Montgomery Guards
The Montgomery Guards were an Irish-American militia company that formed in Boston in 1837 and were forced to disband the following year due to extreme nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment in the city.
On September 12, 1837, at the annual fall muster on Boston Common, six companies of militiamen marched off the field to protest the inclusion of the Montgomery Guards.
Afterwards, as the company's forty members marched down Tremont Street to their armory, they were mobbed by about 3,000 angry spectators who pelted them with bottles and rocks and threatened to storm the building.
[5] Thus the Montgomery Guards of Boston were provided with custom-designed green uniforms with scarlet facings and gold trim, and caps bearing their own company emblem: an American eagle alighting on an Irish harp.
City officials and the local press commended their performance, and a week later the governor himself reviewed their first parade, which was followed by a formal banquet at the Concert Hall.
Rumors circulated that the governor had succumbed to "foreign influence," and resentment simmered among the other companies at being forced to accept people they saw as dangerous outsiders into their regiment.
No sooner had the companies finished moving into line than a signal was given, and the rank and file of the City Guard marched off the field and back to their armory, playing Yankee Doodle on the fife and drum.
Nevertheless, it sent a message, loudly and clearly, to Boston's elites: working-class Yankees were not ready to accept Irish Catholics into their ranks, and were willing to use direct action to achieve their ends.
[2] Often in cases of mob violence against minorities, city authorities have been known to look the other way, or condemn the offenders publicly for appearances' sake while feigning ignorance of their identities.
The local press was severe on the militiamen who had deserted their posts, and denounced the rioters as "miserable vagabonds," while the Montgomery Guards were praised for their discipline and restraint in the face of provocation.
In April, however, succumbing to political pressure, he ordered the disbandment of the Montgomery Guards as well, on the grounds that their reappearance would provoke "outrages of a dangerous character."
