Patrick Carr
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Patrick Francis Carr was the fifth and final victim of the Boston Massacre. He was buried on March 17, 1770, two weeks after the aforementioned event occurred, in Granary Cemetery, one of Boston's oldest burial grounds. Carr's role in the Boston Massacre is relatively minuscule. He was not involved in the events which precipitated the British soldiers' firing on the crowd. However, his deathbed account of the event is regarded as the most important piece of evidence exonerating the eight defendants of murder charges.
Carr testified that the soldiers were provoked by the crowd, which was hurling dangerous projectiles, and that they fired their muskets in self-defense. The testimony of Samuel Hemmingway is reprinted below:
- Q: Was you Patrick Carr's surgeon?
- Samuel Hemmingway: I was…
- Q: Was he [Carr] apprehensive of his danger?
- SH: He told me… he was a native of Ireland, that he had frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called upon to quell them… he had seen soldiers often fire on the people in Ireland, but had never seen them bear half so much before they fired in his life…
- Q: When had you the last conversation with him?
- SH: About four o'clock in the afternoon, preceding the night on which he died, and he then particularly said, he forgave the man whoever he was that shot him, he was satisfied he had no malice, but fired to defend himself. [1]
When Justices Trowbridge and Oliver instructed the jury, Oliver specifically addressed Carr's testimony, stating: "this Carr was not upon oath, it is true, but you will determine whether a man just stepping into eternity is not to be believed, especially in favor of a set of men by whom he had lost his life." Carr's testimony is the first recorded use of the dying declaration exception to the inadmissibility of hearsay evidence in United States legal code.[citation needed]
This testimony was used by defense attorney John Adams to exonerate six of the eight defendants on all charges and to reduce murder charges to convictions of manslaughter for the two remaining. Adams was further able to circumvent mandated capital punishment for manslaughter through benefit of the clergy laws. The two soldiers were subsequently branded on their right thumbs.
On his deathbed, Carr forgave the soldier who had shot him. Fearing exploitation by Loyalists, Samuel Adams famously proclaimed, "You cannot trust a word he said! He was an Irish, and a Catholic!"[citation needed]
Patrick Francis Carr has a few famous descendants. Most notably, Philip Sheridan played a major role in Union victory during the U.S. Civil War, led the campaign against Native Americans in the central plains, and, in 1883, succeeded William Tecumseh Sherman as five-star general. Arthur Carr served with the 101st Airborne Division during World War II, commanded a forward observer unit during the Korean War, before being placed in charge of US Army operations at Fort Bragg, North Carolina as a colonel during the 1960s.
