Leslie’s Retreat occurs in Salem.

British troops, attempting to seize munitions, confront residents, who have raised the North Bridge, preventing entry into the town. Commanded by Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie, the troops had sailed from Castle Island, landed in Marblehead, and detained Paul Revere and two other riders sent to warn of the raid. Leslie subsequently agrees that if the bridge is lowered and his troops are allowed to cross it, they will return to Boston. If not for the compromise, Esther Forbes later writes, “The Battle of Lexington would have taken place almost two months earlier and in Salem instead of Lexington. Paul Revere would not have been out riding the moonlight roads, but locked up at Castle Island.”