Flashback, June 1781: “Other Midnight Ride” Saves Jefferson

In her cockamamie way, Sarah Palin’s recent visit to Boston has reminded Americans again about how Paul Revere’s ride serves as our eternal symbol of patriotic vigilance. The Beantown jack-of-all-trades got lucky in the afterlife in being lionized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (though I imagine he’s turning over in his grave, angry and thoroughly confused, at the thought that a contemporary politician believed he “warned the British” about their own plans).

To my knowledge, no versifier of similar renown has performed such magic for Jack Jouett Jr. But without the all-night ride, completed June 4, 1781, of this Virginian, not only might Thomas Jefferson have been executed, but the American Revolution as a whole might have been snuffed out with Britain’s capture of members of the government of the large, strategically important state of Virginia.

For the rest of Jefferson’s life, opponents would charge that Jouett’s arduous and brave ride would not have been necessary at all if the Sage of Monticello had adequately performed his duties as governor of Virginia. As with so many politically inspired charges down to this very day, this aspersion on Jefferson’s record blended manifest unfairness with at least some amount of truth.

In my American Presidency seminar in college, our professor tossed out the possibility of one theme for the semester: the performance of those Presidents who served as governors before they reached the White House. Their triumphs and disasters in state capitals, he thought, often foreshadowed how they performed as President.

That observation was especially true of Jefferson’s two years as governor of Virginia. The best way to gauge what he thought of it can be glimpsed by observing the three achievements mentioned on his tombstone at Monticello: “author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia."

Those three items are primarily intellectual, not political, achievements. Nowhere does Jefferson mention that he had gained the highest office in both his state and nation. No wonder: In both cases, he left office profoundly depressed, with his achievements called into question by near-disasters that were at least partly of his own making.

Jefferson had just finished his second one-year term as governor the day before Jouett, a resident of Charlottesville, took off to warn him that the British were on their way to capture him. Jefferson couldn’t have been happier to relinquish his post: Virginia, suspicious of executive power, had not only vested its governor with no independent veto power, no appointive power, no power to call out the militia, but had left him bound by the decisions of an eight-man Council of State elected by the Assembly.

At key moments in the developing military crisis of early 1781, the Council of State hamstrung Jefferson, being unable several times to meet a quorum and, in one instance, rejecting his plea to create a standing Virginia army. However, in several ways, Jefferson made critical errors of his own in dealing with British invaders into Virginia’s heartland:

* he had ignored intelligence, in September and December 1780, from both Generals Horatio Gates and George Washington, that the British were planning assaults southward from New York or, more specifically, directly at Portsmouth;
* he had dispatched as many troops from the state as he could to assist George Rogers Clark on his military mission into present-day Ohio, Indiana and Illinois—giving later American negotiators in Paris an invaluable assist in claiming this as American territory, but in the meantime leaving Viriginia's coastal defenses badly undermanned;
* he had waited two days after learning that unknown ships had landed in the Chesapeake before calling out the militia or requesting an emergency meeting of the Council of State.

One element in particular made Jefferson’s two terms as governor an unfortunate dress rehearsal for his two terms as President: a ghastly underestimation of the value of naval power. After six weeks in office, he had concluded that “we should be gainers were we to burn our whole navy.” Thirty years later, as the War of 1812 was just about to ensue, the ex-President advised one confidante that seizing Canada would be “a mere matter of marching,” and his belief that small coastal gunboats instead of frigates would be sufficient to defend the country proved a dismal failure when the British came ashore and burned Washington.

It’s hard to know how Jefferson, who implemented so many ingenious schemes around Monticello, could be so impractical about defense matters. Perhaps it was a byproduct of a visionary nature that could see so much in the distance but so little in front of his own nose. (Of the three Virginian Democratic-Republicans, it was James Monroe, the one judged blessed with the smallest amount of intellect, who had the best grasp of military matters—but that might have resulted from his three years he spent in the Continental Army—three years more than Jefferson and Madison spent combined.)

The result, in the first half of 1781, was a pair of near-catastrophes at the hands of two of the British army’s most despised officers. In early January, Jefferson and the legislature had to flee Richmond (a site chosen as state capital because, ironically, it would be easier to defend that Williamsburg, located closer to the coast) to avoid capture at the hands of Benedict Arnold. Then in early June, Col. Banastre Tarleton made a dash toward Charlottesville to capture the assembly, which were planning to reconvene there following Arnold’s raid on Richmond.

