Daniel at the Siege of Boston, 1776 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER ONE - A Reason to Riot

  CHAPTER TWO - Freedom Is the Prize

  CHAPTER THREE - “Tar him! Tar him!”

  CHAPTER FOUR - Shots Fired in Lexington

  CHAPTER FIVE - Under Siege

  CHAPTER SIX - The Whale Swims South

  CHAPTER SEVEN - A Spy Mission

  CHAPTER EIGHT - The Patriot Camp

  CHAPTER NINE - Preparing for Battle

  CHAPTER TEN - Charlestown Burns

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - The Battle of Bunker’s Hill

  CHAPTER TWELVE - “Those cursed rebels, they would not flinch.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Salt Pork and Beans

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Wild Men and General Washington

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - A Mission for the General

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - “Be careful, Prescott, with that war of yours.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Between Two Armies

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - A Spy Revealed

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - A Curious Rescue

  CHAPTER TWENTY - Smallpox

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - The Free and Independent States of America

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - A Stew of Lies

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - “Shoot him if you must.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Laying a Trap

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - The Redcoats Set Sail

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  CHILDREN’S ROLES in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION

  HISTORIC CHARACTERS

  TIMELINE

  GLOSSARY

  FURTHER READING

  Acknowledgements

  BOSTON BAY and VICINITY Published according to Act of Parliament Nov 13, 1776

  For my mother, with love and thanks

  DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Published by the Penguin Group * Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. * Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) * Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England * Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) * Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) * Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India * Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) * Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa * Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Although this is a work of fiction, many of the historical events portrayed and persons named are real. The author has used history as a stage for several fictitious characters, and any resemblance of those characters to actual people is unintentional.

  Copyright © 2010 by Laurie Calkhoven

  “Boston Bay and Vicinity” and “Plan of the Town of Boston”: Map reproduction courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

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  Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-19764-6

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  siege [SEEJ] noun 1. The act of surrounding a city or town, cutting

  it off from food and other supplies, to force it to surrender.

  PLAN of the TOWN of BOSTON with the attack on BUNKERS HILL the 17th of June 1775

  The Brink of War

  The streets of Boston were crowded with British soldiers, sent by the king to show the rebels who was boss. Great Britain had tried to tax her American colonies, but the colonists objected. No taxation without representation!

  One night in Boston, an angry mob pelted nine British soldiers with snowballs and insults. The Redcoats leveled their muskets and opened fire. Five colonists were killed, including a former slave named Crispus Attucks and one seventeen-year-old boy. The event became known as the Boston Massacre. It was March 5, 1770.

  After the massacre, most of the taxes were repealed. But Great Britain left one tax in place—a tax on tea.

  In 1773 three tea-laden ships sailed into Boston Harbor. Furious Patriots in Boston, known as the Sons of Liberty, vowed to prevent the tea from being unloaded. The governor of Massachusetts, loyal to the king, vowed that the tea would be unloaded.

  The standoff lasted three weeks. Then the Sons of Liberty dressed up as Mohawk Indians and turned Boston Harbor into a teapot.

  To punish the rebellious colony, an angry England once again sent soldiers to Boston. The harbor was forcefully closed and the British parliament passed a series of oppressive laws. The colonists found them intolerable.

  With this punishment, King George thought he would stop the rebellion before it spread. But the Sons of Liberty had other ideas.

  By the fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, the colonies were on the brink of war.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Reason to Riot

  March, 1775

  I stared into Josiah Henshaw’s red brown eyes and vowed not to blink. I had beaten him at too many games of ringer and had a pocket full of his marbles to prove it. Now he proposed a staring contest.

  We were chest-to-chest, nose-to-nose, and I aimed to have the victory. His two eyes blended into one, the same color as my prized clay marble, my lucky shooter. I knuckled it for strength. Boys around us shouted encouragement.

  His eyelids fluttered. I fought to keep mine open.

  Then the bells fell to ringing, and I flinched. I blinked first.

  “Hand it over, Daniel Prescott,” Josiah cried. He shouted to be heard above the royal peal of Christ Church’s eight bells, the sober chime of New North Meeting House, and the bells that rang over the rest of Boston.

  His palm closed around my lucky shooter. It was a gift for my last birthday, my twelfth. There wasn’t likely to be a present on my thirteenth in a few months’ time. The British navy had blocked the harbor until the citizens of Boston agreed to pay for the English tea they had dumped into the water. The harbor was empty of merchant ships and the food and goods they carried. Instead, Boston Harbor was filled with the king’s warships, and Boston’s wharves were filled with British soldiers. They did not cut us off entirely. Other colonies sent us goods overland in wagons and carts. It was a long, difficult journey, and carts could not hold as much as ships. Food, and birthday gifts, were in short supply.

