""Sam Adams starting the Revolution" figure?" Topic

I have come around to believing that it WAS Sam Adams, lurking, who fired the first shot at Lexington, hoping to start a war. I don't know why I resisted this theory for so long. It's not as if his reputation was beyond reproach…
Can anyone recommend a suitable figure of a Minuteman type figure firing a pistol (preferably from cover)?
I have an Old Glory figure that is not all that great. The OG Minuteman bag has some really nice figures, and some not so great.

I first posited this idea back in high school history class. Everyone laughed but I was actually serious. I'd like such a figure as well.

John:

The Ichabod Crane & Companions pack from West Wind, link , has a figure firing a flintlock pistol that might serve your needs. I have the figure and use it variously as a civilian or militia leader for FIW or AWI games.

Dennis

How about the kneeling chap from this new Galloping Major pack?

Seems built for a bit of a cover-based diorama…

Isn't Sam Adams a brewery ?

Yes, the brewery is named after Sam, who was a brewer as well as a revolutionary.
I like that Galloping Major guy for my purposes. And the other guys look like good Minutemen commanders if I have to get the whole pack.

He looks like he is telling John Hancock to keep the noise down while he waits for the right moment.

Not only that, it would add to the 25+ number of manufacturers in my AWI collection.
BTW, in case you have not guessed it already, I am not one of those who has to ask "Are Mad Anthony Wayne figures compatible with OFM Enterprises?" If I like them I get them. I am rather proud of my … diversity.

Sam was a fat little lawyer. If someone acted as agent provocateur it was probably his close ally Dr. Joseph Warren, who led the Indians at the Tea Party. And might very well have been president someday, had he not been killed at Bunker Hill.

Click on my name and see this:
TMP link

That is of course Front Rank's "Portly Gentleman with tankard" figure. I would be set if he had a pistol.

I'd read that Sam's father was the better brewer… and that attempts by his son didn't add up to much.

I was also under the impression that a lot of his reputation as a rabble rouser… provoking the Boston Massacre, starting the Boston Tea Party, etc… were the work of British propaganda who wanted to create a boogeyman to rally loyalists against… similar to how the CIA helped empower the image of Osama Bin Laden.

The Galloping Major figure looks like it's Sam saying to John Hancock in the carriage looking to flee Lexington something like, "Just a moment more, I'll fire this pistol, and then we can get out of here."

Wasn't Sam supposed to have been close to the "action" during the "Boston Massacre"? I remember reading (or seeing in a documentary) that at a crucial moment – crowd throwing stones etc. at the outnumbered soldiers "SOMEONE" shouted out "Fire" and the soldiers shot a volley into the crowd which started the gears rolling several years later to the shootin' war. Strangely enough it was Sam's cousin John Adams, an attorney, who defended the regulars against manslaughter charges. Officer in charge of the squad of "redcoats" denied he ever issued the order to fire… Right up Sam's alley though…

The HBO series had that moment in the courtroom, suggesting the order to 'Fire' was by some member of the mob, daring the British to fire. But it didn't single out Samuel Adams for that.
I read that Samuel was one of the fellows who jumped at using the word 'Massacre' on various pamphlets… but I thought the evidence of him actually being there during the shooting was considered kinda sketchy. That his enemies in the court system tried to paint him into the picture unfairly.

Sam was a very effective machine politician. He was the key figure of the Boston radical underground, which came from the North End Caucus which Sam helped found. He negotiated the truce between the North End and South End mobs that turned them all into Sons of Liberty -- they were experienced street fighters. He used Communist methods like front groups and agitprop long before the Bolsheviks invented them. Ultimately the Boston Committee of Correspondence -- a standing committee of the town meeting -- became the hub of a network of other town cofcs that allowed Sam to create and manipulate public opinion. This was crucial in the Tea Party: Boston challenged the British empire, under the mistaken assumption (Sam's creation) that they had the support of the rest of Massachusetts and New England.

No Tea Party, probably the moderate Americans accede to British taxes and we'd still be British.

Do I think Sam Adams fired "the shot heard round the world"? No evidence.

Do I think he was capable of doing that, and that he rejoiced when it happened? You betcha.

I've read a few reports that were made by the minutemen and the british that morning. I'd say it very well could have been Sam Adams. But there were others who hated the British just as bad. One British officer reportered on the march to lexington he came across a scout for the minutemen. When he tried to detain the man, he tried to shoot the officer but his musket did not go off. The man then ran off and the officer reported how the man "burned powder at him."

I've read historicans also suspected it was a man in the tavern who fired the shot. But other witnesses said the man did not start shooting until after the british fired?

I'd say I'm confident it was not the british who fired first. But who did fire is still open to debate. For myself I also lean towards it being Sam Adams or an agent of his.

Whoever fired that first shot at Lexington, it's still a secret, after over two hundred years.

wasn't there a grassy knoll at Lexington? :)

It had to have been Deep Throat.

The Galloping Major figure looks like it's Sam saying to John Hancock in the carriage looking to flee Lexington something like, "Just a moment more, I'll fire this pistol, and then we can get out of here."

I think it was Fischer's "Paul Revere's Ride" that first pointed it out to me. "Wait a minute… He was THERE????"
That made me rethink things, and now I need a figure!
Even if he didn't, I still need a figure.

And to think when, twenty years ago, I put forward the idea that the revolution started because Sam Adams didn't want to pay his debts to certain British creditors, I was shot down. Now he's getting credit for the 'shot heard round the world'? And, no, I didn't come up with the idea but it sure made sense. And my tongue barely glanced against my cheek.

I think either "William Diamond's Drum" (Tourtellot) or "The 19th of April" (Murdoch), both published well before 1960, have the story of Adams and Hancock being hurried away from Lexington as the British arrive, because they were thought to be the target of the mission. As they are walking away, they hear the firing and Adams supposedly says to Hancock, "What a glorious morning this is!" Hancock asks him if he's talking about the weather and he says he isn't.

Both Adams and Hancock were seen talking to a militiaman (may have been a sergeant) in a corner of Buckman's Tavern. Apparently this man was not seen on the green with Parker's men and it is possible he was briefed to fire at the troops.

Adams has the unique distinction of going bankrupt as both a brewer and a tax collector – either would have been quite a feat in the corrupt, drink-sodden 18th Century.

At the Boston Massacre there was a man in a dark surtout who some believed was a British officer, others a member of the crowd. Could be our Sam?

He was supposedly a fairly grubby individual in terms of his personal appearance – so much so that the "mechanics" of Boston had a whip-round and bought him a suit of clothes (which could be the item you mention).

link

I found a picture of some armed civilians in the Minden range. I forgot that we had them. One of the figures is wearing a long coat and a tricorn hat, while holding a pistol. I will send you a free sample.

Fritz

Thanks, Jim-Fritz.
I will have to paint it up … grubby.

I have a friend who collects 15mm Napoleons, Maybe I can specialize in 28mm agents provacateurs (in tricorne)!