The,spy,who,was,not,there,CONC DIY The spy who was not there

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CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, in April 1775wasn't a particularly friendly place for a British regular. The townseethed with seditious activity-the colonials were stockpilingmunitions, printing incendiary tracts, and gathering nightly atalehouses to rail against the Crown. It was not exactly a town where22-- year-old John Howe, a member of His Majesty's 52nd Regiment ofFoot, would have felt comfortable, especially since his mission was tospy on colonial activities west of Boston. Howetraveled among men who would have willingly helped him to a coat of tarand feathers if they knew his true identity, yet the young Britishsoldier managed to mix with the locals and learn the location ofprovisions that would be key to any successful resistance to Britishrule. Howe so fooled the men of Concord that he was even invited todinner by the colonial militia's second in command. These and otherstories of espionage fill the pages of a volume printed under thelengthy title of A Journal Kept By Mr. John Howe While He Was EmployedAs A British Spy During The Revolutionary War; Also, While He WasEngaged In The Smuggling Business During The Late War. Published in1827 by printer Luther Roby of Concord, New Hampshire, the storyappealed to the young nation's unquenchable thirst for tales of theRevolution, especially in light of the not-so-distant War of 1812 (the"Late War" of the book's title). The journal seemed to be a trove ofinformation about the days prior to the fateful encounters at Lexingtonand Concord, and historians often used it as a primary source for thisseminal period of United States history. There was just oneproblem-John Howe may never have existed. INTHE MONTHS leading up to the conflict at Lexington and Concord, thecountryside around Boston roiled in discontent over Mother England'streatment of the colonies. Boston itself had weathered the Massacre in1770, the Tea Party in 1774, and the resulting Coercive Acts enacted byBritain to punish its subjects' impertinence. The colonials hated theselegislative punishments, including the closing of Boston Harbor, andcalled them the "Intolerable Acts." Lieutenant General Thomas Gage stood in theeye of this gathering storm. The son of a viscount, Gage was commanderin chief of British forces in North America as well as royal governorof Massachusetts. He professed a hatred of Boston, calling it a townfull of "bullies." To make matters worse, both sides of the controversyheld him in contempt. To the colonials he was a heavy-handed oppressorwho enforced the Coercive Acts. They accused him of everything fromalcoholism to pederasty, as well as the high crime of papistry(although a Protestant, Gage came from a long line of Catholics). Onthe other side of the Atlantic, the British faulted him for not dealingmore forcefully with the colonials, particularly for not arrestingringleaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Tensionshad been simmering long before the fatal encounter at Lexington onApril 19, 1775. A full eight months earlier Gage had tried to preemptmischief by ordering the removal of colonial gunpowder stores inpresent-day Somerville, Massachusetts, about six miles northwest ofBoston. The following December Gage sought to reinforce ill-defendedImperial stores at Fort William and Mary in the harbor of Portsmouth,New Hampshire. Paul Revere and other Boston rebels caught wind of theplan and reached Portsmouth by land before the king's men arrived bysea. The rebels mustered the local militia and took the fort, despitethe efforts of the outnumbered defenders. The colonials removed thestores and dispersed them throughout the surrounding towns beforeBritish reinforcements arrived. InFebruary Gage again sent his men out of Boston, this time to remove areported cache of field pieces to the north in Salem. When the Britishtroops reached the drawbridge leading into town, however, they foundthe local residents blocking it. Eventually the British and thecolonials reached a compromise-the troops were allowed to fulfill theirorders by marching over the bridge into Salem and 50 yards down theroad before turning back. One local woman taunted the redcoats from heropen window, and a soldier pointed his musket at her. "Fire if you havethe courage," she responded, "but I doubt it." By this time, manythought that further conflict between the king and his Americansubjects was inevitable. ONCE SPRINGARRIVED and the roads were