Revolution

While John was away ...

adamg — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:01:32 -0400

J.L. Bell fills us in on the goings on in the Adams household whilst John was off in Europe.

There, there, neither do we

adamg — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:34:00 -0400

Like sci-fi fans who delight in finding continuity errors in Star Trek episodes, history buffs are enjoying themselves tremendously picking apart HBO's John Adams mini-series, including a sequence involving smallpox, which forced J.L. Bell to admit:

I must confess that I don't know my pus that well.

Oliver Wendell Holmes did not own slaves

adamg — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:24:38 -0400

J.L. Bell compares the Boston Massacre trial on the John Adams mini-series with the historical record, concluding with the possibility that the screenwriters got confused between Oliver Wendell, who had a slave who testified, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the monicker of two rather more famous Bostonians (one of whom I can thank for the name of this site), neither of whom were even alive during the Revolution.

And so Washington's army marches into Boston

adamg — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:09:14 -0400

J.L. Bell concludes his recounting of Evacuation Day:

... Immediately upon the fleet's sailing the Select Men set off, through the lines, to Roxbury to acquaint General [George] Washington of the evacuation of the town. After sending a message Major [Joseph] Ward aid to General [Artemas] Ward, came to us at the lines and soon after the General himself, who received us in the most polite and affectionate manner, and permitted us to pass to Watertown to acquaint the Council of this happy event. ...

The occupying army prepares to leave

adamg — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:53:30 -0400

J.L. Bell reports on British preparations on March 15, 1776 to evacuate Boston:

... The General told us the Troops would embark this day and was told by General [James] Robertson it would be by three oclock. The Regiments all mustered, some of them marched down the wharf. Guards and Chevaux De Freze, were placed in the main streets and wharves in order to secure the retreat of Out Centinels. Several of the principle streets through which they were to pass were filled with Hhds. [hogsheads] filled with Horse-dung, large limbs of trees from the Mall [a tree-lined walk on Boston Common] to prevent a pursuit of the Continental Army. They manifestly appeared to be fearful of an attack. ...

The Revolution was for white people

adamg — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:51:26 -0400

Mark posts a copy of a Boston newspaper ad from Sept. 25, 1777 offering a reward for the return of a slave who escaped from her master in Jamaica Plain.

Sticking up for the good name of John Hancock

adamg — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:01:31 -0400

J.L. Bell reports that while the upcoming HBO mini-series on our own John Adams might be riveting, possibly the most riveting scene of all never happened: A royal customs agent was not tarred and feathered here by a mob acting on the orders of John Hancock (although there was an actual tarring and feathering a year later; Adams represented a defendant in that case, which involved a ship that had been seized from Hancock).

Submarine warfare in Boston Harbor

adamg — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:00:32 -0500

J.L. Bell recounts how Boston Harbor almost became the site of the first submarine attack in history.

Slavery, beggary and want

adamg — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:03:33 -0400

J.L. Bell reprints part of a flier Revolutionaries set into the wind in the hopes they would flutter down on Redcoats encamped in Boston in 1775 - and on deserters from the American side:

... The notion of provincial militiamen slipping off to the British lines surprises me, not because I see the American cause as obviously just and holy but because the countryside undoubtedly had more food and more opportunities for movement. One of the handbills that the provincials printed, shown above, even highlighted that difference. Yet some men saw better prospects inside Boston than outside. ...

Sorry, Framingham, you weren't all that

adamg — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:31:00 -0400

J.L. Bell explains why he revised a Wikipedia entry that claimed Framingham was a "center of rebellion" during the years leading up to the Revolution: Basically, because it wasn't.