“Disperse you Rebels—Damn you, throw down your Arms and disperse!” shouted British Major John Pitcairn at the militiamen who were assembled on Lexington’s common. “Upon which the Troops huzz’d, and immediately one or two Officers discharged their Pistols, which were instantaneously followed by the Firing of four or five of the Soldiers, then there seemed to be a general discharge from the whole Body.”
So went a widely published American version recounting that fateful day of April 19, 1775.
The militiamen who fought the British at Lexington and Concord consisted of able-bodied males aged 16 through 60. All provided their own private muskets, except for a few poor men who had to borrow them from other colonists or the town. Militia Col. James Barrett’s 15-year-old granddaughter, Meliscent, taught the other young women of the town how to assemble cartridges. One of the wounded at Lexington was listed as “Prince Easterbrooks (a Negro-Man).”
After the skirmish at Lexington, the Redcoats marched on Concord, where they searched houses and destroyed arms and military stores. One account verified that “even women had firelocks. One was seen to fire a blunderbuss between her father and husband from their windows.” As many as 3,500 militiamen fought the Redcoats.
Frederick MacKenzie, a British fusilier, recorded that, during the British retreat back to Boston, the Americans ambushed them from houses and behind walls and hedges. He conceded, “These fellows were generally good marksmen, and many of them used long guns made for Duck-Shooting.”
That observation reaffirms how the colonists adapted their arms to both military and sporting purposes. Lord Percy noted that “many of them concealed themselves in houses, & advanced within 10 yards to fire at me & other officers, tho’ they were morally certain of being put to death themselves in an instant.”
But what transpired after the day of the shot heard ‘round the world was perhaps more significant as a motivation to recognize the right to keep and bear arms in a bill of rights. That event was Gen. Thomas Gage’s confiscation of the arms of the inhabitants of Boston.
Fearing that the townsmen might rise up and support their countrymen, Gen. Gage connived to disarm them. He promised the town committee at their meeting on April 23, “that upon the inhabitants in general lodging their arms in Faneuil Hall, or any other convenient place, under the care of the selectmen, marked with the names of the respective owners, that all such inhabitants as are inclined, may depart from the town … . And that the arms aforesaid at a suitable time would be return’d to the owners.” (Attested Copy of Proceedings Between Gage and Selectmen, April 23, 1775.)
According to the contemporary historian Richard Frothingham, “[T]he people delivered to the selectmen 1778 fire-arms [muskets], 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses.” That was a substantial number, given that Boston had 16,000 inhabitants, that patriots had already sneaked most of the arms outside of the city and that many arms were likely secreted.
There survives “A List of the Persons Names who lodge their Arms with the Selectmen pursuant to a Vote by them passed yesterday & also of the Number by each delivered.” (In The Founders’ Second Amendment (2008), I wrote that no such list was known to exist, but I finally found it.) It shows a total of 321 names with the types and quantities of arms each surrendered. The majority turned in just one musket (recorded as a “gun”), many of which included a bayonet.
The most prominent name on the list was Paul Revere, but he was the son of the famous patriot, who left Boston with the family. Paul Jr., who stayed in Boston to take care of the family’s properties, turned in three guns, a bayonet and a pair of pistols. The merchant and patriot John Rowe, who kept an extensive diary of the times, surrendered two guns. Doctor John Sprague, who was active in the patriot cause, turned in one gun. John Ruddock, whose father was a patriot leader and justice of the peace, was listed as having turned in two brass blunderbusses, two iron blunderbusses, three pistols, 15 guns and three more blunderbusses!
A Mr. Cookson, apparently one of the sons of John Cookson (who famously advertised repeating muskets for sale in 1756), turned in a chest of gun and pistol barrels, locks and gunsmith wares and tools.
The inventories exhibit a well-armed society.
While the agreement called for the temporary safekeeping of the arms in the hands of the town selectmen, Gage planned all along to have his soldiers seize them. British Lieutenant John Barker recorded in his diary on April 27, the day the arms were surrendered:
The Townspeople have to day given up their Arms to the Select Men, who are to deliver them over to the Gen[era]l. I fancy this will quiet him a little for he seemed apprehensive that if the Lines shou’d be attack’d the Townspeople wou’d raise and assist; they wou’d not give up their Arms without the Gen-[era]l promising that they shou’d have leave to quit the Town as many as pleased.
On the same day as the arms surrender, Bostonians were told at a town meeting that Gen. Gage would permit them to leave by land or sea, but that they must apply for passes to do so. A sample of one of one of the passes reads: Boston, May, 1775. Permit [name illegible], together with his family, consisting of seven persons, and their effects, to pass over the lines between sunrise and sunset … . No arms nor ammunition is allowed to pass nor merchandize.
Procuring passes was difficult from the beginning. John Rowe noted in his diary on April 27: “The General has given Leave for All People to leave the Town that Choose with their Effects.” But the very next day he wrote: “This day I apply’d to get a Pass to go out with my Effects but could not prevail.”
