Day 3: Cheers to Boston !!!

Main Page  > 1998 Oh My Cod !!! Its New England Tour ! >

 

The next morning the Boys arose early, with tender and exfoliated rumps from ripping off the duct tape. Deciding they needed a little more heterosexual setting, they decide to head back up towards Bean-Town and check out the voluminous history of the "Cradle of the America Revolution." En route, the Boys decided to take a detour into Lexington and Concord, where the "Shot heard 'round the World" happened!  

 

The Battle of Lexington Memorial   

Mike and Bone made it to Lexington by 9:00AM with a full day planned.

Once at the National Park, there was a Park Ranger providing a historical walkthrough of the events in both Lexington and Concord.

The Original British Invasion did not have John, Ringo, and Geoge, just Paul (Revere!): Arriving on a holiday By April 1775 Boston was under British military control. On April 14, 1775, General Gage, commander of the British troops.  received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth to disarm the rebels, who had supposedly hidden weapons in Concord, and to imprison the rebellion's leaders. Dartmouth gave Gage considerable discretion in his commands.

On the morning of April 16, Gage ordered a mounted patrol of about 50 men under the command of Major Mitchell of the 5th Regiment into the surrounding country to intercept messengers who might be out on horseback. This patrol behaved differently from patrols sent out from Boston in the past, staying out after dark and asking travelers about the location of Sam Adams and John Hancock. This had the unintended effect of alarming many residents and increasing their preparedness. The Lexington Militia in particular began to muster early that evening, hours before receiving any word from Boston.

Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith received orders from Gage on the afternoon of April 18 with instructions that he was not to read them until his troops were underway. They were to proceed from Boston "with utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy… all Military stores… But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property." Gage apparently used his discretion and did not issue written orders for the arrest of rebel leaders.

The rebellion's ringleaders with the exception of Paul Revere and Joseph Warren had all left Boston by April 8. They had received word of Dartmouth's secret instructions to General Gage from sources in London long before they had reached Gage himself. Samuel Adams and John Hancock had fled Boston to the Hancock-Clarke House, home of one of Hancock's relatives in Lexington where they thought they would be safe.

The Massachusetts Militia had indeed been gathering a stock of weapons, powder, and supplies at Concord, as well as an even greater amount much further west in Worcester, but word reached the Patriots that British officers had been observed examining the roads to Concord. On April 8, they instructed people of the town to remove the stores and distribute them among other towns nearby.

Between 9:00 and 10:00 PM on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told William Dawes and Paul Revere that the King's troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the British Army's movements later that night would be the capture of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They worried less about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord. The supplies at Concord were safe, after all, but they thought their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and alert Patriots in nearby towns.

 Dawes covered the southern land route by horseback across the Boston Neck and over the Great Bridge to Lexington. Revere first gave instructions to send a signal to Charlestown and then he traveled the northern water route. He crossed the Charles River by rowboat, slipping past the British warship HMS Somerset at anchor. Crossings were banned at that hour, but Revere safely landed in Charlestown and rode to Lexington, avoiding the British patrol and later warning almost every house along the route. The warned men and the Charlestown Patriots dispatched additional riders to the north.

After they arrived in Lexington, Revere, Dawes, Hancock, and Adams discussed the situation with the militia assembling there. They believed that the forces leaving the city were too large for the sole task of arresting two men and that Concord was the main target. The Lexington men dispatched riders in all directions and Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord. They met Samuel Prescott at about 1:00 a.m. In Lincoln, these three ran into a British patrol led by Major Mitchell of the 5th Regiment and only Prescott managed to warn Concord. Additional riders were sent out from Concord.

Revere and Dawes, as well as many other alarm riders, triggered a flexible system of "alarm and muster" that had been carefully developed months before, in reaction to the British colonists' impotent response to the Powder Alarm. "Alarm and muster" was an improved version of an old network of widespread notification and fast deployment of local militia forces in times of emergency. The colonists had periodically used this system all the way back to the early years of Indian wars in the colony, before it fell into disuse in the French & Indian War. In addition to other express riders delivering their message, bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires and a trumpet were used for rapid communication from town to town, notifying the rebels in dozens of eastern Massachusetts villages that they should muster their militias because the regulars in numbers greater than 500 were leaving Boston. These early warnings played a crucial role in assembling a sufficient number of British colonial militia to inflict heavy damage on the British regular army later in the day. Samuel Adams and John Hancock were eventually moved to safety, first to what is now Burlington and later to Billerica.

