Happy Evacuation Day!
The Feast of St. Patrick, which falls on the 17th of March every year, is an interesting day. By tradition, it is the celebration not only of Ireland's patron saint, but of the arrival of Christianity to those emerald shores. Because it is a Catholic holiday that falls in the middle of Lent - a time of personal and sacrificial deprivation - it was decreed long ago that the restrictions on the consumption of alcohol be lifted for the day. This explains the boozy nature of the holiday, and why your town officials will spend the better part of Wednesday hosing regurgitated green beer, corned beef and cabbage off the sidewalks and into the gutters.
In Boston, however, St. Patrick's Day is more than just an excuse to get sloppy. Since March 17, 1776, it has been known as Evacuation Day. The story of this day tells the dawning tale of these United States, and is unique in the annals of this nation's history.
The beginning came in April of 1775, when British troops were routed in Lexington and chased all the way back to Boston. American militiamen laid siege to the city for the next 11 months, but were severely under-supplied; at one point, they were issued spears to fend off a potential British counter-attack, as they had neither powder nor ball nor musket to fight. Meanwhile, the British had total control of the city, and a mighty British fleet had invested Boston Harbor. Their guns were trained on the shore, and with an order, the city would be incinerated.
The following winter, a bookseller named Henry Knox put a proposal before George Washington, commanding general of the revolutionary forces. In the prior spring, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had led a successful foray into upstate New York to take Fort Ticonderoga, along with all its armaments. Knox proposed those arms be brought to Boston and deployed against the British. Washington gave his blessing, and Knox departed on December 1st with a large force.
Over the course of the next several weeks, Henry Knox and his men forged their way to Ticonderoga, assembled the weapons - 43 heavy cannons, six coehorns, eight mortars and two howitzers - and boated them across 30 miles of Lake Champlain, rowing into the throat of a screaming gale. From there, they constructed 42 sleds, each weighing 5,000 pounds, and dragged them with 80 oxen through the deep winter snow from upstate New York all the way back to Boston. They arrived with their prize on January 24, 1776.
Six weeks later, British general William Howe looked up one morning to discover an unassailable gun battery arrayed on the Dorchester Heights, aimed directly at his fleet in the harbor. Washington, Knox and the rebels not only placed the Ticonderoga guns atop earthworks erected overnight, but also added logs among the armaments to make the arsenal appear all the more fearsome. "The rebels did more in one night than my whole army would have done in one month," Howe said in the aftermath. A sustained barrage from the British ships managed to kill exactly four rebels, and delivered some 700 cannonballs to the Heights, which were happily collected and redeployed.
General Howe eventually decided the situation was untenable. The British troops who had occupied the city were withdrawn and put aboard the ships in the harbor. Those ships, under the shadow of Knox's cannons, unfurled their sails and put to sea, departing Boston Harbor, never to return. The date was March 17, 1776.
Evacuation Day.
In every way that matters, March 17 is my favorite day of the year. I outgrew the annual St. Patrick's Day booze riot years ago, but Evacuation Day stays with me, and always will. The fulcrum of our history tilted on people who dragged tons of equipment from Albany to Boston through the deep winter snows, and then dared the strongest military on the planet to try them, and faced them down.
If you think you can't, know that you can.
If you think it's impossible, know that it isn't.
If you think it's over, know that it's not.
This is your heritage, too.
Happy Evacuation Day.
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