Thomas Gage

Thomas Gage (born 1721, Firle, Sussex, England—died April 2, 1787, England) was a British general who successfully commanded all British forces in North America for more than 10 years (1763–74) but failed to stem the tide of rebellion as military governor of Massachusetts (1774–75) at the outbreak of the American Revolution.

Early life and military career

Gage was the second son of the 1st Viscount Gage. He entered the army in 1741 and fought in Flanders during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) but was recalled to England to combat the final Jacobite rebellion (1745–46). He served with the duke of Cumberland’s forces at the Battle of Culloden (1746)—an encounter that conclusively ended Stuart claims to the British throne—before returning to the Continent. In 1751 Gage was made a lieutenant colonel in the 44th Foot.

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Understanding the American Revolution

Gage’s military career in North America began in 1754, when he sailed with his regiment to serve in the French and Indian War (1754–63). He participated in Gen. Edward Braddock’s disastrous campaign in western Pennsylvania (1754) and survived the massacre that marked the end of that expedition. In 1758 he financed at his own expense the British army’s first light infantry regiment, the 80th, and served as its colonel in Jeffery Amherst’s successful operations against Quebec (1759–60). Gage was thereupon made governor of Montreal (1760) and was promoted to major general (1761).

Command in North America and outbreak of the American Revolution

In 1763 Gage succeeded Amherst as commander in chief of all British forces in North America—the most important and influential post in the colonies. Headquartered in New York, he ran a vast military machine of more than 50 garrisons and stations stretching from Newfoundland to Florida and from Bermuda to the Mississippi. He exhibited both patience and tact in handling matters of diplomacy, trade, communication, Native American relations, and western boundaries. His great failure, however, was in his assessment of the burgeoning independence movement. As the main permanent adviser to the mother country in that period, he sent critical and unsympathetic reports that did much to harden the attitude of successive ministries toward the colonies.

When resistance turned violent at the Boston Tea Party (1773), Gage was instrumental in shaping Parliament’s retaliatory Intolerable (Coercive) Acts (1774), by which the port of Boston was closed until the destroyed tea should be paid for. He was largely responsible for inclusion of the inflammatory provision for quartering of soldiers in private homes and of the Massachusetts Government Act, by which colonial democratic institutions were superseded by a British military government. Thus, Gage is chiefly remembered in the U.S. as the protagonist of the British cause while he served as military governor in Massachusetts from 1774 to 1775. In that capacity, he ordered the march of the redcoats on Lexington and Concord (April 1775), which was intended to uncover ammunition caches and to capture the leading Revolutionary agitator, Samuel Adams, who escaped. That unfortunate maneuver signaled the start of the American Revolution. After the equally disastrous Battle of Bunker Hill in June, Gage was succeeded by Gen. Sir William Howe. Gage soon returned to England and was commissioned a full general in 1782.