Good morning everyone and welcome to another episode of ask a ranger my name is jim
hollister, a park ranger at minute man national historical
park in concord massachusetts so we have some great questions for-you today so let's
dive right in. the first question we have is from emily.
How common were accidents with firearms
during colonial times? so unfortunately they were very common. really as long as
humanity has had access to explosives and firearms
there been accidents. so I have some from our period of interest.
now the first two that I have to share with you are actually from the proceedings of the old
bailey in london and they're late seventeenth
century. so we have the first one here, july eleventh sixteen seventy
seven. a boy not above eleven years-old being sent
by a gentleman in his master's house upstairs to fetch a pair of pistols,
not suspecting them to be loaded and thinking to frighten the servant maid
with flashing a little powder which was in the pan, discharged it
and thereby unhappily killed her, for which he was brought in guilty
of manslaughter. we have another one, thirteen july sixteen
ninety-three.
William hickling, gentleman, was tried for the murther of one jonathan hall on
the third instant in st martins in the fields.
The matter thus. the prisoner and the deceased were in
tuttle fields and the prisoner being in arms upon the trained bands - that means
he was armed for militia drill - and meeting with the deceased he presented his
musket against him and shot it off.
and it happened that a piece of the rammer, by force
of the powder flew out of the musket and entered into the left part of the deceased
belly which gave him a wound of the depth of eight inches of
which he languished until the eighth instant and then died. the evidence for the king
declared the prisoner did present the musket against the deceased in a kind of jesting
manner saying "have at thee jonathan" and words to that effect.
So, we have also another advertisement that appeared in the massachusetts gazzette
in seventeen seventy warning the town watch to
be careful about where and how they store their firearms
and keeping them out of reach of children saying that there have been
"too many melancholy accidents of late." and then lastly we have one that I actually
read in john bells blog boston seventeen seventy five.
This one from cambridge massachusetts december first seventeen
seventy five from the diary of private aaron right. "john mcmurty,
n captain chambers company, killed
john penn by his rifle going off when he says he did not know
it was loaded. he was cleaning the lock and put it on and
primed it to see how she would fire. it shot through a double partition of
inch boards and through one board of berth and went in
at penn's breast and out at his back and left its mark upon the
chimney. penn put his hand on his breast
and, as he turned round fell down dead and never spoke more."
So, the common theme through all of these actually is that,
each one of these cases somebody was violating one of the major cardinal rules of
firearm safety, and that is always treat a firearm as though it
were loaded. assume it is loaded and also be aware of where your muzzle is and where
it's pointing. so yes,
these accidents could have been prevented and there are many more -pages
more accidents of a very similar nature from this period.
So, thank you for that question. and we're now going to address couple of questions
from donna. so the first one: what were the political points of view of the whigs and
tories, and how was each party represented at the time
of the start of the war?
So, first of all the terms whig and tory
are a reference to the two dominant political parties in great
britain at the time. now actually the term whig comes from
whiggamore which in the scottish dialect means cattle driver, and
tory is actually derived from an irish
word meaning thief. so I guess in terms of politics few things change.
Now at the time of the american revolution rebellious disaffected
americans aligned more with the tory party, excuse me, with the whig party
and they labelled those who were against them as tories. now
whigs tended to be in favor of constitutional monarchy,
trade, making money, political reform, whereas tories tended
to favor royal prerogative. so a whig might argue
taxation without representation is tyranny. it's a violation of our rights as
englishmen to representative government. whereas the true tory might say,
you know, parliament is a is supreme and that
they virtually represent all of his majesty's subjects at home or
abroad. now I mentioned that at the time of the revolution the whigs, the
rebellious americans, labeled those who opposed them
as tories, and that's not exactly
accurate for them to do so because many of those who decided to stay loyal
to the crown, we call them loyalists, and they refer to themselves loyalists
because not all of them politically aligned themselves with the tories. in fact many
of them agreed more with the wings that they do have a right
to no taxation without representation, and to representative government and, that
the acts parliament were violation of that. however when it came
time to actually taking up arms and rebelling against the king,
that was a step too far and they weren't willing to go there. they thought rather they could work
it out politically and through dialogue as opposed to the calamities
a civil war. now when the revolution starts; so parliament
passes the stamp act in seventeen sixty five, it's not like you see a period of
dialogue between the two sides. I mean things really go from zero to crazy
in an instant. so when the stamp act is passed in boston,
for example, immediately there were people taking to the streets.
