Since our post on "Josiah Austin" and his fake account about the Battle of Concord, the Nerds have been repeatedly asked why we haven’t written about other crazy and untrue stories about the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Admittedly, we were reluctant to write a blog post on the topic because we honestly didn’t think there were that many tales or accounts to share. Thanks to the internet and follower contributions, we were proven wrong.
So, without further fanfare and in the spirit of the upcoming April Fools Day, the Nerds present five fake stories about Lexington and Concord.
The Sons of Liberty. To kick things off, we’d like to mention the flaming piece of human excrement known as The Sons of Liberty.
This “historical drama” was a 2015 miniseries that appeared on the History Channel. Sponsored by the Sam Adams Brewery, the series promoters boasted that the production faithfully reproduced the events of Revolutionary New England.
The three-part series made Disney’s Johnny Tremain look like a doctoral thesis. It included Sam Adams leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Indiana Jones style, as redcoats tried to murder him from below. Other scenes included Captain John Parker’s Company being executed mafia-style at the Battle of Lexington, Dr. Joseph Warren having a torrid affair with Margaret Gage, and an army of leather-clad colonists that would have been warmly welcomed at a Judas Priest concert.
In short, the mini-series was a three-night commercial for Assassin’s Creed and Sam Adams Brewery.
General Von Steuben. Our next tale comes from the Lexington Minute Men.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a local resident would passionately tell members that in the Fall of 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress hired Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to train the colony’s minute and militia companies. He insisted Congress secretly hired a sloop from Salem, Massachusetts, to retrieve Baron von Steuben, who was kept safe by French contacts. He was smuggled into the colony and proceeded to train Worcester and Middlesex County forces in secret.
According to this “account,” Von Steuben fled the colony hours after the Battle of Lexington. Before departing for Europe, he swore he would return to finish his job of training the American forces. Almost three years later, the Prussian fulfilled his oath.
Although the Baron is rightfully credited with training the Continental Army at Valley Forge in 1778, he did not train Massachusetts minute and militia companies in 1774-1775. As discussed in this blog, Massachusetts forces were either training themselves or hiring third parties, including British deserters, to train them in the “art military.”
The Andover Minute Men. The Andover Minute Men occasionally get a razzing for stopping for lunch in Billerica on April 19, 1775, instead of conducting a forced march through Bedford to intercept the regulars as they retreated from Concord.
This fact must have galled 19th-century Andover historian Sarah Loring Bailey because, in her work Historical Sketches of Andover, she introduces a tale of the Andover minute companies encountering an armed British officer during the retreat to Boston.
Well…sort of.
According to Bailey, the Andover men “were fired upon by a British officer from a house which he was plundering. They rushed in and killed the man. They were used to the sight of blood, having served in the French war, but though veterans in the horrors of war, their souls revolted at some of the dreadful sights of that day. They related that our men seemed maddened with the sight of British blood, and infuriated to wreak vengeance on the wounded and helpless.”
According to Bailey, the Andover companies also witnessed other militia companies torturing British wounded. They were so sickened by the barbarity that they halted to render aid to those injured regulars. In one instance, “a fallen grenadier had been stabbed again and again by the passers-by, so that the blood was flowing from many holes in his waistcoat … [the Andover men] perhaps, remembering the days when they had called these men companions-in-arms, gently lifted up the dying soldier and gave him water to drink, for which he eagerly begged.”
General Bernardo de Galvez. We all know that General Galvez and his Spanish companions single-handedly secured American Independence with their good looks, tasty alcoholic drinks, and laser blasters. The Nerds have seen enough postings on social media to know this is true. We’re also pretty sure General Glavez inspired the character Han Solo in the Star Wars trilogy because the internet told us so.
In 2016, “historian” and George Mason University professor Larrie D. Ferreiro published the claim that Galvez and other Spanish patriots were single-handedly financing, arming, and equipping American forces in preparation for war with England.
According to Ferreiro “even before fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord in 1775, Spain was providing arms and munitions to the American insurgents. The Bilbao merchant Diego de Gardoqui, who had a long relationship with cod brokers in Marblehead and Salem, smuggled shiploads of muskets, shoes, uniforms, blankets, and gunpowder to New England. From New Orleans, Unzaga sent 10,000 pounds of much-needed gunpowder to the colonial troops at Fort Pitt (today’s Pittsburgh) to fend off British threats in the Western Theater. Madrid also sent today’s equivalent of a half-billion dollars to France in order to fund another arms smuggling operation to the United States. Americans desperately needed this materiel aid, for they had begun the war stunningly incapable of fending for itself. They had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a ragtag army and militia that were bereft of guns and even of gunpowder. The colonists knew that without the help of France and Spain, they could not hope to prevail against the superior British army and navy.”
Another “academic” argued that Galvez personally purchased and shipped thousands of Spanish muskets to New England in 1774 and 1775 to assist in the coming conflict with the crown.
We will defer to Joel Bohy’s research findings on the number of Spanish muskets in provincial hands on April 19th. Nevertheless, we suspect it is minimal to non-existent. We would also point out that the Nerds encountered some evidence of Massachusetts colonists sailing to French and Spanish Caribbean colonies to purchase muskets and cannons after Lexington and Concord. However, we have yet to encounter any evidence of Spanish supporters shipping billions worth of "muskets, shoes, uniforms, blankets, and gunpowder to New England” before the war began.
The “Menotomy Indians”. Our final tale, perhaps our favorite, comes from Frank Chamberlain of the 10th Massachusetts Regiment. Chamberlain says that several years ago, he was approached by a tourist who wanted to share some of his research on the Mentomy militia and how a collection of local Native Americans helped prepare them for war.
Curious, Chamberlain asked the tourist to elaborate, which he did. Apparently, a local tribe of “Menotomy Indians” trained the local militia in underwater combat. You read that correctly. This individual asserted that local Natives taught Menotomy militia men how to use reeds to breathe underwater to lay in ambush against His Majesty’s troops. The tourist claimed that on April 19th, several militiamen from Menotomy utilized this training, submerged themselves in Spy Pond, and waited for the regulars to pass by. The men emerged from the water and killed their enemy.
While we think this tale is worthy of a modern-day action movie, it’s safe to say it’s utterly false. And as an aside, muskets don’t work when they are wet.
Rest assured, the Nerds will collect more questionable tales from April 19th as they come in. We promise to post a follow-up article soon.
Now, has anyone seen our Spanish breathing reed?
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