One
of the soldiers was killed and the other was wounded.
From
The Lexington-Concord Battle Road (Concord Chamber of
Commerce):
“About
a half hour later, a boy, hatchet in hand, had crossed the bridge to join the
force of Americans. As he went by, the
wounded soldier was sitting up and trying to raise himself to his knees. Whereupon the boy, doubtless under the spell
of the exciting action that had just taken place and possibly fearing the
soldier meant to do him harm, decided to finish the unfortunate victim by
sinking the sharp blade of his weapon into his skull.
The
troops of Captain Parsons returning from Barrett’s farm, seeing the corpse thus
mangled and bloody, originated accounts of exaggerated barbarism and
cruelty. It soon became popular in England to believe
that the Rebels, in Indian fashion, scalped and cut off the ears of their
adversaries.”
The
identity of the “boy” was likely Ammi White, a 20 or 21 year old minute man in
the Concord Minute Man Company.
Mark
Nichipor (a former park ranger) identified the three privates killed at North Bridge as belonging
to the Light Infantry company of the 4th Regiment of Foot:
Thomas Smith
Patrick Gray
James Hall
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