And, anyone who opposed those who are protesting the stamp back they were
threatened with violence they were subjected to public humiliation having their effigies
hanged up in public places, property destruction, all sorts
of horrible and humiliating things. and then later on,
when boston merchants agreed upon a non importation agreement to stop
importing british goods until the Townshend duties were repealed,
those who violated the non importation agreements or sometimes administered
what was called the "modern punishment." we today would call
it tarring and feathering. so again you're not seeing a lot of dialogue
happening between there. however in the countryside things really quiet
until seventeen seventy four. so what happens?
december seventeen seventy three you have an event that we call the boston tea party.
parliament responded in early seventeen seventy four with heavy-handed tactics.
first of all they sent the navy to close the port of boston. they recalled
governor bernard and replaced him with the general Thomas gage who became the governor
of massachusetts. he was also the british military commander
and with him came nearly four thousand british
soldiers to garrison town of boston. and also they
passed the massachusetts government act which replaced the governor's council, sort of
the upper chamber of the congress, the great general
court, and replaced them with crown appointed counselors called mandamus
counselors. now in times past it's the general court and the governor's
council that control the funds and the governor salary, so it is a very strong
check upon the governor's power. that's now been removed. and the
massachusetts government act also replaces judges, justices of the peace,
with crown appointees who are appointed and paid by the crown.
Again, they're not answerable in any way to the people, so that outrages the
countryside .so whereas before a lot of resistance was in the cities
on the coast now the countryside heats up and
just like before there's very little dialogue between the
two and there's threats of violence and property destruction, people being
ostracized and driven from town. there was
however still a lively debate over whether or not the
destroyed tea should be paid for. parliament said that
they would repeal these intolerable acts if the people of massachusetts would
pay for the tea. so on one side you have people saying that they should pay it that,
you know, to pay it would separate the
whigs from this wanton act of property destruction
thus preserving the sanctity of cause.
But, on the other hand there are people saying we should not pay
it, and that if we do pay it we're going to show that we can be easily intimidated
by physical threats and that we're just going to invite more of that in the
future. so there was still debate over that particular issue but
positions are hardening and tories are really catching, excuse me,
loyalists are catching the worst of it. now there was a rare exception actually, the town of
marshfield massachusetts was a loyalist stronghold; so much so
that in december of seventeen seventy
four they formed a loyalist militia unit called the associated loyalists of Marshfield.
and in january seventeen seventy five they requested that governor gage.
Send regular troops to protect the people
of marshfield because they were surrounded by their enemies. and
on april nineteen seventeen seventy five
they was actually a large number of militia men from that area who were supposed to go
and attack marshfield and drive out the loyalists and the
regulars however,
they stopped just shy of doing so. they held back and the loyalists and
the regulars escaped by ship to boston. and that's what happens to a lot
of loyalists once the war begins they're coming out from the countryside into
boston, thousands of them and their families, going into boston under the protection of the
army because it's the only safe place for them. and when the army evacuated boston
in march of seventeen seventy six they took these loyalists with them to halifax
nova scotia and many of them never returned to their former homes again so,
a permanent change based on who you support in the middle of the political
upheaval.
