Edited by K. David Goss
and David Zarowin

Published by

The Society of Colonial Wars in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts

The New England Historic Genealogical Society

1985

Massachusetts Officers in the French and Indian Wars, 1748-1763
Massachusetts Militia Companies and Officers in the Lexington Alarm
Massachusetts Soldiers in the French and Indian Wars, 1744-1755
Massachusetts Officers and Soldiers, 1723-1743: Dummer's War to the War of Jenkins' Ear
Massachusetts Officers and Soldiers, 1702-1722: Queen Anne's War to Dummer s War
Massachusetts Officers and Soldiers in the Seventeenth-Century Conflicts

Copyright © 1985
by
The New England Historic Genealogical Society

This book is dedicated to the memory of

HOWARD GAMBRILL, JR.

a major force in the field of New England studies,
and the guiding light of this series

Source Information:

Originally published in book form in by the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1985.

The information was originally compiled from such primary sources as colonial military records and muster rolls; colonial land grants; Plymouth Colony records; usurpation (1688-1689) and intercharter (1689-1692) archival records of Massachusetts; and town vital, probate, and court records.

Key to Abbreviations and Symbols

* By imputation

Regimental officers (identified only by last name in tables):

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The preparation of this volume is the result of the labor and advice of a great many individuals who have assisted us freely throughout the past two years. First, for their patience and determination to see the project through to a successful completion, a debt is owed to Ralph Crandall and Edward Hanson, Director and Editor of Publications, respectively, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Second, for their selfless generosity in establishing and sustaining this publication and its internship, a special note of thanks is due to the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To Professor James A. Henretta, Department of History and former Director of the American and New England Studies Program at Boston University, we are especially grateful for the opportunity to undertake this project.

The extraction of information from volume 94b would have been an almost insurmountable task if not for the data supplied to the project by Professor Fred Anderson, Department of History, University of Colorado, Boulder. Likewise, the data which Fred so kindly supplied could not have been extracted and organized if Professor Joseph Levine, Department of Philosophy, Bates College, had not been willing to develop a computer program to place it in a workable format. Most importantly a very sincere thank you is due to the tireless and very helpful staff of the Reading Room at the Massachusetts State Archives for their willingness to help locate names, cross-check information of all kinds, and for their patience in bearing with us during the preceding two years. Donald Nielsen, Assistant Editor of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and Rose Glass were meticulous in the editing, formatting, and typing of the final manuscript. Finally, for their invaluable research assistance we express our profound gratitude to Mr. Mark L. V. Hilliard of the Bostonian Society, and to Ms. Rebecca Franz of the Boston National Historic Park, National Park Service, whose additional skill as a typist enabled the project to reach a well-deserved conclusion.

K. David Goss
David Zarowin

INTRODUCTION

By K. David Goss

The names of the soldiers listed in this volume have been extracted from volume 94 of the Massachusetts Archives entitled "Muster Rolls, 1755-1756." These rolls were prepared during the summer of 1756, at the close of the so-called Crown Point Campaign led by General William Johnson, which resulted in the defeat and capture of the newly appointed commander of the French forces in North America, Baron Ludwig August Dieskau.

Although strategically the Crown Point Campaign-part of an overall strategy organized and implemented by Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts-was not a great success, it did serve as a military antidote to Braddock's disastrous defeat in July of 1755. It also demonstrated the capacity of the colonial government to mount a major military campaign on land without the assistance or intervention of the British regular army. Finally, it provided firsthand military experience for over 3000 New England militia-men-some of whom, like John Stark and Israel Putnam, would provide distinguished and able leadership during the American Revolution.

For these reasons it seems appropriate that the military history of the Crown Point Campaign of 1755 should be documented. This subject can then be further studied by looking at the recent research and publication undertaken by demographic historian Fred Anderson who has used volume 94 (part b) to provide data on the migratory patterns as well as the economic and occupational status of those who marched in Governor Shirley's army.¹

I

On 13 April 1755, Governor William Shirley and several other colonial governors met at Alexandria, Virginia, with the recently arrived General Braddock. The subject of their conference was a matter which had occupied much of Shirley's time and interest throughout the preceding decade-the reduction and conquest of Canada.² Although up to the time of this meeting his plans to this effect had been stifled and postponed, they were now to be implemented.

