The Redcoats are Coming! For the second year in a row, The King’s Own Fourth Foot, a reenactment regiment of 18th century British light infantry, will appear on the Town Common from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 7. According to Needham resident and reenactor Tal Dibner, the Redcoats will drill and interact with the public.
The event is funded by the Needham Council for Arts and Culture. Co-Chair Joni Schockett considers it both performance art and education. “We know a lot about events like Lexington and Concord,” Schockett said, “but we don’t know a lot about the other side. It’s a fascinating view of what they were up against.”
Dibner is an artist who specializes in paintings that bring history to life. His passion for history is at the center of this all-consuming hobby. He has played the role of a foot soldier in the King’s Own Fourth Foot for five years and is still learning about the politics and the quotidian details of the first British reinforcements to arrive in the port of Boston during the series of crises that led to open warfare in 1775, 250 years ago.
“The scenario is that it’s a detachment sent out before the battles of Lexington and Concord,” Dibner said. “The British sent troops out both for exercise and to show the flag.”
According to Dibner, the regiment was composed of farmers that weren’t so different from the colonists they would be fighting against. “Their goal was to pacify a place that was not yet rebelling. Ironically, it ended up being a trigger for revolution,” Dibner said.
This regiment suffered the first British casualties of the war at the Old North Bridge in Concord. Similar to the Continental Army, it trudged its way through the next eight years of war, suffering from a lack of provisions, extreme cold and intermittent, but brutal, warfare. The King’s Fourth was more successful in its engagements against Napoleon at Waterloo.
“We strive very hard to be as accurate as possible,” Dibner said. “History feels very different when you see the gunsmoke and the soldiers.”
On the Town Common, the regiment will not fire its muskets because the location does not have enough space to even fire blanks. And in 1775, ammunition was expensive and scarce. “A British soldier in peacetime would only shoot 30 rounds a year,” Dibner said.
According to Schockett, about 250 people came out last year to see the reenactors. The public is invited to drill and converse with the Redcoats. According to Dibner, conversations range in topic from the equipment to army organization to the politics of the era.
“Art should make people think, and this definitely does,” Schockett said.
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