Diary of Peter Kimball: A Soldier in the French and Indian War

The North American Colonists throughout the 1760s became increasingly self-aware of the growing cultural divide between the British Government and the Provincial Militia of the Colonies. The French and British Empires were struggling to gain the upper hand in the diverse trade economy flourishing around the Ohio River. Native indigenous groups were being pressured to fight or run away from the encroaching armies, and thousands of Colonists were pouring into North America to build a new life away from the European wars and religious persecution. The colonial frontiersmen of the Ohio River Valley, witnessing the British Crown's Warfare against France, would come to accept that they would be better off without the shadow of British majors, officers, and foot soldiers on their lands. This history and its effects on the Colonists are demonstrated throughout the recorded life of my 18th-century ancestor, Peter Kimball. I discovered his perspective during the French and Indian War through months of research. This research led me to the New Hampshire Historical Society. I am deeply grateful to Sarah Galligan, the Director of the New Hampshire Historical Society’s Archival and Library Collections, who provided me with a PDF copy of Peter Kimball’s diary.  

Peter Kimball’s story starts in 1760. This was the year that 22-year-old George III became King of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the fourth year of the Seven Years War (1756-1763) between Great Britain and France, fought through each of the Empire's Native American allies. The Seven Years war, also known as the French and Indian War in North America, is the context of Peter Kimball’s personal journal. 

The year before Peter Kimball’s journal began was filled with important victories by the British Empire. 1759, known later as the ‘Wonderful Year’ and ‘Year of Miracles’ to the British Empire, saw several major military victories. Britain Admiral Edward Hawke took down the French fleet in Quiberon Bay, British Major General Jeffrey Amherst took over the French forts Carillon and St. Frederic, and British General James Wolfe captured the city of Quebec in Canada. The siege of Quebec and British General James Wolfe’s death during the battle created a North American legend. This would inspire many Colonists to praise and rally around the British Empire’s conquests. Possibly inspired by the sudden victories and the stories of General Wolfe’s heroism in battle, Peter Kimball would join the British Army the following year as a provincial soldier.

The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West (1776). This painting gives an accurate view of the British Empire’s dream for the North American Colonies at the time: A stretch of their empire that crusades across the land in the name of God. General Wolfe’s posture here invokes previous paintings of Jesus Christ coming down from the cross. 

“In Bradford I [Enlisted] Under Lieut Jonathan Foster Into the [Provincial] Service” 

-Peter Kimball’s Journal (1760)

On March 4, 1760, Peter Kimball became a provincial soldier under Lieutenant Jonathan Foster at Bradford, Massachusetts. For many colonists, enlistment as a Provincial Soldier in the British Army was a huge step towards securing financial stability. Instead of waiting for odd jobs to do for relatives or neighbors, as was common at the time, they could now get a seasonal income by serving the Crown on the frontiers of North America. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin describes them to British Officer Peter Collison as “being regularly enlisted to serve for a Term, and in the Pay of the Province; and do nothing but bear Arms like your Regulars.” Those stationed at British forts such as Peter Kimball would do far more carpentry work than bearing arms. 

Allegiance to King George II 

 “I went to Haverhill and took the oath and was Sworn to be true to King [George] and to [obey] all my Good officers”

- Peter Kimball’s Journal (1760) -

On March 31st, 1760, Peter Kimball recorded in his diary that he had given his allegiance to the British Empire for the purpose of serving as a provincial soldier. All 13 Colonies had a similar procedure for those wanting to serve the Monarchy. For example, in the southern colony of North Carolina, government officials and soldiers took an oath swearing “...with Heart & Hands, Life and Goods, maintain and defend His Majesty's Government and the Laws and Constitution of the Province of North Carolina…”. For the average colonist, loyalty and reverence for the King were understood as necessary components of living under the monarchy of Great Britain. As Peter Kimball moved around the countryside and lived among British Soldiers, he and other provincial soldiers quickly realized their culture was scorned by England’s soldiers and their respect for the King was ignored.

