WI British regulars annihilated at Lexington?

During the later period of the running battle around Lexington and Concord at the dawn of the American Revolution the British regulars under Lt Colonel Smith and Lord Percy who had respectively recently withdrawn from Concord and come to reinforce Smith were a pretty ragged bunch. Subjected to dis-concerting sniper fire for most of the day from colonial militia, Percy himself had had to stop his column several times to reform it back into proper marching order, hardly suited for the army which had won Europe from all comers in the Seven Years War.

Still, they had little else to fear. A now combined detachment some 1800 strong facing perhaps twice that in un-organized militia rabble, they could safely (in a somewhat stretched meaning of the word) proceed back to Boston at their leisure. The colonials simply didn't have the centralized leadership to accomplish such battlefield feats as encircling Lexington and moving in on the remaining regulars. They did indeed move back to Boston later in the day and, although they suffered casualties the whole way, they made it back a coherent and capable fighting force capable of continuing to occupy the city.

However, this presents an interesting possibility. What if a colonial militia commander had risen from simply trying to command his own company to trying to coordinate the efforts of the combined militia? Say one colonel Barret, who commanded the first tactical victory by the Patriot force at Concord a few hours earlier? Using Sons of Liberty couriers, say, he begins communicating with other company commanders to surround the town of Lexington and deny the red-coats their escape.

If he (and others) could keep the militia in one spot long enough (through the entire course of the day minutemen where arriving and leaving as their supply of powder and shot dictated), and they were to make an advance into the town, either annihilating the British force or coercing a surrender, what might this mean for the future of this theater (and the war in general)? The British force had already performed less than admirably when engaging colonials at Concord (light infantry from the Royal Marines, IIRC), botching their first volley and messing up the line transition and missing their opportunity at a second, and were apparently scared witless of the Americans after witnessing a militiaman 'scalping' a survivor of the bridge engagement (in reality finishing him with an ax), so it's not impossible for such a thing to happen, especially as the British force had spent the entire day being harried and harassed by irregulars and snipers, nary able to engage any but the occasional colonial group caught in the open.
 
I thought at Concord the Brits had won--the Minutemen challenged them and the Brits shot them down, losing perhaps one of their own in the process.
 
I thought at Concord the Brits had won--the Minutemen challenged them and the Brits shot them down, losing perhaps one of their own in the process.

No, that was the initial engagement at Lexington. Colonials lost a few men and a British regular got injured in the leg and the colonials fled the field.
 
Another possibility would be to take out some British officers until the senior surviving commander panics and either tries to hole up (leading to a surrender) or completely loses control and watches his force break and scatter (and, since they have nowhere to go, are either slaughtered or captured).
 
I wonder if a colonial victory at this point would actually have disrupted the efforts the Contiental Congress. True, the British still would have been blamed for firing the first shots and launching a war against their supposed bretheren, but the need to rally in defence of Massachusetts is lessened if the minutemen seem to be doing their job.

If the anecdote about the barbarity of the American forces gets out, then the moderates at Philadelphia might have longer resisted the efforts of radicals like John Adams to move the colonies toward Union and Indepedence.

The British would be outraged, however, and give the Olive Branch Petition no more hearing than it received OTL. They might even respond by taking the delegation prisoner, since Americans cannot be trusted to abide by the laws and customs of civilised warfare. A more vindictative British assualt might be harder to resist, but it would focus intially on Boston. This might allow the Contiental Army a chance to engage the British there, rather than fail to oppose their occupation of New York.

Moderates in the Continental Congress still worry about appearing civilised to the Europeans and perhaps are not as readily moved to support independence as OTL. A New York not occupied by the redcoats might be freer to voice it loyalist views in Philadelphia. If the war remains focused on the "wretched barbarians" in New England, the South might drift back toward loyalism, untouched by the campaigns of Cornwallis.

A resounding victory might also make it harder for Washington to form the Continentals into a national, professional army in 1777. The colonial militias would retain more emphasis and thus stifle the crucible of federalism which would later result in the Constitution a decade later. The US might function under the Articles of Conferation, or more easily break up into constituent states and factions without the prime role of Washington and the Contitental Army.

Sometimes, there's nothing like a good defeat to rally together a Cause and a Nation.
 
Well it very nearly happened in OTL.

A large militia force arrived from Salem and Marblehead. They might have cut off Percy's route to Charlestown, but these men halted on nearby Winter Hill and allowed the British to escape. Some accused the commander of this force, Colonel Timothy Pickering, of permitting the troops to pass because he still hoped to avoid war by preventing a total defeat for the regulars. Pickering later claimed that he had stopped on Heath's orders, but Heath denied this.
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington_and_concord#Menotomy_to_Charlestown

From a political perspective a total disaster for the regulars would embolden the radicals in Congress. However, in OTL after Fort Ticonderoga was seized the Congress initially demanded that post be returned. With Massachusetts in possession of 1,800 of his majesty's troops the Congress may demand Massachusetts "parole" them back to the British. This may cause a split in Congress.

Militarily the Americans have effectively achieved a Bunker Hill two months early. The British realize the seriousness of the revolt two months early. In Boston the British still had 2,000-3,000 troops still in Boston, so no prospect of a immediate storming of the city. You could see a major British campaign to destroy the rebel army in summer 1775.
 
Top