What Could be Wrong with Paul Revere’s Engraving of the Boston Massacre?

Paul Revere was the first to commercially publish a depiction of the Boston Massacre.  He accomplished this within three weeks of the event.  He had help from Henry Pelham.  Henry was the half-brother of John Singleton Copley and an accomplished portrait painter, engraver, and mapmaker. Henry was an avid Loyalist and Paul Revere a radical Son of Liberty.  Henry lent a copy of his painting to Paul one week after the Massacre.  Henry and his family lived a few houses from the actual Massacre site.
 
Much of the changes in Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre seemed done to gain the jury pool’s empathy in the subsequent three Boston Massacre trials. It is highly likely that Samuel Adams had much to do with the skewing of Paul Revere’s engraving. 

Neither Adams nor Revere were witnesses at trial and likely not on site at the time of the Massacre.   In all probability, if they were instigators of the event they would not have wanted to witness it for fear of being called to testify under oath.  Testifying might have revealed their complicity in the Massacre.  Moreover, it would have been difficult to withhold information about the Sons of Liberty and the various Freemason and caucuses used to gather secrets about the Crown’s military and political intention.

Therefore, here are some propaganda points in Paul Revere and Henry Pelham’s engravings of the Boston Massacre.

1. The dog in the center of Paul’s depiction may not have witnessed the “Bloody Riot Perpetrated on King Street”.  Paul Revere seemed to have dropped the canine in the forefront to suggest the citizens were just out for their evening constitution.    A small dog may well have wanted nothing to do with the 50 or 60 riotous ruffians and another 150 citizens called to put out a fire that did not exist.  The sound of the church bells ringing to call fire wardens to their stations would have been enough to send the dog scurrying.  We offer our experience having dealt with yappy small dogs.
2. Henry Pelham the half-brother of John Singleton Copley was an accomplished portrait painter.  His version of the Massacre does not have a dog anywhere in the scene.
3. Paul’s citizens carry no weapons and are a few feet from the grenadiers.  Henry’s citizens have cudgels raised offensively and are in among the soldiers.  
4. The eight soldiers encircled by the crowd are depicted wearing three pointed hats.  One year earlier all Grenadiers throughout the British Empire, were issued bearskin cone shaped “miter” hats. The Grenadiers were assigned the volatile version of the hand-grenade. The miter hats were intended to make them appear larger than life on the battlefield but was a necessary technological and safety enhancement for handling grenades.  Henry chose to paint them with the three-pointed hat to soften their appearance.  Paul plagiarized Henry’s portrait and simply seemed to have accepted the three-point hat in error.
5. Henry’s soldiers appear to be wearing white wigs.  Wigs were never worn by non-commissioned (non-officers) soldiers.  Henry may have intentionally assigned them a more elegant status than they deserved. Perhaps one more piece of propaganda.  Paul does show the soldiers with the correct hairstyle.  Find below a quote from a military historian.[i] 
6. Only seven of the eight soldiers engaged with Captain Preston are visible in both Pelhams and Reveres version.  From several testimonies, the first soldier from the right fired the first shot.  We have no explanation why either propagandist left out this critical soldier, Hugh Montgomery.  He was knocked down moments before he fired.  Pelham’s perspective may have been seconds late and the smoke of the other muskets may actually have hidden Montgomery.  Revere may have used the smoke to hide the rioters positioned behind the soldiers.   Nevertheless, for sure Revere, in concert with Samuel Adams should have had the proper count.
7. This would have relevance if the Revere and Pelham engravings were presented as evidence.  They were not.  
8. Pelham’s engraving shows a bright sky with white clouds, perhaps to suggest that[ii]  the Tory witnesses were not impaired by darkness. The Massacre consummated at 9:05 P.M., March 5, 1770.   The moon rose at 12:00 A. M. three hours after the Massacre.  Witnesses claimed that twelve inches of recent snows were blowing in their faces.
9. Crispus Attucks was portrayed by Revere as a middle-class white citizen, gentlemanly dressed and free of any cudgel.  Henry Pelham’s version shows Crispus as a black man in seaman or wharf attire, holding a cudgel at the moment he was shot.  The initial crowd of ruffians was composed of ropewalkers, seamen, and adolescents.  The nature of the crowd became a pivotal issue at trial.                  
10. Intent on corrupting the facts further, Paul’s engraving showed all soldiers firing simultaneously, suggesting Captain Preston did give the command to fire on the crowd and the disciplined soldiers immediately responded.  Shots were actually sporadically fired.
11. Credible witnesses testified that Captain Preston stood in front and to the left, but Revere placed him behind the Grenadiers. If you wished to convict an officer for intentionally firing on a crowd you would portray him somewhere behind and not in the line of fire.  Revere engraved this formation even though friends of his, Henry Knox and Richard Palmes, contradicted Revere’s positioning.  Captain Preston was in front and to the left and was knocked down by the crowd immediately prior to the discharge of the first musket.  Pelham's portrait also reinforces Preston’s position in front.  At Preston’s trial nine months later, testimony by Knox and Palmes firmly established that Preston was in front of his soldiers. He was a seasoned officer and would have been cautious of his own safety if he gave an order to fire on the crowd.
12. Paul Revere's rendition emphasizes red, particularly on the soldiers and victims with a vivid and active wound on the closest victim.
    