reasonably dry, Gage had the opportunity tostrike deep into the heart of the nascent rebellion. The question waswhere to move first. Gage's sources told him that Worcester, a townabout 50 miles west of Boston, harbored 15 tons of powder and 13cannon. But the British general still needed to learn the store's exactlocation and reconnoiter the best approaches for his troops. So onApril 5 Gage dispatched John Howe (described as both a private and a"civilian-soldier") "to examine the roads, bridges, and fording places"and determine the best route for the British to take to Worcester. Orso Howe's journal claimed. LieutenantColonel Francis Smith, an officer of the 10th Foot, traveled with Howeon the spy mission. According to Howe, the two soldiers departed Bostonoutfitted in "Yankee dress"gray coats, leather breeches, and blue mixedstockings-under the guise of men looking for employment. Howe and Smith ran into trouble almostimmediately when they stopped for breakfast at an establishment inWatertown run by Jonathan Brewer, a dedicated Whig who would later leadmen at Bunker Hill. A waitress at the tavern recognized Smith andwarned the pair of what they could expect. "Smith, you will findemployment enough for you and all Gage's men in a few months," shesaid. "This conversation about wound up our breakfast," Howe noted. Itwas certainly enough for Smith, who decided to return to Boston. "Thelast I saw of Smith he was running through barbary bushes to keep outof sight of the road," Howe wrote. Two weeks later Smith would enterhistory as the commander of the regulars at Concord. Howecontinued to Worcester alone. While judging the suitability of astretch of road as an artillery crossing point, he attracted apasserby's suspicions, which he deflected by claiming to be in searchof a medicinal root. He proceeded to elicit colonial plans to block theroad should the regulars turn out, and he learned the whereabouts of a"wicked Tory" who kept a local tavern-exactly the man Howe sought. Heproceeded to the Tory's establishment, the Golden Ball Tavern. (Itstill stands in Weston, Massachusetts.) There he handed the tavernkeeper a letter from General Gage. According to Howe, the keeper,Captain Isaac Jones, "informed me that it would not do for me to stayover night, for his house would be mobed [sic] and I should be taken."So Howe spent the night on the outskirts of town. The next day Jonesprovided him with a guide to Marlborough, further along the way toWorcester. Howe dutifully noted the roads and byways, reaching his nextsanctuary, the home of a "Mr. Barnes," at 2:00 A.M. He reported thatthe locals had somehow caught wind that a spy was in the neighborhood,and he had to lie low the next day, allowing him time to refine hisnotes. Given a horse, Howe sped on hisfinal leg to Worcester. He used Gage's network of Tories again when a"Mr. ****"-thought by historians to be none other than the notoriousturncoat Benjamin Church-quartered Howe and showed him the location ofthe colonials' military stores in Worcester. Hismission complete, Howe returned to his haven in Marlborough to sharesome brandy with Barnes and discuss Gage's designs on Worcester. Theirdinner ended abruptly when a party of colonials arrived, demanding tosearch the house for suspected provocateurs. "I hoisted the window,leaped upon the shed, which being covered with snow, my feet flew upand I felI flat on my back in the garden," Howe recounted. Stumblingthrough the snow, Howe happened upon a "Negro's house" where he claimedto be a gunsmith "making guns to kill the Regulars." The owner took himin and later accompanied Howe to Concord, where the spy met localleaders and protected his gunsmith cover by repairing several firearms.Major John Buttrick, second in command of the colonial militia, invitedHowe to dinner and afterwards showed him a "quantity of arms, flour,and ammunition." Howe then took hisleave of Concord, claiming that he was off to collect his gunsmithtools. When he arrived back in Boston, he removed his "Yankee dress"and proceeded to Gage's headquarters, where he warned the general ofthe tone and preparation of the Americans, concluding that "to go [toConcord] with one thousand foot, to destroy the stores, the countrywould be so alarmed, that the greater part of them would get killed ortaken." A few days later Gage sentHowe north of Boston to tell Tories of a new plan. The English generalhad abandoned his idea of moving on Worcester and settled instead onConcord. The town was a colonial arms dump only half the distance fromBoston as Worcester, and