Whenever tackling a large research project, with multiple editors involved, errors, both in fact and formatting, are bound to happen. Here are the errata I know about.
Igniting the American Revolution: 1773–1775 Errata:
- Table of Contents: my style is “appendices” not “appendixes”
- p. 147 should read: “As they approached within a mile or so of Lexington Green…”
- p. 147 should read: “Flintlock muskets worked by first igniting a priming charge, which then ignited the powder (not cartridge) in the barrel and in turn fired the ball.”
- p. 162 should read: “There, concealed under dirt or leaves, lay three large iron 24-pounders, which the grenadiers rendered useless by pounding off their trunnions (pivots, but perhaps they just spiked these guns).”
- p. 183 should read: “The road turned again eastward and around a slope called the Bluff.”
- p. 236 should read: “He reached the city on May 28…”
- p. 237 should read: “But in 1758, with the war sweeping across the American frontier and into Canada, the British had mounted a failed bloody offensive to conquer the fort. In a second attempt in 1759, after battering its walls with heavy cannon…” (In the original version, the fact that there were two battles is obscured.)
- Appendix 3: Arrivals of British Troops to Boston in 1774–1775 (p. 278 ff.): several minutia that was unknown to me is now noted in the paperback.
- Appendix 4: Tallies of British Troops in Boston in 1774–1775 (p. 292 ff.): several minutia that was unknown to me is now noted in the paperback. Specifically, while I noted 39 men per company was the full complement, I was unaware that the three corporals per company were counted among these (but that fact does not effect my estimates). In the paperback, I note that there are, in addition to these 36 privates and 3 corporals, 2 sergeants and 1 musician (not always a boy as I noted), making a full company 42 enlisted. The officers remain at 3 per company.
- Appendix 4: Tallies of British Troops in Boston in 1774–1775 (p. 292): the regular infantry is not also known as foot guards as I noted. Foot guards are a distinct type of soldier, not relevant to our story.
- Appendix 4: Tallies of British Troops in Boston in 1774–1775 (p. 292 ff.): too late into the publication process, I became aware of the muster rolls in the UK National Archives giving full details of troop counts in Boston. It is possible to use those to render more accurate numbers than my estimates here. Given my new understanding of troop counts, I suspect my numbers in this appendix are slightly low by 6%.
- Bibliography p. 449: Title of Graves’s The Conduct of Vice Admiral Samuel Graves… should be in italics.
- Bibliography p. 458 and Globally in notes and appendices: somehow during the final edit process, every reference to the book “Life and Times of Joseph Warren” was globally changed to give attribution to Allen French. In the bibliography, it was then moved to below French’s entry. This is wrong. Every reference to “French, Life and Times” or “French, Life and Times of Joseph Warren”, should read “Frothingham, Life and Times” instead. And in the bibliography, “Life and Times” should be under Richard Frothingham’s entry.
- Bibliography p. 462: “Tzu, Sun” is the proper spelling, not “Tsu”.
- Bibliography p. 462: Watertown’s Military History (Boston: David Clapp & Son, Printers, 1907) should be noted as a separate entry. It was not authored by Warren, Edward.
Found another error? Please let me know here.
