Footnote 133: Twenty miles south from Boston.[(Back)]
Footnote 134: A strong party of Americans took possession of an advanced post in Roxbury, upon which the British kept up an incessant fire.[(Back)]
Footnote 135: Upton is thirty-five miles southwest from Boston.[(Back)]
Footnote 136: The 20th was observed throughout the camps as a day of fasting and prayer. Before daylight that morning, a party from Heath's regiment landed on Nantasket point, set fire to the lighthouse, and brought away a thousand bushels of barley and a quantity of hay.[(Back)]
Footnote 137: This was a very strong quadrangular work, on the highest eminence in Roxbury. It had four bastions, and in every respect was a regular work. It is now well preserved, the embankments being from six to fifteen feet in height from without.[(Back)]
Footnote 138: On that day the British, five hundred strong, marched over the neck, and built a slight breastwork to cover their guard. The American camp was in alarm all the day, and that night the troops lay on their arms. The tories in Boston were also alarmed, for they dreaded an invasion of the city by their exasperated countrymen.[(Back)]
Footnote 139: Marines.[(Back)]
Footnote 140: The British commenced rebuilding the lighthouse on Nantasket point. Major Tupper, with three hundred men, attacked the working-party, killed ten or twelve men, and took the rest prisoners. He then demolished the works, but, before he could leave, some armed boats came to oppose him. In the skirmishing that ensued, fifty-three of the British were killed or captured. Tupper lost one man killed, and two wounded.[(Back)]
Footnote 141: A party of British troops sallied out toward Roxbury, drove in the American pickets, and burned the tavern which was situated upon the portion of the neck nearest Roxbury.[(Back)]
Footnote 142: When the British built their breastwork on the neck, the Sunday previous, they had a floating battery brought into Charles river, and moored it within three hundred yards of Sewall's point.[(Back)]