Battle of Chelsea Creek
Who Fought
* United Colonies ** Massachusetts Bay: 300–600 in initial force to Hog Island (Stark). 300 additional reinforcements during the course of the battle (Putnam). These are rough estimates.
850 Royal Marines (Samuel Graves). 30 on the Diana (Thomas Graves). These are rough estimates.
History & Significance
The Battle of Chelsea Creek was the second military engagement of the Boston campaign of the American Revolutionary War. It is also known as the Battle of Noddle's Island, Battle of Hog Island and the Battle of the Chelsea Estuary. This battle was fought on May 27 and 28, 1775, on Chelsea Creek and on salt marshes, mudflats, and islands of Boston Harbor, northeast of the Boston peninsula. Most of these areas have since been united with the mainland by land reclamation and are now part of East Boston, Chelsea, Winthrop, and Revere.
The American colonists met their goal of strengthening the siege of Boston by removing livestock and hay on those islands from the reach of the British regulars. The British armed schooner Diana was also destroyed and its weaponry was appropriated by the Colonial side. This was the first naval capture of the war, and it was a significant boost to the morale of the Colonial forces.
The Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, drew thousands of militia forces from throughout New England to the towns surrounding Boston. These men remained in the area and their numbers grew, placing the British forces in Boston under siege when they blocked all land access to the peninsula. The British were still able to sail in supplies from Nova Scotia, Providence, and other places because the harbor side of the city remained under British naval control. Colonial forces could do little to stop these shipments due to the naval supremacy of the British fleet and the complete absence of a Continental Navy in the spring of 1775. However, the supplies brought in to feed British troops were of very low quality as they needed to be heavily preserved, and the loss of fresh meat and vegetables from the mainland sapped British morale.
Resolved, as their opinion, that all the live stock be taken from Noddle's Island, Hog Island, Snake Island, and from that part of Chelsea near the sea coast, and be driven back; and that the execution of this business be committed to the committees of correspondence and selectmen of the towns of Medford, Malden, Chelsea, and Lynn, and that they be supplied with such a number of men, as they shall need, from the regiment now at Medford.
A few days before the battle, Warren and General Artemas Ward, commander of the besieging forces, inspected Noddle's Island and Hog Island, which lay to the northeast of Boston, and east of Charlestown. They found no British troops there, but did spot countless livestock and fields abandoned by farmers who had chosen to flee inland. On May 21, the British had sailed troops to Grape Island in the outer harbor near Weymouth to get hay and livestock; the operation was foiled by an unexpected shift in the tides, allowing local militia to intercept and drive off the British before burning the hay and seizing the livestock.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Chelsea Creek lies on Triassic Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Triassic. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
- * United Colonies ** Massachusetts Bay: 4 wounded
- * 2 killed * 32 wounded, * Armed schooner Diana destroyed
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