From the Archives - The Battle of Salem, or Leslie’s Retreat

As is well known, the Battle of Lexington, on April 19, 1775, that began the American Revolution, occurred because a British column had marched out of Boston to seize arms Massachusetts had stashed at Concord. Now, the British had actually been running little expeditions like this for some weeks, and not just in Massachusetts, but the colonists had either been unable to muster or rallied too late to stop them, or managed to get the goodies away before the Redcoats arrived. Just seven weeks before Lexington, the colonists had confronted a similar British expedition, and but for the discretion of an officer the Revolution might have begun right then.

In late February of 1776, British headquarters in Boston learned that Massachusetts had some cannon at Salem, about a dozen miles up the coast. Colonel Alexander Leslie was ordered to take a column there and confiscate the guns. On Sunday, February 26th, Leslie loaded 240 men from the 64th Foot on boats, and they rowed over to Marblehead, just three miles east of Salem, which they reached in mid-afternoon. They then took the road to Salem, with the troops marching to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” no less! Meanwhile, of course, word of the expedition had leaked, and militiamen had started to turn out, how many no one knows, though figures as high as an improbable 40,000 have sometimes been claimed. The militiamen concentrated on the North Bridge, at Salem, a draw bridge over the Merrimack River, which Leslie would have to cross to reach his objective. By the time Leslie’s column reached the bridge, ill-armed companies of militiamen from Salem and Danvers, perhaps 80 or 100 troops in all, were ensconced on the opposite bank, and had taken up the draw. For a moment things looked ugly. Profane comments were exchanged, and a couple of Redcoats fell into a physical confrontation with a colonist on their side of the river, one Joseph Whicher, who was scratched by a bayonet. Although Leslie’s force outnumbered the militiamen, and were both better trained and better armed, the good colonel could not bring himself to precipitate a fight, and so offered to negotiate. Pastor Thomas Barnard, of the First Church of Salem, a militia captain, agreed to discuss matters.

Leslie observed that his specific orders were that to march to Salem and conduct a search for hidden cannon. So he proposed that, if the colonists permitted him to cross the bridge and make a token search, he would thereby have fulfilled his orders, and could return to Boston. This seemed like a reasonable proposal, and so the colonists agreed to it. Leslie and his troops were allowed to cross the bridge, march 50 rods (825 feet) into Salem, turn about, and return from whence they came.

As a result, the beginning of the American Revolution was postponed by 52 days.

During the crisis, the men of Amesbury, about 25 miles north of Salem, turned out to support the colonial cause. But somehow they didn’t make it to Salem in time for the confrontation with Colonel Leslie. A fellow-townsman, William Gallison, told of the adventures of the Amesbury company in a lively, and amusing letter to his father, an attorney and commander of the Essex County Militia, reproduced here with all of Gallison’s erratic spelling, grammar, and capitalization intact.