Bunker Hill

to “the most astonishing market” and the fact that “war . . . is become a sort of substitute for commerce,” as well as the remark that were it not for the newspapers, the British people “would hardly know there was a civil war in America” (pp. 270–71). The Old North Meetinghouse, which was demolished and burned by the British, should not be confused with Christ Church of Paul Revere fame, which is often referred to today as “Old North.” In his
Diary
, Boston selectman Timothy Newall writes of the many old houses being burned for fuel as well as “the most savage manner” with which the regulars have turned the Old South Meetinghouse into “a riding school,” pp. 269–70. Allen French writes of Faneuil Hall’s transformation into a playhouse in
FYAR
, p. 537.
    My account of the confrontation between Benjamin Hallowell and Admiral Graves is based largely on French’s “The Hallowell-Graves Fisticuffs, 1775,” pp. 41–45. An August 19, 1775, letter in
LAR
, speaks of Graves’s “black eye,” p. 195; a December 13, 1775, letter, also in
LAR
, describes how Graves’s secretary extorted bribes for fishing permits, p. 238. Ezekiel Price writes of American whaleboat attacks on the Boston lighthouse in his diary on July 20, p. 198, and on July 31, p. 201. John Tilley cites Sandwich’s letter telling Graves that he “can never be censured for doing too much” in
The British Navy and the American Revolution
, p. 48. Allen French tells of the burning of Falmouth, Maine (and includes the reference to the town being “one flame”), in
FYAR
, p. 540–43; see also James Nelson’s
George Washington’s Secret Navy
, pp. 139–47. The outrage created by the burning of Falmouth was so extensive that the incident is even referred to in the catalogue of complaints contained in the Declaration of Independence. The comment that the British were “almost as much blocked up by the sea as we have been . . . by land” is in a December 4, 1775, letter in
LAR
, p. 231. For an account of John Manley’s capture of the
Nancy
, see James Nelson’s
Washington’s Secret Navy
, pp. 207–15. William Heath’s November 30, 1775, diary entry about the armaments taken with the
Nancy
is in his
Memoirs
, p. 24. The reference to Graves being a “curse upon the garrison” is in a December 13, 1775, letter in
LAR
, p. 237. The claim that Graves had been “cruelly used” is in a January 20 letter in
LAR
, p. 256. John Tilley agrees with this assessment in
The British Navy and the American Revolution
, claiming that “it is difficult to suggest how any other admiral could have done substantially better [than Graves]. The oafish performance of the North American Squadron was no more than a manifestation of a colossal ineptitude that the next five years were to expose throughout the British naval and military establishments” (p. 66).
    Washington writes of being “unable upon any principle to account” for the lack of response on the part of the British in a December 15, 1775, letter to Joseph Reed, in PGA, 2:553. According to Maldwyn Jones in “Sir William Howe: Conventional Strategist,” in
George Washington’s Generals and Opponents
, edited by George Billias, in keeping with common practice in Europe, “Howe closed his mind to the possibility of winter campaigns” (p. 49). I describe the Swamp Fight of 1675 in
Mayflower
, pp. 265–80. Howe’s relationship with Joshua Loring Jr.’s wife is described in Bellamy Partridge’s
Sir Billy Howe
, pp. 32–34. Maldwyn Jones in “Sir William Howe” cites the letter to Dartmouth in which Howe proposes that the British army “withdraw entirely . . . and leave the colonists to war with each other” and comments, “For a man newly appointed to put down the rebellion, this was an astonishing statement. . . . [A] situation in which he had both to conquer and to pacify appears to have made him uncertain what measure of coercion was to be used” (p. 50). Washington makes the assurances that “order and subordination in time will take place of confusion” in a December 5, 1775, letter to General Philip Schuyler in Albany, N.Y., who was experiencing his own reenlistment and discipline issues and was thinking about resigning, in
PGW
, 2:498. Washington complains of the unwillingness of the soldiers to serve with those from another colony in a November 8, 1775, letter to Joseph Reed in
PGW
, 2:335. Allen French in
FYAR
cites Simeon Lyman’s