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Thomas Gage (1719-1787) was an English soldier who was born in the town of Firle, in the county of Sussex, England. He belonged to an aristocratic family: in fact, his father, also called Thomas Gage, held the title of 1st Viscount Gage and married Benedicta Maria Teresa Hall, a girl from high society. This marriage had three children, of whom Thomas was the second. The Gage family was Catholic but later joined the Anglican Church.
In his youth, Gage attended Westminster College, where he met important figures of the time such as the British George Germain, Richard Howe and John Burgoyne, who years later excelled in different military campaigns and obtained important positions in the British government.
According to letters from people who knew Thomas Gage, he was distinguished by his sympathy, his values and his sense of justice. Due to this, he managed to establish several connections with important politicians of his time. After finishing his education, Thomas joined the British Army.
Military career
His military career was quite long and was characterized by a rapid rise, even after having suffered several defeats, until he became a general. Shortly after joining the army, in 1741, he received the rank of lieutenant. That year he fought in Flanders, during the War of the Austrian Succession. A year later, he was made a first lieutenant and in 1743, he was promoted to captain.
Thomas Cage participated in the Battle of Fontenoy, present-day Belgium, in 1745. He was also part of various campaigns in the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, North America, and India. In 1751 he obtained the rank of lieutenant general.
The Seven Years’ War
In 1754, Thomas Cage was sent to North America to fight the French army in Canada as a member of the Braddock Expedition, led by General Edward Braddock. On this expedition he met George Washington. Although the two fought together against a common enemy and are believed to have forged a friendship, they were later rivals and commanded opposing armies.
Between the years 1756 and 1763 the Seven Years’ War took place. This included different armed conflicts in the colonies of America and India, whose control was disputed by the Kingdom of Great Britain and other European states.
battles in canada
Although Thomas Gage participated in several battles, most ended in defeat, for which he received various criticisms throughout his career.
In the year 1755 he became commander-in-chief of the 44th Regiment after the death of Colonel Sir Peter Halkett, who had commanded the regiment until then.
In 1756 he was part of the British expedition to the Mohawk River, in the state of New York in what is now the United States, a campaign that was also unsuccessful. There the Battle of Monongahela took place, where they fought against French troops and indigenous populations. The confrontation ended with the death of Braddock and many British soldiers.
The following year the 80th regiment was under the command of Captain General John Campbell in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Although he was not very successful during those years either, he was promoted to colonel.
Return to the United States and Battle of Fort Carillon
Later, Thomas Gage returned to New Jersey, where he began recruiting soldiers to form a battalion of infantry in the year 1757.
In July of that same year, under the orders of General James Abercrombie, Gage led his regiment against Fort Carillon, now known as Fort Ticonderoga. This place was a fortress that was located on the border between Canada and what is now the state of New York and was under the power of the French army.
In this battle Abercrombie was defeated and Thomas Gage received minor injuries. Despite the defeat, he obtained the rank of brigadier general; this was probably due to his political connections and those of his brother William, 2nd Viscount Gage.
Back in New York, Gage met with the new British commander in chief in the United States, Jeffery Amherst.
Marriage
In 1758 he met Margaret Kembre, daughter of Peter Kemble, a renowned New Jersey politician, and granddaughter of New York Mayor Stephanus Van Cortlandt. At the end of that year they were married. The marriage had eleven children, of whom five survived; most of them reached high positions in society and politics. One was Henry Gage, who would later become the 3rd Viscount Gage.
Government of Montreal and Pontiac’s rebellion
In 1759, Gage was sent to the town of Albany in New York State and later received orders from Jeffery Amherst to recapture Fort La Galette and the city of Montreal. There he was in command of the rear guard. Following the capture of the city in 1760, he was appointed Governor of Montreal. Thomas Gage was noted for being a good administrator.
When Amherst returned to Britain in 1763, Gage was appointed acting commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America.
That year there was a rebellion by Native Americans against British expansion and control, led by Chief Pontiac. Gage sent some of his colonels to settle the conflict peacefully and negotiate a peace treaty, which was achieved three years later.
Beginning of the American Revolution
Command and Boston Massacre
A year later, Gage was granted the commanding-in-chief position permanently. His tasks were mainly administrative. In this period, Gage also participated in various social activities and helped his friends and acquaintances to obtain different political positions.
Meanwhile, internal conflicts in the colonies began to increase, mainly in Boston. One reason was the Stamp Act of 1765, a tax the British government forced the American colonies to pay. In 1768, Gage ordered his troops to occupy the city, which escalated tensions and culminated in the Boston Massacre in 1770, when British soldiers fired on a protesting crowd, killing five civilians.
The tea party and intolerable laws
In 1773 Gage and his family returned to Britain. Six months later there was the Boston Tea Party, led by the Sons of Liberty, a political group that began to fight for American independence. Tons of tea were dumped into the sea, in protest against the abusive Tea Act, which authorized the British East India Company to sell its tea in the colonies duty-free.
In the aftermath of these incidents, Great Britain passed the so-called Intolerable Laws, a series of severe regulations that Gage implemented in the following years and that would later cause the start of the American War of Independence.
Massachusetts Government
In 1774, Thomas Gage was appointed as Governor of Massachusetts, a position previously held by Thomas Hutchinson, whose image was badly tarnished by the growing conflicts in Boston. Although Gage was received with honors in the city, he soon began to feel the discontent of the town at his measures.
In addition to enforcing the intolerable laws, Gage supported other legislation that contributed to worsening the situation in Boston and the rest of the colonies. One of these was the Boston Harbor Act, which prohibited the use of the port until the British government was compensated for the goods lost during the Tea Party. This caused a great lack of provisions for the population, as well as much loss of work.
Other controversial laws of the time were the Massachusetts Government Act, which gave the governor totalitarian power, and the Quartering Act, which allowed military troops to be housed in private residences.
Gage also mobilized his troops from New York, New Jersey, and other locations and sent them to Boston. He gave them orders to search the city and confiscate all the gunpowder they found. While this was initially successful, it triggered the so-called “powder alarm,” a reaction that further united the patriots.
In order not to aggravate the situation, Gage did not try to stifle patriotic groups like the Sons of Liberty. This policy earned him new criticism for being too lenient.
The siege of Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill
In 1775, Gage received orders to fight the patriots and confiscate their weaponry. Although these orders were secret, they reached the ears of the patriots, which led to the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first revolutionary confrontations. Supposedly, the person who revealed the secret was Margaret Kemble, Gage’s wife; because of this, he sent her back to Britain.
As a counterattack, the patriots began the siege of Boston and Britain sent General William Howe as reinforcements. With his help, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, where the British troops had a partial victory, because they suffered so many losses.
After that battle, Gage had to return to England, and Howe was made acting commander-in-chief of British forces in America.
In 1776, Howe was permanently appointed, and Gage remained nearly retired from military service until 1781, when Amherst requested his help in resisting a potential French invasion.
death and legacy
In 1782 Gage was promoted to general. A few years later, in 1787, Thomas Gage died in England. After his death, his wife and five of his children continued to live in Britain, where they settled and rose to positions in the military and politics.
In reward for his service to the British crown, Thomas Gage received some land in the Canadian town of Grimross, a town that is now named Gagetown in his honor.
Bibliography
- Hook, H. The Scars of Independence: The Violent Birth of the United States . (2021). Spain. Wake up Ferro Editions.
- Grant, S. M. History of the United States of America . (2014). Spain. Akal.
- Hughet, M. A Brief History of American Independence. (2017). Spain. Nowtilus.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Thomas Gage Biography, Facts & Revolutionary War . Available at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Gage .