  Josiah examined his prize with a sneer and fluffed the ruffles beneath his chin. “Father says General Gage will surely arrest the king’s enemies today,” he said. “What will you do if the liberty boys start a riot, Prescott? Hide under a pew?”

  I wanted to knock his hat off, and his wig along with it. I turned from him without answering, ignoring the bold cla
ims of the schoolmates who had gathered around our contest. Most shouted in support of Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and the rest of the Sons of Liberty. A few, like Josiah, swore loyalty to King George like their fathers. I was careful, as always, not to state my allegiance to either side, to protect my father. But I didn’t warm to being called a coward for it.

  It was the sixth of March, 1775. Yesterday marked five years to the day since the Redcoats had broken the peace and shed the blood of Crispus Attucks and four others at the Boston Massacre.

  I wondered what today’s remembrance of the massacre would bring. Dr. Joseph Warren was to speak at Old South. I was one of ten from our school of two hundred and fifty selected to attend. Unfortunately, so was Josiah. Our schoolmaster had no choice but to include the son of one of the richest merchants in Boston.

  Josiah said something under his breath to Ezekiel Partridge when Master Richardson joined us. I didn’t have to catch Josiah’s words. Our assistant schoolmaster’s tattered shoes and worn coat had long been the subject of Josiah’s ridicule. There were few of us who didn’t suffer his mocking tongue.

  I had a secret reason for wanting to be at Old South. Josiah had led me to forget the task in front of me for a moment, but now the responsibility came rushing back.

  “Lobsters,” Timothy Otis muttered with disgust.

  A company of Redcoats paraded to the beat of a drum, forcing us to move aside. Their black boots thumped against the cobblestones. I was used to their presence, but today fear rushed through me at the sight of them.

  As we entered Queen Street, Master Richardson fell into step beside me. “Ready, Daniel?” he asked in a low tone.

  I could only nod while my mind hurried over the details of my task. If I failed, the Redcoats would surely seize the men King George thought of as his enemies as Josiah had threatened. Today those men, including John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren, would stand and defend our rights as Englishmen. And I would help them.

  It was my duty to accost an ensign. Father and I had overheard the British plan to sabotage the Sons of Liberty the night before. Officers from the British Tenth Regiment had long ago made our tavern—Prescott’s Tavern on Fish Street—their headquarters. They moved in believing Father to be a Loyalist to King George. We filled their tankards and their bellies, took their coin, and let them believe what they wished. They spoke freely and we gained valuable information for the Sons of Liberty.

  Last night Father manned the tap and I helped serve the evening meal while we listened to Lieutenant Colonel Stockdale and his officers make a plan.

  “When Warren’s address becomes treasonous, we’ll have a reason to arrest them all,” Stockdale had said. “We can convince the governor to ship them back to England for trial.”

  “Surely Warren knows better than to speak treason in our presence?” one of the officers said.

  Captain Smythe snorted. “What do these fool colonials know of matters of state?”

  “No, he’s right.” Stockdale stabbed his fork into the fish pie I set before him. “Any arrest will set this Boston mob to rioting. Still, to have all of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty together in one place, and not seize them . . .” He sat thinking for a moment, then waved his tankard at me. “More ale, boy.”

  Father and I locked eyes while he poured. Father nodded, ever so slightly, to let me know that we should listen carefully.

  I put the tankard down and stepped back into the shadows.

  “They pretend to cry for their countrymen, but what this rabble really wants is an excuse to riot in the streets,” Stockdale said, wiping his mouth. “Let’s give them what they want—a reason to riot. An insult to their beloved Sons of Liberty.”

  “Your meaning, sir?” Lieutenant Johnson asked.

  “We will arrest Warren and his friends in the upheaval, claiming that Warren’s words were the cause.”

  I may have moved, or gasped, because suddenly Captain Smythe’s eyes were on me. Would he bid me leave the room? Would they wait to make their plan above stairs, in the colonel’s quarters? I willed my face to look bored. The captain looked away.

  “What manner of insult?” he asked the colonel.

  I breathed freely again.

  “Anything will do. A rock through a window. A well-timed slur. An egg in the face.” Stockdale sat up straighter. “Call Ensign Keaton.”

