Stoic Patriot

A key historical figure in my upcoming novel, The South Spy, was ironically a northerner who made his career in the South. A New Englander entrusted with his nation's destiny, he was appointed to oppose the new British Southern Strategy. And it was in the South that the new nation and Benjamin Lincoln would encounter tragedy and triumph.

Benjamin Lincoln

Yankee Farmer: Prominence and Work

Born on January 24, 1733, in Hingham—a lively Puritan town southeast of Boston—Benjamin was the son of a successful farmer and militia colonel. The family name was well-respected—his ancestors had crossed the Atlantic during the Great Migration, establishing roots in New England's tough soil. Young Benjamin spent his early years working in the fields and shaping tools in his father's blacksmith shop, but his ambitions went beyond the farm. 

New England Farm

By his twenties, Cupid had called. Young Benjamin married Mary Cushing, fathered eleven children, and started public service as Hingham's town constable and clerk. Politics came naturally.  He served in the provincial assembly, advocating for colonial rights amid rising tensions with the Crown.

Citizen Soldier: The Militia Man

As the storm of revolution gathered, Lincoln's military career began, following the New England tradition where most young men served in the militia. He joined the Suffolk County militia under his father's command, rising to major by 1755 during the French and Indian War—although he saw no frontline combat. 

Militia Life

By 1772, he was a lieutenant colonel, drilling men on Hingham's green. When Lexington's shots rang out in 1775, Lincoln mobilized his regiment and marched to Cambridge to support the siege of Boston. His administrative skills were notable: organizing supplies, strengthening defenses, and calming chaos among inexperienced recruits. Promoted to brigadier general in the Massachusetts militia, he oversaw coastal defenses and recruitment efforts. 

Major Promotion: Major Battles

In February 1777, Congress promoted him to Continental Major General, placing him in George Washington's circle. Lincoln's first major achievement came at Saratoga that fall. Tasked with disrupting British General John Burgoyne's supply lines, he led bold raids across the Hudson River, sabotaging communications and bolstering American forces with militia reinforcements. During the critical second battle at Bemis Heights on October 7, Lincoln commanded the right wing, attacking Burgoyne's flanks. Although a musket ball shattered his ankle—leaving him lame for life—his efforts helped secure the British surrender ten days later. Saratoga's victory, which gained a French alliance, built Lincoln's reputation as a dependable leader. However, Washington, focusing on the vulnerable South, had bigger plans for the injured general. 

Bemis Heights Action

Command of the Southern Theater: A Descent into the Crucible

By late 1778, the war had moved southward, where British strategists saw Loyalist support and economic benefits in the tobacco-rich Carolinas and Georgia. In September, Congress appointed Lincoln to command the Southern Department, a large force stretching from Virginia to Florida, troubled by partisan clashes, Indian alliances, and tropical illnesses. When he arrived in Charleston in December, Lincoln found a ragtag group of 3,500 Continentals and militia, poorly armed and demoralized after the British took Savannah. His task was to retake Georgia and bolster the Carolinas against invasion. However, resources were limited—Congress delayed supplies, local governors argued, and slaves fled to the British, enticed by promises of freedom. Lincoln quickly began reorganizing. He drilled the troops in the hot lowcountry, formed alliances with local planters, and examined British positions.

Charleston 1780

Marching to Georgia: Savannah

 In the spring of 1779, he launched expeditions to Augusta and Beaufort, securing small victories that boosted morale. However, the main challenge was retaking Savannah. Supported by a French fleet commanded by Admiral d'Estaing, which arrived in September, Lincoln led 2,000 Americans to join 3,500 French troops outside the fortified port. The allies laid siege to the city for weeks, bombarding redoubts held by 3,200 British troops under General Augustine Prevost. 

Desperate Gambit: The Assault

On October 9, in a desperate attack, Lincoln led units through fog-covered marshes toward Spring Hill redoubt. Cannon fire ripped through the air; French and American charges faltered under grapeshot and musket volleys. Heroes like Count Casimir Pulaski (see my blog post, The Legend and the Legion) were fatally wounded, and Lincoln's men suffered over 800 casualties in the war's bloodiest retreat. Forced to withdraw, the allies quietly pulled back, leaving Savannah in British hands—a bitter defeat that showed the fragility of Franco-American coordination.

Assault on Savannah

From Offense to Defense: Charleston

Undeterred, Lincoln retreated to Charleston, strengthening the city with earthworks, abatis, and a canal across the neck. He called for reinforcements, boosting his garrison to over 5,000 by early 1780. However, British General Henry Clinton, sailing from New York with 8,500 redcoats and a naval fleet, landed south of the city in February. Systematically, Clinton surrounded Charleston, crossing rivers and digging parallels in a textbook siege. Lincoln's defenders stayed strong initially, repelling probes and launching sorties. Yet supplies ran low; smallpox devastated the troops, and civilian panic grew as British batteries battered homes and wharves. By April, Clinton's trap tightened—trenches moved close to American lines, and fire ships threatened the harbor.

Siege of Charleston 1781

Forlorn Hope: Tragic Surrender

Lincoln faced a tough choice: evacuate and leave the South's largest port, or fight on and risk being wiped out. He chose to stand his ground, but his options disappeared. On May 12, after 42 days of shelling, with ammo gone and mutiny brewing, Lincoln surrendered—the biggest American surrender of the Revolution. Over 5,000 troops, including his entire Continental force, marched out to lay down arms; large quantities of powder and cannon fell into enemy hands. Paroled and exchanged later that year, Lincoln took some blame in certain areas, although his persistent defense had tied down Clinton's army for months, buying time for the patriot cause elsewhere.