good question thank you for that. we have another one. how were the roads marked? in other words
how did the british know where to go? so as we say here in massachusetts "if you belong here,
you'll know where you're going." not really. so,
this is an interesting question. so roads were sometimes marked with milestones and you'll
still see some of these existing today like along the old post roads. but
how they knew how to get from boston to concord, general
gage took a couple of measures. first of all he sent
two british officers, captain brown and ensign deberniere, out to
concord and actually around that area and other towns,
not in their uniforms of course but in civilian clothing, "brown clothes and
red handkerchiefs" as they were described. so,
their purpose was to go to concord, get some military information but also to scout
the roads, to figure out the quickest way to get from boston to concord,
and they were to look for features like possible ambush sites,
potential sites for encampments things like that, so it was
a reconnaissance mission and they made up a map. but also
as added assurance when the troops came out on april
nineteenth of seventeen seventy five they brought with them loyalist
guides. so I don't want you to come away with the idea that loyalists were just
too timid and afraid to join the rebellion. in many cases
they're willing to put their lives on the line to defend their rights as
englishmen to remain loyal to king and country. so in many ways
they considered themselves to be the real patriots, and
they were taking up arms in support of the government. some of them actually came out
with the troops to guide them along the roads and also to help
them in the search and destroy mission once they got into concord. and if you want to learn more about
the loyalist guides check out "historical nerdy" which is a blog run by
the historian alex cain and he's got a great article on that.
All right so we have one more question here from rich.
How many alarms occured and how do they
compare in terms of being major or minor events?
and which ones involved paul revere? excellent question. so
alarms are actually quite frequent in the history of colonial new England. the
most basic alarm is a fire alarm. you know, your neighbors house catches on fire and
bells are rung, and families actually
kept leather fire buckets to help put out the water,
excuse me, help put out the fire. so that would happen quite a lot. no it's not a major
event involving thousands of people. it's a very local event but serious enough if you happen to be one
of those locals. in terms of the military there are definitely periods
of war and tension where they're going to be more
on their guard. they're going to maintain
watches and garrisons on outposts and
establish a system for spreading the alarm and mobilizing military forces very quickly.
king phillip's war, sixteen seventy five and sixteen seventy six, that caused numerous
alarms as did the early french and indian wars. a good example being the attack on
deerfield in 1704. a french and indian war party
attacked the town, forty seven residents were killed, there more than
a hundred taken prisoner. and what stopped the attack was when the
alarm sounded and reinforcements from other towns came in forcing the french
in the indians to withdraw. now speaking of the french and indian wars, in the last one
in august of seventeen fifty seven there was a massive alarm
occasioned by the capitulation, the surrender of
fort william henry which was located at the southern tip of lake george in the province of
new york. so british general web
at fort edward knew that he was exposed in that fort mchenry, excuse me,
fort william henry, was going to fall so he sent word to the
new england governors, "I need troops!" send them fast.
and new England responded, they sent thousands of militiamen out towards fort
edward in response to general web's plea. so connecticut
drafted five thousand men from its militia, about a quarter of its total force,
and sent them out to fort Edward. massachusetts' governor pownall ordered the
four western-most militia regiments, about two thousand men,
to march immediately to forever and he then ordered all
twenty-six militia regiments in the province to be ready to march
"at a minutes warning..." sounds familiar doesn't it?
He then mobilized all troops of horse in the province,
meaning cavalry, and a quarter of the militia in prepared to send them
west of fort Edward. so, in all about seven thousand militia
men from massachusetts did respond to the william henry alarm.
But, now we get into the period of the american revolution and there are a series of
alarms leading up to the big one, the lexington alarm on april
nineteen.
So, the first we have is the
powder alarm september first seventeen seventy four.
