Pierpont sought the legal basis for the seizure—Gage cited none, at least in this account—and argued the legitimacy of supplying the populace with ammunition as follows :
I then asked his Excellency by what Authority he detained my Goods—he answered, that it was not allowed in any Nation to transport such articles at particular times. I observed upon it, that there was a plain law of the Province that every Man should be Equipt with a certain quantity of Powder and Ball, and that now the time of year was come about to review arms; his Excellency then asked me by what authority they viewed arms, and who was their commanding officer, I answered the Law of the Province required it, and I further told him that being acquainted with the Country People, I had orders and letters, for sending large quantities and that I had carried out of Town about forty load, the Winter past, and that this near the last load I had to send, that I knew of, upon which he said that he wished the Laws of the Province were in force. I agreed with his Excellency in this, and said I wished it with all of my heart that they were observed.57
While Governor Gage would have been familiar with any law of the province requiring every man to be armed and to muster periodically, one detects a note of sarcasm in his wish that the laws were in force—Gage would have preferred the laws of the Crown over those of the province. His eyes must have rolled at Pierpont’s audacity in volunteering that he had successfully taken forty loads of ammunition out of Boston that winter. Of course, the patriots wished to dissuade any coercive military measures by creating the impression that they were well armed. In any event, Pierpont concluded his deposition thus:
I again requested that I might have an order for the forementioned articles, and he told me that they should be kept safe and it was likely I should have them again, I then said to his Excellency that, if I could not now have an order, I must seek any recompense in some other way, upon which I left his Excellency.58
Pierpont’s threat to take legal action to recover his property or to seek damages would hardly have left Gage shaking in his boots, for his will was by then the law. Not surprisingly, despite his assurances, no record exists that Gage ever returned Pierpont’s (or anyone else’s) seized ammunition. To the contrary, Gage was only weeks away from launching an expedition to seize the colonists’ arms in the countryside that would spark the Revolutionary War.
The patriot press made the most of the seizure, emphasizing that there was nothing unlawful about the owner’s possession of ammunition, regardless of the amount. One account stated: “The Neck Guard seized 13,425 musket cartridges with ball, (we suppose through the information of some dirty scoundrel, of which we have now many among us) and about 300 lb. of ball, which we were carrying into the country—this was private property.—The owner applied to the General first, but he absolutely refused to deliver it—they abused the teamster very much, and ran a bayonet into his neck.”59
In an open letter to General Gage, another writer linked this illegal seizure to the Crown’s decree banning import of arms (also of dubious lawfulness) as follows:
It is said that the troops, under your command, have seized a number of cartridges which were carrying out of the town of Boston, into the country; and as you were pleased to deny that you had meddled with private property, to the President of the Continental Congress, I would gladly be informed on what different pretence you now meddled with those cartridges. . . . I cannot conceive you will urge the late ridiculous proclamation [banning export of arms and ammunition to America] in defence of the action. That creature, absurd and strained as it is, can have no reference to the carriage of powder and shot from any one inland place to another. But admitting it had, are Royal Proclamations again to be forced upon us for laws? I can, indeed, Sir, account for your conduct in this and many other instances, upon no other footing than that of an actual conspiracy to overthrow the laws and constitution of the country you are sworn to protect . . . .60
When governments conduct police actions involving searches and seizures for contraband, many items go undetected for every successful seizure. The arms seized were only the tip of the iceberg. The patriots acquired, moved, and secreted many more firearms and ammunition than were ever detected and confiscated. In one incident, “three teams, loaded with three tons of gun powder, made up in cartridges, came out of Boston; two of them passed over the Neck unsuspected, but the last were stopped by the centinels; who being immediately reinforced by a party of solders, seized that load of powder.”61 John Andrews mentioned that “the Commissioners have appointed an officer, under pretence of searching for contraband goods, who inspects every Cask that is carried out of the town by opening and boring, so that the waggons are detain’d sometime by him.”62
Although not subjected to the same intense repression as New England, the other colonies saw the arms import ban as violating the right to keep and bear arms. The General Committee, South Carolina’s patriotic governing body, found that
by the late prohibition of exporting arms and ammunition from England, it too clearly appears a design of disarming the people of America, in order the more speedily to dragoon and enslave them; it was therefore recommended, to all persons, to provide themselves immediately, with at least twelve and a half pounds of powder, with a proportionate quantity of bullets.63
The colonists armed themselves from all possible sources. It was reported from Newport in early 1775 that “powder bears a very good Price in this Town; the People from all parts of the Country, the Fall past, having bought up almost all there was, to defend themselves against Wolves, and other Beasts of prey.”64 If such tongue-in-cheek satire was to be believed, it was as if there had recently been an invasion of wild animals.
