General Gage reported to the British Government that two hundred and twenty-six of his men had been killed; eight hundred and twenty-eight wounded, making in all ten hundred and fifty-four as against our four hundred and fifty. Among the British were killed eighty-nine officers. About four hundred buildings in Charlestown were burned by the British, and the estimated money loss was six hundred thousand dollars. I have put this in here lest I forget to make mention of the fact, that in what the Britishers set down as a victory they lost twice and a half as many men as we, and all that had been gained by this outpouring of blood were the hastily constructed works which we had thrown up on Breed's hill. And now to continue my feeble attempt at telling what part we Minute Boys of Boston took in that terrible retreat. I believe of a verity that had it not been for Hiram Griffin some, if not all, of us would have fallen into the hands of the lobster backs, for it is true that we were sadly confused--frightened if you choose to put it in such words, and had so far lost mastery of ourselves that but for his holding us up sharply to the work we would have come to grief. As I said, the men who had come to Bunker hill did good work in covering our retreat until they themselves became panic-stricken, heeding not the entreaties nor the threats of Israel Putnam, as he strove in vain to hold them steady that we who were without ammunition might have some small show of escaping with our lives. Then it was that when all of General Putnam's attempts were shown to be vain, these men of ours who should have held their own on Bunker hill, joined in the retreat, and we set off, a rabble rather than the remnants of an army, in the perilous attempt to pass across Charlestown Neck, which was swept with shot from the ship _Glasgow_ and the small craft which had been anchored by the British in position to cover that narrow passage in order to prevent reinforcements being sent to us who were struggling on Breed's hill. Panic-stricken as we were, the only thought in our minds was that the enemy would pursue us even as far as Cambridge, in order to make an end of the so-called rebellion at once, and while fleeing at my best speed, dodging now and then a British cannon ball, I feverishly hoped they would come after us with all their force, for there, where we could find ammunition, it might be possible for us to pay back some part of the debt of revenge which we owed. Of that terrible retreat it is, perhaps, not necessary I should set down more than that after we had succeeded in crossing the Neck, leaving behind us many a poor fellow weltering in his blood, we continued on at a speed which, in view of our fatigue, would not have been possible save because of the seeming certainty that death must overtake him who played the laggard.