Several prominent patriots—including Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee in town and Jefferson in Monticello—were within the reach of the man that the patriots had taken to calling “Bloody Ban” for what they saw as his war crimes. In his characteristic vigorous fashion, Tarleton had covered tremendous ground in bringing his troops to this point.

Tarleton had stopped his men to rest on June 3 at a tavern when Jouett overheard their plans. As inconspicuously as he could, the 26-year-old Charlottesville resident—a bear of a man—dashed out of the Cuckoo Tavern and made his extraordinary ride to Charlottesville.

Though Jouett’s adventures over the next 24 hours are unsung nowadays, his ride was more astounding than Revere’s:

* Revere’s ride to Concord was only 15 miles; Jouett’s was more than 40;
* Revere had the help of two other riders, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, the last of whom actually completed the ride to Concord; Jouett made the trip entirely by himself.
* Jouett, to escape British detection, rode virtually the entire way on backroads, through vines, brambles, and potholes.

Jouett reached Jefferson by 4:30 in the morning. The latter is said to have coolly offered the rider some of his choice Madeira to fortify him for the last leg of his trip to Charlottesville to warn members of the assembly gathered there to leave.

You can only imagine how Jefferson must have felt when he heard this latest bit of news from Jouett: anxiety for his household, relief that he’d be able to make his getaway just in time, but also a feeling something like that great line from Dorothy Parker: “What fresh hell is this?” His wife Martha had just experienced another difficult pregnancy, and she was showing less resiliency than before. (She would, in fact, die a year later, leaving her husband so disconsolate that he refused to leave his room for three weeks.)

Now Jefferson had to deal with a government that he technically no longer headed but whose successor was weeks away from taking office, as well as a household on the brink of danger. (Some historians have argued that, contrary to his reputation as “Bloody Ban,” Tarleton had given strict orders that private property would not be harmed. But even if that were true, the British would still be practicing a kind of predecessor of the neutron bomb: i.e., minimizing property damage while maximizing the pain felt by people. Thus, having put his signature to the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson would be on the short list of politicians measured by the British for the noose if captured.)

After sending his wife and family to safety at a friend’s home, Jefferson rode off, leaving the estate in the care of two slaves, Martin Hemings and Caesar. From the stories passed down over the years, the slaves suffered more at the hands of the British than their master did. When the first British horseman rode up to Monticello, Hemings slammed down the floorboard of the east portico on poor Caesar, who was hiding the silver plates there. For the next three days, Caesar was trapped under the porch until the redcoats departed. Martin, if the family legend is true, had an even closer call, refusing to divulge Jefferson’ s whereabouts to the redcoats despite a gun pressed against his chest.

What Jefferson faced next was not musket fire from redcoats, but potshots from his countrymen. His conduct during the defense of Richmond had disgusted the Continental Army’s General von Steuben, and now his conduct during Tarleton’s raid led to charges of cowardice. A few days after the enemy had departed, the legislature took up the issue. An impassioned defense by Jefferson led the legislators not only to withdraw the charges, but to thank him for his “impartial, upright, and attentive administration, whilst in office.”

Nevertheless, Jefferson could not embrace private life readily enough after that. That same attitude would be repeated in March 1809, after the Embargo Act--passed by his administration to punish Britain for its impressment of their former sailors on American ships—only ended up devastating American shipping, and plunging his own popularity to its great depth during his eight years as President. Now on the brink of retiring, he couldn’t wait once again to stop sailing on “the boisterous ocean of political passions.”

This Day in Revolutionary War History (Paul Revere in America’s Greatest Naval Defeat Before Pearl Harbor)

August 13, 1779—The largest combined infantry-naval operation of the American Revolution sought desperately, in the 11th hour, to regain the initiative it had lost over three weeks to British forces at Penobscot Bay in Maine.

But the appearance of a British relief squadron—unlike the American flotilla, under a commander unafraid to engage the enemy—doomed the Penobscot Expedition, initiating a pair of court-martials—including one of Paul Revere (in the image accompanying this post, of course)—as part of one of the greatest rounds of recrimination in American military history.

What do most of us know about the U.S. Navy in the American Revolution? John Paul Jones, of course. If you’re of Irish descent, such as myself, you’ll likely call to mind John Barry, “the Father of the Navy.” And you might remember that George Washington won the siege of Yorktown because the French fleet cut off Cornwallis’ escape by sea.

