American Revolution. They conger stouthearted citizen soldiers standing firm before the power of oppression. Farmers and merchants answering the call to arms and grabbing their family muskets to defy what they believed to be an authoritarian government in a David and Goliath struggle for freedom. On June 17th, 1775, colonists drew a line in the sand, in this case a redoubt on top of Breed’s Hill outside Boston. As shells rained down from men-of-war anchored in the bay, fathers and sons pressed their weary bodies against the packed earth and leveled their fire-locks, boldly facing their adversary. Professional regulars, legions of red coats armed with razor edged bayonets that shimmered a promise of death, single-mindedly stepped up the hill to sweep the dregs and rabble from behind their trenches. Led by their pretentious and overconfident commanders, the British soldiers marched in perfect formation, heads up, shoulder to shoulder, unflinching with self-assured fortitude that beamed from beneath bearskin caps.
Every footfall drew the British grew closer – a hundred yards, eighty yards… sixty yards, the grim-faced militia continued to hold their fire. A sole figure rose and scrambled atop the breastwork and stood strong upon the heaped earth, scowling upon his enemy. He turned to face his men and with a voice that carried through the ages he cried out, “Don’t throw away a single shot, my brave fellows, but take good aim; nor touch a trigger, till you can see the whites of their eyes!” At fifty yards the crash of musketry was sudden and terrifying. And like a giant scythe slicing through a wheat field, rank upon rank of scarlet soldiers fell beneath the deadly shot. 
Romantic scenes of defiance outlined by sacrifice and courage were a propogandist’s dream come true. Like the Boston Massacre and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, such imagery would become part of the glue that held together a loosely bonded collection of provincial colonies. The Founders were keenly cognizant that only a third of its populace supported independence from the mother country. Personas and events were exaggerated, nourished, and portrayed by an infant nation desperately seeking to develop a strong sense of nationalism, complete with legendary antidotes. Even after the Americans successfully gained their independence, the problem of governing emerged. Each state and region would do battle to claim their own unique independence, like children wrestling with the parameters set by parents. Two distinct parties of thought emerged, Federalists and Jeffersonians, complete with villainously verbal attacks. The nation’s elasticity, pulled by so many factors became frail and was liable to snap.
Early 18th century politicians, authors, and historians turned to the past to establish a sense of nationalism. What emerged was a fanning of the recent victorious war’s ambers. In glowing descriptions, men’s deeds and actions were told and retold again. Veterans were sought after to give their accounts, stretching their memories, each time their tales were told they were fattened, embellished on the verge of the fantastic. In the heat of battle, as bullets whizzed past soldiers’ heads and cannon shells exploded, commanders had ignored their own jeopardy and stood tall, proclaiming valiant, death defying and often lengthy discourses. Sacrifice, fortitude, stouthearted, love of liberty, patriotic fever, these and more were elements of devotion that each and every citizen could understand and identify with, nobly defining themselves as what true Americanism comprised. And so, into this caldron of passionate posterity and love of country, stepped Parson Weems. He soon became the right man at the right time to fill a fledgling nation’s need for identity. ‘Loud and proud’, as the British fondly paraphrase, Americans who stand upon their soap boxes and proclaim their heritage. Weems did make America proud. He also made a lot of money.
General Israel Putnam
Before delving into Reem’s influence on America’s psyche, if you were to ask any baby boomer who had said the iconic words, don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes, they would have a sure answer. Undoubtably, it was General Putnam. And if asked how they know this, they would reference their school textbook or teacher’s lecture. So it went, from the time rust first began to coat Revolutionary cannons displayed on towns’ greens, generation after generation, author after author, in text after text, those legendary words were cried out by General Putnam that fateful day on June 17, 1775. Unchallenged except in some rarely read books and a few most recent publications, this scenario remained strongly imbedded in America’s mainstream of thought as it does to this day. Any doubts, just google Israel Putnam. Among the top ten hits, only one references questions relating to the general’s participation in the battle, siting the 1818 controversy that, like current critical news events that spring up, but die out in a few days’ time, it had once rocked the nation. Time and research have proven to cast serious doubt that Putnam could have said those words. All the major commanders and most primary sources who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill claimed that while the British attacked Breed’s Hill and the rail fence that led to the beach, Putnam was safely tucked away from harm, some eight hundred yards behind the American line on Bunker Hill, far from musket shot and far from the fight. But back to the start of it all… Weems.
