Delete comment from: Boston 1775
I believe the Rev. William Gordon is also our earliest source for the British reinforcement column playing "Yankee Doodle" as it marched out of Boston on the morning of 19 April. So if he can't be trusted on "Chevy Chase," can he be trusted on that earlier part of the anecdote? Or was that an accurate detail he elaborated on? There are definitely other reports of British forces playing "Yankee Doodle" during the run-up to the war.
Did British army musicians do so during the Thomas Ditson incident? Isaiah Thomas recalled the soldiers stopping outside his newspaper office and playing "The Rogue's March." I'm not sure if contemporaneous sources say the musicians played "Yankee Doodle." Of course, during the whole event they could have played both (or, if Thomas isn't reliable, neither).
I don't think of the Ditson incident as minor, and Patriot propagandists didn't have to do a lot of work to make people mad about it. Their main effort was playing down the half-dozen previous tar-and-feather incidents, one far more violent, inflicted on Customs employees.
I know of Christopher French’s correspondence with Washington, not his musical work. But, as you say, his papers wouldn't offer information on (a) what tunes either side played during the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and (b) how the British responded to such music, as opposed to how the provincials wanted to believe the British responded.
Apr 8, 2013, 10:50:52 PM
Posted to The Patriots Day Season Has Begun