Two privates in the British
29th
Regiment
of Worcestershire named Hugh, Hugh White and Hugh
Montgomery, played
central
roles in the tragic events on the night of March 5,
1770. This
has
been a cause for confusion: in one account of the Boston
Massacre,
Harry
Hansen's The Boston Massacre: An Episode of Dissent
and Violence,
the two Hughs become one.
Hugh White On March 5, 1770, Hugh White served as sentry on King Street. Some time after eight o'clock, White entered into an exchange with a wig-maker's apprentice, Edward Garrick, who was demanding payment from a British officer. The exchange escalated into violence, as White struck Garrick with his musket, knocking him to the the ground. Regardless of which version of the story is more accurate, it is undisputed that within minutes an unruly crowd of young men surrounded Montgomery and began hurling insults such as "Bloody lobster back!" at him. When the crowd swelled and he began being pelted with pieces of ice, Montgomery hurried to the Custom House, banged on the door and shouted, "Turn out, Main Guard!" The eight-man guard finally emerged and marched to his rescue through a swelling crowd. Private Hugh Montgomery was one of the eight soldiers in the main guard commanded by Captain Preston to march to the Custom House in an attempt to save Hugh White. After making their way to White, Montgomery and the other soldiers found themselves being surrounded by the mob. They formed a sort of semi-circle. Soon, after a confusion of snowballs, ice chunks, and coal rained down on the British soldiers, someone shouted "fire" and five Americans were fatally wounded. Trial testimony never definitively answered the question of who shouted "fire" and who fired the fatal shots. In 1949, however, with the long-delayed publication of notes of Thomas Hutchinson, it was revealed that Montgomery admitted to his lawyers that it was he who started the Boston Massacre. Hit in the chest and knocked to the ground by a club wielded by one of the rioters, Montgomery responded, he said, by shouting "Damn you, fire!" Montgomery fired first, then the other soldiers followed. Of the British soldiers tried in October 1770, the jury convicted only Montgomery and one other soldier, Matthew Killroy. Both were found guilty of manslaughter. Montgomery and Killroy pleaded "the privilege of clergy," a procedure that reduced their punishment from imprisonment to a branding on the right thumb. |