Most every day I walk by the Granary Burying Ground in Boston, past the graves of the “victims of the Boston Massacre” and find myself musing on the events of March 5, 1770. On that cold, otherwise calm moonlit night, musket fire erupted in King Street. Three men were killed immediately. Two died several days later. All now lie under the same headstone here.We have all seen Paul Revere's engraving of Captain Thomas Preston, sword raised, standing behind his troops seemingly commanding the disciplined, perfectly lined men to fire together into a well-dressed, unarmed, small, and non-confrontational crowd of innocent Boston citizens. Smoke rises peacefully from a nearby chimney while in the foreground, a small, forlorn dog stands with his back to the blood and gore of those dead and dying on the pavement.But that's not how the day's events occurred.In his 2017 book Boston's Massacre, University of Utah historian Eric Hinderaker revisits what Revere called “the bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street.” Hinderaker's book is well written and does an excellent job of organizing and exploring the events leading up to the infamous shooting.
