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and the troops suffered little delay.1 But their retreat toward Boston was far different.
From the westerly border of Menotomy to their point of departure by Beech Street into the Milk Row Road, their passage was through a flame of fire.
The provincials rallied from the towns in the vicinity2 even to as great a distance as Salem, and hung upon their rear and flanks, firing upon them from every advantageous point.
The British loss, in this retreat, is reported to have been ‘seventy-three killed, one hundred and seventy-four wounded, and twenty-six missing,— the most of which were taken prisoners.’3 Of the provincials the loss was less, being forty-nine killed, thirty-nine wounded, and five missing.4 This conflict has generally been called the ‘Concord Fight,’ or ‘Lexington Battle;’ but the carnage was greater in this town than in any other; greater indeed than in all others combined, if it be true, as has been stated by a diligent investigator, that ‘at least twenty-two of the Americans, and probably more than twice that number of the British, fell in West Cambridge.’5 As many as four6 native citizens were killed on the southerly side of North Avenue, a few feet eastwardly from Spruce Street, near the house then owned by Jacob Watson.7 These four, with the twenty-two slain in the northwest precinct, make a total of twenty-six,— more than half of the whole number of Americans whose lives were sacrificed on that memorable day.
Among the victims were six inhabitants of Cambridge, three
1 The train bearing their provisions and supplies was less fortunate; it was delayed so long that it lost the protection of the troops, and was captured at Menotomy by a dozen exempts, or men too old to go into the conflict in which all the young men were actively engaged.
2 The list of killed, wounded, and missing, gives the names of twenty-three towns, which, with their respective number of killed are as follows: Acton, 3; Bedford, 1; Beverly, 1; Billerica; Brookline, 1; Cambridge, 6; Charlestown, 2; Chelmsford; Concord; Danvers, 7; Dedham, 1; Framingham; Lexington, 10; Lynn, 4; Medford, 2; Needham, 5; Newton; Roxbury; Salem, 1; Stow; Sudbury, 2; Watertown, 1; Woburn, 2. See Frothingham's Siege of Boston, pp. 80, 81. Certainly some other towns, and probably many, besides these, were represented in this sanguinary conflict.
3 Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 82.
4 Ibid., p. 81. The place of residence of those who were killed is indicated in the preceding note.
6 General Heath (Memoirs, p. 14) says, ‘several of the militia (among whom was Isaac Gardner, Esq., of Brookline, a valuable citizen) imprudently posted themselves behind some dry casks, at Watson's Corner, and near to the road, unsuspicious of the enemy's flank-guard, which came behind them and killed every one of them dead on the spot.’ Neither Gardner nor the Cambridge men killed were of the ‘militia;’ if any such were slain here, it increases by so much the number who fell in Cambridge.
7 This house was the residence of the late John Davenport, after he left the tavern. It was said to exhibit a large number of bullet-holes.
Boston. Houghton and Mifflin. 1877.
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