Sunday, March 12, 2023

"At the Request of the Officers ... I Prayed With Them" - The Role of Ministers on April 19, 1775

Recently, the Nerds received an inquiry from a Ladies Association of Revolutionary America (LARA) member asking about ministers' roles during the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

We did some digging and found several accounts describing various roles that ministers undertook on April 19, 1775 and the days afterward. Please keep in mind this is merely an overview and a deeper dive is certainly needed.

As a preliminary matter, let’s quickly review the role of ministers in 18th Century New England society. The clergy stood at the pinnacle of 18th-century society. Due to their considerable talents and bolstered by the religious doctrines of the 17th and 18th centuries, ministers were considered the essential individual in a community’s social hierarchy. They were viewed as the community’s spiritual and moral leaders, the political commentators, the arbitrators of disputes and, when the town was without a schoolteacher, the educators as well. In short, they played a critical role in 18th Century New England society.

When His Majesty’s troops left Boston and marched towards Concord, a panic spread throughout Middlesex County. How did the spiritual leaders of Massachusetts respond?

In Lexington, the Reverend Jonas Clarke assumed an advisory and leadership role. Throughout the evening of April 18, 1775, he hosted John Hancock and Samuel Adams at his parsonage. When alarm riders Paul Revere and William Dawes arrived to alert the pair that a military expedition was advancing towards Lexington, Clarke immediately assumed a leadership role. According to the minister, he met with the town’s militia officers and men to “consult what might be done for our own and the people's safety; and also, to be ready for whatever service Providence might call us out to upon this alarming occasion, in case--just in case--overt acts of violence or open hostilities should be committed by this mercenary band of armed and blood-thirsty oppressors.”

Once it was determined that Captain John Parker’s company would remain in the vicinity to protect the town, the Reverend Clarke returned home to help his wife and children hide valuables. Afterward, he likely led several Lexington families to an area of safety away from the British line of march.

Photo Credit: John Collins

In the aftermath of the Battle of Lexington, Clarke assumed the role of a spiritual leader. According to a 19th-century account from his daughter, the Reverend Clarke“sent Jonas down to Grandfather Cook's to see who was killed and what their condition was and, in the afternoon, Father, Mother with me and the baby went to the Meeting House. There was the eight men that was killed, seven of them my Father's parishioners, one from Woburn, all in Boxes made of four large boards nailed up and, after Pa had prayed, they were put into two horse carts and took into the graveyard where some of the neighbors had made a large trench, as near the woods as possible and there we followed the bodies of those first slain, Father, Mother, I and the baby, there I stood and there I saw them let down into the ground, it was a little rainy but we waited to see them covered up with clods and then for fear the British should find them, my Father thought some of the men had best cut some pine or oak bows and spread them on their place of burial so that it looked like a heap of brush.”

According to local tradition, Clarke and John Parker then rallied the Lexington men and convinced them to re-enter the fight against His Majesty’s forces.

According to Minute Man National Historical Park, the Reverend William Emerson played an active role in the formation and spiritual guidance of the Concord minute companies. In March, 1775, the minister gave a sermon to the town’s minute companies proclaiming "Arise! my injured countrymen! and plead even with the sword, the firelock and the bayonet, plead with your arms the birthright of Englishmen, the dearly-purchased legacy left you by your never-to-be-forgotten Ancestors..."

On April 19th, Emerson joined the town’s minute companies when they first mustered at approximately one or two in the morning and was with them later that morning as they climbed the "eminence" north of town to watch the British troops approaching. According to family tradition, Emerson then retired to his home to watch over his family. According to other local historians, the minister rejoined the Concord minute companies and fought side by side with them.

When word of the Battle of Lexington reached Needham, Massachusetts, the Reverend Samuel West elected to follow the town’s militia company into battle as its spiritual leader. According to West, ““The news reached us about nine o’clock A.M. The east company in Needham met at my house as part of the Military stores were deposited with me, they there supplied themselves, and by ten o’clock all marched for the place of action with as much spirit and resolution as the most zealous friends of the cause could have wished for. We could easily trace the march of troops from the smoke which arose over them, and could hear from my house the report of the cannon and the Platoons fired by the British. The Needham company was soon on the ground, but unhappily being ignorant of what are called flank-guards they inserted themselves between them and the main body of the British troops. In consequence of which they suffered more severely than their Neighbors who kept to a greater distance.”

Later that evening, the Reverend West received word that several of the men from his community were among the day’s casualties. As a result, he immediately assumed the role of grief counselor and spiritual advisor. “In the evening we had intelligence that several of the Needham inhabitants were among the slain, and the next morning it was confirmed that five had fallen in the action and several others had been wounded. It is remarkable that the five who fell all of them had families, and several of them very numerous families so that there were about forty widows and fatherless children made in consequence of their death … I visited these families immediately, and with a sympathetic sense of their affliction I gave to some the first intelligence they had of the dreadful event, the death of a Husband and a Parent. The very different manner in which the tidings were received, discovered the very different disposition of the suffers. While some were almost frantic in their grief others received the news with profound silence as if in a consternation of grief they were incapable of shedding tears or uttering sighs or groans.”

The Reverend Andrew Elliott remained in Boston on the eve of the Revolution to watch over his remaining congregation. As news trickled about the engagement in Lexington, the minister noted many Bostonians were in an utter state of panic. “Such a Sabbath of melancholy and darkness I never knew … every face gathering paleness – all hurry & confusion – one going this way & another that – others not knowing where to go.” Elliott would be called upon to offer emotional and spiritual support to those who were now trapped behind enemy lines.

Photo Credit: John Collins 

In some communities, especially those outside the path of the fight, ministers often remained behind to tend to the flock and provide spiritual encouragement to those provincial units passing through the town en route to Boston.

In the days after Lexington and Concord, Newburyport ministers offered religious guidance to New Hampshire and Maine troops who passed through their community.

In Westborough, the Reverend Ebenezer Parkman offered sermons to those militia and minute companies that passed through his town. According to one passage, Parkman noted “The said Soldiers, having eat Breakfast here, left us; and two more came, viz. Appleton Osgood and Joseph Bowman from the Same Town, and had Breakfast among us. I rode to Northborough. At the Widow Martyns a multitude from South Hadley marching to Cambridge. I gave them (the soldiers) a Serious Exhortation and Caution.”

A few days later, Parkman noted “At the Request of the Officers of the Mansfield and Coventry Companys I prayed with them.”

Several ministers served either as eyewitnesses to the horrors of war and recorded the observations of others. According to the Reverend Parkman, he interviewed a Mr. Thomas Whitney, who had rid down as far as Charleston. He has Seen the Sad Effects of hot Assaults and Skirmishes. The Account that the Roads for a great way were strowed with dead Men, is confirmed.”

The Reverend David McCulure noted as he toured the aftermath of the Menotomy fight ““Dreadful were the vestiges of war on the road. I saw several dead bodies, principally British, on & near the road. They were all naked, having been stripped, principally, by their own soldiers. They lay on their faces. Several were killed who stopped to plunder & were suddenly surprised by our people pressing upon their rear.... The houses on the road of the march of the British, were all perforated with balls, & the windows broken. Horses, cattle & swine lay dead around. Such were the dreadful trophies of war, for about 20 Miles!”

Finally, the Reverend William Gordon, “you would have been shocked at the destruction which has been made by the Regulars, as they are miscalled, had you been present with me to have beheld it. Many houses were plundered of everything valuable that could be taken away, and what could not be carried off was destroyed.”

Obviously the Nerds need to take a closer look at this topic. So, if you have any leads or suggestions we should review, let us know!

No comments:

Post a Comment