American Troops Surrendered

Redemption and Legacy in the Twilight

Exchanged in November 1780, Lincoln rejoined Washington, his limp a badge of endurance. At Yorktown in 1781, he commanded a division during the siege and, in poetic justice, accepted Cornwallis's sword on October 19—avenging Charleston. Postwar, he served as Secretary of War, streamlining the army's demobilization. Back in Massachusetts, he crushed Shays' Rebellion in 1787, safeguarding the fragile republic. Retiring to Hingham, Lincoln dabbled in diplomacy and land speculation until his death on May 9, 1810. Not a dashing spy or a fiery orator, Lincoln embodied the Revolution's quiet heroes: farmers-turned-generals whose unyielding spirit forged a nation from the ashes of defeat. 

Shays' Rebellion

The Patriot Playwright

An American First

On April 16, 1787, "the first American play" premiered at the John Street Theater in New York City. Titled The Contrast, it was written by 29-year-old Royall Tyler. It is considered the first American play ever performed publicly by a company of professional actors. An American play, in the sense that it was written by an American, with an American theme, for American audiences.

John Street Theater - Birthplace of American Theater would close in 1798

A Playwright Patriot

Royall Tyler was born in Boston on July 18, 1758. He came from a wealthy and prominent Massachusetts family. Tyler went to Latin School in Boston for his early education. He then attended Harvard to study law. During this time, he joined the Continental Army, where he received a commission and eventually became a major. Tyler was admitted to the bar in 1780 and joined John Adams's law firm. Tyler fell in love with the future president's daughter, but the engagement was broken off, reportedly because Adams disapproved of Tyler's "high-spirited temperament." John's attitude probably kept many potential suitors away.

General Benjamin Lincoln

Back to the Bar. Back to the Army and on to the Theater

The end of the war and the birth of the republic in 1783 didn't take long to be followed by America's first crisis. In 1786, Shay's Rebellion erupted in New England. Many veterans rightly felt that the new republic didn't pay enough attention to their economic struggles and that their years of service were largely disregarded. A former Massachusetts soldier and struggling farmer, Daniel Shays, led a group of disgruntled veterans seeking justice for their grievances. 

The response was swift, as a panicked government assembled forces to put down the rebels. In 1787, Tyler once again answered his country's call. He left his law practice to accept an appointment as aide-de-camp to General Benjamin Lincoln, tasked with suppressing Daniel Shays and his rebel soldiers. After Shays left Massachusetts (the heart of the rebellion) for New York, Tyler was sent to New York City to negotiate his capture and return to Massachusetts. And while there, like many others over the years, Tyler did something he had never done before—he went to see a play!

Shays Rebellion would set events leading to
the birth of the American stage

That's Entertainment

The theater was slow to become popular in America as a form of entertainment. There are records of Shakespeare performances in Williamsburg in the early 1700s, and generally, the Southern colonies — which were more receptive to all British customs — were quicker to embrace the theater. In the North, it was considered a sinful form of entertainment. Massachusetts actually passed a law in 1750 that banned theater performances, and by 1760, similar laws were in place in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, although performances sometimes slipped through with special permission from authorities.

Reprint with comment by  modern historian Cynthia Kierner
 illustrates the enduring value of The Contrast as a vehicle
for understanding mores of post-Revolutionary America.

A Playwright is Born

In any case, Royall Tyler had never been to the theater before. On March 12, 1787, he attended a performance of Richard Sheridan's School for Scandal (1777). He was so inspired that in just three weeks, he wrote his own play, The Contrast. Barely a month later, The Contrast became the first play by an American writer to be professionally produced. 

The Contrast was a comedy of manners, poking fun at Americans with European pretensions, and the main character, Jonathan, was the first "Yankee" stock character. This backwoodsman spoke in a distinctive American voice and mannerisms. Mixing such a character with sophisticates is a technique writers use to this day—the traditional "fish out of water." 

Tyler did not pioneer this, but he did master it. And the results were compelling to late 18th-century audiences. The Contrast was a success. It was performed four times that month in New York, which was very unusual. Then it moved on to Baltimore and Philadelphia, where George Washington went to see it. The first citizen's approval added to the buzz both for the play and the stage in general.

Man of Letters

Tyler became one of the most accomplished men of letters in early America. While he kept practicing law, he wrote six other plays. Only four of these plays still exist today; three are biblical plays, and the fourth is another social satire, The Island of Barrataria. He also produced several verse and prose works, including a lively adventure novel, The Algerine Captive (1797). 

The story is based on the memoir of a young man who experiences a series of misadventures that ultimately lead to his enslavement by Barbary pirates. Aside from its American themes, the book ends with a serious plea for Americans to unite. It went through more than one printing and is only the second American work to be printed in Britain.

Royall Tyler: jurist and author in late life

Author & Attorney

Tyler's literary works were published anonymously. After all, the arts were still considered beneath the mainstream, and he was a serious jurist with a reputation to uphold. His works generated little income. He clearly created them out of love. Many modern authors, including this one, can relate to that situation! As a member of the legal profession, he aimed to correct the flaws and follies he satirized in his writing. He died in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The Seed of Modern Theater Long Forgotten

The success of The Contrast elevated contemporary drama and theatrical productions, making them highly popular among all classes. In a short time, they shifted from mild disdain to great respect and sometimes intense popularity. In that sense, the "arts" owe him a great deal. Certainly, the modern stage does. Yet I am sure few in the field know of Royall Tyler, the patriot and playwright who gave birth to their art form. I think a new rebellion is needed. A Royall rebellion, in fact. Maybe the "Tony" should be renamed the "Tyler?"

So should Tony become Tyler?