Blackpowder Overview
We are the Black Powder group here at WWCCA and we’d like to welcome you to the Club.
We encourage you to attend the various meetings and get involved in all the activities available here at the club. Get to know people and ask questions. That’s the best way to navigate around and enjoy the place. If you don’t feel comfortable participating yet, then just come out and watch how things are done. Eventually you will get to know people and realize we’re all here for one main purpose…to have fun!!!
Our particular group, the Tonquish Muzzlerloaders of WWCCA, have our monthly meetings on the second Thursday of each month, at 7:30 p.m. Open to members you are encouraged to come out and introduce yourself. We are very eager to share our hobby with anyone who may be curious, so come on by! Our shoots consist of a monthly “walkthru” which is a variety of targets we’ve set up in the woods beyond the wall along the 200 yard range. The entrance to the walkthru is at the very southeast corner of the 200 yard range parking area. There is a sign marking the entrance. These walkthru’s are usually the first Sunday of every month, depending on our event schedule for that month, and usually at 10:00 a.m. However, read your “Clubhouse Window” to make sure as these dates change on occasion depending on our schedule. We also shoot sometimes on Saturdays and Wednesdays.
We hold to major Rendezvous’ every year here at the Club. The big one is the annual “Labor Day Weekend Rendezvous”, which is the largest primitive Rendezvous held in the state of Michigan. The other one is “The Wintering” held on the last full weekend of January. A much smaller affair but every bit as enjoyable as the other. We sometimes have a small campout on Memorial Day weekend, and sometimes also on the July 4th weekend, and these are very relaxing events as well.
Our Chairman is Greg “Shortcut” Baack. His phone number is on page 2 of your Clubhouse Window newsletter.
See below to see what it is that we do!!!
Blackpowder Monthly Article
As I am sure you know the Revolutionary War began with a simple expedition to arrest and imprison the principal actors in the Provincial Committee of Safety, as well as to capture rumored stockpiles of weapons and powder located in Concord. I have written about that in the past. In this article I would like to address the Battle of Menotomy which quickly followed. The name does not ring a bell does it? Perhaps one reason is because Menotomy was renamed and is currently called Arlington, Massachusetts. But probably more importantly because history and history books focus on the outbreak of the war in Lexington and not necessarily the British retreat except to say something briefly about how the militias harassed the Redcoats all the way back to Boston. The village of Menotomy was located on Concord Road (now Massachusetts Avenue) between Boston and Lexington. The Arlington Historical Society web page tells the story and I borrow heavily from it, as I do Wikipedia, to share these facts.
Eighteen Century Menotomy was a village of four to five hundred farmers, millers, tavern keepers and families. The village was spread out along the course of Mill Brook for about three miles. As the water dropped 150 feet in that distance it became the home to 9 separate mill sites and therefore a hub for local farmers. Being outside of Boston, which was currently occupied by General Thomas Gage and some 4,000 troops, meetings to discuss the rebellion being born sometimes met outside of Boston. The Black Horse tavern in Menotomy was one such location due to the revolutionary sentiments of the people living there.
So on April 18, 1775 three of those revolutionary committeemen had decided to stay at the Black Horse. At 3:00 am their peace was interrupted by pounding on the tavern door. A detachment of the 800 soldiers marching to Concord came looking for the unnamed committeemen who managed to escape by leaping out the back windows dressed only in their nightclothes and hiding in a field of corn stubble. Whether Lt. Colonel Smith, who was in command, had ordered the stop and search as a wild guess or based on intelligence has been lost to history. But that stop and the fact Paul Revere had ridden through 3 hours earlier resulted in the alarm going out. Smiths men heard the ringing bells as they left the tavern. Smith sent a rider requesting reinforcements and marched on to Concord. A thousand more troops were sent under the command of General Percy. They would rendezvous with Smith in Lexington.
It is the return from Lexington that Menotomy’s real story begins. After the troops passed through there most women and children were evacuated to farms further away. The men joined the militia. Before 4:00 pm over thirteen towns had sent militias that were now stationed on both sides of the road the Redcoats were retreating upon. Before the battle ended 35 companies of militia would be confronting the Redcoats. Percy and his troops found themselves between 2,000 militiamen following from Concord and Lexington and 2,000 militia scattered about Menotomy.
A Redcoat infantryman wrote in his diary “hot fire from all sides…every wall lined, and every house filled wretches, who never dared show their faces”. General Gage would report “a moving circle of fire…that continued without intermission.” Percy gave orders to clear every dwelling to eliminate snipers. Houses were ransacked, plundered and set afire by the retreating British. A fusilier wrote in his diary “we were obliged to force almost every house…all that were found in the houses were put to death.”
One such house was occupied by Jason Russell and men from Beverly, Danvers, Lynn, Salem, and Needham. The Redcoats came from behind his house and caught them by surprise. Russell was shot down and bayoneted on his own doorstep. Eleven others were killed with him. As were two Redcoats. Making his home the location of the bloodiest fighting on that first day. A little further down the road 80 year old Samuel Whittemore mounted a solo attack resulting in him being shot, bayoneted and left for dead. He would recover and live to the age of 98. Rachel and Benjamin Cooper were in a tavern with two aged gentlemen, all unarmed. The soldiers would fire more than 100 bullets into the windows and doors before entering. “We were able to seek shelter in the basement. The two aged gentlemen were barbarously and inhumanly murdered by them, being stabbed through many places, their heads mauled, skulls broke, and their brains out of the floor…”
It would take Percy with his combined command 5 hours to fight his way out of Menotomy. He would lose 40 of the 80 men reported dead that day in the Battle of Menotomy. The colonial units would lose 25 of their 49 men dead in the same village.
Several lessons would be learned. First, the Redcoats discovered the resolve of the colonials. Secondly, they learned that there would be no easy solution, even by force of arms. The third lesson would be realized after the colonial papers reported what happened there. They would tell the stories of how Gate’s troops savagely killed farmers, committing barbarous atrocities and pillaging and burning the homes of Englishmen.
It was a message of rebellion. It traveled from New England throughout the colonies. Affidavits of the atrocities were collected by the Provincial Committee on Safety and transmitted to the London press on the fastest ship the colonials could hire, driving the political discourse in London for 10 days before Gage’s official report arrived. Perhaps the reason that 179 prominent figures in the House of Commons opposed the “American war” in a December 1775 vote.
Finally, the militia did something very interesting in the wake of the Battle, they broke from all precedent for minute companies, they stayed in the field. They occupied the heights surrounding Boston and effected a blockade of Gage and his garrison. Within five days John Adams would hear of what took place. With the reality of “an army in the field” Adams proposed to the delegates of the second Continental Congress that they should “adopt the army of Cambridge and appoint a general.” It would pass. The next day Adams ensured that the army would not just be a New England thing. And in doing so he risked his reputation amongst his fellow New England delegates. He proposed that a southerner, a Virginian, be appointed Commander in Chief. Sam Adams seconded his motion and George Washington was appointed.
The colonies now had a Continental Army to enforce a declaration of liberty from Crown rule.
Now for the traditional Tonquish Muzzleloaders news: The woods walk, shooting traditional black powder rifles at steel targets on the primitive range, will once again meet on the first Sunday of the month, October 5, at 10 am at the primitive walk thru range. The monthly meeting continues to be held the second Thursday of the month on October 9, at 7:30 pm in the Blacksmith Shop. The Never Ending Gun Class will continue meeting on Thursdays at 7:00 pm. Any member of WWCCA is welcome to attend any of our activities.
Peace be with you,
Spellbinder