Thomas Gage

Thomas Gage was a British Army officer who served for many years in North America and became commander in chief of British forces there in 1763. In 1774 he was appointed military governor of Massachusetts as the imperial government tried to enforce the Coercive Acts after the Boston Tea Party.

Gage ordered the expedition to seize colonial military stores at Concord in April 1775, producing the fighting at Lexington and Concord that opened the American Revolutionary War. After the costly British victory at Bunker Hill he was recalled to Britain and did not return to major field command.

Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion portrays Thomas Gage as the British commander trying to contain colonial resistance while his orders and troops repeatedly intensify the crisis. Robert Harvey’s A Few Bloody Noses places his Massachusetts command within a wider reassessment of British strategy during the Revolution. Nathaniel Philbrick’s Bunker Hill shows Gage attempting to restore royal authority in Boston without triggering the general rebellion his military measures help produce. David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride examines his intelligence failures and the expedition to seize colonial stores that turns Lexington and Concord into the opening battle of the war.