Mason Locke Weems of Washington Chopping Down the Cherry Tree Fame
Mason Locke Weems (Oct. 11, 1759-May 23, 1825), also known as Parson Weems, was born on the Marshes Seat plantation (or Marshall Seat) in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Though by birth he was considered upper-class, Weems would spend his lifetime in the lower echelons of society while striving to regain his birthright. He was one of the younger of nineteen children of David Weems and Hester Hill. According to Weem’s 1911 biographer, Lawrence Wroth, Weems was “one of the earliest of those whom we have come in later years to designate as ‘Jingoes’, from the term jingoistic characterized by extreme patriotism (some have atoned to extreme nationalism and fascism). According to Wroth, Weems, at age 14, was sent to London and later the University of Edinburg to study medicine, spending three years in England. He supposedly returned to America in 1776 before his studies were complete and never practiced medicine. Nothing is known of his activities during the war except it is certain that he did not enlist to fight for either the Americans or British. As the war drew to a close, he returned to England in 1782 by way of France. He sought to study theology. He was ordained an Anglican minister on August 13,, 1784 and a week later was made a pastor in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He soon after returned to America and Maryland.
From late 1784 until 1789, he was rector at All Hallow’s Parish. Weems was to experience financial hardships. He was a minister in the Episcopal Anglican Church of England. Immediately after the war, all things English was considered despicable. Over time he saw his parish, as the church’s proceeds, shrink. Because of this financial setback, it can be assumed that he sought other employment. However, another and perhaps stronger influence determining Weem’s decision to seek other employment was the fact that he was not a successful minister. According to Wroth, Weems proved to be unpopular with his parish and by the time he left, it appears there was little regret by those he preached to.[1] He had no church in 1790 and appeared again in 1791 at the Westminster Parish. There he remained a little over a year before moving on. In June of 1792, he attended the Maryland Diocese Convention and boarded with one of the writers. Perhaps a torch was lit for in September of that year, he gave up his parish and never returned to the church service.[2] He had taken to the road peddling books as ‘a way of livelihood’, traveling extensively, planning publishing ventures, selling books, and making tentative efforts to write. He married Frances (Fanny) Ewell in July 1795, heiress to an estate at “Belle Air” in Prince William County. Though he continued to travel extensively, he established a household and small bookstore in Dumfries, Virginia. By 1800, he was finally employed full time with Matthew Carey, the Philadelphia publisher. He and Fanny had several children and by all accounts, were happy together until Weem’s death on May 23, 1825.
Weem’s The Life of George Washington
We now come to how Weems left his mark on American history and had so successfully padded our forefather’s legends. His home in Dumfries, Virginia was not far from Pohick’s Church where George Washington had worshipped. When Washington died in 1799, Weems saw a potential gold-mine in the making. Acquiring the know how of self-marketing, Weems promoted himself as the former ‘Rector of the Mount Vernon Parish’. With the demise of the Anglican Church, the rectorate at Pohick, termed Mount Vernon Parish, had no minister for the past fifteen years. Weems took it upon himself to very rarely minister for the small parish. From that miniscule setting, he styled himself as the Rector of Mt. Vernon. With that title under his belt, he became the first official biographer of the most famous man not only in America, but one of the most prominent individuals throughout Europe. Washington had not been dead for one year when Weem’s 1800 biography, The Life of George Washington with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen became available in book stores. The timing could not have been more perfect. It was an instant best seller as Weem’s name became associated with Washington; that fact alone guaranteed his success for all future literary publications.
