Private David How - "Fixing For A March"
Few if any accounts of the Saratoga campaign, Burgoyne's surrender, or the Convention Army mention Massachusetts Militia Private David How. Fortunately for our purposes, How kept diaries of his service in the American Revolution, including a day by day account of his march from Stillwater, New York to Prospect Hill in Charlestown (now Somerville), Massachusetts in 1777, as a guard with the British column of prisoners. While his entry for each day is a brief sentence or two, he captures important detail on the route taken and challenges faced.
How was called out for service with the militia company of his home town of Methuen at the end of September in response to Burgoyne's invasion, then halted on the banks of the Hudson River. On October 2nd he prepared himself to march by acquiring a pair of shoes and making cartridges for his musket. His orders were similar to those issued to thousands of other men across New England, such as soldiers from Woburn, Massachusetts mobilized September 26, 1777, under the order pictured, who were "... to march to the northward with 6 Days Provishouns and arms and all acotrements Complete..."
How was nineteen years old but already a veteran when he marched in 1777. He had fought at Bunker Hill in 1775, and at the Battles of Harlem Heights and Trenton in 1776. How's company arrived at Saratoga on October 11th, and was positioned at Fort Edward, north of Burgoyne, through the 16th.
Brigadier-General John Glover, responsible for moving Burgoyne's captured army, needed guards to escort over 4,000 men, women and children from Saratoga to Massachusetts under the terms of the Articles of Convention. The Continental troops at who fought at Saratoga were needed elsewhere. Most started their movement south away from the upper Hudson River Valley on October 18th, as British troops began crossing the river. A logical choice for guards were militiamen such as How, on their way to homes near Boston anyway.
How began his duty as a guard with the British column on October 19th, noting "This Day we have ben fixing For a march and at noon we Set out with the prisoners for to Guard them to Boston..." He would note on November 6th, eighteen days later in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "... Left all the prisoners And were all Dissmissed..." and the following day "This morning we Set out For Home ... Got to Methuen at Night". If How found the march difficult he did not say so, other than to note several times of the weather it had snowed or rained, apparently of the worst of it on October 28th when, "This Day has Ben Very Stormy both Hail and Snow." His comments on what he and the prisoners ate were vague, noting only that every two or three days they had "... Draw'd provisions." [1]
How's military service appears to have ended with his mobilization for the Saratoga campaign. According to the biography that precedes his published diaries, How farmed for a short while in New Hampshire until returning to Massachusetts and becoming a merchant, a manufacturer of shoes, and maintaining a farm before his death in 1842. How was buried in Pentucket Cemetery in Haverhill, Massachusetts, his grave marked by a simple tablet listing the years he lived. Ironically, those who commanded the armies he fought for and against would fare no better in death. Major-General Horatio would die in 1806, and be buried in the Trinity Church graveyard on Wall Street in New York City, but the exact location of his grave was unmarked and is unknown, and not commemorated until 2012. Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne would die in 1792 and be buried in Westminster Abbey in London, England, but his grave would remain unmarked until 1960, when it would be marked with his name and the years of his birth and death.
Descriptions of the the guards who traveled with the Convention Army vary widely. Mercy Otis Warren, author of an early 19th century history of the Revolution, claims the Convention Army was escorted by two or three American field officers, and a handful of soldiers. [2] Warren's friend, Hannah Winthrop of Cambridge, had written to her in November of 1777, and described the American guards as a "...fine Noble looking Guard of American Brawny Victorious Yeomanry, who assisted in bringing these Sons of Slavery to Terms, Some of our Waggons drawn by fat oxen, driven by joyous looking Yankees..." [3] In 1780, Brigadier-General John Glover attested Brigadier-General James Brickett from Massachusetts commanded "... about five Hundred Militia ... to Guard a Division of the Convention Troops From Saratoga to Cambridge...". [4] The Specht Journal indicates that on setting out from camp on the morning of the 18th, "... 2 regiments of Americans" escorted the British and German troops. [5]
In addition to soldiers from multiple infantry regiments - units that marched and fought on foot - there were troops mounted on horseback escorting the prisoners. Continental Dragoons had been assigned to escort Burgoyne to Albany at least, Lieutenant Samuel Armstrong of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment noting: "This day [Oct 18] Genl. Burgoine passed down towards Albany as a prisoner under the care of our Light Horse." "Sexagenary", writing five decades later, recalled the light horse as wearing blue coats with white facings, and "bear skin caps and long white hair streaming in the wind.... well dressed and well mounted." [6] Dean Snow notes in an article on cavalry units at Saratoga in the Journal of the American Revolution that Captain Thomas Seymour of the 2nd Continental Dragoons claimed his pension application he'd been given a leopard skin saddle cloth by Burgoyne upon their arrival in Boston (or more likely perhaps, Cambridge, though Burgoyne did travel to Boston to dine with Major-General William Heath on November 8th).
