The Boston Massacre: An Episode of Dissent and Violence
by: Hansen, Harry

Hardcover. NY, Hastings House, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket, 191 pages, b&w illustrations. An unsparing account of the famous massacre of March 5, 1770, when a squad of British soldiers, called out to protect a sentry from a Boston mob, fired on civilians, killing 4, fatally wounding a fifth, and injuring 6 others. Was it a massacre, as Boston called it, or "the first battle of the American Revolution," as some writers styled it, or merely a street brawl, as the testimonies of witnesses seem to indicate? Whatever its character, it had great influence in consolidating colonial opposition to the British Government. This is the story of one of the most famous and controversial murder trials in American history, in which John Adams and Josiah Quince, Jr., confirmed patriots, toiled to get the soldiers acquitted to save Boston from retaliation, against the violent opposition of Samuel Adams, who wanted the soldiers convicted as murderers. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.