The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

on which Carnes was expertly equipped to comment. Revere, Carnes said, was not present to supervise the construction of the batteries and gave hisgunners no instruction or proper supervision. In cross-examination Carnes, an experienced artilleryman, claimed it was extraordinary that Revere "shouldmake such a bad shot and know no more about artillery." It was Carnes's written deposition that accused Revere of behavior "which tends to cowardice."Wadsworth testified that Revere was frequently absent from the rebel lines and described Revere's refusal to obey orders during the eventual retreat.Wadsworth also noted that Revere, when offered a chance to vote on whether or not to continue the siege, consistently chose against continuance. That isnot evidence of cowardice, but the minutes of those councils do reveal that Revere was by far the most vehement of the men urging abandonment of thesiege.The Court of Inquiry published its findings in October 1779. It concluded that Commodore Saltonstall bore the entire blame for the expedition's failureand specifically exonerated Generals Lovell and Wadsworth, yet, despite all the evidence, it gave no judgment on Paul Revere's behavior. George Bukerconvincingly argues that the committee did not want to dilute its absurd charge that the Continental Navy, in the person of Dudley Saltonstall, was solelyresponsible for the disaster.Revere was dissatisfied. He had not been condemned, but neither had his name been cleared and Boston was rife with rumors of his "unsoldierlike"behavior. He demanded to be court-martialed. Revere, it seems to me, was a difficult man. One of his most sympathetic biographers admits that it wasRevere's "personality traits" that weakened his chances of gaining a Continental Army commission. He was quarrelsome, exceedingly touchy about hisown reputation, and prone to pick fights with anyone who criticized him. He had a separate spat with John Hancock, who, inspecting Castle Island duringRevere's absence at Penobscot, dared to find fault with its defenses. The General Court, however, did not grant him a court-martial, but insteadreconvened the Committee of Enquiry, which was now charged with investigating Revere's behavior, and a crucial piece of evidence was the "diary"Revere had ostensibly kept at Majabigwaduce and which, unsurprisingly, shows him to be a model of military diligence. I have no proof that this "diary"was manufactured for the inquiry, but it seems very likely. Revere also produced many witnesses to counter the charges against him, and his vigorousdefense was largely successful because, when the committee reported in November 1779, it cleared Revere of the charge of cowardice, though it didmildly condemn him for leaving Penobscot without orders and for "disputing the orders of Brigadier-General Wadsworth respecting the Boat." Revere'sonly defense against the latter charge was that he had misunderstood Wadsworth's orders.Yet, though he had been cleared of cowardice, Revere was still dissatisfied and once again he petitioned for a court-martial. That court finally convenedin 1782 and Revere at last received what he wanted, exoneration. The suspicion is that people were tired of the whole affair and that, in February 1782,four months after the great rebel triumph at Yorktown, no one wanted to resurrect unhappy memories of the Penobscot Expedition and so, though thecourt-martial weakly chided Revere for his refusal to rescue the schooner's crew, they acquitted him "with equal Honor as the other Officers" which, in thecircumstances, was very faint praise indeed. The controversy over Revere's behavior at Majabigwaduce persisted with a bitter exchange of letters in theBoston press, but it was long forgotten by 1861 when Revere was abruptly elevated to the heroic status he enjoys today. Other offenses such as Revere'sdelay of the fleet's departure, his petty refusal to allow anyone else to use the Castle Island barge and his failure to withdraw the guns from Cross Islandare all attested by various sources.Dudley Saltonstall was dismissed from the navy but was able to invest in a privateer, the Minerva, with which, in 1781, he captured one of the richestprizes of the whole Revolutionary War. After the war Saltonstall owned trading ships, some of them used for slaving, and he died, aged fifty-eight, in 1796.Paul Revere was also successful after the war, opening a foundry and becoming a prominent Boston industrialist. He died in 1818, aged eighty-three.Solomon Lovell's political career was not harmed by the Penobscot fiasco. He remained a selectman for Weymouth, Massachusetts, a representative inthe General Court, and he helped devise the state's new constitution. He died aged sixty-nine in 1801. A memorialist wrote that Solomon Lovell was"esteemed and honored . . . respected and trusted in the counsels of the State . . . his name has been handed down through the generations." A betterjudgment was surely made by a young marine at Majabigwaduce who wrote, "Mister Lovell would have done more good, and made a much morerespectable appearance in the deacon's seat of a country church, than at the head of an American army."Captain Henry Mowat remained in the Royal Navy, his last command a frigate on which he died, probably of a heart attack, off the coast of Virginia in1798. He is buried in St. John's churchyard, Hampton, Virginia. Brigadier-General Francis McLean returned to his command at Halifax, Nova Scotia,where he died, aged sixty-three, just two years after his successful defense of Fort George. John Moore far transcended his old commander in fame andis now celebrated as one of the greatest, and most humane, generals ever to serve in the British army. He died aged forty-eight at Corunna just as thehad fought at Majabigwaduce, leading from the front.In 1780, a year after the expedition, Peleg Wadsworth was sent back to eastern Massachusetts as commander of the Penobscot region's militia. TheBritish garrison at Fort George learned of his presence