A classic case of dramatic change due to the events
of April 19, 1775 is the story of Private Samuel Lee. Originally from London,
Lee was a career soldier who came to America with the Royal Irish in July 1767
disembarking at Philadelphia. When he enlisted is unclear. Lee was stationed
with his company at Philadelphia until the spring of 1768, when a large portion
of the regiment including the Grenadier Company was ordered to Fort Chartres on
the Mississippi River in the Illinois Country.[1] The regiment marched through
Pennsylvania to Ft. Pitt where the five companies bound for Illinois embarked
upon flatboats for the journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi. The
detachment arrived in Illinois in September 1768. The Grenadier Company,
including Lee, was assigned at Cahokia, Illinois for at least some time during
1771. The majority of the regiment, including Lee’s company, returned to
Philadelphia via Ft. Pitt in November 1772. Lee remained in Philadelphia until
1774, when the regiment assumed postings in New Jersey as other regiments were
being consolidated at Boston after the Tea Party. Lee appears to have been a
stable soldier in the regiment having become the regiment’s “master taylor” by
March 1773. Lee’s trade as well as his being deaf or hard of hearing are
articulated in the court martial of John Green, another of the regiment’s
tailors in 1773. Lee testified as a witness for the Crown against Green in the
May 1774 court martial at Amboy, New Jersey. In a company that had more than
its share of courts martial, Samuel Lee’s name is never included among those
punished. Lee appears to have been a solid, obedient soldier; albeit one
without good, or possibly even fair, hearing.[2] In October 1774, the
Grenadier Company along with two of the 18th Foot’s battalion
companies were ordered to Boston. Samuel Lee was among those arriving in Boston
on October 23, 1774. Beginning on December 1, 1774, the detachment’s orderly
book shows the men being ordered to fire live rounds. Training that shows
evidence of the serious nature of the tensions between the British government
and her American colonies. Such firing with ball continued through the spring
of 1775[3].
The 18th Foot’s Grenadier Company was
ordered to march to Concord as part of Lt. Colonel Smith’s column. The 18th
Grenadier Company appears to have been involved in the search of Concord for
military stores. The activities of neither the company nor any of the officers
are mentioned in contemporary reports, excepting those enumerating losses of
men or material. While that searching was conducted, Cpt. John Shee or one of
his subalterns appears to have posted sentries around the search area. One of
those sentries was Private Samuel Lee.
Posting a deaf, or hard of hearing, sentry doesn’t
appear to have been a stellar idea. One Sylvanus Wood, a minuteman from Woburn,
Massachusetts, claimed to have taken advantage of the situation. In his pension
declaration, Wood snuck up on Lee (not a particularly tough task to sneak up on
a deaf man) and relieved him of his weapon. Wood then marched Lee back to
Lexington following the British column. In Wood’s own account, Lee was standing
sentinel in Concord when captured. Lee was carrying a musket and bayonet along
with a “cutlash and Brass fender” and two cartridge pouches. One over the
shoulder with 22 rounds and one “box round the waist with 18 rounds.”[4]
Secondary accounts place the capture at Fiske Hill
outside of Concord where Lee was to have left the rear of the column and sat
down, having determined his soldiering days were over. If it was there where
Wood came upon Lee, Lee may have readily handed his musket over to Wood. Wood
would serve three enlistments with the Massachusetts state troops in
Continental service. He would serve as a sergeant and was later promoted to
ensign and finally to lieutenant before retiring from the service. At the end
of the war, Wood returned to his trade as a cobbler.[5]
The exact facts of whether Wood captured the first
prisoner of the war, as he claimed, or simply came upon the first wartime
deserter may never be conclusively known. However, in 1775, the British Army
was unclear as to Lee’s disposition as well. He was still listed as missing
since April 19 in the 18th Grenadier Company’s muster roll on
October 7, 1775. Both published regimental histories of the 18th
(Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot list Lee among the dead.[6] By December 1775 when the
men of the 18th Foot were drafted at Boston, Lee appears to have
been believed to be a “prisoner with the rebels” and neither dead or deserted..