  I filled more tankards while Ensign Keaton was given his orders. The minute the speech became treasonous, Keaton was to throw an egg at Dr. Warren. Stockdale and his officers would make their arrests in the uproar that was sure to follow.

  Colonel Stockdale had raised his glass and recited a poem while the other officers laughed.

  As for their King John Hancock,

  And Adams, if they are taken,

  Their heads for signs shall hang on high

  Upon that hill called Beacon.

  Father and I had devised a plan of our own, whispering in the kitchen while Mother tended the bar. I was to trip the ensign on his way to the meetinghouse, thus breaking his egg. An overexcited boy racing to get a good seat would hardly be noticed for running into a soldier. Father would have been recognized, so Master Richardson was called on to be my companion instead. I had gone to school early this morning to engage him, and he readily agreed.

  “The tyrants!” he said. “They will not rest until they have beaten us into submission. But they have little knowledge of Massachusetts men if they think such a thing is possible. Parliament will submit long before we do.”

  My schoolmaster was long a friend of the Sons of Liberty and had frequently carried our information to Dr. Warren and Samuel Adams. Today he walked beside me, and I was glad to have his company.

  Just then I spotted the ensign. My heart rattled like a drum at full parade march as we increased our speed and came closer and closer to him. I heard sounds around me—Josiah Henshaw proclaiming something to his cronies, black boots pounding, bells ringing—but my eyes saw only the ensign. One hand carefully cupped an egg to his scarlet coat.

  Now was the time to trip and fall into him. I leaned forward, but my feet would not leave the cobblestones. In another second the ensign would be past me and it would be too late. Still, my feet would not do my bidding.

  A strong push from behind slammed me into the soldier. I managed to stay upright, but he hit the street with a thud. He rolled over onto his back, clutching his knee, his face distorted with pain. Egg dripped from his hand, staining his white breeches.

  Master Richardson stood behind me, breathing hard. “Hurry along, boys,” he said, turning to the group behind us and acting as if nothing unusual had occurred. He put a hand on my shoulder and propelled me forward.

  I glanced behind me. Two Redcoats came to the aid of the ensign, who had commenced to groan. He appeared unable to stand. Josiah Henshaw’s eyes flicked from the schoolmaster to me and back again with a peculiar mixture of curiosity, disdain, and triumph.

  My own face burned with shame. If not for Master Richardson, my father’s plan would surely have failed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Freedom Is the Prize

  Old South was full to swarming. All of Boston seemed to be in attendance. A wave of scarlet filled the front pews, and some British officers even sat on the steps leading to the pulpit. Colonel Stockdale was in the first pew, on the aisle. Would he find another way to start a riot and arrest our town leaders in the confusion?

  Samuel Adams, in a coat nearly as threadbare as Master Richardson’s, greeted the British with all politeness. He must have known the officers were ready to arrest him as soon as they got the signal—the signal Master Richardson had so bravely destroyed when I could not.

  Dr. Benjamin Church and other town leaders occupied the deacons’ seats, along with John Hancock, who had silk and ruffles enough to satisfy even Josiah Henshaw.

  I did not look for my father. Master Richardson sat next to me and nodded more than once. No doubt he was letting our friends know th
at we had—he had—succeeded in our mission.

  By the time Dr. Warren arrived, the meetinghouse was so packed that it took him a good while to reach the pulpit. Like the Roman orators of old, he wore a toga over his clothing.

  “I mourn over my bleeding country,” he said, soon after he began speaking. “With them I weep at her distress, and with them deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men.”

  He spoke with dignity, and his language was careful to avoid treason. It warmed my heart to hear him speak of the greatness of our town and of our cause. Many nodded, including Father.

  The British stirred but did not rise.

  Dr. Warren continued as if they were not there. He spoke of the men who had settled our country, who “bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which they might enjoy their freedom.”

  But then our freedom was taken from us, in the form of unfair taxes. We were required to import goods from England, and then taxed for the privilege. It was unjust. Father said so and I agreed. The British were forced to repeal most of their taxes after our protests. Their tea tax remained, and the Sons of Liberty would not stand for it.

  Now, as Dr. Warren said, “Our streets are again filled with armed men; our harbor is crowded with ships of war; but these cannot intimidate us.”

  He was right, and that made me proud. Boston stood firm. A British captain on the pulpit stairs held up a handful of bullets—a warning that muskets were deadlier than words. Dr. Warren dropped a white handkerchief over the captain’s hand and continued his address.

  “Our liberty must be preserved; it is far dearer than life; we must defend it from the attacks of friends as well as enemies; we cannot suffer even Britons to steal it from us.”