Gage issued orders to have the entire 1st Brigade under arms, and ready to march at 4 a.m. The British regulars, around 700 strong, were led by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith began their 17 mile march to Concord at about 2 a.m.

As they marched through Menotomy (modern Arlington), sounds of the colonial alarms throughout the countryside caused the few officers who were aware of their mission to realize that they had lost the element of surprise.

  

The Battle of Lexington!: As the British Army's advance guard under Pitcairn entered Lexington at sunrise on April 19, 1775, 77 Lexington militiamen, led by Captain John Parker, emerged from Buckman Tavern and stood in ranks on the village common watching them, and spectators (somewhere between 40 and 100) watched from along the side of the road. Of these militiamen, nine had the surname Harrington, seven Munroe, four Parker, three Tidd, three Locke, and three Reed. (Lexington, incidentally, had no minutemen; the town never voted to establish a minute company.)

Parker was later supposed to have made a statement that is now engraved in stone at the site of the battle: "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." He instead told his men to stand fast, don't molest the King's troops and to let them pass, according to his sworn deposition in 1775 after the fight.  A veteran of Indian wars, now slowly dying of tuberculosis, he knew not to let his men be wasted in such a one-sided affair.

Rather than turn left towards Concord, Marine Lieutenant Jesse Adair, at the head of the advance guard of light infantry companies from the 4th, 5th and 10th Regiments of Foot, decided on his own to protect the flank of his troops by first turning right and then leading the companies down the common itself in a confused effort to surround and disarm the militia. These men ran towards the Lexington militia loudly crying "Huzzah!" to rouse themselves and to confuse the militia. Major Pitcairn arrived from the rear of the advance force and led his three companies to the left and halted them. The remaining companies lay behind the village meeting house on the road back towards Boston.

Pitcairn then apparently rode forward, waving his sword, and yelled "Disperse, you rebels; damn you, throw down your arms and disperse!" Captain Parker told his men instead to disperse and go home, but, because of the confusion, the yelling all around, and due to the raspiness of Parker's tubercular voice, some did not hear him, some left very slowly, and none laid down arms. Both Parker and Pitcairn ordered their men to hold fire, but suddenly a shot was fired from a still unknown source.

Some witnesses among the regulars reported the first shot was fired by a colonial onlooker from behind a hedge or around the corner of a tavern. Some observers reported a mounted British officer firing first. Both sides generally agreed that the initial shot did not come from the men on the ground immediately facing each other. Speculation arose later in Lexington that a man named Solomon Brown fired the first shot from inside the tavern or from behind a wall. Unsubstantiated allegations also arose that the British were ordered to fire a "warning volley" that startled the Lexington troops into firing. Recent speculation has focused on the possibility of a negligent discharge or of multiple, possibly unrelated "first shots" from both sides.

In truth, nobody knew then, nor knows today, who fired the first shot of the American Revolution.

  

Pitcairn's horse was hit in two places. The regulars charged forward with bayonets. Captain Parker witnessed his cousin Jonas run through. Eight Massachusetts men were killed and ten were wounded against only one British soldier of the 10th Foot wounded (his name was Johnson, according to Ensign Jeremy Lister of that regt., present at this incident.) The eight British colonists killed, the first to die in the Revolutionary War, were John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathon Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Asahel Porter, and Jonas Parker. Jonathon Harrington, fatally wounded by a British musket ball, managed to crawl back to his home, and he died upon his doorstep. One wounded man, Prince Estabrook, was a black slave who served in the town's militia.

