Stories

Harvard Student

Soldiers in the Yard

They sent us home when the soldiers came. The college where I had studied Latin and philosophy became a barracks. Men from New Hampshire and Connecticut slept in Massachusetts Hall, cooked their meals...

Headquarters Staff

Martha at Headquarters

When Mrs. Washington arrived, headquarters changed. Before, it was all military business—dispatches, councils, complaints about supplies. She brought order of a different kind. Dinners became occasion...

Artillery Officer

The Day We Discovered the Truth

I was there when the general received the powder return. Thirty-six barrels. For an army of thousands, facing British regulars who could fire three rounds a minute. He dismissed everyone and sat alone...

Continental Soldier

Under the Washington Elm

We had been waiting for weeks, knowing a new commander was coming from Virginia. When he arrived, there was no great ceremony. He simply read his commission under an elm tree on the Common, took the s...

Teaching the Revolution at Harvard

I teach the Revolution in buildings that housed Revolutionary soldiers. Massachusetts Hall, where my office is, served as barracks in 1775. Students find this remarkable—that the institution continued...

Uncovering the Siege

Archaeology in Cambridge means working around development. We have maybe two weeks when a foundation is dug before concrete goes in. But in those windows, we find the siege. Musket balls, uniform butt...

Preserving the Siege Story

People come to Longfellow House expecting to hear about the poet. They're surprised to learn Washington lived here first. But the siege of Boston happened here—in these rooms, around this table. Washi...

Walking Washington's Cambridge

The Washington Elm is gone—it fell in 1923, weakened by age and storms. But I stand where it stood and tell visitors: here, on July 3, 1775, a Virginia planter became the commander of an American army...