 
In conclusion;
Four experienced judges and the best legal minds in Boston defended and prosecuted the three Massacre trials.  Most of the judges were or would be labeled Tories.  The engravings inflamed and prejudiced the citizenry but in the end, the Colonial jury drew the correct conclusion.  Revere and Pelham quietly settled their differences.  Apparently, there is no written record.  Yet, somehow, we suspect both parties gained financially from the “Bloody Riot Perpetrated on King Street.” Revere sold his engravings to the public on March 26, 1770.  A few days earlier all the British Troops were removed from Boston.  The streets of Boston quieted down from November 1770 to December 16, 1773;  1,381 days from the Massacre.

We’d love to have you on our walking tour to review the three Massacre trials and the critical points of law debated. In the interim, our several blogs track events that instigated the Massacre, available by clicking here.
 
 
                                                                   Bibliography
 
http://www.militaryheritage.com/mitre.htm, 1995-2016
Dictionary of American Biography, available Lexington Reference desk, and many other libraries and colleges

[i] Bennet Cuthberston Military author described the 'plait' thusly:"The hair of the Non-commission-officers, Drummers, and private Men, look tightest, when turned up behind on a comb, and loosely platted, with a black ribband or tape (three quarters long) in a bow knot at the tye."  Taken from reddit AskHistorians www.reddit.com/ /r/AskHistorians/comments/30qp74/did_the_british_soldiers_really_wear_powdered/
 
Credit in general to the Massachusetts Historical Society for their three day seminar on the Boston Marathon.

Zobel, Hiller B. "VII." In The Boston massacre,. New York: W.W. Norton, 1970.
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Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the world he lived in. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.

Allison, Robert. "Perspectives on the Boston Massacre." - Massachusetts Historical Society.
August 2, 2015, Massachusetts Historical Society Walking Tour.

Bell,John "Boston 1775." : http://boston1775.blogspot.com/p/upcoming-talks.html. Accessed August 4, 2015. http://boston1775.blogspot.com/p/upcoming-talks.html..

Lemisch, Jesse. " Review: Radical Plot in Boston (1770): A Study in the Use of Evidence." Review: Radical Plot in Boston (1770): A Study in the Use of Evidence. December 1, 1970. Accessed August 8, 2015. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/stable/1339722?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bq6%3D%26amp%3Bf6%3Dall%26amp%3Bc4%3DAND%26amp%3Bq3%3D%26amp%3Bc6%3DAND%26amp%3Bf2%3Dall%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26.

[ii] Typical name for those for independence from British rule.


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Crispus Attucks, thought also to have used the name Michael Johnson to escape slave hunters. Spent 20 years on the ocean a safe place for a runaway slave. Worked a farm in Framingham Mass., possibly part Natick indian or part caucasian, but clearly Paul Revere overwrote his likeness.