Washington used diversionary bombardment to mask the Dorchester Heights occupation
Evidence
Everything changed on Saturday, March 2. “The House this instant shakes with the roar of Cannon,” Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John that evening from their country home some ten miles south of Boston. “I have been to the door and find tis a cannonade from our Army, orders I find are come for all the remaining Militia to repair to the Lines a monday night by twelve o clock. No Sleep for me to Night.” Nor for the British. As he explained in a report to Congress, Washington meant the bombardment from existing positions as a distraction “to harass the Enemy and divert their attention from” Dorchester Heights, which he planned to occupy two nights later. The British responded in kind, with both sides repeating the cannonade over the next two nights and Howe never seeing it as part of a larger operation by the patriots. Neither side inflicted much harm on the other with the intensified bombardment, but, as Washington reported to Congress, informers told him that it caused “much distress and confusion” among the British, who had not suspected that the patriots had the added mortars supplied by Knox. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 111
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: The Boston bombardment was a feint masking a fortification operation
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The Boston bombardment was a feint masking a fortification operation
Broader Connections
- The Boston bombardment was a feint masking a fortification operation
#corroborates(1.00)