So You Think You're a History Buff: 1776 and All That

Two frigates battle at sea

Researching my ancestors has certainly shown me that I'm not as smart as I thought I was. Or at least not as well-informed.

For example, I recently discovered another Revolutionary War veteran, my 4th great grandfather, William Page. He was born in Rhode Island, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in Col. Robert Elliott's Artillery Regiment. The bare bones of his wartime service are as follows: he served with the regiment for three years, being appointed Captain in 1779. 1n April 1780 he was discharged -- and returned home to Rhode Island to serve as a Gunner on a frigate called the Deane, commanded by Captain Samuel Nicholson. In seeking out details of his service I have found much that I didn't know about the Revolution -- first, that the Colonies barely had a Navy, and it's a really good thing for us that the British Navy was actually in pretty bad shape, too. Even luckier for us was the presence of Benjamin Franklin as our representative in France; if he hadn't charmed the French into supporting us we probably couldn't have won the war.

And eventually I was able to find out a great deal more about William Page's war, and it is quite illuminating. The National Archives in Washington has scanned a sizable portion of their priceless collection of Revolutionary era documents and put them online for anyone to look at. I found a large number of papers documenting William Page's service which were sent by him to the War Department in support of his pension application. It's thrilling to see his first commission, dated January 3, 1777,  and signed by the then governor of the state, Richard Cooke.  And his discharge paper is also included, hand written (by the regimental secretary, probably) and signed by the commander, Col. Robert Elliott.

Col. Silas Talbot

Even more fascinating are the recollections of William's widow, Betsey, which were included in additional papers sent to Washington in support of her application for a widow's pension. She recalled that William had essentially been lent to a seafaring expedition headed by one of our few successful marine commanders, Capt. Silas Talbot, while he was still technically in the Army. When the war began, Talbot, an immensely experienced and capable commercial sea captain who resided in Rhode Island, joined the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment. His sailing skills were apparently well-known, and he took part in a daring attack on British warships in 1776. Since the United States really had no official Navy, at this point sea battles and campaigns were actually carried out by men who had enlisted in various militias or the army.

The Colonies had few ships suitable for standing up to the might of the British fleet; our most successful tactic was privateering -- which is about one step above actual piracy. Privateers were warships that were privately owned, or at least partially privately owned, and contracted by the government to attack the enemy's commercial shipping and supply lines; the ship's company would then get to keep whatever they seized, sell it, and split the profits.

American ships successfully harassed, crippled, and robbed British vessels, in one case sailing as far as the Bahamas to appropriate the contents of a storehouse full of gunpowder and shot. Of course, the British also sent privateers to raid the New England coast, and our privateers were sent to stop them and recover their cargoes and weapons, if possible, and commandeer the ships themselves. Silas Talbot -- who by this time was confusingly actually a Lieutenant Colonel -- conducted several raids on British ships as a privateer and took several. And according to William Page's widow, Betsey, William sailed with him as a gunner several times while he was actually in the Army. He probably sailed on the Picot, a ship captured from the British, and/or the sloop Argo.

Now, this does not show up in the official record anywhere that I have found; but it seems unlikely that she would be mistaken about such a thing, since it didn't affect her own pension application one way or the other -- she had no motive to lie. And how else would she even know about Capt. Talbot's activities?

A Revolutionary Era frigate

These adventures must have taken place before 1780, because Talbot was captured by the British and spent about two years as a prisoner of war.  He annoyed his captors exceedingly by constantly trying to escape, and was exchanged pretty quickly. William Page was assigned to the frigate the Deane for about two years of probably considerably less exciting duty, under Capt. Samuel Nicholson.

So my ancestor did practically everything in the Revolutionary War; he was a militiaman, an Army regular, an artillery officer, a naval officer, a ship's gunner, and practically a pirate!

This whole story illustrates one of the key features about the Revolutionary forces that helped to defeat the British psychologically -- first, the enormous number of skilled and capable people the new nation could call on; and second, our ability to improvise. This was something the British Military, with its entrenched hierarchy, could not understand or cope with.

More about Silas Talbot

Wikipedia

Talbot Collection, Mystic Seaport

More about Capt. Samuel Nicholson

Wikipedia

More about the USS Deane

Wikipedia