Lee was among the draughts assigned to the 10th Regiment of Foot. He
was assigned to Major John Vattas’s Company. He continued to be listed as a
prisoner of war in the returns of the 10th Regiment until that
regiment was drafted in September 1778. At that time, the British Commander in
Chief in America ordered Lee taken off the strength of the 10th
Regiment of Foot. It is at that time the British Army appears to have given up
on regaining Lee’s services[7]
However, Lee was not dead. He had a valuable trade
and set himself up as a tailor in Concord. His exact reasons for deserting or
remaining with the rebellious colonists may never be known. One secondary
account states that he bribed the Lexington jailer to release him. Another
account lists him as being wounded, which might explain his falling out of the
ranks on the return from Concord and the ease of his capture. Regardless of how
or why, Lee ended up setting up shop as a tailor in Concord. He appears to have
improved his standing among the townspeople by trying to pass himself off as a
British officer.[8]
Another version of the story has Lee being left
behind by his fellow soldiers, who determined there “wasn’t enough life left in
you [him]” to justify continuing to carry Lee on the retreat. In this version
of the story, he was wounded by a Yankee ball while passing the Concord Meeting
House and was left at the house of a Dr. Minot. Minot then tended to him, but
the ministrations of the doctor’s female assistant, Mary Piper, are what
actually led Lee back from the precipice of death.[9]
Whatever his rationale, Lee appears to have become a
successful member of Concord society. Lee married Mary Piper on July 11, 1776
in Concord. Samuel and Mary Lee had five children, three boys and two girls.
The first, a girl named Polly, was born in January 1777.[10] The 1790 census lists Lee
as the head of a household in Concord with three free white males under 16 in
his household and four free white females. These were likely his wife and five
children and another female relative or servant girl.[11]
Lee died on August 6, 1790 in Concord. He was listed
as 45 years old at his death. If that age was accurate, Lee was approximately
30 years old when captured.[12] Lee
became prosperous enough in his new county to leave a will. It appears that the
United States treated its first prisoner of war extremely well.[13]
[1]
Fort du Chartres was originally constructed by the French in the 1720s. The
third version of the post was built by the French in the 1750s. It was
occasionally known as Ft. Cavendish by the British, but the Royal Irish
Regiment nearly always referred to it as Ft. Chartres.
[2]
British National Archives, War Office Series 71/79, Court Martial of John Green
private soldier in the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot; 240-244; Abraham
English Brown, Beneath Old Roof Trees, Boston: Lee and Shepard
Publishers, 1896, 99.
[3]
Orderly Book of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot’s Boston
Garrison, October 1774 to May 1775 National Army Museum (UK) Microfilm 7609-3.
[4]
J. C. Dann, The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness accounts of the War of
Independence, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, 6-8.
[5]
Dann, 6.; Samuel Sewell, The History of Woburn, 1640 to 1860, Boston;
Wiggin & Lunt, 1868, 363 –364; Lemuel Shattuck, The History of the Town
of Concord, Boston; Russell, Osborne, 1835, 117.
[6]
WO 12/3501, Returns of the 18th Regiment of Foot; Cannon, 48, C. L.
Gretton, Campaigns & History of the Royal Irish Regiment, Edinburgh;
William Blackwood & Sons, 1911, 387.
[7]
WO 12/2750, Returns of the 10th Foot, Major’s Coy. Completed at Berwick upon Tweed 26th March 1779; In
another twist to this tale, some of the secondary accounts list Lee as being
from the 10th Regiment of Foot. Most likely that is simply a
misreading of the stylized “18” often used in the 1770s. However, it is
possible that the British authorities had communicated with him while he was
confined to inform him of his being drafted onto the 10th Regiment’s
rolls. This would indicate that he was retained as a prisoner, or was released
on parole, until at least December 1775. None of the accounts support such a
long incarceration.
[8]
R. Gross, The Minutemen and their World, 131. Gross also identifies Lee as an
officer and states he married a local widow. Others incorrectly identify Lee as
a member of the 10th Foot. Brown’s version of the story includes
that Lee met Mary Piper while she was living in Boston in the winter of 1775
and their attachment to each other began in Boston prior to Mary returning to
Concord.
[9]
Brown,90-100. Timothy Minot was a Concord physician. He did perform at least
some surgery on the wounded the day in question. He appears to have graduated
from Harvard in 1747 and 1750 and died in 1804. The Monthly Anthology and
Boston Review, Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1804, 477. His Concord home and
surgery is currently the home of the Colonial Inn.
[10]
The children were Polly, born January 1777; Samuel, December 1779; Sarah, also
Sally, September 1782, Amos, July 1785 & Rufus, December 1788. All were
born in Concord. Massachusetts Town
Birth Records via www.ancestry.com
[11]
US Census Bureau, 1790 Census for Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts., Roll,
M637_4: Image 0178
[12]
Vital Records of Concord; Massachusetts Town Death Records. Provo, UT; The
Generations Network, 1999; Mary Lee is said to have married one Joseph Hoar on
May 25, 1794; Samuel Lee (junior) and his son were to have been lost in
American service during the War of 1812, but a primary reference to that
service has yet to be uncovered. Brown, 100; Neither the regular army rosters
available for the War of 1812 nor the list of Massachusetts Militia include a
Samuel Lee among their rosters. However, he may have served within another
state’s organization.
[13]
Middlesex County, MA, Probate Index, Item Number 13943. Also the guardianship
of his son, Samuel Lee appears to have been the topic of record 13944.