The light infantry companies under Pitcairn at the common got beyond their officers' control. They were firing in different directions and preparing to enter private homes. Upon hearing the sounds of muskets, Colonel Smith rode forward from the grenadier column. He quickly found a drummer and ordered him to beat assembly. The grenadiers arrived shortly thereafter, and, once they were rounded up, the light infantry were then permitted to fire a victory volley, after which the column was reformed and marched towards Concord.

  

The place of the Jam - The Battle of Concord!:The militiamen of Concord, uncertain of what had actually transpired at Lexington, were not sure whether to wait until they could be reinforced by troops from towns nearby, or to stay and defend the town, or to move east and greet the British Army from superior terrain. As the regulars began to approach, they did all of these. The Minutemen watched from a hill as Smith deployed light infantry against them. They began a series of marching retreats into the town. Some had occupied a hill in the town and now argued about what to do next, while others approached with the regulars behind them. The Lincoln militia arrived and joined in the debate. Caution prevailed, and Colonel James Barrett surrendered the town of Concord and led the men across the North Bridge to a hill about a mile north of town, where they could continue to watch the troop movements of the British

Soon afterwards the British entered Concord and using the detailed information provided by Loyalist spies, the grenadier companies searched the small town for military supplies. When the grenadiers arrived at Ephraim Jones's tavern, by the jail on the South Bridge road, they found the door barred shut, and Jones refused them entry. According to reports provided by local Tories, Pitcairn knew cannon had been buried on the property, so, holding the tavern keeper at gunpoint, he ordered him to show him where the guns were buried. These turned out to be three massive pieces, firing 24-pound shot, much too heavy to use defensively, but very effective against fortifications, and capable of bombarding the island city of Boston from the mainland (the source of these formidable weapons remains a tantalizing mystery). The grenadiers smashed the trunnions of these three guns so they could not be mounted. They also burned some gun carriages found in the village meetinghouse, and when the fire spread to the meetinghouse itself, local resident Martha Moulton persuaded the soldiers to help in a bucket brigade to save the building. Nearly a hundred barrels of flour and salted food, and 550 pounds of musket balls, were thrown into the millpond. Only improvised repairs were possible for the cannon, but all the shot was recovered.

Barrett's house had been an arsenal weeks before but few weapons remained now, and these were, according to family legend, quickly buried in furrows to look like a crop had been planted.

Five full companies of Minutemen and five of militia from Acton, Concord, Bedford and Lincoln occupied this hill along with groups of other men streaming in, totaling at least 400 against the light infantry companies from the 4th, 10th, and 43rd Regiments of Foot under Captain Laurie, a force totaling about 90-95 men. Barrett ordered the Massachusetts men to form one long line two deep on the highway leading down to the bridge, and then he called for another consultation.

 

While overlooking North Bridge from the top of the hill (which would after 1793 have a road built on it called Liberty Street), Barrett and the other Captains discussed possible courses of action. Captain Isaac Davis of Acton, whose troops had arrived late, declared his willingness to defend a town not their own by saying, "I'm not afraid to go, and I haven't a man that's afraid to go."

At this moment, they first saw the smoke from the burning gun carriages and barrels rising over Concord, and many thought the regulars had set the town alight. Barrett ordered the men to load their weapons but not to fire unless fired upon. Then he ordered them to advance. Both British companies used as guards were ordered to retreat back across the North Bridge, and one officer then tried to pull up the loose planks of the bridge to impede the colonial advance. Major Buttrick began to yell at the regulars to stop harming the bridge. The Minutemen and militia advanced in column formation on the light infantry, keeping to the highway only, since the highway was surrounded by the spring floodwaters of the Concord River.

There was no music, no flags on both sides, even though many years later one old man who had been on the colonial side suddenly remembered out of the blue that their fifer played "The White Cockade", a popular Jacobite tune, in opposition to the Hanoverian King George III. This is apocryphal at best, and few of the British troops would have understood the meaning of "The White Cockade" anyway, since the Scottish rebellion had been thirty years before. In truth, neither side ever mentioned any flags or music at the bridge that day in any sworn depositions at the time. British flank companies carried no colors, and the militiamen and minutemen did not mention using them at all.

