One year after the famed Boston Tea Party, an American company of militia, during a raging snowstorm, attacked a British Fort. Cannon and shots were fired while farmers and sailors stormed the fortification. They came to blows with the defenders and wounded the English commander and another soldier. This clash between armed British subjects firing upon British soldiers who returned in kind, using muskets and cannon was the true beginning of a conflict that would escalate into complete rebellion. Not only colonials intent on throwing off what they believed was the yoke of slavery to a mother country, but the seeds were sown for a civil war – neighbor against neighbor in a battle of wills, determination, and most importantly, endurance.
A Storm Brewing
British Governor General Thomas Gage had been in London during the Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773. When word reached England, he had urged Parliamentary leaders and the crown to adopt sterner methods in dealing with the American uprising. He was convinced the problems brewing in America were an isolated issue, confined mostly to New England. He placed the blame specifically on the radical element of thugs and bullies manipulated and exploited by a wealthier class of merchants and landowners who did not want to pay their responsible and fair share of England’s financial obligations. Sterner measures were passed, some particularly focused on New England. Upon return to Boston, Gage was stupefied as he witnessed the results of these acts. Instead of singling out and smothering an infestation of discontent and virulent rhetoric, the newly enacted bills had the opposite effect. The colonies – heretofore separate regions of self concerns and interests, suspicious of each other, had been molded into a cohesive force of open rebellion.
Powder Alarms
By early September, 1774, Gage saw firsthand the instantaneous strength of the opposition gathering throughout the countryside. On September 2nd, thousands of armed colonists and organized militia marched towards Boston over what proved to be a rumor – that the 3,000 manned British garrison had left Boston and was attacking the countryside. An eyewitness wrote: “All along [the road] were armed men rushing forward – some on foot, some on horseback. At every house women and children [were]making cartridges, running bullets, making wallets [packages of food], baking biscuits, crying and bemoaning and at the same time animating their husbands and sons to fight for the liberties, though not knowing whether they should ever see them again…they left scarcely half a dozen men in a town…”[1] They converged on Cambridge and drove the Tories, loyalists, into Boston. Paul Revere, patriot organizer who had set up a warning system, was even surprised by the turnout from his and other ‘riders’ efforts writing “…the spirit of Liberty never was higher than at present, the troops have the horrors amazingly…”
The action that provoked this uproar among the heavily armed population outside Boston and almost triggered open warfare became known as the first ‘powder alarm’. Gage had been concerned over colonial build up of weaponry and gunpowder, beyond what had been the usual needs of established militia. The Massachusetts Provincial Powder House in Somerville, five miles by boat from Boston up the Mystic River and approximately ten miles by land, had caught his attention. The munitions were the property of the British government and had been stored there for use by British troops and militiamen under England’s military authority. On September 1st, a small British force of approximately 250 men had made a nighttime landing from the river side and successfully removed 250 barrels of gunpowder and two cannon stored at the facility and transported it to their boats.
General Gage was alarmed by this surge of armed men preparing open hostilities against British troops in response to the ‘Somerville Powder Alarm.’ He quickly reinforced Roxbury Neck, the strip of land connecting the city of Boston to the mainland, and ordered all within Boston to surrender their munitions. He was alarmed that he had too few troops needed to confront an armed insurrection and still believed with the advent of more force, hostilities could be adverted. He wrote to London a now famous letter alerting his government to the mounting situation he was confronting: “The whole country is in arms and in motion… From present appearances there is no prospect of putting the late acts in force, but by first making a conquest of the New England provinces…If you think then thousand men sufficient, send twenty; if one million is thought enough, give two; you save both blood and treasure in the end.” In his letter, he recommended that among the acts that triggered massive demonstrations in a gathering storm of resistance, namely the Coercive Acts, known in America as the Intolerable Acts, be suspended.
England Turns a Deaf Ear
England still regarded the rebellion in America as a local phenomenon confined to Boston. The country’s attention as a whole was engaged in other matters, particularly Prime Minister North’s electoral campaign to which Edmond Burke, member of Parliament and agent for New York wrote “any remarkable highways rally on Hounslow Heath made more conversation than all the disturbances in America.”[2] The King and Parliament considered Gate’s alarming report and pleas for more armed support as trepidation on the verge of hysteria unbecoming a senior general in His Majesty’s Army. George the III remarked that Gage’s advice to suspend Parliamentary acts and considerably beef up the British troop presence was “the most absurd that can be suggested.” Though Gage had firsthand experience of the dangerously growing unrest and reported the new reality since having returned to America, powers in England immediately began looking for his replacement.
