Heated with patriotic passion, a mob of young men swarmed towards Beebe’s home, undeterred by the bone-chilling winds of the New England winter. Inside the house on that dreary February night, the unsuspecting family labored to stay warm as they tended to a child who had fallen ill. Their quiet was shattered by a pounding at the door. Abner Beebe unlatched the door to find a mob at his step. As he spoke to them, it quickly became apparent that they were not seeking a gentlemanly political debate. They were lugging hot pitch. As his family watched in horror, Beebe “was assaulted by a Mob, stripped naked, & hot Pitch was poured upon him, which blistered his Skin.”8
The practice of “tarring and feathering” had originated in 1189 with Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades, but was not used extensively until the colonists revived it during their revolt against Britain. It entailed stripping the victim to his waist or completely naked, and then pouring hot, hissing tar over him. This would burn his bare skin, and, if poured over his head, it would likely render him blind in one or both eyes.9 The tar of the revolutionary era was of such a quality that it melted only at relatively high temperatures, the average being 140°F.10 With painful third-degree burns sustained after just approximately five seconds of contact with material of that temperature, Beebe’s skin was likely heavily damaged as a result of his prolonged exposure.11
Removing the tar was even more painful. It took hours or even days to peel the hardened tar from the victim’s body, and his flesh often peeled off along with the tar. Infection typically followed, especially in a case like Beebe’s, where the attackers concocted a humiliating covering more creative than feathers.12
As if being beaten, stripped, and burned with tar were not enough punishment for Beebe, he was then “carried to a Hog Sty & rubbed over with Hogs Dung. They threw the Hog’s Dung in his Face, & rammed some of it down his Throat.” To ensure public disgrace, he was “in that Condition exposed to a Company of Women.” Leaving Beebe’s body virtually lifeless (although he would survive the attack), the mob next turned to his home and family. “His House was attacked, his Windows broke.” So traumatized, “a Child of his went into Distraction upon this Treatment.” Finally, the mob ransacked Beebe’s gristmill and rolled its millstone down into the stream, where for centuries the boulder has remained by the waterfall in East Haddam, largely forgotten, much like the story behind it.13
Attacks of this kind were rampant during the Revolution. People like Abner Beebe were viewed as a threat to the revolutionary spirit and the emergence of the new nation. For his part, Washington morally abhorred such cruelty. He wished for America to treat her enemies with dignity and humanity. But despite his moral opposition, he came to find harsh measures necessary for victory. In fact, his conversion was swift—he arrived at this conclusion soon after the outbreak of war.
After years of smoldering discord between the government of King George III and the American “rabble in arms,” war erupted on April 19, 1775, at 5:00 A.M., in the small town square of Lexington, Massachusetts.14 The British had placed neighboring Boston under martial law in an attempt to subdue the surging patriot defiance. They quartered troops in private homes and turned the freedom-loving city into an occupied zone. The Massachusetts legislature had been stripped of its political power and the people were now subjected to edicts from the royal governor and the occupying military forces.
The New Englanders were not the sort to be suppressed without a fight. Hearing the British drumbeat at sunrise on that brisk spring morning, the American militiamen emerged from a local tavern to defy the occupiers. The colonists had long relied on such groups of townsmen for defense. However, while their original purpose was to protect the towns from a Native American or perhaps French attack, the colonists now saw their former protectors as the threat.
The British troops were on their way to confiscate the rebellious Massachusetts colony’s munitions, but the patriots would not stand for another such affront. As the first rays of morning light illuminated the village, Lexington’s stout little wooden bell tower continued—almost pathetically—to sound the alarm while British soldiers poured into the town square.15 They were surprised by what they found. About seventy bold American farmers and shopkeepers stood tall on the small, dewy town green, boldly facing a well-trained column of approximately one thousand British regulars.16
The British—derisively called “redcoats” or, more colorfully, “lobster back sons-a-bitches” by the Americans in a scornful nod to their well-tailored red uniforms—were in sour spirits. They had marched all night and waded up to their waists through a swamp that blocked their route. Enraged by the insolence of the colonists before them, the British demanded: “You damned rebels, lay down your arms!”17 This remark was particularly offensive because the Americans did not see themselves as treasonous rebels, but as honorable men courageously defending their families and property. When the defiant colonists scoffed at the demand, the British shouted “huzza!” and raced towards the Crown’s unruly subjects with sharp bayonets affixed to the end of their muskets.18
Terrified by the enormous mass of red and metal rapidly nearing, some of the Americans decided to go home. But suddenly, just as the Americans began to disperse, the confused scene was pierced by the boom of a gun. While each side blamed the other, reports of that fateful moment indicated that an unknown man had been secretly watching the events unfold from afar.19 He peered down his Scottish flintlock pistol at the advancing redcoats and, pulling the trigger, unleashed a deafening thunder and spray of pungent, singeing gunpowder.20 The explosion sent the lead ball hurling erratically through the barrel of the gun towards the startled British. And with this “shot heard round the world,” all hell broke loose.
Redcoats and patriots flinched at the sound. They squeezed their trigger fingers, sending simultaneous blasts hurling in every direction. Before the British officers could regain control of their units, blood flew and men on both sides fell to the ground, yelping in pain. The British shot a volley of fire towards the startled colonists, killing ten and injuring ten others before the Americans scattered in terror.21
Word of the bloodbath spread like wildfire throughout New England. One patriot reported, “there was a general Uproar through the Neighboring Colonies; the Echo of which soon extended through the Continent.”22 Rage militaire engulfed the region as men grew impassioned in defense of their families and homes.23 Militiamen responded to the call to arms by the thousands. The war for America had begun not with an eloquent speech or a noble declaration but with one unauthorized shot from a lone sniper.24
At the outset of hostilities, America’s Continental Congress met to plan a strategy for the patriotic cause. This group was composed of political and intellectual leaders from throughout the colonies, with Washington attending as a representative of Virginia. Having gained approximately twenty-five pounds of muscle since the Jumonville scandal in 1754, the matured man carried his formidable two-hundred-pound frame with the majesty of a natural-born athlete. When ordering from his tailor, he described himself as “a Man full 6 feet high & proportionably made; if any thing, rather slender than thick for a person of that highth with pretty long Arms and thighs.”1 Many history books describe him as taller, but Washington was not one to misinform his tailor—he took his appearance quite seriously.
Washington arrived at Independence Hall in 1775 looking the part of a military expert.