The American Revolution began our 234 year saga of WAR. All those years have brought about 651,030 men and women dying in combat. 1, 431,290 received non lethal wounds in war. We have 17,450,000 living veterans of war. War is a costly business. The ultimate cost is one's life. Most of those were young men and women.
I did not know, however, until this week that the one who is called the first martyr or casualty of a war-like action was a TWELVE YEAR OLD boy named Christopher Snyder. Christopher died two weeks before the Boston massacre. Let me tell you about him.
The British government enacted a series of taxes to pay for the French and Indian war. This was an extremely unpopular tax in the Massachusetts colony. Resistance involved protests and confrontations with tax collectors. 4,000 British troops were sent to maintain order. Soldiers were placed in colonists homes. That made them more angry. A resistance group called The Sons Of Liberty was formed. They harassed the soldiers when they could, snowballing them and getting in fistfights. They then called for a boycott of British taxed goods. One Boston storeowner who was a Loyalist to the King, refused to participate. His name was Ebenezer Richardson. The Patriots placed an effigy of him outside his store to warn others he was a Loyalist. He tried to tear it down and they began to storm his house. He fired several shots at random, wounding some men, but one shot killed young Christopher Snider. Richardson was saved by troops and placed in custody. An elaborate funeral was held for the boy. There were flaming protest speeches. Two weeks later the Boston Massacre would take five lives. That was the start of the Revolution. Those five men were buried in a mass grave with Christopher Snider. His gravestone had this epitaph: "Here lies buried the body of Christopher Snider, Aged 12 years. Killed February 22nd, 1770. The innocent first victim of the struggles between the Colonists and the Crown, which resulted in Independence"
Obviously Christopher was not a soldier as we know them. He was perhaps, a member of the Sons Of Liberty who were our first un-uniformed soldiers of freedom. Ebenezer Richardson was tried and found guilty of murder. After two years he was pardoned by The Royal Governor. I doubt that he re-opened his store in Boston.
War is no respecter of persons. It takes soldiers and civilians, young and old, men and women, children and the infirm and aged. It is a veritable hell on earth at it's worst. Weapons of war have now become bigger and more deadly. I am not sure we can survive any more wars.
In the meantime our hats and hearts are off and open for the ones who paid supreme sacrifices. We must not forget what they have done for us. From a twelve-year old boy in 1770 to the young man who died today in Afghanistan....they are heroes ALL!!