The opponents did NOT face each other in stereotypical Hollywood movie fashion, i.e., like the two lines of an upper-case letter T with the top horizontal line representing the Patriots and the bottom vertical line representing both the bridge and Laurie's British troops behind it, but rather like a group of clustered, confused men on the British side trying to form a street-firing position behind the bridge, facing the approaching line of colonists who were still stuck marching toward the bridge in a column of men, two abreast, on the causeway that was surrounded by spring floodwaters.

A shot rang out, and this time there is certainty from depositions taken from men on both sides afterwards that it came from the British Army's ranks. It was likely a warning shot, fired by a panicked, exhausted British soldier from the 43rd, according to Laurie's letter to his commander after the fight. Two other regulars then fired immediately after that, shots splashing in the river, and then the narrow group up front, possibly thinking the order to fire had been given, fired a ragged volley before Laurie could stop them.

Two of the Acton Minutemen, private Abner Hosmer and Captain Isaac Davis, at the head of the line marching to the bridge, were hit and killed instantly. Four more men were wounded, but the militia only halted when Major Buttrick yelled the order, "Fire, for God's sake, fellow soldiers, fire!", when the lines were separated by the Concord River, the bridge, and only 50 yards (45 m). The few front rows of colonists, bound by the road, and blocked from forming a line of fire, managed to fire over each others' heads and shoulders at the regulars. The musket balls plunged down out of the sky down into the mass of regular troops. Four of the eight British officers and sergeants at the bridge, leading from the front of their troops as officers did in this era, were wounded by the volley of musketry coming from the British colonists. At least three privates (Thomas Smith, Patrick Gray and James Hall, all from the 4th (King's Own) Regt of Foot's Light Company) were killed or mortally wounded, and ten, including Lieutenant Sutherland, were wounded.

The regulars found themselves trapped in a situation where they were both outnumbered and outmaneuvered. Leaderless, terrified at the superior numbers of the enemy, their spirit broken, never having experienced combat before, they abandoned their wounded, and fled to the safety of the approaching grenadier companies coming from the town center.

 

Smith, leader of the British expedition, heard the exchange of fire from his position in the town moments after he had received a request for reinforcements from Laurie. Smith assembled two companies of grenadiers to lead towards the North Bridge himself. As these troops marched, they met the shattered remnants of the three light infantry companies running towards them. Smith was concerned about the four companies which had been at Barrett's. Their route to return safely was now gone. Then he saw the Minutemen in the distance behind their wall, and he halted his two companies and moved forward with only his officers to take a closer look.

In the written words of a Minuteman behind that wall: "If we had fired, I believe we could have killed all most every officer there was in the front, but we had no orders to fire and there wasn't a gun fired." During this tense standoff of about 10 minutes, a mentally ill local man wandered through both sides selling hard cider. Smith returned his grenadiers to the town and hoped for the best for the remaining four companies.

These men, unaware of what had happened, marched back from their fruitless search of Barrett's farm. They passed unharmed by Barrett's militia on the muster field and through the tiny battlefield, saw dead and wounded comrades lying on the bridge, including one who looked to them as if he had been scalped, which angered and shocked the British soldiers. They then passed sullenly over the bridge, unharmed by Buttrick's Minutemen. The regulars all returned to the town by 10:30 a.m. Even after a small skirmish, and with superior numbers, the British colonists still did not fire yet unless fired upon, and this time the regulars did nothing to provoke them. The British Army continued to destroy colonial military supplies in the town, ate lunch, reassembled for marching, then left Concord after noon.

As the British soldiers headed back to Boston, they were attacked by the Minutemen. All along the route back, Minutemen, local farmers and townspeople continued the attack against the British. By the time the soldiers reached Boston, 73 British solders were dead and 174 more were wounded.

In the days fighting, 49 patriots were killed, and 39 more were wounded.

Mike and Bone thoroughly enjoyed the tour, the story, and the bucolic scenery. Massachusetts has done a great job of keeping both of those sites free of suburban sprawl. By 11:00 AM, the Boys wondered if it would tale them 12 hours to get back to Boston as it did the British! So off they headed on the same road were the Colonist harried the British Troops on their march back to Boston !!!  

