As the accompanying column on the siege of Boston was being drafted, a previously unknown journal kept by one of the key players, British Gen. John Burgoyne, was discovered in the archives of Knowsley Hall, the Liverpool-area estate of the earls and countesses of Derby. In 1751, Burgoyne married Lady Charlotte Stanley, daughter of the 11th Earl of Derby. The family archives also contain letters he wrote to his wife from Europe in the 1760s, as well as his personal, annotated copy of the evidence he gave in Parliament in defense of his command at the Battles of Saratoga. After that 1777 defeat, Burgoyne spent significant time at the hall. The journal does not bear his name, but it could have been written by no one else.
Burgoyne arrived in America in late May 1775, but the newly discovered journal — it was stumbled upon in an innocuous cupboard called “6B” — does not begin until June 30, after the Battle of Bunker Hill. We already know from Burgoyne’s correspondence that he was frustrated that there were fewer troops under his command than he’d had at a more junior rank earlier in his career.
Burgoyne’s account of the siege opens with a midnight attack on Roxbury, where British soldiers burned a tavern and a few houses. It records other attempts to break out of the American stranglehold. There are continuous references to skirmishes and attacks by the people he always dubs “rebels” — the implication being that they are to be coerced and destroyed, without negotiation.
On July 31, 1775, in a typical entry, Burgoyne describes how “early this morning the Rebels having assembled in a number of Whale Boats came down to the Light House, attacked the guard of an officer & 20 men who were placed there to defend some barracks. … The officer with his men left his post & got on board a small schooner, were attacked, & the officer & most of his men killed.”
There is frequent mention of American deserters, some of whom brought intelligence. One gave “an account that the Rebels are very sickly & want bread & salt, that there are about twenty thousand & talk of giving us a general attack.” There is only one reference to desertion on Burgoyne’s own side. The offending soldier was shot.