The Growing War and the Continental Congress
This was a month of mustering and expansion... and the Second Continental Congress assembled
This continues my series marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. Previously was The Battle of Lexington and Concord, on 19 April 1775; next will be the Battle of Bunker Hill.
On this day in 1775 - May 10th - the Second Continental Congress assembled, amid an expanding American Revolution that was less than a month old. On the same day, Americans from across New England captured the British-held Fort Ticonderoga, expanding the war beyond Massachusetts.
This was a month of mustering and expansion, without large battles (even Fort Ticonderoga involved less than a hundred men on each side), but with both sides building up their positions for the battles they knew would be coming. The British regulars were waiting for the hammer to swing; the Patriots were still polishing that hammer.
After the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, the militias from across New England flocked around Boston to besiege General Gage and the British regulars. With blood now shed, they were ready for action - the battles they had been anticipating ever since the previous year. But, battles were in short supply.
Meanwhile, inside Boston, General Gage saw catastrophe looming if the Patriots did attack. He was still outnumbered, now even more so. He was reduced to about two thousand active fighters in Boston, with the siege he'd long been fearing now turned actual. He knew that Boston itself was restless, with many Patriots inside who might turn on the army at any moment. So, on April 20th, he started strengthening Boston's fortifications, and ferried the troops from Charlestown (now northern Boston) into Boston to shorten his lines. The next day, the British naval commanders started seizing small boats lest the Patriots use them to attack Boston or the warships in the harbor, as rumor had it they would.
But a rumor is all it was, as the Patriot army was in disarray. They were loosely led by General Artemas Ward, a merchant and veteran of the French and Indian War appointed to command by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress - but only loosely. The militia from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire didn't always submit to command from the Massachusetts militia and Massachusetts Provincial Congress. And more problematically, these were ordinary farmers and artisans from across New England; many of them had to regularly return home to tend their farms, and even those who didn't were reluctant to sit around with nothing apparently happening.
And as if General Ward needed more problems - the Massachusetts Provincial Congress still hadn't officially called itself a government, and was far too busy (with its president Joseph Warren wearing far too many hats) to take full command of the war.
One of the many things President Warren was doing was trying to get his citizens safely out of Boston. General Gage refused to communicate with him directly lest it be taken as recognizing his authority, but - through the mediation of Boston's first selectman John Scollay, a Patriot himself - a bargain was struck: Bostonites would surrender their weapons at once, and any Patriots who wanted to evacuate Boston, or any Loyalists who wanted to enter Boston, would be allowed to enter or leave, unarmed. Also, Scollay agreed the citizens wouldn't attack Gage's troops.
Unfortunately, by mid-May, General Gage stopped letting Patriots leave Boston. But in the meantime, the Provincial Congress had seen the war was already growing beyond anything it could handle. They sent an urgent request to the Second Continental Congress to take the growing New England army under its command, and to give them official sanction to organize an official government for Massachusetts.
One way the war was growing was to the northwest of Massachusetts.
This was thanks to Benedict Arnold. Later on, he would infamously turn traitor thanks to romance and a sense of ill recognition, but for now, he was a committed Patriot. As a former Connecticut merchant and shipmaster, he had contacts across the continent and knew his way around. As a current Captain of the Connecticut militia, he had a plan to use them.
Arnold was outside Boston in late April, his militia company having marched there without orders as soon as they heard the news of Lexington and Concord. So, it was to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress's Committee of Safety that he went on April 29th to beg - and receive - orders to go capture the poorly-defended Fort Ticonderoga.
On Lake Champlain in Vermont, Fort Ticonderoga guarded the easiest land route between New England and Canada. In British hands (as it was), it would open the way for an army from Canada to invade New England. In Patriot hands, it would open the way for a New England army to liberate Canada from the British. Arnold was convinced that Canada would welcome a liberating American army. And besides, the Patriots sorely needed the cannons at Fort Ticonderoga.
