[Boston boys and General Gage / Henry Bacon, pinx. ]

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Boston boys and the British commander Thomas Gage share the frame in this print, which reproduces a painting by Henry Bacon. Gage led British forces in North America and governed Massachusetts from Boston from 1774 until he was recalled in 1775, a period of rising tension between royal troops and the town's residents. The c1887 date falls in an era when photomechanical reproduction carried historical scenes like this into books and magazines, so the print reflects how late nineteenth-century Americans chose to picture the colonial past. It is worth noticing how the scene turns a political standoff into an encounter with ordinary townspeople.

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