Tag: BOS250

Loyalists in the Siege and Evacuation of Boston, with Dr. Patrick G O’Brien (episode 349)

What does it mean to lose your home to a war you hoped would never come? In the popular imagination, the American Revolution is a black and white story of “Good Patriots” versus “Bad British,” but the reality on the streets of occupied Boston was far more gray, hungry, and heartbreaking. By the time the British fleet finally sailed out of the harbor on March 17, 1776, the city was a shell of its former self—a place where residents had been reduced to eating rats and burning their neighbors’ houses for warmth.

Our last episode examined the nearly miraculous American victory at Boston that forced the occupying British troops and Massachusetts residents who sympathized with them to evacuate Boston.  In this episode, co-host emerita Nikki sits down with historian Dr. Patrick G. O’Brien to explore Evacuation Day from the perspective of the Bostonians who later became known as “loyalists.”

From the economic fallout of the Boston Port Act to the shocking sight of British soldiers sleeping in tattered tents on a frozen Boston Common, this conversation explores the human cost of civil war, from the 1774 arrival of thousands of Redcoats to the desperate 10-day scramble of the March 1776 evacuation. From the rocky, fog-drenched shores of Halifax to the lonely streets of London, it’s a story of divided families, broken kinship bonds, and the long, bitter road to reintegration, reminding us that for many, March 17th was not a day of liberation, but a day of profound loss.


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Boston’s Independence Day: Evacuation Day at 250 (episode 348)

2026 marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, and here in Boston Independence Day comes early, on a holiday we celebrate every year on March 17 as Evacuation Day.  In the early months of 1776, the American Revolution was stuck in a freezing, muddy stalemate. For nearly a year, George Washington’s fledgling Continental Army had kept the British regulars pinned inside the city of Boston, but without heavy artillery, they lacked the muscle to actually end the occupation. Washington, frustrated and desperate, even fantasized about a suicidal frontal assault across the ice of the Charles River. But the arrival of Henry Knox and his “noble train of artillery”—dozens of cannons hauled 300 miles through the winter wilderness from Fort Ticonderoga—flipped the script overnight. This episode explores the high-stakes gambit that followed: the secret, overnight fortification of Dorchester Heights.

We’ll dive into the primary accounts of those who lived through it—from Abigail Adams listening to the earth-shaking roar of a diversionary bombardment, to British officers waking up to find a “miraculous” fortress staring down their throats. You’ll learn how Washington used the best tactics and technology of 18th-century military engineering, like portable bulletproof shields crafted of wicker and dirt, known as Gabions, Fascines and Chandeliers, pulling off a logistical feat that left the British commander, General Howe, stunned. It’s a story of military brinksmanship, a providential storm that changed the course of history, and the chaotic, plundering retreat of the British that we remember every March 17th as Evacuation Day. Join us as we go behind the lines of the first great American victory of the war. 


Continue reading Boston’s Independence Day: Evacuation Day at 250 (episode 348)

The Noble Train Arrives

January 1776 was a dark and scary time in Boston.  By this time, the city had been on a wartime footing for nine months following the battles at Lexington and Concord the preceding April.  The redcoats had transformed the city into an armed garrison, but they were outnumbered and cut off by the patriots who surrounded them in Roxbury and Cambridge.  The Americans had the numbers, but the British had artillery regiments and the guns of the Royal Navy to dissuade a frontal assault on the city.  Those Navy ships were a lifeline for the British troops, bringing in enough food and supplies to keep them alive, but only barely.  Even though many residents had fled the town, leaving mostly loyalists behind, there was not enough food or firewood to go around.  Things weren’t much better on the other side of the lines.  The patriots had enough to eat, though they were usually gouged on the prices that winter.  But they were spending the winter shivering in hastily-built barracks with no insulation and little firewood.  They must have watched with some jealousy as the redcoats across the river tore down the meetinghouse in North Square to use the timber as firewood.  On January 24, George Washington seethed in a letter to John Hancock, “no man upon Earth wishes more ardently to destroy the Nest in Boston, than I do—no person would be willing to goe greater lengths than I shall to accomplish It, If it shall be thought advisable—But If we have neither Powder to Bombard with, nor Ice to pass on, we shall be in no better situation than we have been in all the year.”  Little did the general know that Boston’s salvation was just a day away.  The next day, 25-year-old Henry Knox arrived in Cambridge with 60 tons of artillery in tow.  Against all odds, he had managed to float, cart, and sled 59 cannons and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga, on the icy shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York, over the Berkshire mountains, to the Continental headquarters in Cambridge.  This week, we are going to revisit an interview that first aired in May 2020 with author William Hazelgrove about his book Henry Knox’s Noble Train and the audacious expedition that saved Boston 250 years ago this week.


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Burgoyne’s Thespians and Boston’s First Theater Season, with Susan Lester

With the British military occupying Boston and patriots laying siege to the city, conditions in Boston deteriorated in the early weeks of 1776, with shortages of food, firewood, insulation, and almost everything leading to desperate circumstances.  Against this grim background, audiences flocked to a makeshift playhouse to watch Boston’s first season of theater, including a play called “The Blockade of Boston” that premiered 250 years ago this week, only to be interrupted by a real life attack on the British lines in Charlestown.  Our first listener-guest, Dr. Susan Lester, joins us this week to describe what her research has revealed about the legality of theater in colonial Boston, the format of a typical 18th century performance, and even the identities of a few of the actors who tread the boards at Faneuil Hall in January 1776.