Arnold went, with the orders and two hundred pounds of gunpowder (an extravagant gift given Massachusetts' limited supplies, which would soon come back to bite the Patriots at the Battle of Bunker Hill).
Meanwhile, another Connecticut militia officer with orders from the Connecticut provincial government had simultaneously recruited the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont to do the exact same mission.
At the time, Vermont had recently been disputed between New Hampshire and New York; King George had recently ruled in favor of New York, but most actual settlers refused to recognize New York authority. (New York had been making itself very unpopular by refusing to recognize land grants given by New Hampshire.) The Green Mountain Boys were a guerilla force of settlers in Vermont successfully fighting New York authority.
And now, they were happy to do the same against British authority. Arnold arrived just as they were about to go on the mission; Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys accepted him as co-leader rather than argue the authority of their separate commissions.
The fort was ill-defended, and quickly captured. No one died; only one American was injured. Arnold (though very disgruntled by the Green Mountain Boys' undisciplined behavior) catalogued its sorely-needed cannon for Massachusetts, happy that he'd won a notable blow for the Patriot cause.
Meanwhile, the struggle was also starting in the South.
On April 20th - before news of Lexington and Concord had reached Virginia - the royal governor Lord Dunmore had Royal Marines remove the town of Williamsburg's gunpowder from its storehouse to Royal Navy ships. This was exactly the same thing which had just incited war in Massachusetts. But, Williamsburg was less alert - a mob only formed after the powder had already been removed, and they dispersed for the moment after Dunmore claimed (without evidence) that he'd done it for protection against a (fictitious) threat of slave revolt.
But when another crowd assembled on the 22nd, Dunmore threatened to free enough slaves himself to "lay the town in ashes."
Slavery was at the back of everyone's mind in Virginia, where roughly 42% of Virginians were slaves. How this related to the Revolution is a deep and involved topic, which I plan to talk about later in another post - but the thought of slave revolt was considered a serious threat.
Shortly later, the electrifying news of Lexington and Concord arrived in Virginia. George Washington advised against violence, and the militia in northern Virginia heeded his word. But Patrick Henry led the Hanover County militia to Williamsburg to demand Dunmore pay for the powder. However, peace was negotiated on May 4th, with the colonial treasurer negotiating a payment of 330 pounds stirling. Henry then departed for Philadelphia to take his seat in the Second Continental Congress, vowing to deliver the money to Congress.
Amid all this, the Second Continental Congress assembled.
Unlike the First Continental Congress, this had delegates from thirteen colonies. Even Georgia had sent one delegate, elected by local Patriots in one county. (A more official delegation would be appointed in July.) Like the First, this did not include Canada or Nova Scotia, largely Loyalist; or Vermont, thanks to the still-running dispute between New Hampshire and New York. (Unlike Connecticut and Massachusetts, Congress refused to anger New York by recognizing the Green Mountain Boys.)
The Second Continental Congress would become a war government, leading America through the Revolution. But, it never actually had as much power as that might imply. Its resolutions barely went farther than its prestige ran among the several states.
And, it was always unwieldy. In 1788, the Constitutional Convention would learn from its example when they instituted a new single President to head the executive branch of government. But now in 1775, that was far in the future, and the roughly sixty delegates - including many who still felt some loyalty to King George - were trying to head a Revolution themselves.
Congress, unsurprisingly, acted slowly.
The Second Continental Congress didn't keep official records, presumably for security lest any records be captured. Delegates' recollections of these first months disagree. But, we know what they did - and what they hesitated to do - for those first months amid the war around them.
In late June, they would formally take command of the war, accept the army around Boston as the Continental Army, and appoint George Washington as its commander. But that was later. Still, now - in May - they implicitly stepped towards that. They urged other colonies to send men and supplies to the army around Boston, and they promised reimbursement.
For now, much was unclear, but a war was at hand and fitfully expanding, and the Congress that would lead it had convened.