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| Bunker Hill illustration by Lora Innes |
In A People’s History of the United States,
Howard Zinn wrote, “A wounded American lieutenant at Bunker Hill, interviewed
by Peter Oliver, a Tory, … told how he had joined the rebel forces:
“I was a shoemaker and got my living by my
labor. When this rebellion came on, I saw some of my neighbors got into
commission who were no better than myself. I was very ambitious, and did not
like to see those men above me. I was asked to enlist as a private soldier
… I offered to enlist upon having
a lieutenant’s commission, which was granted. I imagined myself now in a way of
promotion: if I was killed in battle, there would be an end of me, but if my
captain was killed, I should rise in rank and should still have a chance to
rise higher. These, sir, were the only motives of my entering into the service,
for as to the dispute between Great Britain and the Colonies, I know nothing of
it…”
“John Shy
investigated the subsequent experience of that Bunker Hill lieutenant. He was
William Scott, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, and after a year as prisoner of
the British he escaped, made his way back to the American army, fought in
battles in New York, was captured again by the British and escaped again by
swimming the Hudson River one night with his sword tied around his neck and his
watch pinned to his hat.
“He returned to
New Hampshire, recruited a company of his own, including his two eldest sons,
and fought in various battles until his health gave way. He watched his eldest
son die of camp fever (epidemic typhus) after six years of service. He had sold
his farm in Peterborough for a note that, with inflation, became worthless.
“After the war,
he came to public attention when he rescued eight people from drowning after
their boat turned over in New York harbor, He then got a job surveying western
lands with the army, but caught a fever and died in 1796.”
When Scott’s adventures
ended, he was 54.
“Scott was one of
many Revolutionary fighters, usually of lower military ranks, from poor and
obscure backgrounds,” Zinn noted. “Shy’s study of the Peterborough contingent
shows that the prominent and substantial citizens of the town had served only
briefly in the war. Other American towns show the same pattern. As Shy puts it:
‘Revolutionary America may have been a middle-class society, happier and more
prosperous than any other in its time, but it contained a large and growing
number of fairly poor people, an many of them did much of the actual fighting
and suffering between 1775 and 1783: A very old story.”
Zinn noted
ironically, “Here, in the war for liberty, was conscription, as usual,
cognizant of wealth.”
“The military
conflict itself, by dominating everything in its time, diminished other issues,
made people choose sides in the one contest that was publicly important, forced
people onto the side of the Revolution whose interest in Independence was not
at all obvious. Ruling elites seem to have learned through the generations —
consciously or not — that war makes them more secure against internal trouble.”