and sent a raiding party which, after a brief fight in which Wadsworth was wounded, captured him.Wadsworth was imprisoned in Fort George, where his wife, allowed to visit her husband, was told of a plan to move Wadsworth to a prison in Britain.Wadsworth and a second prisoner, Major Burton, then devised and executed a daring escape which was wholly successful and today the bay north ofCastine (as Majabigwaduce is now called) and west of the neck is named Wadsworth Cove after the place where the two escapees found a boat. PelegWadsworth remained in eastern Massachusetts. After the war he opened a hardware store and built a house in Portland that can still be seen (as canPaul Revere's house in Boston), and he served in the Massachusetts Senate and as a representative for the province of Maine in the U.S. Congress. Hebecame a farmer in Hiram, and was a leader in the movement to make Maine a separate state, an ambition realized in 1820. He and his wife, Elizabeth,had ten children, and he died in 1829, aged eighty-one. George Washington held Peleg Wadsworth in the highest esteem and one of the Wadsworthfamily's treasured heirlooms was a lock of Washington's hair that was a gift from the first president. Peleg Wadsworth was, to my mind, a true hero and agreat man.The British stayed at Majabigwaduce, indeed it was the very last British post to be evacuated from the United States. Many of the Loyalists moved toNova Scotia when the British left, some taking their houses with them, though interestingly a number of British soldiers, including Sergeant Lawrence ofthe Royal Artillery, settled in Majabigwaduce after the war and, by all accounts, were warmly welcomed. Most of the sunken cannon from the rebel fleetwere retrieved and put into British service, which explains why commemorative gun-barrels bearing the Massachusetts state seal are found as far afieldas Australia. Then, in the War of 1812, the British returned and captured Majabigwaduce again, and again garrisoned the fort, where they stayed till thewar's end. It was during this second occupation that the fort's walls were strengthened with masonry and the British Canal, which is now a marshy ditch,was dug as a defensive work across the neck. Fort George still exists, a national monument now. It stands on the ridge above the Maine MaritimeAcademy in Castine, and is a peaceful, beautiful place. The ramparts are mostly overgrown with grass, and legend in Castine says that on still nights theghost of a drummer boy can be heard beating his drum in the old fort. One version claims the ghost is a British boy who was inadvertently locked into amagazine when the garrison evacuated in 1784, others say it is an American lad killed in the fighting of 1779. The earliest reference I can discover is inWilliam Hutchings's recollections where he avers that the boy, a rebel drummer, was killed at the Half Moon Battery. There is a footpath which twists upand down the bluff by Dice Head (as Dyce's Head is now called), giving the visitor a chance to admire the achievement of those Americans who, on July28th, 1779, assaulted and won that position. The large boulder on the beach is called Trask's Rock after the boy fifer who played there throughout theassault. Castine prospered during the 19th century, mostly because of the timber trade, and is now a picturesque and tranquil harbor town, and verymindful of its fascinating history. During one of my visits I was told that Paul Revere had stolen the expedition's pay chest, an allegation that is notsupported by any direct evidence, but indicative of the scorn that some in this part of New England feel for a man revered elsewhere in the region.The quotations which head each chapter are, as far as possible, reproduced with their original spelling and capitalization. I took most of those quotationsfrom the Documentary History of the State of Maine , volumes XVI and XVII, published by the Maine Historical Society in 1910 and 1913, respectively.Both those collections of contemporary documents were of enormous value, as was C. B. Kevitt's book, General Solomon Lovell and The PenobscotExpedition, published in 1976, which contains an account of the expedition along with a selection of original sources. I also used Solomon Lovell's journalof the expedition, published by the Weymouth Historical Society in 1881 and John E. Cayford's The Penobscot Expedition, published privately in 1976. Ihave already mentioned George Buker's invaluable book, The Penobscot Expedition, which persuasively argues that the inquiries into the disaster werepart of a successful Massachusetts conspiracy to shift both blame and financial responsibility onto the federal government. Without doubt the liveliest andmost readable description of the whole expedition is found in Charles Bracelen Flood's book Rise, and Fight Again, published by Dodd Mead andCompany in 1976, which deals with four instances of rebel disaster on the road to independence. David Hackett Fischer's fascinating book PaulRevere's Ride (Oxford University Press, 1994) does not touch on the expedition of 1779 but is a superb guide to the events leading to the revolution andto Paul Revere's influential role in that period. Readers curious about the origin of and reactions to Longfellow's poem (which Fischer describes as"grossly, systematically, and deliberatly inaccurate") will find his essay "Historiography" (printed in the book's end matter) invaluable. The best biographyof Revere is A True Republican, the Life of Paul Revere , by Jayne E. Triber, published by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1998. The famousLife of Colonel Paul Revere, by Elbridge Goss, published in 1891, is short on biographical details but contains a long treatment of the PenobscotExpedition. A new biography of Sir John Moore is badly needed, but I found a useful source in his brother's two-volume biography, The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, K.B. by James Carrick Moore, published by John Murray, London, in 1834. I discovered many details about 18th-century