With little of no facts to back up his literary claims to Washington’s life and the several anecdote’s described within, Weems had free liberty to establish a pattern or ‘roadmap to riches’ of romantic gems that other authors would copy. Basically, he made stuff up whenever the discourse needed some flare to keep the reader entranced with his subject matter. And his audience ate it up in droves. Within these historical accounts was Washington’s high morals and seemless virtues. When Washington chopped down the Cherry Tree and admitted his actions to his father, it provided a morally instructive tale for a young nation’s youth. The story of Washington praying at Valley Forge was a treasure that delighted Weem’s readers. The book as a whole lifted Washington to a level of iconic proportions similar to God-like worship. As a pastor, Weems was right at home describing Washington’s moral conscious in religious terms that went hand in hand with his elaborate tales. Only one problem, none of it was true.
Needless to say, all what he wrote turned to gold and the public demanded more such ‘histories.’ Soon to follow were the Life of Francis Marion (1805) that which made Swamp-fox an instant legend earning him his own TV series in 1959 – 1961; Life of Benjamin Franklin, with Essays (1817); and Life of William Penn (1819). Once published, there was no desire to question Weem’s validity in his ‘histories’. He touched upon the nation’s ravenous desire for anything and everything that had to do with the Revolution and facts be damned. Not until the late 1800’s did cracks begin to show. Daniel Appleton’s Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1889), noted that “this charge of a want of veracity [that] is brought against all Weems’s writings,” adding that “it is probable he would have accounted it excusable to tell any good story to the credit of his heroes.” Not much of an historian, Weems however proved to be a story teller.
Weem’s Full Quote Crediting Putnam
The source that gave Putnam ownership of these most infamous words can be found in chapter nine of Weem’s 1800 edition of Life of George Washington…
It is truly an incredible description that adheres to all that is dramatic and intense in a military action, setting the genre for generations to follow. An edited version is presented here:
“…far and wide, the adjoining plain are covered with British soldiers in crimson regimentals and shining arms, moving on the attack with incessant discharges of muskets and great guns. Close on the brow of the hill, appears the little fort, dimly seen through smoke, and waved over by one solitary flag, and very unlike to stand the shock of so powerful an armament. But the Americans were all wound up to the height of the enthusiasm of Liberty: and, lying close behind their works, with fowling pieces loaded with ball and buckshot, wait impatiently foror the approaching enemy. Their brave countrymen, Putnam and Warren, are in the fort, constantly reminding them of that glorious inheritance, Liberty, which they received from their gallant fathers, and now owe to their own dear children. “Don’t throw away a single shot, my brave fellows,” said old Putnam. “Don’t throw away a singe shot; but take good aim: nor touch a trigger, till you can see the whites of their eyes.”
“This steady reserve of fire, even after the British had comme up within pistol-shot, led them to hope that the Americans did not mean to resist, and many of their friends on the heights had nearly given up all for lost. But as soon as the enemy were advanced within the fatal distance marked, all at once a thousand triggers were drawn: and a sheet of fire, wide as the whole front of the breast-work, bursted upon them with most ruinous effect. … ranks upon ranks fell before the American marksmen, as the heavy-eared corn before the devouring hail storm, when with whirlwind rage it smites the trembling earth, and rushes on, smoking and roaring through the desolated fields. The enemy still maintained their ground like Britons, though all in front was nothing but one wide destructive flash; and naught around but heaps of their shrieking, dying comrades. But in a few minutes the slaughter became so general, that they could stand it no longer, but broke and fled in the utmost disorder…”[3]
Putnam Could Not Have Said the Famous Quote
As noted, Putnam was not present in the redoubt when the British attacked. Nor was he prowling the entrenchments that led down from the redoubt to the banks of the Mystic River, that area was commanded by Colonels Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut and John Stark from New Hampshire. So, in all probability, if those words were spoken or something similar, it was by someone else. Perhaps Colonel William Prescott who proved to be the true hero of the battle and commander at the redoubt that repelled two assaults by the British before lack of ammunition forced them to abandon and retreat.
