Soldier Statements vs Captain Preston’s Statement

Even though the British soldiers and Captain Preston were all present that night on March 5th, 1770 and that they had been at the town square, their testimonial statements were in fact different. The differences between the statements of some of the soldiers and the captain were interesting to say the least. The grand jury of Boston had indicted Captain Preston and eight of his men in five trials for the deaths of Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell.

In a separate trial of his own, Captain Preston stated that around eight in the evening, he had been notified that the colonists had taken one of the soldiers from his post to harm him, perhaps murder him. So he and his men went to the scene and by the time they got there, he and his men saw a lot of Bostonian colonists present. He estimated it to be around 100 of them present.

The captain claimed that he had heard several colonists shouting death threats at him and his men. They had weapons such as clubs, meaning that they planned on physically harming him and the other soldiers. The captain had ended up getting injured by someone’s club as the night went on. What was interesting in the captain’s statement was that he heard some shots coming from his men. The soldiers asked him if he had told him if he gave the order. The captain claimed that he had not. At the end of his testimony, he pleaded with the court to see him as innocent since he had not given the order to shoot the colonists in the first place. The trial would only last for five days and he would be found not guilty for killing the colonists.

What was interesting with the statements of Matthew Killroy and Montgomery was that unlike their captain’s statement, they had shot the colonists on purpose during the massacre that night. It was indeed a far cry from their comrades who either shot the Bostonian colonists by accident or in self-defense. In The Boston’s Massacre by Zobel, they should have waited longer before they were given the order to shoot the colonists.

The other soldiers who were present at the time thought they heard him give the order to shoot and so they did. Some shot the colonists by accident or in self-defense. Just like what the captain testified in his statement.