Edmond Burke, who proved to be one of the stronger Parliamentary voices of the growing patriotic movement in America, received a letter from General Charles Lee, former British officer and one who many considered to be the leader of any colonial rebellion. He succinctly expressed the situation among his fellow colonials: “…unless the Boston Bills (I may add the Quebec[3])are repealed the empire of Great Britain is no more. I have now run through almost the whole colonies, from the north to the south. I have conversed with every order of men, from the first estated gentleman to the poorest planter, and cannot express my astonishment at the unanimous, ardent spirit reigning though the whole. They are determined to sacrifice everything, their property, their wives, and blood, rather than cede a tittle of what they conceive to be their rights. The tyranny exercised over Boston, indeed, seems to be resented by the other colonies in a greater degree than by the Bostonians themselves…” So too Lee’s advice seemed fall on deaf ears. Only five hundred marines were sent to Boston to assist Gage which the astute general knew to be a general insurrection. It was only a matter of time before the two conflicting forces would clash.
The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, meeting at Concord, had approved a committee of safety[4]. Besides establishing a third of each militia, termed minutemen, who could immediately respond to an emergency, and setting aside a considerable arsenal of weaponry and gunpowder, they established a system of ‘express riders’. It was part of the elaborate spy network to which active patriot, silversmith and propagandist, Paul Revere was a key member. They became one of the most crucial aspects of readying armed protests throughout New England and would be critical to the militia’s response; the first armed and considered illegal action by colonial forces of the American Revolution.
Paul Revere Warns New Hampshire
Halting the rebel buildup of arms and ammunition became paramount in General Gage’s plans for avoiding open military confrontation between British troops and colonial militia. Through his spy network, Paul Revere had information that Gage was planning an expedition to secure the British arsenal at Fort William and Mary, at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbor some fifty miles north of Boston. The fort’s arsenal stored mostly British weapons and ammunition with some provincial armaments. Patriots had long conceived of the plan, if hostilities worsened, to confiscate royal arsenals scattered throughout the colonies. Any attempt by Gage to either reinforce the arsenal at the fort or transport the armaments elsewhere, which many patriots had targeted for their own eventual use, had to be stopped.
In the early morning hours on December 13th, 1774, the Boston Committee of Correspondence shot Revere sixty six miles north to warn the New Hampshire committeemen of the impending arrival of British troops. Revere arrived in Portsmouth at around 4:00 PM; the weather was extremely cold and spitting snow. He met Samuel Cutts, prominent member of the New Hampshire Committee of Correspondence, and the two talked at Stoodley’s Tavern. Revere presented a message to Cutts signed by Boston Town Clerk William Cooper on behalf of the committee. Supposedly troops had secretly left Boston bound for Newport, Rhode Island and Portsmouth where they were to take possession of the fort.
Fort William and Mary was built by the British around 1630 to guard the harbor at Portsmouth and serve as the colony’s military storage facility. It had been known as ‘The Castle’ and was still referred to that name decades later; however it was renamed William and Mary in 1692 after British monarchs William III and Mary II. During the French and Indian War, it served to guard and protect Kittery, Maine which had been raided on several occasions by the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The fort, positioned on Great Island in New Castle, continued as the providence’s main munitions depot while guarding the entrance to the Piscataqua River and New Hampshire’s colonial capital, Portsmouth. Though in some disrepair at the time of the raid, the walls were six to eight feet in height with thirty stations for cannon. The cannon were either in their settings on trucks – naval carriages which rolled on platforms – or on carriages for quick deployment if necessary. Many others were in storage. Besides large armaments, there were approximately a hundred barrels of gunpowder and numerous muskets, some of better quality than others. The New Hampshire Assembly, overseen by Royal Governor John Wentworth, was stingy in appropriating funds to guard the fort and at the time of the raid. Only six men, invalid soldiers (elder soldiers restricted to garrison duty) that included a former ship’s captain, were to confront the surge of patriots that stormed the fort that cold and snowy afternoon of December 14th, 1774.
