Being British on Patriots Day

April 21, 2008 01:27 PM Email| Comments (2)| Text size – +

(Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)

Ian Graves, a 16-year-old high school junior from Chelmsford, played a Red Coat today who bayoneted a Minute Man on Lexington Green. "It's more fun" to be on the British side, Graves said.

By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

The Red Coats are berated by the crowds as bloody backs and lobsters, booed and hissed, and told year after year to just "go home." They are the sinister villains, the occupying army, the losers that were defeated in the Revolutionary War by a rag-tag collection of militia and Minute Men.

Depicting a British soldier on Patriots Day may seem like an odd hobby. But that did not stop some 80 dentists, high school teachers, and attorneys today on Lexington Green from donning breeches, tricorn hats, muskets, and those madder red colored coats.

"Someone has to play the bad guys," smiled John Kahler, 51, a banker from Norwalk, Conn., who has been dressing as a Red Coat at re-enactments since 1982. "People are smiling when they heckle you, so they are not that serious. And we heckle them back."

The ranks of Revolutionary War reenactors who play British soldiers are dominated by Anglophiles, born contrarians, and history buffs who value the complexities and nuisances left out of most text books.

"Not everybody plays a British soldier on Patriots Day," said Paul O'Shaughnessy, commanding officer of His Majesty's Tenth Regiment of Foot, one of four groups that portrayed the British in today.

As the country’s bicentennial approached in the 1970s, O'Shaughnessy could not follow his friends who joined Minute Men and other colonial re-enactment groups. "Something in me wanted to against the tide and not do what everybody else was doing," said O’Shaughnessy, a 51-year-old engineer who lives in Lexington.

That desire to be different and the "impossibly cool" uniforms of the Red Coats made it any easy decision for O’Shaughnessy to join the British at this first commemoration of Lexington in 1972.

That allure still exists for new recruits such as 16-year-old Ian Graves, a junior at Chelmsford High School, who played the Red Coat today who bayoneted Jonas Parker, one of seven Lexington men killed April 19, 1775.

"The British side looks better," Graves said. "It's more civilized. The uniforms -- bright red is way better than drab brown" of the Minute Men.

"So what they lost," Graves said of the Red Coats. "It's more fun."

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2 comments so far...

Cool, I would play a British soldier too, after all until the french arrived the yanks got owned.

Posted by Cosmo December 2, 08 06:38 PM

Indeed, here is a short history lesson for you colonials, the so called war of independence was in fact a British civil war fought on foreign soil. George Washinton was an officer in the British army and fought against the french in Canada before he turned. Also in 1812 the new country of America saw that Britain was not doing well in Europe against the French and tried to move on Canada thinking the time was right. However the Americans were kicked out by the British who then went on to give Boney a bloody nose at Waterloo in 1815. Now teach the proper stuff in your history lessons in school not your fancifull made up Hollywood versions.Mel Gibson take note lol

Posted by strontium dog February 7, 09 12:39 PM