Surgeon Spymaster
For hours, Doctor Joseph Warren had been piecing together reports and rumors from sources close and not so close to Boston’s British occupiers. One of the last of the Committee of Safety left in the city, he served as organizer of spies and reporter of rumor, innuendo, and sometimes—intelligence. He glanced at the Almanack on his desk. It read April 18th,1775.
The soft rap at the door stirred him from his writing.
“What brings ye here at this early hour?” he asked. The visitor was one of his better sources.
“A column is definitely leaving in the morning. Hoping to seize the rebel leaders, Hancock and Adams. They’ll be traveling over water.”
Warren scratched out the rest of his source’s information. “Thank ye, sir.”
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When the informant left, he sent for two of his ablest men. For weeks, his dwindling network had sent him bits and bobs on British activity, but this was a solid warning, and he needed to act. When William Dawes and Paul Revere arrived, he gave them instructions, saying finally, “The good work of patriots have provided enough warning to steal a march on the British, but we must get the word we must take advantage of it. Go now, and Godspeed!”
The spymaster, whose tireless intelligence work helped launch thousands of farmers and townsfolk against the cream of the British Army, was well-known to the authorities. A farmer, Harvard scholar, schoolmaster, surgeon, and family man, he was a political activist who pushed back against Crown policies.
From Surgeon to Patriot
Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1741, young Joseph Warren had risen from a yeoman farmer to part of the colony's landed gentry. After Harvard, he studied medicine under Doctor James Lloyd. Warren became a prominent surgeon and was celebrated for using the new technique of immunization against smallpox during an outbreak that ravaged the community. One of his patients, a lawyer named John Adams, recruited Warren into his circle of political confidants.
From Whig to Radical
The Stamp Act of 1765 drove Warren from a moderate Whig to a leading radical in Boston politics, placing him in the ranks of Sam Adams, John Hancock, and James Otis. Political gatherings over coffee and raucous protests soon competed with his practice, farm, and family. But the brilliant thinker, organizer, and man of action made time for all. But what set him apart was his leadership by example.
Passionate Speaker
Warren had a knack for retail politics, penning broadsheets, organizing events, and speaking in an oratory that galvanized crowds. He opposed the barrage of regulations from London and the Royal Governor. The Stamp Act, in particular, aroused his ire. On the second anniversary of The Boston Massacre, Warren gave a fiery tour de force oration as he defiantly eyed the British in the audience.
From Radical to Rebel
His passionate speech brought him a notoriety across Massachusetts and beyond. Warren gained celebrity throughout the colony for his scorching speech memorializing the second anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Two years later, he was an original member of Boston’s Committee of Correspondence.
In 1773, Warren was among the leaders protesting forcefully against the Tea Act imposed by London, and he likely had a hand in planning Sons of Liberty’s famous raid that December on the merchant ships—the Boston Tea Party.
Not content with being the spymaster behind the scenes, Warren saddled up the day after dispatching the night riders and rode out to Concord battlefield, put on his surgeon’s hat, and began treating the wounded militiamen. For the next few months, he was a whirlwind of political leadership and military action.
Political Leader
As president of the Third Massachusetts Provincial Congress, he acted swiftly to spread the word and garner support across the colonies for transitioning from rebellion and insurgency to war. His account of the actions at Lexington and Concord reached readers in England a fortnight before General Thomas Gage’s official dispatch.
Warren's London dispatch scooped General Gage
Military Leader
While doing all this, he helped General Artemus Ward assemble and shape the militia regiments of the New England Army forming around Boston—soon locking the redcoats in a cauldron from which they would never escape. Warren’s talent and decisive actions gained him an appointment as a major general of the militia on 14 June 1775. Fate and his innate modesty would deny him the assumption of those duties.
Beseiging Boston
The rattling of drums meant the British were stirring, and spies reported plans to assault the Americans digging in on Breed’s Hill in Charleston—a town across the water north of Boston. Warren arrived with a musket, pistol, and saber but refused to pull rank and assume command from the commander in loco, French and Indian War veteran General Israel Putnam. Instead, Warren volunteered to fight in the line, serving under Colonel William Prescott.
Breed's Hill
On 17 June 1775, the regulars ferried to the neck, and rows of redcoats assembled at the base of the long sloping hill where the rebels waited. The New Englanders were ready in all respects: will, determination, and courage, plus the high ground, prepared breastwork with ample fields of fire. But they lacked an essential of 18th-century warfare—gunpowder. The volunteer Warren fought bravely with his comrades and fellow patriots— who shot two determined British attacks to pieces in volleys that filled the air with lead and smoke.
Warren’s commander, Colonel Richard Prescott’s steely eyes, watched the wave of crimson rumble up the hill one last time—barely enough powder for a volley—not enough to stop them. At the last possible moment, he ordered the fire. The woosh and boom of the volley attested to its weakness. The redcoats dropped but not in the numbers previously. Now, they were coming with their own grim determination.
Overwhelmed and Cut Down
The patriots’ lack of powder now carried the third British charge over the breastworks and into the trenches. A ferocious melee—confused hand-to-hand combat ensued. Warren helped cover the retreat of his comrades but was quickly gunned down. Later, the redcoats, angered over their heavy losses at Breed’s that day, pierced his body with bayonet thrusts. Days later, Warren’s body endured further mutilation and decapitation by a naval officer, Lieutenant James Drew. After these atrocities, the body of one of arguably the most prominent and promising men in America was tossed into an unmarked grave.
Fallen Founder
Joseph Warren’s ravaged remains lay in a shallow grave—discovered some ten months later when the British had, at last, evacuated Boston. His brother and Paul Revere identified the remains through dental forensics. Revere, the tinsmith, had fashioned teeth for the doctor. Doctor Joseph Warren was officially buried at Forrest Hills Cemetery in 1855. One of the first lamented martyrs of the Revolutionary War is commemorated by a statue in the Bunker Hill Monument.
Joseph Warren Statue at Bunker Hill Monument