Braddock, a personal favorite of the Duke of Cumberland, had been selected as the commander-in-chief of the English colonial forces, and of those regular troops he had brought from England. The plan which resulted from Shirley's meeting with the general consisted of two distinct and nearly simultaneous movements.

Braddock, together with a force of regulars and militia numbering about 2200, would march across the Alleghenies to attack and destroy the French base at Fort Duquesne. Concurrently, Governor William Shirley and Sir William Pepperrell were to proceed with their army of provincial troops from Albany to the southern shore of Lake Ontario relieving the small English garrison at Oswego, and from there sail westward in force to attack the French outpost at Niagara. A secondary objective of this "Western Campaign" was the reduction of Fort Frederick situated on Crown Point. Finally it was decided that a contingent of New England troops would be detached and sent eastward by sea to Nova Scotia with instructions to neutralize the Acadian French civilian settlements in that region.³

The rationale for employing all of Braddock's British regulars in the campaign against Fort Duquesne was the general's belief that a march through such hostile and unfamiliar territory would present formidable obstacles to the unseasoned and undisciplined provincials.⁴ Conversely, the region to the north and west of Albany was well known to many New England and New York colonials, and was therefore considered a theater in which provincial troops under provincial leadership might stand a greater chance of success.⁵

That provincial militia units were not generally regarded by the regular army as standing on a par with regular units is evident from a number of contemporaneous accounts of British army officers including General Wolfe who, in a letter to Shirley in 1758, described the American provincial soldiers as "the dirtiest, most contemptable, cowardly dogs that you can conceive…such rascals are rather an encumbrance than any real strength to an army."⁶

While Wolfe's "rascals" may not have been disciplined professional soldiers, it is evident that neither were they the "Lowest Dregs" of provincial society.⁷Anderson in his recent study of soldiers in the provincial militia during the Seven Years' War has underscored the egalitarian nature of the Massachusetts army's recruitment policies which insured that recruits "would be drawn from the widest possible cross-section of their society" making the provincial army "a kind of image of the colony's society-at-large."⁸

Thus for all their lack of polish and precision, the men who marched with Shirley, Pepperrell and Johnson might be better characterized by the description of them by Colonel John Winslow as "Sons of some of the best yeomen in New England."⁹

It was this amateur army which was being gathered at Albany while Braddock and his expedition were edging their way to disaster as they approached Fort Duquesne. By that time Shirley's provincials were already well behind schedule since his second-in-command, Colonel Ephraim Williams, had received his orders to march the army to Albany on May 31st and did not arrive until early July.¹⁰

Albany was selected to serve as the base of military operations for both the Oswego/Niagara and Crown Point campaigns. When Shirley arrived there on July 10th he "did not find things in the forwardness which he had reason to expect." He was also, as yet, unaware of Braddock's defeat on the 9th, and would not be informed of the tragedy until he and his provincials were en route to Oswego.¹¹

By 15 July 1755, Governor Shirley, Sir William Pepperrell and their two regiments of provincial levies had left Albany, and were on the march past Schenectady to Little Falls on the Mohawk River. From this point their bateaux would be transported over the marshy ground on sleds to a more navigable point further upstream. After reaching Oneida Lake via Wood Creek, they would descend by the Onondaga River to Lake Ontario. This arduous, dangerous and mostly amphibious journey to Oswego proved extremely wearing upon the colonials whose morale was even more devastated when the news ot Braddock's defeat caught up with them on July 30th-resulting in a large number of desertions.¹²