 

It didn't take 12 hours but about 40 minutes to traverse the distance that the British walked to get to downtown. Since Mike and Bone were both veterans of partying in the war zone of Downtown Detroit, they were well accustomed to dodging bullets !!  

 

Boston Common - The start of the Freedon Trail!: The Boys parked in Boston Commons the start of the Freedom Trail. The Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile long red-painted path through downtown Boston that passes 16 of the city's historic landmarks. It starts at the visitor information center in Boston Common where Mike and Bone started similar to Dorothy following the yellow brick road, but differed in that at the end for Mike and Bone, they hoped it would be a big vat of Samuel Adams beer !!!

Boston Common as this was the area where the British Forces were encamped during the occupation from 1775 to 1776. It was a pleasant park and with a couple of cappuccinos in hand, the Boys started following the "Red Line !!  

 

The Old Granary Burial Ground: Right next to Park Street Church is the Old Granary Burial Ground, named after the granary that once stood on the site of the church. Some of Boston's most famous revolutionaries were buried here, including John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine (all three signed the Declaration of Independence) as well as Paul Revere and victims of the Boston Massacre.  Mike and Bone walked around marveling at the final resting places of so many of the those "Patriots" they had heard of during the American Revolution and at the age of many, many of the headstones !  

 

Samuel Adams was born in Boston, was an excellent politician, an unsuccessful brewer, and a poor businessman. His early public office as a tax collector might have made him suspect as an agent of British authority, however he made good use of his understanding of the tax codes and wide acquaintance with the merchants of Boston. Samuel was a very visible popular leader who along with John Hancock, spend a great deal of time in the public eye agitating for resistance. Adams was truly one of the first full-time revolutionaries, that was his only true passion.

He along with Paul Revere, exaggerated the Boston “Massacre”, organized the Boston Tea Party, and lead in the tar and feathering of many a British Tax collector. We think of him now as a “Patriot”, back then the British considered  him a “terrorist”, Interesting is it how one generations Patriot, is another’s Terrorist?   

 

Next the Boys checked out John Hancock impressive stone. John  Hancock (January 23, 1737 – October 8, 1793) was a founding father, merchant, statesman, and prominent patriot of our Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is remembered for his large and stylish signature on the United States Declaration of Independence, so much so that the term John Hancock or Hancock has become a nickname in the United States for one's signature. He also signed the Articles of Confederation, and used his influence to ensure that Massachusetts ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. Before the American Revolution, Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, having inherited a profitable mercantile business from his uncle. He began his political career in Boston as a protégé of Samuel Adams, an influential local politician, though the two men later became estranged. Hancock used his wealth to support the colonial cause as tensions increased between colonists and Great Britain in the 1760s. He became very popular in Massachusetts, especially after British officials seized his sloop Liberty in 1768 and charged him with smuggling. Those charges were eventually dropped; he has often been described as a smuggler in historical accounts, but the accuracy of this characterization has been questioned.

 

As the Boys strolled on they came across the mortal remains of Paul Revere ( December 21, 1734  – May 10, 1818) who was an American silversmith, engraver, folk hero, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot.

He is best known for his midnight ride to alert the colonial militia in April 1775 to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1861 poem, "Paul Revere's Ride".

At age 41, Revere was a prosperous, established and prominent Boston silversmith. He had helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military. Revere later served as a Massachusetts militia officer, though his service ended after the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, for which he was absolved of blame.

Following the war, Revere returned to his silversmith trade. He used the profits from his expanding business to finance his work in iron casting, bronze bell and cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes. In 1800, he became the first American to successfully roll copper into sheets for use as sheathing on naval vessels.   

 

The “Boston Massacre” really a mob scene that happened as a result of tense relations between the civilians and the British Soldiers in 1774.  What happened is a mob formed around a British sentry and verbally abused him. He was eventually supported by seven additional soldiers, led by Captain Thomas Preston, who were hit by clubs, stones, and snowballs. Eventually, one soldier fired, prompting the others to fire without an order by Preston. The gunfire instantly killed three people and wounded eight others, two of whom later died of their wounds. All five are in a mass grave in the Granary.