Mob takes Action
Samuel Cutts tried in vain to convene an emergency meeting of the Committee of Correspondence, however a quorum was not present and the matter was only discussed without planned action. A few hotheaded members of the committee decided to take the matter into their own hands “having the good of their country at heart more than the others”. Early the next morning, December 14th, drums beat the alarm to raise volunteers who would sally out to the fort to seize the armaments before the British could arrive. Word had spread throughout the previous night of the proposed raid and Governor Wentworth sent word to the fort to be vigilant and expect trouble. At noon, John Langdon and Thomas Pickering, Portsmouth outspoken Sons of Liberty Men, led a small mob that marched through the streets led by fifes and drums. They shouted their plan to seize the fort’s powder and enjoined others to fall in with them. Governor Wentworth proclaimed the men’s actions open treason and sent the Chief Justice and Secretary of the Province, Councilor Theodore Atkinson, Sr., to confront the crowd, to no avail.
The mob, about one hundred strong, marched two miles along the Piscataqua. They pushed off by boat for Fort Point and were joined by a barge packed with fifty local farmers and sailors. Word had traveled throughout the region for as they made their way down river, more boats joined them from both sides of the river. By the time they approached the fort, at least four hundred men from Portsmouth, New Castle, Rye and Kittery, Maine were huddled down in their boats in a raging snowstorm, all determined to illegally raid a British Provincial Military Installation. Around 1 PM, Captain John Cochran, commanding the small garrison of six men, witnesses the flotilla of boats approaching the fort. He posted his men “in the most advantageous station I could judge of, and ordered them not to flinch on pain of death but to defend the fort to the last extremity, telling them that the instant I saw any sign of cowardice in either of them, I would drive a brace of balls through his body.” Cochran’s father had been commander of the fort and the son was honored to assume his father’s position. It may explain his total commitment to his position and the trust put given by the British Government.
Captain Cochran is Confronted
At around 3:00 PM, several men under the command of sea captain William Wolcott approached the fort’s gate. Wolcott simply requested that they be allowed entry. Cochran was adamant and flatly refused to permit so many to enter at once. John Langdon spoke up and requested that he and one other be enabled to pass through the gate, state their business and, after having done so, leave if Cochran wished. Cochran consented; provided that the men “go out again without being compelled” Langdon agreed and was admitted along with Robert White, a sea captain. The men continued to disembark from boats and assemble outside the fort’s walls, some calling for the surrender while others threatened death to those inside. Once inside, Langdon and White told Cochran directly that they were there to seize all of the gunpowder in the fort’s magazine. Cochran remained firm, he told the two men that if they wished the powder, it could only occur “by violence for that I would defend it to the last extremity.” It is reported that he ordered Langdon and White to leave the Castle and stated that “if they attempted to come into the fort, their blood be upon their own hands for I will fire on you.”
First shots of the American Revolution
Once outside, Langdon issued a signal and the men stormed the fort. Cochran gave the order to fire and three cannon belched four pound shot at the men as they surged towards the fort. The six defenders followed with a volley of musket fire, hoping to scatter the assailants long enough to give them time to reload the guns. Both cannon and musket fire had no affect on Langdon’s men. Governor Wentworth wrote that the balls were “all well aim’d, but the assailants falling under walls as they saw the match applied [that ignited the cannon] escaped with life. The fort was laid out in a square without bastions. The cannon could not be brought to bear down on anyone who could get under the walls. The attackers would lay there and rush forward while the defenders attempted to reload. As Cochran’s men attempted to reload, “we were stormed on all quarters…”
Photograph by Ralph Morang
Captain Cochran and his small garrison continued to resist, resorting to hand to hand fighting. Cochran wrote that he “was pressed upon, but kept them off a considerable time with my firelock and bayonet.” He spared with the Americans using his bayonet, wounding one with a jab through the arm. It was reported that Thomas Pickering, a Portsmouth mariner jumped from a wall onto Cochran and grabbed the captain by the throat, injuring him slightly as he demanded his surrender. Of Cochran’s other men, Isaac Seveay had a pistol misfire in his face, was knocked down and disarmed. Ephraim Hall was disarmed after three men grabbed him; he “parted with his musket in pieces only.” Once the garrison was subdued, the patriots “gave three Huzzas” and hauled down the British colors that had flown over the fort for over a hundred years. Witnesses reported that the flag was lowered by John Palmer of Portsmouth. This symbolic act was the first striking of British colors by patriot Americans in what would be known as the American Revolutionary War. By 5 PM, the raiders had loaded the nearly 100 barrels of gunpowder including their trophy flag, released their prisoners, and pushed off for the mainland.
