Captured On April 19 1775, Part I - "About Thirty Soldiers Are Prisoners"

The five thousand British and German soldiers who surrendered at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, were not the first prisoners of the Revolutionary War.  That distinction goes to a much smaller number who were captured or surrendered (or perhaps even deserted) on the first day of fighting at Concord and Lexington, and during the British retreat back to Boston.  Isaiah Thomas, the publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, noted in his paper that he had "escaped myself from Boston on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, which will be remembered in future as the Anniversary of the BATTLE of LEXINGTON!", and once relocated in Worcester, Massachusetts, published an account of the fighting which noted: "Lieut. Gould of the 4th regiment, who is wounded, and Lieut. Potter of the Marines, and about thirty soldiers, are prisoners." [1]

The exact number of British soldiers taken as prisoners appears to be unknown, but "about thirty" is likely close to the truth.  Professor T. Cole Jones, author of Captives of Liberty, notes in his dissertation on prisoners of war in the American Revolution that the count ranged from twenty-four as reported by British Lieutenant-General Thomas Gage, twenty-eight according to Major-General William Heath is his post-war memoir, while "...Israel Putnam’s statement that “70 or 80" men were taken was almost certainly too optimistic." [2]  A history of the Battle of Lexington published fifty years after the start of the war indicates the total number of prisoners taken was either twenty-eight, or, by an "English account", twenty-six. [3]

The identity of the first British soldier taken prisoner by Provincial forces also appears to be unknown.  Lieutenant Edward Thornton Gould, of the 4th or "His Majesty's Own" Regiment of Foot, was one of those who was captured on the 19th.  Gould was wounded in the fighting at the North Bridge in Concord, shown above in a close-up of one of the four engraving of the fight by Amos Doolittle (available online in the collection of the New York Public Library).  Gould seems like he would be a good candidate for the title of the first prisoner taken by the Americans, but he wasn't.   

Gould, a light infantry officer whose appearance that day would have been similar to that of the reenactor depicted here at the 2024 "Battle Road" event at Minute Man National Historical Park, was among those whose sworn statements were taken by agents of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.  His account of the day was included in the pamphlet entitled A Narrative, Of The Excursion and Ravages Of The King's Troops Under the Command of General Gage, On the nineteenth of April, 1775.  Gould testified that he marched with the column of grenadiers and light infantry sent to Concord, saw the militia on the Lexington Green dispersing as British troops approached (but wasn't able to say who fired first), and that he was wounded during the fighting at the North Bridge in Concord. [4]  

Although Gould was wounded at the North Bridge, he wasn't captured there.  Rather, as shared by J.L. Bell in his Boston 1775 blog post from April 18, 2009, Gould commandeered a carriage to take him back to Boston after being wounded, and was captured in Menotomy - present day Arlington.

Sylvanus Wood of Woburn, Massachusetts, claimed to have taken the first prisoner of the Revolutionary War.  Wood, according to a history of the town of Woburn, was following the British column after it left Lexington Green and saw a British soldier leave its ranks.  Wood "hastened up to him while he was alone" it was said, ordered the soldier to surrender, disarmed him, and then sent him off in the custody of another man who took him back to Lexington.  Although the Woburn history does not provide any information as to who the captive was, it relates the tale that the captured soldier, "having a supply of British gold in his pockets", was able to bribe his way to freedom, and something that the author describes as "conjecture". [5]  

Wood's own account of the incident, in his 1830 pension application, indicates that he stood with the Lexington militia on the Green, and after the firing stopped helped carry the dead into the meetinghouse before setting out after the enemy, towards Concord.  Then, before arriving in Concord, Wood related that he encountered "one of the grenadiers standing sentinel".  Wood goes on to say that he cocked his firelock, ran up to the man, seized his musket with his left hand, and disarmed the grenadier.  Wood doesn't say how he either surprised the soldier, or why the soldier allowed an armed militiaman to approach so close after British and Provincial troops had already exchanged fire that day. [6]  Another secondary account indicates that the man Wood captured was Private Samuel Lee of the 18th Regiment of Foot, who though deaf or hearing impaired, had been posted as a sentry while British troops searched for supplies in Concord. [7]

As there are multiple accounts regarding the taking of prisoners, and they are not precise as to the exact time of capture, the identity of the first British soldier prisoner seems to be impossible to determine.  Whatever the total count of prisoners taken that day was, it could have been higher.  Thomas Thorp, who fought that day with the Acton militia, testified years later that after he and his comrades returned fire at the North Bridge in Concord, and those British troops who had been left to hold the bridge fell back, Provincial troops re-crossed the bridge, "... but did not form in any order.  As we stood there, the [British] detachment from Col. Barrett's returned, and passed us, and might easily have been taken prisoners if we had not been in such confusion." [8]  Thorp's account may also hold the answer to who the first prisoner taken may have been, and what happened to him - a story for next week when we look at how those who were taken prisoner were treated.

[1] Massachusetts Spy, Worcester, MA, May 3, 1775.
[2] Trenton Cole Jones, "Deprived of Their Liberty" (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2014), 65.

[3] Elias Phinney, History of the Battle of Lexington (Boston, MA: Phelps and Farnham,1825), 30.

[4] A Narrative of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troop Under the Command of General Gage On the nineteenth of April, 1775 (Worcester, MA: Isaiah Thomas, 1775), no page numbers.

[5] Samuel Sewall, The History of Woburn, Middlesex County, Mass. From The Grant Of Its Territory To Charlestown, in 1640, to The Year 1860 (Boston, MA: Wiggin and Lunt, 1868), 363-364. 

[6] John C. Dann, ed., "The Revolution Remembered" (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 6-8.

[7] "The First Prisoner of War (or possibly the First Deserter) of the American Revolution", accessed April 16, 2024, https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-12/first-pow.

[8] Josiah Adams, Letter to Lemuel Shattuck... In Vindication of the Claims of Capt. Isaac Davis of Acton (Boston, MA: Damrell & Moore, 1850), 15.

Next Week: Captured On April 19, 1775, Part II - “Treated With The Greatest Humanity” 

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

 Annotated Bibliography