Provincial soldiers like Peter Kimball would quickly learn just how different the “Rustic” Colonists' culture and attitude were from the “Professional” British Soldiers stationed in North America. Since artisans and farmers alike occupied the roles of the provincial soldier in British North America, the British Soldiers from England viewed them as primitive and obsolete. Peter Kimball was no exception to this stereotype, as he mentions numerous times his carpentry and farming work for his friends and family. An average week in his journal consisted of building chests, fences, and shelves while cutting wooden planks for his neighbors and the British regulars. His agriculture skills included growing wheat, beans, and corn. He also served his immediate family by sewing clothes and documenting marriage records. 

“I made [some] shelves in the [seller] and painted the [front] [door], in the afternoon I [worked] at the mill and [sawed] plank.” 

- Peter Kimball (176) -

As rural colonists serving the British Crown amidst British Regulars, Peter Kimball and his fellow provincial soldiers were judged as lazy men who left their families and jobs to live in the wilderness of North America (Leach 6). Instead of fighting the French and Native American forces in the Ohio River Valley, the provincial soldiers were kept behind to finish building the Fort possibly due to this assumption. These cultural divides did not stop the Colonists from respecting and serving the British Crown and their King. When the news of King George II’s death came to the colonies of North America, the Boston News-Letter Newspaper spelled out the feelings of reverence and respect among many colonists for the newly appointed King George III: 

“Hail! Princely Youth! may guardian powers defend

Thee, Britain’s safety; and to distant times

Transmit the honours of thy lengthen’d sway” 

The high respect Provincial Soldiers held for their British Officers and the Crown began to dissipate, however, once they witnessed the extreme discipline practices of the British Officers. 

Woodwork and Whippings at Fort Crown Point

“I worked in the fort and at night I saw 3 men whipt [some] for swearing [some] for [eating breakfast], after he was called to work”

- Peter Kimball’s Journal (1760) -

On the 27th of the following month, Peter Kimball records that he and his fellow soldiers had marched from Fort Ticonderoga to Fort Crown Point. Both of these forts were located on the eastside of New York near Lake Chaplain. Fort Crown Point was a British fort established as a line of defense against French incursions into North America. According to New York State Parks & Historical Sites, it was the “largest fortification erected on the North American continent at the time.” Fort Crown Point was built on top of a previous French fort called St. Frederic, which the French had abandoned in 1759. 

Sketch of “Amherst Army at Crown Point” by Thomas Davis (1759). James Lancel McElhinney. 

    According to Peter Kimball in his journal, his work consisted of a wide variety of tasks during his time in Fort Crown Point. He moved timber from nearby forests to Crown Point, built wooden flooring and walls for their tents’ protection, cleaned the beds of British soldiers, and constantly moved when his regiment was restored somewhere new. His carpenters skills must have impressed the British, as he recalls building the flooring of Major Phillip Skene’s house at Fort Crown Point. The work given to provincial soldiers took all day, making it difficult for them to even keep their hygiene well. According to Benjamin Crary of the New York Militia stationed at the fort, “Our men are kept very hard at work Every Day; not time so much as to wash their clothes.” In the heat and odors of unwashed clothes, Peter Kimball would work in an environment that was as gross as it was dangerous. 

“I was [ordered] on [guard] but [the] [major] of the [regulars] sent up for 2 carpenters to lay a [floor] in a hut and I went down and [helped] lay it.”