With Braddock's death, the rank of commander-in-chief of colonial forces in North America fell upon Governor Shirley who, upon reaching and relieving the 275-man garrison at Oswego, began making the necessary preparations to attack Fort Niagara. Owing to general disorganization, bad weather and French troop movements, however, the Niagara assault was indefinitely postponed. Instead, Shirley's men busied themselves in constructing new fortifications and modifying existing ones. The results of this effort were christened Fort Ontario and Fort Oswego. Disappointed at not achieving his primary objective, Shirley left Oswego and his regiments in October, returning to Massachusetts and his duties as royal governor.¹³

By 15 July 1755, General William Johnson's command was assembled near Albany, awaiting its munitions and supplies before marching against Fort Frederick at Crown Point.¹⁴ While collecting the necessary baggage, Johnson's predecessor and second-in-command, General Lyman, kept his one-thousand-man force occupied with the construction of Fort Lyman, later re-named Fort Edward, about sixty miles north of Albany on the east side of the Hudson River.¹⁵ From this point General Johnson would take command of the Crown Point campaign. By August 25th he would leave Fort Edward with a garrison of some three hundred provincials, and march fourteen miles north to encamp on the northern shore of Lac St. Sacrement, which he renamed "Lake George."¹⁶

The location which General Johnson selected for his camp at Lake George was problematic in that it did not provide a route of retreat should the French decide to attack. It was situated upon a slight rise which projected into Lake George and on all other fronts faced swamp or forest. Here he rested his force now numbering almost 4000 provincials and Indians. From here he also intended to strike at Fort Frederick before his French opponents or their Indian allies were able to ascertain his strength and mount an adequate defense. ¹⁷

The French were keenly aware of Johnson's movements, however, and deemed them dangerous enough to warrant the personal attention of the recently arrived commander-in-chief of French forces, the Baron Dieskau, who had marched his army of regulars away from a campaign he was mounting in Montreal against Oswego. Now at Fort Frederick, Dieskau together with his commander of Indians, M. de St. Pierre, hoped to surprise Johnson, cut him off and eliminate all threats to Crown Point.¹⁸

By 7 September 1755 Dieskau and his units had crossed Lake Champlain and were encamped less than sixteen miles from Johnson's position on Lake George. Through the use of his Indian scouts, Johnson learned of the enemy's advance and, although unable to determine their actual strength, held a council of war in which it was unanimously decided to send a force of one thousand militia and two hundred Indians against Dieskau. The command of this detachment was placed in the hands of Col. Ephraim Williams of Massachusetts and Capt. Israel Putnam of Connecticut. The Indians were led by Johnson's friend and ally, Chief Tiyanoga-"Old Hendrick."¹⁹

On the morning of September 8th, at about 10 o'clock, one hour after William's command had left Johnson's camp, a loud report of firearms was heard by those who had remained behind. Col. Williams had marched directly into the advance guard of Dieskau's army, had been ambushed and had suffered severe casualties-including Williams and "Old Hendrick." The subsequent retreat was disorganized and was relieved only by the arrival of provincial reinforcements. By this time, Johnson had instructed his men to protect their camp with a breastwork of newly-cut tree trunks behind which they took up defensive positions to await the imminent French attack.²⁰

When the assault did come, one observer, Colonel Seth Pomeroy, in describing the musket fire claimed that "the hailstones from heaven have not been much thicker than their bullets came."²¹ The French regulars halted their advance some one hundred-fifty yards from the provincial breastworks, and immediately Johnson's artillery batteries opened fire at pointblank range.²²

Soon the regulars were left alone on the field before Johnson's camp, having been abandoned by their Canadian scouts and Indian allies who quickly returned to the shelter of the surrounding forest. The grenadiers continued their advance under devastating fire up to within fifty yards of the camp's log defenses. Finally, unable to maintain his position, Baron Dieskau, himself wounded three times, retreated with the remainder of his command who left him to be captured by the pursuing provincials.²³ The engagement lasted from about eleven o'clock in the morning to shortly after four in the afternoon-both sides suffering severe losses. For General Johnson, the price was heavy and included two colonels-Williams and Titcomb -the latter being a celebrated veteran of the Louisburg campaign. "I cannot getyou certain numbers of our dead and wounded," wrote Johnson to Governor Shirley on September 9th, "but from the best accounts I can obtain we have lost about 130 who are killed, about 60 wounded, and several missing from the morning and afternoon engagement."²⁴ Not the least casualty of the conflict was Johnson himself who retired to his tent with a musket-ball lodged in his thigh.

