As his vanguard approached Cambridge around five p.m., Percy studied two paper sheets pinned together as a sketch map of the road ahead. Rather than returning via the only bridge over the Charles River to reach Roxbury and Boston Neck, he ordered the column to pivot left into Kent’s Lane and head for Charlestown. The route would require ferrying his men into Boston, but Somerset and other warships would offer protection. As he suspected and later confirmed, a large rebel force had tossed the bridge planks into the Charles and militiamen waited in ambush behind barricades. Had the column not
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