Military history ping. Thanks for the heads up, abb.
Posted on 03/05/2008 4:10:07 PM PST by abb
March 5, 1770 Civilians and soldiers clash in the Boston Massacre On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of angry colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins tossing snowballs and rocks at the lone British soldier guarding the building. The protesters opposed the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament without direct American representation.
The previous Friday, British soldiers looking for part-time work and local Bostonian laborers had brawled at John Hancockýs wharf. After the brouhaha escalated to include forty soldiers, their colonel, William Dalrymple confined them to their barracks. Peace settled over the city during the two-day observance of the Puritan Sabbath. However, tempers on both sides were still flaring and no one expected Monday, March 5, to pass without incident. After sunset, the brawl between Boston civilians and British soldiers began again.
When the customs-house sentinel called for assistance, a British corporal and seven soldiers came to his aid. Two of these reinforcements had been among the soldiers brawling on Hancockýs wharf the previous Friday. British Captain Thomas Preston assumed command of the riled Redcoats and ordered them to fix their bayonets. As the crowd dared the snow-pelted soldiers to fire, Private Hugh Montgomery slipped and fell, leading him to discharge his rifle into the jeering crowd. The other soldiers began firing a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying: Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell. Three more were injured. Although it is unclear whether Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Indian ancestry, was the first to fall, as is commonly believed, the deaths of the five men are sometimes regarded as the first fatalities of the American Revolution.
The British soldiers were put on trial, and John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. agreed to defend the soldiers, in a show of support of the colonial justice system. When the trial ended in December 1770, only two of the six British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. They were branded on the thumb and released.
ping
ping
Between 1765 and 1770, NYC was the center of Revolutionary activity (remember the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 took place in NYC), but after 1770, Boston took over.
It is also the day before the fall of The Alamo.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
||
|
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Not to belittle this event in our nation’s history, but when does the killing of five people and the wounding of three more constitute a massacre? The colonial media blew this way out of proportion (just like the media still does).
And while this is a pretty evenhanded account of the affair, a review of the trial of the soldiers (in which John Adams took a leading role in defense of Captain Preston and the enlisted men) is very instructive.
In trial testimony, Attucks was described as behaving 'like a madman' - he actually attempted to grab a soldier's musket and was wrestling with him for it when it discharged. A prominent Boston physician who attended one of the victims on his deathbed testified to the man's statement (admissible as a dying declaration) that he should have known better to hang around the Custom House, because he was from Ireland and he had seen riots there, 'and had never known troops to stand so much before firing'.
Adams very cautiously avoided eliciting testimony that Sam Adams's right hand man was leading the rioters, but that information was in the statements given by witnesses.
In other words, this was a put up job, a provocation pounced upon by the news media for their own purposes.
It is a good thing that Adams and other respectable Bostonians recognized the danger inherent in King Mob, and shuffled Sam Adams and his gang out of the way as soon as war appeared inevitable.
An excellent history of the American Revolution is “George Washington’s War” by Robert Leckie. It is a very enjoyable, easy read.
Other books by Leckie that I have read:
None Died in Vain - Civil War
Delivered From Evil - WWII
The Wars of America - All wars from the French & Indian to the Gulf War.
Thanks! I will check those out.
Forty years ago I read this one by Leckie. Even today I can still recall passages from this book...
I haven’t read that one, I’ll have to someday. If I remember correctly, Mr. Leckie served in the Marines and fought on Guadalcanal. He tells about enlisting, Parris Island, and his other time in the Marines in “Delivered From Evil” as a character nicknamed “Lucky”.
“Not to belittle this event in our nation’s history, but when does the killing of five people and the wounding of three more constitute a massacre? The colonial media blew this way out of proportion (just like the media still does).
...”
Four dead in Ohio...Everybody sing...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.