By John Bessa, Own Work, via Wikimedia Commons.
After the battle at the Springfield Armory, there were only two more violent skirmishes between the rebels and the continental armory led by Commander Benjamin Lincoln. The most notable was in Petersham, Massachusetts. Petersham saw the largest number of combatants during the rebellion. Some 1,900 rebels faced off against 3,000 continental troops. The rebels were again routed with 150 being captured [1]. Before the battle of Petersham, many rebels disbanded and Shays began conversing with Lincoln to discuss terms of surrender. This was after several defeats, many of Shays officers had been captured, and his men were starving. However, Lincoln was unable to offer Shays anything but a complete unconditional surrender. Shays denied the offer and continued moving until he reached New Hampshire where he and his men disband. Even though Shays and most of his officers had been defeated, there was one last conflict in Sheffield, Massachusetts on February 27, 1787 (see image above). Several hundred rebels took hostages in the town hoping to make a bargain for better terms of surrender. However, the rebels were defeated by the militia of the town and some thirty rebels were killed or wounded [2]. Sheffield marked that last major conflict of Shays’ Rebellion.
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[1] Rachel R. Parker, “Shays’ Rebellion: An Episode in American State-Making,” Sociological Perspectives 34, no. 1 (1991): 101.
[2] Walt A. Dyer, “Embattled Farmers.” The New England Quarterly 4, no. 3 (1931): 477.