A Bloody Butchery, by the British Troops; or the Runaway Fight of the Regulars
Hotly pursued by provincial forces, Lord Percy made the decision that rather than try to make it to Cambridge, he would bring his troops to Charlestown under the guns of the Royal Navy.
At around 7:00 p.m., he was able to clear a path by Prospect Hill, where you now stand, and make it safely to Charlestown as the cordon of provincial troops closed in around Boston. The battle that began on Lexington Green that morning was over. Just over a year later, the war that began here became one for the independence of a new nation.
The fighting had been costly. For the British 73 were dead, 174 wounded, and 26 missing. Casualties on the Revolutionary side were hard to quantify, but at least 50 were dead, 39 wounded, and 5 missing. The violence came as a rude shock to the British. “You may depend upon it, that as the Rebels have now had time to prepare, they are determined to go thro’ with it, nor will the insurrection here turn out so despicable as it is perhaps imagined at home,” warned Lord Percy on 20 April 1775. “For my part, I never believed, I confess, that they would have attacked the King’s troops, or have had the perseverance I found in them yesterday.”
Sources
Galvin, 222
Massachusetts Historical Society
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