Stop right there! French fleet? What happened to ours? Well, by Yorktown, it had pretty much ceased to exist as a native fighting force. Even the Massachusetts navy, the state with perhaps the most significant amount of seamen, had shriveled. A major contributing factor was the failed Penobscot Expedition.

Five hundred patriots lost their lives or were captured in the 21-day siege. And this sounds crass, but the material loss might have been even more destructive: 40 American vessels burned or sunk, and another couple captured.

But if you want to understand why the Americans were really galled by this fiasco, just remember: they knew they could have won—easily.

Fort George, the British post guarding the peninsula at Castine, consisted of a northern wall only four feet high, low stone walls on the east and west, and no wall at all at the rear. It was held by a garrison of seven hundred troops, three ships of war and four transports, facing an American force of approximately 2,000 seamen and marines, 100 artillerymen, and 870 militia.

Brigadier General Francis McLean, commander of British forces, knew how vulnerable he was: “I believe the [American] commanders were a pack of cowards or they would have taken me. I was in no situation to defend myself, I only meant to give them one or two guns, so as not to be called a coward, and then have struck my colors … as I did not wish to throw away the lives of my men for nothing.”

Unfortunately, the man who held the key to the outcome couldn’t grasp the advantages he had at hand: Commodore Dudley Saltonstall. Years later, the United States would rue the fact that the man first offered leadership of the Massachusetts fleet, Captain George Little, an intrepid young sea dog, had turned down the command.

Caution is generally a great quality in a commander—except if he receives good intelligence clearly showing an opportunity ripe for the taking but does nothing. Saltonstall called several conferences throughout the campaign, but he refused to follow up on the advances made by his brave infantry counterpart, Brigadier General Solomon Lovell.

Years later, Saltonstall partisans would claim that he’d been made the scapegoat of the expedition, and that Lovell, for all his daring, was an inexperienced commander who did not do much himself to lead his forces to victory. There was more truth in the latter than the former assertion, however. Time and again, Saltonstall’s arrogance and failure of nerve alternated in sabotaging the expedition.

Again and again, the Connecticut naval commander refused to believe that victory lay within his grasp:

* On the night of July 26, upon being presented with a detailed accounting of Fort George’s pitiful condition and an assessment that it could be taken “in half an hour,” Saltonstall scoffed: “You seem to be d—n knowing about the matter! I am not going to risk my shipping in that d—n hole!’”

* On July 28, Lovell and his second-in-command, Peleg Wadsworth, scaled a seemingly impregnable cliff and surprised the British troops there. But the following day, Saltonstall sent word to Boston that the harbor couldn’t be taken without more help. No urgency was conveyed in the message, because it was delivered by virtually the slowest means available: whaleboat.
After July 29, Saltonstall conducted naval exercises but never fired his guns.

* Even after August 11, when Lovell combined another assault on the fort with a desperate appeal to Saltonstall to back him up, the commodore still needed two more days to coordinate an attack.

By this date, the British had received reinforcements—a seven-ship fleet led by Sir George Collier.

Collier’s main movement, aimed at the center of the crescent formed by the American fleet in the harbor, was enough to convince Saltonstall to flee, this time without calling a council of war—and without firing a shot. Writing in his journal, Lovell couldn’t get over the ignominy:

“It would be a fit subject for some masterly hand to describe it in its true colors;—to see four [in fact seven] ships pursuing seventeen sail of armed vessels, nine of which were stout ships—transports on fire—men of war [having wrecked themselves] blowing up … every kind of stores on shore … throwing about, and as much confusion as can possibly be conceived.”

Those marines and sailors who could manage to do so fled into the Maine wilderness, with the redcoats in hot pursuit. Some of those who straggled back to Massachusetts were barefoot and in rags.

Then the finger-pointing commenced. First on the griddle was Saltonstall, who refused to submit to a committee of inquiry formed by the Massachusetts General Assembly because he was a regular officer in the Continental Navy. The latter organization, however, was no less annoyed with him. Two months later, he was dismissed from the service.

Then it was Paul Revere’s turn. Head of artillery, he had served as lieutenant colonel during the operations and participated in the councils of war. He thirsted for glory, but most of his recorded votes at the councils of war were for delaying action.

Revere had already made enemies of a number of his troops before the battle; his actions in its aftermath—including disputing an order from Wadsworth, leaving retreating troops without instructions, and barreling off into the Maine woods without telling Lovell or Wadsworth where he was going—opened him up to charges of misconduct.