Gage also knew that Concord was likely theplace where Adams and Hancock had taken refuge. Whileon this second mission, Howe heard of the fighting at Lexington andheaded off to rendezvous with Smith's men at Concord. At this point theyoung spy resolved to defect to the Americans, though he does notexplain why. His journal then details his exploits as an Inthan traderon the Great Lakes, a spy for the Americans against the Canadian Armyin 1812, and later as a smuggler with loyalty to no one but himself. JOHNHOWE'S JOURNAL was published 52 years after the battles at Lexingtonand Concord. Its printer, Luther Roby, had earned a reputation for hiswork on elaborate family Bibles and school texts. He had also publishedthe journal of Robert Rogers, leader of the famed Rangers in the Frenchand Indian War. Roby's other business pursuits included a granitequarry and a canal-- building concern, and he was eventually elected toNew Hampshire's General Court. When Roby published the Howe journal, itseems no one questioned its authenticity. Indeed,many creditable historians have taken Howe's journal at face value. Itwas reproduced several times after its 1827 publication. Robert A.Gross cited it in his book The Minutemen and Their World. John Bakelessdevoted a chapter of Turncoats, Traitors, and Heroes to Howe andlamented the way this agent who "succeeded brilliantly" was forgottenwhile his supposed companion, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, eventuallyachieved the rank of general. Ester Forbes lauded the "quick-wittedPrivate Howe" in her Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Revere and the WorldHe Lived In, though she did add, "There is no reason to believe allHowe said, but his amusement value is high." Howe's journal, however, has suffered underfurther scrutiny. Examining the text from the perspective of an expertof early nineteenth-century literature, Daniel E. Williams, professorof English at the University of Mississippi, concluded in 1993 that thejournal was no more than a calculated hoax, created by Roby or anotherparty as a "commodity intended for an American literary marketplace."Williams noted that the journal used literary devices such as characterdevelopment, suspense, and humor and employed notorious villains-Smithin the Revolutionary War portions and General William Hull, whomAmerican readers of the time reviled because of his perceived cowardlysurrender of Fort Detroit during the War of 1812. AllenFrench, the renowned scholar of the opening days of the Revolution,criticized Howe's journal as a narrative of no historical value. DavidHackett Fischer, in his 1994 book Paul Revere's Ride, dismissed Howe'sjournal as being of "doubtful" origin. John Alden of Bowling GreenState University in an essay on the march to Concord, doubted that Howecould have kept a journal while he was spying and stated that, at thevery least, the work must have been edited prior to publication. Yet perhaps the most damning evidence against the Howe journal is theexistence of another similar account, published earlier than Howe's andpenned by a verifiable source. That source was a British officer namedHenry De Berniere. Appointed an ensign in the 10th Regiment in 1770 andmade a lieutenant 13 days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, De Berniereis listed in the records of British troops who marched on Concord. Healso drew a much-published map recounting the action at Bunker Hill.During the confusion of the British evacuation of Boston, De Bernierehad to abandon his baggage, including his journal, and the localsseized it. John Gill published the journal in 1779. To Gill it musthave seemed a measure of poetic justice. Gill was a member of thesecret Sons of Liberty who had participated in the Boston Tea Party. Heprinted many antiBritish pamphlets, including the rebel newspaper theBoston Gazette. Because of his actions the British imprisoned him afterthe Battle of Bunker Hill.De Berniere's journal recounted two secretmissions that he and Captain William Brown of the 52nd Regimentundertook. According to De Berniere, Gage charged him and Brown with"taking a sketch of the country... also the situation and nature of thecountry" in late February 1775, more than a month before Howesupposedly undertook his mission. The two officers immediately set outfrom Boston in the company of Brown's batman (an orderly assigned to anofficer) named John. (Some historians have jumped to the conclusionthat John was none other than John Howe.) Attheir first stop, the same Watertown tavern where Howe