Wilderness battlefield vs WalMart

[Capt Quahog]

there have been reports about bunker hill on the news here,t hat some historians want to search for alot of the unaccounted for mass graves of british soldiers, and in traditional m****** style, property owners are all against it....

Matt:

Yeah . . . . those people looking for post-battle British graves on and around Bunker Hill in Boston are misguided at best and probably just more self appointed authorities. Boston is full of those over-schooled and under educated axeholes already with most of them not knowing shick from shinola.

In the aftermath of the Bunker Hill Battle of June 17, 1775, British dead were removed from the field and taken to Boston for proper burial. That fact is well documented. Soldiers of the King killed in battle were not randomly tossed into an enemy entrenchment and covered with dirt. The explanation provided by an “expert” from a Virginia tourist theme park is simply stupid.

Shurtleff’s 1870 published, “History of Boston”, tells of British soldiers killed at Bunker Hill being buried on Boston Common in wooden boxes, with proper Christian ceremony soon after the battle. It was nearly summer and due to the heat burial needed to be quickly done. A large number of coffins, containing as many as 200 bodies, were stacked in maybe two layers within a mass grave located near the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets.

During construction of the Tremont Street trolley car subway in the 1890s, workers came upon a large grave site containing the remains of many bodies. As described. . “It was a large amount of bones”. Newspaper accounts of the period pondered the origins of the large unknown grave. Bits of rotted wood and iron nails were located within the pit along with other relics unspecified. Work on the "cut and cover" subway was halted until the bones could be removed. The British soldiers were interred at a cemetery reportedly in the city of Boston.

Most likely, if human remains are discovered at the foot of Bunker Hill, then they are that of the rebel colonial defenders. The 1775 British map made by the 23rd Regt. of foot, actually shows the positions of those trenches and earthen fortifications on Bunker Hill. The locations could probably be figured out to close proximity. Bunker Hill however is today packed shoulder to shoulder with 19th Century erected buildings. Whatever open land there is now, consists of small backyards with patios.

It is quite possible that British military did use a trench or two as already dug graves for enemy dead. If so, then that place, if it does exist, is most hallowed ground. That is where forgotten patriots sleep at the place where they fell during our first great battle of America’s war for Independence. . . . .