The initial investigation by the committee of inquiry found Revere guilt of misconduct because of these actions. The Bostonian entrepreneur now entered perhaps the darkest years of his life, as he sought, for the next two years, to clear his name. At last, in early 1782, his request was granted for a formal court-martial, which acquitted him of all charges.

The Massachusetts committee of inquiry, besides looking at the commanders’ actions, might more profitably have examined the planning of the expedition in general. The great success of American amphibious operations from World War II onward has blinded many to the great complexity—and concomitant chances of error—of such campaigns. Pairing an army commander with plenty of spunk but little experience with a naval commander with the opposite traits only heightens those risks.

Not only did Saltonstall and Lovell fail to coordinate operations, but the state government of Massachusetts failed to coordinate this campaign with the Continental Army. No advice was requested from the Continental high command, and the state funded the whole thing itself. The failure of the operation—the greatest American naval disaster until Pearl Harbor—left Massachusetts with neither the capacity nor the wish to mount another similar campaign throughout the remainder of the war.

The names Wadsworth and Revere remained intertwined even after their deaths. You see, the grandson of Wadsworth, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, did an awful lot to revive the reputation of the expedition's ambitious but overmatched artillery head with a single narrative poem: “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

Quote of the Day (All Souls Day)

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.”—From a headstone in Ireland

(The accompanying photo, with late-afternoon shadows creeping into the frame, was not taken under the best circumstances. Still, I’ve decided to post it to provide the merest hint of the contemplation and sense of inner well-being I experienced when I stopped at St. Leonard’s Church in Boston’s North End, in my recently concluded Massachusetts trip. It’s part of the Peace Garden just outside the church.

As is common with other religious buildings, no photos are permitted inside St. Leonard’s. Still, believe me when I tell you that, with its profusion of art, it is one of the most beautiful small churches I’ve seen.

As the son and grandson of immigrants, I felt a sense of kinship when I saw the sign announcing that this was the first Italian immigrant church founded in New England. I know how the Boston natives treated the Irish during the Famine era, and I can’t imagine that they improved that much 30 years later.

Not too far from St. Leonard’s is the Paul Revere Mall—not a shopping center, but a wider-than-usual alley featuring an equestrian statue of the famous painting, along with inscriptions on the wall telling his life stories as well as those of other patriots and early colonists.

But also on these walls, a plaque honors the young men from the North End who gave their lives in service to our country. Particularly during World Wars I and II, that list is lengthy and largely dominated by Italian names.

I wish someone could have given each of those young men a short biography as detailed as the ones for Revere, fellow midnight rider William Dawes, Joseph Warren, and the other patriots. Maybe there can be a Web version commemoration of them, a counterpart to The New York Times' “Portraits of Grief” series after 9/11.

I had a similar thought while contemplating the beautiful stained-glass windows, statues and architecture inside the church. What do we really know about the artisans who gave the best of their toil and creativity to this church, and so many other Roman Catholic churches throughout the country? Don’t they deserve their own tribute?

For today’s religious observance, and in the midst of two simultaneously occurring wars, it might do well to meditate on the inscription in this post. The love that the young fallen soldiers and the long-ago artisans felt for their families, community and church, I hope, “leaves a memory no one can steal.” May perpetual light shine upon them. Amen. )

Massachusetts Travel Journal (Day Four—Boston)

With the temperatures moderating somewhat, climbing all the way to 60 degrees, I decided it was a good day to experience Boston by boat.

I really have this thing for boat tours. Years ago, having dinner with other members of a writing group, we shared the first memories of our childhood we had used in our writing. All involved bodies of water—a harbor, a river, or, in my case, a creek near my house.

Something of the same yearning for the origins of a life probably underlie my fascination with rivers. I relate to the great closing line of the film and movie A River Runs Through It: “I am haunted by waters.”

My host at my bed and breakfast had suggested the prior day that I try the Boston Duck Tours. The name sounded a bit odd at first, but the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I was. I wasn’t disappointed.

I bought a ticket for the one-hour, twenty-minute tour--$29, with tax—at the Prudential Center. The boat was the “Beantown Betty,” and our guide—or, as he cheerfully put it, “guru”—was a genial fellow named Fred. (That’s him with the duck on the walking stick, in the photo I took that accompanies this post.)

As the tour continued, I was delighted not only to learn about history but also to ride on a vehicle that participated in it. The “Ducks,” you see, were converted WWII amphibious vessels. The term is, in effect, a serviceman’s mongrelization of the military acronymn DUKW (D stands for designated, U for utility amphibious cargo carrying vehicle, K for front wheel drive, and W for double rear axle drive).

