Of Tyrants and Dangerous Old Men

Memorial for Captain Samuel Whittemore-veteran of three wars

I've posted before about Captain Samuel Whittemore who was 80 years of age when, outside the village of Lexington on the road to Boston, he launched a one-man assault on his 'majesty's' 47th Regiment of Foot by himself, killing by some reports, three British soldiers.

drawing of Whittemore bayoneted by British soldier

Because Whittemore only had single-shot muzzle loading weapons (a musket, two pistols) and a sword, his fighting position (behind a low stone wall) was successfully assaulted before he could reload by a detachment of the 47th and Whittemore, despite slashing vigorously at his attackers with a captured French sword, was shot in the face and bayoneted 13 times and left for dead.

"The proximate, immediate cause of the first American Revolutionary War was an attempt to capture powder and shot, cannon, and community food stores that supplied not just the organized militia of their day immortalized as the “Minutemen,” but the unorganized militia of those too young, too old, and too female to be part of the organized militia of their day. These were the “alarm listers.”
More on Whittemore, the 'alarm listers', and the traitor here.

Patriots; Organize, Prepare, Train!

(get ready for the upcoming North American live-fire exercises coming soon complete with plague and pestilence!)