Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero

The 34-year-old Boston doctor, widowered father of four, and newly minted major general Joseph Warren (1741–75) died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. But because the Declaration of Independence was more than a year away and the Revolutionary War hadn't yet begun in earnest, Warren missed out on the mythical status his contemporaries George Washington, John Adams, and Paul Revere would later achieve. Nevertheless, writer Di Spigna considers Warren instrumental to Boston's insurrectionist movement of the 1760s and 1770s, and thus a "founding grandfather" of the American independence. As he gained more roles within the revolutionary cause—orator, spymaster, leader of Boston's Committee of Correspondence—Warren found himself at the center of famous historical events: as instigator of Paul Revere's famous "Midnight Ride," planner of the Boston Tea Party, and an early martyr at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Di Spigna, a Colonial Williamsburg volunteer and enthusiast of the era, sometimes borders on hagiography with an overt mission of boosting Warren's historical prominence.