The Beantown Betty was one of 21,000 similar vehicles built between 1942 and 1945, being used most notably at D-Day. Our boat still had notations reminiscent of the period, including three cartoons with the once-ubiquitous inscription, “Kilroy Was Here,” and another inscription from a British Army commando at D-Day who had ridden on the vehicle years later.

That vet wasn’t the only person from the British Isles to join our intrepid little crew. In fact, the boat seemed full of them. I thought it was mighty nice of them to prop up the American economy, especially considering those unpleasant little matters we had with them from 1775 to 1783 and again from 1812 to 1815.

In any case, Fred kept up a running commentary as we went around the city, through such areas as Back Bay, Copley Square, Boston Common, the Boston Public Library, Beacon Hill, Government Center, the Longfellow Bridge, Bunker Hill, the North End, Faneuil Hall, the “Cheers” bar, and Newbury Street. He gave this film fan a particular thrill by pointing out the location filming, on Beacon Hill, of the upcoming Mel Gibson movie, The Edge of Darkness.

(Incidentally, this is the second time I’ve witnessed location filming of a major motion picture on Halloween. The first was nine years ago, when, unlike this time—when I did not get a glimpse of Mr. Gibson—I saw, in Savannah, Robert Redford, Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron on the set of The Legend of Bagger Vance. I just hope Gibson’s project is less of a disappointment than Redford’s.)

When this fun and informative tour concluded, I ate a fast lunch in the food court at Prudential Center, then took the T train to the Government stop, walked several blocks to the North End, and visited the Old North Church and the Paul Revere House. Both Revolutionary War sites are worth talking about at greater length, which I’ll do in future posts.

For now, it’s worth mentioning another point about Longfellow’s immortal poem about Revere. In prior posts, I mentioned some issues that made this ride not quite the stuff of legend (e.g., the famous lantern signal was not devised for Revere’s benefit but for others, and he never made it out to Concord because he was apprehended by the British).

Well, there’s another legitimate bone to pick with Longfellow. The poem mentions “a friend” of Revere that hung the lantern. That “friend” bit marginalizes not one, but two people who took risks as significant as Revere’s: Captain John Pulling and Robert Newman, sexton of the Old North Church, who hung the two lanterns for up to a minute in the steeple window. (The church was then the highest structure in Boston).

The problem was this: If the patriots could see the lanterns, so could the redcoats, and they immediately began wondering why they were being put up at that hour of the night. By the time Newman came down the stairs, they were waiting for him. To evade capture, he came down the center aisle of the church, then jumped through the window to the right of the altar—now called “Newman’s Window” in his honor.

Newman could not escape arrest for long—General Gage figured out pretty easily who did and didn’t have access to the steeple at that hour—but eventually had to release him for lack of evidence—the same thing that kept them from holding onto Revere himself indefinitely.

Massachusetts Travel Journal—Day One: Lexington, MA (Buckman Tavern and Lexington Green)

As I did with my Chautauqua vacation a few months ago, I thought I’d use this blog as a kind of online postcard/letter of my trip to the Boston area.

I spent half of the four-hour trip up here driving through pouring rain that dogged my steps from the moment I left Englewood. By the time I reached Hartford, it began to abate, thank God, and was actually sunny—for a short while—when I reached my bed and breakfast in nearby Lexington.

With not much time left late in the afternoon, I decided to go to the nearest place of historic interest—downtown Lexington. You’d never know it from the kind of chi-chi yuppified establishments lining either side of the downtown—banks, bookstores, restaurants, with chain stores cheek to cheek, so to speak, with antique stores, bread shops, and even an old-fashioned independent drug store—but in 1775, this community was primarily agricultural.

Anyone who attended in its heyday St. Cecilia High School in Englewood, N.J., is familiar with Brandon’s Tavern. So naturally, I just had to stop at the colonial equivalent: Buckman Tavern in Lexington. The original was built in 1709, with a wing added in 1813, then restored in the 1920s. The site (do I have to say that it’s no longer a going establishment?) is now one of three houses that can be visited courtesy of the Lexington Historical Society.

The guide for my small group was Anthony, a fact-filled, charming raconteur who knew everything and then some about this house. (He’s the fellow in period costume next to yours truly in the picture accompanying this post—the first time, incidentally, that the CEO of this blog has ever appeared in an image on this Web site!).

