Remains of the day

  On April 19, 1775, eight Lexington Minute Men died in the first action of the Revolutionary War. Their remains have been memorialized under the monument on the Battle Green, and the graves of British soldiers dot the surrounding landscape.

  The bodies of the eight Minute Men were quickly buried that day, according to Pat Costello, a Battle Green guide, because the town’s people feared the returning Regulars would loot or desecrate the bodies. They were placed in a common grave, near what is now the parking lot for the First Parish Church, but was then part of Ye Old Burying Ground.

  “People were afraid the British would violate the bodies, and judging how they British reacted when they got back to the Green, they very well may have,” said Costello.

  The English soldiers did indeed loot when they returned to the Green, targeting houses all along Battle Road. They burned and destroyed houses and barns, taking whatever valuables they could carry. According to the Historical Society, more than 1,761 pounds worth of property was destroyed. 

  The bodies of the eight men placed in the common grave were disinterred in 1835, dug up so that they might be placed in a tomb built into the foundation of the granite monument built on the Battle Green in 1799.

  According to an account of the celebration, written in 1835 by Edward Everett, “The remains were first placed in a wooden coffin, which was enclosed in lead and made air tight — and the whole in a mahogany sarcophagus, four-feet-long by two-feet-wide; on the side and end of which were eight urns, bearing the names and emblematical of the individuals whose remains were contained within.” It is not noted to whom the eighth set of remains belonged.

  On the day of the battle, Lexington residents also quickly buried the bodies of British Regulars for a similar but slightly different reason. The colonials were worried that if the returning Regulars saw one of their own, dead on the property, the army would assume the property’s owner had killed the soldier and attempt to take revenge.

  “Very often they would be presented with a British soldier on their front lawn, and in fear of having their house burned, hastily buried them in a concealed location,” said Paul O’Shaughnessy, lieutenant colonel of the 10^th Regiment of Foot, American Contingent, which participates in Lexington’s re-enactment on Patriots Day.

  According to O’Shaughnessy, for years after the American Revolution, local farmers up and down Battle Road would find the remains of British soldiers.

  “At that point, all you found was bones, buttons and buckles,” he said.

  There are a few locations where British soldiers are known to be buried, according to O’Shaughnessy. There are two graves on the British side of the bridge battlefield in Concord. Regulars from the 4th Regiment of Foot occupy these sites. A third member of that regiment is buried in the center of Concord, as he was wounded in battle and cared for in town, where he later died. There are also five British soldiers known to be buried in the Town Cemetery in Lincoln.

  There is at least one British Regular buried in Ye Old Burying Ground in Lexington, who according to the headstone died in Buckman Tavern on April 22 from injuries sustained on the 19th. Capt. John Parker is also buried there, as are several other members of his company. Parker’s grave is marked by a large granite monument built by the town in 1884.