A letter reprinted in the Pennsylvania Reporter on May 8 stated: The communications between this town [Boston] and country is entirely stopped up, and not a soul permitted to go in or out without a pass. This day, the Governor has disarmed all the inhabitants, after giving his word and honor that solders should not molest or plunder them … .
Another letter from Boston complained: “Guards are appointed to examine all trunks, boxes, beds, and everything else to be carried out; these have proceeded to such extremities, as to take from the poor people a single loaf of bread … .”
Gage was not so gullible as to believe that the inhabitants turned in all of their arms, and he used such assumed failure to comply as an excuse to prevent the inhabitants from departing Boston.
Dr. David Ramsay wrote, “The select-men gave repeated assurances that the inhabitants had delivered up their arms, but as a cover for violating the agreement, general Gage issued a proclamation, in which he asserted that he had full proof to the contrary. A few might have secreted some favourite arms, but nearly all the training arms were delivered up.”
The “training arms” referred to muskets used for militia training. These arms were quite large and would have been harder to hide than smaller shoulder arms and pistols.
Sparked by these events, patriots outside of Boston mobilized.
Gen. Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth on May 13: Ever since the Skirmish of the 19th Ultimo the Avenues to this Town have been possessed by large Bodys of Men from all Places in this Province, Connecticut, New Hampshire & ca and they have collected Artillery and Military Stores that had been deposited in various parts of the Country.
In response to an enquiry from Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, Gage replied, “You ask why is the town of Boston now shut up? I can only refer you, for an answer, to those bodies of armed men, who now surround the town, and prevent all access to it … . I am surrounded by an armed country … .”
Lexington and Concord, then Boston, were just the first steps to disarm and put the Americans under foot. The Virginia Gazette, June 24, 1775, reported “that on the landing of the General Officers, who have sailed for America, a proclamation will be published throughout the provinces inviting the Americans to deliver up their arms by a certain stipulated day; and that such of the colonists as are afterwards proved to carry arms shall be deemed rebels, and be punished accordingly.”
Gage next declared martial law and offered a pardon to all who would lay down their arms except Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The proclamation issued by Gen. Burgoyne described the events at Lexington and Concord as an ambush in which thousands “of armed persons, ... from behind walls and lurking holes, attacked a detachment of the king’s troops … .” It continued that “I do hereby, in his majesty’s name, offer and promise his most gracious pardon to all persons who shall forthwith lay down their arms … .”
An American penned a widely published poem entitled “Tom Gage’s Proclamation,” which told how the general had sent an expedition to “disarm” the men of Concord and how he afterwards reflected:
Yet e’er draw the vengeful sword
I have thought fit to send abroad
This present gracious Proclamation,
Of purpose mild the demonstration;
That whoseoe’er keeps gun or pistol,
I’ll spoil the motion of his systole … .
But every one that will lay down
His hanger bright, and musket brown,
Shall not be beat, nor bruis’d, nor bang’d,
Much less for past offences, hang’d … .
But every other mother’s son,
The instant he destroys his gun,
(For thus doth run the King’s command)
May, if he will, come kiss my hand … .
Meanwhile let all, and every one
Who loves his life, forsake his gun … .
The Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms of July 6, 1775, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson and passed by the Continental Congress, protested Gage’s seizure of arms as follows: The inhabitants of Boston being confined within that town by the General their Governor, and having, in order to procure their dismission, entered into a treaty with him, it was stipulated that the said inhabitants having deposited their arms with their own magistrates, should have liberty to depart, taking with them their other effects. They accordingly delivered up their arms, but in open violation of honor, in defiance of the obligation of treaties, which even savage nations esteem sacred, the Governor ordered the arms deposited as aforesaid, that they might be preserved for their owners, to be seized by a body of soldiers; detained the greatest part of the inhabitants in the town, and compelled the few who were permitted to retire, to leave their most valuable effects behind.
A Virginia gentleman wrote to a friend in Scotland on Sept. 1, 1775: “We are all in arms, exercising and training old and young to the use of the gun. No person goes abroad without his sword, or gun, or pistols.”
After the British army abandoned Boston on March 17, 1776, the selectmen returned and discovered that the surrendered arms that had been stored in Faneuil Hall were damaged or destroyed. What was left was sold as replacement parts and scrap.
Gage’s confiscation and destruction of their arms contributed to the Americans’ historical mistrust of government control of their firearms. His promise that surrendered firearms would be returned to their owners was a lie. The longstanding American aversion to firearm registration that continues today is rooted in the historical experience that it will lead to confiscation.
Attorney Stephen P. Halbrook is a senior fellow with the Independent Institute. His latest books are America’s Rifle: The Case for the AR-15 and The Right to Bear Arms: A Constitutional Right of the People or a Privilege of the Ruling Class? See stephenhalbrook.com.)
Most Popular
