Mercy Leroux

Since Stubborn Things is also about the Boston Massacre and also makes Matthew Kilroy a main character, it’s fitting to review The Fifth of March by Ann Rinaldi (even if the target audience of Stubborn Things is quite different!).

The Fifth of March is a decent story. There are issues, both in terms of narrative and in terms of research, that I’ll discuss below. Yet I’ll also give it the flowers it deserves. It’s well written and well-researched, especially for the time it was written in.

The Fifth of March is rather sound as a narrative, with clear themes and decent character development. It follows Rachel Marsh, John Adams’ real life servant from around this time period, and her relationship with Matthew Kilroy. Rachel’s internal conflict centers on her search for a place, which arrives at a satisfying conclusion wherein she decides that she must follow what she thinks is right, even when well-intentioned mentors tell her otherwise.

The story also strikes a nuance that is absent in many American tales of the Revolution (which often fall into a simplistic “British bad Americans good”). Even the characters who are wise mentors, like John Adams, are occasionally wrong (and significantly so), which gives them a distinctly human complexity. Rachel’s understandings of her place are rooted in an understanding of liberty, of being able to decide your own fate regardless of where you come from, which nicely ties the novel’s bildungsroman elements with the history in which it’s set.

On the whole, again, the novel is also well researched. The author includes some lesser-known true facts, like that the gaolkeeper of the time was known for harassing women who visited their loved ones in prison.

My complaints about The Fifth of March are threefold, and none of which take away from its achievements. Firstly, there’s a “personal taste” element, which I admit is partially influenced by my rather negative views of one of the author’s other works (which will eventually get its own post when we cover the war in the South in Volume 6). Secondly, there’s an outdated cultural view promoted (but fair for when it was published in 1993). Lastly, despite being well-researched on the whole, I must be nitpicky and point to some incorrect facts.

Historical Inaccuracy

Let’s work our way backwards and start with the historical inaccuracies. Matthew Kilroy asks Rachel to bring him paper to write home. In real life, Kilroy was illiterate. The story also portrays Matthew’s branding as carried out immediately after the verdict, when in reality there were nearly two weeks between the events.

These are minor. The novel’s more impactful inaccuracy is that it relays that, as a child, Matthew was coerced into joining the military to pay off his brother’s gambling debts. While the real Kilroy did join the military at the unusually young age of fifteen (a child), the forced part is almost impossible. See Don Hagist’s lecture here detailing how the 18th century British military prevented coerced conscriptions.

And, of course, there’s a wide range between “forced” or “tricked” and joining of your own free will with a full understanding of what you were doing with all the options possible in life, and we don’t have history telling us what Kilroy’s circumstances were beyond that he wasn’t a skilled tradesman and wasn’t educated enough to read. It’s fair to presume his options were limited.

Still, despite the oft-repeated American assumptions about how the British forced their soldiers to fight and they were all young men barely out of childhood, that’s just not accurate. In fact, in 1770, most men in the 29th Regiment of Foot were Irish and in their 30s. Because the book perpetuates the myth that the British were all forced kids who had no liberty, this inaccuracy rankles a bit more.

However, let’s also give Rinaldi credit. She was writing in the 1980s-90s (this book was published in 1991) without the advent of, say, Google. It’s not that she didn’t do the research so much as it seems made a few mistakes (which, to be fair, we probably have too). And these are fairly minor details, even the conscription story, that don’t change the overall trajectory of the narrative.

Its inaccuracies in terms of its characters, though, are more significant. She mentions that Patrick Carr was 17, when in reality James Caldwell was 17 (as was Samuel Maverick), and Carr was older. It’s also a strange choice to have Montgomery try to hit on Rachel when he was known to be a married father of three (not that that stops men, but there were other soldiers who weren’t married right there in the same cell, so it’s an odd choice that makes a real person look bad for Reasons that aren’t clear in the story or else wise).

Outdated Views on Women

The book contains highly fictionalized accounts of its two main characters.

Rachel is depicted as 16 during the massacre, and although Matthew’s age is never specified in the book (and I don’t think it was known until fairly recently), he’s written to act like a teenager. In reality, Matthew Kilroy was 22, but I don’t think we can complain about the age gap when the author was unlikely aware of it and the story itself never frames it as such.

But Rachel’s age is also incorrect in the book. John Adams’ letter to Abigail about potentially hiring Rachel is from 1764 (six years prior to the massacre), and the letter makes it clear that they were looking for girls between 14-24 for this serving role; however, the same letter has John Adams saying he doubts Abigail would entertain the idea of a 14-year-old, indicating Rachel was likely older than that–at youngest, probably 22 or 23 by 1770. Rinaldi had access to that letter as she quotes it extensively, so.

Actually, judging by judging by birth records we found, the real Rachel Marsh was actually born in 1746, making her 24 in 1770 (and actually, she married one Joseph Brackett III back in 1767; Brackett went on to become a soldier in the Revolutionary War). To this inaccuracy I will again say that I don’t think Rinaldi had access to the birth or marriage records for Rachel, so I won’t fault her for that.

Returning to the novel: the problem with Rachel’s and Matthew’s relationship is that it’s very much framed as the older man tempting a younger woman with corruption, but Rachel redeems Matthew by not giving in and compromising her virtue (ie, not “kissing” Matthew). Rachel’s uncle, for instance, compares her and Matthew to Rachel’s parents, who conceived Rachel before marriage. Rachel is horrified and scandalized by this. Fair enough.

The depth of Rachel’s horror at this, though, and the framing of this as shocking beyond belief, is far more anachronistic. In reality… such marriages were hardly uncommon even in Puritan-descended Massachusetts. Of course, premarital sex wasn’t encouraged back then, but it was common enough. Make no mistake, I’m not saying the 1770s had a progressive view. They did not. However, the framing and even the wording used in the novel reads much more modern. As a result it took me, even as a preteen, out of the story and into modern day.

That Rachel’s insistence on keeping the relationship pure from any physical show of romantic interest plays a role in redeeming him also makes me, well, cringe. As someone who grew up in the 1990s, when the book was written, the way the whole book frames sexuality comes across less as a historical recounting of Puritan ideals and more like a 1990s True Love Waits campaign. It preaches that men only want one thing and sex is bad and will ruin you, but keeping your virtue will redeem a man.

Personal Taste

The “personal taste” aspect I didn’t like is that, despite the odd framing at times, the actual romance is cute. It made me root for them. Rachel’s decision not to marry Matthew at the end? It left me unsatisfied as a kid and it still does now.

Again, this is, by itself as a narrative, not a valid flaw. It is purely a taste thing. Rinaldi has a theme this ties into and it is a decision that cements Rachel’s understanding of who she is and where her place is. I’m only bringing it up now because the “unsatisfactory” aspect to romances, along with a general aversion to catharsis and the sex-negative framing of female characters who consider romance, are all major problems that recur in Rinaldi’s other Revolutionary War period works… but occasionally dialed up to 11 and in a narrative that doesn’t have any strong themes to save it.

All in all, I do recommend The Fifth of March for kids and adults alike. It’s a good story and solid introduction to the Boston Massacre, and it’s entertaining.