26 JUNE
BRITISH TROOPS RANSACK WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY.
[ 26 June 1777 ]
During the American Revolution, British troops ransacked and pillaged hundreds of American communities, but there was rarely any attempt to accurately account for what was taken. One exception is the ransacking of Westfield, when 13,000 Redcoats camped outside the small New Jersey town on the night of 26 June 1777.
‘WE STAND NO NONSENSE HERE’ – BRITISH OFFICER EXPLAINS MASS EXECUTIONS
Felice Beato – Albumen silver print – via Wikimedia.
[ 26 June 1857 ]
On this day in 1857, during the Indian Mutiny, a British artillery officer, stationed at Peshawar, wrote a report explaining that ‘in these times of danger and treachery, we don’t bother ourselves about the quirks of law, but hang, shoot and flog as circumstances arise. We stand no nonsense here.’1 One British newspaper explained that ‘the Europeans inflicting punishment on the mutinous soldiery appear in some instances to have resorted to the most extreme and terrible measures to strike awe into the natives.’2
FOOTNOTES
- ‘The Indian Mutinies,’ The Cork Constitution/Advertiser, 25 August 1857, p. 4.
- ‘Execution of Rebels,’ The Hertsfordshire Guardian, 8 August 1857, p. 2.
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