Boston Massacre March 5, 1770 (Boston, Massachusetts)
Boston was still mad about the Townshend Act (extra taxes on shipping transactions), the Redcoat regiments stationed in the city and about the death of 11 year old Chris Seider. The Massacre began about as stupidly as any street brawl does. Private Hugh White was stationed on King Street (now State Street) when he saw Edward Garrick, an apprentice wigmaker, shout at a British officer, claiming the officer had not paid his wig debt. The officer, having actually paid his wig debt, ignored the provocation, but White didn't. He told Garrick, who was just a boy, to be respectful. Garrick cursed him out. White hit Garrick in the side of his head with his musket.
Boston's blood began to boil. A crowd gathered around White. The church bells began ringing an alert, which brought out more people. They were angry. The crowd got bigger, and began turning into a mob. They hurled snowballs and rocks at White, who retreated to the steps of the customs house. When reinforcements arrived - six more soldiers and a non-commissioned officer - the mob was at about two to three hundred angry Bostonians (and probably drunk, too, if I know my Bostonians). It was eight redcoats with their ranking man in charge Captain Preston standing right in front of them against a few hundred furious colonists.
The soldiers were arrayed in a semi circle facing out, muskets loaded. The crowd kept throwing snowballs and rocks, and they taunted the soldiers by shouting "Fire!" A local innkeeper, who liked to carry a club, came menacingly up to the soldiers.
And then someone threw an object - popularly said to be a snowball but probably actually a chunk of ice - that knocked one of the soldiers down and made him drop his gun. Terrified and furious, he raised his gun as someone right behind him shouted "Damn you, fire!".
The innkeeper hit the soldier on the arm with his club, and then nailed another soldier on the head. The officer never gave an order to fire, but the rest of the men did just that. A volley of shots rang out and three of the crowd were killed instantly. Two others were so wounded that they died later. Six others were injured.
Calm was restored that night, and the 'Quiet Period' began in Boston - it would be three more years until the Boston Tea Party and five more until the Shot Heard Round the World was fired in the Battle of Lexington and Concord - but the Revolution began during those two weeks in the winter of 1770. The days following the shooting were a battle of propaganda, one handily won by the burgeoning revolutionaries. The Boston Gazette painted the incident as the latest in a long series of British attempts to kill liberty, and it portrayed the mob as a group of peace-loving innocents. It also published the infamous engraving of Paul Revere, which showed the British officer ordering his men to fire. There's even an extra musket shown firing out of the customs house, renamed The Butcher's Hall, as if to say that the redcoats had planned the whole thing.
That engraving became the focal point for subsequent propaganda in the colonies, and prints of it were regularly in the homes of Patriots. The true version of events didn't matter, what mattered was how it felt. At least that was the case for most Patriots; John Adams, cousin of Sam and future president, actually defended the redcoats in court. And he got six of them off. His argument was that the soldiers were confronted by "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs [i.e. sailors]" and thus were in their rights to defend themselves. Two were convicted of manslaughter and were marked with a brand on their thumbs.
The most important witness in the trial may have been one of the five men killed in the Massacre. Patrick Carr, an Irish immigrant, took two weeks to die, and in that time he told his doctor that he felt the soldiers were well within their rights to fire upon the crowd. His doctor testified:
Q: Were you Patrick Carr's surgeon?
Samuel Hemmingway: I was...
Q: Was he [Carr] apprehensive of his danger?
SH: He told me… he was a native of Ireland, that he had frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called upon to quell them… he had seen soldiers often fire on the people in Ireland, but had never seen them bear half so much before they fired in his life...
Q: When had you the last conversation with him?
SH: About four o'clock in the afternoon, preceding the night on which he died, and he then particularly said, he forgave the man whoever he was that shot him, he was satisfied he had no malice, but fired to defend himself.
The first casualty in any war is a human being, but the second is always the truth. It is rare that real life conflicts are cut and dried, and the War of Independence certainly wasn't as black and white as we were taught in school. The propaganda that comes out of any incident can be as important as the incident itself****. It isn't about how people die in war, it's about how we're told how they died in war.