said he andSmith dined, De Berniere's party was confronted by apparently the samewaitress and received a similar warning. De Berniere assumed she hadseen the sketches of the route the spies had out on their table, butthe batman announced that the waitress recognized Brown as an officerfrom Boston. Quickly pushing on, the trio next stopped at a tavern "atthe sign of the golden ball," the same Golden Ball Tavern Howe visited.The Tory Captain Jones welcomed theBritish agents and told them of progovernment refuges along the road toWorcester. They proceeded as far as Framingham the next day, performingtheir reconnaissance duties along the way. After lodging atBuckminister's Tavern they continued on to Worcester with littleincident other than a wrong turn at which they "were obliged to turnback a mile to get on the right road." Theofficers were unable to travel during the strictly observed New EnglandSabbath, so they spent the day working on their notes. They dared taketo the roads only after dusk, doing what work they could in twilight.After the British spies returned to Worcester for the night, two men,likely Loyalists, called upon them. Choosing discretion, the Britishagents told their host to turn them away. Thetrip back to Boston proved to be more difficult. As they began theirreturn, a lone horseman, much to De Berniere's concern, "examined usvery attentively, and especially me, whom he looked at from head tofoot as if he wanted to know me again." The trio remained unmolestedduring their second stay at Buckminister's, but they witnessed adisturbing display of the local militia's drilling prowess, followed byan "eloquent" and "spirited" speech by the militia's commander. Upontheir return to the Golden Ball, the agents decided to scout anadditional route to Worcester. Against Jones's advice, De Berniere andBrown decided to double back, while the batman would forge ahead toBoston with their notes and sketches, so they wouldn't fall into thewrong hands. The two officers set offthe following morning in ankle-deep snow, only to encounter anotherhorseman who asked them very pointed questions about the nature oftheir business. Marlborough residents, no doubt forewarned by theinquisitive horseman, turned out in a raging snowstorm to scrutinizethe two men when they reached town. In a lastminute change of plan theofficers stopped for the night at the home of Mr. Barnes-also a stopfor Howe. There they learned that a throng of "liberty people" hadgathered the night before at the home where they were expected, andtheir altered schedule had saved them from the mob. A deserter who"knew [Brown] too well, as he was a man of his own company" and was nowhiding in town, had likely identified the two spies. Suddenlyword came that the locals planned to storm the house and take itsoccupants. De Berniere and Brown hurried out, having rested at Barnes'shouse for only 20 minutes. After putting a safe distance betweenthemselves and Marlborough they dined in the woods on some bread theyhad taken, using snow "to wash it down." Finally,after passing by four ominous horsemen, the pair ended their 32-miletrek back at the tavern of Captain Jones. They made an uneventfularrival in Boston the next day. When they happened on their commanderGeneral Gage, he was fooled by their ragtag costumes and did notrecognize them. Gage dispatched DeBerniere and Brown into the countryside again on March 20, this time toassess the situation in Concord. Along the way they made note ofgeographic features that the colonials would later use to theiradvantage. They reached the town without incident, but the pair foundit necessary to provide an armed escort back to Boston for theirConcord host, who had received death threats. Thesituation in Massachusetts was teetering on the edge of the abyss bythen. Gage made his move on April 18. "Having received intelligence,that a quantity of Ammunition, Provisions, Artillery, Tents and smallArms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raisingand supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty," he wrote in his ordersto Colonel Smith, "you will March with a Corps of Grenadiers and LightInfantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition andSecrecy to Concord, where you will seize and distroy all Artillery,Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Storeswhatever." The following day Smith's soldiers clashed with minutemen atLexington and Concord. The American Revolutionary War had begun. Article Tags: John Howe, Howe's Journal, Bunker Hill, Golden Ball, From Boston