Divided Loyalties: the American Revolution

Samuel Quincy, Solicitor General of Massachusetts in the years leading up to the American Revolution, was also a poet.

He wrote poems about his years at Harvard; poems of music, dancing, and enjoying life; and poems expressing love for his wife, Hannah Phillips Quincy. He also wrote commemorative poems in honor of the deaths of people he loved or admired. Although his poems remain largely lost to history, I discovered a number of them, penned in his own hand, among the papers of the Phillips family in the archives of the Cambridge Historical Society.

Sam Quincy wrote a poem honoring General Richard Montgomery following his death at the Battle of Quebec, one of the earliest battles of the Revolutionary War. The Battle was fought at the end of December 1775 and I believe, based on my research, that Quincy wrote the poem honoring the fallen hero sometime in the spring of 1776.

After capturing Montreal in November 1775, Montgomery and his troops had set their sights on Quebec. They joined up with the forces led by General Benedict Arnold and began the march towards the fortressed city. Fearing that many of his soldiers would return home following the end of their term of enlistment at the end of 1775, Montgomery was determined to lay siege to Quebec despite the blizzard conditions under which they marched; indeed, he hoped…