Previously unknown, a map drawn by Lord Percy, the British commander at Lexington, sheds new light on the perilous retreat to Boston 250 years ago this month.
The Percy map is the first record of the first battle of the American Revolution, sketched within hours of the deadly return from Lexington.
I could scarcely believe what I was seeing. Despite generations of research and hundreds of books on the American Revolution, here was a critically important, yet previously undocumented treasure—a detailed map of the retreat of British troops from Lexington drawn by Lord Hugh Percy himself, the general who commanded those regiments.
Sketched within hours of the first significant armed conflict between Britain and its upstart colonies 250 years ago this month, the faint but detailed drawing appears to be the first record of the first battle of the American Revolution.
The map rested on a long table with an array of other extraordinary maps of the Revolution, many of them meticulously drawn and colored by hand. A team from American Heritage was deep in the interior of ancient Alnwick Castle near England’s Scottish border, talking with Ralph Percy, the 12th Duke of Northumberland and a direct descendant of General Lord Percy, about the dozens of maps his ancestor brought home from the American War of Independence. They had been stored for over two centuries in a wooden box, but the Duke's father had seen they were taken better care of. The wealth of hand-drawn maps would make any historian swoon.
“They are quite extraordinary,” the Duke said. “My father was very proud of them.”
A second map, dated April 19th, 1775, and hand-drawn by one of Percy's engineers, showed "the Place of the late Engagement between the King's Troops & the Provincials." It has numerous symbols for military units with labels such as "Militia" and "Provincials behind the walls" with thin lines of musket fire pouring out at "Col. Smith" and "Lord Percy." As is often the case with records created just after engagements, it includes numerous small errors.
On that morning in 1775, General Percy rushed with his reinforcements from Boston to support the King’s beleaguered troops who had marched to Concord in the middle of the night to destroy Colonial military supplies and, if possible, capture Sam Adams and John Hancock. General Thomas Gage, Royal governor of Massachusetts and commander of British forces in the colonies, had issued his top secret orders after receiving instructions from the King and Prime Minister Lord North to be more firm with the colonials after the Boston Tea Party.
“I had the happiness...of saving them from inevitable destruction,” Percy informed his father about his rescue of the British forces sent to Concord.