Patriot's Day - April 19th 1774 Were there any cannons there?

[Cat Whisperer]

Patriot's Day - April 19th 1774  Were there any cannons there?

[cannonmn]

I'll have to assume, knowing the Cat W. to be an astute person among, of course, many other attrubutes, that this is a trick question since the origin of Patriots' Day did not occur until 19 April 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Therefore the short answer is "no" since there was no Patriots' Day on the date mentioned.

Do I win?

[Cat Whisperer]

the human memory is great for EMOTION and not so great for numbers.

No, not a trick question.  I celebrate Patriot's Day every April 19th.

Not a "lawyer's" question either, it was asked in earnest search of infromation.  I was stationed at Ft Devens, MA for a couple of years and re-enacted the march of Capt Davis and his two sons - 7 miles from his home in Acton to the bridge between Lexington and Concord.  Come to think of it, taught HS at Littleton (next town west of Acton) 74-75 (SO I SHOULD have gotten the year right because it was on the 200th anniversary that I shot off my FIRST mortar (made on one of the HS lathes) on that day in '75.

So were there any cannons there (in 1775)?

[cannonmn]

OK after all that I'll rephrase the question so everyone knows what I'm answering:

"The Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred on 19 April 1775.  Was any artillery employed by either side on that day?"

The answer comes from the web since my knowledge of those battles is limited.  Lord Percy, in charge of a British relief column, used two cannon to disperse the Americans when the British were passing through Lexington on their retreat to  Boston, after the Battle of Concord.

This writeup gives more detail:

http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/MilSci/Resources/lexcon.html

Do I win this time?

[Cat Whisperer]

Excellent!

You won the qualifying round!

Now for the 2nd question, worth lots of GBO Bucks provided by our sponsors (usually from the newest sponsor, but yet to be determined).

What cannons were they and where are they now?

[cannonmn]

(usually from the newest sponsor, but yet to be determined).

If I want to know who that is I just go look in a mirror, right?  So there goes my motivation!

You aren't talking about the small bronze gun(s) in the Bunker Hill monument now are you?  I know those are tied in to the Lexington/Concord story by virtue of supposedly being one of the objects of the British foray into the countryside (confiscate two cannons known to belong to the militia.)  The "History Detectives" did a story on those cannons, but I wasn't convinced that the "expert" they used really identified the cannon uniquely enough to prove anything.  I remember something like "they said it was a small bronze cannon and here is a small bronze cannon so it must be the one."  There were a few more facts given than my exaggeration here, but not enough to prove anythiing to me, unless I missed something they said.

However the two cannons mentioned at the link I posted would have been British field guns, not Mass. militia pieces.

So now I'm lost.

[Cat Whisperer]

(usually from the newest sponsor, but yet to be determined).

If I want to know who that is I just go look in a mirror, right?  So there goes my motivation!

I hope you perceived itwas an attempt at humor!      I don't really think there is such a thing as GBO Bucks, but we might offer them again.

[Cat Whisperer]

...
You aren't talking about the small bronze gun(s) in the Bunker Hill monument now are you?  I know those are tied in to the Lexington/Concord story by virtue of supposedly being one of the objects of the British foray into the countryside (confiscate two cannons known to belong to the militia.)  The "History Detectives" did a story on those cannons, but I wasn't convinced that the "expert" they used really identified the cannon uniquely enough to prove anything.  I remember something like "they said it was a small bronze cannon and here is a small bronze cannon so it must be the one."  There were a few more facts given than my exaggeration here, but not enough to prove anythiing to me, unless I missed something they said.

However the two cannons mentioned at the link I posted would have been British field guns, not Mass. militia pieces.

So now I'm lost.

John - this is good!  You've in two posts educated me (us) as to what is likely to have been.  Up to this point I had no idea of whether or not cannons had been employed - yet I've been on the site many times.

Thanks for rasing the issue of credibilty of the sources.  As an historian you know that one has to weigh the sources of information and judge whether or not it's likely to be reliable. As an individual reading this type of document, having no background in other sources commenting on this issue, I don't have anything on which to make a judgement of credibilty and have to take things at face value.

THANKS for illucidating this issue.

So, you're not lost, you are the professor.

[cannonmn]

Thanks, well you've re-awakened my curiosity on this thing.

Just to clarify, there were pretty much definitely two British cannon employed against the Americans. 

The British were after two cannons in the possession of the Americans.  There's no information that these were used in the battles, they were being hidden or stored somewhere and the British wanted to confiscate them.  I've forgotten exactly what was supposed to have happened to those two cannons.

If anyone else saw the History Detectives program on these two cannons, I'd like to know if the program convinced you that the cannon(s) now on display at the Bunker Hill Monument are the same ones the British were trying to find.  I think you can find something about that HD program on the PBS site, if not watch the program or a summary of it.

[cannonmn]

Here it is.  Too bad we don't have pictures.  See if the identification done by the experts convinces you.  To me it seems like something's missing.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/pdf/206_cannon.pdf

[Double D]

Would a cannon expert call a bronze cannon brass or would the cannon actually be brass or is it an issue of semantics of the period.

[Cat Whisperer]

A very good question.  If you research the FORMULA's for bronze and brass you will find MANY MANY formulas.  There are of course common mixes that are easily distinguished by one has tin and the other has zinc. BUT in the formulas that have many add-metals there are formulas of each (brass and bronze) that contain the SAME materials - only different percentages.  Therefore I, for one, take the usage of the terms as LOOSELY interchangable although technically not correct.

I'm sure that there are other oppinions, to include the proper definitions of common usage.

[cannonmn]

The British traditionally called bronze cannons "brass" to distinguish from iron pieces.  There was no doubt in any military minds of the period that the material used was gunmetal or 90/10 (approximately) bronze.  This was picked up in America where the old ordnance ledgers in the National Archives divide the ordnance into sections for "iron" and "brass."  So it was definitely a semantics or tradition thing, not to be confused with the brass that is an alloy of zinc and copper, and which was never, to my knowledge, used for military cannon barrels.

This only changed in 1841, when the new system of artillery was introduced into the US Army.  From then on, the bronze guns were always called "bronze" in the ledgers.  The ledgers I'm talking about were compilations of the "ordnance returns" received from all ordnance depots, installations, forts, arsenals, etc. on a quarterly basis.  These huge ledgers (some are like 3x4 feet and weigh  40 lbs or so) are in the National Archives, Washington DC, and are fairly continuous from about 1813 through at least the 1870's, with some gaps.