250 Years Ago: Latter January 1776
By Shawn Everett
Submitted to Corner Post
Neighbors, this first month of 1776 ends with a thunderous change in our prospects. The stalemate in Boston will hopefully end soon. Colonel Henry Knox himself arrived at headquarters in Cambridge on January 18th, reporting that his impossible mission is nearly complete. After a journey of 300 miles through hip-deep snow, 59 heavy cannons, 60 tons of iron, hauled from Fort Ticonderoga, have reached Framingham.
The guns are currently undergoing cleaning and final inspection. Imagine the scene: these massive mortars and howitzers, captured from the British themselves, are being readied for their final push to the siege lines. It is a sight to gladden the heart of every true friend to liberty. Washington now has the teeth to bite; the Siege is about to move from containment to assault.
We must remember our countrymen still trapped inside the city; Boston has become a shadow of itself. Once a bustling hub of 15,000 souls, the civilian population has withered to barely 6700, mostly Loyalists seeking safety, and Patriots too poor or too old to flee. They are outnumbered nearly two to one by 11,000 British Redcoats. The city has become a prison of staggering inequality. While the common man dismantles his own home for firewood and scavenges for salt pork, the British officers have converted Faneuil Hall, our hall of assembly, into a common playhouse where high-society Loyalists and Redcoat elite gather to watch theatrical farces and drink imported wine. They celebrate their supposed "refinement" while the streets outside are filled with the stench of disease and the desperate cries of the hungry. This is the "order" they promise us: luxury for the occupier and slow starvation for the occupied.
Outrage over the burning of Norfolk, Virginia is now joined by a new terror: the King hired Hessian mercenaries. These professional German soldiers from the area around Hess Castle carry a terrifying reputation for cruelty. They do not adhere to the "gentlemanly" rules of war, but rather take pleasure in plundering and in brutal assaults on the public, especially the women of occupied areas. Engaging foreign boots to trample American soil has provided a grim, living illustration for the arguments found in Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” If the King will hire strangers to kill us, then we must look to other strangers (like the French) to help us.
In assembly halls throughout the colonies, "reconciliation" is a dying word. The King’s decision to use foreign force is seen as the final straw. If we are to be treated as a foreign enemy, we must act as a sovereign nation. The question in every corner is not only “Can we survive?” but “How shall we govern ourselves once we are free?"
Friend, the winter is long, but the iron is here. Let us remain steadfast.
