Brigadier-General James Brickett - “Seriously Embarrassed Himself”
Did Brigadier-General James Brickett of the Massachusetts Militia embarrass himself as an officer and a gentleman during the Revolutionary War? Several sources would have you believe that he did, but I question the accuracy, motivation or intent of each.
An assessment of Massachusetts officers written before the Saratoga campaign is especially harsh in its treatment of Brickett. William Tudor, writing to John Adams about various officers selected for militia service by Massachusetts in 1776 noted: "... Doctor Bricket of Haverhill who was a Lieutenant Colonel last Campaign and could not be return'd qualified for a Field Officer this, is sent by the Massachusetts in the Capacity of Brigadier General of the New Levies ordered to Ticonderoga. I can account for the strange military Appointments in our Colony, on no other Principle, than that they mean to guard against the Danger of an Army by making it contemptible ..." [2]
Tudor though was critical of several Massachusetts officers, including Brigadier-General John Fellows, who also commanded a brigade as Saratoga (saying of his service in the French and Indian War that he "...never rose above a Captain.", and "Tis said he has Courage, but is without any other Requisite to intitle him to the Rank of a General Officer..."), and Colonels Jonathan Holman ("above 50 Years old"), and Simeon Carey ("very old"), though Jonathan Smith of "... Lanesborough, an obscure Town in Berkshire and is not so old". [3] Regardless, Adams would use the information to question others about these appointments, writing on August 24th: "Let me beg of you, in Confidence to give me your candid and explicit opinion, of the Massachusetts General and Field Officers, and point out such as have any Education, Erudition, Sentiment, Reflection Address or other Qualification or Accomplishment excepting Honour and Valour for Officers in high Rank. Who and What is General Fellows? Who and What is General Brickett? Who is Coll. Holman, Cary, Smith?", and much the same the following day. [4]
Brickett, like many senior officers in the army, had served in the French and Indian War, but as a surgeon's mate. By 1775 he had become a lieutenant-colonel in the Massachusetts militia, would serve in that capacity during the Siege of Boston, and was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. In 1776 he was chosen to become a brigadier-general in the Massachusetts militia, and would serve as such in the Champlain Valley in 1776, and during the Saratoga campaign in 1777. [5]
British Ensign Thomas Anburey also had something to say about Brickett. According to Anburey, Brickett "was very civil, and often used to ride by the side of the [captured British] officers, to converse with them." One day on the march, a British officer was said to have mentioned to Brickett that he lacked a pair of boots, at which point Brickett offered to sell the officer the pair that he was wearing. Anburey claimed that Brickett was so eager to make the sale that when offered a gold guinea he immediately dismounted, and began pulling the boots he was wearing off his feet, and had to be persuaded to wait until they stopped for the night to complete the transaction. Anburey concluded his tale with the comment "So much for an American Brigadier-General". [6]
The Baroness Riedesel, whose account of her experiences in America disparages many of those she met along the way (and Burgoyne on more than one occasion), shared a similar story with her readers. After claiming that some of the American generals who accompanied the Convention Army "were shoemakers by trade", she states that when one was jokingly offered a guinea for the pair of boots he was wearing by a German officer, "... the general immediately jumped off his horse, took the guinea, gave the officer his boots, and wearing the officer's torn pair, mounted his horse again." [7] As only three American generals are known to have traveled with the Convention Army - two with Burgoyne and Brickett with the British column, and none were shoemakers, one can only wonder to what degree Anburey's tale, first published in 1789, may have influenced the Baroness's account of her experiences in America, first published in Germany in 1800.
The allegation that Brickett "seriously embarrassed himself" during the 1777 march of the Convention Army needs to be taken in context. It was made well after the war, in a town history, and with regard to how Brickett handled the expenses of the march, not how he performed as an officer. George Wingate Chase, in his 1861 history of Haverhill, claimed "... General Brickett, who commanded the escort of the prisoners, seriously embarrassed himself by advancing large sums of money from his private purse, and contracting obligations to furnish necessary provisions for the troops, during this long and tedious march." Chase went on to say that Brickett never received any reimbursement for these expenses. Massachusetts, Chase wrote, refused to do so as they saw this as the responsibility of the federal government, and the federal government refused to do so since Brickett was a militia officer, not a Continental Army officer. [8] What Chase describes as Brickett embarrassing himself sounds more like selfless service and taking care of his soldiers - and perhaps the prisoners placed in his charge.
Regardless of the what others said, it's worth noting that Glover's attestation to Brickett's service during the 1777 march of the Convention Army ends with the statement: "... which Charge he executed with Judgement and Prudence." [9]
[2] William Tudor to John Adams, August 19, 1776, New York, accessed online July 29, 2024 at: https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-06-04-02-0220.
[3] Tudor to Adams, August 19, 1776.
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