Boston's blood began to boil. A crowd gathered around White. The church bells began ringing an alert, which brought out more people. They were angry. The crowd got bigger, and began turning into a mob. They hurled snowballs and rocks at White, who retreated to the steps of the customs house. When reinforcements arrived - six more soldiers and a non-commissioned officer - the mob was at about two to three hundred angry Bostonians (and probably drunk, too, if I know my Bostonians). It was eight redcoats with their ranking man in charge Captain Preston standing right in front of them against a few hundred furious colonists.
The soldiers were arrayed in a semi circle facing out, muskets loaded. The crowd kept throwing snowballs and rocks, and they taunted the soldiers by shouting "Fire!" A local innkeeper, who liked to carry a club, came menacingly up to the soldiers.
And then someone threw an object - popularly said to be a snowball but probably actually a chunk of ice - that knocked one of the soldiers down and made him drop his gun. Terrified and furious, he raised his gun as someone right behind him shouted "Damn you, fire!".
The innkeeper hit the soldier on the arm with his club, and then nailed another soldier on the head. The officer never gave an order to fire, but the rest of the men did just that. A volley of shots rang out and three of the crowd were killed instantly. Two others were so wounded that they died later. Six others were injured.
Calm was restored that night, and the 'Quiet Period' began in Boston - it would be three more years until the Boston Tea Party and five more until the Shot Heard Round the World was fired in the Battle of Lexington and Concord - but the Revolution began during those two weeks in the winter of 1770. The days following the shooting were a battle of propaganda, one handily won by the burgeoning revolutionaries. The Boston Gazette painted the incident as the latest in a long series of British attempts to kill liberty, and it portrayed the mob as a group of peace-loving innocents. It also published the infamous engraving of Paul Revere, which showed the British officer ordering his men to fire. There's even an extra musket shown firing out of the customs house, renamed The Butcher's Hall, as if to say that the redcoats had planned the whole thing.
That engraving became the focal point for subsequent propaganda in the colonies, and prints of it were regularly in the homes of Patriots. The true version of events didn't matter, what mattered was how it felt. At least that was the case for most Patriots; John Adams, cousin of Sam and future president, actually defended the redcoats in court. And he got six of them off. His argument was that the soldiers were confronted by "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs [i.e. sailors]" and thus were in their rights to defend themselves. Two were convicted of manslaughter and were marked with a brand on their thumbs.
The most important witness in the trial may have been one of the five men killed in the Massacre. Patrick Carr, an Irish immigrant, took two weeks to die, and in that time he told his doctor that he felt the soldiers were well within their rights to fire upon the crowd. His doctor testified:
Q: Were you Patrick Carr's surgeon?
Samuel Hemmingway: I was...
Q: Was he [Carr] apprehensive of his danger?
SH: He told me… he was a native of Ireland, that he had frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called upon to quell them… he had seen soldiers often fire on the people in Ireland, but had never seen them bear half so much before they fired in his life...
Q: When had you the last conversation with him?
SH: About four o'clock in the afternoon, preceding the night on which he died, and he then particularly said, he forgave the man whoever he was that shot him, he was satisfied he had no malice, but fired to defend himself.
The first casualty in any war is a human being, but the second is always the truth. It is rare that real life conflicts are cut and dried, and the War of Independence certainly wasn't as black and white as we were taught in school. The propaganda that comes out of any incident can be as important as the incident itself****. It isn't about how people die in war, it's about how we're told how they died in war.
Propaganda=Engraving at night, no dog, Preston in front, puff of smoke from the window, number of Colonists, faces of Redcoats
What time of day was it?
Look at the faces of both sides...
Ploof of smoke...
Dog?
Placement of Captain Preston?
Women?
Placement of Crispus Attacks
Paul Revere's poem stitched on the engraving.
Unhappy Boston! see thy Sons deplore
Thy hallow’d walks besmear’d with guiltless gore
While faithless P____n [Captain Preston] and his savage bands
With murd’rous rancour stretch their bloody hands
Like fierce barbarians grinning o’er their prey
Approve the carnage and enjoy the day.