3 Night Event: Sons of Liberty

[Grudgie]

Sons of Liberty, a 3-night event, premieres January 25th 9/8c on HISTORY

Looks fun! I don't know about the historical accuracy though. There's also the second season of Turn coming out soon on AMC.

[JohnyMac]

Looks worth watching. But alas I do not get the History channel. Anybody have a link to live stream it?

[Nemo]

Come south.  I can get you a deal on the campground cabin for the 3 nights.  I got beer.  And a 54 inch tv to watch along with History channel.

Nemo

[JohnyMac]

Got Beer? On my way! Thx for the offer Nemo. 

[Grudgie]

The first episode is available for free on the History Chanel website right now.

http://www.history.com/shows/sons-of-liberty/videos

[JohnyMac]

MrsMac and I have been watching it through a back door feed.

So far MrsMac is enjoying it. I am not to much. There are many inaccuracies. One big one was General Gage was a friend to the Colonists in general and only applied the Intolerable Acts in Boston however with a velvet glove Vs. an iron fist as is being depicted in last nights episode.

Mrs. Gage getting it on with Dr. Warren is a pure fabrication. Literary license of sorts I guess. I guess sex sells.

I would have liked the series to delve more into the King St. Massacre where John Adams was council to the British troops who were charged with the shooting. I would have also liked for the series to have spent more time on the actual battle of Lexington & Concord where the British suffer almost 300 casualties.

We will watch the last episode tonight because MrsMac will want to watch it. If that was not the case I would watch Viking's.     

[brat]

From Allthingsliberty.com.............

    What General Gage Didn’t Do During the Boston Occupation –

This is a good time to talk a little about the character and position of General Gage. He is severely misrepresented in the series. It’s a little sickening. Like in the movie The Patriot, the British soldiers come across as fascists. The producers undoubtedly want viewers to feel sympathetic to the Bostonians, but they do so at the expense of the British soldiers’ humanity. They might as well be Stormtroopers from Star Wars (in fact all the scenes of them marching through the streets of Boston remind me of the Stormtroopers roaming around the narrow corridors of the Death Star).

Gage, for all his idealism, really cared about the colonies; he married a woman from New Jersey, his children were raised in America, and he owned lots of land in America. He held ‘whiggish’ political views and had a firm love of law to the point of possible fault (so his officers thought). Unfortunately the series just throws out all the real evidence about his character. It glosses over the most important historical aspect of his legacy: he never tried illegal means to stop Samuel Adams. He tried very hard to do that within the law.

Indeed, he allowed Paul Revere to consistently disrupt his troops. This drove his subordinates to frustration. Lord Percy wrote of his commanding General, “The general’s great lenity and moderation serve only to make them [the patriots] more daring and insolent.”

Gage respected where he stood within the realm of government, according to the English Bill of Rights. In the show, Gage orders his soldiers to flog a civilian for stealing goods from a British naval ship. He could not have ordered this action. As stated before, there was a separation between civilian and military law and justice. Gage had no authority to punish a civilian for theft. He could, and did, punish his own soldiers for theft and other crimes—including crimes committed against the colonists. The scene in the series of the man being flogged is a fantasy. Another point: The Royal Navy had its own system of discipline separate from the army.

As is the scene of Gage taking over Hancock’s home. Again, this is a misunderstanding of the Quartering Act. Before the war, Gage would have to ask permission to live in Hancock’s home as a guest and pay rent to him if given approval. A British general took over Hancock’s home in mid-1775 after the war had started and Hancock had been gone for months. Likewise, the American army was taking over vacant Loyalists’ homes outside of Boston.

Given all of this, the scene where Adams and Hancock meet a man about acquiring guns and men to fire them is ridiculous. Since Queen Anne’s War, and even before, Massachusetts had a militia law (that was in line with the English Constitution); each citizen had a right to keep privately-owned arms and ammunition. When the Massachusetts committees took a count of their fighting force in 1774, they had thousands of men to call upon to fight—these were colony-trained militia which had existed for well over 100 years. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had more trouble acquiring artillery and did authorize Warren to talk to men in Boston trained in those types of guns.

These men trained openly, not in the woods as shown in the episode. It was actually the law in Massachusetts to drill every few months. Gage knew this and didn’t make any attempt to stop this from happening. And he did not disarm the population; that is an oft-repeated myth that the series picks up and uses without any critical thought. Gage did not touch privately-owned guns and munitions because seizing private property would violate the law—the very thing Gage held dear.

