The Portsmouth Powder Alarm and Battle
Where New Hampshire first fired on the British flag
This continues my series marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. Previously was the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, on 6 October 1774.
Two hundred fifty years ago this week - 14 December 1774 - in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, local militia attacked British soldiers.
It was a mere skirmish, with a mere six British troops involved and no loss of life, but it was an actual battle against British soldiers. On orders from the local Committee of Correspondence, the Portsmouth militia stormed Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth harbor. They overcame the British garrison, tore down the British flag, and captured large amounts of gunpowder and cannons in what could be called the first battle of the Revolutionary War.
Since October - if not earlier - the colony of Massachusetts had been in undeclared but open revolt. The royal governor, General Gage, was stuck in Boston with a royal army, surrounded by foes. The rest of Massachusetts was governed by the Patriots in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
In the rest of America, the situation hadn't advanced quite that far. But still, in every town, Committees of Correspondence and Inspection were coordinating the Patriot cause and increasingly acting as the government. The First Continental Congress had formed them to enforce the embargo against Britain, but - especially in New England, led by Massachusetts' example - they had started doing more things for the Patriot cause as well.
The Massachusetts Provincial Congress knew a war was coming. They were organizing the colonial militia for war, with better organization, a pre-organized commissary, and more exacting drill. Two of the many things they needed were gunpowder and guns to fire it. They could make gunpowder, but not enough; they couldn't yet reliably make cannons.1 So, they were trying to find them wherever they could - purchasing them from abroad, but also by finding all the old artillery they could in New England ahead of General Gage, who was trying to find the same artillery and keep it from them.
The Patriots of New Hampshire, just north of Massachusetts, were starting to follow. They didn't have a Provincial Congress of their own (one had assembled in July, but adjourned after appointing delegates to the First Continental Congress; the next one wouldn't convene until January 1775) but their Committees of Correspondence were in session as always, and their militia were drilling to help Massachusetts whenever needed.
Meanwhile in England, King George had no idea how widespread the Patriot cause was. Confident that General Gage could suppress the rebellion, he didn't send any new men or supplies. However, on October 17th, he prohibited America from importing "Gunpowder, or any sort of Arms or Ammunition."
General Gage received word of this decree in early December, alerted his customs officers, but didn't publish it lest the Patriots be alerted. However, the governor of Rhode Island leaked it to the Providence Gazette2 on December 10th, and news reached Boston two days later. The search for guns in the colonies intensified.
Sixteen of those cannons were in Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth harbor, New Hampshire3, just fifty miles north of Boston. The fort had been built decades ago to guard against French and Indian raids, and there was technically still a garrison in it, but it only numbered six men. The royal governor of New Hampshire, nervous that the Patriot militia would seize the fort, begged General Gage to send reinforcements. Gage organized two regiments - but word quickly leaked to the Patriots. If they wanted to seize the cannons, they needed to act quickly.
On the morning of December 13th, before Gage's regiments were ready to leave, Paul Revere rode north to Portsmouth. He had carried many messages for the Committee of Correspondence before (and would again next April for his famous midnight ride), but this one was more immediate. The same afternoon, he delivered the news to Samuel Cutts4, head of the Portsmouth Committee of Correspondence. Cutts immediately convened the Committee, who summoned the militia from nearby towns and decided to attack the fort the next day.
Meanwhile, the royal governor of New Hampshire5 was trying to recruit reinforcements for the fort - but no one would come to his call. "Not one man appeared to assist in executing the law," he complained.
Instead, the men of New Hampshire came to help the Patriots. For the first time, the Patriots - but not just a faction of rebels; the ordinary militia of the colony of New Hampshire - were attacking British troops.
The attack came around 3 PM on December 14th, under cover of a snowstorm. The six British troops in the fort resisted with cannon and small arms, but - as their commander, Captain John Cochran, said - "before we could be ready to fire again, we were stormed on all quarters." Recognizing the futility of resistance, he surrendered.
