This book, like the two that preceded it on the Middle and Southern colonies, seeks to answer one simple question. What happened in the thirteen colonies after bloodshed erupted at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 until independence was declared in July 1776? For the Northern colonies, the traditional view is that the New England reacted as one in their opposition to Great Britain, each sending troops to Massachusetts to help form an Army of Observation that within two months of Lexington became the Continental Army. This is indeed what happened, and the events at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and the siege of Boston had a tremendous impact on each New England colony.
But so too did other events that occurred within the borders of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Clashes with the British navy in far-away Machias, on the coast of present-day Maine, as well as in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts Bay, Buzzards Bay, Narragansett Bay, and Long Island Sound, all contributed to the growing sentiment for independence that grew in New England in the months following Lexington and Concord. So too did the destruction of Falmouth (present-day Portland, Maine) and the threatened destruction of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Newport, Rhode Island, not to mention the bombardment of Stonington, Connecticut.
New Englanders participated in the American effort to seize Canada in 1775 with troops under Colonel Benedict Arnold who marched through the wilderness of Maine to Quebec. New England troops also joined General Philip Schuyler in New York and participated in the capture of St. Jeans and Montreal. It was troops from New England that captured Fort Ticonderoga in New York just a few weeks after Lexington, and of course most notably, the Continental Army that besieged Boston in 1775 was comprised almost entirely of troops from New England.
Spark of Independence: The American Revolution in the Northern Colonies, 1775-1776 by historian Michael Cecere explores these less-known clashes and events that occurred during the fifteen months between Lexington and Concord and the Declaration of Independence. These engagements and incidents, although not as well known as Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, or the siege of Boston, contributed significantly to the growing support within New England for independence from Great Britain by 1776.