Back when we were memorizing all about “the midnight ride of Paul Revere” as kids, I don’t recall anyone ever telling us about Buckman’s Tavern. But this is where the Lexington militia—filled with dozens of the “embattled farmer” type memorialized by Ralph Waldo Emerson—gathered on the morning of April 19, 1775, waiting for a British force on its way to confiscate the rebel arms supply in Concord. It didn’t turn out quite as well as the redcoats had hoped.

The tavern is one of those small places you see on historic tours, with guides in the dress of the time, but you can still learn much that somehow doesn’t seep out of the pages of historic texts in these kinds of establishments. I learned some more about the first action of the American Revolution here, and even more about daily life in the colonies.

Just down the road a patch, at what is now the Hancock-Clarke House, John Hancock and Samuel Adams were staying as the guests of the Rev. Jonas Clarke, at the same parsonage where Hancock’s grandfather had once resided. Royal authorities in London would dearly have loved to have caught the two troublesome rebels, but it was not to be.

Right around midnight, Paul Revere arrived from Boston, coming breathlessly to the tap room at Buckman’s to let Hancock and Adams know the British were coming. The next morning, the Americans were waiting for them.

With only 77 militiamen with him on the Lexington Common, across from Buckman’s, Capt. John Parker didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of impeding the redcoats, let alone defeating them. What he was producing was a show of force—a demonstration of will.

British Maj. John Pitcairn ordered the rebels to disperse. As the rebels slowly, reluctantly, obeyed, a shot rang out—at whose order, nobody was sure afterward—and the redcoats (a large group of new recruits—“greencoats,” if you will) began firing. By the time it was over, eight Americans lay dead. If you ask me, it’s a lot like those hotly disputed police actions when, in the blink of an eye, someone gets nervous and suddenly bodies are lying all over the ground. Except this time, the authority of a global empire was at stake.

Inside, the tavern has examples of six muskets, including two “Brown Besses” that would have been used by redcoats. Anthony noted that, beyond a range of 75 yards, their accuracy was pretty poor—thus accounting for the famous rebel order, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” These muskets were famously cumbersome to use, with even a well-trained marksman only able to load, shoot, and reload three or four times in a minute.

It was not surprising that Revere would have come to Buckman’s. As Anthony pointed out, the ceilings of Loyalist taverns were unadorned, but patriot taverns had special markings if you looked overhead—in the case of Buckman’s, this included a mixture of—are you ready for this?—blueberries, crushed eggshells and buttermilk.

Colonial men might have reminded their wives to “keep a civil tongue in your head,” but if they were patriots they didn’t mind picking up whatever their women told them. You think they were minding their own business in the kitchen behind the tap room? No sirree Bob! They were listening very carefully to every word that was said, and ready to pass along anything that an unsuspecting Tory might have blurted out.

And, with the stuff served here, they were liable to blurt out anything. From the beginning of the day, Anthony informed us, colonials were imbibing, starting with “small beer.” A particular specialty that I don’t think Brandon’s Tavern got around to serving was “Flip Beer,” four fingers’ worth of the stuff mixed up with brown sugar and molasses. If that didn’t cure what ailed you, you were a hopeless case.

Buckman’s was a hotbed of intelligence and listening post in other important ways. Let’s start with that word “post.” The term took on literal meaning here because the post by the bar was where news items were put up.

Throughout the day, as the British headed toward Concord, then were chased back to Lexington on their way to Boston, a couple of the men who gathered here in the tavern did more than just exchange news at the bar. Solomon Brown, for instance, came running down from his upstairs room and fired his musket at the passing redcoats. A bullet hole from their return fire is still lodged in a door in the house. Dr. Joseph Fiske tended to several patriots and even rebels who had been wounded. The workbench he used elsewhere in town is now located in Buckman’s.

Just past the kitchen in the tavern is the landlord’s room. If you were traveling, you could use his bed for 10 cents. If you wanted a discount, you could get the bed for 7 cents, but you’d have to share it with at least one, and maybe two, men. A lucky thing that nutrition wasn’t as good back then—the smaller bodies meant it was a bit easier to fit two fellows together. (I don’t think a discount would have done much good for the rebels’ genius at artillery, General Henry Knox—a hefty fellow indeed.)

Believe it or not, Buckman’s Tavern was one of those places where George Washington did indeed come. So did two other Presidents, Grant and Ford, on, respectively, the centennial and bicentennial of the war.