"The noise bro't people together, and John Hicks, a young lad, coming up, knock'd the soldier down, but let him get up again; and more lads gathering drove them back to the barrack, where the boys stood some time as it were to keep them in. In less than a minute 10 or 12 of them came out with drawn cutlasses, clubs and bayonets, and set upon the unarmed boys and young folks, who stood them a little while, but finding the inequality of their equipment dispersed,- In hearing the noise, one Samuel Atwood, came up to see what was the matter, and entering the alley from Dock-square, heard the latter part of the combat, and when the boys had dispersed he met the 10 or 12 soldiers aforesaid rushing down the alley towards the square, and asked them if they intended to murder people? They answered 'Yes by G-d, root and branch! With that one of them struck Mr, Atwood with a club, which was repeated by another, and being unarmed he turned to go off, and received a wound on the left shoulder which reached the bone and gave him much pain.
Retreating a few steps, Mr. Atwood met two officers and said, 'Gentlemen, what is the matter?' They answered, 'you'll see by and by.' Immediately after those heroes appeared in the square, asking 'where were the boogers? Where the cowards?'...Thirty or forty persons, mostly lads...gathered in Kingstreet, Capt. Preston, with a party of men with charged bayonets, came from the main guard to the Commissioners house, the soldiers pushing their bayonets, crying, 'Make way!' They took place by the custom-house, and continuing to push to drive the people off, pricked some in several places; on which they were clamorous, and ,it is said, threw snow-balls. On this, the Captain commanded them to fire, and more snowballs coming, he again said, 'Damn you, Fire, be the consequence what it will.! One soldier then fired, and a townsman with a cudgel struck him over the hands with such force that he dropt his firelock; and rushing forward aimed a blow at the Captain's head, which graz'd his hat and fell pretty heavy upon his arm; however, the soldiers continued the fire, successively, til 7 or 8, or as some say 11 guns were discharged.
By this fatal maneuvre, three men were laid dead on the spot, and two more struggling for life; but what shewed a degree of cruelty unknown to British troops, at least since the house of Hanover has directed their operation, was an attempt to fire upon or push with bayonets the persons who undertook to remove the slain or wounded."
Following the imputation of unusual cruelty for this final bit of brutality the Gazette went on to describe the slain and to comment on the outrage felt by the Boston citizenry, the outrage, undoubtedly, now shared by the gentry in their drawing rooms and the lads in the taverns. The flames of passions that were kindled by the outrageous Stamp Act of 1765 and the infuriating Quartering Act of the same year, had been flickering but now found new fuel and burst into the blaze of revolution. A "massacre ' had now been committed. A "massacre!" Blood had been drawn.
The following week, the grand jury indicted the British soldiers for wilful murder but the court thought fit to hold trial when tempers had cooled in the following term. On October 24th, trial was held for Captain Preston and on November 12th, for the soldiers. John Adams, second U.S. President-to-be, was one of four defense lawyer for all. The captain was acquitted as were six of the eight soldiers. Two were found guilty not of murder but manslaughter. The jury was drawn from residents of towns surrounding Boston.
In the courtroom, reality replaced fiction, but the impression of a massacre had not been erased. The words of the Gazette in its best fictional form were truly the words of revolution.
John Adams in 1815, summarized: "What do we mean by Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."
Journalism had moved the minds of the people.
Don Bracken is the author of 'Times of the Civil War', a study of the American Civil War and the coverage of it by the New York Times and the Charleston Mercury. He is Senior Editor of History Publishing Conmpany,LLC.
收藏至：
