General William Shepard. By Gilbert Stuart (Private Collection), via Wikimedia Commons
General William Shepard was a general of the Continental Army of the United States, he fought in the American Revolution along with serving as a Massachusetts Representative [1]. Shepard, a native of Westfield, Massachusetts, was charged with leading the defense of the Springfield Armory against Shays’ Rebellion [2]. After Shepard successfully defended the armory, he and his men were to capture and defeat any rebels that may keep fighting. Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, was a decorated Revolutionary War hero, the most decorated of all officers from Massachusetts [3]. At the time of the rebellion, Lincoln was living in Boston and was asked by James Bowdoin, a Massachusetts native who was governor of the state [4], to raise a militia of some 4,400 men to and march to Springfield in order to assure that the armory was not lost to the rebels [5]. All three men would survive Shays’ Rebellion.
Benjamin Lincoln. Charles Willson Peale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
James Bowdoin. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Edward Everett Hale Sr., The Story of Massachusetts, Edward Everett Hale Sr., (Boston: D. Lathrop Company, 1891), 305-308.
[2] Ibid.
[3]Ibid., 307.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Rachel R. Parker, “Shays’ Rebellion: And Episode in American State-Making,” Sociological Perspectives 34, no. 1 (1991): 101.