There was no similar satire in the resolution of the Provincial Congress, “That it be strongly recommended, to all the inhabitants of this colony, to be diligently attentive to learning the use of arms . . . .”65 A letter from an American sympathizer in London warned that Gage was being reinforced to suppress the American rebels, and that British warships were coming “to obstruct the American trade, and prevent all European goods from going there; particularly arms and ammunition, which makes it expedient, without a moment’s delay, to be provided with such things as you may want.”66
General Gage indeed received the ministry’s directive on April 14 to suppress the rebellion, in part through organization of a Tory corps. Dartmouth wrote: “The violence committed by those, who have taken up arms in Massachusetts . . . have appeared to me as the acts of a rude rabble, without plan, without concert, without conduct, and therefore I think that a small force now, if put to the test, would be able to encounter them, with greater probability of success, than might be expected of a large army . . . .”67 The ministry ignored the warnings of moderates such as the Duke of Manchester, who in Parliamentary debate “cautioned the House to proceed with deliberation, as America had now three millions of people, and most of them were trained to arms, and he was certain they could now produce a stronger army than Great-Britain.”68
At the same time, George III extended the ban on export of arms: “His Majesty’s order in Council for prohibiting the exportation of gunpowder, or any sort of arms or ammunition, expiring on the 19th [of April] insists his Majesty hath been further pleased to command the said order to be continued for six months longer.”69 The Crown also persuaded the States General of Holland to join in the embargo. Writing from Whitehall on April 5, John Pownall notified the colonial governors:
As it may be of use that His Majesty’s subjects in America should be informed of the Proclamation issued by the orders of the States General, prohibiting the exportation of Arms and Ammunition from their Dominions, in British Ships, or in their own Ships, without leave of their College of Admiralty, I am directed by Lord Dartmouth to transmit to you the enclosed Gazette, containing the said Proclamation, which you will cause to be printed and published in such manner as you shall think fit.70
Gage acknowledged receipt on June 3 from Pownall of “the Gazette containing the Proclamati
on issued by Order of the State’s General, prohibiting the exportation of Arms and Ammunition to British America, which I shall cause to be made as Public as possible.”71 But that would be easier said than done. Amsterdam merchants evaded the restrictions, shipping large amounts of gunpowder disguised as tea chests and rice barrels to the Caribbean island of St. Eustatia and from there to America.72
It is worth pausing to note that, in the worldview of the patriots, possession of arms by the populace was necessary for both individual and common defense. This fundamental value was not questioned by the occurrence of random, tragic incidents, such as the two men who made a suicide pact and killed themselves with pistols, or the father who murdered his three daughters with a knife.73 Moreover, British authorities sought to disarm the colonists in order to dominate them politically, economically, and militarily, not as a purported safety measure to protect the colonists from themselves.
In the first quarter of 1775, the Crown sharply turned the screws against the Americans. To cut off the colonists’ ability to resist at the source, George III decreed a ban on export of arms and ammunition to America, with orders to his Royal governors to prohibit the import thereof into the colonies. At the same time, General Gage instituted general searches and seizures for arms and gunpowder, particularly at Boston Neck, the only access by land with the rest of Massachusetts. The patriots did everything in their power to evade the arms embargo and to smuggle arms and ammunition out of Boston.
For the ministry, the Americans could be put in their place only if completely disarmed. The shooting was about to begin.
CHAPTER 4
A Shot Heard ’Round the World and “a Cruel Act of Perfidy”
DISPERSE YOU REBELS—Damn you, throw down your Arms and disperse!” shouted British Major John Pitcairn at the militiamen who were assembled on Lexington’s common. “Upon which the Troops huzz’d, and immediately one or two Officers discharged their Pistols, which were instantaneously followed by the Firing of four or five of the Soldiers, then there seemed to be a general discharge from the whole Body.”1 So went a widely published American account of that fateful day of April 19, 1775.
The skirmish gave rise to numerous statements of eyewitnesses. John Robbins, one of the Lexington militiamen, would testify:
the company under Captain John Parker, being drawn up . . . on the green or common, . . . there suddenly appeared a number of the King’s troops, about a thousand as I thought, at the distance of about 60 or 70 yards from us, with three officers in their front on horseback and on full gallop towards us, the foremost of which cried, throw down your arms, go willing ye rebels, upon which said company dispersing, the foremost of the three officers ordered their men saying fire . . . .2
Still another patriot account claimed: “The regulars demanded their arms, which being refused, they fired and killed 7. The fire was returned by the brave survivors.”3 By contrast, Major Pitcairn wrote that, when his troops arrived and observed some 200 militiamen filing off toward some stone walls, “I instantly called to the Soldiers not to Fire, but to surround and disarm them, and after several repetitions of those positive Orders to the men, not to Fire etc., some of the Rebels who had jumped over the Wall, Fired Four or Five shott at the Soldiers,” wounding a soldier and the major’s horse. “At the same time several Shott were fired from a Meeting House on our Left—upon this, without any order or Regularity, the Light Infantry began a scattering Fire . . . .”4
The militiamen of Lexington and Concord consisted of all able-bodied males aged 16 through 60, from its gentlemen and yeomen to its laborers and apprentices, excluding the town’s Harvard students and a dozen African American slaves. All provided their own arms except for a few poor men who had to borrow them.5 One of the wounded at Lexington was listed as “Prince Easterbrooks (a Negro-Man).”6
Women and children assisted the militiamen in preparing for conflict. On the eve of the clash, Militia Colonel James Barrett’s 15-year-old granddaughter Meliscent taught the other young women of the town how to assemble cartridges. On an earlier occasion, when a British officer asked her how the colonists could resist without being able to make cartridges, she responded “that they would use powder horns and bullets—just as they shot bear.”7
The patriots had accumulated vast stores of arms and ammunition, secreting them at some thirty private homes and farms in Concord. General Gage sent two officers disguised as farmers to gain intelligence regarding the places of storage and the mood of the country.8 Other informers, their identities unknown, reported intelligence to Gage about arms stored at the houses of named individuals.9 “The policy of disarming the people had been acted on, though it had not been followed up very energetically,” Richard Frothingham later noted. “The indications now were, that this policy would be carried out in earnest.”10
On April 18, Gage appointed Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith of the Tenth Regiment to head an expedition, with Major Pitcairn second in command, of some 700 soldiers to carry out the following orders:
Having received Intelligence, that a Quantity of Ammunition, Provision, Artillery, Tents and small Arms, having been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will March with the Corps of Grenadiers and light Infantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy . . . [them] . . . .