Link in Revolutionary War Journal for a detailed analysis of the 1818 Controversy in which General Dearborn claimed Putnam was no where near the action that day.
In 1818, there was a nation wide debate as to Putnam’s true actions during the Battle of Bunker Hill. A heated discourse followed Major General Dearborne’s claim that if anything, Putnam should have faced a court-martial rather than receiving accolades for his actions that day. Sides were taken and a war of words ensued by families of both Putnam and Dearborne. The fact that it spurred writers to search out aging veterans to give an account of their experiences and put it to print before they died proved beneficial. Unfortunately, some of the accounts became questionable as they fostered only one side of the debate. Also, as more accounts were published which claimed that Putnam was either a hero or rogue, some of the veterans felt pressured to throw their hat in either way to save face, regardless of the facts. Important to understand, that Weem’s popular description of Putnam was known to all the veterans prior to their testimonies and no doubt affected fading recollections. Ultimately, the sheer number and high rank of those who placed Putnam far from the field of battle won out.
Unfortunately for historical accuracy, the testimonials that pretty much confirmed Putnam could not have said anything resembling ‘don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,’ were buried by authors David Humphreys and particularly Samuel Swett’s popular History of Bunker Hill Battle, first published in 1818 and reissued in 1826. Swett included an appendix that quoted the testimony of thee men, none officers, who stated that they heard Putnam speak about the ‘whites of their eyes’, or head others say that it came from Putnam; John Stevens in Colonel Frye’s regiment, Philip Johnson of Little’s regiment, and Elijah Jourdan – interestingly, all three were spread out across the line and could not have been in a position to have heard the words spoken so ardently.
So what could have been the origin of ‘don’t fire until the whites of their eyes’ and what could have been cried out that day and by whom?
In reality, the Americans opened fire at about 50 yards, much too distant to see anyone’s eyes. Colonel Stark had driven a stake into the sand and told his men not to fire until the redcoats crossed that stake. There were multiple commanders that day who stood among their men, crying out encouragements. Any one of them could have told their regiments to wait until they could see the splash guards—called half-gaiters—that British soldiers wore around their calves. But as Nathaniel Philbrick noted in Bunker Hill, A City, A Siege, A Revolution, “‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their half-gaiters’ just doesn’t have the same ring.” So the Weems version endured.
Other Battles and Similar Quotes
There have been instances prior to Bunker Hill where the command was give not to fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Whether they could stand up to the same scrutiny as the falsified claim attributed to Putnam has yet to be verified.
- “By push of bayones – no firing till you see the whites of their eyes” Attributed to Frederick the Great in the Battle of Prague, May 1757. Found in William Cullen Bryant’s A Popular History of the United States, 1879, Vol. III, pg. 403.
- “Silent until you see the whites of their eyes” Attributed to Prince Charles against the Austrian army at Jagendorf, Mmay 22, 1745 – same resource as above.
- “Dinna fire till ye see the whites o’ their e’en!” Attributed to Lt. Colonel Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw. Instructions to the Royal Scots Fusiliers at the Battle of Dettingen, June 27, 1743. Andrew Agnew, The Agnews of Lochnaw: A History of the Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway. 1864, pg. 543.
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Further reading on Revolutionary War Journal
RESOURCE
Cullen, William. Bryant’s A Popular History of the United States, Vol III. 1879: Recent Edition 2010: Nabu Press, Charleston, S. Carolina.
Weems, Mason C. The Life of George Washington with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen, Subtitled: Formerly Rector of Mt. Vernon Rectory. 1800: Joseph Allen & Lippincott Grambo & Co., Philadelphia, PA.
Weems, Mason & Edited by Marcus Conliffe. W. Life of Washington. 1962: Belknap Press, Harvard Univ, Cambridge, Mass.
Wroth, Lawrence C. Parson Weems, A Biographical and Critical Study. 1911: Eichelberger Book Company, Baltimore, Maryland.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Wroth, pg. 33
[2] Ibid. pg. 36
[3] Weems, Life of Washington, pp 81 & 82.