 

The Old State House - The site of the "Boston Massacre": The Freedom Trail line now leads back north towards the Old State House, the seat of the British Colonial government from its construction in 1713 until the end of the American Revolution in 1776. After the revolution the building was used as the Commonwealth's State House until 1798, when they moved into the new (and current) State House. The square in front of the Old State House is the site of the Boston Massacre, where on March 5, 1770, British troops opened fire on colonists who had been taunting them throwing rocks and hurling insults. Five colonists were killed that day in what proved to be one of the catalytic events leading to the American Revolution.

As Mike and Bone stood against the State House in the exact spot where the British were cornered, they wondered how long they wait to do something, when a large, agitated mob, were throwing bricks, rocks, and chunks of ice at them !?! Which is exactly the reason that John Adams, who by the way was not a British sympathizer, but a Patriot, decided to defend the British Troopers.  

 

Fans of Faneuil Hall!: The next stop on the Freedom Trail is Faneuil Hall, a building known as the 'Cradle of Liberty'. While Faneuil Hall's first floor was Boston's main market place, the second floor served as a meeting place. Samuel Adams was one of the patriots who gathered here, trying to convince fellow colonists to unite and fight against British oppression. A statue of Samuel Adams stands in front of Faneuil Hall. Faneuil Hall is now the truest representation of America,,,,, a huge outdoor Shopping Mall !!!! Mike and Bone checked out some of the Tourist Shops for gifts for the families for a few minutes, and keep on moving on down the Red Line.  

 

Paul Revere's Pad: Paul Revere lived in this wooden house when he made his famous 'midnight ride' to warn minutemen in Lexington of the impending arrival of British troops. Revere, a silversmith, bought the house in 1770. Originally built in 1680, it is now the oldest house in downtown Boston.  The Boys checked out the house and the very modest things they had back in the 1700's in terms of simple chores such as heating and cooling (or the lack of !!)    

 

The thin Red Line of the Freedom Trail then took the Boys to the wonderful Italian district deep into North Boston by the Old North Church!  

 

 

The Old North Church: On April 18, 1775, Robert Newman, sexton of the Old North Church, hung lanterns in the tower of the church, signaling to Paul Revere that British troops arrived by sea. Hence Revere knew he could best warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the arriving British troops by riding over land to Lexington. The Church is a truly beautiful place, that is to this day is still a functioning church.  

 

By now it was pushing 12:30, and the Boys hadn't eaten anything since the Portuguese Dinner the night before, starved, the Boys checked out one of the many, many Italian Restaurants in North Boston. Mike ordered a seafood dish and Bone a simple pasta marinara dish, which sent both Boys into the stratosphere.  

 

Now stuffed and sated, Mike and Bone waddled out of the restaurant and on to finish the tour so they could attack some Sam Adam's like the "Indians" in the Boston Tea Party !!  

 

USS Constitution: The Freedom Trail now leads across the Charlestown Bridge towards Charlestown's Navy Yard. This was one of the country's first shipyards, set up to create a naval force which up to that point had been no match for the British. The U.S.S. Constitution, built in 1797 and the oldest warship of the U.S. Navy, is moored here. Possibly the most famous vessel in the U.S., it won no less than 42 battles while it lost none and was never captured by the enemy.  When Mike and Bone walked on the Ship, they realized that the average height of the sailors was around 5,2, at 6,2 Bone had little interest in climb down the stairs into the bowels of old Ironside.

Getting off the Ship, Mike and Bone saw in the distance the end of the Freedom Trail's red line where the British won a battle, but maybe lost the war! At Bunker Hill !  

 

Breed's,,  errr Bunker Hill Monument!: The last stop on the Freedom Trail is the Bunker Hill Monument, a granite obelisk commemorating the battle of June 17, 1775 between the British and colonial forces. This battle was one of the earliest in the American Revolution. The battle's name is a misnomer because the major part of the engagement was actually fought on Breed's Hill nearby. The place for this battle was in Charlestown, Massachusetts across the Charles River from Boston. On June 16, 1775 ( at night ) more than 1,000 patriots (rebel fighters), under the command of General Prescott, marched to Breed's Hill over the Charlestown neck and fortified it with trenches, bales of cotton and hay by the morning of June 17. After they were done with this, General Israel Putnam took some men and began to fortify Bunker Hill.

