Only in Boston by Duncan J.D. Smith

17 A musketeer re-enacts the Battle of Bunker Hill Charlestown & East Boston 4 The Truth about Bunker Hill MA 02129 (Charlestown), the Bunker Hill Monument & Museum in Monument Square T Green or Orange Line to North Station then cross Charlestown Bridge and follow the Freedom Trail to Monument Square; or MBTA F4 Ferry from Long Wharf to Charlestown Navy Yard (Pier 4) then follow the Freedom Trail; or Bus 93 from Haymarket to Bunker Hill Monument Boston’s Freedom Trail finds its northern terminus in Charlestown at the Bunker Hill Monument. Built to commemorate the first major battle of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), this sturdy Quincy granite obelisk accompanied by a statue of American com- mander Colonel William Prescott (1726–1795) is understandably a place of pilgrimage. It is also a place where fact sometimes merges into folklore. Boston in the 1770s has been called the Cradle of Liberty but re- cently some historians have challenged this long-held patriotic epithet. They suggest that separatist groups such as the Sons of Liberty were not necessarily seeking full-blown American independence but rather a more conservative return to their pre-1760s status, before the British Crown began imposing punitive taxes. The situation became more complex once blood was shed during the Boston Massacre (1770) (see no. 32). Tensions inevitably rose and in 1775 the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord left the British Redcoats holed up in Boston, with American militia- men occupying the sur- rounding countryside (see no. 16). A two- month standoff ended during the night of June 16th, when a thousand citizen-soldiers from various colonial militias were ordered to march from Cambridge to for- tify Bunker Hill.