Snow mentions the possibility of additional mounted militia units arriving at Saratoga around the time of the Battle of Bemis Height. It appears that at least one Massachusetts militia unit may have done so, and was among the units assigned to escort the march of the Convention Army. A description of Captain Robert Perkins company of the 3rd Essex County Militia Regiment in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War reads for multiple entries "... marched Sept. 30, 1777, discharged Nov. 7, 1777, at Cambridge, service 1 mo[nth], 13 days, guarding Gen. Burgoyne's troops to Prospect Hill, company made up of light horse volunteers from 3d Essex Co. regt. raised to reinforce army at the Northward." or words to that effect. Whether Perkins men remained mounted throughout their service remains to be determined. How's diary indicates that for his unit, Captain David Whittier's Company in a regiment commanded by Major Benjamin Gage, on October 12th "This morning we had Orders to Send our horses Back..." [7]
The militia units of the Northern Army made a mixed impression upon the professional soldiers of Burgoyne's army. One noted of the Americans "Not one of them was properly uniformed, but each man had on the clothes in which he goes to the field, to church, or to the tavern." Another "Many other militia officers... wore their usual dress and all kinds of wigs; they had their cartridge-boxes or powder horns hanging on their shoulders..." Both noted that all their muskets were provided with bayonets, and they stood with military bearing. Said one "The people stood so still that we were greatly amazed. Not one fellow made a motion as if to speak to his neighbor; furthermore, nature had formed all the fellows who stood in rand and file so slender, so handsome, so sinewy, that it was a pleasure to look at them, and we were surprised at the sight of such finely built people." [8]
The guards escorting the Convention Army were not all Massachusetts soldiers. The records of service for New Hampshire men include those of Captain Nathaniel Ambrose's company of Colonel Welch's Regiment which marched to the aid of Gates on September 30th, and "... after the surrender of General Burgoyne marched with the guard as far as North Hampton [Northampton] in the State of Massachusetts..." Another entry details the reimbursement issued to "General Whipple's Staff", who served "... at Saratoga and from thence proceeded with the guard to Cambridge." [9]
[2] Warren, Mercy-Otis, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, IN, 1988, Vol. 1, p. 241.
[3] Hannah Winthrop to Mercy Otis, Nov. 11, 1777, accessed through the Massachusetts Historical Society website.
[4] The Massachusetts Magazine, Salem Press, Salem, MA, July 1910, Vol. III, No. 3, pp. 195-196.
[5] Specht Journal, p. 102.
[6] Armstrong, p. 251; Sexagenary, The Sexagenary or Reminiscences of the American Revolution, W.C. Little and O. Steele, Albany, NY, 1833, p. 113.
[7] Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War. Wording above is from the service of Joseph Boardman, Vol. 2, p. 224. Five other entries in that volume alone, one of seventeen in the set, specifically mention service as "light horse volunteers". How, p. 48.
[8] Letters From America, pp. 110-111; Specht Journal, p. 101.
Next Week: What The Convention Army Looked Like - "The Most Agreeable Sight That My Eyes Beheld"
For more on the Convention Army's 1777 march from Saratoga to Boston, see:
1777 March Blog Home Overnight Stopping Points Towns and Villages Along the Way
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