The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-07-19
Sir William Howe's Orderly Book.

lbOstOn daily Advert1ser.l
Mr.. B. F. Stevens has discovered in Lon
don the original orderly book of General
Howe when in command in Boston. 1t be-
gins with the ominous date "June II, 1775''
From this date-at which we have the spe-
cific orders by which the grenadiers, the
light infantry, the forty-seventh regiment,
the marines and pioneers were sent to the
battle -fields-down TO the melancholy close
at Halifax, where the regiments are packing
themselves into transports for their voyage
to Staten Island, the book gives us the most
curious inside view of the campaign, with
the minute details of every day. 1t has, as
may be imagined, singular interest, and
especially so to us in Boston, who are famil-
lar with the localities of the scene.
Mr. Stevens has added to the volume
per department, which gives to it and to the
history curious and valuable illustration.
This is a precis of all the correspondence
which passed between General Howe and
the government in that year, giving abridg-
ments of the letters on both sides.
We are indebted to Mr.. Stevens for the
only copy of the proofs of this book which
has crossed the Atlantic. OF the thousands
of details which will interest readers Of his
tory here we can only cite few. The read
er will himself wish to compare 1t, whenfis
is published, page by page, with Washing
toms orderly book, which we have in the
American archives. These two authorities
enable US to fight out the eventful campaign
and siege of 1775-76, with precision such
as can rarely be attained in history. That
campaign disodged the English forces from
America and, from March to August of
1916, left to the independent nation, new
born, the breathing spell which prepared for
the five years struggle which followed. For
four months the country was without an en-
envy. In the terrible check of Bunker Hill,
lin the long, sickly imprisonment in Boston
which followed, and in the enforced flight
from Boston in March, Howe and his army
learned, once for all, their disagreeable les
son. Whether he ever expected, after that
lesson, to reduce the colonies, may be doubt
ed. In the details of his orderly-book we
are now able to follow, day by day, the steps
with which the first year dragged by.
While the King and his ministers were
persuading themselves that the outbreak
they were dealing with was that of madcap
Boston only, led by Adams and Hancock,
the Kings officers and army were shut up in
that town eating salt meat in midsummer
without vegetables, and fighting the scurvy,
as their immediate enemy. AS early as Ju-
ly there appears the beginning of a set of
orders relating to the manufacture of spruce
beer, which has been highly recommended
as check to this terrible disease, from
which, in that first summer, the junk-fed
army was suffering. If there were not 10y
atty enough in people of three millions,
every inch of whose coast was accessible to
Howe's cruisers, to provide fresh food for
an army of 10000 men, what was the posi-
BILE hope of subduiDg those 100000 from a
distance of 5000 miles, which implied In
that time voyage of three months? The
orderly book suggests this question at every
page. 1t bristles with intimations of the
difficulty of the commissariat. AS early as
the 22d of July is this entry
"The commanding Officers of Corps to send
exact lists, signed by themselves, to the Com
missary General of the number OF Sick and
Wounded in their Regimental Hospital in
Boston whom it is Necessary to Serve with
fresh provisions, and not any to be mentioned
in these Lists whose case does not absolutely
require the Small Assistance of Fresh meat
that can be provided from time to time"