Mascoutins. A tribe of Indians of Algonkin stock, who formerly inhabited the region of the Upper Lakes. They afterwards moved to the Wisconsin River, and subsequently settled on the Ohio. In 1765 they fought against Col. Croghan on the Wabash River, and attacked Col. Clarke in 1777. Their name is now lost among the numerous petty tribes that reside in Kansas.
Mask. A military expression used in several senses. A masked battery is one so constructed with grassy glacis, etc., as to be hidden from the view of the enemy, until, to his surprise, it suddenly opens fire upon him,—on his flank, perhaps. The fire of a battery is masked when some other work, or body of friendly troops, intervenes in the line of fire, and precludes the use of the guns. A fortress or an army is masked when a superior force of the enemy holds it in check, while some hostile evolution is being carried out.
Mask. A wire cage to protect the face in fencing.
Mask Wall. In permanent fortification, is the scarp wall of casemates.
Mason and Dixon’s Line. The line which divides Pennsylvania from Maryland, running on the parallel of 39° 43′ 26″. The boundary between the colonial possessions of the lords Baltimore and of the Penn family had been a subject of almost continual dispute from the first settlement of the country. At length, in 1760, the contending parties having agreed upon a compromise, appointed commissioners to settle definitively the limits between the two territories. Surveyors were employed by both sides, but their progress appeared rather slow; the proprietors who resided in England decided to send Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two distinguished mathematicians and astronomers, to complete the work. They arrived in Philadelphia in November, 1763, and by the autumn of 1767 had carefully surveyed and marked a line of nearly 250 miles, extending for the most part through a dense forest and passing over a number of mountain ridges. This line, dividing as it does the free State of Pennsylvania from Maryland, which was formerly a slave State, has been often referred to, in popular language, as the boundary between freedom and slavery in the United States.
Mass. In statics, is the amount of matter contained in a body. In dynamics, is that measure of the matter in a body which determines its relation to force. The accepted measure is the weight divided by the force of gravity. See [Force of Gravity].
Mass. A word signifying the concentration of troops; the formation of troops in column at less than half distance. To mass troops, is to concentrate them by this arrangement on a certain point. A column is closed in mass when the sub-divisions have less than half distance.
Massachusetts. One of the thirteen original States of the American Union, and oldest of the New England States. It was discovered by the Cabots in 1497. In 1614 it was visited by Capt. John Smith. In 1620 the “Mayflower” sailed from Southampton with 102 Puritan settlers, and landed at Plymouth December 22. One half of them died from cold and hardship the first year. In 1637, the colony suffered from Indian massacres; and in King Philip’s war (1675) 12 towns and 600 houses were burned. The war of the Revolution of 1776 began in Massachusetts with the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. It adopted the Constitution of the United States, 1788.
Massachusetts Indians. A general name given to all the tribes of aborigines inhabiting the country in which the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were founded. The five principal tribes were the Nausets, Pokanokets, or Wampanoags, Massachusetts, Pennacooks, and Nipmucks. They were nearly all exterminated in King Philip’s war (1675). At present about 1500 Indians reside in Massachusetts.
Massacre. The killing of human beings by indiscriminate slaughter, murder of numbers with cruelty or atrocity, or contrary to the usages of civilized people; cold-blooded destruction of life; butchery; carnage. The following are among the most remarkable: