“The Firings Continued all Night”

With hindsight, we can see that 250 years ago the siege of Boston was basically over, with the British military preparing to leave.

At the time, however, Gen. George Washington couldn’t be completely sure that Gen. William Howe was pulling out. He had good indications from the letter I discussed yesterday and from some people who slipped out of Boston around the same time. But he still had to consider the possibility that Howe was deceiving him, or might change his mind.

On the night of 9 Mar 1776, the Continental troops moved to fortify another high point of the Dorchester peninsula: Nook’s Hill, also known as Foster’s Hill. It was on the tip closest to Boston, from which cannon could threaten the town.

Nook’s Hill wasn’t as high as the heights that Gen. John Thomas had first fortified. It was closer to the British artillery on the Neck and inside Boston. It was vulnerable.

Capt. John Barker of the Tenth Regiment described the action that day:

The Rebels having been deserned carrying Materials for making a Battery to Foster’s hill at Dorchester, the nearest of any to Boston; and at 8 o’clock in the evening it being reported they were at work there, our Batteries at the Blockhouse, the New Work at the Neck, and [John Rowe’s] Wharf began to play upon them, and kept it up all night so as to prevent their Working: they likewise fired at the Town from their different Batteries at Roxbury.

Sgt. Henry Bedinger of the Virginia riflemen described the experience from the American side:

About 2 hours after Dark the Enemy Began to fire on a part of our men who were throwing up a Breastwork on the Nearest point to Boston on Dorchester. They fired from a Small Vessel from Boston Neck, from the wharf, from Fort Hill, &c. Supposed they Fired 1000 Shott as it Lasted the whole Night. Our people Fired in Boston from Roxberry. The Firings Continued all Night. We had 1 Surgeon & Three men Kill'd.

The surgeon was Dr. Enoch Dole, buried in his native town of Littleton, as shown above and discussed here.

Ezekiel Price heard the cannonade out in Milton. In his diary for 10 March, he added that “some travellers from below [i.e., downriver]” had told him “Four men, some say five, were killed by the enemy’s cannon, and by one ball; they were sitting round a fire on the hill.”

Even during that exchange of fire, however, the British military really was preparing to leave. Barker also wrote: “All the Brass Artillery on board except a few small field pieces. Orders for all the sick Men and Wo[men to] be embarked before night.”

TOMORROW: Pressure.