- Peter Kimball’s Journal (1760) -

Portrait of British Major Phillip Skene. Referred to as an “infernal scoundrel” by John Adams, Phillp Skene joined British General John Burgoyne’s command during his travel to Bennington, Vermont in 1777. Attempting to gather loyalist forces in the town to stop the American revolution, he would come face to face with Peter Kimball once again. BenningtonBattlefield.org

Hostile Native American tribes hunted the soldiers and made the road between Fort Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga exceptionally dangerous. While Peter Kimball was heading back to Crown Point, he was informed that a few of a well-known group of professional frontiersmen, Robert Rogers’ Rangers, were killed by Native Americans on their way back to the fort. These frequent Native American raids against traveling colonists, as well as lack of food and other provisions, lead many provincial soldiers to abandon their duties. According to Samuel Maccclintok, a volunteer Chaplain for the New Hampshire Provincials militia stationed at Crown Point in 1760, “This morning though we had a little flower yet the regiment in general, were out of meat, & when they were ordered to proceed to their work on the road as usual, several squads…absolutely refused, clubb’d their muskets and returned to their Camps.'' The following day, a group of captains stationed at Crown Point “[ran] off in a single file, with their packs & arms without offering any reason to the [Colonel]…the pretense they made for their desertion was the want of Provision.” The men’s desperation for food and supplies led to them stealing and fighting inside Crown Point. 

Portrait of Robert Rogers with a Native American in the background (1778). New England Historical Society. Roberts’ Rangers were one of the most famous British militia groups in the French and Indian War.

Samuel Burr, a Provincial soldier from Massachusetts stationed in Crown Point shares in his diary from August 1760: “There was a man whipped a thousend lashes and cared out of the regiment for steling [from] stores. The 2nd day there was orders for a hundred [lashes].” The British and Provincial soldiers who disobeyed their orders in Fort Crown Point were given brutal whippings as Samuel Burr recounts. Both Samuel Burr and Peter Kimball recall multiple whipping sessions. Peter Kimball shares in his journal:  “...in the morning I saw a man [whipped] 100 lashes.” The very next day he records, “...in the morning at 8 o'clock I saw a man [whipped] 500 Lashes.” British Soldiers at Fort Crown Point could even be punished for swearing while at work. He records seeing “3 men [whipped], [some] for swearing[,] [some] for [Eating] breakfast after he was [called] to work.”

A 19th Century drawing of a British soldier being flogged by a Cat-O-Nine-Tails. Ann Ronan Picture Library.

One of the more notorious practices of the British Military was its flogging and whipping of soldiers and criminals. According to Issac Makos, a supervisor for George Washington’s Mount Vernon museum, “a regimental court might sentence a soldier to receive between twenty-five and five hundred lashes, inflicted with a “cat o' nine tails,” a whip with nine tails. These floggings were done publicly, to set an example for the rest of the soldiers…The regiment’s surgeon would observe the punishment and had the authority to halt the lashing if he believed the convicted soldier would not survive further punishment. Soldiers who were sentenced to hundreds of lashes might endure multiple sessions, separated by time to recover.” 

American colonists nicknamed the British “Bloody Backs” because of their severe discipline practices. Peter Kimball does not share his opinion on the whippings he witnessed, but others in similar positions have. Fellow Massachusetts Provincial Soldier Gibson Clough, while stationed at Fort Louisbourg, provides an insight into how Colonial men such as Peter Kimball viewed the treatment of British officers towards their soldiers: “although we be Englishmen born, we are debarred Englishmen's liberty. Therefore we now see what it is to be under martial law and to be with the regulars who are but little better than slaves to their officers. And when I get out of their [power] I shall take care of how I get in again…” The Provincial soldiers of the French and Indian War, witnessing the abuse given by the British Officers, may have assumed they would be treated similarly under their command.

    The eight months of harsh carpentry labor in all seasons, the lack of respect for their culture from their Majors as well as the violent abuse shown to the British Regulars, revealed to Provincial Soldiers like Peter Kimball and Gibson Clough that the British Government and its military were not going to support them in the long term. Only 17 years later, the Colonists would risk everything to remove the British Crown and its soldiers from their land in the American Revolutionary War. During that conflict, Peter Kimball would come face to face again with British Major Phillip Skene in the fields of Bennington, Vermont.