This first brief battle of New Hampshire against the British Empire didn't have any strategy, moments of glory, or story in the actual fighting. Four hundred men against six was a quick fight. The surrender was quickly made and quickly accepted; no one was killed.
To accentuate the symbolism of the moment, the New Hampshire militia hauled down the British flag and stomped on it. Then, they hauled away the fort's two hundred thirty-four barrels of gunpowder and dispersed them into hiding across New England.
The following night, they came back to the now-powderless fort and hauled away sixteen canon, sixty muskets, and ammunition. Governor Wentworth still hadn't been able to recruit anyone to defend the fort. "This event," he complained to General Gage, "too plainly proves the imbecility of this government."
Gage, of course, sent men to take back the fort - by ship, as he was afraid of what they might meet if they marched overland. Of course, by that time, the New Hampshire troops had retired with their mission done and the supplies safely stowed. With the fort empty and the enemy gone, there wasn't any point in staying, so Gage's troops simply sailed back to Boston.
The cannons and ammunition would be used to good service the next year at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
This could be said to be the first battle of the Revolutionary War. For the first time, the Patriots - or more broadly, the people of New Hampshire - had fired on the British flag. They only faced six men, but they were six men with all the authority of the British crown. For the first time, the Patriots attacked them with force of arms. As Governor Wentworth put it, this was all "in open Hostility and direct Oppugnation of his Majesty's Government and in the most atrocious Contempt of his Crown and Dignity."
And they won. Britain couldn't enforce its rule throughout America, or even within fifty miles of its main army in Boston. They couldn't find a single man in Portsmouth, aside from the governor and his officials, to support them. General Gage already knew that; this battle proved it.
But, the war didn't continue after that day in Portsmouth. The Patriots were ready to attack six British soldiers, but they didn't want to attack Gage's larger army as long as he would stay mostly put in Boston. On the one hand, they wanted more time to drill and gather supplies. On the other hand, they wanted to make sure the other colonies would keep their promise to support them when attacked. Gage, for his part, was sure the Patriots would win any pitched battle, so he wanted to delay it as long as possible in increasingly-desperate hopes of either reinforcements or new orders from London changing the situation.
The attack on Fort William and Mary didn't change this balance. It was small in scale, and with little significance until the cannons were eventually used the next year. But, it was the first time American Patriots directly attacked British forces and tore down the British flag. It was a bold declaration, and it showed what would come.
When King George and his government heard of this attack, they saw its significance. They were enraged. Despite Gage's repeated letters telling them about the situation, they didn't believe him. I can't totally fault them. It was, in fact, amazing that virtually everyone in Massachusetts and New Hampshire was committed to the Patriot cause. It was even more amazing that they were ready to take the step of attacking British troops.
But King George and his government didn't ask why. Instead, they assumed (falsely) there were just a few rebels, most people were loyal but keeping their heads down, and Gage was a coward and he wasn't willing to do what needed to be done. So, after a debate in Parliament and an attempt to replace him, Gage would be ordered to go on the offensive against the Patriots and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
That offensive would end with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which would start the war which this small battle had foreshadowed.
Later, during the war, Paul Revere would help expand gunpowder production; but it would still remain in limited supply.
Governor Joseph Wanton of Rhode Island supported colonial rights, but opposed the war. In June 1775, after Lexington and Concord, the Assembly removed him from office. He retired to his house in Newport, where he remained peacefully till his death in 1780.
Fort William and Mary remained in service until 1948 under the name Fort Constitution, through several expansions. It's in modern New Castle, New Hampshire, downriver from Portsmouth, with the 1878 Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse on its grounds.
Samuel Cutts, a prosperous merchant, would later serve in the New Hampshire Assembly during the Revolution. He continued to live in Portsmouth until his death in 1801.
Governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire opposed the Revolution and would flee New Hampshire in June 1775, for fear of the Patriot crowd. He later served as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, where he died in 1820.