Leslie’s Retreat
26 FEBRUARY 1775
LESLIE’S RETREAT
The garrisoning of Royal troops in the private homes of Boston residents risked the discovery of weapons and munitions stores hidden by Patriot colonials. Such stores were secretly moved out of the city, prompting periodic expeditions into the countryside by the Royal Army to search out and destroy arms caches. It was on such foray that the battles of Lexington and Concord would occur six weeks hence in April 1775. Then, Rebel minutemen would attempt to halt a march against an arms stockpile in Concord, Massachusetts. But a little-known similar expedition in nearby Salem almost started the war two months earlier.
No one took much notice this morning when a Royal Navy transport dropped anchor in the harbor at Marblehead, Massachusetts. The comings and goings of British warships had become routine. But LCOL Alexander Leslie, RA, had strategically chosen this Sunday to launch his sortie, when the religious fervor of the colonials compelled their attendance at church. Out of sight below decks were 240 fusiliers of the 64th Regiment of Foot. At the height of the Sabbath around 1430 the troops suddenly appeared. They sought 17 French cannon their spies identified as having been purchased by COL David Mason of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, cannon that were now five miles inland at the foundry of Salem blacksmith CAPT Robert Foster. It was Foster’s job to fashion limbers for the guns.
Leslie stepped-off toward Salem, his pipers mocking the local citizens with the tune, “Yankee Doodle.” MAJ John Pedrick and other alarm riders spread a warning much as would Paul Revere two months later. The cannon were quickly whisked into hiding, and the drawspan of Salem’s North Bridge was raised to block the British advance. A stand-off developed when Leslie’s insistence upon using a public “King’s highway” fell on deaf ears. Tempers flared, and more armed militia collected, including COL John Glover’s regiment of Marblehead sailors and fishermen. Hundreds more minutemen mobilized from surrounding farms, and a company of Rebel cavalry in nearby Danvers mounted their horses. When three gondolas were noticed on the riverbank west of the bridge, citizens fell upon them with axes lest the British commandeer them for a crossing. A scuffle ensued, from which cooler heads emerged. LCOL Leslie and the Rebel leaders negotiated a compromise. Leslie would cross, but proceed peaceably no further than 50 yards beyond.
Having made a gesture of crossing, and aware that the cannon had been removed, Leslie turned his troops around. Defiant colonials lined their return path to assail them with insults–far kinder than would Concord residents deliver in April. The 64th departed without the cannon and without a shot having been fired.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 3 MAR 25
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Billias, George Athan. General John Glover and His Marblehead Mariners. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960, pp. 63-64.
Endicott, Charles M. “Account of Leslie’s Retreat at the North Bridge, in Salem, on Sunday, Feb’y 26, 1775.” Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Salem, MA: William Ives & George W. Pease Printers, 1856.
Harris, Gordon. “Leslie’s Retreat, or How the Revolutionary War Almost Began in Salem, February 26, 1775.” Stories from Ipswich website, 5 July 2014. AT: http://ipswich.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/leslies-retreat-or-how-the-revolutionary-war-almost-began-in-salem/, retrieved 27 August 2015.
Segar, D.A. “Resistance and Retreat in Salem, 1775.” Street of Salem website, 26 February 2014. AT: http://streetsofsalem.com/2014/02/26/resistance-and-retreat-in-salem-1775/, retrieved 27 August 2015.
Site Visit. Leslie’s Retreat Marker, Salem, Massachusetts, 24 September 2015.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: “Committees of Safety” were founded in many New England colonies prior to independence, their euphemistic names belying their true purpose–to organize and administer resistance to the King’s authority. Mason, Foster, Pedrick, and Glover held office with the minutemen of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. Glover would go on to earn greater fame fighting with Washington’s Continental Army.
Today the city of Salem marks this event with a stone and plaque near the site of the North Bridge.
LCOL Leslie’s career was apparently unmarred by this incident. He rose to the rank of MGEN during the course of the war, commanding British troops in the New York and New Jersey campaigns. In 1781 he replaced Cornwallis in command of British troops in the Carolinas after the latter moved toward Yorktown, Virginia. He died in 1794 at his home in the British Isles.
Three US Navy warships have remembered the city of Salem and her storied past, most recently our WWII heavy cruiser SALEM (CA-139). Glover is remembered as well with USS GLOVER (AGDE-1).