For the French, approximately 260 soldiers were killed including the commander of their Indians, M. de St. Pierre, while about thirty were taken prisoner including Dieskau.²⁵ The baron was held in New York until February 1757 when he was sent to England and eventually exchanged.²⁶ To Johnson, the Lake George encounter had been enough of a victory that he made no attempt to pursue and destroy the fleeing French. Ironically, the Crown Point Campaign was the most successful of the three military exploits planned by Braddock and Shirley-resulting in the defeat of a French army and the capture of a general-but without the realization of its objective. Johnson never attacked Fort Frederick at Crown Point. Instead he returned to his native New York and enjoyed the adulation of a King grateful for even a small victory in the face of Braddock's humiliation.

Johnson was therefore knighted and made a baronet by the King, while Parliament voted him the sum of £5000 for his service. His fortified encampment on Lake George he named Fort William Henry, and it was there throughout the winter of 1755/6 that his garrison of provincials remained-strengthened by a company of scouts from New Hampshire under the command of Capt. Robert Rogers-"Rogers Rangers."²⁷

As a result of the Crown Point Campaign, the French strengthened Fort Frederick, and shortly thereafter, constructed a new stronghold between Lake George and Lake Champlain which they called Fort Carillon-later renamed by the English, Fort Ticonderoga. On 24 December 1755, General Sir William Johnson retired to Albany where he established his headquarters and from which he issued his directives.²⁸

As to the ambitions of Governor Shirley to reduce Canada, he believed that the short-comings of Johnson's expedition were certain to have a negative effect on the willingness of legislatures to back so costly a venture again. He was not hopeful.

I can't take upon me to say what success the governors will have with their respective assemblies in prevailing upon them to raise their quotas of troops and money for the general services of the next year…and though the reduction of Crown Point is a favorite Expedition with New England, yet the failure in it this year, partly owing in all Appearance to the neglect of the officers to pushit on as far as it seems possible it might have been…together with the great number of men already raised in vain for this service, at a very heavy expense to those colonies, I am afraid make them very backward to raise the necessary forces for the ensuing spring. ²⁹

II

Even a superficial tracing of those ideas, events and personalities which brought about the Oswego and Crown Point expeditions raises important questions about those individual soldiers who participated in it. Who were they? Where did they come from? What was their average age? What civilian occupations did these citizen-soldiers follow? What prompted them to enlist in Governor Shirley's army? If, as Fred Anderson has maintained, these soldiers truly represented a balanced "cross-section" of colonial Massachusetts society, then the answers to the above questions should tell us a good deal about that society where "soldiers are a surplus population."³¹ Since it would be superfluous to simply reiterate the facts and figures of Anderson's analysis, and since his figures represent those "descriptive lists" found in part "b" of volume 94, this final segment will concern itself with Professor Anderson's findings as they relate to a smaller body of similar data, that is, those complete muster rolls which appear in part a of volume 94.³²

Perhaps the most significant assertion which Anderson makes is to challenge the now traditional view of many military and demographic historians that the American provincial army was comprised principally of society's "cast-offs," or "down-and-outers," who were "driven by necessity into…service." He takes issue with the position of those scholars who view New England colonial society as caught in the grip of an ever worsening "Malthusian-crisis" whereby overpopulation, dwindling land inheritance and underemployment would force those with the least secure positions in the economy to become uprooted or to seek employment in the army.³³