So, general gauge received intelligence that well,
first of all there was a powder magazine in charlestown,
a part of town which is now somerville, and that the towns that were storing their powder
there were removing their stocks of powder and bringing them home and
that all that was left in there was the powder reserved for the government,
the kings powder. but general gage was very nervous that they were going to come and
take that too so he dispatched some regulars
out to charlestown to take that powder and secure it in boston,
but when word of that have got out the troops and come to
a charlestown, they were taking powder, the alarm spread to the countryside and
thousands of militia men are responding. and this escalated,
escalated very quickly because what happened was that there were rumors
spreading, not only that the regulars had come to take the powder,
but that the navy
had opened fire on the town of boston and the town was in flames,
and that the regulars were slaughtering the inhabitants. so thousands of militia men
are quickly and rapidly mobilizing flooding the
roads heading towards boston and in their
eyes this wasn't a lead up to the big show. this was it. they believed right
then and there the war was starting. so that was a massive
alarm several thousand appeared in twenty four hours. and some of them when
they realized that
the rumors of the bombardment and the slaughter were false,
they still continued on but they left their arms behind at local houses and taverns you know,
just because the site of being under arms is a shocking one and,
it really sends a very strong statement, not the one they were ready to make just yet but,
just by showing up, by their sheer presence and numbers, it scares the heck
out of general gage and he knows now that he's dealing with much more than
a noisy faction in boston. he's dealing with a countryside.
that is highly motivated and coming to get him, so that's really going to change how both sides
react to each other going forward. now general gage tries it again, december
fourteen seventeen seventy four he plans to dispatch troops up
to fort william and mary in portsmouth new hampshire which was a fort that
was garrisoned by just a handful of invalid soldiers not fit
for other service, and his plan was to disarm the fort, to take the guns, to
take the powder and bring that back to boston. paul revere rode up there and got
their first and alerted the people of Portsmouth and they actually attacked
the fort! so there was an exchange of fire between militia men
and british regulars, you know, more than four months before the war begins on april
nineteenth of seventeen seventy five.
And, no, one was killed.
But, again, you know, the war,it could happen right then and there.
in fact some people argue that it did, that it was actually the start of the war. so
the patriots quickly overwhelmed the garrison, they took the powder
and the arms in general gauge ended up empty-handed. he
made another attempt in february of seventeen seventy five
where he dispatched the sixty fourth regiment under colonel leslie to
salem, and the purpose was to search for artillery there. and the people were alerted in they rose up.
salem was mobilized, marblehead sent their militia and, again,
very tense scene. things really could've happened right then and there as well. and then there
was yet another alarm march thirtieth of seventeen seventy five
hugh, earl percy,
a british officer, led the first brigade on a training march out of boston
south through roxbury into brookline and that really frightened the
countryside. so local minutemen and militia responded rapidly and,
you know, attempted to basically block the route of march. and since it
was just a training march the regulars simply turned around went back to boston so,
nothing happened. no shots were fired. nobody was injured. however,
it prompted the massachusetts provincial
congress that very day to pass the following resolution.
"that whenever the army and the command of general gage or any part thereof
to the number of five hundred shall march out of the town of boston with artillery
and baggage it ought to be deemed a design to carry into execution by
force the late acts of parliament, the attempting which, by the resolve of the
late honorable continental congress, ought to be opposed and therefore the
military force of the province ought to be assembled and an army of observation immediately
formed to act solely on the defensive so long as it can be justified
on the principles of reason and self-preservation and no longer."
so that really alerts people that this could happen at any
moment. in fact from that point on minute men in the
town of concord knowing that they were going to be a target because the arms hidden in town
were under arms almost twenty four hours a day in regular watches were set, very tense
time. and then of course on april nineteenth the troops come out. this is the real thing.
They're going to penetrate all the way out to concord, and thousands of minutemen
and militia respond to the alarm that was triggered by paul
revere; though there's many other hands that finished it, and there are four thousand minutemen and
militia from twenty seven towns that responded and actually saw combat
against the regulars on that day of april nineteenth. and within three days twenty
thousand minutemen and militia from all across massachusetts responded
and arrived in the area around boston. and the rest they
say is history. so I thank you all very much for joining me for yet another session of ask
a ranger and we'll see you again next week. please send-me your questions.
again these sessions are pre-recorded so send them to me by Tuesday. that
will give me a little chance to research and also to prepare the video. and
until that time stay safe and enjoy the weather.