As reverend and Patriot Ezra Stiles put it in his diary, Pitcairn was “a good man in a bad cause.” (Though, admittedly, that assessment of his cause may depend on whom you ask!)
Pitcairn actually lived across the street from Paul Revere of the Midnight Ride fame, and indeed there’s a monument there even today. He was killed during the Battle of Bunker Hill (though there’s debate as to who shot him), and was carried from the battlefield in the arms of his son, which is a tragic and stark reminder of the human cost of war.
After his death, he was buried in the crypts of the Old North Church in Boston’s North End. A few decades later, his family in Britain requested his body be returned. And a body was returned… we just don’t know if it was actually his, and there’s a fair chance he still rests there. As such, there remains a plaque next to the vault where his corpse may be in the Old North Church. For more details, see here. However, the family does not want further investigation done.
While we’d like to imagine Pitcairn had a good few weeks leading up to his demise, alas, it appears instead he spent it trying desperately to prevent a duel between two youths. Because soldiers are still people and people are petty.
Pitcairn:
Major Pitcairn was staying with one Francis Shaw, who had a twenty-year-old son named Samuel. A diehard Patriot, Samuel would join the Continental Army after turning twenty-one and thus becoming officially of age, but in 1775 Samuel was still under his father’s roof and control. A barely-out-of-teenage-years Patriot living under the same roof as two British officers sounds like a perfect recipe for a truly, truly stupid duel, which is precisely what almost happened.
According to Josiah Quincy (the III, son of the defense lawyer famous for the Massacre Trials alongside John Adams):
The house of Francis Shaw was assigned for quarters to Major Pitcairn and Lieutenant Wragg [sic; it was Ragg]. A tradition in the family states, that, the latter having at the table, in the presence of Samuel Shaw, spoken of the Americans as “cowards and rebels,” he immediately resented the reproach, and transmitted to the lieutenant a challenge. While arrangements for a duel were in preparation, the fact came to the knowledge of Major Pitcairn, who interfered, and, either by influence or authority, obtained from the lieutenant such an apology for the offence as Mr. Shaw was willing to accept, and the affair was thus terminated.
Thanks, Pitcairn, for stopping the eggheads.
Samuel Shaw ended up serving with the Continental Army for the remainder of the war, and then went on to become the United States’ first consul to China. Lieutenant Ragg went on to get himself captured in New York when he mistook the Continental Army for Hessians.
Next week, we’ll look at an officer who was the exact opposite of Pitcairn in terms of reputation. Namely, nearly everyone, whether Patriot or Loyalist or British, could agree on just this one thing: that they absolutely hated him.
Though… first we have the cover of We Are Not Strangers, which will be posted Thursday!
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