Bunker Hill

along the coast south of Boston began to flee into the countryside. General Thomas dispatched three companies from Roxbury, and once they, along with President Joseph Warren, had arrived at the Weymouth shore, the first skirmish of the post–Lexington and Concord era was under way.
    Although many shots were fired, the distance to the island was too great for those onshore to do much more than watch as the regulars on the island gathered the hay and prepared to load it on the sloops. Finally the tide came in enough to float several boats that had been stranded along the Weymouth shore, and the provincials raised sail and set off for the island. The regulars loaded what hay they could and quickly departed, but not without trading fire with the provincials who made sure to burn what they estimated to be eighty tons of abandoned hay.
    —
    To the east of Charlestown were two contiguous islands, Hog and the much larger Noddle’s Island, which together formed a peninsula that reached southwest from the town of Chelsea toward Boston to the southwest, with the town of Winnisimmet on the opposite shore directly to the north. Hundreds of sheep, cattle, and horses grazed on both Hog and Noddle’s islands, and the provincials decided that before the British could get their hands on the livestock and hay, they must drive the animals off the islands, which were separated from one another and the mainland by creeks that were only knee-high at low tide.

    On the evening of May 26, Colonel John Nixon of Sudbury and Colonel John Stark of Dunbarton, New Hampshire, led a party of about six hundred men to the town of Chelsea, where on the morning of May 27 they waded across Belle Isle Creek to Hog Island. As the provincials surreptitiously rounded up the sheep and cattle, Admiral Graves happened to be celebrating his promotion to vice admiral of the white squadron. At precisely 8:00 a.m. his new white flag was raised to the masthead of the
Preston
, followed by a thirteen-gun salute. Soon after, his nephew Lieutenant Thomas Graves, commander of the schooner
Diana
, sailed into Boston Harbor
after a cruise to Maine. The lieutenant promptly anchored near his uncle’s flagship and had joined in the festivities when around 2:00 p.m., the admiral was notified that smoke could be seen rising from Noddle’s Island. By that time, Nixon’s and Stark’s men had moved on to that most outlying of the two islands and besides killing some of the livestock had set a barn full of hay on fire.
    Graves ordered his nephew to sail the
Diana
up the narrow waterway that lay between the islands and the shore to the north, known as Chelsea Creek, so as “to prevent [the rebels’] escape,” while approximately 170 marines were sent to pursue the provincials by foot on Noddle’s Island. By about five in the afternoon, the provincials were hurrying back across the creek to Hog Island with the marines in close pursuit and the guns of the
Diana
blasting away at them from Chelsea Creek to the north. Half the provincials continued on with the livestock as the other half jumped into a ditch and commenced a rearguard action designed to keep both the schooner and the marines at bay. “We had a hot fire,” Amos Farnsworth recorded in his diary. Two marines were wounded before the British commander gave the order to retreat, allowing the provincials to direct all their fire at the
Diana
, which continued sailing up the ever-narrowing creek until she’d reached the confines of Haley’s Landing. Under heavy fire from the provincials and with an outgoing tide threatening to leave his schooner high and dry, Lieutenant Graves sought the aid of a dozen or so longboats, which began towing him back down the creek in the dying breeze. In hopes of ambushing the
Diana
before she reached the safety of the harbor, the provincials rushed down the north shore of Chelsea Creek toward Winnisimmet. By 9:00 p.m., reinforcements led by General Putnam had joined the provincials stationed at the mouth of Chelsea Creek, only to discover that the British marines had transported several cannons to a hill on Noddle’s Island. Soon cannonballs were whistling down at them out of the deepening darkness as the provincials waded into the creek and fired at the longboats towing the schooner past the Winnisimmet shore.
    Through it all, General Putnam was his usual adventurous self, leading his men, one witness recounted, “up to his middle in mud and water.” Putnam later boasted that