Evacuation Day

Welcome to Did You Know a video series about Massachusetts where we take a look at interesting tidbits of state history. Each video will cover a different part of Massachusetts history and culture. Today, our topic is evacuation day. Did you know that it commemorates an event that happened early in the Revolutionary War? Let's find out more.

Evacuation Day commemorates the events of March 17th, 1776, when British troops and allied loyalists evacuated Boston during the Revolutionary War. And it is celebrated as a holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, today. By 1774, Boston was occupied by British troops, said to enforce British taxes and keep the peace. But they were opposed by patriots like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, who saw the taxes and troops as acts of oppression.

After the Intolerable Acts were passed that year in response to the Boston Tea Party, the Port of Boston was closed and colonial rights to self-governance were severely reduced. General Thomas Gage had Boston fortified against local uprisings or Boston Patriots use. Despite not work to observe the movements of British troops. On September 1st, 1774. General Gage sent troops to East Cambridge to capture a store of gunpowder.

And word quickly spread. Militias from multiple towns streamed into Cambridge and stormed the houses of prominent loyalists, making it clear to British troops that they only held Boston by force and had no control over events elsewhere in the colony. On April 19th, 1775 British soldiers traveled towards Concord to capture a supply of gunpowder and cannons, but were confronted by colonial militias in Lexington, sparking the Revolutionary War.

When the troops arrived in Concord, they found the powder gone and were confronted by militias at the Old North Bridge in the Battle of Concord, which forced British troops to retreat back to Boston under heavy fire. After the battles, the British troops fortified themselves in the city while the colonial militias occupied the towns around it to keep the British forces pinned in.

This started the siege of Boston. An 11 month military stalemate between British and Patriot troops only interrupted by occasional skirmishes and the battle of Bunker Hill. On June 17th, 1775. During the siege, British troops remained garrisoned in Boston, which at the time was a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides and only connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land, an isthmus called simply the neck.

Colonial militias and British troops set up camp and placed cannons and guards on the neck to prevent either side from storming the other. Much of the credit for the colonial troops successful recapturing of Boston has to go to Henry Knox, a bookseller and a self-taught expert on military engineering. Knox, who lived in Boston, became involved in the Patriot Cause after the Stamp Act was passed in 1765 and after the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Knox left Boston to avoid capture by British troops. He met up at the Army encampment in Cambridge, where he began to take charge of designing the fortifications around the Isthmus to keep the British penned in on June 15th, 1775. The militia received reports that British troops were planning to take the hills around Boston to dislodge Patriot forces, and Knox was ordered to fortify Bunker Hill in Charlestown.

Knox and the Colonial militia worked overnight to build earthen fortifications and redoubts on the Hill to protect themselves from an attack. And on the following day, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought on these fortifications. Although colonial troops ultimately lost the Hill, they inflicted heavy casualties on the exhausted British forces, preventing them from chasing Patriot troops inland. For his efforts, Knox was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the Army in September 1775.

Meanwhile, the new general of the Continental Army, George Washington, was trying to organize local militias into a proper standing army. A major concern was the lack of cannons and other munitions. This was solved by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, who in May 1775 captured Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York with its cannons and gunpowder intact. Knox proposed a mission to travel 300 miles to the fort and bring them back.

And on November 16th, Knox was ordered to travel to the Fort to procure the captured artillery. Knox reached Fort Ticonderoga on December 5th and started preparing for his trip back with 59 pieces of artillery, including 43 large cannons, some of which weighed over £1,000. Nazis planned for transporting the artillery back involved, disassembling the cannons, ferrying them across Lake George before it froze and waiting for snow to fall so the cannons could be mounted on sleds and dragged back to Boston.

Knox's journey back was delayed by weather and rough terrain, but he managed to transport the cans down the Hudson Valley and over the Berkshires. The cannons and supplies arrived in Cambridge on January 24th, 1776, 56 days after Knox set out. When Knox returned, he found that he'd been appointed colonel of artillery, and he set about his next task driving the British out of Boston.

Back in camp, Knox helped Washington plan an attack on the British fortifications in Boston, and Knox moved the newly acquired cannons into place. On March 2nd, 1776. Knox's artillery began bombarding Boston from their new positions on top of Cobble Hill Beach, Mere Point and Roxbury Hill shocking the British troops. The British general, William Howe, who had taken over control of the Army in October, soon realized that the placing and power of the artillery meant he could not safely or reliably resupply his troops.

Now, the best move for his army was to evacuate Boston. He and Washington reached an unofficial agreement that if Washington would allow the British forces in the city to leave peacefully, they would not damage the city on the way out. On March 17th, 1776, over 8900 British soldiers and 1100 civilian loyalists left Boston for Nova Scotia, allowing colonial troops to retake the city.

Knox's daring supply mission and military engineering had provided the victory for the new Continental Army. Today, March 17th, continues to be an important day for the people of Boston and Massachusetts. Thanks for joining me to learn about evacuation day. If you'd like to learn more, check out these resources. Thank you for watching.