Bloody Angle (battle)

The Bloody Angle (also known as the Elm Brook Hill Battle)[1] refers to a section of the Battle Road, in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on which two battles were fought on April 19, 1775, during the battles of Lexington and Concord, in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The road runs east–west, but turns north for about 500 yards (460 m) and then east again, as per the direction of travel during the British regulars' retreat from nearby Concord to Boston.[2]

Bloody Angle
Part of the American Revolutionary War
DateApril 19, 1775 (1775-04-19)
Location
Lincoln, Massachusetts
42.4541°N 71.3006°W / 42.4541; -71.3006
Result Massachusetts Bay victory
Belligerents
Massachusetts Bay  Great Britain
Commanders and leaders
Kingdom of Great Britain Francis Smith
Casualties and losses
4 killed 30 killed or wounded
Bloody Angle (battle) is located in Massachusetts
Bloody Angle (battle)
Location within Massachusetts

Route

The route deemed to be the Battle Road falls completely within today's Minute Man National Historic Park.[2]

The following points of interest are located along the road (from west to east, to align with the timeline of events of April 19, 1775) in the immediate build-up to the battle at Bloody Angle.[2]

One of the grave sites of British soldiers
Meriam's Corner (Lexington Road and Old Bedford Road), Concord

Site of the first confrontation between the colonial militia and the British column. The skirmishes continued for the next eighteen miles. (12.30 PM)[2]

Lexington Road, Concord
Route 2A (North Great Road), Lincoln
Samuel Brooks House

The regulars soon reached a point in the road, now referred to as the "Bloody Angle", where the road rises and curves sharply to the left through a lightly wooded area.[3] At this place, the militia company from Woburn had positioned themselves on the southeast side of the bend in the road in a rocky, lightly wooded field. Additional militia flowing parallel to the road from the engagement at Meriam's Corner positioned themselves on the northwest side of the road, catching the British in a crossfire, while other militia companies on the road closed from behind to attack. Some 500 yards (460 m) further along, the road took another sharp curve, this time to the right, and again the British column was caught by another large force of militiamen firing from both sides. In passing through these two sharp curves, the British force lost thirty soldiers killed or wounded, and four colonial militia were also killed, including Captain Jonathan Wilson of Bedford, Captain Nathan Wyman of Billerica, Lt. John Bacon of Natick, and Daniel Thompson of Woburn. The British soldiers escaped by breaking into a trot, a pace that the colonials could not maintain through the woods and swampy terrain. Colonial forces on the road itself behind the British were too densely packed and disorganized to mount more than a harassing attack from the rear.[4]

As militia forces from other towns continued to arrive, the colonial forces had risen to about 2,000 men. The road now straightened to the east, with cleared fields and orchards along the sides. Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith sent out flankers again, who succeeded in trapping some militia from behind and inflicting casualties. British casualties were also mounting from these engagements and from persistent long-range fire from the militiamen, and the exhausted British were running out of ammunition.[5]

References
  1. "Elm Brook Hill (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved April 16, 2023.
  2. "The Battle Road Trail" – Minute Man National Historic Park
  3. Fischer notes on p. 409, "This is not correctly called the Bloody Angle, an error term introduced after the Civil War that is both inaccurate and anachronistic. It has been used uncritically by many historians of the battle and is perpetuated by the National Park Service." The Interim Report of the Boston National Historic Sites Commission, submitted to Congress in 1958 in support of legislation that established the Minute Man National Historical Park, asserted that: "Fittingly, this curving section of the road was soon to be named 'The Bloody Angle'." (p. 47; emphasis added). However, there is no evidence that the term Bloody Angle was ever used by the battle participants or local residents following April 19, 1775, nor did historians use the term prior to the mid-20th century. See Boston National Historic Sites Commission, The Lexington-Concord Battle Road: Interim Report. June 16, 1958.
  4. Fischer, pp. 226–227
  5. Fischer, p. 232. According to one British officer, ammunition had been wasted earlier in the day out of "too great eagerness of the soldiers in the first action of a war. Most of them were young soldiers who had never been in action, and had been taught that every thing was to be effected by a quick firing. This ineffectual fire gave the rebels more confidence, as they soon found that notwithstanding there was so much [firing], they suffered but little from it." Lt. Frederick Mackenzie, 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, Diary of Frederick Mackenzie, in Allen French, editor, A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston, Cambridge, 1926.
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