Meanwhile in the town of Boston, the British Commander, General Gage just happened to see the Americans occupying the two hills...he ordered the British ships to start bombarding the Americans positions until the British troops could arrive. Soon after the order the British started moving troops to the east of Breed's hill from Boston. 

Col. Prescott's men would be the first attacked. This was the first charge with British army on the east side of the hill with the secondary doing a straight attack. General Howe's men lead the attack with 5,000 troops up the hill. But they were not alone, they were covered by cannon from British ships in the river. While this was going on, some of the British ships loaded their cannons with incendiary shells and annihilated Charlestown, where a fraction of American troops were sniping at British soldiers on the battlefield. The first attack failed. The British retreated.

They went up the hill again but with the main group attacking forward and the secondary going east...of course this attempt also failed. The British were thoroughly enraged and took off their heavy packs before charging the third time. The Americans were running low on ammunition and gunpowder, so they had to retreat...through Charlestown neck. And the British got the hills.

The losses were astounding for the British with more than 1,000 men lost, wounded or prisoners. The Americans only lost about 400 or less. By the military tradition of the time, the British won because at the end of the battle they had possession of the field. The casualties however, tell a different story. This attack was immortalized forever in American history. First, because it was the first serious defeat for the British and secondly due to a famous quote attributed to one of the American commanders. To preserve the American's gunpowder, he ordered the patriots, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"

The Monument of the Battle dedicated in 1843, was the tallest in the U.S. until the Washington Monument was completed in 1885.    

555 Steps !?!  As the Americans challenged the British, the five hundred and fifty steps to the top of the Monument challenged the Boys ! to sprint to the top !!   

 

After the sprint, the Boys gasped for air in the hot, stuffy and snapped a few shots of the city from the small windows. As they caught their breath, they evaluated their options. Since the laws of science dictated that whatever goes up must come down, they decided to sprint back down !!!

Weeble's Wobble, but they don't fall down Weeble's wobble but they won't fall down: When Mike and Bone made it back down after the sprint up, and then down, left the Boys knees knocking like a Jehovah Witness door-to-door salesman !!! For the next few hours their legs trembled like a 13 year boys on his first date. With the epic end of the Freedom Trail Red Line Tour, the Boys showered up and headed to celebrate their accomplishment with copious amounts of Sam Adam's at the Bar where everybody knows your name !!

 

What would Sammie, Normie, and Cliff think of Mike and Bone!? Yeah the Bull and Finch is now a tourist spot, but it is still a heckuva lot of fun !!! Mike and Bone started to order round after round of Samuel Adams (Brewer, Patriot !) and began to dicker with the other patrons, as they munched on chicken wings and potato skin's.  While many of the patrons were in fact like Mike and Bone, tourists, there actually were a large number of plain old fashion locals, like Normy and Cliff, making the whole experience very much fun. Despite the late hour and the munchies, the walking and beers at Cheers left Mike and Bone with a good appetite, what better to end a New England Trip than with Seafood from one of New England's best known restaurants, Legal Seafoods.

  

Legal seafood is famous for their fresh fish and clam chowda (chowder for you non-Bostonian's!). Ordering up two clam chowders and fresh fish the Boys also enjoyed a great bottle of red wine, so that by Mind-night they was totally stuffed and exhausted from the entire day. With an earlier flight home, they called it a night and headed back to their Hotel with causing considerable damage to Bean-Town.

  

  

This trip include good scotch, beers, and wine, lots of lobsta, chowda, and seafood, a chance to party with a Kennedy and hang with Cliffy and Norm. All in all an awesome trip and with minimal damage to the inhabitants of New England, except for strewn empties along the coast-line, harried National Park Rangers, and used duct tape left in the Hotel Room in P-Town (not that there is anything wrong with it !), thus ending the 1998 Oh My Cod !!! its New England tour !