You have a Draught of Concord, on which is marked the Houses, Barns, etc. which contain the above Military Stores.11
The patriots got wind of the expedition—General Gage’s American wife has always been a suspect—and agreed on the signal “one if by land, two if by sea.” After the Charlestown patriots saw the two lights burning in the church steeple across the water, they knew the Redcoats were coming from Boston across the Back Bay to Cambridge. Paul Revere saddled up, leaving his pistol at home.12 When Revere (along with several lesser-known colleagues) made his famous midnight ride to warn the countryside that the Redcoats were coming, he was seized by British troops. Major Edward Mitchell of the 5th Foot ordered that Revere be searched for arms, but none were found. The officer put a pistol to Revere’s head, threatening to blow his brains out unless information was given. Revere warned them not to go to Lexington, where extreme danger awaited.13 Revere later escaped, renewing his call to arms, and the undeterred Redcoats continued to march to Lexington, where just hours later the shot heard ’round the world was fired.
The main British troops marched in the darkness, little knowing that the country people were feverishly preparing. In one instance, soldiers saw a light on in a house and knocked on the door. The lady of the house claimed to be brewing herb tea, but in fact she and her husband were melting pewter dishes into bullets. In another house, an 11-year-old girl later recalled that she and her sisters “were set to work making cartridges.”14
Anne Hulton, “A Loyalist Lady,” wrote a letter to a friend in England describing the combat between the “banditti” and Lord Hugh Percy. She observed that “The People in the Country (who are all furnished with Arms and have what they call Militia Companies in every Town ready to march on any alarm) had a signal . . . so that before daybreak the people in general were in Arms & on their March to Concord.”15
At Lexington, Brigade Commander Lord Percy routed the Americans with cannon and musket fire, burning several houses to prevent militiamen from using them for cover.16 They dispersed the Americans sufficiently at Concord to execute search-and-seizure operations.
The British had a map, prepared by one of their spies, showing suspected places where arms and stores were secreted, and they proceeded to search numerous farms and houses for the contraband. They discovered 500 pounds of musket balls and dumped them into the mill pond. Major Pitcairn seized and disabled a cannon, which Ephraim Jones, the town jailer and an innkeeper, had hidden; the major manhandled and threatened Jones and then ate breakfast at his inn, paying the tab. In other incidents, Concord’s women persuaded soldiers not to
search certain rooms of houses where supplies were hidden.17 Most of the stores went undiscovered.18
According to an account by an officer of one of the British flank companies,19 troops secured two bridges “to prevent the Rebels from interrupting the troops while they were destroying those Military Stores at Concord, which it was the object of the Expedition to effect . . . . The houses at Concord were now searched, and some pieces of Cannon, Carriage-wheels, Ammunition, & flour, found.”20 But when the Redcoats began their withdrawal back to Boston, the officer noted that the Americans ambushed them from houses and from behind walls and hedges. Some of the rebels would ride horses to get ahead of the troops, find a hiding spot, and take a shot—then repeat the maneuver to fire again. The officer conceded, “These fellows were generally good marksmen, and many of them used long guns made for Duck-Shooting.”21 This attested to the shooting skills of the colonists and indicated that private arms designed for hunting were in common use.22
Other accounts indicate that a number of militiamen carried arms that were designed for hunting or were obsolete. A man from Lynn bore a “long fowling piece, without a bayonet, a horn of powder, and a seal-skin pouch, filled with bullets and buckshot.” “Here an old soldier carried a heavy Queen’s arm . . . while by his side walked a stripling boy with a Spanish fussee not half its weight and calibre . . . while not a few had old French pieces . . . .”23
Some of the firearms used at Lexington and Concord are still extant, including Ezekiel Rice’s fowling piece and Captain John Parker’s musket.24 Parker commanded the militiamen at Lexington. His musket, “an icon of American freedom,” hangs today in the Massachusetts Senate Chamber.25
The hunting culture, as the above indicates, was responsible in part for some being in possession of arms and having the experience to use them effectively. Some also had experience in guerrilla warfare dating back to the French and Indian War. Describing the patriots’ hit-and-run tactics, Lord Percy noted:
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