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How the Nascent Navy’s Nancy Armed the Army (episode 341)

By late November 1775, George Washington and the Continental Army encircling Boston faced a crisis: their soldiers were facing a frigid New England winter, their enlistments were expiring, and they were critically short of guns and gunpowder and essential supplies.  General Washington was desperate to strike the British before his army melted away, even contemplating the use of spears as a last resort against the world’s most powerful military. The Continentals’ luck began to change when Washington commissioned a small squadron of six lightly armed schooners, the first American Navy, and ordered them to patrol New England waters. One of these schooners, the Lee, was commanded by a Captain John Manley of Marblehead. Operating under Washington’s directive to harass enemy shipping, Captain Manley cleverly tricked and captured the British ordnance brigantine Nancy near Boston Harbor on November 29, 1775. This single ship that had strayed from the safety of a larger convoy proved to be an “immense acquisition” for the patriots, yielding a treasure trove of military stores: cannons, thousands of muskets, and perhaps most importantly, a cache of ammunition and gunpowder that, paired with Henry Knox’s noble train of artillery, would provide the Continentals with enough firepower to finally drive the British out of Boston.


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America’s First Traitor (episode 337)

250 years ago today, a letter from George Washington revealed a devastating secret: there was a British spy at the highest level of patriot leadership.  The traitor was none other than Dr. Benjamin Church, a man who seemed to embody the American cause.  He was a Harvard-educated physician who had been appointed as our first surgeon general, he was a close confidant of leaders like Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, and he was officially in charge of organizing the war effort as head of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety.  Church had risked his life for liberty and was trusted with the revolution’s deepest political and military secrets, but a coded letter, a secret mistress, and a suspicious baker would unravel a web of deceit that would make Benedict Arnold blush.


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The Riflemen’s Mutiny and the March to Quebec (episode 335)

In this episode, we will learn about two important developments in the siege of Boston 250 years ago this month, in September 1775.  First, we’ll learn about the invasion of Quebec that Benedict Arnold launched out of Boston that month, in hopes of winning over Canadian hearts and minds.  If you have ever wondered why Canada isn’t part of the United States, we can probably chalk that up to Arnold’s ill-fated expedition, as well as the 150 years of conflict between Canadians and New Englanders that had gone before.  We will also learn about the riflemen who made up much of the invasion force.  Recruited from the backwoods of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and what’s now West Virginia, these exotic troops were treated as celebrities when they first arrived at the Continental camp in Cambridge, but the bloom was soon off the rose.  As we’ll hear, some of the riflemen staged the first mutiny in the Continental Army 250 years ago this week, until they were personally subdued by George Washington near Union Square in today’s Somerville.  


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Hot Siege Summer (episode 334)

After the Battle of Bunker Hill in June, the siege of Boston reverted to a stalemate through the summer of 1775.  While Benedict Arnold would lead some of the Continentals north from Cambridge into Canada and Henry Knox tried to wrestle Fort Ticonderoga’s cannons south from upstate New York to Cambridge, there was not a lot of action around Boston.  Instead, as we’ll explore in this episode, the focus shifted to preparation, with riflemen from the far western frontier in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland joining the lines, with Continentals building new forts to consolidate their siege lines, and with the redcoats venting their frustrations on Boston’s Liberty Tree.  We’ll also see how the new Continental commander in chief, George Washington, could barely be restrained from ordering a direct, frontal assault on the superior British force in Boston, even though there wasn’t enough ammunition in the Continental camp to go around.  


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The Well Known Caesar Marion (was committed to prison) (episode 333)

In this episode, we go in search of a Black Bostonian who was “well known” to his contemporaries, including Boston newspapers, but who was all but forgotten by history.  If not for a one-paragraph news article and work by historians to reconstruct aspects of his life from notarial records, we may not know the name Caesar Marion.  In this somewhat brief episode, we’re going to look at why Mr. Marion was thrown into Boston’s notorious jail 250 years ago this week, and then we’ll compare his treatment inside British-occupied Boston with the experience of Black volunteers in the Continental Army outside Boston, once Virginia enslaver George Washington took command.  


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The Battles for Boston Light at 250 (episode 332)

In July 1775, the siege of Boston was approaching its peak, with the New England militias that had been surrounding Boston itself since April coalescing into the brand new Continental Army and the British dug in within the city to protect the vital harbor.  250 years ago this week, Continental officers planned a daring raid on Boston Harbor, essentially taking them deep into hostile territory, since the mighty Royal Navy ruled the waters.  The objective of this raid, or rather raids, because there were two of them, was Boston Light.  Marking the entrance to Boston Harbor since 1716, this humble lighthouse became an important strategic target, during a phase of the war where Britain’s presence in Boston was only possible because of a boatlift connecting their supply lines from Long Wharf to Newcastle and Plymouth in old England.  We’ll also see how the tide of battle could turn on the back of the simple New England whaleboat, which proved itself to be the 18th century equivalent of a stealth fighter in these engagements.  (Parts of this episode originally aired in 2021 as episode 227.)


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