Author: Mike Messner

Josiah Quincy—who we’ve talked about before; remember that portrait?—would have been one of the more prominent men we speak of when we use venerated tones about the Founding Fathers, had it not been for the fact that he died just as the war was getting started.

Benedict Arnold was a pretty smart guy who chose the wrong friends…and, as we’ll discover later on, the wrong enemies as well.

But for the time being, here’s a peek into some of Arnold’s activities when he was still on our side in both body and spirit.

The testimony of John Robins is what teachers like to call “primary sources”. It’s a document prepared by someone contemporary to an event, and even if the narrator is unreliable, we learn much more from it than from, say, something that was written long after the fact.

In the case of John Robins’ testimony regarding events at Lexington and Concord, the events were still fresh in his mind, having happened only a few days earlier. And because it derived from an official proceeding, that document was reasonably well-preserved and serves as a fascinating window into one of the most important events of our history.

And as for Robins himself, he was a relatively common man who happened to be part of the militia that day and might have been otherwise forgotten.

I (Claude) suppose that I should note that for a few days last week I sounded a little odd. You’re not wrong; I was not in my usual recording space and not using my usual recording equipment; what’s more I was plagued by allergies and sounded a little rough on top of the funky acoustics. I hope it didn’t bug you too much.

Anyway.

Today, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress takes the time to organize its militiamen into a decent army. Meanwhile in New York, word gets out about Lexington and Concord, and people in that colony have a big decision to make.

In the aftermath of the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress held a series of hearings to determine who fired the first shot.

The purpose of the hearings was partially to find out exactly what had happened, but it had another purpose: if it turned out that the British had fired first, then the Assembly could turn to England and say “SEE? It wasn’t us!”

Even 250 years ago, Congressional hearings had a second agenda attached to them. (*sigh*) In the end, despite getting lots of testimony, the answer was still somewhat murky. But the Assembly still had enough information to give reconciliation one last shot.

Word spread rather quickly about the events at Lexington and Concord, and everybody mobilized to be ready for when (rather than if) hostilities broke out.

Most people were arming themselves and avoiding confiscation of supplies by the British, but in South Carolina they turned the tables and did a little confiscating of their own.

Word was already getting out about the fighting in and near Boston. While Virginia hadn’t been much of a concern to anyone until then, the British wanted to ensure that there wouldn’t be any trouble.

So in the middle of the night, they removed the gunpowder from the magazine at Williamsburg. Oddly, as we’ll learn shortly, this wasn’t a popular move on their part.

This is the big one, and it’s a date that many people don’t remember, but today is the day that the Revolutionary War officially began.

Oh sure, there were a few skirmishes here and there, which we’ve already discussed in earlier episodes. But this was the true tipping point from which nobody could recover or walk back.

Looking through social media the past couple of days, it’s heartwarming to see the number of events commemorating the 250th anniversary of things like Paul Revere’s ride, and the sheer number of people who are participating, even if they’re doing something relatively simple such as putting two lights in a high window of their homes.

We don’t recommend that you spend today shooting at British people wearing red, though.

Once in awhile, we fear that students of history don’t necessarily put things into the appropriate perspective when it comes to dates. We offer them some facts regarding what happened and when, but the events still kind of mush together.

That’s how we get the Simpsons joke: “Let’s take a look back at the year 1928- the year when you might have seen Al Capone dancing the Charleston on top of a flagpole!”

To that end, students might place the Boston Massacre, say, as quite close in the timeline to the start of the Revolutionary War, when in fact they happened several years apart. But at this specific period of time, things were in fact moving quickly and closely together: Colonies were lining up behind Massachusetts, various areas began to prepare for all-out war, General Gage was doing his best to control the colonists based on the orders that were sent to him several weeks earlier from London, and Lord North was in fact hoping to provoke the colonists into doing something that would give him a reason to crush them hard.

So when word got out that the British were coming up the Charles river to make a move on Concord and Lexington, Colonist spies were wise to it and they got the word out as fast as they could. Listen, my children, and you will hear.

War was coming closer, but nobody knew just how close. Two committees came together in Concord to make plans. They arranged for certain munitions to be moved around, for others to be prepared for action, and to ask people to lead combat units. And if those people said “No Thanks,” who the backup person would be.

Then they all went out to a nearby tavern, as you do when planning a revolution.

But nobody could suspect that the time from then to the war was measurable in hours by then, not by weeks.