Lord Percy, one of Gages’ subordinates, and other officers were quite upset about this. Percy noted, “The Gen’l has not yet molested them in the least. They have even free access to and from this town, tho’ armed with firelocks [muskets], provided they only come in small nos [numbers].”

Meanwhile, Gage disarmed his own soldiers in Boston; he gave orders to Regulars to cease walking around town with their side arms and to never have loaded weapons when on guard. In one instance, a soldier wounded a civilian with a sword who had insulted him and started a riot that caused a brawl. The soldier was court martialed.

These orders seem strange in the context of the narrative presented in the series, but for the historical General Gage these were decisions of consequence. He wanted reconciliation. He wanted peace. And that is why Revere and the others were permitted to go about their business without much harassment. Gage admitted that he had done all he could to be mediator for peace in his letter to Congress in October of 1774.

Even when he ordered the march to Concord in April 1775, his target wasn’t private citizens’ arms but the Provincial Congress’s collection of munitions and cannon. By securing artillery-through purchases, legislative actions, theft, and in one case an armed mob-New England’s leaders gave clear indications t hat they were preparing for war.

Nevertheless, Gage explicitly gave orders to Lt. Col. Smith and Major Pitcairn before they departed towards Concord to avoid taking any private property, including arms; “you will seize and distroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores whatever. But you will take care that the Soldiers do not plunder the Inhabitants, or hurt private property.”

Only after the war broke out, in June 1775, did Gage arrest any patriots within the walls of Boston. At that point, however, most had left the city.

    The Gunpowder Plot – While it never happened (powder was too precious), the explosion of the powder magazine was pretty cool. There was a tussle over the province’s gunpowder supply stored in modern Somerville on 1 September 1774, but no explosion.

Read the WHOLE thing about inaccuracies here....

http://allthingsliberty.com/2015/01/discover-the-truth-behind-history-channels-sons-of-liberty-series/

Concerning the King St. Massacre... IIRC.. five colonists killed by red coats after being pelted by snowballs, bricks, etc.... The soldiers were arrested and put on trial and represented by John Adams. He worked hard to acquit them, and they were, with the alterior motive of "showing" parliment that the colonists were capable of being "fair and just" and were not just a bunch of rebels.

In the past week, there's been three different shows on about the American Revolution.
I wonder why all the interest all of a sudden. These are the types of shows you normally see around July 4. Maybe it's priming the pump for the return of "Turn".....
or could it be something else 

[JohnyMac]

Interesting comment brat to ponder over today. "In the past week, there's been three different shows on about the American Revolution. I wonder why all the interest all of a sudden..." - brat

[Nemo]

Yes there were a fair bunch of historical stretches and turnabouts.  But the fact that something like that is on TV and generally thought to be good watching is a bit of a stretch (on current society) now anyway.

All that shooting and fighting is intolerable.  No one should to that.  They should have talked out their differences.  Any civilized society would.  And that guy making guns, look at the trouble he caused.

Nemo

[brat]

^^^^^^^^^^^^      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

you forgot your emoticon Nemo, there, I fixed it......

[crudos]

Interesting comment brat to ponder over today. "In the past week, there's been three different shows on about the American Revolution. I wonder why all the interest all of a sudden..." - brat

Because zombies and vampires are sooo last week. 

[Nemo]

But then again, no matter how not so good it is, the last 4 minutes from When in the Course of Human Events on through a ways to Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor, is pretty worth hanging around to hear, if you know what you are listening to, and for.

Nemo

[brat]

You are so right Nemo..... IMHO, that was a powerful scene.   

[JohnyMac]

Yup Nemo and Brat.

Just a side note:

> Although Dr./Gen Joseph Warren was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill (the storming of Breed's Hill to be specific) he
   was not shot in the head by Gen. Gage. It is suspected that he was shot by Lieutenant Lord Rawdon when he was
   recognized by the Lt.
> Sam Adams did not have a beard. No colonists unless you were a ruffian, had a beard.
> Maj. Pitcairn was an honorable gentleman. He would not summary execute someone. He also died at the Battle of
   Bunker Hill. His son Robert, went on to discover Pitcairn island while serving as an Ensign on HNS Swallow. Since he
   was the one who spotted the island, Capt. Carteret named it after him.

MrsMac finally said about a half hour into the last of the series, "It's a fucken' movie! If you don't shut up I am going to send you to our room." 

[brat]

MrsMac finally said about a half hour into the last of the series, "It's a fucken' movie! If you don't shut up I am going to send you to our room." 

Ahhhhhh.... it all makes sense. Now I know who my wife was texting last night when she said really close to the same thing. Along with "the look". 

[JohnyMac]

Oh yeah...I forgot "the look".