On this day 250 years ago in Assonet (now Freetown), Massachusetts, hundreds of Massachusetts militia from Attleborough, Dartmouth and Middleborough commanded by Col. John Daggett raided the home of Loyalist Col. Thomas Gilbert where his company of Loyalist militia was encamped. The Patriots captured 29 Loyalists (but not Gilbert, who was away seeking British troops to reinforce his Loyalist company), 35 muskets, gunpowder and a basket of musket balls, and also freed a British deserter who had been captured by the Loyalists. Some of the Loyalists, including Gilbert’s brother Samuel, were wounded in the assault, but the Patriots suffered no casualties. Thomas Gilbert and some 20 of his followers would seek refuge on a British ship the next day.

Sources: https://250andcounting.com/2025/04/10/april-10-1775-skirmishes-in-assonet-ma/; https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/2009/08/10/revolutionary-war-re-enactors-stage/51902394007/; https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/local/the-gazette/2015/07/12/local-heroes-american-revolution/33887772007/

And on that day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rev. John Winthrop of Harvard College wrote to Richard Price in London that the people of Massachusetts would not surrender “without a struggle.” He said that Massachusetts and the other New England colonies “will form an army which the General will not find it easy to subdue” and that “their ardor is such that it is found difficult to restrain it within due bounds.” So Winthrop was expecting “horrid carnage.”

Source: Norton at 337-38.