“1775, Cambridge, April 26.
Sir, – Our friends from New Hampshire have shown their readiness to assist us on this day [of] distress: therefore thought it best to give orders for enlisting such as were present in the service of this colony, as many desired something might be done to hold them together until the resolve of your congress is known, when we are ready and desirous they should be discharged from us, and put under such command as you shall direct. Colonel Sargeant has been so kind as to afford his utmost assistance in conducting this matter. [- Joseph Warren]”
Source: Text appears in Richard Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1865, p. 470. I have not encountered the original manuscript as yet. The New Hampshire and Massachusetts State Archives are likely repositories.
Commentary: Joseph Warren, through assertive leadership and force of personality, kept Patriot forces together while the Siege of Boston coalesced. Here he stabilizes the presence of New Hampshire forces while diplomatically prodding their provincial congress to legitimize their troops’ service. Not one to await formalities in the face of crisis, he had already enlisted troops of the neighboring province “until the resolve of your congress is known.”
At this juncture Warren was simultaneously president pro tem of the second Massachusetts Provincial Congress and variously chairman or member of its Committees of Safety, Supply, and Donations. Warren had no authority to command troops of other provinces or to direct operations outside of Massachusetts’ borders. This circumstance did not hold him back either in this instance or in his sponsorship, initiated within a week, of Benedict Arnold of Connecticut to surprise Fort Ticonderoga.
New Hampshire troops would soon distinguish themselves at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
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