Fort Ransacked the Next Day
It seems the local patriots were not just content with absconding with British gunpowder. Cannon and other armaments remained in the fort that would come in handy if and when war erupted. Lawyer and later Major General John Sullivan took it upon himself to organize a part of approximately 100 men, many fresh from the outlying towns, to return and finish the job. The next night, December 15, 1774, with an illuminating moon, the frozen raiders pushed off towards the Fort Point lighthouse with the outgoing tide. They made the fort by 10 PM and Sullivan, accompanied by another, asked the sentry, Ephraim Hall, permission to enter. Cochran, even after the previous day’s events, concurred and invited them to sit by a warm fire. Sullivan informed Cochran that he was only there to claim Provincial property. Though Cochran must have been skeptical if Sullivan would be content to such limitations, he must also have known he had no choice. He tried to negotiate a deal so to protect as much of the King’s property as he could. A deal was made, however, as soon as the gate was swung open, the men surged within and began seizing all within sight; small arms, cannon shot, and sixteen cannon – fifteen four pounds and a nine pounder, ten carriages, 42 serviceable muskets with shot, including a stash of useless muskets.
Sullivan had no idea as when the expected British forces would arrive so the raiders worked rapidly to make the next tide. There was never any desire to permanently occupy the garrison and removing the seventy heavy cannon was out of the question. It was hard enough to drag the weighty four pounders to the waiting boats. They did not shove off until 8 AM the next morning. The powder taken the night before was already being distributed to the local towns: Kingston – 12 barrels, Epping – 8, Poplin – 4, Nottingham – 8, Brentwood 6, and Londonderry 1. Durham received 25 barrels to distribute among the local residences and Exeter got 29 barrels. Four remained in Portsmouth.
Two days later, Dec. 17th, around 8 AM, the eight gun HMS Canceaux was seen off the Fort Point Light. She was joined two days later by the 20 gun frigate HMS Scarborough. As one historian commented, “No history, I believe, will furnish us with an instance of a King’s fort being taken, and his colors struck by his own subjects in a time of peace, and without any cause or provocation.” Royal Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire wrote, “I know not what to say in instigation of the insult on the British flag, hall’d down with ignominy in New Hampshire; it grieves me to my soul, thus driven from my favorite stronghold of favorable representations by the mad intemperance of a few indiscreet zealots, who seldom want followers in folly.”
England concluded that the raid on the fort was high treason. Wentworth was notified that the offenders could be tried in New Hampshire or in England. Depositions were taken from the fort’s soldiers and Wentworth had them held aboard one of the warships so they would be available as witnesses for the Crown. In June 1775, less than two months after Lexington and Concord, the Wentworths were confronted by a mob that demanded they leave Portsmouth. The governor took his family and resided in Captain Cochran’s residence on Fort William and Mary. Soon, the sloop of war Falcon arrived and dismantled the ‘Castle’ of all the ordinance and stores. When King George was informed of the affair, he opinioned that New Hampshire’s actions were a “a very flagrant outrage”. No one was ever apprehended and no trial ever occurred. New Hampshire was well represented at the Battle of Bunker Hill when Colonel John Stark’s New Hampshire regiment stood firm and devastated General William Howe’s light infantry’s repeated attacks.
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RESOURCES
DeMitchell, Terri A. The Portsmouth Alarm: December 1774. 2013: Mayhaven Publishing, Mahomet, Ill.
Harvey, Robert. A Few Bloody Noses. The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution. 2001: Overlook Press, New York, NY.
Kehr, Thomas F. The Seizure of His Majesty’s Fort William and Mary at New Castle, New Hampshire, December 14 – 15, 1774. 2001, undated 2012. Web Site “The New Hampshire Society Sons of Liberty.”
Parsons, Charles L. The Capture of Fort William and Mary, December 14 and 15, 1774. 1903: Concord, NH. Reprint New Hampshire American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, 1974.
Upton, Richard F. Revolutionary New Hampshire: An Account of the Social and Political Forces Underlying the Transition from Royal Province to American Commonwealth, with a New Introduction by the Author. Reprint 1971, Octagon Press, New York, NY.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Harvey, pg. 121.
[2] Ibid, pg. 124.
[3] The 1774 Quebec Act instituted a permanent administration in Canada, considered Britain’s 14th colony, replacing the temporary government created at the time of the Proclamation of 1763 (end of the Seven Years War). It gave the French Canadians complete religious freedom and restored the French form of civil law. This infuriated the anti-Catholic ‘Protestant’ lower colonies and only added what many patriots saw as added insult to injury.
[4] These Committee’s of Safety, brainchild of Samuel Adams and fellow activists in Boston, were part of Committees of Correspondence, which would unite the colonies in a single and unified struggle against England, resulting in a Congress of all thirteen colonies.