Russell House, Arlington

Pvt. Edmund Foster, Reading Militiaman remembered how “Many of the men of Danvers went into a walled enclosure, and piled shingles which were lying there, to strengthen their breastwork . . . they soon saw the British in solid column descend the hill on their right, and at the same moment discovered a large flank guard advancing on their left. The men in the enclosure made a gallant resistance but were overpowered by numbers—some sought shelter in a neighboring house, and three or four, after they had surrendered themselves prisoners of war, were butchered with savage barbarity.” The fighting had taken on a new, personal, and awful tone.