To support his thesis, Anderson points to those "muster rolls" which list a recruit's civilian occupation. The largest single occupational category of those who enlisted is that of "laborer," that is an unskilled agricultural worker. In Anderson's sample he finds that 746 soldiers out of 2175 whose civilian occupations are known, identified themselves as "laborers." This constitutes "just over one-third of the soldiers of known occupation." From the descriptive lists in Volume 94a, we have identified the civilian occupations of 538 recruits of which 320 identify themselves as "laborers." This constitutes 59.48% of the total sample who are wage-earning unskilled workers.³⁴ That these laborers were "down-and-outers" is difficult to determine unless tax lists and inventories can be examined; however, it is quite certain that much-perhaps as much as 50%-of Shirley's army was comprised of unskilled laborers to whom "voluntary soldiering" was merely another more adventurous way of earning a subsistence wage.

Another bit of data which can tell us a great deal about the men who marched to Albany in 1755 is their age. Anderson has determined that the far greater majority (72.9%) of recruits were between the ages of fourteen and twenty-nine; and that 56.4% were between fourteen and twenty-four. Comparing these figures to the British army of about the same time period (the mid-18th century) he points out that regulars were considerably older on average with nearly three-fifths (57.8%) being thirty years of age or older.³⁵

In the Volume 94a sample of 563 soldiers whose ages were known only 146 or 25.9% were thirty or over, while Anderson's figures nearly agree with 27.1%. A most interesting figure is the large number of recruits between the age of fourteen and twenty-four since that is the age when apprenticeships were commonly held. In Anderson's findings this age group represents 56.4% of the whole while in the 94a sample it constitutes 53.4%.³⁶ In other words, while many of these youngsters are listed as "laborers," there are also a great many so-called "skilled laborers" who should have still been bound to their apprenticeship at the time of their enlistment. Since none of the muster rolls contain anyone identifying himself as an apprentice or even indentured servant it is tempting to assume that they are all fully trained craftsmen. In actuality, however, this might not be the case. An order issued by Governor Shirley in March 1756 indicates that the recruitment of apprentices by the army was quite possible, and apparently popular enough to warrant a special proclamation on the subject.

To all officers employed in raising recruits for any of his majesty's regiments in America. It is his Exellency General Shirley's orders if, amoungst the indentured Servants you may have enlisted, any one of them are willing to return to their master; that you are to destroy their Attestations [recruitment papers], provided the masters to whom such servants belong do furnish an able-Bodied man fit for King's service…³⁷

Needless to say few masters who were pleased to take back their wayward charge would then recompense the King's Service with yet another young, semi-skilled apprentice but more probably would find a local boy whose career training did not represent quite so large an investment of time and money.

Conversely, for those lads bound to a trade which they did not wish to follow, or to a master from whom release or escape was desirable, the army provided legal sanctuary, money, travel, and adventure long before the indenture or mandatory term of service was complete. It is reasonable to believe that a nearly trained apprentice would be inclined to list himself as a practitioner of the trade to which he had been bound as he embarks on his military career. If this were in fact the case, Anderson's view concerning the "balanced" and "egalitarian" nature of the army's composition might require some revision, since few of these young men would have been actually established in their trades (and middle-class and social status) at the time of their enlistment.

In terms of mobility, both samples of recruits seem to indicate that "Massachusetts natives were a home-prone lot." Not only were most recruits natives of the province of Massachusetts, but comparatively few soldiers at the time of enlistment had moved more than a few miles from the place of their birth. Non-native recruits constituted 21.5% of Anderson's sample, and only 10.7% of those listed in Volume 94a.³⁸

In this way some important generalizations about the men who enlisted in Governor Shirley's army can be inferred. They were for the most part, natives of Massachusetts and had followed a fairly settled, non-migratory existence up to the time of enlistment. They were comparatively young, the majority being between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, and were almost to a man, serving of their own volition. Finally, in their civilian vocations they represented nearly every craft and occupation known to the colonies, but heavily emphasized those areas which involve manual labor.

The great majority of recruits were involved in some form of agricultural work and of those common, unskilled laborers made up the largest category. That they were in the words of Wolfe "rascals," or in the words of Winslow "sons of the best yeomen in New England" seems plausible in both instances.